The Animatrix

The Animatrix is a great collection of short anime movies from a few of the best anime directors that ever existed. I especially liked The Second Renaissance and The Final Flight of the Osiris.

The Wachowski brothers (brother and sister these days) got a lot of their inspiration from anime's like for instance the movie Ghost in the Shell. The fact that they agreed to produce and write some of the scripts was an homage to anime's they saw over the years before The Matrix.

йо!

Easily the best Matrix thing I’ve seen yet. The visuals, minus the last two shorts, outpace anything in the live action ones, and it’s more interesting and thought provoking in slices than the live action ones are in hours.

[7.8/10] Let’s take these segment by segment.

**The Second Renaissance**: The word that comes to mind is “chilling.” Having seen this one before, it was lighter on details than I remembered. We learn the basics: humanity attacking their mechanical helpers, a robot revolt and exodus, a thriving artificial community, a war between man and machine, and a blotting out of the sun that results in mankind’s subjugation. But it’s much lighter on details than I’d remembered. Instead, the short depicts these events through images, symbols, bits of iconography that convey the mood and tone of this epochal shift in the nature of Earth more than the finer points.

It’s a mode that works. The brutality of war, the brutality exhibited by man and machine alike, muddy the waters of the moral crusade that takes place in *The matrix*. It’s easy to see the machines as the enemy given what our heroes suffer in the mainline Matrix movies. But no one’s hands are clean in this, with cruelty offered and returned on all sides.

There’s no shortage of horrifying images here, from a robotic woman being stripped and beaten while declaring “I’m real”, to skulls crushed by mechanical fingers, to children tucked into pods as their parents fade away, to a giant robotic insect insisting humanity “surrender our flesh” because “we demand it.” This is a short that thrives on its aesthetic and almost psychedelic horrors as the world devolves into the dystopia of The Matrix, and it’s more effect as a mood piece, giving you the feel of envy, oppression, misery, and most of all horror at the root of this conflict. It’s easily the best part for me.

**Kid’s Story**: I take issue with this one a bit. I’m not one for big moral judgments about art, but it’s not hard to see this as romanticizing suicide. I doubt many young folks watching will jump off of buildings expecting to wake up in “another world” -- but it does dramatize that idea in florid, epic tones that makes it seem bold and transcendent. I don’t mind it as a story, but at the risk of being a “Won’t somebody please think of the children?”-type person, I worry about the message it sent to disaffected young folks watching it, myself included. That said, the animation is particularly cool, fluid but grainy and unfinished in a way that blends realism and exaggeration. And the concept of self-substantiation is a neat way to go here, adding some depth to “Kid” from *The Matrix Reloaded* in the process.

**The Last Flight of the Osiris**: Man is this one horny. This short is the most direct precursor to the events of *Reloaded* and *Revolutions*, and it’s fine in that regard. The 3D animation hasn’t aged especially well, and the leering gaze (granted, one trained on both male and female bodies) feels unnecessary. The escape from sentinels in the real world while someone races against time to achieve something important in the digital world is standard *Matrix* block and tackle now, so there’s not much to write home about there either. There’s nothing wrong with this one exactly, but it’s the most standard and generic entry of the bunch, which works against it, even as it’s the one that's most directly tied into the films it was produced alongside.

**Program**: I loved the animation and design work here. Watching two warriors do battle in a reimagined version of feudal japan with badass Samurai moves wowed in each moment. I also appreciated the personal element here. Two people, clearly romantically entangled, debating whether or not to go back into The Matrix, whether the price of betraying their friends could ever be worth it, arguing over whether it truly matters what’s real and what isn’t. The way the philosophical intersects with the personal here is heartbreaking when the female lead has to finish the deal against someone she loves. The fact that the whole thing was just a test is kind of a cheat, but I still like the majority of this in the moment.

**World Record**: I love the thought experiment of an incredible athlete being so good at pushing the limits of their bodies and with it, the limits of this simulated reality, that they can awaken themselves from the Matrix. The animation here is very cool as well, with some cool montage and editing work mixed with slow motion depictions of physical exertion that let the viewer appreciate the strain and tenacity of our protagonist in a way that’s almost spiritual. The character designs are kind of ugly, but otherwise, the look and feel of this one is quite memorable. The racing setup serves the story’s aims well, and this manages to be both inspiring and tragic.

**Beyond**: This is one of my favorite segments in the collection, if only because it’s more of a mood piece than a story. Along with the other neat short story ideas in this film, the idea of a “haunted house” really just being an anomaly in the Matrix, that some enterprising kids play around in, is a fun one. Just seeing them experiment with the breaks in the laws of physics together is very engrossing. This is a hangout short, relative to the others, whose tranquility and playful warmth is punctured by the arrival of the agents’ clean-up crew. There's a quasi-rotoscope nature to the movements, and a realistic quality to the backgrounds that gives this one a cool blend. One of the movie’s best.

**A Detective Story**: Doing a film noir homage in the matrix is another cool idea, and setting a private detective to find Trinity is even better. I really dig the grainy, black and white look of this one. The choice to make this a tragedy, with the detective finding Trinity, who saves and recruits him, only to have to neutralize him when the Agents possess the poor soul, gives this one a more melancholy air, as befits the works it’s paying tribute to. The action on the train is good, and the detective/sci-fi genre blending goes off without a hitch.

