Fans of the The Matrix won't be able to get enough of The Animatrix

By: Adnan Virk

Posted: 2/18/03

Can't wait until the May release of The Matrix Reloaded? Need a little something to wet your appetite?

Well the creators of The Matrix, Andy and Larry Wachowski, are ready to ease the pain with a project known simply as The Animatrix.

The Animatrix is a series of nine animated short films, ranging from six to fourteen minutes each, featuring some of the top talent in both Japanese anime and CG-animation.

These talents include Koji Morimoto (animation supervisor for "Akira"), Peter Chung (creator of the former MTV series "Aeon Flux"), Andy Jones (animation director for the CG film Final Fantasy), along with many more.

The stories take you beyond the films and into the inner reaches of The Matrix universe, diving into backstories, perspectives of "ordinary" people inside the Matrix, and lives of other resistance fighters struggling to survive.

Over the next few months, The Animatrix will invade all mediums, including the internet, movie theaters, and DVD.

The first four short films are being released in full on the official website on a monthly basis, from this month through May.

Meanwhile, a nine minute computer generated installment (by the tech wizards behind Final Fantasy) hits theaters in March, attached to the Warner Brothers film Dreamcatcher.

To top it all off, four new shorts, the previous five, and a ton of extras, will be collected and released on DVD in June.

The first installment, "The Second Renaissance: Part 1" just went live on the website and delves into the back-story of The Matrix, detailing how the mistreatment and enslavement of artificial intelligence by humanity led them to fight back and form a "robot nation."

The animation and visuals are stunning and surreal, ranging from the trial of a robot that fought back against his human master, faux news reports of "the million machine march," to wild street riots between robots and humans.

The allegories are a tad obvious, but it's still a poignant and interesting story that actually gives a lot of depth to the "villains" of The Matrix films.

Coming next month on the site is "Program," in which a human resistance fighter has to choose between love in a simulated matrix and her comrades in the real world.

April's short, "Detective Story," is about a private investigator who tracks down the mysterious cyber-criminal Trinity (voiced by Carrie-Anne Moss, from the films).

May brings us "The Second Renaissance: Part 2,"'which should tell the story of the last cities of mankind and the fall of humanity.

Attached to Dreamcatcher in theaters will be "The Final Flight of the Osiris," in which the crew of the hovercraft Osiris must evade a swarm of robotic Sentinels and deliver an urgent message to Zion, the last remaining human city.

The final four installments, which you'll be able to see on the full DVD collection, include the story of a record-holding sprinter whose speed "breaks" him out of the matrix, a child who's offered a way out of the matrix by Neo (voiced by Keanu Reeves), a resident of a quiet town who stumbles onto a "bug" in the system, and a group of resistance fighters trying to re-program a robot to their cause.

If the first "episode" is any indication, fans of The Matrix as well as those who just like a cool story won't be able to get enough of The Animatrix.

Visit www.theanimatrix.com to watch the short films as they're released online and see a cool video preview of upcoming episodes.