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Second Episode of The Animatrix Released 285

Posted by chrisd from the drool-drool-drool dept.
murphyslawyer writes "The second episode of Animatrix is now available. Download it here"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Second Episode of The Animatrix Released More

Second Episode of The Animatrix Released

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  • Durn it. (Score:3, Funny)

    by sosedada ( 97525 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @06:29PM (#5436624) Homepage
    I was there not 2 hours ago, and it wasn't up yet! Now I have to compete with all of you.

  • The HQ variant for download. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @06:31PM (#5436644)

    direct download [aol.com] (157MB)

  • mirror (Score:2, Informative)

    by iosmart ( 624285 )
    lol, i highly doubt the site will experience the slashdot effect...but here's a mirror of the windows medium quality (480x204) file for the heck of it. www.pchopper.com/mirror/matrix.zip [pchopper.com]
  • At that point my download will be finished. I thank you for your cooperation.

  • and... (Score:2, Offtopic)

    by samhalliday ( 653858 )
    just how the fuck am i supposed to view this under gnu/linux or freebsd without buying a crossover plugin? xine doesnt work, nor does xanim, and i have all the binary proprietory libs for both of them :-/

  • .edu rocks (Score:5, Funny)

    by YoJaUta ( 67458 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @06:41PM (#5436718)
    800k/s from progressive1.stream.aol.com...

    This makes the $30K/yr I pay to go to school almost worth it!

  • I liked the first episode (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dark Paladin ( 116525 ) <jhummel.johnhummel@net> on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @06:41PM (#5436727) Homepage
    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.

    • Agreed. (Score:3, Informative)

      by antdude ( 79039 )
      The second episode wasn't exciting and cool to watch. I hope the remaining episodes are not like this one.
      • This was just a so-so story. The 1st episode was MUCH MUCH better. I mean, the whole rise of robots was a great advance to the whole Matrix story, this one was just some no-name character in a training simulation. Take away the Matrix plot and this could have been any Anime style cartoon.

        RonB

        • Re:1st Ep 2nd Ep (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Viking Coder ( 102287 )
          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!")
      • the second episode was supposed to be the second renaissance part II. unfortunately somebody messed up somewhere. this is not part II. this is something else.! its ok. but i was really waiting to see the second renaissance part II.
    • 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:I liked the first episode but ..... (Score:4, Informative)

        by rufo ( 126104 ) <rufo&rufosanchez,com> on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @07:46PM (#5437120)
        Just as a note, the writers of the first Animatrix episode were Andy and Larry Wachowski. This story has always been part of the Matrix universe - if you look around on the Matrix website you can find some online comics that tell the story of the one droid who was trying to defend himself, and they are also co-written by the Wachowskis. This is a pretty integral part of The Matrix's world, and I wouldn't be surprised if the second and third movies delved into this a bit more.

    • Re:I liked the first episode (Score:3, Interesting)

      by 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.
      • 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.

        Actually, I was far more impressed with the first short than with the second. The artwork was far more engaging, and the animation didn't look like it was rendered by a computer.

        Yes, the "rise of the machines" scenario has been rehashed in a multitude of other stories. I think that this short carved out a unique niche for itself in the way that it humanized the machines. It was never that the machines became self-aware, and then suddenly became bent on kicking biological ass. The machines asserted their rights, were crushed and driven out. The basic premise is far-fetched, but I give the art and the animation a lot of credit for making the story convincing.

        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.

        ...hence the name, The Second Renaissance, Part I .

  • Damn! (Score:5, Funny)

    by ksheka ( 189669 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @06:46PM (#5436754)
    I knew I should have set up that cron job to check for the new episode...

  • Anyone got the Kazaa dat file? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Salamanders ( 323277 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @06:46PM (#5436756)
    Or any other version of a P2P sig for it?

  • Let me rephrase the title of the post (Score:4, Funny)

    by LePrince ( 604021 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @06:46PM (#5436759)
    The second episode of Animatrix is now available. Slashdot it here. [intothematrix.com]

  • What is it? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Sanity ( 1431 )
    It would be nice to know what it is we are supposed to be downloading here - come on slashdot editors! Not all of us are Anime fans, and for those that aren't, it would be nice to at least have some indication as to what this is without having to download it (thus wasting bandwidth that could be used by someone who is interested).
    • Animatrix is a series of nine animated movies, from 7 well know anime directors, based on the world of Matrix. The Wachowsky brothers made some of the scripts, and the whole thing is to come to DVD later this year, with the first four movies made available to download, one episode per month. I can't tell for this one, but the first one was well done.

