philvan lauraly yamileth

[Floriana Grundy]

Back in 2003, I was a film student at the University of Minnesota. During a May-term American Studies class I made friends with another younger student who noticed a Matrix book I was carrying with me; we had many conversations about the film trilogy and she told me about this animated series, The Animatrix. I had not seen any anime before, renting this disk (probably at Hollywood on Hennepin Ave) was my first experience with it. I definitely enjoyed some of the following shorts more than others at the time, but I have never forgotten two very specific scenes from the first and second parts of The Second Renaissance. My two older kids were watching with me this time around; they were both equally disturbed by the seriousness of what they saw in these episodes, too. I think the order of the sequences is a good one; I had forgotten about what goes down in Matriculated, but after seeing it again, agree with its placement as the last story. It's not outwardly hopeful, exactly, but the idea it explores plants a pretty important problem-solving seed in terms of humanity fixing its destructive choices. I wish this didn't seem as timely or as relevant as it currently does, but here we are.

Beginning with a sexually-tense spar on the Osirus hovercraft, Thaddeus and his first mate, Jue, (inside the contructs of The Matrix) must unplug quickly when sentinals show up. After a chase, the crew of the Osirus soon discover more sentinels directly above Zion with drilling equipment poised to dig straight down. While the Osirus and its crew is ultimately destroyed, a message sent by Jue to warn Zion is successful (and is referenced verbally by Niobe in The Matrix Reloaded).

A sweet, short little tale about love among soldiers in battle. Good use of color in the opening spar scene; characters very attractive. If you've seen The Matrix trilogy, which chances are, you will have if you're watching these, or even if you're just paying close attention, it's clear pretty early on (and considering the title) this will not end well. Unfortunate, but it's to-the-point and full of action.

How did The Matrix become? Better yet, what events led to its creation? This story and its follow-up (below) explain. To summarize, mankind's greed, vanity, and corruption led to the creation of a race of computers to serve as domestic slaves and general lower working class. Made in man's image, these machines saw themselves as equals to human beings, or "real." When a domestic machine, BI66-ER (in a reference to Native Son's Bigger Thomas) was threatened with destruction by its human master, BI66-ER commits murder. This act and the subsequent lawsuit and ruling inspires the mass destruction of the machines, who resist and beg for mercy. Human beings, unwilling to acknowledge the machines' "realness" or right to exist among them, banish the remaining machines to an area in the Middle East, where they create their own civilization named 0-1. In contrast to humankind, the machines prosper well together.

There are some very disturbing scenes in this piece together with its second part (the photo I used below is actually from one of the end scenes of this story but I felt it set the stage well for what was to come in part two). The bottom line in both stories is an upsetting one, one that I see unfolding today in 2020 American culture: the greed, vanity, and corruption that everyone wrote off as "individualism" or "the free market at work" has created a culture of hateful people who have no capacity for empathy. Now, someone might rightly accuse me of taking a bleeding heart liberal approach in trying to tie this into a fictional story about ROBOTS of all things, but I'll stand firm. You have to be a certain kind of person to abuse an animal just like you have to be a certain kind of person to see another human (or in this case, humanoid-looking being) as a thing, a mean to your own selfish end. Dehumanization of the enemy was used as a tactic in more than one war, after all, but unfortunately for us, it didn't stop there. Groups of people dehumanize each other every day.

While the animation and storyboards used here are quite skillful (think Metropolis with more color and violence) I think this story overall is a very cerebral one. It showcases the dehumanization concept in multiple ways, but most clearly in the scene (pictured above) that shows the gleeful kicking, bludgeoning, and ripping of clothes from a humanoid (done by a group of men to a female-featured machine) as the victim pleads with her assailants to stop, crying out, "I'm real!" This is very upsetting, I know, but the point here is to show us behaviors and assumptions that hurt because these things matter and because we, as humans, sometimes need a mirror held up to our own shittiness. Empathy, whether it's toward human beings, animals, or any other sentient or non-sentient elements, matters. Clearly (looking around and gesturing vaguely at everything happening) it's an idea that needs more emphasis.

