The Animatrix - The Second Renaissance: crimes against sentience and its importance in the Matrix trilogy

So I promised I'd write something following up my Ash and David comparison, but uhhh...that might not be happening anytime soon. I've been kind of lazy in trying to get the Alien DVD, and now it's been close to a month since I saw Prometheus, so David is kind of falling out of my mind. I also meant to see Aliens just to talk about Bishop, but that never happened either. I really do want to get back to that at some point (or at least mention something about Bishop, since he seems like, chronologically, the first android in the series that doesn't try and kill anybody), but for now it's kind of on the back burner until I get around to watching Aliens or rewatching Alien.

So instead of talking about androids in the Alien franchise, I want to talk about the machines from the Matrix trilogy. Now, now, I know Reloaded and Revolutions are intensely unpopular (I still think Revolutions is decent, it just doesn't live up to the first film), but don't worry, I don't really plan to mention them. In fact, I'm not going to talk much about the first movie either (though I do love it and need to watch it again so don't be surprised if there's more Matrix talk in the future). I'm going to talk about the Animatrix, specifically The Second Renaissance segments. The other parts are all pretty good (I'm also a huge fan of World Record and Program), but The Second Renaissance has a depth and sophistication that the others do not, mostly because it tells the backstory of the world pre-Matrix. I read somewhere that its story was originally intended to be one of the other Matrix movies as a prequel, but some sort of executive meddling prevented that. I'm really torn on whether I'd like it better as a full movie or in this form. I think it definitely has enough to make a feature out of, but on the other hand, there's some powerful and disturbing imagery that I'm not even sure they could get away with in live-action.

(Interesting but unrelated: the machines were originally enslaving humans to use their brains as processors instead of using their bodies as energy, but the powers that be thought that might be too complicated for people. I almost wish they had kept it in though, at least so smartasses would stop bringing up flaws in the battery logic. Not the point!)

I really don't know where to start (or how to do it justice), so I'll just begin from a random point: robots and murder. The fear of robots rising up and enslaving or killing humans is one of the main themes associated with them; the closer they get to human, the more we identify with them, but the more we fear them. There's the fear that they'll become smarter or more powerful than us, and then humans will no longer be at the top of the food chain. This fear comes with aliens as well, but robots have the distinction that humans created them, and modeled robots after themselves. This of course brings up cautions against "playing God", or creating sentient life forms; you better watch out, or they're going to be even better at being brutal and cruel than humans are, and you brought it upon yourself. Androids have the potential to be even scarier because they're like undercover agents; even if they're proven friendly, there's always a lingering doubt.

At the same time, I find it really interesting how robotic murders are usually described; while they're referred to as "malfunctions" in the text (in-story discussions of HAL 9000 in the 2010 novel and the captain in Aliens referencing Ash are two examples), when we're talking about them, we usually say they went "crazy" or "berserk". It brings in an interesting element to the classic "should an android be treated as human" question; can killer robots be compared to the mentally ill? On one hand, they're supposed to be built on logic, meaning that a lack of empathy or regard for the lives of others is a mechanical fault that is present in all robots and must be controlled and is justifiably feared. On the other hand, as sentient beings, aren't they like us, capable of acting irrationally (with a slim possibility of violence), not because they intend to, but because of something akin to a mental imbalance? Is a malfunctioning robot the same as a mentally ill person, or is their inscrutable logic simply something that we are unable to understand and that ignores human compassion? And could there ever be a valid reason for a robot to rebel, or is it just 'beep beep boop boop your fleshy meat bodies are useless compared to me'?

But back to The Second Renaissance, since, you know, it's supposed to be the main topic I'm writing about. The robots in The Second Renaissance begin as a humanoid workforce designed for menial labor and domestic service. They are sentient, but they enjoy their duties; they are described by the narrator as "loyal and pure". There's a pretty obvious slavery allegory; the robots we see are either doing heavy manual labor, or are in subservient roles to humans.

Robots dragging supplies to construct a pyramid. Familiar?

The catalyst for the rebellion that would turn into a war is the trial of B1-66ER, who murders his owners when they planned to deactivate him. Interestingly, although the humans obviously have little respect for the robots, we do not see any discussion of "malfunction" as an explanation for B1-66ER's actions; his sentience is accepted enough so that his reasoning is accepted. The issue is with whether his reasoning even matters. If he is classified as a citizen, his self-defense claim ("B1-66ER testified that he simply did not want to die") is completely valid; his owners attempted to murder him. As property, however, his reasoning is moot; his owners can do what they please with him, and he stands now as a hazardous object that must be destroyed. The slavery allegory returns in the argument of his defense attorney; he quotes the Dredd Scott v. Sandford case, which denied African Americans the right of citizenship, and urges the jury not to make the same mistake. (Not going to lie, I didn’t catch this myself; I found it from the Animatrix article on Wikipedia. I am an analysis fraud.)

Something which is seen but we do not hear about also relates back to the fear of robot rebellion, specifically that they are physically better than us. It is important to pay attention to the footage of B1-66ER's murders; he starts by simply strangling the man, but his next murders are much more brutal; he kills their two pets, appearing to behead one of them and break the other in half, and, after cornering the woman, rips her entire head apart.

