The Animatrix

The Animatrix
DVD Cover
Directed by	Wachowski brothers Koji Morimoto Shinichiro Watanabe Mahiro Maeda Peter Chung Andy Jones Yoshiaki Kawajiri Takeshi Koike
Produced by	Michael Arias Spencer Lamm Wachowski Brothers
Written by	Wachowski brothers Koji Morimoto Shinichiro Watanabe Yoshiaki Kawajiri Peter Chung Mahiro Maeda
Narrated by	Julia Fletcher
Starring	Hedy Burress James Arnold Taylor Clayton Watson Julia Fletcher Kevin Michael Richardson Pamela Adlon
Music by	Don Davis Machine Head Photek
Editing by	Christopher S. Capp
Distributed by	Warner Home Video
Release date(s)	June 3, 2003
Running time	90 minutes
Country	United States Japan
Language	English Japanese

The Animatrix (アニマトリックス, animatorikkusu^?) is a 2003 direct-to-video anthology film based on The Matrix trilogy. The film is a compilation of nine animated short films.

Production

Development of the Animatrix project began when the film series' writers and directors, the Wachowski brothers, were in Japan promoting the first Matrix film. While in the country, they visited some of the creators of the anime films that had been a strong influence on their work, and decided to collaborate with them.^[1]

The Animatrix was conceived and overseen by the Wachowski Brothers, but they only wrote four of the segments themselves, and did not direct any of their animation; most of the project's technical side was overseen by notable figures from the world of Japanese animation.

The English language version of The Animatrix was directed by Jack Fletcher, who brought onboard the project the voice actors who provided the voices for the English version of Square Enix's Final Fantasy X, including Matt McKenzie, James Arnold Taylor, John DiMaggio, Tara Strong, Hedy Burress, and Dwight Schultz. The English version also features the voices of Victor Williams (TV's The King of Queens), Melinda Clarke (TV's The O.C.), Olivia d'Abo (TV's The Wonder Years), Pamela Adlon (TV's King of the Hill), and Kevin Michael Richardson of the Xbox game Halo 2, who also plays the voice of the Deus Ex Machina in The Matrix Revolutions.

The characters Neo, Trinity, and Kid also appear, with their voices provided by their original actors Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss and Clayton Watson.

Release

Four of the films were originally released on the series' official website; one (Final Flight of the Osiris) was shown in cinemas with the film Dreamcatcher. The others first appeared with the VHS and DVD release of all nine shorts on June 3, 2003. The DVD also includes the following special features:

• A documentary on Japanese animation. The on-screen title is "Scrolls to Screen: A Brief History of Anime," but in the DVD menu and packaging, and on the series' official website, it is referred to as "Scrolls to Screen: The History and Culture of Anime."
• Seven featurettes with director profiles, interviews, and behind-the-scenes footage of each of the films.
• Audio commentaries on World Record, Program, and both parts of The Second Renaissance
• A trailer for the video game Enter the Matrix.

To coincide with the DVD release, a print of the film premiered in June 2003 in New York City at the New York Tokyo Film Festival http://archive.newyork-tokyo.com/nytff/index_flash.html.

It was broadcast on Adult Swim on April 17, 2004, and has received airplay on Teletoon several months after its American broadcast. In the UK, Final Flight of the Osiris was broadcast on Channel 5 just before the DVD release, along with The Second Renaissance Parts 1 and 2, Kid's Story, and World Record broadcast after the DVD release.

In May 2006, The Animatrix was aired in Latin America by Cartoon Network on Toonami. The Animatrix was also screened in select cinemas around the world for a short period of time, a week or two before the sequel The Matrix Reloaded, as a promotional event.

One day before the release of The Matrix Reloaded on cinemas the Brazilian television channel SBT, which have a contract with Warner Brothers, aired the Final Flight of the Osiris, after airing The Matrix, to promote the movie.

