The Animatrix | Film by The Wachowskis (producers)

Somehow I’d managed to navigate the 18 years since The Matrix came out without ever seeing it. I knew I’d like it (I’d heard what it was about) but I just hadn’t ever watched it… until last week. And I loved it, of course.

My sister Ellie told me to watch The Animatrix next — it’s a series of animated short films giving some of the back story behind The Matrix. Each animation was produced, directed and created by a different team, meaning that each story has a different feel to it. This is similar to The Prophet, which is built around mini-stories that were each animated by a different person / team.

Particularly cool is how some of the stories dig into whether robots deserve to be treated equally to humans, have fair trials, etc. Like all good sci-fi it leaves you thinking about what could actually happen in the real world… what if robots do end up becoming autonomous? It made me think back to Yuval Harari’s book Homo Deus, which explores what may be in store for humankind in the future (lots of AI).

The animations is awesome and the stories will probably bend your mind a little — I definitely need to watch it again.