We've done our Matrix Marathon, where we tried to watch everything in chronological order. For the record, we watched everything in the following order. Spoilers, probably:
1) The Second Renaissance Parts 1 and 2 2) Beyond 3) A Detective's Story
4) The Matrix
5) Matriculated 6) Program 7) World Record (we skipped this one, actually) 8) Kid's Story 9) Final Flight of the Osiris
10) Matrix Reloaded
As I understand it, the "Enter the Matrix" game runs only slightly before, and then parallel to the events in "Reloaded"... Basically chronicling what Niobe and Ghost are doing when they're not onscreen in the movie. It ends pretty much with the end of the film.
As for the order of the "Animatrix" segments, we decided to play 3 and 4 before the first film because they needed little understanding of the Matrix story arc, and only offered a glimpse into the understanding that the world the charcters were in was not quite normal. The "between" segments required an understanding of how the world works, and while they could have technically gone before the first one as well, we decided that it would be better if we refreshed our understanding with the first movie before dealing with it. And of course the last two deal with events or characters introduced after the first film.
Perhaps the least "placeable" short would be "Matriculated", whose story really had nothing to do with the arc; given the substantially different "look" of both the simulation and the "real" world outside, I'm even willing to bet that the events of this short could have been from an earlier incarnation of the Matrix.
For further background on how the Matrix world works, I've found this page. Any other ones out there that delve into the workings of the Matrix?
Mark
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Looks about right to me. Matriculated sucked, though.
According to the DVD extra dealing with the making of the game, you're right. Enter the Matrix starts about two days before Reloaded and then runs with the movie.
I'd love to watch a run through of the game from both characters POV to get that aspect of the story. Anyone know where I can download one?
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
You think "Matriculated" sucked??? It was the closest thing to a real Short Movie that they came, IMO. The CGI is the best of all the shorts, the story has a point (for once), it ends with a glimmer of hope and it bore a close resemblance to the design and choreography in "Aeon Fluxx". (Edit: Just found out that Peter Chung, who created "Aeon Fluxx", did direct "Matriculated").
If programs can go renegade and set up small empires for themselves, why couldn't a robot change into good? Or not necessarily good, but with a passable conscience. The obstacles it went through and had to make choices for probably changed its software matrix (no pun intended) on the base level.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
I just thought it went on way too long and was just all a bunch of flashing lights and psychodelic weirdness. The point of the story was ok... I just didn't like how they got there. But, hey, I'm no expert.
I dug Osiris and the artwork in the one with the haunted house (Beyond?) was top drawer.
Posted by leuckinc (Member # 729) on :
Enter the Matrix Sucked! Trust me on this, the gamed sucked. The only good part was the hour of extra film.
Thanks for the link. I was just about to ask if there was any way to read the ETM story without playing the (allegedly) crap console-ish game.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Oh, there's no "allegedly" about it. Chronic constipation is more fun than Enter The Matrix.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
Max Pain!
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Matriculated was my favourite! (along with Renaissance & Osiris of course.) It must be one of those love it or hate it things. I guess I liked the idea that the machines are as much individuals as humans are, a theme I suspect will be carried on in Revolutions. Smith is most certainly not a drone, as I've heard some describe the agents and he never was, as evidenced by his behaviour towards Morpheus in the first movie.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Poor Ghost. I feel his pain. It's not easy being in love with Trinity.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Especially given that if he makes a move, Neo will beat the living crap out of him.
Posted by Bond, James Bond (Member # 1127) on :
The idea that the Machines are as much individuals as humans are is supported by "Reloaded" as well, what with the Keymaker assisting Morpheus / Neo / Trinity, and the Merovingian's / Persephone's antagonistic yet not in line with the design of the Matrix behavior. All the references to vampires, aliens, etc. are also sentient programs "doing what they aren't supposed to do" according to the Oracle. I haven't got her entirely figured out though. She may just be another form of control as Neo thought or she may be genuinely benevolent and trying to help the human cause. As mentioned previously Smith acted quite outside the norm of an Agent even in the first movie before Neo imprinted his code on him. Especially during the interrogation of Morpheus when he sent the other two agents out of the room.
