Final Flight of the Osiris

Final Flight of the Osiris is one of nine short films in The Animatrix series, which reveals more about the world of The Matrix. It was written by the Wachowski Brothers and directed by Andy Jones, with CG-animation production and design by Square's North American division. It is the only wholly computer-animated short movie in The Animatrix. It is also the only segment that does not rely on surrealist imagery or a philosophical background, and primarily serves to provide an explanation as to the fate of the Osiris, mentioned in The Matrix Reloaded and Enter the Matrix.

The film was produced by the same animation company that created the film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, which also utilized photo-realistic CGI characters, although the realism level was increased for the characters in this short film. Production of Final Flight of the Osiris, according to comments on the Animatrix DVD release, occurred immediately following production of the Final Fantasy film.

It was shown in theatres, before domestic screenings of the Warner Bros. horror film Dreamcatcher.

Plot

Thadeus, a muscular black man and an athletic Asian woman called Jue engage in an erotic blindfolded swordfight in a dojo where with each slice of their swords they remove another piece of each other's clothing. Immediately after each gets the other down to their underwear, each lifts the blindfold to peek at the other. As the two are about to kiss, their passion is interrupted by an alarm and the virtual reality simulation in which they stand ends.

In the next scene, the hovercraft Osiris is headed for Junction 21 when Robbie, the operator, picks up thousands of sentinels on his HR scans. The ship flees into an uncharted tunnel away from the sentinels, as crewmembers man the on-board guns and destroy the pursuing sentinels. The tunnel opens at the surface, four kilometers directly above Zion. Their thoughts on arriving in a barren wasteland end as they see tunneling machines and a sentinel army preparing a descent to Zion. They are then detected and pursued.

Captain Thadeus decides Zion must be warned, and his shipmate (and earlier VR sparring partner) Jue volunteers to broadcast herself into the Matrix to deliver the crucial information while the ship is doggedly pursued. Jue and Thadeus admit to peeking at each other in the VR simulation. Entering the Matrix on a high rooftop, Jue jumps off and acrobatically and gymnastically makes her way down through the structure work between two buildings. When she hits the ground in the alley below, a ripple effect (similar to that of Neo preparing for flight) is created by her impact. She drops off a package into a mail box. She attempts to contact Thadeus via a cell phone as the Osiris and its gunners are overcome by sentinels and crash-lands, with the sentinels tearing their way into the ship. At the time of the call, Thadeus is making a last stand to hold off the sentinels. Shortly after Jue says "Thadeus" over her cell phone, the Osiris explodes, taking out the thousands of nearby sentinels. Back in the Matrix, Jue falls dead to the ground, her real body destroyed on the ship.

Timeline

In the Matrix timeline, Final Flight of the Osiris takes place a few months after The Matrix and ends shortly before its sequel, The Matrix Reloaded, begins. Linking those two is one level in the video game Enter the Matrix, where the player has to acquire the message delivered by Jue out of the system, which in turn triggers the events of Matrix Reloaded, i.e. the meeting between the hovercraft captains in the upper regions of the sewer system of the Matrix.

Cast

Miscellanea

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

The Animatrix

• Of the nine short films, this is the only one in which the series title, The Animatrix, appears on-screen before the segment titled, "Final Flight of the Osiris" due to the ability to watch all nine shorts as a single presentation (with one set of ending credits at the end of all nine).
• The Matrix film series is MPAA rated "R", "Final Flight of the Osiris" is MPAA rated "PG-13", yet "Final Flight of the Osiris" is the only time in the Matrix series the word "fuck" can clearly be heard. A use of the word can be heard in The Matrix Reloaded by one of the alternate Neos on the Architect's televisions, but it is hard to pick out.
• Before production of the film began in earnest, the animators created a short test film featuring a slightly modified version of the Final Fantasy character Aki Ross, dressed in a leather catsuit inspired by the outfit worn by Carrie Anne Moss in the first Matrix film, fighting a sentinel. Several of Aki's acrobatic moves were later reused in the opening swordfight sequence of the final film.
• The character of Thadeus closely resembles the character of Ryan Whittaker from the Final Fantasy film.
• The ship's nameplate, shown in the transition from the dojo to the ship, reads:

MARK VI, No. 16

OSIRIS

MADE IN THE USA

YEAR 2079

• The film was one of the last produced by Square Pictures before it was bankrupted by the box office failure of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.

See also

• Simulated reality

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