Hotrod opened the Matrix backstory

Before Hotrod Opened the Matrix (or HOTM for short), the only animation I had completed was a music video entitled "Dang ol' Greenhaah". After making Greenhaah, I was eager to make something that actually had a coherent storyline. Odd that I would end up making HOTM, which has a storyline that's really hard to understand at times because of its odd qualities.

The inspiration for the series came just like it does in the first episode; I was browsing the internet looking at things when I thought of both "Transformers: the Movie" (1985) and the Matrix trilogy. One thing lead to another and I came up with the basis of the story. At the time, Ryan Wells of Fartoons was talking about Jesus owning J.C. Penney, and I decided I wanted that to be included in this animation, so he let me use it (this being why he's credited for helping write the first episode).

It took me about 2 -3 months to complete it, I believe. For a first full blown animation, it was a pretty ridiculous one. It was about 16 minutes long from beginning to end and I was mighty proud of myself for having completed such a long animation. At this point, I had only shown it to a few of my friends. It was downloadable at my website, I believe, in .zip format.

It didn't take long to come up with a sequel script to this, and so HOTM 2 was created. Much like the last two movies in the Matrix trilogy, HOTM 2 & 3 were both originally one script that I chopped in half. I was really proud of how hefty this entree was going to be, but I had NO idea how time consuming its creation would turn out to be. It took 4-6 months to complete HOTM 2, I think. It's been awhile, I don't remember exactly.

Once I finished HOTM 2, I was faced with a dilemma. You see, I ran out of space on my webhost, so I couldn't provide HOTM 2 to people online. I was really proud of myself and I needed a way to broadcast it to people. I had heard of a website called newgrounds from Ryan, but was unsure of whether I was ready for that level of exposure. I eventually settled on releasing HOTM on newgrounds, starting with HOTM 1.

HOTM 1 was decently received by the viewers at NG. Many didn't like the pause/play screens (the original HOTM would pause itself between every scene to keep the animation from lagging), complained about how slow the story went, and other misc things... but some were able to appreciate it, and I was happy that I was getting people besides my immediate friends to watch.

A few months later, I released HOTM 2 on NG. It was received a little better than the first part from what I recall. I still had some issues to work out, though. With these issues in mind, I began working on HOTM 3.

As I said before, HOTM 3's story is actually the second half to HOTM 2's original story, and contains the bulk of its story. Since I was now worried about making everything look and flow better than before, HOTM 3 took longer to make. I figured that since this episode was going to take a LOT longer to complete, I'd release each part on NG as I completed it instead of waiting until it was all complete.

As I finished and released each part, I got tired of working with such a dated script and the limited ability the style had set up. I was incredibly worried about keeping things consistent, but that was proving to be more and more difficult as I got better at animating. The only way I was going to keep things consistent is if I redid the previous episodes, and I wasn't about to rework all that.

So pretty soon after I had finished part C, I decided to stop working on it altogether. I actually got stuck at the big crazy battle against the transformers, unsure of how I was going to produce a battle of such epic proportions.

I hope to finish this someday, but as time wears on, it's looking less and less likely. It was fun while it lasted and was a great learning experience, but I honestly can't imagine finishing this anytime soon. Sorry guys. You can always check out the HOTM WIP for a basic synopsis of what the last two parts included.