The brutality suggests either strong anger, which would override the easier ways to kill a human, or a terrifying or inscrutable efficiency: ripping someone's head open is presumable a quick, if cruel and unusual death. The murder of the pets points even more to the anger theory: what reason would there be to kill an animal who had nothing to do with his deactivation? The logic explanation could still apply though; it could be a result of some robot logic that humans could never understand due to our empathy for pets. Either way, this was probably an important element in the outcome of his trial, since while the desire to stay alive is sympathetic, that sympathy is hard to maintain when juxtaposed with the images of mutilated pets and a living human's head ripped to shreds.

But of course, what is a robot story without examining the human nature? The humans respond with just as much cruelty to the robot race as a whole, with just as frightening imagery, specifically taken from human events.

These innocent robots are portrayed as more human and sympathetic than humans themselves, and the best example of this is in a scene that has stuck with me the most (and is the hardest to write about), showing an android woman being beaten to death by a gang of men. The most obvious fact, that this is a group of men beating a woman, is incredibly important; it immediately brings to mind the violence against women that still happens today. Female robots almost always have a sexual element attached to them and are objectified and the first thing the men do is tear her dress apart. As they continue to damage her, her skin begins to tear off, revealing what they see her as: an object. The images are terrible, but it's the sound and dialogue that makes it truly disturbing. She pleads for them to stop, her voice becoming less human with every blow, and her last words? "No! I'm real!" She's then cut short by a shotgun blast to the torso, and her corpse shows the skull-like face of a robot, and the human element of a woman's breasts and legs. Those were the only things that mattered to her killers: she was a sexy woman, and she was a robot, and that made it okay for them. Her sentience and will is denied, irrelevant; there's no reason for them to respect her as a human being, despite her protests. (Screenshots for this scene can be viewed here; I find this scene more disturbing than any of the violence or gore and so I don't think it would be right to directly show it.)

The robots are mass murdered, and the remaining ones create their own city, Zero-One. Zero-One then proves to be an actual tangible threat to humans, specifically the world economy, though like before, humans would rather destroy than accept a peaceful compromise. Their brutality starts a war that, as anyone who has seen The Matrix knows, they eventually lose. However, the robots are far from innocent at this point; once Operation Dark Storm is initiated, the robots become the cruel and detached beings that the humans feared. B1-66ER’s cruelty in his murders is debatable, but the machines’ is undeniable. The reversal of fortune during the war is shown through imagery that mirrors the humans’ cruelty towards the machines during the first protests.

The machines have also shed any humanoid resemblance; we first see Sentinel-like machines when Zero-One is first created, and the first ground force that fights the humans after Dark Storm are humanoid, but the machines that turn the tides of the war are multi-eyed monsters with tentacles and spindly legs and that appear like giant hives in the air.

Original ground force

Later waves

These machines are the ones that are crueler than the humans, holding down an infantryman in a mech, lasering it open to rip his torso out of it, engaging in biological warfare, and eventually experimenting on humans. While combat on the front lines is always grisly, the biological warfare and experimentation are considered inhumane. Both have been used in past wars but are now barred from use by the Biological Weapons Convention and the Geneva Convention. Human cruelty has been showcased throughout the film, but the machines take advantage of weaponry that even humans refuse to use again.

The experimentation is particularly upsetting; the most prominent example is the brain surgery done on one man while awake. Regular brain surgery now is sometimes done with the patient awake to monitor effects on brain function during the operation, but the machines are intentionally experimenting with psychosurgery to control emotions and cognition, not protect them. There are other images that are even more terrifying; one body is sagitally split in half and still seems to be alive; another has its face sliced off. Like the protesting robots, these people have been cut down to their parts, but they are not even given the dignity of death.

While the loss of the war and enslavement of the human race is portrayed (or at least interpreted by the narrator, a machine herself) as a sort of karmic retribution for their hubris and treatment of the machines, the imagery makes clear that nobody is innocent or blameless, and while the machines were originally fighting for their rights and protection, they end up committing even worse atrocities than the humans. The final United Nations conference shows that the machines are beyond the desire for acceptance and now demand absolute deference from the humans; the speech by the multi-limbed, compound-eyes horror of a robot is one last show of dominance to the former world leaders before vaporizing them and New York City. Interestingly, although the cruelty is portrayed as clinical and inhuman, the show of power is very emotional and human in nature. The only purpose is to intimidate, which is entirely unnecessary since the machines were planning to destroy the entire city directly afterwards.

The narration implies that they receive their comeuppance as well since they now rely on humans to power them, mirroring how humans relied on machines, but the psychological control they have over humans makes the analogy unfit. The issue of control is what makes the Matrix frightening, as explored through the three films. It is not just that humans are enslaved by machines, but they are trapped in a world with no meaning, reduced to their chemical reactions in the real world with their consciousness suppressed. The humans committed genocide, but through the Matrix, the machines have taken away the very things which make us human. The Second Renaissance is an extremely developed cautionary tale, explicitly towards humans, but implicitly towards all forms of sentient intelligence; it is easy for any being, human or otherwise, to fall into a spiral of intolerance, fear, and violence which will consume everything in its path. This mutually assured destruction is something which foreshadows the theme of Revolutions; the machines and humans are stuck in a cycle revolving around the glitch of The One, and the only solution is for the humans to work with the machines and for the machines to relinquish their absolute control. Without respect and peace there is no hope for either form of life.

(Don’t think this is the end of Matrix talk; I recently rewatched the first film and I think it’s time for a close look at everybody’s favorite program, Agent Smith.)