Human beings unfortunately do not learn anything from the aforementioned unwillingness to coexist peacefully with the machines, despite the machines' desire (pictured left) to join the United Nations and to teach humans better, stronger methods in technology and economic advances. A war between the two sides begins, and Operation Dark Sky explains in detail what Morpheus meant back when he told Neo in The Matrix that the humans had "scorched the sky." The machines outwit the humans by creating the matrix and by using fields of people, not the sun's energy, as their power sources.

Everything being explored in part one is just as present here, but with the added bonus of a resolution: These are the illustrated failures of diplomacy as spurred by human ignorance and lack of empathy. How relevant. The two Renaissance pieces are in my opinion, the very best in this collection.

This story reads a lot differently now that it did, initially. Teenagers on computers, depressed and alone, are a lot more common now than twenty years ago. My heart aches for them, then and now. Skateboarding scenes a little overblown, but tension well done among Kid, the teacher bucky about the ringing cell phone, and eventually, the agents (who like in A Detective Story, which I'll write up in a second installment), seem way slower and much more dense than in the films). Leaving us with a positive message on the computer screen---"You are not alone,"---was a balm to my soul. I feel like even then, we (as in Americans) should have been taking better care of the kids . . .

This marks the end of an era for me. I joined Netflix in 1998 when my first DVD player, a Toshiba branded deck, came with a card that offered a free trial for an unlimited DVD by mail service. At the time, the service cost $15 a month and you could have 4 disks at a time. I remember wondering, when I first signed up, how are they going to send me a DVD by mail, considering that I was used to getting DVDs encased in those jewel boxes. Little did I know that they had designed those now ubiquitous red-and-white sleeves.

I held on to the service for a few years until I moved to New York, mostly because I thought that the DVDs had to come from California, where the company was based. Little did I know that the service had gone national.

I re-upped in 2004, partly in an effort to get the airline-mile bonus that Netflix offered to new customers. At the time, the subscription offered only three disks for almost $20 per month, and over the years, I scaled back to two disks, then to one disk, and, after this week, to none.

It is inevitable. CDs, DVDs and Blu-rays will go the way of the Dodo. The popular storage mediums of today will become no more important than 8-Track tape players or 5 floppy disks. A recent change to Netflix is one of the many catalysts for the impending obsolescence. You no longer need a disc to launch streaming video on your Wii or PlayStation 3 gaming consoles. Instead, you can simply download the Netflix software directly to the machine. I tested out the new software. The convenience was impressive.

My iPad Air 2 storage is full. Now that Netflix allows downloads for off-line viewing, will I be able to download Netflix content via my iPad and store it on an iXpand for later viewing offline? Thanks.

It looks like the downloads are DRM protected or encrypted and only viewable in the my downloads section of the netflix apps. So in short no you would not be able to use the ixpand to store these files.

There is now a way to watch and stream Netflix movies to your PlayStation 3 (PS3). Netflix will give you a free disk to do this and you are able to choose from thousands of titles to watch instantly as long as you maintain a minimum $8.99/month Netflix membership. Once you receive your disk, insert it into the PS3 and enter your provided code to integrate your particular PS3 with your online account. This brings up your instant watch queue and allows you to browse the Netflix inventory of new releases.

Once you have found a title to watch, press "x" on your PS3 remote to select it. The title screen will then come up and it will allow you to watch the movie, rate it, or add it to your queue to watch later.

The triangle button allows you to access play, stop, fast forward, rewind, next, previous, and etc. If you select fast forward, you will see thumbnail images so that you will know when to resume watching. According to the video's author, the video quality of Netflix on PS3 is pretty good and selecting and watching movies is a quick and convenient process. Viewing Netflix in this manner is similar to viewing with the Roku device, but without the $99 price tag that comes along with that device that connects to your TV.

Just updated your iPhone? You'll find new features for Podcasts, News, Books, and TV, as well as important security improvements and fresh wallpapers. Find out what's new and changed on your iPhone with the iOS 17.5 update.

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