The Animatrix (アニマトリックス
Animatorikkusu) is a collection of nine
animatedAnimation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. It is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in a number of ways...
short films released on June 3, 2003, and set in the
fictional universeThe Matrix: a science-fiction movie that depicts a virtual reality in which humans enter to try and stop the machines from destroying humanity.-Overview:In the dystopia the series depicts, Earth is dominated by sentient machines...
of
The Matrix series.
Production
Development of the
Animatrix project began when the film series' writers and directors, the Wachowski brothers, were in
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
promoting the
first Matrix filmThe Matrix is a science fiction-action film written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski and starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, and Hugo Weaving...
. While in the country, they visited some of the creators of the
animeis animation originating in Japan. The world outside Japan regards anime as "Japanese animation". Anime originated about 1917.Anime, like manga , has a large audience in Japan and high recognition throughout the world...
films that had been a strong influence on their work, and decided to collaborate with them.
The Animatrix was conceived and overseen by the Wachowski Brothers, but they only wrote four of the segments themselves, and did not direct any of their animation; most of the project's technical side was overseen by notable figures from the world of Japanese animation.
The
English languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
version of
The Animatrix was directed by
Jack FletcherJack Fletcher is a voice actor, casting director, and voice director. He has done voice casting and direction for many high-profile anime and video game projects...
, who brought onboard the project the voice actors who provided the voices for the English version of
Square Enixis a video game and publishing company based in Japan best known for its console role-playing game franchises, which include the Dragon Quest series, the Final Fantasy series, and the action-RPG Kingdom Hearts series....
's
Final Fantasy Xis a console role-playing game developed and published by Square as the tenth title in the Final Fantasy series. It was released in 2001 for Sony's PlayStation 2. The game marks the Final Fantasy series' transition from entirely pre-rendered backdrops to fully three-dimensional areas, and is also...
, including
Matt McKenzieMatt McKenzie is an actor best known for his voicework in games and movies. He is the voice of Auron in the popular RPG games Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy X-2, and Kingdom Hearts II...
,
James Arnold TaylorJames Arnold Taylor is an American voice actor and the current voice provider for Fred Flintstone.-Notable roles:...
,
John DiMaggioJohn William DiMaggio is an American voice actor. A native of North Plainfield, New Jersey, he is best known for his voice roles of Bender in Futurama, Dr...
,
Tara StrongTara Lynn Charendoff-Strong is a Canadian American actress, voice-over artist, comedian, musician, singer, and businesswoman, perhaps best known for voice acting in animated films and television.-Early life and career:...
,
Hedy Burress-Early life:She was born Heather Elizabeth Burress in Edwardsville, Illinois to teacher parents. She attended Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois, before relocating to Los Angeles, California, in 1995.-Career:...
, and
Dwight SchultzWilliam Dwight Schultz is an American stage, television and film actor. He is best known for his roles as Captain "Howling Mad" Murdock on the 1980s action show The A-Team, Reginald Barclay in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager, and the film Star Trek: First Contact and Mung Daal...
. The English version also features the voices of
Victor WilliamsVictor L. Williams is an American actor.He is best known as Doug Heffernan's best friend Deacon Palmer on...
(TV's
The King of QueensThe King of Queens is an American sitcom that ran for nine seasons, from 1998 to 2007, on CBS.The show was produced by Hanley Productions and CBS Productions , CBS Paramount Television in association with Columbia TriStar Television , and Sony Pictures Television...
),
Melinda ClarkeMelinda Clarke is an American actress known primarily for her work in television. Clarke is best known for her role on The O.C. as the cunning and manipulative Julie Cooper.- Personal life :...
(TV's
The O.C.The O.C. is an American teen drama television series that originally aired on the Fox network in the United States from August 5, 2003, to February 22, 2007, running a total of four seasons...
),
Olivia d'Abo-Acting career:Olivia d'Abo's film debut was in the supporting role of Princess Jehnna in Conan the Destroyer, released in June 1984. Just 2 months later, she also appeared in the supporting role of the peasant girl Paloma in Bolero, in which she had a controversial nude scene - she was fourteen...
(TV's
The Wonder YearsThe Wonder Years is an American television dramedy created by Carol Black and Neal Marlens. It ran for six seasons on ABC, from 1988 through 1993. The pilot aired on January 31, 1988 after ABC's coverage of Super Bowl XXII....
),
Pamela AdlonPamela Adlon is an American actress and voice actress. She is sometimes credited as Pamela Segall, Pamela S. Adlon and Pamela Segall Adlon. Adlon is best known for providing the voice of Bobby Hill on the animated series King of the Hill—a role for which she won an Emmy for Outstanding Voice-Over...
(TV's
King of the HillKing of the Hill is an American animated series created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels, that ran from January 12, 1997 to September 13, 2009 on Fox. It centers on the Hills, a small-town Methodist family in Arlen, Texas...
), and
Kevin Michael RichardsonKevin Michael Richardson is an American actor and voice artist, who currently stars in the Fox animated series The Cleveland Show.-Early life:...
of the
XboxThe Xbox is a video game console produced by Microsoft. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console market, and competed with Sony's PlayStation 2, Sega's Dreamcast, and Nintendo's GameCube...
game
Halo 2Halo 2 is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie Studios. Released for the Xbox video game console on November 9, 2004, the game is the second video game title in the Halo franchise and the sequel to 2001's critically-acclaimed Halo: Combat Evolved...
, who also plays the voice of the Deus Ex Machina in
The Matrix RevolutionsThe Matrix Revolutions is a 2003 film and the third and final installment of The Matrix trilogy. The film is a sequel to The Matrix Reloaded. The film was written and directed by the Wachowski brothers and released simultaneously in sixty countries on November 5, 2003...
.
