If you are a true fan of The Matrix trilogy (not the people who follows the Gothic culture the movie illustrates or a person who is fascinated by the fighting scenes or slow-motion stunts) but one who is really fascinated by the philosophy of the movie based on then you must have seen the movie already. If not the best thing to do is to stop reading this article and find the Animatrix movie and watch it first. The Animatrix is a collection of 9 animated short film collection based on the trilogy. The Wachowski brothers were involved in making The Animatrix and 4 of the stories were written by themselves. Rest of the stories were written by the director Shinichiro Watanabe. Some of the stories are related to the Trilogy but the main purpose of the movie was to give the fans more insight into the philosophy of the movie. In my opinion these 9 stories are better than the last 2 movies since these are more focused on giving audience a different insight into the world of Matrix while the last two films of Matrix trilogy are more focused on just the battle between man and machine world. Personally I love watching matrix movies again and again to grasp more philosophical aspects I might have missed. Even the narrative techniques that are used in these short movies are different and unique to each other. For example The first short movie “Final fight of Osiris ” is produced by using CGI and very rich in graphics but not much in story itself but the short movie “Kid’s story” looks like hand drawn and a bit messy but has a strong root in philosophy of matrix. Both these films are related to the original trilogy.
- Final fight of the Osiris
This short film was written by Wachowski brothers and directed by Andy Jones. The story of this film is directly connected to Matrix reloaded. It uses high tech 3D animation and lot of people appreciated the hard work of crew to portrait high quality of even the smallest detail of human figures. The movie starts between a simulator fight between Thadeus, Captain of the ship Osiris and Jue, a crew member in Osiris. When they are fighting in simulator, they had to stop it due presence of machines on their way. They see an army of sentinel army with huge drilling machines. Soon Thadeus realises these sentinel army is on it’s way to enter Zion and destroy the only human city that survived from machines. There wasn’t no time to return to Zion and warn so they decide to send zion a message and Jue volunteers to enter to matrix and send it. Eventually she was able to deliver the message while crew of Osiris fight hard to buy her more time. Eventually sentinels destroy the ship and every one on ship die. In movie reloaded we can see rebels were able to get the information sent by Osiris.
There’s not much to talk about this film in depth but the quality of animation and the effort taken by animation crew to produce such an outstanding short movie should be appreciated.
2.The Second Renaissance (Part 1 and 2)
These two short films were written by Wachowskis and directed by Mahiro Maeda. Although part 1 and 2 are considered as two short films in movie part 2 is just a continuation of part 1 .Therefore it’s easier to talk both of them combined. The second Renaissance tells the genesis of the matrix and the behind story of long lasting human machine war. The story is told by on the perspective of a 3rd person and this gives the audience an unbiased view of what happened. In my opinion watching this is essential part in order to understand Matrix movie. It will enrich your experience.
According to the narrator human race succeed in creating AI (Artificial Intelligence) during 21st century. Humans become the master of the robots as anticipated and as a result will start to be dependent more and more on robot as time pass by. According to the narrator no one knew when exactly machines became self-aware but a Robot named B1-66ER killed it’s master because he was afraid that his master will destroy him and replace him with a new model. Humans were shocked by this and immediately decides to destroy the whole robot population. After a robot holocaust robot retreated to establish their own nation named “01”. Robot leaders were able to establish trade once again with humans and this eventually make robot economy a stronger one than humans. As a result humans put economic sanctions and eventually this leads to a war between human and machine. Long story short, Machines win the war despite humans try to cut the main power source for robots, sun light by covering whole sky with dark smoke. As a result of this robots turn into a more reliable power source and unfortunately the power source happens to be humans. They start to construct huge power plants that they can use human body energy to produce electricity. In order to keep human minds under control they comes up with a simulated world called matrix.
The story looks more like a history lesson but I love the way it narrated. It uses a 3rd person’s perspective into the narration makes story unbiased. Even though second renaissance is about inception of matrix, I think it illustrates the deep connection we always had with the machines we made. I believe it’s not a completely wrong to say machines (tools) made man instead of saying man made machines. Even now we can’t think about living a single day without using a single tool. This short film never illustrate machines or humans are the culprits but rather shows the reasoning for their actions and the consequences. Besides this the treatment of robots symbolizes the treatment of salves in past. It shows how bad people are resolving problems when they are not thinking clearly.
