The Animatrix, a series of animated shorts based on The Matrix trilogy, not only has some quite disturbing material, but half of it couldn't even be understood unless you were crazy or an art major.
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The Second Renaissance
Ouch...
This two-part story deserves its own section because it has the highest amounts of Nightmare Fuel in the whole Matrix franchise by far, as it tells how the horrific war between humanity and the machines started, and how the machine eventually dominated, experimented on and enslaved humanity, with the Matrix as the culmination of said enslavement. Even the famous Robot War Bad Future of the Terminator franchise isn't this horrific.
- A gynoid is beaten to death by a crowd of human men. She is also stripped of her clothes, and one attack strips off her synthetic skin. All the while, she screams out in agony, her voice becoming more machine-like with each blow. What makes that scene a lot worse is what she is screaming "I'M REAL!"
- The scene of the millionaire having his head crushed by his once-peaceful robot servant B1-66ER is disturbingly graphic.
- Less graphic, but no less disturbing, are the scenes of what B1-66ER had done before that (stomped on the millionaire's dogs to death and murdered various other people).
- Operation Dark Storm. Just the idea of it, that humanity reached a point of desperation so unheard of, that they would completely destroy Earth by blocking the Sun through a nanite cloud is horrifying. In denying the machines access to solar power, humanity in the process ensured that if they won the war, it would be the ultimate Pyrrhic victory; without the Sun, the extinction of every animal, plant and biosphere on Earth is all but guaranteed. The nanite cloud also had the added effect of having no way to disable it (or if one was developed, it was lost) and anything that flies through the cloud shuts down and plummets back down. Whoever won the war, would be imprisoned on a dead husk of a planet. In fact, 600 years later, the machines still haven't figured out a means to disable it.
- In addition, the operation is called a "Final Solution" by the Narrator. Humanity was so hell-bent on winning, they equated it with Hitler's plan for total genocide of a race, one of the most inhumane acts in recorded history.
- Everything about the actual war between Man and Machine is horrific. It is presented with a visceral and unblinking portrayal that leaves no room for any interpretation other than "holy shit, this is fucked up".
- The human race have become so fanatical in their all-consuming hatred of the machine enemy that they fight like an entire army of berserkers. Video footage shows the soldiers injecting stimulants into their arms before a battle, rushing into close combat to smash them with batons and point-blank shotgun blasts, and one soldier ranting "Kill 'em all!" into the camera is quite literally frothing at the mouth as he speaks, like a rabid animal.
- That said, there is one specific scene that deserves a highlight. During one of the battle scenes, a soldier has the front of his power armour ripped open by a Sentinel, which coils its tentacles around his torso and rips him out, leaving his arms and legs strapped in the armour. The worst part is way the man is screaming right until he dies.Scene: (A laser shooting the front of a Power Armor.) "Help me! Help me! No!" (Front of the Power Armor gets ripped off revealing a human soldier who is panicking.) "Help me! My God, help me!" (Tentacles wrap around the soldier and forcefully pulls him out as he lets out a bloodcurdling scream and is ripped apart from his limbs.)
- The scenes of war show off the machines' rapid physical evolution from humanoid designs to completely alien forms, as well as their ability to shrug off multiple nuclear strikes mid-battle—but the power armour scene implies something far worse. The machines could have killed him in a quick and efficient manner, such as with the very laser they had used to cut open the power armour in the first place, as you would think a machine would do. Instead, the Sentinel rips the soldier out by his torso, seemingly because it was in a position to do so. The machines are now capable—perhaps even fond—of committing acts of great cruelty. Given the history of humanity's treatment of the machines and the fact that machines have artificial intelligence, however, this should not be surprising. After all, as The Instructor says, "man made the machine in his own likeness".
- The fact that the camera interface implies it's being taken from the point of view of a Machine makes it worse. Not only does it imply that this man's horrific death is being recorded, but it also implies that he's either surrounded by multiple Sentinels just watching this occur or the Sentinel that killed him re-positioned its head to get a better angle.
- And what's detailed below reveals that that guy who got torn apart and died? He was one of the lucky ones.
- The scenes of war show off the machines' rapid physical evolution from humanoid designs to completely alien forms, as well as their ability to shrug off multiple nuclear strikes mid-battle—but the power armour scene implies something far worse. The machines could have killed him in a quick and efficient manner, such as with the very laser they had used to cut open the power armour in the first place, as you would think a machine would do. Instead, the Sentinel rips the soldier out by his torso, seemingly because it was in a position to do so. The machines are now capable—perhaps even fond—of committing acts of great cruelty. Given the history of humanity's treatment of the machines and the fact that machines have artificial intelligence, however, this should not be surprising. After all, as The Instructor says, "man made the machine in his own likeness".