**Matriculated**: This one took a bit to win me over. The combination of 2D and 3D animation was janky and unconvincing. The chase with the machines into the facility was lacking in tension and stakes. And the dialogue had the same generic bromides about what counts as reality every Matrix project has. But once it got into the simulation meant to expand the chosen machine’s mind, things really picked up. I loved the psychedelic imagery the short deployed, with an elemental and impressionistic take on humanity that really resonated with me. I also liked the idea that this group’s project was to help machines see the worthiness of humanity, to take their side voluntarily rather than just reprogramming. It’s a noble goal, and the sad end it comes to helps reinforce why a machine might finally understand the beauty of humanity and what these people are fighting for. It creates a nice thematic tie that’s picked up in both *Revolutions* and *Reloaded*, which is a neat thing.

Overall, I wish more major properties would do this sort of thing. Not every segment is a winner, but letting a variety of artists do their own unique form of expression in some corner of a well-known cinematic world results in a ton of cool moods and moments. *The Matrix* was rife for it, and there’s plenty of other fictional universes out there that would benefit as much as this did.

Most of these short films are great at introducing you to the depths of the Matrix universe. Various styles of animation also let us know how rich the range of this genre is.

A mixed bag of short stories. Some are excellent, some are a little bit worse.

Final Flight of the Osiris - made by Square. Back in 2003 it looked very impressive. Now that level of CG is outdated as hell. Story is like a retelling a snippet for the original movies. Nothing original.

The Second Renaissance Part I, II - some info dump about lore. Kinda interesting background stories.

Kid’s Story - frenetic action which is supported by very visually appealing animation. Story is simple but it works. Cool stuff.

Program - another animation on dope situated in a feudal Japanese environment. Action is crisp and story is again simple but not bad all.

World Record - another big shift in animation style and it looks great. Story is a ultra simple skit but I liked an idea behind it.

Beyond - this one is my fav for sure. Slice of life style in full power. Glitches and errors suck sometimes but other time it makes things very interesting.

A Detective Story - a classic noir detective story. Even the story worked fine with this genre. Still maintaining tight connections with Matrix.

Natriculated - i loved the plot especially the ending. But visually it was meh... a classic LSD dream of dreamers in 90s of virtual reality. It looked like a very cheap CG.

I don't think it's really fair to compare a collection of short films to feature length films. Specifically, I think the difficulty of creating 90-120 minutes of compelling and cohesive story is exponentially higher than creating 5-10 minute vignettes. I think this increased difficulty is largely driven by the connective tissue that is required in a feature length film. That connective tissue comes in the form of balanced pacing to keep an audience engaged for two hours and more complex narratives to sustain that runtime. In comparison, a short film has less moving parts, doesn't need a traditional story arc, and can often be built around a single sequence or idea. As a collection, each short can end whenever is convenient and move on to the next without paying any mind to pacing.

Now, all of that said, I'm going to make the unfair comparison and say that _Animatrix_ is undoubtedly better than every Matrix sequel. While that's not a particularly high bar, this film isn't just a step above them, but rather leaps and bounds. With it's diverse collection of stories and animation styles, I couldn't help but be reminded of the fantastic Netflix series _Love, Death + Robots_. This is particularly high praise considering that this film predated LD+R by over 15 years. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if LD+R was at least partly inspired by the success of _Animatrix_.

As for the individual shorts, I'll include some brief thoughts on each below.

**Final Flight of the Osiris:** Perhaps the most traditional of all of the shorts, with an action focused story that directly connects to the plotlines of the mainline trilogy. Unfortunately this results in a short that feels quite unoriginal compared the rest, especially having recently watched the films. I think I've seen more than enough shooting at sentinels. Overall, inoffensive but nothing groundbreaking.

**The Second Renaissance Parts I and II:** These documentary-esque shorts provide a history lesson on the relationship between man and machine, a history that is full of interesting beats that meaningfully expand the Matrix lore. I think part one covered more ground and was more compelling than part two, but they both were well done.

**Kid's Story:** Another direct connection to the mainline trilogy, providing a very cool origin story to a Reloaded/Revolutions character that I didn't think was very compelling in the live action films. Animation style was also suitably unique.

**Program:** I enjoyed the animation style here, and the action was fun enough, but the story didn't land meaningfully for me.

**World Record:** The concept behind this segment was very cool. Unfortunately, this was the only short where I didn't really love the animation style.

**Beyond:** This one is probably one of my top two, as it just felt so unique from the rest. It easily could have been a LD+R episode with no connection to the Matrix and it would have been great in that context too.

**A Detective Story:** My other favorite of the bunch. This one has a very direct connection to a mainline Matrix character, but the black and white noir style sets it apart in a fantastic way. The animation is top notch, with some very memorable shots.

**Matriculated:** Towards the lower end for me. I liked the idea, but the execution got a bit too abstract for my tastes.

These are original stories, good food for thought.

A Chilling insight as to how the world may handle machines, and how machines may handle the world. The narrator reminds me a lot of SHODAN from System Shock, which I'm not sure if the similarity was intentional, but it definitely heightened my interest in the movie

Well, what should I say? Some of the animated short stories from the Matrix universe are interesting and good but others are not. For me this was an even bigger disappointment compared to the original matrix movie than were the true sequels Matrix 2 & 3 (however, this might also be because I do not like short stories and the comic-style Animatrix uses).