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Every ‘The Animatrix’ Short Explained: How Each Story Connects to The Larger Franchise

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Every ‘The Animatrix’ Short Explained: How Each Story Connects to The Larger Franchise

The Matrix franchise is known for hosting a wealth of heady ideas behind its action-packed set pieces. Released in 2003, The Animatrix represents one of the most comprehensive sources of Matrix lore for series historians, while also providing an insanely fun viewing experience. Much like Star Wars: Visions, The Animatrix creates a series of short stories by handing over the creative reins of the established Matrix franchise to leading Japanese animation studios, with the Wachowski’s overseeing as producers. The result is an essential viewing for fans of the series. We’ve created a guide to each vignette, with notes as to how they connect to the greater film series.

RELATED: ‘The Matrix’ Movies, Ranked From No to “Whoa”

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The Second Renaissance Part I

The Second Renaissance Part 1 & 2 are the only shorts within The Animatrix written by the Wachowskis sisters. Set in the mid-21st century, The Second Renaissance Part 1 details mankind’s creation of sentient robots, who are built to look like humans. Bipedal with two arms, they are “created in mankind’s own image”. Robots are primarily utilized for menial labor, and with many humans being released from their jobs, humanity becomes increasingly corrupt and full of malaise. In 2090, the android B1-66ER kills its owner, their pets, and a mechanic commissioned to decommission it, in an act of self-defense. The civil rights activist and lawyer defending the android quotes from the Dred Scott v. Sandford case in his closing statement, which argued that African Americans were not entitled to United States citizenship and advocated for not repeating history’s mistakes. The defense loses the case, and B1-66ER is disposed of.

Robots across the world riot, staging protests such as the Million Machine March in the US and Europe. Robots and their human supporters are killed en masse to prevent a larger uprising. Survivors create a new civilization in the desert of Mesopotamia, dubbing it Zero One, a reference to binary notation. The new human city of The Matrix Resurrections is called IO, a direct parallel to the naming convention used in The Animatrix. Zero One produces highly advanced AI products, and as such, their economy prospers while human civilization falls. The global stock market crashes. The United Nations Security Council meets at the UN headquarters in New York City to vote on an embargo and military blockage on Zero One. Two ambassadors from Zero One join and attempt to come to a peaceful conclusion to no avail.

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The Second Renaissance Part II

Striking a notably more somber and defeatist tone, The Second Renaissance Part II picks up immediately after the events of Part I. The United Nations unsuccessfully attempts to wipe out Zero One, and war breaks out between the two parties. One by one, mankind is forced to surrender their territories. Becoming increasingly desperate, humans initiate Operation Dark Storm, a program that utilizes nanites to block out all sunlight across the globe, robbing the robot forces of the solar energy they need to fight. The program is effective in killing off old model robots, and for a brief moment, it appears that the robots have been crippled past the point of recovery. However, the robots produce new models that look similar to the sentinels from the live-action films. Additionally, the lack of sunlight hurts the human forces as it eliminates their ability to grow crops.

The new machines are formidable opponents and, in addition to being strong physical adversaries, launch biological warfare against humans. The machines develop a new form of energy, utilizing the bio-energy stored in human bodies, and turn the tide of war with this newfound energy source. The later years of the war turn into a ruthless hunting spree, and construction begins on the infamous towers used to store humans in pods from the live-action films. As the few human representatives surrender to machines at the UN headquarters, a representative of Zero One detonates a hidden bomb and destroys the New York City-based headquarters. The machines then create the first iteration of the matrix to keep their newfound energy sources sedated.

Program

Breaking from the historical, documentarian-like style of the first two shorts in the film, Program spends its runtime with two primary characters; Cis (Hedy Burress), and her sparring partner-slash-lover Duo (Phil LaMarr). The short is set against the backdrop of a feudal Japanese samurai battle, where we join Cis and Duo as they spar. Duo asks Cis if she regrets taking the red pill and if she ever misses her peaceful life in the virtual world. As Cis overpowers Duo, he informs her that he wishes to speak to her in private and has blocked the signal so the operator cannot hear their conversation. Cis assumes that Duo will propose marriage, but he instead informs her that he’s been in contact with the machines and plans to re-enter the matrix, and wishes for her to join him.

