A BLACK WOMAN Wrote the Matix and Terminator Movies...

[Muse]

Mother of the Matrix?



Playahata.com: How and when did the Wachowski brothers get a hold of your script called the "Third Eye" to turn it into a movie?

Sophia Stewart: They got access to my script around 1986. I sent it to them because they had an ad in a national magazine looking for science fiction manuscripts that they were going to turn into a comic book. I sent it to the Wachowski brothers in Chicago. I never heard anything back from them. I had also shopped the script around Hollywood to other places. I did not know anything became of the script until 1999 when I went to the movies to see The Matrix. When I saw it with my friend Seagram, I was astonished, just blown away.

 

Playahata.com: Well, the Wachowski brothers have yet to answer your lawyers legal challenges and since they don’t do interviews regarding The Matrix you pretty much have free reign until the trial starts?

Sophia Stewart: This idea that they don’t do interviews is crazy, when have u ever heard of such a thing, This is one of the hottest movies of all time and they just don’t want to talk about it. They can’t talk about what they don’t understand, these high concepts that I have laid out which came from years of study. I wrote another epic like "Third Eye" called Soul’less it means born without a soul, I can duplicate my Matrix concepts. The Wachowski brothers have no other bodies of work like the Matrix they have Bound and some other assassin movie they did. I have been writing for a long time I worked on Janet Jackson first television feature scripts called “My Special Love” and “Blue Short”. I received my degree in Journalism from City University of New York in 1979. I moved to California to study Cinema at USC Film school, the same school that George Lucas and Steven Spielberg went to. I have studied writing under some of the most famous authors and writers in the world such as Max Segall, Emille Capouya, Paul Cherry etc. To my knowledge the Wachowski Brothers did not even go to film school. I worked as an intern with WNET channel 13 PBS. Check out my bio.

 

Playahata.com: First off the majority of people don’t understand how The Terminator plays into this lawsuit, they see a direct connection with your manuscript and The Matrix film. However The Terminator is a different movie, they get confused trying to figure out why you are suing both, please make the connection for us.

Sophia Stewart: First these two franchises are owned by the same people or movie house. Ok, The Terminator and The Matrix are actually “one book”. That’s my "Third Eye" manuscript. It’s nine chapters but it's all from the same source (no pun intended) Terminator starts from the front of my book to the back. Matrix starts from the back of my book and works its way to the front. They are moving in two opposite directions. My book was separated into two. "The Third Eye" is an epic, my book spans three time frames the past, the present and the future. Those films do the same thing. The child in the first Terminator who is born to the pregnant lady (Sarrah Connor) grows up to be the same as the grown man character in the Matrix called Neo, it’s that chosen one, savior concept. Matrix starts in the future, when technology has taken over. The Terminator was sent to kill the child who was prophesized to destroy the machines. That intersects directly with Neo as being the one prophesized to bring the machine reign to an end. One critic who is unaware of my lawsuit called the movies cousins but they are actually one in the same in the original.

 

Playahata.com: I see the themes being the same like Man vs Machine or Technology vs Humanity, both have the apocalyptic vision of world ending as we know it if the machines win. The artificial intelligence wanting to survive on its own.
Sophia Stewart: When you read "The Third Eye", you will see it's all one story. You have to understand I am very subtle with the way I write, I work on the subliminal. When I write I don’t want people to be able to tell my race or gender. Look at Octavia Butler the most famous black female science fiction writer they never put her work on the big screen.

 

Playahata.com: WAIT, I want to back track why didn’t you come out with the lawsuit after The Terminator movie came out since The Terminator was before The Matrix?

