History YMMV / TheAnimatrix

** It's equally possible to interpret the Instructor's bias as an ''understatement'', considering the fact that 1. many of the scenes pictured in the short are recreations of historical incidents, indicating that 2. people are capable of the same level of barbarism ''towards each other'' that they subjected to the machines. For anyone who is more familiar with how utterly cruel human beings can be over the pettiest of differences, nothing about the premise of this short can be far-fetched.

* TooBleakStoppedCaring: ''The Second Renaissance''. Given how many times it's mentioned on this very page, the section it has in the Main/NightmareFuel page, and how grotesque and cartoonishly disturbing the grim imagery and violence is, you'll understand if more than a few viewers are turned off or disturbed by it. Part of the problem is that it's very unclear who we're supposed to be rooting for as with the HumansAreBastards trope being taken to extremes, it's impossible to sympathize with them, and the Machines become literal monsters by the end and ultimately enslave mankind.

* TooBleakStoppedCaring: ''The Second Renaissance''. Given how many times it's mentioned on this very page, the section it has in the Main/NightmareFuel page, and how grotesque and cartoonishly disturbing the grim imagery and violence is, you'll understand if more than a few viewers are turned off or disturbed by it. The HumansAreBastards trope being taken to extremes doesn't help.

* WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs: The short "Matriculated." It should tell you something that it was directed by ''WesternAnimation/AeonFlux'''s Peter Chung.

** Another point in doubt of the notion that the Instructor is peddling pro-machine propaganda is the amount of sympathy she displays for humanity's fate - but even more pertinently, she is introduced as a digital avatar for the Zion Archives - meaning that she represents the collation of ''humanity's'' knowledge of what happened after the war, as determined by the authorities of Earth's last human settlement.

** Another note in doubt of the notion that the Instructor is peddling pro-machine propaganda is the amount of symapthy she displays for humanity's fate - but even more pertinently, she is introduced as digital avatar for the Zion Archives - meaning that she represents the collective ''human'' knowledge of what happened after the war, as determined by the authorities of Earth's last human settlement.

** Another anvil dropped at the expense of humanity's actions is the folly of greed and pride. The final act of the first part has the machine Ambassadors' plea to join the UN and foster a stable global economic system that benefits man and machine alike be soundly and ''violently'' rejected, because because human leaders couldn't fathom co-operating with what they still regarded as their creations, plus they resented that so much leverage over humanity's livelihood was already under machine control. This is what finally motivates human nations to make an attempt at eradicating the machines, and it doesn't take a massive stretch to make a parallel with the 20th century arms race as a very convenient example of what unchecked competitiveness and paranoia can do to the human collective.

** Another anvil dropped at the expense of humanity's actions is the folly of greed and pride. The final act of the first part has the machine Ambassadors' plea to join the UN and foster a stable global economic system that benefits man and machine alike be soundly and ''violently'' rejected

** The first part "The Second Renaissance" beats the HumansAreBastards message into the audience's brains so much (humans murder robots in several direct parallels of real-life acts of genocide, humans engage in moments of StupidEvil like permanently blotting out the sun, all the major world religions sanction war against the machines, ''including Tibetan monks''[[note]]Beats [[http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32929855 neo-nazism]], at least[[/note]]) that it comes off as unbelievable hyperbole, hence the idea that the narrator is an UnreliableNarrator. It may also come across as a form of RealityIsUnrealistic - militant Buddhists DO exist - and in the animated sequence the monks in question are not presented as active participants to the war (in fact, there's no evidence given that they even ''condone'' what's happening); they're simply shown praying for the wellbeing of the soldiers. By extension, no religious representative of any denomination shown in the film is shown to support the motion to fight the machines, but they ''are'' shown offering spiritual advice and moral support to the fighters who stake their faith in them - something which religious services would provide ''in any circumstance.''
** "The Second Renaissance" also pre-emptively drops quite a few anvils in favor of granting sentient machines civil rights. Comparisons are made to other civil rights struggles, like the Amistad, ThoseWackyNazis, the Chinese democracy movement, and ''[[Literature/BookOfExodus Exodus]]''.