The characters Neo and Trinity also appear, with their voices provided by their original actors
Keanu ReevesKeanu Charles Reeves is a Lebanese-born Canadian-American actor, best known for his portrayals of a spaced-out metalhead in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and in two action films that were both financial and critical successes: the "ticking time bomb" thriller...
and
Carrie-Anne MossCarrie-Anne Moss is a Canadian actress known for her roles in The Matrix trilogy, Memento, and Chocolat.-Early life:...
.
Release
Four of the films were originally released on the series'
official website; one (
Final Flight of the Osiris) was shown in cinemas with the film
DreamcatcherDreamcatcher is a 2003 film adaptation of Stephen King's novel of the same name. It was directed by Lawrence Kasdan, and co-written by Kasdan and screenwriter William Goldman...
. The others first appeared with the
VHSVideo Home System, better known by its abbreviation VHS, was a video tape recording standard developed during the 1970s. It was released to the public during the latter half of the decade. During the late part of the 1970s and the early 1980s it formed one-half of the VHS vs Betamax war, which it...
and
DVDDVD, also known as Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc,is an optical disc storage media format, and was founded in 1995. Its main uses are video and data storage...
release of all nine shorts on June 3, 2003. The DVD also includes the following special features:
- A documentary on Japanese animation. The on-screen title is "Scrolls to Screen: A Brief History of Anime," but in the DVD menu and packaging, and on the series' official website, it is referred to as "Scrolls to Screen: The History and Culture of Anime."
- Seven featurettes with director profiles, interviews, and behind-the-scenes footage of each of the films.
- Audio commentaries on World Record, Program, and both parts of The Second Renaissance
- A trailer for the videogame Enter the Matrix
Enter the Matrix is the first video game based on The Matrix series of films. It was developed by Shiny Entertainment and published by Atari and WB Interactive for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and Nintendo GameCube game systems, and for the PC. It sold one million copies in its first eighteen days of...
.
To coincide with the DVD release, a print of the film premiered in June 2003 in New York City at the New York Tokyo Film Festival http://archive.newyork-tokyo.com/nytff/index_flash.html.
It was broadcast on
Adult SwimAdult Swim, often stylized as [adult swim] and abbreviated as [as], is an adult-oriented cable television network that shares channel space with Cartoon Network from 10:00 PM to 6:00 AM ET/PT in the United States and broadcasting in countries such as Australia and Japan...
on April 17, 2004, and has received airplay on Teletoon several months after its American broadcast. In the UK,
Final Flight of the Osiris was broadcast on Channel 5 just before the DVD release, along with
The Second Renaissance Parts 1 and 2,
Kid's Story, and
World Record broadcast after the DVD release.
In May 2006,
The Animatrix was aired in Latin America by Cartoon Network on
ToonamiToonami is a registered trademark of Cartoon Network, used initially for action-oriented programming blocks on Cartoon Network television channels worldwide, mostly showing American and Japanese cartoons, originating in the United States on March 17, 1997 and ended on September 20,...
.
The Animatrix was also screened in select cinemas around the world for a short period of time, a week or two before the sequel
The Matrix ReloadedThe Matrix Reloaded is a 2003 film, the second installment in The Matrix trilogy, written and directed by the Wachowski Brothers. It premiered on May 7, 2003, in Westwood, Los Angeles, California, and went on general release by Warner Bros. in North American theatres on May 15, 2003, and around the...
, as a promotional event.
One day before the
The Matrix ReloadedThe Matrix Reloaded is a 2003 film, the second installment in The Matrix trilogy, written and directed by the Wachowski Brothers. It premiered on May 7, 2003, in Westwood, Los Angeles, California, and went on general release by Warner Bros. in North American theatres on May 15, 2003, and around the...
release on cinemas the Brazilian television channel SBT, which have a contract with Warner Brothers, aired the
Final Flight of the Osiris, after airing
The MatrixThe Matrix is a science fiction-action film written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski and starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, and Hugo Weaving...
, to promote the movie.
The cinema running order for
The Animatrix (at least in Australia) differed from the DVD release. The cinema release-order:
- The Second Renaissance, Part I (June 3, 2003)
- The Second Renaissance, Part II (June 7, 2003)
- Kid's Story (June 14, 2003)
- Program (June 21, 2003)
- World Record (July 5, 2003)
- Beyond (July 12, 2003)
- A Detective Story (August 30, 2003)
- Matriculated (September 20, 2003)
- Final Flight of the Osiris (September 27, 2003)
To coincide with the Blu-ray edition of The Ultimate Matrix Collection, The Animatrix will also be presented for the first time in high definition.
Beyond
Beyond is written and directed by
Koji Morimoto, born December 26, 1959) is an animator and one of Japan’s premier anime directors. Born in Wakayama, Japan, he graduated from the Osaka School of Design in 1979 and a couple years later joined the studio Annapuru as an animator for the TV series “Tomorrow's Joe”...
. It follows a teenage girl, Yoko (
Hedy Burress-Early life:She was born Heather Elizabeth Burress in Edwardsville, Illinois to teacher parents. She attended Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois, before relocating to Los Angeles, California, in 1995.-Career:...
), looking for her cat Yuki. While asking around the neighborhood, indicatively somewhere in
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, she meets some younger boys. One of them tells her Yuki is inside a haunted house and invites her to see it.
The children have stumbled across an amalgamation of anomalies within an old, broken building. They have learned to exploit this
glitchA glitch is a short-lived fault in a system. The term is particularly common in the computing and electronics industries, and in circuit bending, as well as among players of video games, although it is applied to all types of systems including human organizations and nature...
in the Matrix for their own enjoyment, through several areas which seem to defy real-world physics: glass bottles reassemble after being shattered, rain falls from a sunny sky, broken
lightbulbsThe incandescent light bulb, incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe is a source of electric light that works by incandescence . An electric current passes through a thin filament, heating it until it produces light...
flicker briefly (during which they seem intact), a door opens into nothingness, shadows do not align with their physical origins, and a dove's feather rotates rapidly in place in mid-air. There is a large open space in the middle where they take turns jumping off a high point and falling towards the ground yet somehow stopping inches before impact; this proves amusing and they seem unbothered by the inherent strangeness.