The cinema running order for The Animatrix (at least in Australia) differed from the DVD release. The cinema release-order:

1. The Second Renaissance, Part I (June 3, 2003)
2. The Second Renaissance, Part II (June 7, 2003)
3. Kid's Story (June 14, 2003)
4. Program (June 21, 2003)
5. World Record (July 5, 2003)
6. Beyond (July 12, 2003)
7. A Detective Story (August 30, 2003)
8. Matriculated (September 20, 2003)
9. Final Flight of the Osiris (September 27, 2003)

To coincide with the Blu-ray edition of The Ultimate Matrix Collection, The Animatrix will also be presented for the first time in high definition.

Plot

The plot-summaries of the shorts are listed below in the order that they run in the DVD release, which is not the chronological order. Chronologically, the order would be:

• The Second Renaissance - a prequel set generations before the original film, The Matrix, relating how humans built artificially intelligent Machines, the apocalyptic war between the two, ending with the Machines enslaving the human race and the initial creation of The Matrix virtual reality.
• A Detective Story - a stand-alone story in which the character Trinity appears, but independently of any other characters. Because Trinity is present it takes place at least within several years of the films, but it is not clear if it takes place before or after Trinity met Neo in the original film. That Trinity is alone and not working as a group with Neo may imply that it is set slightly before the first film.
• Kid's Story - set during the six month gap between the events of the first and second films, after Neo joins the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar in freeing other humans from the Matrix. Its events are briefly alluded to in dialogue at the beginning of The Matrix Reloaded.
• Final Flight of the Osiris - takes place directly before The Matrix Reloaded, as the hovercraft Osiris stumbles upon the Sentinel army digging to Zion. At the beginning of The Matrix Reloaded, Niobe mentions that their reconnaissance photos of the Machine army were transmitted from the Osiris.

The other four shorts (Program, World Record, Beyond, and Matriculated) are independent of the events of any other installment. While they generically deal with the virtual reality of the Matrix, and the Zion rebels, conceivably they could take place at any point in the generations-long struggle between the human rebels and the Machines running the Matrix.

Final Flight of the Osiris

Final Flight of the Osiris was written by the Wachowski Brothers and directed by Andy Jones, with CG-animation production and design by Square Pictures, the film is rated PG-13 by the MPAA for "Sci-Fi Violence, Sensuality and Language". The short is a direct prequel leading into the events of The Matrix Reloaded.

Thadeus (Kevin Michael Richardson), a muscular man and an athletic woman called Jue (Pamela Adlon) engage in a blindfolded swordfight in a virtual-reality dojo (similar to the sparring program where Morpheus and Neo had their first fight). With each slice of their swords, they remove another piece of each other's clothing. Immediately after each cuts the other down to their underwear, each lifts the blindfold to peek at the other. As the two are about to kiss, they are interrupted by an alarm and the virtual reality simulation ends.

In the next scene, the hovercraft Osiris is headed for Junction 21 when Robbie (Tom Kenny), the operator, picks up thousands of Sentinels on his HR scans. The ship flees into an uncharted tunnel away from a small group of tunnel-patrolling Sentinels, as crewmembers man the on-board guns and destroy the pursuing Sentinels. The tunnel opens at the surface, four kilometers directly above Zion and dangerously close to the previously detected army of Sentinels. Alert to the Osiris's presence, the army of Sentinels pursue the ship.

Captain Thadeus decides Zion must be warned, and his shipmate (and earlier VR sparring partner) Jue volunteers to broadcast herself into the Matrix to deliver the crucial information while the ship is doggedly pursued. Jue and Thadeus admit to peeking at each other in the VR simulation. Entering the Matrix on a high rooftop, Jue jumps off and acrobatically makes her way down through structure work between two buildings. When she hits the ground in the alley below, a ripple effect (similar to that of Neo preparing for flight) is created by her impact. She drops off a package into a mail box. This package sets up the video game Enter the Matrix; the first level of the game is to retrieve the package. She attempts to contact Thadeus via a cell phone as the Osiris and its gunners are overcome by sentinels and crash-lands, with the Sentinels tearing their way into the ship. At the time of the call, Thadeus is making a last stand to hold off the Sentinels. Shortly after Jue says "Thadeus" over her cell phone, the Osiris explodes, destroying many of the pursuing Sentinels. In the Matrix, Jue falls dead to the ground, her body having been destroyed on the ship.