- The machines perform surgical operations and conduct experiments on prisoners of war while they are conscious and alert. These experiments involve precise incisions, including vertical halving of individuals. One prisoner undergoes the removal of the back of his head while machines manipulate different parts of his brain to elicit specific responses, such as laughter or hysterical sobbing, in an attempt to map brain functions. Another prisoner undergoes a precise facial incision, revealing the anatomically correct structure of the human face.
- Subsequently, the prisoners are forcibly connected to power plants, subjected to enduring agony. As the Instructor puts it: "The first captives suffered in pain and horror, enroute to what the machines viewed as the humans' version of a 'perfect world'." You have to take into account this occurred before the creation of the Matrix, meaning the individuals experienced these procedures without sedation or anesthesia, fully aware of their surroundings and the intense suffering they endured, as evidenced by their visible reactions and agonized sounds.
- The machines deploy some kind of biological or chemical weapon against humanity. We're then treated to a shot of a Crisis Point Hospital where those exposed to the weapon look like they're melting alive and in great pain!
- A fair amount of the imagery in this short reaches a new level of disturbing when you learn that most of it is has some inspiration from Real Life. Some choice selections include an attempted Tiananmen Square-style protest where a robot is graphically crushed beneath tank treads, giant bulldozers shovelling what could be thousands of robot corpses into mass graves (The Holocaust), and scenes of rioting robots either gunned down as they surrender or shot in the head at point blank range while handcuffed (the infamous photo of execution of Nguyễn Văn Lém).
- One the worst parts is that—judging by the obvious bias in the supposed "historical record"—the machines are as prone to arrogance, self-righteousness, and all other human failings as we are. It is as if the human race quadrupled in capacity for terror, the Three Laws be damned. And yet, there is another, far more frightening implication: By preserving the human race in the pods, the machines believe they are keeping the human race safe.
- Hell, everything related to humanity's current state—the cloning farms, the Matrix, the army of robotic killing machines that scour the tunnels for escapees—exists due to a massive act of mercy on behalf of the machines. The Matrix exists just to ensure that humanity can never threaten to annihilate the machines again without an outright genocide—of both sides.
The other shorts
- "World Record" is about a track star who almost manages to break out of the Matrix of his own free will. At the last moment, his muscles snap, which ultimately confines him to a wheelchair in a catatonic state. We are never told if the Agents have something to do with it (they were aware of him) or if it was simple human failing. The realistic-yet-exaggerated animation did not help. The short ends with him trying to get up again despite being wheelchair-bound; he almost succeeds, but falls down again.
- Even worse: He did break out on his own, and we see him briefly "waking up" before he is forced back into the Matrix via painful-looking electric shocks.
- The ending is either a Hope Spot or a Heroic Second Wind; the viewer gets to decide which.
- In "Beyond", there is the big, black nothingness that Yoko encounters in the "haunted" house. There is nothing there. Literally. A seemingly endless void caused by a series of glitches right behind generic doors. From the viewer's point of view, this is a random error in the simulation. From Yoko's point of view, it is downright horrific.
- "Program" has some nightmare fuel in the form of Duo's role within the program. Despite only being part of a training simulation, his words and actions have an actual effect on Cis's emotions and feelings. She jokes about Duo proposing to her when the simulation starts, which makes her later killing of Duo all the more devastating. The short never fully explains if Duo is a wholecloth fabrication or a creation based on someone Cis knows (or loves). But the possibility of a relatively minor program created from scratch having the ability to make Cis feel love toward him, even after the test is over, is mind-numbing.
- There is an even worse option: Duo is a real person, so even if the one from the simulation is a fake, it's still based on someone Cis knows and is close to. This would mean the program forced Cis into "killing" her beloved after convincing her that she is in a real situation instead of a set-up involving a digital copy. That would not only make her ordeal even more painful, but also paint the people who created and put her through this test as a group of outright bastards who could take pleasure in openly toying with her emotions, given their playfulness to her terrified reaction upon the end of the training.
- It also points towards the apparent necessity and implied regularity with which the programs themselves are run, since - judging by Cypher's characterisation in the first movie - the risk of people freed from the Matrix becoming so disillusioned with the real world that they'd resort to betraying their crewmates for a chance to be permanently returned to the simulation is a very real possibility. This also presents us with another question: how are those dealt with after failing any of these tests?