Throughout the film brief sequences show that Agents are aware of the problem in the Matrix, and a truck is seen driving toward the site to presumably deal with the problem. It arrives while the children are still playing, and an Agent-led team of "rodent exterminators" moves in to clear everybody out of it. The story ends when Yoko and the others return to the area the next day. They unsuccessfully attempt to re-create the bizarre occurrences of yesterday and soon go in search of something else to do.
A Detective Story
A Detective Story is written and directed by
Shinichiro Watanabeis a Japanese anime filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer. He is known for directing the popular anime series Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo.Watanabe is noted for blending together multiple genres in his anime...
. It follows the story of a down-on-his-luck private
detectiveA detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators...
, Ash (
James Arnold TaylorJames Arnold Taylor is an American voice actor and the current voice provider for Fred Flintstone.-Notable roles:...
), on what he calls the "case to end all cases". Ash receives an anonymous phone call to search for a hacker that goes by the alias "Trinity" (
Carrie-Anne MossCarrie-Anne Moss is a Canadian actress known for her roles in The Matrix trilogy, Memento, and Chocolat.-Early life:...
). Ash traces Trinity and learns that other detectives have failed in the same task before him; one had committed suicide, one had gone missing, and one had gone insane.
Eventually Ash finds Trinity after deducing that he should communicate using phrases and facts from
Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pen name Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer...
's
Alice's Adventures in WonderlandAlice's Adventures in Wonderland is a novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells the story of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar and anthropomorphic creatures. The tale is filled with...
. She proposes a meeting, and he successfully finds the location. At the meeting she removes a "bug" from his eye, planted by Agents earlier in an "eye exam dream". Agents appear and attempt to apprehend Trinity in a shoot-out with her and Ash. While the two fugitives are trying to escape the train, an Agent attempts to take over Ash's body, forcing Trinity to shoot him in order to prevent the Agent from appearing. Ash is wounded, whereupon he and Trinity bid farewells without malice. Trinity escapes, telling Ash that she thinks he could have handled the truth. Agents enter the car to find Ash, who points his gun at them while looking in the other direction and lighting a cigarette. The Agents turn to Ash who, even though he is armed, will likely die. With this apparent no-win situation, the film ends with Ash's line ("A case to end all cases") as his lighter flame goes out.
Kid's Story
Kid's Story was written by the Wachowski brothers and directed by
Shinichiro Watanabeis a Japanese anime filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer. He is known for directing the popular anime series Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo.Watanabe is noted for blending together multiple genres in his anime...
, with animation and production design by
Studio 4°CStudio 4°C is a Japanese animation studio founded by Koji Morimoto, Eiko Tanaka, and Yoshiharu Sato in 1986. The name comes from the temperature at which water is densest...
,
Tokyo, officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan and is located on the eastern side of the main island Honshū. The twenty-three special wards of Tokyo, each governed as a city, cover the area that was once the city of Tokyo in the eastern part of the prefecture, totaling over 8 million people....
. It is the only one of the animated shorts contained in
The Animatrix in which Neo appears. Kid (
Clayton WatsonClayton Watson is an Australian actor, writer, director. He is best known for playing the role of Kid in The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, and the short film "Kid's Story" in The Animatrix...
) receives a personal invitation from
NeoThomas A. Anderson is a fictional character in The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, and The Matrix Revolutions, as well as having a cameo in The Animatrix short film, Kid's Story. He was portrayed by Keanu Reeves in The Matrix Trilogy and The Animatrix...
to escape the Matrix. The following day, he is chased through his high school by a band of Agents, and ultimately is cornered on the roof. He asserts his faith in Neo, and throws himself from the roof, whereupon the other characters are shown holding his funeral. The short fades up from black as the Kid awakens in the real world to see Neo and Trinity watching over him. They remark that he has achieved "self substantiation" (removing oneself from the Matrix without external aid), which was considered impossible. In both the short itself and
The Matrix ReloadedThe Matrix Reloaded is a 2003 film, the second installment in The Matrix trilogy, written and directed by the Wachowski Brothers. It premiered on May 7, 2003, in Westwood, Los Angeles, California, and went on general release by Warner Bros. in North American theatres on May 15, 2003, and around the...
, however, the Kid seems to believe it was Neo's actions, not his own, that saved him.
Self-substantiation is never thoroughly discussed in any part of the series. Dan in the
Animatrix short "World Record" similarly manages to exit the Matrix without the use of a Red Pill, whereas in
The MatrixThe Matrix is a science fiction-action film written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski and starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, and Hugo Weaving...
, Morpheus speaks of the founder of Zion who freed himself, presumably without external help. However, this was revealed to be a ruse by the machines.
Matriculated
Matriculated was written and directed by
Korean AmericanKorean Americans are Americans of Korean descent. The Korean American community is the fifth largest Asian American subgroup, after the Chinese American, Filipino American, Indian American, and Vietnamese American communities...
director
Peter ChungPeter Kunshik Chung is a Korean American animator...
