I think many people would unanimously agree The Second Renaissance parts I and II are the most disturbing episodes in the Animatrix. So what are the most disturbing and memorable images you’ve had of those anime features?
For me though it would have to be the image where the human soldier has his arms and legs torn off as he was being pulled from his mech. Coupled with his cries of help and his scream makes a very disturbing scene.
For some reason the bit near the end with all the humans strung up; the guy's brain is exposed and there is a laser dot triggering areas, one part he's all laughing crazy and the next he's breaking down...THAT gave me the creeps.
And the battle scenes were just too surreal with that robot Death figure riding in.
I wonder why so much people reply with 'they're only machines!'
Phrases like that make me say: Why are we any less machine than robots?
We are in fact machines, only organic, like we have a heart that pumps blood around, they have a battery that pumps power around. That may sound real childish; butw hy should humans ne aware of their lives while robots are not? The fact that the robots show emotions, mean they have emotions. When we get threatened our mind tells us to get scared and run. A robot's programming does excactly the same.. Why won't they have the same *beep* up feeling of being scared? I don´t believe robots are any different from humans. I don´t really know if I´ve put this clear, but if I didn´t.. watch I Robot
I very impressed with the level of thought demonstrated by many of the contributors to this thread. All too often it seems that most threads on the IMDB boards are dull, disturbing, witless, abusive or any combination of the four…
The thoughts that occurred to me when reading the thread were that :-
1. Actual Self Awareness, independence of thought or however you classify intelligent life is very difficult to measure or prove. A sufficiently advanced program can ensure that a machine gives the correct impressions of independence of will or self awareness – but then again, could we be classified as sufficiently advanced programmed organic machines? Nature and evolution have conspired in our programming rather than an office full of spectacled software engineers but how far can you push the comparison? How do we know any other human being we encounter is self-aware? Because they say so? Because we believe so? Will that only ever apply to organic constructs and not mechanical ones because that’s always historically the case?
2. Sure – robots and autonomous machines are science fiction at present but that doesn’t preclude their development. Automated machinery is becoming more and more advanced today because the less it needs human management and supervision the more useful and efficient it is. The more possible situations a device can cope with the more reliable it is. Of course the classic role for such machinery and the most research and cash rich environment for this is warfare. Robotic weaponry already exists in the case of anti-missile machine guns on warships and the like.
3. Isn’t the human relationship with violence bizarre? Of all the things we’ve mastered and developed it’s the one thing we decry. Agriculture and Pottery, Textiles and Transportation we have be developing for at least as long and are proud of our achievements but it’s not these subjects we compose ballards about, write novels and watch films about. No – it’s the thing we all claim to dislike – violence. The images described in this thread are grim and reflective of what we as a species do. Yet not only do we continue to do them we make cartoons about them and watch them as ‘entertainment’! Don’t get me wrong I’m not condemning this, and though I find violence as offensive as the next I also watch these films and read books featuring war and violence. Do we actually enjoy it at some primitive level and our abhorrence of it is based on some higher rationality that if we spend our time being violent we are likely to suffer violence in response – something our sense of self survival wishes us to avoid – hence the stomach turning empathy for the mech pilot pulled from his machine in the film? It seems so odd that at least half the world at this time is being traumatised by violence – and the other half is creating fictitious violence as entertainment…
I thought the first rebel bot, when the tape shows it killing the cats and the one guy and then squishes the dudes face thats so weak it makes me sick.
shareYes, you bring up some interesting points, still I feel that animals don't deserve pain, and that robots are just a piece of hardware, too be destroyed when harmful or replaced when costs allow it.
I know this may sound harsh, but there is this thing in animals and humans, an awareness, that is not understood. I am an atheist, I do not believe in a soul, yet I am aware that when I am hurt, I feel it and I don't like it, so I don't want it to happen to others, or animals. Robots are completely understood, every aspect of what they do is programmed (although unintentionally if it is flawed).
However, one might wonder, if we would completely understood everything in evolution, and everything about conception, and growth of animals. We could see the body and the brains as a piece of hardware with wires too. How are we to judge if hardware has awareness??
One might wonder , where to draw the line : an alarm clock is not really a living thing, but on the other hand, lots of animals don't really act like animals either (like oysters, or sponges...)
So awareness is the criterion for me, and for now I believe computers do not have that.