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The fight between the two becomes increasingly heated, and Cis eventually overpowers Duo, killing him shortly after he states his love for her. She is then pulled from the simulation and informed that it was merely a test which she has passed. Out of anger, Cis punches the messenger, Kaiser (John DiMaggio). He reiterates that aside from punching him, she has passed the test. The (simulated) framing device of a human wishing to return to the matrix directly mirrors Cypher’s (Joe Pantoliano) motivation in The Matrix. Exhausted by the weight of the real world, Cypher hands Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) over to the Agents on the condition that he will re-enter the matrix, stating “Ignorance is bliss”.

World Record

For many viewers, the story of Neo (Keanu Reeves) breaking free from the matrix is indicative of his role as “The One”. However, within the world of The Matrix, it’s noted that only those with “a rare degree of intuition, sensitivity, and a questioning nature” are capable of breaking free on their own, and World Record details such an individual. The story follows Dan Davis (Victor Williams), an athlete who set a world record 100m track time of 8.99 seconds in the Olympic games. Accused of doping, he aims to race again to prove his critics wrong, with the support of his father and a reporter.

Shortly before the race is set to begin, Dan is shown to be observed by four agents. As the race starts, the muscles in Dan’s leg violently rupture. Determined, he pushes on and passes his opponents. Sensing that his signal is unstable, the agents occupy the racers closest to Dan in an attempt to stop him, which proves to be unsuccessful. Breaking free of the matrix’s grasp, Dan awakes briefly in his pod, where a sentinel subsequently shocks him and sends him back. He is shown to have beat his previous record, completing the race in 8.72 seconds but his body is destroyed.

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Cutting forward in time, Dan is shown in a hospital, sitting in a wheelchair. The agents discuss wiping his mind of all memories of the race and the real world, but, proving to be incredibly resilient, Dan whispers the word “free” before standing from his wheelchair, breaking all of the screws out of his legs.


Kid’s Story

Kid’s Story takes place during the time between The Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded, where Neo works with the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar to free humans from the matrix. Kid (Clayton Watson), a teenage boy in the matrix, ponders why his dreams feel more real than reality. Scribbling in his notebook, he writes the names “Neo” and “Trinity”, as well as the phrase “get me out of here”. He receives a call on his cell phone from Neo while he is in class, warning him that there are agents coming for him. Cornered on the roof of his school by those very agents, Kid jumps from the roof and dies.

Kid later wakes in the real world, where Neo and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) are standing over him. They note that he is the first case of self-substantiation, or somebody removing themself from the matrix unaided. Kid’s Story is the only short featuring Keanu Reeves’ Neo, and additionally, shares the visual motif of self-substantiation shown in The Matrix Resurrections attempted by Neo to escape the new matrix program. Kid makes subsequent appearances in both The Matrix comics and The Matrix Revolutions with Watson reprising the role.


Beyond

A relatively simple premise, Beyond follows a teenage girl, Yoko (Hedy Burress), on her quest to find her cat, Yuki. A group of young boys tells Yoko that her cat was spotted by a local haunted house. Inside the house is a series of glitches in the matrix, from a bottle that reforms after being smashed, to a room that rains despite a sunny sky. Yoko finds Yuki in a trippy outdoor area where shadows are not aligned with their beings. She rejoins the young boys in a room where the rules of gravity seem to not apply, and the group exploits the oddities of the house for fun.

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A group of agents, aware of the anomalies and dress as exterminators, move into the building and remove the children; but not before Yoko finds a door that opens to a vast black void. Yoko returns the next day to find the building has been transformed into a parking lot. The group of boys attempts to replicate the odd anomalies to no avail.


A Detective Story

The second story to feature Carrie-Anne Moss’ Trinity, A Detective Story follows down on his luck noir detective Ash (James Arnold Taylor) as he follows the hacker Trinity on an anonymous tip. He later finds her following clues from Alice in Wonderland, and the two meet on a passenger train car where she removes a bug implanted in Ash’s eye by the agents. The two are ambushed by a trio of agents, one of whom tries to inhabit Ash’s body. Trinity is forced to shoot Ash, telling him that he could have handled the truth before escaping out a window. Fatally wounded, Ash lights a cigarette as the agents stand over him, calling Trinity, “A case to end all cases,” before his lighter, and his life, extinguish.

Matriculated

An early shot of Matriculated shows Alexa (Melinda Clarke) staring out over the sea, waiting for robots to descend on her location. Alexa and her teammates are part of a group who aims to capture, educate, and rehabilitate machines to work alongside humans. She captures a highly intelligent robot, a “runner”, and plunges it into their version of a matrix. She shows it a range of emotions and establishes a bond with the machine.