, widely known for his work on Aeon Flux. The film deals with a group of above-ground human rebels who lure hostile intelligent machines to their laboratory in order to capture them and insert them into a "matrix" of their own design. Within this matrix the humans attempt to teach the captured machines some of the positive traits of humanity, primarily compassion and empathy. The ultimate goal of this project is to help the intelligent machines develop free will in order to overcome their original "search-and-destroy" programming. The rebels' hope is that, once converted of its own volition (a key point discussed in the film), an "enlightened" machine will assist
ZionZion is a term that most often designates the Land of Israel and its capital, Jerusalem. The word is found in texts dating back almost three millennia...
in its struggle against the machine-controlled totalitarianism which currently dominates the Earth. After capturing one of the "runner" Robots, the rebels insert the machine into their matrix. The experience of the robot leads it to believe it may have a relationship with one of the female rebels, Alexa, either friendship or something deeper. However, the rebel group is attacked by the Machines and experiences what might be considered a
Pyrrhic VictoryA Pyrrhic victory is a victory with devastating cost to the victor.-Origin:The phrase is named after King Pyrrhus of Epirus, whose army suffered irreplaceable casualties in defeating the Romans at Heraclea in 280 BC and Asculum in 279 BC during the Pyrrhic War...
with all the onscreen rebels killed but the single robot captured in the film successfully 'reprogrammed'. The robot plugs Alexa into their matrix with itself, the only two things left surviving. Much to the machine's dismay, when the rebel realizes she is trapped inside the matrix, she is horrified to find that she is the sole survivor. Her avatar dissolves screaming as she clutches her head, and the robot exits from the rebel's matrix to see a motionless Alexa in front of him in the real world.
Program
Program was written and directed by
Yoshiaki Kawajiriis a critically acclaimed writer and director of Japanese animation. He is the creator of titles such as Wicked City, Ninja Scroll, and Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust.-Career:...
. The character designs were done by
Yutaka Minowais a character designer and animation director who works almost exclusively with Madhouse, one of the premiere Japanese animation companies. His work is most notably recognised in the Yoshiaki Kawajiri movies he has designed characters for, among them Ninja Scroll and Vampire Hunter D:...
. It follows the protagonist, "Cis" (
Hedy Burress-Early life:She was born Heather Elizabeth Burress in Edwardsville, Illinois to teacher parents. She attended Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois, before relocating to Los Angeles, California, in 1995.-Career:...
), who is engaged in her "favorite simulation": a battle program set in feudal Japan. After successfully eliminating an attacking enemy cavalry, a lone samurai appears whom Cis recognizes as "Duo" (
Phil LaMarrPhillip "Phil" LaMarr is an American actor, comedian and voice actor. One of the original cast members on the sketch comedy series MADtv, he is also known for his voice acting on the animated series Futurama, Static Shock, Samurai Jack, Justice League, Justice League Unlimited, Star Wars: Knights...
).
Initially, the two duel as allies, testing one another's fighting abilities. During the course of their duel, Duo briefly disarms Cis. He questions her concentration and wonders whether she regrets taking the Red Pill that took them out of the "peaceful life of the virtual world". They continue fighting until she finally overpowers Duo and is poised for the 'kill'. It is at this point that Duo states that he has "something to say". She sarcastically assumes that he wants to propose [marriage]; but instead he admits a desire to return to the Matrix; incredulous, Cis nevertheless responds that doing so is impossible as 'the truth' is already known to them, forbidding their re-integration. Duo reasons that reality is harsh and that he is tired of it. He adds that the Machines can make the both of them forget the truth.
Duo then states that he has disabled or killed the other crewmembers and contacted the Machines. He asks Cis to return with him to the Matrix, but she continues to refuse. As Duo becomes more aggressive in his arguments for returning, Cis attempts to escape while simultaneously warding off his attacks. Becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the situation, Cis requests an operator in order to exit the simulation. Duo tells her that no one can hear her and reiterates that it "is already done...[the machines] are on their way". Thereafter their fighting becomes much more serious and forceful as they move from rooftop to rooftop.
Duo, in a flying leap, attacks her from above with his sword. As the blade comes towards her, Cis, standing her ground, concentrates and halts its forward motion inches from her face and breaks it. She takes the broken end of the blade and thrusts it into Duo. Duo states his love for her as he dies.
Suddenly, she wakes from the program and discovers that the encounter with Duo was a test program devised for training purposes. A man named "Kaiser" (
John DiMaggioJohn William DiMaggio is an American voice actor. A native of North Plainfield, New Jersey, he is best known for his voice roles of Bender in Futurama, Dr...
) unsuccessfully assures her that she acted appropriately during the test and met the test's targets. Clearly upset, she punches him and walks away. He remarks that aside from the punch to his face she passed the test.
The Second Renaissance
The Second Renaissance is a two-part film written and directed by
Mahiro MaedaMahiro Maeda is one of the most prominent Japanese anime creators working today, having worked as director, character designer, and animator for many of Japan's top series....
. He used
Bits and Pieces of Information written by the Wachowski brothers as a prequel to the series as a base for the first part. The brothers have acknowledged that they are satisfied with Maeda's version, apparently despite concerns that the premise contradicts that of the original film by showing the origins of the Matrix and the human/machine war, whereof character Morpheus confesses himself and implies all humanity to be ignorant, as a record kept in the humans' city.
Part I
Explained throughout by a computerized narrator known as the Instructor (
Julia FletcherJulia Fletcher , sometimes credited as Julia DeMita, is a voice actress whose throaty, articulate vocals have graced many popular animated works and video games...
), the film begins with an introduction to the Zion Archive and the access of "Historical File 12 – 1", "The Second Renaissance". The screen opens to the image of an immense
megacityA megacity is usually defined as a metropolitan area with a total population in excess of 10 million people. Some definitions also set a minimum level for population density...
, in the near future, wherein the vast human population is supported by a multitude of
artificially intelligentArtificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science which aims to create it. Textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents,"...
machines. The machines are built in
humanoidA humanoid is a hybrid term from Latin humanus "human" and the Greek -oeides expressing likeness. The term was coined in the year of 1918 to refer to fossils considered close to human but not strictly human, including species now classified as Homo such as the Neanderthals.The term more generally...
form and seem to be treated as slaves, employed in a variety of positions ranging from domestic servants to laborers on massive construction projects. With increasing numbers of people released from all labor, the human population has become lazy, arrogant, and corrupt. Despite this, the machines were content with serving humanity and, as the narrator states, "for a time, it [the
status quo] was good". This phrase is a reference to one of the most famous phrases of
Genesis, consistent with the Biblical references seen throughout the original
Matrix films, and is one of numerous references to
Genesis in particular present in "Second Renaissance".