    • Re:What is it? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Sancho ( 17056 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @07:08PM (#5436907) Homepage
      It's an anime short based in the world of The Matrix. The first was posted about a month ago, along with a description. This is the second. There will be another one per month for awhile. And while it is Anime, it's (so far) been precursors to The Matrix, and very interesting in order to get a feel of how things got the way the are (in The Matrix).

    • Re:What is it? (Score:5, Informative)

      by sweetooth ( 21075 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @07:09PM (#5436912) Homepage
      It's the second installment of the animated Matrix movies. Four of which are going to be released free on the Internet and then all nine episodes will be released on Junk 3rd on DVD. The first episode was released in February, the second today, the next in April and the final episode in May. The first and last episodes are Part 1 and Part 2 of the same story. They deal with various stories taking place in the Matrix, or in the case of the first episode before the matrix.

      Check out all the info here [intothematrix.com].

      From the site:

      Springing forth from the world of THE MATRIX, THE ANIMATRIX DVD presents nine original short animated stories directed by preeminent anime directors.

      The directors are: Andy Jones (Final Flight of The Osiris), Mahiro Maeda (The Second Renaissance: Parts 1 and 2), Shinichiro Watanabe (Kid's Story, Detective Story), Yoshiaki Kawajiri (Program), Takeshi Koike (World Record), Koji Morimoto (Beyond), Peter Chung (Matriculated).

      Four of the nine episodes were written by Larry and Andy Wachowski, and all of the episodes are grounded in the world of the THE MATRIX.

      DVD Special Features:

      * "Scrolls to Screen: The History and Culture of Anime" documentary
      * 7 featurettes with director profiles, interviews and behind-the-scenes footage of each of the films
      * 4 audio commentaries
      * "Enter the Matrix" videogame trailer
      * Dolby Digital 5.1 Audio
      * Widescreen Format [16x9 2.35:1]
      * Languages: English, Japanese
      * Subtitles: English, French, Spanish

    • Re:What is it? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by tekunokurato ( 531385 )
      Nobody can *tell* you what the Matrix is- you have to see for yourself!

      Really, though- be a little more openminded rather than trimming yourself off just because the style doesn't happen to coincide with your tastes. If you enjoyed the Matrix, this is likely worth a try.
    • Unfortunatly no-one can be told what the Animatrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

      M@
  • When you go to the 'Download File' link it offers the same .mov file but in .sit and .zip formats for mac and windows users respectively.

    My question is, why offer what is already a seriously compressed file within another set of, practically useless, compression? I'd guess the time reduced downloading is less than the time it takes to decompress the file (though that is at the user end...). Is there a benefit for the server I'm not geeky enough to know?

    • Re:Download Format Question (Score:5, Informative)

      by Sgs-Cruz ( 526085 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @07:01PM (#5436860) Homepage Journal
      Um, yes, because even if they can reduce this 150 MB file by, say, 8 megs, then if 100,000 people download it, that's 800 GB (using crappy hard-drive manufacturer base-10 definitions of GB because I'm too lazy right now to convert properly) of traffic they've just saved themselves. Impressive how it adds up when you're talking about popular downloads :)

    • Re:Download Format Question (Score:5, Insightful)

      by FrostedWheat ( 172733 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @07:16PM (#5436960)
      My question is, why offer what is already a seriously compressed file within another set of, practically useless, compression?

      When most browsers see a .mov file, they will try to play it in the browser window. However it will simple download a ZIP file.

      Well that's my guess :)
      • Whether a browser downloads it or saves it or whathaveyou is supposed to be determined by the mimetype. Unfortunetly IE went and wrecked this whole system (opening up a whole host of exploits iirc)
  • What Is the Animatrix?

    Some kind of Matrix animation I can only speculate.

  • Overview (Score:5, Informative)

    by Kallahar ( 227430 ) <kallahar@quickwired.com> on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @06:54PM (#5436818) Homepage
    For those unaware, the AniMatrix is a collection of Anime short stories about the world of the Matrix. The first one from this free series was an *excellent* protrayal of how the machines were created by man, became self aware, and then realized that the humans were exploiting them as slaves. The full DVD has many more short films about the Matrix universe.

    Travis
    • i classify anime as big bulging eyes with ity bity mouths, and spiky hair. the first one didn't have too much of thi -- so i'm more willing to classify it as animated, not necessarily anime.
      or am i stereotyping based on japanimation?

      • Re:Overview (Score:4, Informative)

        by Kirby ( 19886 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @08:34PM (#5437355) Homepage
        Anime is literally the japanese word for 'animation'. Typically, it's used to mean all animation made in Japan, from Pokemon to Akira. Much like in America, there are several major schools of art, and many of them do have the big eyes, small mouth conventions, which are actually a derivative of early Disney cartoons that inspired early Anime. But there are certainly a number of shows that don't match these conventions. (And even more variety if you try and genre-stereotype - that perception is strongly tied to which shows get translated. There's a lot of anime that has no giant robots or ultra violence or graphic sex!)