The Second Renaissance

The Second Renaissance is a two-part film written and directed by Mahiro Maeda. He used Bits and Pieces of Information written by the Wachowski brothers as a prequel to the series as a base for the first part. The brothers have acknowledged that they are satisfied with Maeda's version, apparently despite concerns that the premise contradicts that of the original film by showing the origins of the Matrix and the human/machine war, of which character Morpheus confesses himself (and implies all humanity) to be ignorant, as a record kept in the humans' city. Although it may be implied by the Instructor's inclusive language, saying "God have mercy on Man and Machine for their sins" and "bless all forms of intelligence" that this is a future Zion after the peace with machines seen at the end of the third feature length movie.

Part I

Explained throughout by a computerized narrator known as the Instructor (Julia Fletcher), the film begins with an introduction to the Zion Archive and the access of "Historical File 12 – 1", "The Second Renaissance". The screen opens to the image of an immense megacity, in the late 21st century, wherein the vast human population is supported by a multitude of artificially intelligent machines. The machines are built in humanoid form and seem to be treated as slaves, employed in a variety of positions ranging from domestic servants to laborers on massive construction projects.

"In the beginning, there was man. And for a time, it was good. But humanity's so-called civil societies soon fell victim to vanity and corruption. Then man made the machine in his own likeness. Thus did man become the architect of his own demise."

With increasing numbers of people released from all labor, the human population has become lazy, arrogant, and corrupt. Despite this, the machines were content with serving humanity and, as the narrator states, "for a time, it [the status quo] was good". This phrase is a reference to one of the most famous phrases of Genesis, consistent with the Biblical references seen throughout the original Matrix films, and is one of numerous references to Genesis in particular present in "Second Renaissance".

The relationship between humans and machines changes in the year 2090, when a domestic android is threatened by its owner. The android, named B1-66ER in what appears to be a reference to the character Bigger Thomas from the novel Native Son, then kills the owner, his pets, and a mechanic instructed to deactivate the robot. This murder is the first incident of an artificially intelligent machine killing a human. B1-66ER is arrested and put on trial, but justifies the crime as self-defense, stating that it "simply did not want to die". During the trial scene, there is a voice-over of Clarence Darrow (the defense attorney) quoting a famous line from the Dred Scott v. Sandford case in 1856 in his closing statement, which implicitly ruled that African Americans were not entitled to citizenship under United States law. Using this as a precedent, the prosecution argues that machines are not entitled to the same rights as human beings, and specifically that human beings have a right to destroy their property, while the defense urges the listener not to repeat history, and to judge B1-66ER as a human and not a machine (a longer version of Darrow's closing statement can be read in the comic Bits and Pieces of Information from The Matrix Comics Volume 1).

"We think they are not, and were not intended to be included, under the word 'citizens' in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings...^[2] "

B1-66ER loses the court case and is destroyed. Across the industrialized world, mass civil disturbances erupt when robots and their human sympathizers rise in protest. World leaders fear a robot rebellion, and governments across the planet initiate a major program to destroy all humanoid machines. News reports show rioting in American and Western European cities such as Chicago and Berlin, alongside the peaceful "Million Machine March" on the Albany district courthouse where B1-66ER was sentenced. Visual references are made to such incidents as General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan's execution of Viet Cong officer Nguyễn Văn Lém, the Tank Man standoff following the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, the Al-Aqsa Intifada and The Holocaust.

Some robots escape destruction when humans, in their greed, still want the robots to work and produce things for them. The machine population is exiled, and they create their own nation in the Middle East, named Zero One (or "01", the numerals used in binary notation). According to the narrator, the robots built Zero One in "the cradle of human civilization", an allusion to the Fertile Crescent, apparently located in Saudi Arabia's "Empty Quarter" which is devoid of human life. Essentially ghettoized at Zero One, the machines establish their own industrial base there and begin to produce efficient, highly advanced artificial intelligence, echoing Vernor Vinge's thoughts on a technological singularity. The new nation excels at manufacturing high-tech consumer products, and before long, Zero One's consistent export of cheap, reliable, mass-produced goods begin to undercut the global economy.

