I *just* got around to watching this (twas a Father's Day gift) and I must say, that *I* think it is worth your $19.99
Nine feature animated shorts (Visions as the W. Bros. would have us call them), give us a backdrop to both the time before the Matrix and the time between the Matrix and Matrix Reloaded.
Here we get to see:
1. What happens to the Osiris (the ship that sent the tranmission of the sentinels digging).
2. How anomalies inside the Matrix can make anyone look gifted.
3. The last days of man and the first man-machine war
4. Why that kid was annoying the hell out of Neo, Trinity and Link.
5. How the machines tried over and over again to capture Trinity and FAILED.
I won't give away any of the good stuff, but suffice to say I wasn't disappointed in the least.
It actually made me wish I had Reloaded on DVD already so I could watch it a zillion times (like the Matrix).
Anyone else seen this and have thoughts to share?
DrOp--Be there at that EXACT time, and you'll have a chance...
I liked everything but "Final Flight of the Osiris" and "Matriculated. Anyone who had to sit through "Matriculated" and DOESN'T want to kill Peter Chung I don't know what more evidence you need.
My top three installments are "Detective Story," "Kid's Story" and "Second Renaissance."
-LS "ahhh...vague, mandatory knee-jerk cynicism. God Bless Internet Forums.."
Like many of my friends, the more I learn of the Matrix's backstory, the less I am impressed with the Brothers W.
The whole robot revolution (which was really funny today when I saw a T3 trailer and one of my friends joked that John Conner was the first Neo) is just standard SF, complete with gratuitious Nippon-phile A-bomb explosion.
I loved some of the shorts, but man, the emperor is wearing less and less clothes every day.
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Question for all of you who have seen it, does it tell what happened to Tank within the plot? I know the actor was fired and all, but I wished in Reloaded it said how the guy died!
Rorschach: "None of you understand. I'm not locked up in here with you. You're locked up in here with me."
My favorite one was definitely the Haunted House. That one was so creative, eerie, and fascinating that I wish they'd made a full length movie about it.
The Tank situation is never addressed. I think we're supposed to think he died between movies from his injuries.
The Trinity/Detective one was fun, as was the haunted house one. I didn't mind Matriculated that much, although I didn't see what was the point of leading the machine all around like crazy elves. The runner one was interesting, and the kid one was okay. The program one was cool for the medieval Japan motif. The Osirus one was surprisingly short (they literally did just stumble onto the machines), and the opening was gratuitous. Once I realized what they were doing, I have to wonder if that's the best form of foreplay they could think of. I know they're in control, but one slip with those swords... And can't the Operator *watch* them, or were they not going to continue?
The two dealing with the history do ruin the matrix a bit. It was good as far as filling in detail, but I think those same details affect the rest of the story. I'm still not sure what the humans were expecting to happen when they blocked out the sun. Last I checked, don't we get our food from plants (and animals that eat plants), which all depends on the sun? I know that leads to that gruel stuff they eat in the matrix, but if we're expecting to live off other forms of power, why wouldn't we have expected the machines to be able to also? Plus, the prejudice against the machines was a bit heavy handed. I think the brief history we got in the first movie was enough. Any more details always tend to ruin the story, and it usually results in a few inconsistencies, and more questions than answers.
Originally posted by EddieBurkett I didn't mind Matriculated that much, although I didn't see what was the point of leading the machine all around like crazy elves.
The runner one was interesting, and the kid one was okay. The program one was cool for the medieval Japan motif.
The two dealing with the history do ruin the matrix a bit. It was good as far as filling in detail, but I think those same details affect the rest of the story. I'm still not sure what the humans were expecting to happen when they blocked out the sun. Last I checked, don't we get our food from plants (and animals that eat plants), which all depends on the sun. I liked it, but I'm glad I chose to rent.
1 - Matriculated. The running around stuff must have served to convince the robot they were sweet and innocent. I like the end of it though..
2 - The runner and the Kid..love the idea behind those. Unlike Neo who had to be guided. These people actually almost free themselves of the Matrix without help!
3 - The war..liked it. It was basically a simply history of mankind. We never learn from our mistakes and are stupid enough to wipe ourselves out so we can defeat the robots (by blocking the sun). We just go out and destroy and not think of the consequences (like losing our life source, our crops and weaponry too) I loved the usage of classic war images translated into the human-robot wars.
(edited by dMp on 23.6.03 1114) *sigh* Why bother?
Interesting. The group of friends and I, after watching it, were convinced that we wanted to take the movie back and get our money back. It was too much, and just not my style.
I dug Osiris and the two backstory shorts, but it got boring and too out-there after that. In fact, I felt dumber after viewing the last short. What a pile of pretty colored garbage that was.
It gets a 4 out of 9 as far as I'm concerned.
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I liked all of them. The Second Renasiance was a bit like the Terminator history, but there are some differances. One of which is we don't know how the machines became concious and why they attacked humanity. There are some good theories behind it, but nothing we have really seen minus T3 which is coming out this year. Second Renasiance shows us the beginnings of the machine era and the human era. I still think it will be better in T3 anyway.
The only one I didn't like was the Maticulated was a bit weak. The whole acid trip look of the middle was stupid, but the idea of having turning the machines against each other was clever and the final battle was cool. Out of all of them, I thought Program and Detective Story was the best. Program was the best complete story out of the bunch while Detective was great film noir with a typical film noir ending. I do think that they are making more plot holes with some of the stories and with Reloaded. If the detective could be turned into an agent why couldn't NEO they do that to NEO at the beginning? He is a threat just turn him agent end of story. I realize once they are out of the Matrix this may not occur, but the Agents had him before he met Morphous. It makes no sense, but after seeing Reloaded making sense is not these guys strong suit.
A Fan- I'd rather seen Animatrix then see Reloaded again.
Just rent the previous two extended versions and watch them first. They're great epic movies even if you have no interest in reading the books or getting or know Tolkien's other stuff.