Since Turnsky just gave a review and I just recieved my copy of Animatrix from Amazon.com today, I'll compare and contrast my review with his.
Originally posted by Turnsky
i've rented it, so here's my little review:
Final flight of the osiris:
Great.. good CG, makes me wonder why square quit the movies biz... they could at least apply thier pro techniques to movie special effects..
When I watched my copy of Animatrix today, I had already seen the preview episodes Second Renaissance (both parts), Program and Detective Story, in that order on thematrix.com website. I made sure to save Final Flight of the Osiris for last when I watched the remaining episodes today. I liked it and it leads nicely into Enter the Matrix (video game) and the Matrix Reloaded movie. Of course, now that I know that Enter the Matrix deals with how that videotape got from the Osiris to Zion, I have to buy and play the game (naturally).
God, the Wachowski Brothers are worse than Bill Gates!

Originally posted by Turnsky
The Second Renaissance Pts I,II
sure as hell explains a lot... mind you, it all kinda reminds me of Skynet...Like The multitude of religous references tho.. makes you wonder tho.. will it take a human screw-up of that magnitude in order to 'unite' the human race in order to prevent it's own annihilation..?
I liked Second Renaissance. Still, there did seem to be a couple of nagging holes in the story. Morpheus mentions in the original Matrix movie that when AI was first created in the 21st Century, it began as "a single consciousness that spawned an entire race of machines." But we never see this "singular consciousness" in Second Renaissance. Why not?
Maybe this "singular consciousness" is, in fact, the Source mentioned in Matrix Reloaded and we'll see it in Matrix Revolutions. Maybe.
Originally posted by Turnsky
Kids story..
Alright i guess.. good, and a tad surreal..
Good story, but the artwork just seemed off. I prefer my anime to have solid lines, rather than the herky-jerky incomplete lines of "coloring crayon" anime. I wish I could explain it better, but the artwork in this episode just wasn't sharp enough for my tastes.
All the same, this story explains what Neo meant when he said to The Kid in Matrix Reloaded:"I didn't find you, you found me. I didn't save you, you saved yourself."
Having Carrie-Ann Moss and Keanu Reeves use their real voices in this episode was a big plus. I wasn't really sure it was Reeves' voice in this episode until I saw the credits. It was.

Originally posted by Turnsky
Program..
Swords and bullet-time, what's not to like..
My favorite of the preview episodes. I loved the ending twist; I sure as hell didn't see it coming.
Originally posted by Turnsky
World Record..
A tad unusual.. didn't like the 'artistic license' for the agents tho.. they looked like they belonged from 'Syndicate wars'.
Yeah, I had problems with how the agents in this episode looked also.
And I'm no doctor, but I'm still leery of the concept of just how muscles "explode" of their own accord, Matrix reality or no.
All the same, a good story describing how there are "other" methods of realizing that one is trapped in the Matrix, or at least realizing that the created "reality" inside the Matrix is...not quite right.
Originally posted by Turnsky
Beyond..
Like Kids Story.. surreal.. Just see it and give you opinion...
mind you, it seems the matrix has far more efficient bug-fixing than microsoft:p
Yeah, but not by much.

Makes sense, though. The matrix is like a REALLY humongous MMORG (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) with about 6 billion people inside. It's to be expected that a few sectors inside the Matrix would be...unstable.
Originally posted by Turnsky
Detective Story..
Great, I liked.. ain't much more to say about it..
I was disappointed by this story, to tell the truth. Or, to be more accurate, the ending disappointed me. Seeing Ash's lighter blow out like that and not seeing him die just seemed to bring the story to a screeching, too-early halt. Aside from that, the story of a detective trying to track Trinity down did keep my attention. Too bad Ash never got to meet Morpheus or Neo...
Detective Story also pointed out something that I should have realized earlier after watching the first Matrix movie: when Neo was bugged and Trinity was taking him to see Morpheus, why didn't any of the agents possess Neo once the bug was removed and as soon as Neo first met Morpheus? Neo was still hardwired into the Matrix and could still have been possessed by an agent at that point, couldn't he?
Originally posted by Turnsky
Matriculated..
'Kay...
This was one of the better episodes, I thought. Again, the ending disappointed me (I hate seeing the humans, the purported good guys, die in this war) but seeing the converted runner robot standing vigil, continuing the humans' mission of converting more robots to the humans' side was very poignant and moving. Too bad, the humans and the other human-aligned robots were killed off, though.
Still, it's war and every war has casualties. No getting around that.
For those of you who are Matrix fans and haven't seen the Animatrix yet, go see it. You won't be disappointed.