The United Nations Security Council calls an emergency economic summit at UN headquarters in New York City, resulting in UN delegates approving of a global economic blockade of Zero One that echoes the Cuban Missile Crisis. Two robotic ambassadors, built as a mechanical Adam and Eve, are sent by the leaders of Zero One to peacefully request the admission of their state to the United Nations as a prelude to settling the economic crisis peacefully. Despite their peaceful intentions, the ambassadors are forcibly removed from the chamber, and their application is rejected. As this scene unfolds, the narrator states that "this was not the last time the machines would take the floor there" foreshadowing the end of Part II. Part I ends as the Security Council debates the issue of short-sightedly declaring war on the Machine Empire.

Part II

Part II opens with United Nations aircraft unleashing a sustained nuclear bombardment on Zero One. The nuclear carpet bombing devastates the machine city, but is unsuccessful in destroying many elements of the mechanical population, given that the machines did not have the same weaknesses to the bombs' fallout and heat like humans. The machines retaliate by unleashing their armies to conquer neighboring human countries, triggering a world war between the United Nations and Zero One. Unfortunately, most of the world's industrial output is already based in Zero One, as the lazy humans had grown accustomed to not producing things for themselves. Despite their best efforts, human troops are unable to hold back Zero One's relentlessly efficient onslaught, and slowly retreat (robot armies are explicitly shown to have advanced into Eastern Europe by this point). As the machine forces push deeper across the planet, military leaders begin to pursue increasingly desperate solutions.

At a summit of political and military leaders from around the world, unanimous approval is given to a plan code-named "Operation Dark Storm", which aims to cut the machines off from the sun, their primary energy source. The plan is executed in 2095, with high altitude bombers dispersing sky-darkening nanomachines into the air, while the human armies simultaneously launch a ground offensive against the machine forces. The plan is initially successful, although many of the human nations' long-range weapons systems are also disabled by the lack of sunlight. With their high-tech weapons rendered useless, human commanders are forced to launch close-quarters infantry engagements, supported by electromagnetic artillery fire and armored assaults using atomic tanks and powered armor. Heavy losses are taken on both sides, but the Machines gradually gain the upper hand.

Legions of a new model of machine, no longer in humanoid form and appearing more like the insectoid or cephalopod-like Sentinels and others of the Matrix films, overrun the human armies. This coincides with the destruction of original man-made robots at the hands of human forces and, as a result, the further dehumanization of the rapidly emerging machine collective. As the machine armies swarm across the human defenses, the United Nations, in desperation, fires nuclear missiles directly at the machine armies, vaporizing their own troops in the process. To make up for the lack of solar power, the machines begin capturing human prisoners and using their bodies to power large biomechanical tanks, which quickly cut through the dwindling human artillery. As the expanding armies of Zero One overrun Eurasia, they unleash lethal biological weapons which further ravage humanity.

Eventually brought to its knees by the might of the machine army, the Security Council calls a global summit at U.N. headquarters to sign an armistice and end the war. Zero One's machine ambassador signs the peace treaty with a barcode, in which the humans agree to surrender their remaining territories to the machines. "Your flesh is a relic, a mere vessel. Hand over your flesh and a new world awaits you. We demand it" are the only words the machine utters before it detonates a nuclear bomb in the meeting chamber, killing most of the planet's leaders and destroying New York City, one of the few remaining human settlements. In 2102, the machines crush the leaderless remnants of the human armies, and the war ends.

Zero One is victorious, but it is a Pyrrhic victory: the planet has been devastated by the war and by the crippling ecological impact of the Dark Storm shroud, which the machines are unable to remove. In need of a new energy source, the machines adapt their bioelectric tank technology to build vast human-stocked power stations, using their bodies' waste-energy to catalyze a powerful fusion reaction, in which in its making the Humans endure many days of agonising torture, and at its completion, the Machines create the computer-generated virtual reality of the Matrix (presumably having erased the memory of their former lives), to keep their prisoners sedated by feeding the virtual world into the prisoners' brains, starting with the first prototype Matrix (as later explained, there were two prototypes of the Matrix before the finalized, realistic version).