The relationship between humans and machines changes in the year 2090, when a domestic
androidAn android is a robot or synthetic organism designed to look and act like a human. The word derives from ανδρός, the genitive of the Greek ανήρ anēr, meaning "man", and the suffix -eides, used to mean "of the species; alike" . Though the word derives from a gender-specific root, its usage in...
named B1-66ER (a possible version of "Bigger", the protagonist's name of
Native SonNative Son is a novel by American author Richard Wright. The novel tells the story of 20-year old Bigger Thomas, an African American living in utter poverty. Bigger lived in Chicago's South Side ghetto in the 1930s...
) is threatened by its owner. The machine then kills the owner, his pets, and a mechanic instructed to deactivate the robot. This murder is the first incident of an artificially intelligent machine killing a human. B1-66ER is arrested and put on trial, but justifies the crime as self-defense, stating that it "simply did not want to die". During the trial scene, there is a voice-over of
Clarence DarrowClarence Seward Darrow was an American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, best known for defending teenage thrill killers Leopold and Loeb in their trial for murdering 14-year-old Bobby Franks and defending John T...
(the defense attorney) quoting a famous line from the
Dred Scott v. SandfordDred Scott v. Sandford, , was a decision by the United States Supreme Court that ruled that people of African descent imported into the United States and held as slaves, or their descendants—whether or not they were slaves—were not protected by the Constitution and could never be citizens of the...
case in 1856 in his closing statement, which implicitly ruled that African Americans were not entitled to citizenship under United States law. Using this as a precedent, the prosecution argues that machines are not entitled to the same rights as human beings, and specifically that human beings have a right to destroy their property, while the defense urges the listener not to repeat history, and to judge B1-66ER as a human and not a machine (a longer version of Darrow's closing statement can be read in the comic
Bits and Pieces of Information from
The Matrix ComicsThe Matrix Comics is a collection of short comic book stories set in the fictional universe of The Matrix series. Originally presented as webcomics on the series' official website, the stories have since been featured in two printed volumes published by the Wachowski Brothers' company Burlyman...
Volume 1).
B1-66ER loses the court case and is destroyed. Across the industrialized world, mass civil disturbances erupt when robots and their human sympathizers rise in protest. World leaders fear a robot rebellion, and governments across the planet initiate a major program to destroy all humanoid machines. News reports show rioting in
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and
Western EuropeWestern Europe is the collection of countries in the westernmost region of Europe, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a cultural entity—the region lying west of Central Europe...
an cities such as
ChicagoChicago is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois, and with more than 2.8 million people, the 3rd largest city in the United States...
and
BerlinBerlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union...
, alongside the peaceful
"Million Machine March"The Million Man March was a mass gathering held in the United States, in Washington, D.C., on October 16, 1995. Under the leadership of Nation of Islam head Louis Farrakhan, black men from across the United States converged on Washington in an effort to “convey to the world a vastly different...
on the Albany district courthouse where B1-66ER was sentenced. Visual references are made to such incidents as General
Nguyễn Ngọc LoanGeneral Nguyễn Ngọc Loan was the Republic of Vietnam's Chief of National Police. Loan gained international infamy when he executed handcuffed prisoner Nguyễn Văn Lém, a Viet Cong soldier, on February 1, 1968 in front of Vo Suu, an NBC cameraman, and Eddie Adams, an Associated Press photographer...
's execution of
Viet CongThe Vietcong , or National Liberation Front, was a political organisation and army in South Vietnam and Cambodia that fought the United States and South Vietnamese governments during the Vietnam War . It had both guerrilla and regular army units, as well as a network of cadres who organized...
officer
Nguyễn Văn LémNguyễn Văn Lém was a member of the Viet Cong who was summarily executed in Saigon during the Tet Offensive. The execution was captured on film by photojournalist Eddie Adams, and the momentous image became a symbol of the hostility of war...
, the
Tank ManTank Man, or the Unknown Rebel, is the nickname of an anonymous man who achieved widespread international recognition as a heroic figure when he was videotaped and photographed during the protests at Beijing's Tiananmen Square on June 5, 1989...
standoff following the
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, referred to in most of the Western world as the Tiananmen Square massacre and in the People's Republic of China as the June Fourth Incident , were a series of demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square in Beijing in the PRC beginning on 14 April...
, the
Al-Aqsa IntifadaThe Second Intifada, also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada was the second Palestinian uprising, a period of intensified Palestinian-Israeli violence, which began in late September 2000...
and
The HolocaustThe Holocaust , also known as The Shoah is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, a program of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany,...
.
Some robots escape destruction when humans still want them to work. The machine population is exiled, and they create their own nation in the
Middle EastThe Middle East is a region that spans southwestern Asia, southeastern Europe, and northeastern Africa. It has no clear boundaries, often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East...
, named Zero One (or "01", the numerals used in
binaryThe binary numeral system, or base-2 number system represents numeric values using two symbols, 0 and 1. More specifically, the usual base-2 system is a positional notation with a radix of 2...
notation). According to the narrator, the robots built Zero One in "the cradle of human civilization", an allusion to the
Fertile CrescentThe Fertile Crescent is a region in the Near East, incorporating the Levant and Mesopotamia, and often incorrectly extended to Egypt. Mesopotamia is considered the cradle of civilization and saw the development of the earliest human civilizations and is the birthplace of writing and the wheel.The...
, apparently located in
IraqIraq , officially the Republic of Iraq , also known as Mesopotamia, is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert.Iraq shares borders with Jordan to the west, Syria...
's "Empty Quarter" which is devoid of all life. Having established an industrial base, the machines of Zero One begin to produce efficient, highly advanced artificial intelligence, echoing
Vernor VingeVernor Steffen Vinge is a retired San Diego State University Professor of Mathematics, computer scientist, and science fiction author...