Sophia Stewart: I have not seen The Terminator film so I never knew. They can’t punish me for not having seen The Terminator. Actually my friend James Perry read the "Third Eye" and said "wow, this is The Terminator movie" but initially I never paid much attention to him. To this day the studio only tried to dismiss my case by saying the statue of limitation had expired but copyright laws go by “discovery date”, so they start from when the plaintiff discovers the problem. I currently work as a paralegal so I know about the law. When I moved to file the lawsuit against the Wachowski Brothers / Matrix in Federal court the FBI investigated and established the connection with the Terminator film for me, they established my work as having been used in the Terminator , other wise it would have just been the Matrix in my lawsuit.. Letters to me by the FBI called “evidence of access” establish my work on site. Bruce I want you to emphasize this point cause people need to understand this, “what is protected under the copyright is the expression”. These concepts have been around for thousand of years but what my copyright protects is the expression. My story is a science fiction story, its created in a science fiction form and all the subliminal esoteric stuff is unique that is my expression, so the concepts may not be new, nobody can own a concept but it is how these ideas were presented, the expression which the law protects. Copyrights last for about.175 years

 

Playahata.com: Before we go into the heart of your story, I want to discuss some of the court documents that you have provided me with and some of the more dramatic points that you have shared with us. The infamous term of Arnold’s –“I ‘ll be back.” – you say that you created that right?.

Sophia Stewart: Yes, Arnold Schwarzenegger was on the Howard Stern show and Stern asked him about the popular phrase. “I’ll be back”. Stern asked where did it come from. Arnold told him that he did not know where it came from because it wasn’t in the script. He said one of the directors or producers on the set just told him to say it and he has been saying it ever since. That “I’ll be back” quote is in my original script which is copy written from 1981.It wasn’t written in the movie script but it was in my book, the "Third Eye". I can prove that, my manuscript is physical evidence of who had it first.

 

Playahata.com: Lets go over a few striking similarities between your manuscript and the movie, you have the Character Named Icon which can be translated to the one sacred persona, I means first and we all know that the name Neo is a anagram for the word One and in the movie they call him “The One” and he is a sacred personage. What other similarities from characters in your book and the Matrix can you tell us about?

Sophia Stewart: I have what’s called a character analysis sheet, that profiles all of my characters and all mostly all the matrix characters have parallels of my people. In my work I had illustrations and logo’s to compare them with also. The FBI investigators used this to establish things. Icon gets blinded and the gold light comes out of his eyes, Neo has the same experience. I can show you the page and all of that in my book. Icon’s human side dies and he is reborn and Neo’s human side dies and he is reborn, Icon comes into spiritual power and Neo comes into spiritual power. I have the old gypsy hag and they have the Oracle they work in the same capacity. In "Third Eye" my character Trafeeny has been renamed Trinity ,Vashtar is renamed Morpheus, X’sers is Apock (sp) , Un becomes Cypher, Sona is Switch, Treve is Mouse, That is straight theft no real creativity even in their theft. I have the three levels of authority which was 3 guys that could pass their power off to each other - they all become one man that is the three agents. In my book I have The Dome which is a hidden city above the earth they have Zion which is a hidden city below the Earth. I have the Guardians they have the Sentinels.

 

Part II Coming Soon.....

[Burning Sands, Esq.]

Now I was all on homegirl's side to get over on the Wachowski's but there are certain elements of her interview that are a bit suspect.   She claims she NEVER saw the Terminator??   Is she serious?  But, for the sake of argument, let's say she never saw the Terminator, fine.  But then she goes on to say "they can't punish me for not having seen the Terminator movie." 

oooooooooooo-k?  Nobody said you were gonna get punished, ma.  Where is this coming from? 

Granted, if somebody stole my script I'd be on the defensive to a certain degree b/c that's a pretty HUGE accusation to make and people want to know your credentials, know that you're for real, etc.  But she just seems TOO on the defensive in this interview.

Obviously I take issue with the following quote for reasons we can all understand:

"I currently work as a paralegal so I know about the law."

    Just makes the shoulders cringe to hear a statement like that.

I wanna tell her Sister, relax, we're on your side, but you gotta stop making these other off the wall statements.  Its not helping the overall case.  Without having read the Third Eye (maybe something I can do this summer when I get some free time) it sounds like she has a valid copyright complaint on the merits.  Can't wait to see how this thing plays out in trial.