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While this is happening, the rebel outpost is attacked by sentinels. The humans fight alongside their newly converted and green-eyed robotic allies. The newly ‘converted’ runner plugs a dying Alexa into their matrix, where she screams in horror before dying in real life. The final scene shows the runner staring out over the sea as Alexa did in the opening shot of the film. Matriculated introduces the idea of rebels working alongside machines which is further explored in 2021’s The Matrix Resurrections. In Resurrections, a pivotal development to the new human city of IO that exists 60 years after the events of the original trilogy is that it was built through the collaboration of humans and machines.

Final Flight of the Osiris

The final film of the anthology, Final Flight of the Osiris, opens with Jue (Pamela Adlon) and Captain Thadeus (Kevin Michael Richardson) sword fighting in a martial arts dojo. The two playfully cut away each other’s clothes until they are in only their underwear. They are awoken by an alarm, as operator Robbie (Tom Kenny) notifies the crew of a group of sentinels attempting to drill into Zion.

Jue and Thadeus kiss before parting ways, as Jue re-enters the matrix to warn Zion of the sentinel attack. She places a package in a mailbox, which later becomes the opening for the Enter the Matrix video game. Their ship is overrun by sentinels and explodes, killing the entire crew of the ship; and Jue’s body falls lifelessly to the ground in the matrix as her body has died in the real world. The film falls chronologically between The Matrix and Enter the Matrix, with events taking place concurrently with The Matrix Reloaded, with characters from Reloaded making reference to the Osiris.

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Review: SAMARITAN, A Sly Stallone Superhero Stumble

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Review: SAMARITAN, A Sly Stallone Superhero Stumble

Hitting the three-quarter-century mark usually means a retirement home, a nursing facility, or if you’re lucky to be blessed with relatively good health and savings to match, living in a gated community in Arizona or Florida.

For Sylvester Stallone, however, it means something else entirely: starring in the first superhero-centered film of his decades-long career in the much-delayed Samaritan. Unfortunately for Stallone and the audience on the other side of the screen, the derivative, turgid, forgettable results won’t get mentioned in a career retrospective, let alone among the ever-expanding list of must-see entries in a genre already well past its peak.

For Stallone, however, it’s better late than never when it involves the superhero genre. Maybe in getting a taste of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) with his walk-on role in the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel several years ago, Stallone thought anything Marvel can do, I can do even better (or just as good in the nebulous definition of the word).

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The property Stallone and his team found for him, Samaritan, a little-known graphic novel released by a small, almost negligible, publisher, certainly takes advantage of Stallone’s brute-force physicality and his often underrated talent for near-monosyllabic brooding (e.g., the Rambo series), but too often gives him to little do or say as the lone super-powered survivor, the so-called “Samaritan” of the title, of a lifelong rivalry with his brother, “Nemesis.” Two brothers entered a fire-ravaged building and while both were presumed dead, one brother did survive (Stallone’s Joe Smith, a garbageman by day, an appliance repairman by night).

In the Granite City of screenwriter Bragi F. Schut (Escape Room, Season of the Witch), the United States, and presumably the rest of the world, teeters on economic and political collapse, with a recession spiraling into a depression, steady gigs difficult, if not impossible, to obtain, and the city’s neighborhoods rocked by crime and violence. No one’s safe, not even 13-year-old Sam (Javon Walker), Joe’s neighbor.

When he’s not dodging bullies connected to a gang, he’s falling under the undue influence of Cyrus (Pilou Asbæk), a low-rent gang leader with an outsized ego and the conviction that he and only he can take on Nemesis’s mantle and along with that mantle, a hammer “forged in hate,” to orchestrate a Bane-like plan to plunge the city into chaos and become a wealthy power-broker in the process.

Schut’s woefully underwritten script takes a clumsy, haphazard approach to world-building, relying on a two-minute animated sequence to open Samaritan while a naive, worshipful Sam narrates Samaritan and Nemesis’s supposedly tragic, Cain and Abel-inspired backstory. Schut and director Julius Avery (Overlord) clumsily attempt to contrast Sam’s childish belief in messiah-like, superheroic saviors stepping in to save humanity from itself and its own worst excesses, but following that path leads to authoritarianism and fascism (ideas better, more thoroughly explored in Watchmen and The Boys).

While Sam continues to think otherwise, Stallone’s superhero, 25 years past his last, fatal encounter with his presumably deceased brother, obviously believes superheroes are the problem and not the solution (a somewhat reasonable position), but as Samaritan tracks Joe and Sam’s friendship, Sam giving Joe the son he never had, Joe giving Sam the father he lost to street violence well before the film’s opening scene, it gets closer and closer to embracing, if not outright endorsing Sam’s power fantasies, right through a literally and figuratively explosive ending. Might, as always, wins regardless of how righteous or justified the underlying action.