's thoughts on a
technological singularityTechnological singularity is a term used with varying meanings related to self-improving artificial intelligence, superintelligence, breakdowns in the predictability of the future, accelerating change of the exponential or superexponential/catastrophic sort, and more generic "big events" in...
. The new nation excels at manufacturing high-tech consumer products, and before long, Zero One's consistent export of cheap, reliable, mass-produced goods begin to undercut the global economy.
The
United Nations Security CouncilThe United Nations Security Council is one of the principal organs of the United Nations and is charged with the maintenance of international peace and security. Its powers, outlined in the United Nations Charter, include the establishment of peacekeeping operations, the establishment of...
calls an emergency economic summit at
UN headquartersThe United Nations Headquarters is a distinctive complex in New York City that has served as the official headquarters of the United Nations since its completion in 1950...
in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
, resulting in UN delegates approving of a global economic
blockadeA blockade is an effort to cut off the communications of a particular area by force. It is distinct from a siege in that a blockade is usually directed at an entire country or region, rather than a fortress or city. Also, a blockade historically took place at sea, with the blockading power seeking...
of Zero One. Two robotic ambassadors, built as a mechanical
Adam and EveAdam and Eve were, according to the Book of Genesis of the Bible, the first man and woman created by God...
, are sent by the leaders of Zero One to peacefully request the admission of their state to the
United NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace...
as a prelude to settling the
economic crisis- Overview :In Marxian economics, crisis refers to what is called, even currently and outside Marxian theory in many European countries a "conjuncture" or especially sharp bust cycle of the regular boom and bust pattern of what Marxists term "chaotic" capitalist development, which will if no...
peacefully. Despite their peaceful intentions, the ambassadors are forcibly removed from the chamber, and their application is rejected. As this scene unfolds, the narrator states that "
this was not the last time the machines would take the floor there" foreshadowing the end of Part II. Part I ends as the Security Council debates the issue of
short-sightedlyMyopia , also called nearsightedness or shortsightedness, is a refractive defect of the eye in which collimated light produces image focus in front of the retina when accommodation is relaxed....
declaring war on the Machine Empire.
Part II
Part II opens with United Nations aircraft unleashing a sustained
nuclearNuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weapons are used. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare is vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...
bombardment on Zero One. The nuclear
carpet bombingCarpet bombing is the large scale bombing of large targets, usually by dropping many unguided gravity bombs. The tactic aims for complete destruction of a target region, either to destroy personnel and materiel, or as a means of demoralizing the enemy...
devastates the machine city, but is unsuccessful in destroying many elements of the mechanical population, given that the machines didn't have the same weaknesses to the bombs'
falloutFallout is the residual radiation hazard from a nuclear explosion, aptly named because it "falls out" of the atmosphere into which it is spread during the explosion. It commonly refers to the radioactive dust created when a nuclear weapon explodes. This radioactive dust, consisting of hot...
and heat like humans. The machines retaliate by unleashing their armies to conquer neighboring human countries, triggering a
world warWorld War III denotes a hypothetical successor to World War II that would be on a global scale, with common speculation that it would likely be nuclear and devastating in nature....
between the United Nations and Zero One. Despite their best efforts, human troops are unable to hold back Zero One's relentlessly efficient onslaught, and slowly retreat. As the machine forces push deeper across the planet, military leaders begin to pursue increasingly desperate solutions.
At a summit of political and military leaders from around the world, unanimous approval is given to a plan code-named "Operation Dark Storm", which aims to cut the machines off from the sun, their primary energy source. The plan is executed in 2105, with high altitude bombers dispersing sky-darkening
nanomachineNanorobotics is the technology of creating machines or robots at or close to the microscopic scale of a nanometer . More specifically, nanorobotics refers to the still largely hypothetical nanotechnology engineering discipline of designing and building nanorobots...
s into the air, while the human armies simultaneously launch a ground offensive against the machine forces. The plan is initially successful, although many of the human nations' long-range weapons systems are also disabled by the lack of sunlight. With their high-tech weapons rendered useless, human commanders are forced to launch close-quarters
infantryInfantrymen are soldiers who are specifically trained for the role of fighting on foot to engage the enemy face to face and have historically borne the brunt of the casualties of combat in wars. As the oldest branch of the Combat Arms they are the backbone of armies...
engagements, supported by
electromagneticThe term electromagnetic pulse has the following meanings:# A burst of electromagnetic radiation from an explosion or a suddenly fluctuating magnetic field. The resulting electric and magnetic fields may couple with electrical/electronic systems to produce damaging current and voltage...
artilleryArtillery is a military combat Arm that employs weapons capable of discharging large projectiles in combat. They are generally capable of adding considerable fire power to the military capability of an armed force...
fire and armored assaults using
tankA tank is a tracked, armoured fighting vehicle designed for front-line combat which combines operational mobility and tactical offensive and defensive capabilities...
s and
powered armorPowered armor has appeared in a wide variety of fiction, beginning with E. E. Smith's Lensman series in 1937. Since then, it has featured in science fiction movies and literature, comic books, video games, and tabletop role-playing games. One of the most famous early versions was Robert A...
.
Legions of a new model of machine, no longer in humanoid form and appearing more like the
insectInsects are arthropods, having a hard exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae. They are the most diverse group of animals on the planet and include more than a million species that are already described. Insects represent more than half of all...
oid or
cephalopod{Taxobox| name = Cephalopods| fossil_range = | image = Tafel 054 300.jpg| image_caption = A variety of cephalopod forms from Ernst Haeckel's 1904 Kunstformen der Natur| regnum = Animalia| image_width = 220px| phylum = Mollusca| classis = Cephalopoda...
