Movies-TV

For Matrix Fans and Animation Fans Alike..

Well now... you have the directors of Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop, Akira, Ninja Scroll, the Final Fantasy Movie, and Aeon Flux all popped into one nice DVD. Out of the episodes I've seen, which are the 4 episodes on the official website and the Osiris short shown with Dreamcatcher, the Animatrix DVD is gonna be one of my "must buys" for June.

Each episode is not to go unnoticed each showing a particular side of the Matrix universe (including how it was created) making it an essential for any Matrix fan. Also one has to respect the amount of quality in detail and animation put into each short episode.

If you're not an Anime fan.. these episodes should show you why you should be :-b. If you are, you should know what to expect from these directors and in my opinion, i think you won't be disappointed.

animatrix

A great video, again purchased for my son, who really enjoyed it. Amazon got it to him before his birthday which was an added bonus. It's a great vidwo for many ages.

A great addition

In short; these shorts are an amazing collaboration of great directors, each with their own style, and fantasic stories. You get the history of The Matrix (Second Renaissance), Trinity (Detective Story), an add-on (Flight of the Osiris) to Reoladed, and some unbeatable animation. Not only that but this helps reviel the world that the Wachowski brothers envision while creating (what I think are) the best movies ever made. A great addition to anyone that likes the matrix.

Nice anime sampler platter

This is a great DVD for a fan of the Matrix or for introducing someone to anime. If you're a fan of the Matrix, it answers some of the unanswered questions from the movies. "We don't know who struck first, us or them. But we do know it was us that scorched the sky." Thanks to "Second Renaissance," now we know who struck first and more.

If you want to introduce someone to anime, this is also good because of the diversity in this DVD. Each segment shows a differant aspect of what anime has to offer. It's like a really nice sampler platter to help whet the appetite.

There's only reason I didn't give five stars. Some segments were way too compact for the amount of story they were trying to cram in. To be fair, there's only so much story you can cram into a 9-16 minute frame of time. That these writers/directors were able to do as much with their segments as they did is a real testiment to their skill.

A word on the sound track, it's definetely worth the extra bit of cash. With 12 tracks including "Meat Beat Manifesto" and "Juno Reactor," it's a great listen to.

Not so good

the Animatrix has some of the best animation I have ever seen. I consists of nine different short films related to the matrix in some way. I thought this would have a lot of facts about the story behind the movies, but most of the short films talk about wierd things that are vaguely related to the movies. Besides, some of the have a really bad story inside them, which often ruins the amazing animation of the animatrix.
For example, "World record" and "beyond" wont appeal to almost no one because the story is stupid and boring. In fact, there were only 5 stories that I somewhat liked. This were "the final flight of the osiris", which is the story of what happened before the movie, "the matrix reloaded" and the game, "Enter the Matrix". I also liked "The second renaissance part 1&2, which tells about the rise of A.I., the war between machines and humans, and the creation of the matrix. "A detective story", that tells a story about trinity and a detective, and "Kids story", a story about a kid rescued out of the matrix by Neo, Are also good ones.
Overall, I give the Animatrix three stars because I loved some of the animation, But I think the stories were pretty bad
I recommend a rent but I woudnt tell you to buy it unless you like the matrix and you are a fanatic of anime

Matrix Fanboys Need Only Apply

Okay, I didn't mind the first Matrix film, but hated the other two. I thought I might enjoy Animatrix, as I quite like anime and I hoped knowing more of the backstory would bring me a little closer to enjoying the live-action (if you can call it that, ahaha) trilogy.
Animatrix was an overall waste of my time (the first film 'Final Flight...' isn't even anime, and is basically a ridiculous attempt at non-pornographic pornography), 'A Detective Story' being the only real standout for me. 'The Second Renaissance' is kinda neat, but really it's nothing new if you know anything about anime film. There are interesting little bits every now and then, but you have to sit through the dross to get to them.
Mostly, it's very nice to look at, graphic and disturbing at times, but would probably be cooler to have playing mute on your bigscreen TV at a geek party with some Aphex Twin or ATR in the stereo.
I was disappointed (although not surprised) but I'm sure it's a necessity for the fanboy crowd. Everyone else, keep your money.