3.Kid’s story
This story is my favorite due to it’s very unique art style. It’s almost like the characters are alive. Besides this the story itself is very interesting.
The story is about a boy name Karl Popper who always felt something is not ok with the world he lives. One day he saw he is falling from a building in a dream and wakes up. He sat down in front of the computer with a confused mind and start to chat with someone in a chat room. Karl questions about the feelings he is having and stranger gives strange answers and suddenly he disappears. That day at school he suddenly get phone call from Neo. Neo warns Karl that agents are coming for Karl. Karl see people wearing black suits getting off from car through a window Karl believe him and flee from them. Then he climbs up to the roof top of the building. When Karl climbs up there he see agents are waiting for them. He realises there is no way to escape he stats to leaning back while holding onto the rails. Then he recalls the strange dream he had. His dream was that he is jumping off the building roof. He mutters “Neo I believe in you, I knew it wasn’t a dream” as he letting go of the railing. He falls to the ground below as screen gets black.
Then we see his teacher and few other people attend his funeral and talks about how Karl was couldn’t bear the reality and tried to escape. The scene comes to an end as the teacher says to himself while looking at the sky that there is no doubt Karl is in a another place now.
Then we see a room looks like some sort of room filled with wires and soon we start to hear voices that can be recognized as Neo and trinity. They are talking about self-substantiation of a person and how amazing it is. Then we start to hear the voice of Karl and it shows he is the person who was self-substantiated. Karl thank to Neo for saving him from but Neo explained that no one saved him but himself and the film comes to an end with a shot of Karl’s computer screen that shows Neo’s reply to a question.
Karl>“Who are you? Am I alone?”
Neo> “You are not alone…”
Kid’s story is my favorite not just because of how cool is it’s graphic but how deep it’s philosophical roots are. Karl represents people who are curious world around them. Their way of thinking is different than others and as a result they come to know the truth about their world and themselves. This is symbolized by self-substantiation of Karl. In matrix self-substantiation is almost impossible. According to matrix story only people are very exceptional are the people who can free themselves. Others need help from outside. Even Neo. There is no one who can help with this journey for salvation. You have to take responsibility of saving yourself. That’s what neo explained to Karl by saying “you saved yourself”. This concept is very similar to teachings in Buddhism. There are teachers who can guide you to nirvana (enlightenment, understanding the true nature of nature) but it’s you who is going to go along that path and teach yourself. It can be achieved only by struggling with yourself coming to realize the illusion of self. (By realizing there is no spoon!!). Kid’s story borrows lots of concepts from Buddhism (eastern culture) but it has done justice to it by presenting them in an understandable way for people who raised in western culture. For me Kid’s story is more than just a animation film. It’s a portrait of what of true nature of our world.
4.Program
The movie starts with two people fighting in a simulation wearing body armors like Japanese warriors. We can understand the man and woman are having a relationship. After a heavy fight, Duo, the male fighter revels that he is going back to matrix and invites her to join as well. But she refuses and tries to get away from him. They keep fighting and running trying to justify their choices. Duo justifies his decision to leave real world and plugging back into matrix by saying “I’ve come to my senses” and “What real doesn’t matter .What’s important is how we live our lives. “ She refuses his invitation by saying since they know the truth, they won’t be able to live in matrix any more. Eventually the simulation program comes to an end when girl kills Duo and wakes up in their ship in real world. Duo is standing right next to her trying to calm her down by explaining that what happened is just a part of a training and a test and she has scored highest score in judgment technique and concentration areas. Then she punch to his face to release her anger and takes lift to her room. Film closes showing her exhausted face in dark.
This film questions about how faithful are we to the choices we make. This is something even matrix movies are also talk about. In Matrix movie Cypher becomes fed up with choosing the rebel life over matrix and wants to go into matrix once again even he knows everything in matrix is just an illusion. He betrays his crew to goes back to matrix but die as a traitor. Choices are a really important aspect in matrix. Choices is what at the heart of matrix and according to the architect it’s essential to keep the balance in matrix.
I will bring you the rest of the stories in my next post. Watch the following videos if you want to know about simulated universes concept and how far are we from creating a one .
Rebooting the Cosmos: Is the Universe the Ultimate Computer?
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