[shantee222]

Now I was all on homegirl's side to get over on the Wachowski's but there are certain elements of her interview that are a bit suspect. She claims she NEVER saw the Terminator?? Is she serious? But, for the sake of argument, let's say she never saw the Terminator, fine. But then she goes on to say "they can't punish me for not having seen the Terminator movie."

oooooooooooo-k? Nobody said you were gonna get punished, ma. Where is this coming from?

Granted, if somebody stole my script I'd be on the defensive to a certain degree b/c that's a pretty HUGE accusation to make and people want to know your credentials, know that you're for real, etc. But she just seems TOO on the defensive in this interview.

Obviously I take issue with the following quote for reasons we can all understand:

"I currently work as a paralegal so I know about the law."

  Just makes the shoulders cringe to hear a statement like that.

I wanna tell her Sister, relax, we're on your side, but you gotta stop making these other off the wall statements. Its not helping the overall case. Without having read the Third Eye (maybe something I can do this summer when I get some free time) it sounds like she has a valid copyright complaint on the merits. Can't wait to see how this thing plays out in trial.

I have never seen the Terminator either so that part of Sophia Steward's interview did not seem unbelievable to me. Also I think she made the statement about someone punishing her because she hasn't seen the movie because it applied to the whole statute of limitations thing.  I guess she is saying that the defense tried to throw the terminator issue out of court since it has been so long since the movie was released but she never saw the movie so the statute of limitations shouldn't apply here.  If she was unable to sue the Terminator people because of the length of time since the release  of this movie then in a way it was sort of punishing her because she had not seen it.

[Muse]

Why is the paralegal comment off the wall? Paralegals are pretty well versed on the law as well... (well at least I think they are)

[Burning Sands, Esq.]

oh my head hurts just thinking about it.

any paralegals out there much props 2 ya.  no disrespect but there's a HUGE difference between how much "law" a paralegal knows and how much a lawyer knows.  its like the difference between the auto mechanic and the engine designer

[Muse]

Update: I don't think this case is near over as the articles I posted suggests. I was told that only only reason the case is going foward is because the plantiff survived Rule 12 (b)(6) dismissal.(correct me if I'm wrong law people). So I wonder how long will it take for this case to settle?

I'm also hearing rumors that she's slowly losing credibility because there are some inconsistances in her story. She was on a radio show awhile back trying to get viewers to desposit funds into her bank account b/c she couldn't afford the legal fees...Man that sucks.

[Burning Sands, Esq.]

Update: I don't think this case is near over as the articles I posted suggests. I was told that only only reason the case is going foward is because the plantiff survived Rule 12 (b)(6) dismissal.(correct me if I'm wrong law people). So I wonder how long will it take for this case to settle?

I'm also hearing rumors that she's slowly losing credibility because there are some inconsistances in her story. She was on a radio show awhile back trying to get viewers to desposit funds into her bank account b/c she couldn't afford the legal fees...Man that sucks.

Yeah this case is still going. Go back to the first page of this thread where I posted the lexisnexis summaries - this case is really just getting started for the reasons talked about in the summaries.

(whatchu know about 12(b)(6)'s??)

as far as her credibility...

...it would be very unfortunate for this to turn out to be an invalid claim.  Very unfortunate.

[Burning Sands, Esq.]

And another thing, copyrights don't last for 175 years necessarily.  Today, Copyrights last for the life of the author + 70 years after they die for their estate to hold when they are gone.  So if she lived to be 105 years old she would be correct, but otherwise she's a little bit off with the 175 year figure.

[zenbiddie]

she will need to do more than beg on the radio to get enough $ to win this case.

[winston wolfe]

A NECESSARY ADDITION TO YOUR “MATRIX” COLLECTION

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This interview contains an in-depth exchange regarding the inspiration and underlying message of the The Third Eye {MATRIX}.

THE FACTS SURROUNDING THE BIGGEST LAWSUIT IN HOLLYWOOD HISTORY

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