The Animatrix is a nine-part collection of short animated movies based on the The Matrix Trilogy movies. The movies, released in 2003, were written and directed by famous Japanese anime directors, under the supervision of the original creators of the Trilogy, the Wachowski brothers (although I use the term “brothers” lightly, since they are now actually Lana and Andy Wachowski. Yes… Lana), with characters voiced by various TV and video game actors.
The short films explore various aspects of the world and history shown in the original three Matrix movies, each in their own unique way through the use of various editing, animation and drawing techniques. Some of the movies take place during the same period as “The Matrix”, a time when humans are connected to giant networks used to run a simulated virtual world by a human-enslaving robotic society, while others (notably The Second Renaissance, shown below) explore how the world was before the creation of the virtual Matrix world, during the time when robots and humans lived together in relative peace (albeit not quite to the satisfaction of robots).
My thoughts on The Animatrix
I love these films, and my favourite thing about this series is the fact that they add a lot more content to the movie franchise and really help to define the details of theories never quite fully explained in the Trilogy. There has been some talk that some of the theories portrayed in the Animatrix clash with those in the original Trilogy, but for the most part I would say they fit quite well and really offer a strong basis and history to the world of The Matrix.
Some of the films delve into the ethics and moral values behind the treatment of those we define to be stronger or weaker than us, in this case robots. The humans in the films treat the robots much like garbage, without any respect or rights; something most of us to do this day, even if our technology hasn’t quite become advanced enough to “feel” negatively about the way we treat them yet. The robots eventually rebel against the humans, something that both I and many knowledgeable scientists and futurists believe to be a very likely scenario that will eventually appear sometime in the future of mankind (that is once we have created robots and computer CPUs strong and efficient enough to mimic the human brain).
I strongly recommend you check out the Animatrix trailer and a full Animatrix movie below, and then if you like what you see, go buy it on Bluray or DVD! It’s definitely one of my favourite DVDs I own.
The Animatrix Trailer
The original Animatrix Trailer, which shows various parts of each of the nine films.
The Animatrix – The Second Renaissance (Part 1)
This is a entire Part 1 of the first Animatrix movie titled The Second Renaissance. This episode describes the uprising of the robotic civilization, as well as the rivalry between humans and robots, and the ethical dilemmas behind the treatment of robots within human civilization.
The Animatrix – The Second Renaissance (Part 2)
Continuing from the first part shown above, this movie details the actual war between man and machine, as well as the creation of the Matrix simulated world and the “farms” used to store human beings who are connected to the Matrix.