"Matriculated" was just a bit too out there for my tastes. I can appreciate the intended goal of the storyline but it just seemed kind of silly. Fine, the Machines can have a mind of their own but it becomes infatuated with a human woman after five minutes of sentience? And the weird psychedelic imagery was just a bit too much like the end of "2001" mixed with "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas". At least it introduced us to a new type of Sentinel.
I think the ideas of Machine individuality were explored much more effectively in "Second Renaissance 1 & 2".
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Well, the programs are definitely individuals. And there are certainly some machines that are too. But I don't know if I buy the sentinels being sentient. But I don't know... people wouldn't want to have children that had no free will or personality. So why would machines create other machines without the same qualities they have?
Hmmmm...
Still didn't like all the tripy weird stuff.
Posted by Bond, James Bond (Member # 1127) on :
Yeah, the Sentinels do seem more like "Smart Weapons" then sentient machines, at least in the movies.
At the end of Second Rennaissance Part 2 they do show a machine that looks almost identical to a Sentinel speaking at the UN as if it were sentient. It signs mankinds surrender, then nukes everyone for good measure (makes you wonder why they bothered to sign the document in the first place).
Posted by Wraith (Member # 779) on :
Or why it asked them first to surrender their flesh. If it'd asked and then got told to sod off and die, I could understand the nuking part. But just straight off? Doesn't make huge amounts of sense.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
They were just making a point. And being pissy.
Posted by Paladin181 (Member # 833) on :
Yep... pissy
Posted by Bond, James Bond (Member # 1127) on :
In "The Matrix", Smith told Morpheus that "he had to get out" of the Matrix because Humans stink (he could have just suggested some deoderant or a nice cologne but I digress). Yes, I know it was metaphorical stink.
Anyway, that implied to me that perhaps Smith was not purely software but that he might have an actual physical Machine counterpart in the real world. Maybe some of the Machines, not the Sentinels but something else, are the "living" bodies of the programs running in the Matrix itself?
I don't think he believed he could take over a Human body at that point (nor would he want to) so it was my guess that he was just stuck in the Matrix until he captured Morpheus and destroyed Zion and then his "bosses" would allow him to return to his Machine shell on the outside.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
More likely, I think, is that the Matrix is not the only network protocol they've got running, and Smith wanted to get out of the grungy "Let's simulate physical stuff" part and back to contemplating mathematics and the meaning of life.
I wish the films would have been a bit more concrete about just how the machines were organized, in regards to things like free will. For instance, much of the Animatrix suggests that the machines are a collection of autonomous self-aware entities, some with physical bodies, some without. And yet in the films we hear a lot about programs being summarily deleted when their purpose has been served, which sounds like a way more autocratic (and less anthropomorphic) setup. Someone like the Keymaker seems to be a complete "person," and yet still serves a fairly limited function and exists only while that function is necessary.
In fact, since in Revolutions it seems that the Matrix is the only place that free programs who wish to remain alive/autonomous can go, Smith's desire to leave seems out of place. We never see any other program trying to sneak out, after all, but instead we see them sneaking in from the more ordered and less "human" machine world. Unless Smith was simply eager for oblivion, which is possible, though not the sense I got from his speech, if I recall it correctly.
Posted by Bond, James Bond (Member # 1127) on :
At that point though in the first movie he was a little more rebellious then your average Agent but I don't think Smith was to the point of trying to subvert authority and escape his masters control but just wanted to be away from humans.
You bring up a good point about how there must be other programmed realities for the sentient programs to exist in, it would have been nice to see some of those and the Machine Heirarchy as you pointed out.
Since the buildings in the machine city of 01 seemed to be arranged in fractal based patterns (at least as seen from the air) a realm of pure mathmatical comtemplation would seem like a paradise to a Machine I suppose.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Machine paradise: Pong.
Posted by Proteus (Member # 212) on :
just a heads up, Matriculated takes place about 50 years after Revolutions
Posted by Bond, James Bond (Member # 1127) on :
^^^ Really? I don't remember them saying that in the story. Where'd you hear that from?
If so, then the answer to the question posed by the Architect about how long do you think this peace will last is not very damn long apparantly.
Posted by Proteus (Member # 212) on :
Apparently not. It was in an interview with one of the animators about how its in the future, "about 50 years", where times are 'very diffrent'. This was before it even came out.
Posted by Bond, James Bond (Member # 1127) on :
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