Amazing

After watching the Animatrix, I was amazed at how good it was, but also what a powerful effect it had on me. I'm not ussualy a person who is affected a lot by violence in films or animation, but some of the stuff in this really disturbed me, more than stuff I had seen before.

The best and also worst animation in the collection has to the The 2nd Rennaisance parts 1 and 2. Some of the scenes depicted in this come accross as serving no purpose except for the director to serve his total morbid and frankly sick imagination. Another thing that strikes me as a read the reviews is the amount of people saying how hard done by the machines were. The most distrubing single thing that happens to the machines is probably a female machine being torn up and shot by a group of human thugs, or some thousands of bodies being dumped, machines being run over or executed. For one, these are artificial beings, humans have more right to be on the earth than they do period. Secondly, it doesnt even come close to the acts the machines carry out on humans. Against humans we again see the thousands of skulls piled up, but how about a man being ripped out of his mech armour slowly and calculatedly by a sentinel with no mercy, or the tank crews having the turrets ripped off and then being killed? Oh, and then there's the terrible experiments the machines carry out on humans.

However, there are some of flaws in this that make me worry less about it actually getting to the stage it does in the future. For one, if the machine city was nuked, there would not be 'no effect' as the 2nd r tries to say, superheat? electromagnetic pulse? War over. I also doubt that having the technology for much more effective weapons (as shown by the large stationary weapons placed on the battlefield) that the humans battle mechs would be equipped with woefuly inadequate machine guns.

Overall though, this was a great DVD with the 2nd rennaissance being the highlight, although it can be hard to watch because of the overly vile violence. Another great one is Matriculated.

Matrix fans should love this ...

Reminds me a lot of the old movie 'Heavy Metal.' This is a great compliation of stories involving characters that appear in the two films and a ton of backstory of how the matrix came to be.

I hope that this is the first in a series of 'Animatrix' movies. I'd love to see more just like it.

I'd be remiss if I didn't drop a quick warning as well, this movie earns its 'R' rating and is definitly not intended for younger veiwers, extremely graphic at points.

Unfair Hype

Spoiler herein. You've beeen warned.I really do feel for the good people behind the Matrix phenomenon. MATRIX RELOADED really WAS well-done, in spite of some necessary slow moments early on, in order to establish a few things. But because it didn't break much new ground as its predecessor did, it's been panned as a failure. Same goes for THE ANIMATRIX. I'll tackle these one by one: FINAL FLIGHT OF THE OSIRIS was a bit disappointing. It really added very little to the mythos of the Matrix. Good looking, but nothing we who saw FINAL FANTASY haven't seen before (Asian booty excluded). THE SECOND RENAISSANCE is truly one of the highlights of this DVD. THIS is what the Animatrix should've done throughout: MORE BACKSTORY. It's dark, depressing, and at times quite disturbing, but that's what the brothers probably intended. Like the movies, these two shorts contain a socio-political subtext, though it's rooted less in classic philosophy and more in today's international headlines/our own nation's history.KID'S STORY is just plain cool. It was a great idea to show a fun little backstory to a minor character in "Reloaded", but it left me asking just one question...if you can wake up by committing suicide, how did this geeky skater kid think of that before the legendary Neo or the great Morpheus.....heck, even the freaking ORACLE?! Really, the rest of the DVD will be great fun to anyone who really likes traditional anime, so I won't bother with anymore comments. Plus, there's an enlightening feature on the history of anime, which makes this worth renting, but save your 20 bucks for when "Reloaded" arrives on DVD.

Boring

Rented this cheap at the local supermarket...to see what it was and glad I did. Basically nine short films done anime-style or with CGI (Final Flight of the Osiris, first one).

I just found the whole thing boring. Found myself fast-forwarding to skip past the overdone imagery to see the nine stories unfold. Not really that much to "watch," even for a short film. Some of the voice acting is awful and clichéd when it's there. Mostly there isn't any voice, just the visuals and music.

Those who LOVE anime that skimps on voicework will love this. Everyone else looking for some cool action (and drama sub-text, as in the case of Matrix Reloaded or even M1) will probably find this a real snooze.

Cutting Edge Animation for Matrix Fans

The Animatrix is a curiosity and it serves to highlight clearly the Wachowski brother's committment to this project. A series of short (each about ten minutes) animated adventures set in the world of the Matrix movies, The Animatrix explores the themes and possibilities of the movies using different techniques from CGI to traditional Anime.

