From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Fri May 30 2003 - 15:26:38 MDT
Some spolier comments for the Animatrix:
The Animatrix is a nice complement to the films. Overall, the animatrix
stories set in the basic setting the movies show are often less
interesting than the other (this is also true for the cartoons and short
stories on the site; Neil Gaiman's take
http://whatisthematrix.warnerbros.com/cmp/neil_g.html seems to mirror
the distributed processing view we tend to like here, and plays wildly
with the Matrixverse).
I have already pointed out how "The Second Renaissance Part I" decidedly
takes the machine side. I found the descriptions of how the
ultra-efficient "Nation of 01" causes economical trouble rather
intriguing; a kind of reverse comparative advantage where almost all
manufacturing can be done better by the AI nation than human nations - I
really wonder what conditions could bring that about.
"Detective Story" is apparently set in an alternate, film noir Matrix -
but Trinity is present, suggesting that the Matrix may be reformatted
from time to time and/or that the Animatrix doesn't care about
continuity. I love the snow animation.
The "Last Flight of the Osiris" is a fairly straightforward story, most
worth watching for very good computer graphics and the interesting game
of "strip swordfighting". The swarming of the squidbots is beautiful -
if I ever get a reason to send out replicating killer robots or nanofogs
I promise to at least think a bit of their movement patterns.
"Beyond" is a poetic little story that does a nice job of showing how
bugs in the Matrix might behave; the Matrix universe has some wonderful
surrealism potential. "World Record" is another story set in
an alternate Matrix; more inspirational than philosophical. "Kid's
Story" is visually interesting but too much standard teen angst to grab
me.
My total favorite is "Matriculation". Drawn by Pete Chung, it is Aeon
Flux meets the Matrix (I'm positive that the protagonist is Aeon herself
- which might be a spoiler to how she ends up ;-). Beautifully drawn,
very well characterised (designed?) machines, and a different take on
how the human resistance could work: by convincing AI to join them.
There is some interesting discussion about the ethics of just recoding
the AIs vs. convincing them - and whether the convincing really is a
form of coercion, since the AIs might be too literal-minded to
understand that the human visions of co-existence and symbiosis are not
reality yet.
I guess the film trilogy has to end in some triumphant way that makes
sense - the audience would kill otherwise and it is bad for business :-)
But these stories show that there is plenty of room of alternatives in
the matrixverse, not just different interpretations of a basic setting
or exactly what is true or false, base reality or virtual, but also what
it is about.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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