The Animatrix Network is an anime & manga fan club located in the Southwest suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. We usually meet on the third Saturday of each month (except when holidays or conventions coincide). The meetings are free and open to the public. Join us for a day filled with anime.
This site provides news, reviews, commentaries, and previews of the world of anime and everything it inspires, such as live-action films, comics, music, art, and other weird things to enjoy and contemplate.
Wednesday, August 31, 2022
The Best Cosplay from Anime Magic 2022
Tuesday, August 30, 2022
Growing up, we all go our separate paths...
Monday, August 29, 2022
Rings of Power is Right Around the Corner...
Will "Rings of Power" be Another
Victim of Woke Culture?
The Amazon series "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" is going to be nothing but woke garbage. How do we know? Amazon has unwittingly told us through their own promotions and interviews and fan reaction videos:
- Super Fan Promotions
- Cast and Showrunner Interviews
- Comic-Con Panel
- Trailers
Woke - "alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice; often with left-leaning / progressive political viewpoint." One can be so 'woke,' that they become Blind to the Truth.
▶ Is this the Destiny for the Rings of Power?
What has happened is that woke elements such as Diversity, Identity Politics, and Extreme Feminism have hijacked yet another pop-culture icon and corrupted them into their own image. Since woke-ism is a newly emerging movement, we see it mostly in the younger generation who are disillusioned and feeling powerless in today's society. Through the use of the internet, namely Twitter and other social media, the woke generation have weaponized these tools to attack ANYONE who does not think the way they do. Their victims are then CANCELLED from society. The Me-Too and BLM movement have emerged as an answer to those who have felt helpless all their lives. Woke culture has given them power to retaliate in insidious ways. The attacks do not just stop with the destruction of the victim's reputation but also their livelihood. According to woke culture, the victims must be totally destroyed, as if they never existed. That is their punishment for having dared to stand-up to woke activism. History, itself, has become victim to woke culture. Statues of Christopher Columbus and the Founding Fathers have to be removed because they were associated with slavery and white-privilege. By destroying the foundations of American culture, woke activists hope to remake history, and place the woke generation as the new foundation for everything that comes after. In their view, only woke is CORRECT and JUST and the world must be remade in their own image. By doing so, they cancel the hard earned achievements of the past. A total disrespect to our ancestors, heroes who have built this nation and fought to keep it free. That is what the woke generation is all about: to achieve greatness without having earned it.
“A nation that forgets its past has no future.”
- Winston Churchill
To them, not
only does History need to be changed, but all of pop culture. Since the woke
have no heroes of their own, they must take-over existing popular movies and TV
shows and remake them in order to reflect their woke view.
This is the madness of the Woke.
Here are some examples of Woke on pop culture:
- Rey steals Luke and Leia's lightsabers
- Rey steals the Millennium Falcon
- Rey steals Luke's ancestral home on Tatooine
- Rey steals Luke's family name: Skywalker
- When we last see Rey, she is even stealing the iconic scene of the setting suns of Tatooine.
This
STOLEN VALOR is what makes Rey such an unlikable character.
So what is the result of woke-ism upon Disney's STAR WARS?
With the death of Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi, there was the loss of more than half of the SW fans around the world; many decrying that they are no longer STAR WARS fans, while others refuse to return unless The Last Jedi was entirely retconned. Toy sales became non-existent, and the sequel film Rise of Skywalker only garnered half the profit of what TLJ took in. What was once considered a cash cow, STAR WARS is now a failed franchise under Kathleen Kennedy. Go Woke, Go Broke.
STAR TREK DISCOVERY - Under Gene Roddenberry, original STAR TREK represented
the BEST of HUMANITY. When it premiered on TV in 1966, when dreariness and
despair of the Vietnam War filled the airwaves, STAR TREK brought hope and
inspiration directly to American homes. It was escapist entertainment. For a
brief moment, we can escape the stress and negativity of the real world, and
enter the fantastic realm of STAR TREK. The Federation had eliminated racism,
poverty, war, and sickness from the Earth. It was a utopia that was admired
throughout the galaxy. It revealed a future that was worth seeking. STAR TREK
showed that we can be great, if we work towards it. The show influenced America's
space program. People were inspired to become astronauts. This was the legacy
of Gene Roddenberry's STAR TREK.