Kid's Story

Kid's Story was written by the Wachowski brothers and directed by Shinichiro Watanabe, with animations by Kazuto Nakazawa and production design by Studio 4°C, Tokyo. It is the only one of the animated shorts contained in The Animatrix in which Neo appears. The short takes place during the six month gap between The Matrix and The Matrix: Reloaded, during which time Neo has joined the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar and is helping the rebels to free other humans from the Matrix. Kid (Clayton Watson) is a disaffected teenager who feels there is something wrong with the world, frequenting hacker chatrooms on the internet and wondering if he is alone. In school, he absent-mindendly scribbles "Neo lives" in his notebook. One day he receives a personal invitation from Neo (Keanu Reeves) to escape the Matrix (much as Morpheus invited Neo himself to escape it). The following day, he receives a call from Neo on his cell phone, and is chased through his high school by a band of Agents, before ultimately being cornered on the roof. He asserts his faith in Neo, and throws himself from the roof, whereupon the other characters are shown holding his funeral. The short fades up from black as the Kid awakens in the real world to see Neo and Trinity watching over him. They remark that he has achieved "self substantiation" (removing oneself from the Matrix without external aid), which was considered impossible. In both the short itself and The Matrix Reloaded, however, the Kid seems to believe it was Neo's actions, not his own, that saved him.

Self-substantiation is never thoroughly discussed in any part of the series. Dan in the Animatrix short "World Record" similarly manages to exit the Matrix without the use of a Red Pill, whereas in The Matrix, Morpheus speaks of the founder of Zion who freed himself, presumably without external help. However, this was revealed to be a ruse by the machines. Kid's Story and World Record both heavily hint at this as the viewer wonders how a man being awoken from one of those pods, apparently helpless, could somehow build and start a city.

Program

Program was written and directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri. The character designs were done by Yutaka Minowa. In case with Beyond and Matriculated it is also a midquel of the first or second film. It follows the protagonist, "Cis" (Hedy Burress), who is engaged in her "favorite simulation": a battle program set in feudal Japan. After successfully eliminating an attacking enemy cavalry, a lone samurai appears whom Cis recognizes as "Duo" (Phil LaMarr).

Initially, the two duel as allies, testing one another's fighting abilities. During the course of their duel, Duo briefly disarms Cis. He questions her concentration and wonders whether she regrets taking the Red Pill that took them out of the "peaceful life of the virtual world". They continue fighting until she finally overpowers Duo and is poised for the 'kill'. It is at this point that Duo states that he has "something to say". She sarcastically assumes that he wants to propose [marriage]; but instead he admits a desire to return to the Matrix; incredulous, Cis nevertheless responds that doing so is impossible as 'the truth' is already known to them, forbidding their re-integration. Duo reasons that reality is harsh and that he is tired of it. He adds that the Machines can make the both of them forget the truth.

Duo then states that he has disabled or killed the other crewmembers and contacted the Machines. He asks Cis to return with him to the Matrix, but she continues to refuse. As Duo becomes more aggressive in his arguments for returning, Cis attempts to escape while simultaneously warding off his attacks. Becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the situation, Cis requests an operator in order to exit the simulation. Duo tells her that no one can hear her and reiterates that it "is already done...[the machines] are on their way". Thereafter their fighting becomes much more serious and forceful as they move from rooftop to rooftop.

Duo, in a flying leap, attacks her from above with his sword. As the blade comes towards her, Cis, standing her ground, concentrates and halts its forward motion inches from her face and breaks it. She takes the broken end of the blade and thrusts it into Duo. Duo states his love for her as he dies.

Suddenly, she wakes from the program and discovers that the encounter with Duo was a test program devised for training purposes. A man named "Kaiser" (John DiMaggio) unsuccessfully assures her that she acted appropriately during the test and met the test's targets. Clearly upset, she punches him in the face and walks away. He remarks that aside from the punch to the face, she passed the test.

