History NightmareFuel / TheAnimatrix

This two-part story deserves its own folder because it has the highest amounts of NightmareFuel in the whole ''Matrix'' franchise by far, as it tells how the horrific war between humanity and the machines started, and how the machine eventually dominated, experimented on and enslaved humanity, with the Matrix as the culmination of said enslavement. Even the famous RobotWar BadFuture of the ''Franchise/{{Terminator}}'' franchise isn't ''this'' horrific.

** They are then [[AndIMustScream entombed into the power plants]], violently plugged in and forced to endure untold agony for the rest of their lives. As The Instructor puts it: "The first captives suffered in pain and horror, enroute to what the machines viewed as the humans' version of a 'perfect world'." The visuals and the painful moaning do not lie at all.

* That said, there is one specific scene that deserves a highlight. During one of the battle scenes, a soldier has the front of his power armour ripped open by a Sentinel, which coils its tentacles around his torso and rips him out, ''leaving his arms and legs strapped in the armour''. The worst part is way the man is screaming "OH GOD, HELP ME!" right until he dies.

!Warning! As a Moments page, all spoilers below are unmarked! You have been warmed!

''Anime/TheAnimatrix'', a series of animated shorts based on ''Franchise/TheMatrix'' trilogy, not only has some quite disturbing material, but [[MindScrew half of it couldn't even be understood]] [[ViewersAreGeniuses unless you were crazy or an art major]].

Spoilers below.

*** It also points towards the apparent ''necessity'' and implied regularity with which the programs themselves are run, since - judging by Cypher's characterisation in the first movie - the risk of people freed from the Matrix becoming so disillusioned with the real world that they'd resort to betraying their crewmates for a chance to be permanently returned to the matrix is a very real possibility. This also presents us with another question: how are those dealt with who fail any of these tests?

** There is an even worse option: Duo ''is'' a real person, so even if the one from the simulation is a fake, it's still based on someoneone Cis knows and is close to. This would mean the program forced Cis into "killing" her beloved after convincing her that she is in a real situation instead of a set-up involving a digital copy. That would not only make her ordeal even more painful, but also paint the people who created and put her through this test as a group of outright bastards who could take pleasure in openly toying with her emotions, given their playfulness to her terrified reaction upon the end of the training.

*** The fact that the camera interface implies it's being taken from the point of view of a Machine makes it ''worse''. Not only does it imply that this man's horrific death is being recorded, but it also implies that he's either surrounded by multiple Sentinels just ''watching'' this occur or the Sentinel that killed him re-positioned it's head ''[[NightmareFetishist to get a better angle]]''.

** The scenes of war show off the machines' rapid physical evolution from humanoid designs to completely alien forms, as well as their ability to shrug off multiple nuclear strikes mid-battle--but the power armour scene implies something far worse. The machines could have killed him in a quick and efficient manner, as you would think a machine would do. Instead, the Sentinel rips the soldier out by his torso, seemingly because it was in a position to do so. The machines are now capable--perhaps even ''fond''--of committing acts of great cruelty. Given the history of humanity's treatment of the machines and the fact that machines have artificial intelligence, however, this should not be surprising. After all, as The Instructor says, "man made the machine in his own likeness".