Page 545 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

| Transmed a Storytell ng and Med a Franch ses

authenticity and scare factor, hence increasing the viewing experience for many
viewers. Yet it was the film’s promotional materials arguably more than the film
itself that lay claim to depicting a “real event,” thus showing how promotional
materials can become part and parcel of the story, and of an audience’s enjoy-
ment of that story.

the year oF the Matrix

Following the success of The Matrix in 1999, creators Larry and Andy Wachowski released
two sequels, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, in 2003. Rather than posi-
tioning the films as mere sequels, however, the Wachowski brothers insisted on using the
films as components in a larger, more elaborate, and more interactive transmedia narra-
tive. Rather than simply reproducing key moments from the Matrix films, the Wachowskis
developed the Matrix “spin-offs” to expand their narrative canvas, using an array of media
forms—including comics, video games, animated short films, and more—to provide new
original content that enhanced and extended the events of the films. This year-long rollout
of Matrix-related content led many journalists to refer to 2003 as “the Year of the Matrix.”
The videogame, Enter the Matrix, allowed players to guide two supporting characters
from the films through the events that occurred in between their on-screen appearances,
and in doing so, to discover additional details and plot points that were referenced in the
films. Enter the Matrix also incorporated almost two hours of exclusive narrative-expanding
scenes written by the Wachowskis, and featuring the film actors, which were later added into
a “director’s cut” of the film as part of a 10-disc DVD collector’s set.
The Wachowskis also oversaw the development of a series of nine short anime films, col-
lectively called The Animatrix. Four of these films, written by the Wachowskis themselves,
were particularly important to the larger Matrix narrative, including The Second Renais-
sance, Parts 1 & 2, which depicted the historical events that led to the franchise’s central
conflict between humans and machines, and Final Flight of the Osiris (often described as
The Matrix 1.5), which depicted the events between the first and second films of the trilogy.
While all nine films of The Animatrix were released on DVD, however, four of the films were
made available for free on the Matrix Web site in the months leading up to the release of
the second film, and Final Flight of the Osiris was shown in theaters before screenings of
Stephen King’s Dreamcatcher.
But if “the Year of the Matrix” worked to demonstrate the possibilities for transmedia
storytelling, it also illustrated the inherent challenges of these possibilities: many reviewers
and viewers accused the film of exploiting the success of the first film, and perceived proj-
ects like The Animatrix and Enter the Matrix as crass attempts to cash in on fan enthusiasm.
Others, lacking the desire to piece together the narrative from so many different compo-
nents, simply felt that the Matrix had become too complicated and demanding, and found
the films difficult to understand. These problems indicate the degree to which transmedia
stories must now carefully balance some viewer’s desires to dig deeper into the story world
with other viewers’ desire not to feel left out.