20 Things You Somehow Missed In The Matrix

The coded green rainfall became an iconic image of the movie (and, indeed, everybody's screensaver in 1999) but the way it was created is actually a lot less clever than it looks onscreen. While the effect needed to have them tumbling down the screen required some extensive work, sourcing the characters themselves was quite straightforward.

Wanting to use both western letters, numbers and Japanese katakana symbols, the movie's production designer took one of his wife's sushi books and simply scanned in all the recipes. They then elected to reverse all of the charachters, to convey the idea that you're looking in from the wrong side.