The Second Renaissance Part II (2003)

Just perfect...

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Well.. actually the second of the second of the second, looking at the film's title. These 9 minutes continue where "The Second Renaissance Part 1" left off. Unfortunately it is equally forgettable just like the first part. Men rejected machines' peaceful attempt to return, so a war is unavoidable. And of course there can only be one possible outcome to that. Stupid men. So they want to destroy the sky? Another brilliant idea. NOT. The director is Mahiro Maeda again, who already worked with Tarantino and the script comes from the Wachowskis just like the script for the famous live action movies. I have to say I was never too big on "The Matrix", but these animated short films are even worse. And also, they almost have no reference to the films anymore at all. Not recommended.

The Second Renaissance was the best short on the Animatrix DVD. The first half was the stronger, showing the show and political world before the machines took over the Earth. But The Second Reaissiance is still pretty good.Part II tells the story of the war between humanity and the machines. The human nations attempt to nuke 01 but nuclear weapons have little affect to machines who are not living creatures. The machine quickly conquer the Middle East and Europe, and winning the war. The humans take the drastic action and block out the sun, believing they would take out the machines' energy supply. But humanity is still loosing the war, and soldiers even take solace in religion. There are many brutal battles and the machines force humanity to sign a humiliating peace treaty in the UN in New York before blowing up the city. However, victory seems hollow. The machines in the end have to enslave humanity by making them their power source; thereby forming the Matrix as a system of control.The plot and narrative is weaker in this short. This short is more about the action, with gory violence, and shows how bleak the world becomes. The style of the animation is beautiful and the action well down. There are also some interesting themes, like humans in their darkest hour look to religion, that victory can be hollow, the link between machines and humans and desperate actions humans may take. The signing of the peace treaty also reminded me of the Armistice between France and Germany during World War 2 where Hitler found the same train carriage where the Germans were forced to sign the armistice in World War 1. Cruel irony. It's only 9 minutes, it's worth watching.

Again, I'm not exactly sure why this one had to be divided from the first part, which was a lot better and more effective in creating a sense of doom. This one also felt a little incomplete because it ended before explaining how the resistance featured in the Matrix trilogy main plot arch even managed to form. If there were two parts, was there supposed to be a third? The animation in both parts one and two is decent, though the second one stands out more for its expressive use of dissolves and that uncanny image of the (robotic?) horseman falling into flames. I really wish the two parts were one, as I think they'd both be more effective that way.--PolarisDiB

TSR parts 1 and 2 are probably the most important shorts on the Animatrix, being the story of how humanity ended up being slaves to the machines. Despite that, it is over-the-top in it's delivery, but none of the story seems to make sense unless you think humanity is an utterly incomprehensible monster with no common sense, ethics or sense of perspective.***SPOILERS***A robot kills his master, precipitating a worldwide destruction of robots, adapting footage from riots and insurrections the world overt, including a particularly disturbing scene of the rape of a robot woman. Throughout this series, humans are depicted as a race of Nazis on steroids.Their mindset seems to be "if you accidentally bumped into me on the street, I will shoot you and kill your entire family". Berserk animals so unrealistic it would almost hurt my love for the Matrix movies if this was the first thing I were to be exposed to. It's as thought the Wachowskis couldn't think of a reason why the war started, or perhaps they wanted to avoid a story too similar to The Terminator, so they settled on an idiotic parody of mankind as being the aggressors. In a series with people flying, turning into ghosts, and stopping bullets with their mind, it is The Second Renaissance that is the most unrealistic.3/10