I said that watching EVANGELION was the first time my imagination had been so totally captured by a show in years. Let me clarify that it’s been captured by comics and novels recently, but the last time a show - - either on TV or in the theater - - intrigued me like this was MATRIX REVOLUTIONS, and that was seven years ago. Thus, it was definitely a breath of fresh air to follow a sci-fi show that really drew me into its world, that got me discussing the intricacies of its secrets and analyzing its mythos.
A lot of fans have commented that THE MATRIX was basically a live-action anime. I don’t think that comment is really far off because I remember reading some behind-the-scenes blurb about the Wachowski Brothers showing clips of GHOST IN THE SHELL to Warner Bros. and saying that they wanted to pull that off “in real life.” Hence, “bullet time.” Now, I don’t think that diminishes the creativity of the series, at all. I was around when cartoonists, novelists and unpublished whack-jobs were accusing the series of ripping them off and I don’t buy it. Sure… there are many influences that went into the series. William Gibson’s cyberpunk novels, Jean Baudrillard’s philosophy, John Woo’s gangster movies and many, many American comics, to name a few. Those are influences, just the same as Akira Kurosawa, Joseph Campbell, Frank Herbert and FLASH GORDON influenced STAR WARS.
So what I’m curious about is what anime do you lunatics figure influenced THE MATRIX. I remember somebody describing the ANIMATRIX as a “returning of the favor to the world of anime.” What works gave that favor in the first place? Fill me in. I'd love to hear what you have to think.
-- Tom Pinchuk is the writer of UNIMAGINABLE for Arcana Studios and HYBRID BASTARDS! for Archaia. Pre-order the HYBRID BASTARDS! hardcover now on Amazon.com.
I wrote a whole paper on how The Merovingian is basically Thomas Hobbes.
you got to watch those as part of english class. you lucky SOB, lol.
yeah the matrix borrowed heavily from anime. i remember watching the first movie and certain parts felt lifted straight from ghost in the shell
I don't mind that the Matrix series was heavily influenced by anime. No one had made anything notable like it on film before, after all.
That just about distills the issue right there. It's kinda mind-boggling. Not to say I didn't enjoy parts of Animatrix: how cool were the "World Record" and "Beyond" segments?
In that case megazone 23 is a complete rip off of the 1965 french movie
"Alphaville"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphaville_%28film%29
what matters is that the matrix trilogy has good movies and offers a lot of entertainment.
aren't all anime/movies/games borrowing stuff from other anime/movies/games? they just add their own twist to it to make a new anime/movie/game/whatever. that's just how the entertainment industry works
Yeah. ALMOST anything compleatly original is never really that good. But when somthings influenced it turns out to be great. I think the physical fighting in the 1st Matrix was highly influenced by DBZ, as well as the final fight in the 3rd installment.