World Record

World Record was created by Madhouse and directed by Takeshi Koike, with a screenplay by Yoshiaki Kawajiri and is also a midquel of the first or second film. The beginning of this short includes a short narration from the Instructor (implies that this short is a Zion Archive file) explaining details behind the discovery of the Matrix by "plugged-in" humans. Only exceptional humans tend to become aware of the Matrix, who have "a rare degree of intuition, sensitivity, and a questioning nature", all qualities which are used to identify inconsistencies in the Matrix. This is not without exceptions, given that "Some attain this wisdom through wholly different means", as shown below.

This movie is centered on an American track runner, Dan Davis (Victor Williams), sprinting the 100 meter dash. As the race starts, flashbacks begin to appear. Dan is warned by his coach to cancel this race, but he wants to set a record no one will ever break in the future. His personal determination is to make this goal an achievable one; he is mostly motivated by a revoked medal for a previous record, taken from him when he tested positive for drug use, in addition to claims that the previous record will never be broken, which he intends to prove wrong by breaking his own record of 8.99 seconds (the current real world record is 9.58). In one particular flashback including the Reporter, he compares running at such speeds to being "released from the world, and you feel totally free".

During the race, Dan increases his speed, destroying his muscles, whereupon the Agents recognize his activity. Dan is so determined that he ignores the pain and keeps running, until he unknowingly begins ignoring the entire false reality of the Matrix around him. As time slows down from Dan's perspective as he passes the finish line, the Matrix-world melts away as his body wakes up in the real world. Helplessly trapped inside of a power-plant pod (as Neo was in the first film), Dan is only awake for a few terrifying seconds before a machine shocks him and plugs him back in to the system. Dan immediately loses consciousness, but his forward momentum sends him tumbling over the finish line with a winning time of 8.72 seconds.

Days later, Dan is seen in a wheelchair in a catatonic state, while being closely watched by an Agent. Even though he is disabled in the Matrix, Dan gets up, slowly muttering the word "free", at which point he stands and walks a few paces, much to the dismay of the Agent. As Dan stands his hair begins to float as if he were in water and the walnuts he dropped on the floor prepare to levitate. Dan reaches high on his toes, then falls.

Beyond

Beyond is written and directed by Koji Morimoto.It is a midquel short film,during the first or second installment of the trilogy. It follows a teenage girl, Yoko (Hedy Burress), looking for her cat Yuki. While asking around the neighborhood, indicatively somewhere in Japan, she meets some younger boys. One of them tells her Yuki is inside a haunted house and invites her to see it.

The children have stumbled across an amalgamation of anomalies within an old, dilapidated building. They have learned to exploit this glitch in the Matrix for their own enjoyment, through several areas which seem to defy real-world physics: glass bottles reassemble after being shattered, rain falls from a sunny sky, broken lightbulbs flicker briefly (during which they seem intact), a door which opens into an endless dark void, shadows which do not align with their physical origins, and a dove's feather that rotates rapidly in place in mid-air. There is a large open space in the middle of the run-down building where they take turns jumping off a high point and falling towards the ground, yet somehow stopping inches before impact. This proves amusing and they do not seem to be bothered by the inherent strangeness of the place.

Throughout the film, brief sequences show that Agents are aware of the problem in the Matrix, and a truck is seen driving toward the site to presumably deal with the problem. It arrives while the children are still playing, and an Agent-led team of "rodent exterminators" moves in to clear everybody out of it. The story ends when Yoko and the others return to the area the next day and find the site has been turned into an unremarkable parking lot. They unsuccessfully attempt to re-create the bizarre occurrences of yesterday and soon go in search of something else to do.

A Detective Story

A Detective Story is written and directed by Shinichiro Watanabe, with animation by Kazuto Nakazawa and a direct prequel to first film. It follows the story of a down-on-his-luck private detective, Ash (James Arnold Taylor), on what he calls the "case to end all cases". Ash receives an anonymous phone call to search for a hacker that goes by the alias "Trinity" (Carrie-Anne Moss). Ash traces Trinity and learns that other detectives have failed in the same task before him; one had committed suicide, one had gone missing, and one had gone insane. He then attempts to speak with the insane detective but cannot get anything substantial out of him. This detective is an African American with a thin mustache who shows a resemblance to Walter Mosley's detective character 'Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins'. This is a possible homage to the character as Mosley's detective series is set in a similar Noir type setting and there were not many black detectives at the time.