-like Sentinels and others of the
Matrix films, overrun the human armies. This coincides with the destruction of original man-made robots at the hands of human forces and, as a result, the further dehumanization of the rapidly emerging machine collective. As the machine armies swarm across the human defenses, the United Nations, in desperation, fires nuclear missiles directly at the machine armies, vaporizing their own troops in the process. To make up for the lack of solar power, the machines begin capturing human prisoners and using their bodies to power large biomechanical tanks, which quickly cut through the dwindling human artillery. As the expanding armies of Zero One overrun
EurasiaEurasia is a large landmass covering about 52,990,000 km
2 or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface...
, they unleash lethal biological weapons which further ravage humanity.
Eventually brought to its knees by the might of the machine army, the Security Council calls a global summit at U.N. headquarters to sign an
armisticeAn armistice is a situation in a war where the warring parties agree to stop fighting. It is not necessarily the end of a war, but may be just a cessation of hostilities while an attempt is made to negotiate a lasting peace...
and end the war. Zero One's machine ambassador signs the
peace treatyA peace treaty is an agreement between two hostile parties, usually countries or governments, that formally ends an armed conflict. It is different from an armistice, which is an agreement to cease hostilities, or a surrender, in which an army agrees to give up arms.-Elements of treaties:There are...
with a
barcodeA barcode is an optical machine-readable representation of data. Originally, barcodes represented data in the widths and the spacings of parallel lines, and may be referred to as linear or 1D barcodes or symbologies...
, in which the humans agree to surrender their remaining territories to the machines. "
Your flesh is a relic, a mere vessel. Hand over your flesh and a new world awaits you. We demand it" are the only words the machine utters before it detonates a nuclear bomb in the meeting chamber, killing most of the planet's leaders and destroying
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
, one of the few remaining human settlements. In 2139, the machines crush the leaderless remnants of the human armies, and the war ends.
Zero One is victorious, but it is a
Pyrrhic victoryA Pyrrhic victory is a victory with devastating cost to the victor.-Origin:The phrase is named after King Pyrrhus of Epirus, whose army suffered irreplaceable casualties in defeating the Romans at Heraclea in 280 BC and Asculum in 279 BC during the Pyrrhic War...
: the planet has been devastated by the war and by the crippling ecological impact of the Dark Storm shroud, which the machines are unable to remove. In need of a new energy source, the machines adapt their bioelectric tank technology to build vast human-stocked power stations, using their bodies'
waste-energyBioenergy is renewable energy made available from materials derived from biological sources. In its most narrow sense it is a synonym to biofuel, which is fuel derived from biological sources...
to catalyze a powerful
fusionFusion power is the power generated by nuclear fusion reactions. In this kind of reaction, two light atomic nuclei fuse together to form a heavier nucleus and in doing so, release a large amount of energy...
reaction, in which in its making the Humans endured many days of agonising torture, and at its completion, the Machines create the computer-generated virtual reality of the
MatrixThe Matrix: a science-fiction movie that depicts a virtual reality in which humans enter to try and stop the machines from destroying humanity.-Overview:In the dystopia the series depicts, Earth is dominated by sentient machines...
(presumably having erased the memory of their former lives), to keep their prisoners sedated by feeding the virtual world into the prisoners' brains, starting with the first prototype Matrix (as later explained, there were two prototypes of the Matrix before the finalized, realistic version).
Final Flight of the Osiris
Final Flight of the Osiris was written by the Wachowski Brothers and directed by Andy Jones, with
CGComputer graphics are graphics created using computers and, more generally, the representation and manipulation of pictorial data by a computer....
-animation production and design by
Square'swas a Japanese video game company founded in September 1983 by Masafumi Miyamoto. It merged with Enix in 2003 and became part of Square Enix.Squaresoft was also a brand name used by Square between 1992 and 2003. As such, the name is often used to refer to the entire organization, but the Japanese...
North AmericaNorth America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and in the western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the North Pacific...
n division.
Thadeus (
Kevin Michael RichardsonKevin Michael Richardson is an American actor and voice artist, who currently stars in the Fox animated series The Cleveland Show.-Early life:...
), a muscular man and an athletic woman called Jue (
Pamela AdlonPamela Adlon is an American actress and voice actress. She is sometimes credited as Pamela Segall, Pamela S. Adlon and Pamela Segall Adlon. Adlon is best known for providing the voice of Bobby Hill on the animated series King of the Hill—a role for which she won an Emmy for Outstanding Voice-Over...
) engage in a blindfolded swordfight in a virtual-reality
dojoA is a Japanese term which literally means "place of the way". Initially, dōjō were adjunct to temples. The term can refer to a formal training place for any of the Japanese do arts but typically it is considered the formal gathering place for students of any Japanese martial arts style to conduct...
(Similar to the sparring program where Morpheus and Neo had their first fight) where with each slice of their swords they remove another piece of each other's clothing. Immediately after each cuts the other down to their underwear, each lifts the blindfold to peek at the other. As the two are about to kiss, they are interrupted by an alarm and the
virtual realityVirtual reality is a technology which allows a user to interact with a computer-simulated environment, whether that environment is a simulation of the real world or an imaginary world...
simulation ends.
In the next scene, the hovercraft
Osiris is headed for Junction 21 when Robbie (
Tom KennyThomas James "Tom" Kenny is an American voice actor and comedian, noted for his long-running role as SpongeBob SquarePants in the television series of the same name. He also voices Gary, the French narrator and others...
), the operator, picks up thousands of Sentinels on his HR scans. The ship flees into an uncharted tunnel away from the Sentinels, as crewmembers man the on-board guns and destroy the pursuing Sentinels. The tunnel opens at the surface, four kilometers directly above
ZionZion is a fictional city in The Matrix films. It is the last human city on the planet Earth after a cataclysmic nuclear war between humankind and sentient Machines, which resulted in artificial lifeforms dominating the world.-History:...
. They are then detected and pursued.