        Japanimation is a tricky word. Much like 'trekkie', it's hardly ever used in a positive fashion within the fan community. Commonly, it's used by people who don't know the word anime, and think they're more 'hip' than they really are - the calling card of a poser, per se. While I don't recommend judging people too strongly based on them not knowing the nuances of any fannish vocabulary, I do recommend dropping the phrase 'japanimation' from your personal vocabulary entirely, as it's likely to turn some fans against you in an a priori fasion.

        And, to muddy the waters, there's a rising number of animated and comic titles made outside of Japan that are strongly in the tradition of anime and manga. (Manga is the Japanese word for Comic Book, though without some of the juvenile implications that we (erroneously) attack to the medium.) Like this Matrix. Or, to really walk the line, the fine comic Usagi Yojimbo, written by Stan Sakai. Despite a Japanese Title, and written by an author who is ethnically Japanse, Mr. Sakai is an American. The comic is written in English, and published in the U.S., but artistically and thematically, it's more kindred with Manga than most Manga.

        My feeling is that it's hard to waste time more than arguing over whether or not something is, or is not, anime or manga. There's some content in describing something as in an Anime-style, and even more if one can tell what shows it is similar to, but beyond that, I really want to know if it's good or not. I'd rather spend my time watching great animated work, like Watership Down or Princess Mononoke, than trying to figure out the correct nomenclature. But, geeks love to argue over trivial details, so don't expect good sense to prevail.

        Or, the short version: No, it's not technically anime, but it probably appeals to a similar audience.

        • Re:Overview (Score:3, Informative)

          by jacoplane ( 78110 )
          Actually, "anime" is not a japanese word at all. "Anime" is the french word for "animated", although no japanese person seems to believe this [wikipedia.org]...
          • As far as a Japanese reader is concerned, if it is rendered in hiragana or kanji, it's a Japanese or Chinese word; if it is rendered in katakana, it is a foreign word. The issue is less about etymology than writing system. Is the word "anime" rendered in katakana, or otherwise?

  • Thats (Score:2, Funny)

    by Timesprout ( 579035 )
    a seriously talented sheep, they way it manages to hang on to her head the whole time while she was jumping about is very impressive.

  • XVid AVI conversion (Score:5, Informative)

    by nstrom ( 152310 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @07:09PM (#5436910)
    I'll download and convert this to XVID [xvid.org] AVI, easily playable on Windows with Media Player and Linux with MPlayer [mplayerhq.hu]. It should be done by tonight, and I'll post it to alt.binaries.multimedia.anime [binaries.m...edia.anime].

  • Bittorrent Link (Score:5, Informative)

    by Robotech_Master ( 14247 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @07:14PM (#5436947) Homepage Journal
    FYI, Donkax.com [donkax.com] is offering a bittorrent download of the large version of the movie.

  • It makes me ask... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonvmous Coward ( 589068 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @07:14PM (#5436953)
    ...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.
    • why aren't the 3 movies animated?

      The nature of computer-generated imagery (CGI) nowadays makes me say that the three movies are animated. There are so many layers of compositing and CGI in those movies (er, will be) that one can go so far as to call them animated, with some live action bits.

    • Be patient! (Score:2, Funny)

      by wembley ( 81899 )
      I'm sure the last episode of Animatrix will explain how the evil computers converted anime into live action.

      Remember 'The Simpsons' Halloween episode when Homer fell into 3-dimensions and then meatspace? Something like that...

  • Grrr. Forget the animatrix... (Score:5, Funny)

    by swordgeek ( 112599 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @07:16PM (#5436964) Journal
    I thought it said the dominatrix!

    Now I'm all hot and bothered.
  • ...about how the MPAA was DoS'd by Slashdot.
  • I tried to download Animatrix, but instead I think I got "Princess Mononoke in Space".

  • Bittorrent (Score:3, Informative)

    by Openadvocate ( 573093 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @07:41PM (#5437093)
    This is why stuff like BitTorrent [bitconjurer.org] (or [sourceforge.net]) would be very cool.

  • Spoilers below (Score:3, Insightful)

    by John Harrison ( 223649 ) <johnharrison@[ ]il.com ['gma' in gap]> on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @07:47PM (#5437126) Homepage Journal
    I liked it but I thought that the title (Program) gave away the ending. Once the idea of being reinserted was proposed I knew that it was a test.