Eventually Ash finds Trinity after deducing that he should communicate using phrases and facts from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. She proposes a meeting, and he successfully finds the location. At the meeting she removes a "bug" from his eye, planted by Agents earlier in an "eye exam dream". Agents appear and attempt to apprehend Trinity in a shoot-out with her and Ash. While the two fugitives are trying to escape the train, an Agent attempts to take over Ash's body, forcing Trinity to shoot him in order to prevent the Agent from appearing. Ash is wounded, whereupon he and Trinity bid farewells without malice. Trinity escapes, telling Ash that she thinks he could have handled the truth. Agents enter the car to find Ash, who points his gun at them while looking in the other direction and lighting a cigarette. The Agents turn to Ash who, even though he is armed, will likely die. With this apparent no-win situation, the film ends with Ash's line ("A case to end all cases") as his lighter flame goes out.^[3]

Matriculated

"Matriculated" redirects here. For the act of enrolling as a college or university student, see Matriculation.

Matriculated was written and directed by Korean American director Peter Chung, widely known for his work on Aeon Flux. Like Beyond, it is a midquel of the first or second film. The film deals with a group of above-ground human rebels who lure hostile intelligent machines to their laboratory in order to capture them and insert them into a "matrix" of their own design. Within this matrix, the humans attempt to teach the captured machines some of the positive traits of humanity, primarily compassion and empathy. The ultimate goal of this project is to help the intelligent machines develop free will in order to overcome their original "search-and-destroy" programming, rather than reprogramming it by force.

The rebels' hope is that, once converted of its own volition (a key point discussed in the film), an "enlightened" machine will assist Zion in its struggle against the machine-controlled totalitarianism which currently dominates the Earth. After capturing one of the "runner" robots, the rebels insert the machine into their matrix. The experience of the robot leads it to believe it may have a relationship with one of the female rebels, Alexa (Melinda Clarke), either friendship or something deeper.

However, the rebel group is attacked by the Machines and unplug themselves to defend their headquarters, but they experience what might be considered a Pyrrhic Victory: all the onscreen rebels are killed but the single robot captured in the film successfully 'reprogrammed', indicated by the machine's mechanical eye changing from red to green. The robot plugs the dying Alexa into their matrix with itself, the only two things left surviving. Much to the machine's dismay, when the rebel realizes she is trapped inside the matrix with the "friendly" robot, she turns horrified and her avatar dissolves screaming as she clutches her head, and the robot exits from the rebels' matrix to see a motionless Alexa in front of him in the real world.

The film ends on an ambiguous note, whether or not the machine has decided to carry on the mission of the humans who 'reprogrammed' it, as the converted robot stands guard outside the headquarters of the now deceased human rebels.

See also

• Simulated reality
• Operation: A.R.C.H.I.V.E., an episode of Codename: Kids Next Door that parodies The Second Renaissance.
• Batman: Gotham Knight, a similar collection of animated shorts, in this case focusing on the superhero Batman.
• Halo Legends, a similar collection of animated shorts, in this case depicting the Halo universe.

References

1. ^ "What is The Animatrix?" feature on The Matrix Revisited DVD.
2. ^ This is an actual quotation from Dred Scott v. Sandford, spoken by the defense at the trial of B1-66ER in Part I.
3. ^ Easy Rawlins

External links

• Official Animatrix Website (Free episodes links broken on 3/23/2008)
• Official Matrix Website (site no longer available)
• The Animatrix at the Internet Movie Database
• The Animatrix streaming episodes on TheWB
• The Animatrix (anime) at Anime News Network's Encyclopedia
• Animerica reviews:
  • The Second Renaissance part 1
  • The Second Renaissance part 2
  • Program
  • World Record
  • Beyond
  • Kid's Story
  • Detective Story
  • Matriculated
  • The Final Flight of the Osiris