So what is the result of woke-ism upon new STAR TREK?
Star
Trek: Discovery did not exactly light
the television ratings chart on fire. The premiere averaged 1.7
million viewers overall and only scored a 0.2 rating. That’s not great but
it is even more disheartening when you see that it was beaten by reruns of
shows like The Masked Singer and Filthy Rich. Not a particularly
strong showing for the series. it’s looking like the current iteration of the Star
Trek franchise is not speaking to wider audiences. (Whenever you input politics to your story, you run the risk of dividing your audience. Some will be RED. Others will be BLUE. Just don't start calling people racists just because they disagree with you. One should respect and tolerate other opinions. However, woke culture believes they are always right. and will dismiss other points-of-view. For all their claims to be on the side of Social Justice and Diversity, woke activists are the most intolerant people on the internet.)
DR. WHO – Under showrunner Chris Chibnall, the Eleventh Series of DR. WHO saw the appearance of the first female Doctor, played by Jodie Whittaker, in October 2018. There were mixed reactions about replacing the Doctor with a woman, but there was enough interest early on to bring in the viewers. At least at first.
Why has Doctor Who gone downhill? The numbers for Doctor Who have gone down consistently with each new episode as the series has lost nearly one million viewers since the debut episode for Season 12. Reasons cited for the show's continued demise include bad writing, poor acting, and its “woke” approach under Chris Chibnall.
One particular episode entitled “The Timeless Children” became the tipping point that enraged many loyal fans, calling it “brand-damaging” and “irreparable” to the entire series.
Here is a synopsis of the story:
The Doctor finds herself in the ruins of Gallifrey, her home planet. Her arch enemy the Master destroyed it after he learned a terrible truth about his origins – a truth so devastating that it caused him to decimate the entire capitol, along with his people the Time Lords. Taking the Doctor inside the Matrix (the Time Lords’ repository of all knowledge) the Master shares this terrible truth with his old enemy.
In ‘The Timeless Children,’ we learn about a scientist and traveller named Tecteun – a Shobogan, native to the planet that would eventually become Gallifrey. She journeyed to a distant world and found a young girl, seemingly abandoned, standing at the gateway to another dimension. Tecteun adopted this child as her own and, together, they went off to explore the cosmos as mother and daughter.
When the pair returned to Gallifrey, the mysterious girl got into a fight with another child and was thrown off a cliff. She died upon landing, but started to regenerate. Tecteun looked on in awe as the mysterious girl morphed into a new body, healed and restored.
This fascinated Tecteun. As ‘The Timeless Children’ progresses, we see her experiment on the strange child, desperate to understand the secret of regeneration. Killing the child over and over and over again. How many times has the child suffered and died? Tecteun eventually extracts the relevant DNA and injects it into herself, triggering a regeneration that turns her into a man. From there, the one-time traveller goes on to become one of the founding fathers of Gallifreyan society, and limits the Time Lords’ regeneration limit to 12. (Presumably, there had been no limit before.) So it is revealed that the once heroic Time Lords were originally child killers. (Why are woke activists obsessed with child killing?)
Towards the end of ‘The Timeless Children,’ we also learn that the original young child’s memories were erased – but Tecteun leaves a disguised remnant of the truth buried deep within the Matrix, which the Master later uncovers.
Furthermore, we learn that the Doctor has lived a number of other lives that she has forgotten about. In one of these, she was working for a Gallifreyan sect known as The Division – an organisation that secretly interfered with the affairs of other planets. And although this incarnation of the Doctor had a police box TARDIS, ‘The Timeless Children’ suggests that she was in The Division before William Hartnell’s Doctor who, historically, has been regarded as the original since 1963. Whovian lore has now been changed so that the first Doctor was a WOMAN and not a MAN. And everything we know of Dr. Who history is WRONG. Typical in woke fashion, the female lead must be the best and cannot owe her success to any man. This may be why Chris Chibnall changed the backstory of Dr. Who in order to reflect modern day woke sensibilities.