It’s what superhero audiences want, apparently, and what Samaritan uncritically delivers via a woefully under-rendered finale involving not just unconvincing CGI fire effects, but a videogame cut-scene quality Stallone in a late-film flashback sequence that’s meant to be subversively revelatory, but will instead lead to unintentional laughter for anyone who’s managed to sit the entirety of Samaritan’s one-hour and 40-minute running time.

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Samaritan is now streaming worldwide on Prime Video.

Samaritan

Cast
  • Sylvester Stallone
  • Javon ‘Wanna’ Walton
  • Pilou Asbæk

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Matt Shakman Is In Talks To Direct ‘Fantastic Four’

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According to a new report, Wandavision’s Matt Shakman is in talks to direct the upcoming MCU project, Fantastic Four. Marvel Studios has been very hush-hush regarding Fantastic Four to the point where no official announcements have been made other than the film’s release date. No casting news or literally anything other than rumors has been released regarding the project. We know that Fantastic Four is slated for release on November 8th, 2024, and will be a part of Marvel’s Phase 6. There are also rumors that the cast of the new Fantastic Four will be announced at the D23 Expo on September 9th.

Fantastic Four is still over two years from release, and we assume we will hear more news about the project in the coming months. However, the idea of the Fantastic Four has already been introduced into the MCU. John Krasinski played Reed Richards aka Mr. Fantastic in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The cameo was a huge deal for fans who have been waiting a long time for the Fantastic Four to enter the MCU. When Disney acquired Twenty Century Fox in 2019 we assumed that the Fox Marvel characters would eventually make their way into the MCU. It’s been 3 years and we already have had an X-Men and Fantastic Four cameo – even if they were from another universe.

Deadline is reporting that Wandavision’s Matt Shakman is in talks to direct Fantastic Four. Shakman served as the director for Wandavision and has had an extensive career. He directed two episodes of Game of Thrones and an episode of The Boys, and he had a long stint on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. There is nothing official yet, but Deadline’s sources say that Shakman is currently in talks for the job and things are headed in the right direction.

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To be honest, I was a bit more excited when Jon Watts was set to direct. I’m sure Shakman is a good director, but Watts proved he could handle a tentpole superhero film with Spider-Man: Homecoming. Wandavision was good, but Watts’ style would have been perfect for Fantastic Four. The film is probably one of the most anticipated films in Marvel’s upcoming slate films and they need to find the best person they can to direct. Is that Matt Shakman? It could be, but whoever takes the job must realize that Marvel has a lot riding on this movie. The other Fantastic Four films were awful and fans deserve better. Hopefully, Marvel knocks it out of the park as they usually do. You can see for yourself when Fantastic Four hits theaters on November 8th, 2024.

Film Synopsis: One of Marvel’s most iconic families makes it to the big screen: the Fantastic Four.

Source: Deadline

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Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase Star in ‘Zombie Town’ Mystery Teen Romancer (Exclusive)

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Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase have entered Zombie Town, a mystery teen romancer based on author R.L. Stine’s book of the same name.

The indie, now shooting in Ontario, also stars Henry Czerny and co-teen leads Marlon Kazadi and Madi Monroe. The ensemble cast includes Scott Thompson and Bruce McCulloch of the Canadian comedy show Kids in the Hall.

Canadian animator Peter Lepeniotis will direct Zombie Town. Stine’s kid’s book sees a quiet town upended when 12-year-old Mike and his friend, Karen, see a horror movie called Zombie Town and unexpectedly see the title characters leap off the screen and chase them through the theater.

Zombie Town will premiere in U.S. theaters before streaming on Hulu and then ABC Australia in 2023.

“We are delighted to bring the pages of R.L. Stine’s Zombie Town to the screen and equally thrilled to be working with such an exceptional cast and crew on this production. A three-time Nickelodeon Kids Choice Award winner with book sales of over $500 million, R.L. Stine has a phenomenal track record of crafting stories that engage and entertain audiences,” John Gillespie, Trimuse Entertainment founder and executive producer, said in a statement.

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Executive producers are Trimuse Entertainment, Toonz Media Group, Lookout Entertainment, Viva Pictures and Sons of Anarchy actor Kim Coates.  

Paco Alvarez and Mark Holdom of Trimuse negotiated the deal to acquire the rights to Stine’s Zombie Town book.

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