As a fan of CGI the two standout pieces for me were "Last Flight of the Osiris" and "Matriculated". "Last Flight of the Osiris" (from the team responsible for "Final Fantasy") is jaw dropping state of the art hyper-real CGI. It is obvious that much of the Matrix Reloaded was produced in this way. The opening scene is absolutely delicious as two very attractive CGI characters disrobe eachother in a virtual martial arts sword fight. The piece goes on to illustrate a link between the first two movies in the Matrix trilogy.

But the one that really got me was "Matriculated". An astounding blend of CGI and handrawn animation this film really explores the possibilities of the medium and the results are mind-blowing, and quite psychadelic in places. A curious story about a group of humans who attempt to convert machines to their cause, "Matriculated" really pushes the boundaries. For hardcore fans it is worth owning the DVD for these two pieces alone, however the other pieces are excellent too, using more standard animation techniques to tell their stories. Those with a passing interest in the Matrix movies will probably be happier just renting The Animatrix.

If you are unfamiliar with Anime it is worth noting that it often contains strong violence and sexual material, and the Animatrix is no exception. One scene in particular depicted violence against a robot made to look like a human woman and I found this quite uncomfortable to watch.

After watching The Animatrix I am left feeling confident that despite the unexpected success of the first Matrix movie, the Wachowski brothers are committed to bringing the Matrix to the World with integrity. A lot of people have been disappointed in the second movie, but seen in the context of an action packed comic book sci-fi saga it all makes sense, and its really working for me. It is not going to be to everyone's taste, but this is to the directors' credit, not to their detriment.

Ignore the sequels, watch this and the first movie only

Well, even if you don't ignore the second and third movies you HAVE to include this as an important part of the series. Not all the episodes are brilliant, but a few give valuable insight into the background of the film story. My favorite may be the kids playing in a "broken" area of the matrix, where the rules of physics don't seem to apply. But others include the history or the human/robot war and an incident reffered to briefly in the second film.

You cannot consider yourself a fan of the Matrix and not include this in your library.

Epic, Dramatic and even more confusing then the films

The Animatrix is the given view points of the matrix through the minds of some of the great directors in anime;Yoshiaki Kawajiri (Ninja Scroll), Koji Morimoto (Robot Carnival), and Shinchiro Watanabe (Cowboy Bebop). There not only a great set of directors but through there eyes they always push a stunning an intresting look for the matrix.


Through the cg- to basic hand drawn animation. All of which have not only deep characters but a deep stories. They seemed to leave you astray in confusion leaving some questions unanswered,if not presenting more.


Even if some of them are a bit odd and confusing, they don't leave you at the gate except one matriculated and maybe a bit from world record both of these just go too deep where they just end up being eye candy instend of showing any real message. The rest can be confusing but most can pixk up on the basics of the story along the way.

With all these deep stories and intresting characters, its kind of odd kon(paranoia agent) isn't doing a episode. He would have been perfect. I love all the directors, but he would have been the best for the job. All the episode have a strange sence of direction which they don't do normally, every single work kon has done is just that way deep characters, storylines and a strange bizare twist of real and fantasy, WHICH IS KON!


In the end, animatrix is a giant sample of sights and sounds from numerous diffrent viewpoints is a great change was and is a great change for the matrix and adds more to the story then the sequels ever could. Why a 4? Cause like I said its a mixbag, some arn't gold. Many are but not all of them, oh and theres no kon:P

The rabbit hole just gets deeper and deeper....

This is the kind of thing I crave. Whenever I consume a good movie, book, or CD; I always want more. Although not religious about THE MATRIX series, I did enjoy the first film (great DVD!) and have yet to see RELOADED. Having something as cool as THE ANIMATRIX come out directly on DVD was a stroke of genius. The nine animated shorts on this disc are all exceptional, some more than others of course. A visual cornicopia of different animated styles, the feature is not only for MATRIX fans but for sci-fi and art fans as well. You need not be labled a geek for procuring this item for it stands on its own as a cool little collage of smart ideas based on the MATRIX mythos. I sometimes find myself looking for a DVD that I can pop in and enjoy some cool visuals and soundscapes for fifteen minutes, this is that DVD. Worth it.