The existence of this
Doctor, therefore – and indeed the many other incarnations depicted in ‘The
Timeless Children’ – rewrites the established origins of the character. Prior
to 2020, it was believed that there were no other Doctors before Hartnell, and
that Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor was the thirteenth (or fourteenth, if you take
the War Doctor into consideration.) This new information means that it is now
possible that the Doctor has an infinite number of regenerations, and may have
lived an infinite number of lives (all due to the suffering of an innocent
child).
▶ Behold the Cringiness of Rings of Power
STAR WARS, STAR TREK, and DR. WHO are just three examples of once financially successful franchises that have gone woke and went broke. Each of these suffered under the leadership of liberal extremists who sought to push their political agendas using popular TV shows and films as their platforms. They all share common elements, and we can find evidence of this in the interviews and trailers for the “Rings of Power.”
“Evil cannot create anything new, they can only corrupt and ruin what good forces have invented or made”
- JRR Tolkien
The first teaser trailer for Rings of Power was ratioed into oblivion: 130K
up-votes to 1.9 million down-votes. It would seem that fans are getting tired of
the woke nonsense infesting pop-culture and are ready to fight back!
▶ Rings Of Power Actor PRAISES Amazon For DESTROYING Tolkien
A special screening
of the first 2 episodes of "The Rings of Power" was shown to a select
few and their reactions were recently posted on the internet. The comments were
nearly suspiciously identical. Words such as "Bold, Beautiful, Cinematic,"
were the most typical descriptions. Popular YouTube movie commentator, John
Campea, had mentioned that not a single negative review can be found, despite
all of the negativity from fans prior to the screening. Are these reviews even real? It looks like Amazon
cannot afford to have “Rings of Power” to fail. Too much money has been spent. And
if it does not live up to the hype, then what is the point of having an Amazon
Studios? September 2 is this Friday. The moment of Truth awaits! I predict the
first few episodes will have the highest viewership mostly due to curiosity.
After that is anyone’s guess. In its possible decline, the actual viewership numbers will be hidden and Amazon will publicly proclaim "Rings of Power" a success. A Season Two will be in question. But if the show is a financial success, then it would be the first "woke" series of its kind to do so.
▶ Rings of Power "First Reviews" Are Too Perfect
Here are more shows that have reportedly gone "woke" and went broke.
BATGIRL - "Irredeemable" and "Brand-damaging"; ▶ Warner Bros. cancelled the movie despite being 95% complete and having spent $90 million on production. It will NEVER be officially released.
BATWOMAN - CW TV Series - Cancelled. "The batsuit is literal perfection... ▶ It will be, when it fits a woman." People just stopped watching.
SHE-HULK - A comedy without jokes. ▶ Jennifer femm-splains to Bruce why as a woman, she suffers on a daily basis catcalls and man-splaining, and she is eternally better at handling her anger than Bruce. Lots of Man-hating. Nothing to like about this show.
OBI-WAN KENOBI - 10 year-old Leia thinks she knows it all and belittles Obi-Wan Kenobi; ▶ Reva lacks eloquence and ends up shouting to get her way. If you don't like thuggish Reva, then you are a racist, according to Lucasfilm.
Sunday, August 28, 2022
Let's just take a break and Dance!
Saturday, August 27, 2022
Stop-motion film of "The Rifle's Spiral"
Friday, August 26, 2022
Witch Bunny Music Video - MORENA
Brazillian bar music
Animated by: Fernanda Dias with Photoshop
Thursday, August 25, 2022
The Final Trailer for Rings of Power is here...
Join us in Middle-earth on September 2.
Rings of Power Trailer gets DESTROYED with Hilarious Comments!
Wednesday, August 24, 2022
Animated Short Film: "The Naked King"
Tuesday, August 23, 2022
A Story of Love, Loss, and Grief...
