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The Matrix series is a media franchise consisting primarily of three films: "The Matrix", "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolutions". The characters and settings of the Matrix fictional universe are further explored in other media, including animation, comics, and video games. The series depicts a complex science fiction story incorporating many philosophical elements. Other influences include cyberpunk, mythology, anime, Hong Kong action films (particularly "heroic bloodshed" and martial arts movies), simulated reality and philosophy of mind. Though not directly, key concepts of several religions are touched upon, including Buddhism, Christianity, Gnosticism, Hinduism & Atheism.
The series began with 1999's The Matrix. The film, directed by the Wachowski brothers and produced by Joel Silver, was highly successful, earning $456 million worldwide and beating Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace for the Academy Award for Visual Effects. The movie's mainstream success led to the greenlighting of the next two films of the trilogy, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. It was a number of years and several iterations of scripts before the final movies were approved. The two sequels, which tell a continuous story rather than being stand-alone episodes, were filmed simultaneously and released six months apart. The trilogy is known as The Matrix Trilogy.
In acknowledgement of the Japanese anime that was a strong influence on the Matrix series, The Animatrix was produced. This is a collection of nine animated short films intended to further flesh out the concepts, history, characters and setting of the series. The Animatrix project was overseen by the Wachowski brothers, but they wrote only four of the segments themselves and did not direct any of them. Much of the project was created by notable figures from the world of Japanese animation. Four of the films were originally released on the series' official website, one was shown in cinemas with Dreamcatcher, one was shown on MTV, MTV2, MTV3 and MTV4, and the others first appeared with the DVD release of all nine shorts shortly after the release of The Matrix Reloaded.
In May 2003, at the same time as The Matrix Reloaded appeared in cinemas in the United States, Enter the Matrix was released. The first of three video games related to the films, it told a story running parallel to Reloaded and featured scenes shot during the filming of the movie, but specially for the game. November 5, 2003 saw the conclusion to the film trilogy when The Matrix Revolutions hit cinema screens worldwide.
Two more Matrix video games were released in 2005. The MMORPG The Matrix Online continues the story beyond Revolutions, while The Matrix: Path of Neo allows players to control the series' protagonist Neo in scenes from the film trilogy. In addition, several comics and short stories based on the series — one written by the Wachowskis, the others by guest writers — were released on the official website. Many of these have since been collected in two printed volumes of The Matrix Comics. Wikipedia |
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