The Matrix Cameo You Might Have Missed In Attack Of The Clones
It might be 2022, but with Neo back in the Matrix and Obi-Wan Kenobi making his return with a "Star Wars" series on Disney+, it sure feels like it's another decade entirely. However, it's more than just a potent nostalgia that ties these two sci-fi heroes together. A well-hidden cameo in "Star Wars: Attack of the Clones" seems to even playfully suggest that the galaxy far, far away might just be a computer simulation, which should appease anyone still bitter over perceived prequel fumbles like JarJar Binks. It's even slightly suspect that it occurs on Coruscant, a sprawling metropolis that might as well be the advanced, futuristic version of the cityscape we see in "The Matrix." You're welcome to take this moment to scan all the Coruscant scenes in the film like Cipher looking at all that green code — we'll wait — but you'll be hard-pressed to spot the cameo without some help!
A Mouse and a Jedi Master Walk Into a Bar
Before we get to the cameo in question, let's set the stage with another cameo.
You might remember that in their pursuit for Padmé Amidala's would-be assassin, Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi run into a dodgy, neon-soaked Coruscant bar. It's here that the ever-suave Ewan McGregor delivers some of the Jedi Master's most charming lines. When Anakin asks where his master is going after they enter the club, Kenobi responds, "For a drink." True to his word, Obi-Wan heads to the bar to grab that drink only to be confronted by a death stick dealer named Elan Sel'Sabagno (AKA Elan Sleazebaggano), played by actor Matt Doran.
But in another life — or another simulation — Elan went by the name Mouse. As one of the crewmembers on Morpheus' ship the Nebuchadnezzar, he's one of the first people to meet Neo when he's pulled into the real world from the Matrix. His deep brooding on the accuracy of chicken's taste and his tragic, dual-machine-gun last stand make his small role a memorable one. But Elan gets as close to a happy ending as possible in "Attack of the Clones," when Obi-Wan administers some swift Jedi mind-trick rehab and he's persuaded to go home to rethink his life. But even with Mouse scurrying on home, this seedy Coruscant bar has another cameo from "The Matrix" hidden away.
The Woman in the Red
Lost in the faces of the bar crowd that Anakin scans is a familiar one for "The Matrix" fans. Known as the "Woman in Red," she makes her cameo just as the Jedi Knight walks past her, offering him a look similar to the one she gives Neo during his training. In the movie, she's a program created by Mouse to distract trainees during the "Agent Training" program. Played by Fiona Johnson, the Woman in Red has an actual name in the "Star Wars" universe: Hayde Gofai. Maybe in another version of "The Matrix," this Woman in Red goes Dolores Abernathy on her captors and escapes to a galaxy far, far away to start a new life as Gofai.
Call us old-fashioned, but we absolutely live for niche cameos like these. Too often the satisfaction of a good cameo is ripped away from us because they're so dully obvious. Give us cameos that duck through the decades, only to be revealed in obscurity on the internet thanks to a fabulously observant Redditor. It's the kind of cameo that fills you with adrenaline like you're that meme of Rick Dalton giving a solid finger-point at the box television. Now that's a cameo worth hiding!