NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Tetrady not as good as all the hype

Helllins It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Yazmin Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Shawn Watson Ever wonder exactly HOW the machines managed to seize the planet and enslave the human race? This Animatrix short details how humans created robots to do their worst jobs for them. Basically it's a metaphor for a third-world divide. But when a single robot rebels political opinion of the machines turns sour and they are banished to their city, where their economy thrives, turning the human world into the new third-world. Oh, the irony.It's a fascinating short and really makes you think if whether or not the soul is purely a biological thing, or if a sentient robot can earn one too, kinda like Bicentennial Man.

freemantle_uk 2003 was seen as the year of the Matrix, with the release of two sequels and a computer game that actually linked to the plot of the film. Also released was a DVD of 9 short animated films, most written and made in Japan and made as Anime. Japan makes some of the best animation in the world. Sadly most of these shorts are disappointing. The best of them is the first part of a prequel to the first Matrix film.The Second Renaissance is made as a historical file. It tells how humans made machines in their own likeness. Humans live the high life whilst machines are the grunts, the workers of society, second class citizens. In the year 2090, a machine, BI-66ER was put of trial for murder, after killing his owners who wanted to deactivate him. The machine does not have a fair trial and riots start around the world. The governments of the world order to dismantle machines. Many machines leave human society and form their own country in the Middle East, O1. 01 has a productive economy and easily undercut the human nations, forcing them into economic crisis. The human blockade 01 and reject the machines requests for peace, thereby it was the humans who were responsible for the war that enslaves them.The Second Renaissance is a interesting watch, with excellent, traditional animation style and sets a compelling world. It shows how the machines were mistreated and that humanity sowed the seeds of their own destruction. There is a political and social world and the short tells a lot in it short running time. The short shares themes and a style to the classic silent film Metropolis, partly the beginning with the underworld. They are the themes of slavery, the mistreatment of the working class and racism. The short also has some religious themes and religious iconography. Mainly that men saw themselves as God and created the machines in their own likeness. Seeing themselves as the rightful masters of the machines. The machines too use religious iconography, mainly forming their nation in 'cradle of human civilisation' and the machines coming to the United Nations dressed as Adam and Eve, offering an apple.The animation style is beautiful, done in the traditional anime style (like Akira). The set designs are great, combine futuristic with historic cities, e.g. Washington D.C.. There is well down future scene, and surprising violence, which is key to the film. The director, Mahiro Maeda, also directed the anime sequence in Kill Bill Vol. 1, so has good credentials to Hollywood. He is willing to use violence and know how to keep a story going.The only real complain is a continuity error to the first Matrix film because Morpheus mentions that the humans have no historical records or know who started the war. But its a good watch.

TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews This is the second Animatrix short, and the first of them to be what one could call 'artistic'. It contains a lot of references, metaphors and symbols in the dense amount of material, especially with a running time of 9 minutes. I've heard some complaints that this is "anti-human", or tries to direct hate towards man, for their "sins against machine". I don't think that's true; it merely uses the robots to show us, that as humans, we aren't particularly accepting or open-minded towards anyone different from ourselves. I'd say it does a great job of that. The plot is good... it plays as a historical document, recounting what led to one of the main conflicts in the trilogy. Thus it holds clips from fictional news reports and the like. The voice acting is very good, if there is not a lot of it. The animation is nice, and the use of color, in spite of the usually realistic drawing style, makes it more open to do the smooth transitions and other surreal imagery. This has several bits of strong violence and disturbing visuals, as well as a little nudity. The disc holds a commentary, not in English but subtitled, and worth a listen/read. There is also a well-done and informative making of, based on both parts, so I would advise watching it after seeing the next one, as well. I recommend this to anyone who enjoys the Matrix universe, and/or science fiction in general. 8/10

tcoultis 'The second beginning' as it's title explains, shows us the beginning of the end for the human race. Set long before the matrix existed, this short anime written by the Wachowski's shows us the world that could lay infront of us in the not to distant future, set at the turn of the 21st century, the second renaissance delves into issues common with human behaviour; greed, power, control, vanity etc.The use of robots or artificial intellegence as slaves or servents is common among science fiction/fantasy stories. The second renaissance is no exeption to this concept, however instead of a simple man vs. machine layout, this story explains the struggle that the machines put up with, the struggle for acceptance in a world ruled by humans. Where the matrix films show us the human perspective, these short animations tell both sides of the story.The second renaissance part 1 + 2, answer many questions brought up by the original Matrix film, such as how the war broke out, how the sky was blackend, what led to the use of humans as batteries and it also introduces us to the machine city called 01, which may have relevance to the Matrix Revolutions film.I won't give away too much of the story, as I do not want to ruin the experience for perspective viewers, however, I will recommend it to anybody interested in the world of the matrix or simply anybody interested in Japanese animation (anime).9/10.