Thought Bubbles

It goes without saying that The Animatrix is a mixed bag. Some of the shorts revel in obscure symbolism (Matriculated). Some are grounded tales of familiar Matrix themes (Kid's Story). In between are the majority, which explore familiar themes in an imaginative way (the lucid dream that is Beyond, for example), or indulge a director's penchant for a certain film genre (A Detective Story).While there are some shorts that will do nothing but annoy certain people, they do nothing to reduce the quality of the collection as a whole- if you're after a bag of thought-provoking ideas with coo-inducing visual styles, look no further.

One word. Stunning.

This may be the first time I've watched a movie *twice* during the same session.Even if this collection of short stories doesn't help you solve the riddles "Reloaded" started, they are a most welcome surprise for anyone who has been interested in The Matrix universe. From Trinity's background to the story about the war against the machines, from alternate points of view on what is "real" and what is not, to apparently trivial stories about what happens when The Matrix detects an error, it's all here - presented in breathtaking animated sequences.One of the best DVD's I own, by far. A definite "must buy" for any Matrix fan.

ok I guess

soem were interesting in regards to filling in the gaps of storyline, but all in ok, just an OK dvd living off the name of movie.

Mixed bag.

Final Flight of the Osiris: This is just a glorified fanfic. It bridges the gap between the first and second movies, but it's not really necessary to either of them. Even though the computer graphics are excellent, they end up detracting from the action, since they look so plastic and lifeless that there's never a sense of danger to any of it. This just sort of seemed pointless as anything other than a teaser for Reloaded.Second Renaissance 1 + 2: These are interesting rather than entertaining. They help flesh out the backstory and overall world, but there are no characters, and anyone who's seen the movies knows what happens, so they aren't engaging. There's a lot of very stylish, scary sequences in part 2, but the saturation of historical / mythological references are just cringeworthy. Do we really need to see The Million Man March, and countless other events, re-enacted by machines? Yes, history moves in cycles, but the -exact same events- don't repeat themselves. Especially with the same names.Beyond: This was worth the cost of disc. It's a real exploration of the idea of the Matrix, and what its effects would be. While the movies use it the virtual world as an excuse for reality-defying fights, Beyond looks at the ways it would affect the 'regular' world and people. Also, rather than having a plot with heroes, villains and danger (as per every other short), it's content to simply be curious and imaginative. After seeing it, I wished the movies had been more like it.World Record: Similar to Beyond, this is about characters and events that aren't a carbon copy of something that happened in the movies. It's not as original or absorbing as Beyond, but since Beyond is one of the best Animes I've seen for ages, that's not really a criticism.Program has some good fighting. Detective story has a really good film noir feel. Kid's Story is awful. Matriculated has a few good ideas before it becomes overlong. I can't really think of much to say about them, since they're just expansions on the movies rather than self-contained stories. Like Final Flight of the Osiris, there's nothing here you couldn't find on a 'Matrix Fanfiction' bulletin board.

PURE JAPANIMATION!

I would like someone to try to find a product with these many warriors of Japanimation working in connection toether! I'm talking writers and director's of some of the most beautiful crafted storylines and characters ever to be put on something since the Sisteen Chapel! Every episode has such beautiful work and effort put into each of the 9 episodes. Now I know that alot of people have been complaining about this DVD but try to look at the stories as a whole and you will only see for yourself that the way the animatrix has been envisioned is only for the viewer's understanding and convincing. You see, it's all about the story of the Matrix in itself and what the Matrix is. When you find that out I bet you can't wait till some new things arrive from these pioneers of manga and anime.

Skip it.

What is the Animatrix? Nine very short and uninspiring animated shorts. The good part? You'll realize this after 2, and turn it off. Last Flight of the Osiris is another Final Fantasy. If you liked that movie, you'll probably love this DVD. However, the vast majority of humanity did not. Some of stories don't even fit in with the world already created in the first two movies. Creativity? Yeah... but it's missused: perhaps even abused here. The 'Anime influence' is terrible... almost Samuri Jackish. The writers took all the anime cliches and threw them together to make their story. The Animatrix is a terrible mix of cliches of many genres.
Don't believe anyone that tells you this is necessary to understand The Matrix: Reloaded. If you want to understand it, go see it again. As for the Animatrix, unless you know you prefer animation over soul, or you are the type of guy that gets off on animated-half-nudity, take the blue pill.