Second Episode of The Animatrix Released

murphyslawyer writes "The second episode of Animatrix is now available. Download it here"

I liked the first episode

[Dark Paladin]

Granted, it was rather short, and it rather thunked you over the head with its message rather than letting the story give it to you - but there were elements that were incredibly well done.

First, the animation itself - a mix of hand-drawn and computer technology in the realm of Lain and Blood: The Last Vampire, only to an even better and more refined degree.

Then there were the images within the artwork. Probably the most disturbing scene in the first Animatrix video shows a women having her clothes torn off by a mob, and that sick feeling filling your gut as a man walks forward and bashes her in the head with a club - only to reveal that she's a robot, and as her all-too human looking breasts spill from her town shirt and her metallic head revealed, your both drawn and repelled by the feeling of how horrible to kill a woman in distress - except she isn't a woman at all. And yet, does that make it any more right?

So far, it's been an interesting lead in to the whole Matrix mythos. I'm downloading the second episode now (90 minutes to go) with high hopes.

Anyone got the Kazaa dat file?

[Salamanders]

Or any other version of a P2P sig for it?

It makes me ask...

[Anonvmous Coward]

...why aren't the 3 movies animated?

The world of the 'future' in the first prequal was a much richer setting than the live-action movies.

Coulda made for a much more interesting story if they could let their imaginations grow.

Re:I liked the first episode but .....

[wodon]

Although watching anything to do with the matrix is so exciting I cant explain, i cant help but feel disappointed with the first episode.
Now i have gone back to it and watched it a few times I realise how annoyed I am that the writers tried to explain the rise of the machines. One of the things about the human resistance is that they dont know what happened, and we could all imagine it in out own apocalyptic fashion.

Im downloading the second part now so I hope it is more like the matrix universe we know.

One thing that made the matrix more believeable to "geek culture" is that they didnt try to explain or quantify the computers, they just said that they existed. Thus preventing outdating and movie mumbo jumbo.

Enough of my waffling, im still buzzing while I wait for the clip! only 90 meg to go!!!!

Re:Overview

[tekunokurato]

This is not true. Anime is defined by an expert at Wellesley College as:

"Anime is distinct from other forms of animation because it usually has fewer cels per second, giving it a less fluid, more static look. It also has stylistic designs: The characters have large eyes or the backgrounds are fully realized watercolor pictures. Anime is not exclusively for kids, although children may watch anime not targeted for them- part of the cultural differences between Japan and the U.S."

Re:I liked the first episode

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I wasn't particularly impressed with the first Animatrix short. The animation was very nice, but the story itself was too heavy-handed for me.

The moral issues involving artificially intelligent life forms have been dealt with so many times that the premise just seemed rehashed. Certainly, it would be easy to cite examples of science fiction that deals with questions of robotic intelligence much more subtley.

But what dissapointed me was that the short failed to touch on the themes of the original Matrix. I think it would have been more interesting to see the origin of the Matrix explore the deep psychological oppression that the Matrix represents.

But that's just my opinion, and it was an entertaining short movie. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.

Re:1st Ep 2nd Ep

[Viking Coder]

I thought the two were a great mix.

1st Episode - Heavy on plot, heavy naration, no lasting characters, lots of gore, not too much fun action, all in the real world.

2nd Episode - Light on plot, no naration, interesting characters, no gore, lots of fun action, almost all in the Matrix. (Actually the sparring program.)

I mean, you put them together, and that pretty well describes the first Matrix movie. (Except for the gore - I don't really think the first movie had much gore.)

(Al Gore: "I invented the Matrix!")

Not Just Kinda

[LPetrazickis]

I kind of thought the
mass robot grave ~= our own historical holocaust(s)

The bit with bulldozers disposing of robot corpses is plagiarised directly from documentary footage of the real Holocaust. I'm pretty sure that there also borrowed bits from the US Civil Rights Movement and the Tianamen Square debacle.

Re:The HQ variant for download.

[RevAaron]

Apple dropped support for QuickTime under Linux? When did they ever support it?

Something really weird about the site

[Anonymous Coward]

Has anyone else seen this?

Open up the link to the second episode: "Program" and wait for it to load

Ok, now click and hold on about somewhere beside the bottom right of the picture. Now drag your mouse down and it should start selecting some stuff below the picture...stuff u can't see.

Well i copied and pasted everything and this is waht i got: (**oops...lameness filter..this is the censored version..check out the whole thing yourself..very long**)

"""poste???XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX X XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXcate ú&?e???L?âb???L??ý?ntry(????àì??H>???$Ù?ÕLòl qq????tÃW??url Thttp://backstage.warnerbros.com/ whatisthematrix/rl_img/animatrix_choose_program.jp gbsrlWhttp://backstage.warnerbros.com/whatisthemat rix/rl_cmp/ animatrix_site_progdefault.htmlmime image/jpeghntt"d2ece280-2-560d-3e5fe762"hvrsdat a???ýJFIF22??C ? ?
.
.
.
ÕLò??ó???L?W?V ????aux ^SURLVhttp://backstage.warnerbros.com/whatisthemat rix/rl_cmp/animatrix_site_progdefault.html"""

Any clue what this is? Some hidden message or code perhaps? Or just left over stuff from bad page designing...

Try copying and pasting the link at the bottom..
hmm...curious...looks like hidden stuff