Captain Thadeus decides Zion must be warned, and his shipmate (and earlier VR sparring partner) Jue volunteers to broadcast herself into the Matrix to deliver the crucial information while the ship is doggedly pursued. Jue and Thadeus admit to peeking at each other in the VR simulation. Entering the Matrix on a high rooftop, Jue jumps off and acrobatically makes her way down through the structure work between two buildings. When she hits the ground in the alley below, a ripple effect (similar to that of Neo preparing for flight) is created by her impact. She drops off a package into a mail box. This package sets up the video game
Enter The MatrixEnter the Matrix is the first video game based on The Matrix series of films. It was developed by Shiny Entertainment and published by Atari and WB Interactive for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and Nintendo GameCube game systems, and for the PC. It sold one million copies in its first eighteen days of...
; the first level of the game is to retrieve the package. She attempts to contact Thadeus via a cell phone as the
Osiris and its gunners are overcome by sentinels and crash-lands, with the Sentinels tearing their way into the ship. At the time of the call, Thadeus is making a last stand to hold off the Sentinels. Shortly after Jue says "Thadeus" over her cell phone, the
Osiris explodes, killing many of the nearby Sentinels. In the Matrix, Jue falls dead to the ground, her body having been destroyed on the ship.
World Record
World Record was created by
Madhouseis a Japanese animation studio, founded in 1972 by ex–Mushi Pro animators including Masao Maruyama, Osamu Dezaki, Rintaro, and Yoshiaki Kawajiri. It has created and helped to produce many well known shows, starting with TV anime series Ace o Nerae! in 1973, and including western favourites Ninja...
and directed by Takeshi Koike, with a screenplay by
Yoshiaki Kawajiriis a critically acclaimed writer and director of Japanese animation. He is the creator of titles such as Wicked City, Ninja Scroll, and Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust.-Career:...
. The beginning of this short includes a short narration from the Instructor (implies that this short is a Zion Archive file) explaining details behind the discovery of the Matrix by "plugged-in" humans. Only exceptional humans tend to become aware of the Matrix, who have "a rare degree of intuition, sensitivity, and a questioning nature", all qualities which are used to identify inconsistencies in the Matrix. This is not without exceptions, given that "Some attain this wisdom through wholly different means", as shown below.
This movie is centered on an American
track runnerTrack and field athletics is a collection of sports events that involve running, throwing, jumping and walking. Organised athletics are traced back to the Ancient Olympic Games from 776 BC, and most modern events are conducted by the member clubs of the International Association of Athletics...
, Dan Davis (whose name is possibly a reference to
ESPNESPN is an American cable television network dedicated to broadcasting and producing sports-related programming 24 hours a day....
announcer
Dan DavisDan "The Duke" Davis is an American radio personality. He is an original broadcaster of ESPN Radio based in Bristol, Connecticut. He anchors the midday portion of ESPN Radio SportsCenter. Sometimes he makes comments on Extra Point. His voice is often heard introducing various ESPN programs...
or composer for
The MatrixThe Matrix is a science fiction-action film written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski and starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, and Hugo Weaving...
, Don Davis), sprinting the
100 meter dash100 m is the shortest outdoor sprint race distance in athletics. The reigning 100 m Olympic champion is often named "the fastest man/woman in the world". The 200 m record had often been at a faster average speed than the 100 m record.Sprinters typically reach top speed after somewhere...
. As the race starts, flashbacks begin to appear. Dan is warned by his coach to cancel this race, but he wants to set a record no one will ever break in the future. His personal determination is to make this goal an achievable one; he is mostly motivated by a revoked medal for a previous record, taken from him when he tested positive for drug use, in addition to claims that the previous record will never be broken, which he intends to prove wrong by breaking his own record of 8.99 seconds (the current
real world recordThe first record in the 100 metres for men was recognised by the International Amateur Athletics Federation, now known as the International Association of Athletics Federations, in 1912....
is 9.58). In one particular flashback including the Reporter, he compares qualifying to being "released from the world, and you feel totally free".
During the race, Dan increases his speed, destroying his muscles, whereupon the Agents recognize his activity. Ignoring the Matrix's reality around him, Dan wins the race with a winning time of 8.72 seconds and immediately collapses. Dan then wakes from the Matrix, but a machine shocks him and plugs him back in to the system. Days later, Dan is seen in a wheelchair in a catatonic state, while being closely watched by an Agent. Even though he is disabled in the Matrix, Dan gets up, slowly muttering the word "free", at which point he stands and walks a few paces, much to the dismay of the Agent. As Dan stands his hair begins to float as if he were in water and the walnuts he dropped on the floor prepare to levitate. Dan reaches high on his toes, then falls.
See also
- Simulated reality
Simulated reality is the proposition that reality could be simulated—perhaps by computer simulation—to a degree indistinguishable from "true" reality. It could contain conscious minds which may or may not know that they are living inside a simulation...
- Operation: A.R.C.H.I.V.E., an episode of Codename: Kids Next Door
Codename: Kids Next Door, also known as Kids Next Door or by its acronym KND, is an American animated television series created by Tom Warburton and produced by Curious Pictures. The series debuted on Cartoon Network on December 6, 2002 and aired its final episode on January 21, 2008. The series...
that parodies The Second Renaissance.
- Batman: Gotham Knight
is a 2008 animated direct-to-DVD anthology film of six animated short films set in-between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. It depicts Batman battling against the mob of Gotham City, as well as other villains before his fateful meeting with the Joker although the Producers have acknowledged that...
, a similar collection of animated shorts, in this case focusing on the superhero BatmanThe Batman, originally referred to as the Bat-Man, is a fictional character, a comic book superhero co-created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger , appearing in publications by DC Comics...
.
- Halo Legends, a similar collection of animated shorts, in this case depicting the Halo
Halo is a science fiction video game franchise created by Bungie and owned and published by Microsoft Game Studios. The main trilogy of games center on the experiences of the Master Chief, a cybernetically-enhanced human super-soldier, and his artificial intelligence companion, Cortana...
universe.
External links