For your second comment : yes violence is a common theme, but love ( I know I sound really cheesy perhaps) is even more common : look at all the songs about it and all romantic movies. I guess love and violence , the two extremes, are the most popular themes. The problem with a movie is , you need a problem for the characters to endure : that can be a romantic relation, or a threat,or...
Well, the threat usually comes from other people, just like in real life.
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I loved the scene where the Robot at the UN said, "Hand over your flesh and a new world awaits you." How frightening is that?
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Well it could be four of them, when they play the video of the robot killing its master, the second would be when they kill the female robot, the third would be when they rip the man from inside the mech, and the last one was when the machine was demanding to surrender our flesh, shivering!!!
shareThe Second Renaissance was chock full of disturbing imagery, but for me the worst was seeing the machines experimenting on the captured humans. In patricular the scene when the machines are trying to figure out where to put the plug in the man's brain, and he's laughing and crying as the plug is inserted in the area controlling those emotions. That was nuts, to put it very mildly.
come get some, you walking piles of puss...
I'm armed and ready.
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One of the more disturbing scenes:
That guy's emotions being experimented with near the end of the second part. Also, if you look to the right of him there's another person with their face pretty much ripped off and replaced with mechanical attachments. Also pretty disturbing, and in the same scene mind you.
I would gave to say when the machines deliver the final blow to the humans. In the U.N. when the bug/human machine says "your flesh is a relic of your vessel. Hand over your flesh and a new world awaits you. We demand it..." *nuclear explosion*
shareI agree with all those who said the most disturbing scene is the soldier-in-mech one, but the human weaponry seems to vary a lot in the chapters, in the first part, the robot is crushed by an enormous tank, but in part II, the humans are using a T-80!?
i learned that the robots in Terminator fight like pussies
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The parts with humans getting killed at the end. The machines getting killed didn't do anything for me because hey, they're just machines.
shareWhile the soldier being pulled from his mech & the robotic woman being beaten were definitely the most visually disturbing there was one scene which I found even more disturbing. That was the part when the soldiers were all praying before the war.
The visual images of violence & the screams were a direct attack on our subconsious, they frighten and sicken us to the extreme and are highly effective in this role.
However, the other sequence is chilling on a different level.
Firstly I find it shockingly worrying that war and murder are the only thing that bring us all together as a species; the fact that only the threat of violence makes us cooperate is incredibly disheartening.
The other thing that is disturbing is the religious element. Before I go on, allow me to explain; I'm a Christian Socialist who believes that every religion has some form of truth and that no religion is inherantly bad or 'evil'. Take that as you will.
Anyway, the thing that scares me is that every religion shown (Christianity, Islam and Budhism IIRC) are all anti-violence, with a message of peace at the very core. (before anyone mentions the crusades, terrorism etc. I'm talking about non-extremists) It scares me somewhat that when all else fails, we turn to God to be our 'spiritual armour' (as the president calls it in the film) when we are infact the creators of our own demise.
Maybe I'm just being overly-critical though.
The Second Renaissance is in my opinion the best short film in the whole of the Animatrix, thought provoking, entertaining and yet disturbing, it forces us to address the way in which we accept violence and live our lives in general.
finally someone posted something interesting!
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Firstly I find it shockingly worrying that war and murder are the only thing that bring us all together as a species; the fact that only the threat of violence makes us cooperate is incredibly disheartening
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you have reason, they were all united 'cuz mankind has found someone else to hate :(
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It scares me somewhat that when all else fails, we turn to God to be our 'spiritual armour' (as the president calls it in the film)
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ahem... it was not the president, it was a priest.
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NOW:
lots of people have suggested to do a full-lenght film with this, but i doubt that most (including me) people would not tolerate to see that carnage during 2hours!!!
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Sentience/Sapience is the border line although both of these words don't convey it properly. I would break it down to:
"Being self aware and able to make decisions using thought processes combined with emotions".
As to most disturbing image ... there were a lot of references to past wartime attrocities as others have said, tianamen square, the vietcong pistol execution etc. and I found most of those to be more disturbing that the original stuff like the mechs.
"ahem... it was not the president, it was a priest."
A priest dressed like Abraham Lincon and with the US flag behind him... ;)
He's on the TV that's being pushed by a priest.
The most disturbing image for me were the machines experimenting on the humans
leading to the creation of the first matrix.
The entire story sent chills down my spine