    That said, the animation was excellent. I especially liked the formation of flaming arrows and the black and white bamboo. Didn't care much for the big hair though. Action wise there was plent of it.

    I can certainly see why she was so angry in the end. She was expecting and revealed that she expected a marriage proposal. Instead it was a test of her loyalty and ability to perform under emotional pressure.

  • WARNING SPOILERS

    Did anyone else think that the ending of this one kind of sucked? For starters, the whole 'oh it was just a dream' type crap is bullshit, and I thought that it made the ending of this episode really cheesy. This episode was really good and quite intense until the very end. "It was just a training simulation...you did very well." Did the writers here just run out of ideas when they got to this part or what?

  • Square Animatrix Short With Dreamcatcher (Score:3, Informative)

    by Robotech_Master ( 14247 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @08:28PM (#5437320) Homepage Journal
    Just in case folks didn't know, a fifth Animatrix short, the one animated by Square (the only other animated feature they did besides the FF movie before shutting down), will be showing theatrically with the Steven King movie Dreamcatcher. This animatrix, The Last Flight of the Osiris, apparently ties together the stories of the Matrix console game and the Matrix Reloaded.

    Pretty slick. I think I'm gonna be watching a Steven King movie pretty soon; I don't think I've done that since The Stand.

  • Matrix (Score:4, Funny)

    by KoolDude ( 614134 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @08:47PM (#5437398)

    [Script Kiddie]: Do not try and slashdot the site. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth.

    [Neo the /.er ]: What truth?

    [Script Kiddie]: There is no site.

    [Neo the /.er ]: There is no site?

    [Script Kiddie]: Then you'll see, that it is not the site that crashes, it is only yourself.

    [Neo the /.er ]: Whoa!

  • Did the first one remind any of you of ArmitageIII? Similar animation style, similar themes...

  • Audio format? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Luke-Jr ( 574047 )
    The first episode played fine, but for some reason MPlayer doesn't like the audio in this one? Anyone know how to fix this problem? Bits and pieces of the log: MOV track #1: 2127 chunks, 18746 samples Audio bits: 16 chans: 2 rate: 44100 Audio extra header: len=103 fcc=0x77617665 Fourcc: mp4a -------------- Opening audio decoder: [faad] AAC (MPEG2/4 Advanced Audio Coding) FAAD: Failed to initialize the decoder! ADecoder init failed :( ADecoder init failed :( *** Try to upgrade /home/luke-jr/.mplayer/codecs.conf from etc/codecs.conf *** If it still does not work, read DOCS/codecs.html! Cannot find codec for audio format 0x6134706D.
  • Is there anywhere a credits list for these movies? I want to know who did the voices. I was just positive that was Lawrence Fishburne, and I thought he might be doing some sort of weird Samurai take on Morpheus until it turned out he was a different character.
  • I just want to thank the /. editor's for continuing to promote products of companys that are working to make DRM mandatory in all of our computers! Who needs freedom when you can have free anime?
  • Does this remind anyone else of Ninja Scroll? The animation seems very similar and the scene where they are sparing in the woods is very similar to the scene in ninja scroll with the blind swordsman.
  • The Matrix is to movies what wolf3d or doom have been to games. It has set a trend, a particular style of filming which lots of movies seem to be aping.
    Also, the "Into the Matrix" premier was the FIRST ever classy premier, for a game. The concept of hiding particular aspects of the movie plot in the game, is a novel idea. The birth of another trend maybe?
    The Animatrix: I found the first one interesting, though they "humanized" the robots a bit too much. Bots with bowler hats... ugh. The second one was impressive, cool graphics and strong similarities with the Matrix movie. BUT... why such a LARGE jump between these two episodes? I thought these animations were to fill the gap... but they seem to have jumped that gap. Maybe the following animations will jump back in the timeline and then jump forward again.
    The bottomline.. the Matrix universe has got lotsa people hooked, and its here to stay.. for some time... atleast. (hehe.. mebbe 10yrs down the lane, the W. bros may decide to film 3 prequels.. a la George Lucas)
    • The Matrix is to movies what wolf3d or doom have been to games. It has set a trend, a particular style of filming which lots of movies seem to be aping


      Sorry, but just about everything in The Matrix is either stolen from Hong Kong (john woo) movies or japanese Anime. The movies you think are aping The Matrix is in reality aping these earlier movies.

      It would be more presice to say that The Matrix is to movies what Duke Nuke'm 3D was to games. It stole everything good that worked from Wolfenstein 3D and added multiplayer and better visuals.

      I say "stolen" you may want to say "was inspired from"....

      (for more information read here [uidaho.edu] and here [destroy-all-monsters.com]).

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