Review of The Animatrix (2003) by Phil H — 30 Sep 2013

The Animatrix is full of highs and lows with 4 stories that directly relate to The Matrix universe and further flesh out that story. those are(in chronological order of the stories timeline): The Second Renaissance - an electronic library entry which appears to serve a world after the Matrix movie timeline.

It describes history generations before the original film, The Matrix, relating how humans built artificially intelligent Machines, the apocalyptic war between the two, ending with the Machines enslaving the human race and the initial creation of The Matrix virtual reality.

A Detective Story - a stand-alone story in which the character Trinity appears, but independently of any other characters. Because Trinity is present it takes place at least within several years of the films, and though it is not made clear within the cartoon if it takes place before or after Trinity met Neo in the original film, another official source places it before the events of The Matrix.

[1] Kid's Story - set during the six-month gap between the events of the first and second films, after Neo joins the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar in freeing other humans from the Matrix. Its events are briefly alluded to in dialogue at the beginning of The Matrix Reloaded.

Final Flight of the Osiris - takes place directly before The Matrix Reloaded, as the hovercraft Osiris stumbles upon the Sentinel army digging to Zion. At the beginning of The Matrix Reloaded, Niobe mentions that their reconnaissance photos of the Machine army were transmitted from the Osiris.

These 4 are the standouts and the ones worth watching with The Final Flight of the Osiris and The Second Renaissance being the standouts for me. This is easily worth the small price to pick this up and add to your collection if you are a fan of The Matrix.