The Animatrix [R]

In the first Renaissance episode, the narrator says something to the effect of that when the Humans made the machines, they gave them a spark of some sorts. The same spark that seperates humans from the rest of the planet's organic life forms. The best way to sum it up is free will(?) It was something to that effect.

 

Beyond? That one was awful. Made absolutely no sense to me, mind explaining it?

Matriculated was a cool concept, but I didn't neccesarily dig the story of it. it wasn't the animation, I used to watch Aeon Flux as a kid and enjoyed it, but it was way too tripped out.

First Ren. I and II were pretty cool. I think I'll rewatch those sometime soon.

Detective Story was awesome.

FFotO was absolutely amazing. That combined with the scenes from Enter the Matrix are must sees to completely understand Reloaded,

Kid story... the animation was really annoying.

Program was probably my fav aside from FFotO and First Ren.

I think that was it, right?

Overall a must watch for Matrix fans, but rent it if you're not into anime rather than buying it.

 

Beyond wasn't bad, but it sort of didn't fit in with the rest. I am a big fan of both FFOTO and the PI one.

 

ok, well that's makes a little more sense now (about Beyond). Because of the name I thought it was maybe in the future, beyond the war, where for some reason people are still in the matrix, and I dunno, I was pretty lost after that. And that makes sense as to why the machines realized the problem and had it leveled.

 

Someone want to explain "World Record" to me? That one lost me.

Story-wise, I liked "Kid's Story" the best. Yes, the animation was annoying, but the story was great.

The Second Renaissance I and II are a must see for Matrix fans.

 

I am a big Matrix fan. I am a big anime fan. I hated The Animatrix. The stories were very underdeveloped and not well thought out and it was not just because they were short (although they were all very short). The Renaissance episodes were very bad at offering a reasonable history - it was just an excuse to have good animation of robots and humans suffering. The ending to lots of the episodes (like the Detective Story or Matriculated) were very poor. And Osiris really points out a problem with The Matrix - when freed people want to have any fun, they jump right back into the matrix. It is like a person who says TV is bad for you, and refuses to watch it, but instead buys an infinite library of DVDs.

The only one I liked was "Beyond".

 

Only seen them through once... They were OK. I actually quite liked "Beyond".

And spejic, that's an interesting thought about fun and the Matrix -- you could argue simply that "the unplugged" need to train for when they DO plug back in, but philosophically your observation still holds. It's also shown in the one with the "test" where they're wearing all kinds of fanciful costumes -- not sure how that applies to Matrix training.

I've been trying to collect the interesting bits of information revealed in the shorts to see whether they have any sort of impact in the final movie. Offhand, the ones that come to mind:

-- Robots can be converted (though we don't know explicitly whether anyone trying to do it is still alive, since everyone in the short was killed). What this conversion represents to the robot "mind", however, isn't really clear to me.

-- There are (or were) some small rodent-looking things that are useful to humans both outside and inside the Matrix. Don't remember how, will have to re-watch.

-- Whereas I always assumed that unplugging was reserved merely for the "exceptional" (which, in keeping with the geekiness of the series, seemed to be another word for "hacker") there are multiple ways you can become unplugged: The sprinter was apparently nearly freed by some kind of intense physical sensation/trauma. The detective, meanwhile, might have been a hacker type but not necessarily -- and Trinity was apparently considering the possibility of freeing him (when she could easily have just killed or ignored him). It made me wonder how actively the "rebels" recruit from the Matrix -- and in the first movie didn't they say Neo was a little old for unplugging?

-- We still don't know how Neo "saved" the kid Neo says he didn't save (do we?). Seems like we might hear about this again.

 

Actually they explain how the kid was saved. I am too lazy to run through it again and telly ou how. But it seems that his extreme belief that things were not what they were saved him (does that make sense?).

 

I think that nicely sums it up. Through this attitude, he was able to circumvent the you-die-in-reality-if-you-die-in-the-Matrix rule.

 

That has some interesting implications, doesn't it?

 

Like what? Didn't Neo already do this? Or is that the interesting implication...

 

Maybe if people are convinced the world that they live in is not what it is, more people will be able to survive if the Matrix dies?

 

You know, Animatrix probably should have come out before Reloaded. (Or did it? I know some of the films did...) I mean, doesn't the Architect's speech, assuming it's true, render almost everything else -- except perhaps the Blue Matrix/Red Matrix theory and Neo's future course of action -- pretty much moot?

 

That's pretty much my take.

Watching the extras, however, was way cool. I especially enjoyed the commentary for Program - the director and producer pointed out lots of details I missed. Mostly because they were smaller issues with the background animation styles.

 

Yes, Neo did it, but with Trinity's help. The kid in "Kid's Story" seemed to do it by himself. I think that's the interesting implication.