While doing laundry, the mother begins to cry after realizing she has washed her daughter's shirt. She sits near the washing machine, causing a soccer ball to fall down and open her daughter's bedroom, which also rolls onto a record player, playing the song "1950". The mother decides to enter the room, where she later reunites with her husband. While "1950" continues to play in the background, a shadow representing their daughter pops out of the record player, and the parents begin to remember events in their daughter's life.
In a series of flashbacks, the parents see their daughter grow up: developing a love for soccer, celebrating her 10th birthday, and experiencing her first kiss. In the final flashback, the daughter leaves her parents to attend school. Knowing what is about to happen, the shadows of the parents attempt to stop her from entering the premises, but, this being a memory, they fail. Inside the school, the daughter is shot and killed during a school shooting, with her final text to her parents being "If anything happens I love you".
As the shadows of the parents grow apart, the shadow of the daughter brings them together, forcing the real parents to see the good memories they were able to experience with their daughter when she was alive. In the present, the parents hug, and the daughter's shadow becomes a bright light in between the shadows of her grieving parents.
According to writers Will McCormack and Michael Govier, who became friends at an acting school, the initial idea for the film came from a meeting between the two at Griffith Park, where Govier thought about making a film where shadows represented emotions people couldn't reach. McCormack agreed, opining it is a "powerful" premise. The goal of the film was to show "the grief that still lingers on in the community, even though maybe the news cycle has left them, and what that grief looks like." To direct the film, the pair met with several parents who had lost their children to school shootings and gun violence in the United States, aware of the sensitive subject matter. The pair also worked closely with Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action, allowing the organizations to share their own feedback on the film's script and amplify its overall theme.
From the very beginning it was always going to be an animated film. We just thought a live-action version of this would be way too intense. We thought animation was the perfect gateway to have these deep conversations about loss and grief.
— Govier on deciding to expand the project into an animated film
To bring out their self-funded idea as an animated film, the pair first met with producer Maryann Garger. Soon after, If Anything Happens I Love You began production in late 2018, with animation taking place from April 2019 to the December of that same year. In total, twenty-eight people worked on the short film, including Youngran Nho, Haein Michelle Heo, and Julia Gomes Rodrigues, who used TVPaint Animation to animate the project. Production concluded in February 2020. To address the importance of diversity and representation in animation, the short was animated, composed, and lead-produced by an all-female crew.
The film was produced by Govier, who wrote the 12-page script for the short film with McCormack in a year. Shortly after, Nho was hired while she was attending the California Institute of the Arts to work as an animator and artistic director on the short, having been recommended by professor Maija Burnett, using the black-and-white palette from the Academy Award-winning short film Father and Daughter as inspiration. According to Nho, the film's background consisted of watercolor on paper to make the story feel "raw" and "unfinished," mentioning that the film attempted to have minimum color in its background to match the "emptiness that fills [the] grieving parents."
According to McCormack and Govier, the pair wanted to tell a story through anthropomorphic shadows, and as a result, multiple sequences were not drawn with "full technicolor" as they wanted to "illustrate and explore grief" in the short film. To keep in touch with Nho and the rest of the crew, McCormack and Govier used the software Slack to communicate, "critiquing and confirming each other's work in real-time."
Most of the film's score was composed by Lindsay Marcus, with the "Beautiful Dreamer" sequence of the film being arranged and performed by the Inner-City Youth Orchestra of LA run by Charles Dickerson. In an interview for Animation Scoop, McCormack revealed that the song "1950" was chosen for the film because the pair were listening to it while searching for music for the short. Also produced by Gary Gilbert and Gerald Chamales, the film was edited by Peter Ettinger on Adobe Premiere Pro.
Monday, August 22, 2022
The next chapter in the Mortal Kombat saga...
Sunday, August 21, 2022
What's this about She-Hulk?
I can't believe any writers really thought that the daily life of a woman is actually greater rage inducing than losing the one you love, being trapped inside a monster you can't control, being shot into space against your will, being enslaved, being defeated by the person about to genocide half the galaxy, and being Mark Ruffalo.