However! you are limited to watching The Animatrix on the Japanese UMD release under the same restrictions.
If you consider UMD "basically DVD" (a format 👎 Resurrections 👎 was released on) the highest resolution you can view it on a format on which the " fourth " film (which we don't acknowledge) was never released is specifically the PAL version of the film on VHS.
If you want to watch The Animatrix digitally and "UMD doesn't count" the Thai or Turkish dub of The Animatrix on VCD is the highest resolution you can own it on (adhering to our silly self-imposed limitations).
UMD is 720×480
PAL VHS is 625x240
I think Thailand & Turkey are both PAL countries, so their VCD is 352×288
I welcome addendums and corrections. I for example have no idea which if any of these films were and were not released on CBHD
If you wanted to understand The Matrix, you are going to have to watch all 3 films.
You will also need to see The Matrix: Revisited, The Matrix Reloaded: Revisited, & The Matrix Revolutions: Revisited.
You will of course have to watch all 9 shorts from The Animatrix.
You will need to read through The Zion Archives and watch The Burly Man Chronicles.
You're going to have to get your hands on The Matrix Revolutions bonus CD-Rom.
You are going to have to play through Enter The Matrix, The Path Of Neo, and to have played The Matrix Online (servers for which shut down in 2009).
You Will need to see The Art of The Matrix and read The Shooting Script, as well as Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 of The Matrix Comics.
You'll need to trawl through contemporary WhatIsTheMatrix as well as TheMatrix-Movie sites, and to have participated in contemporary Matrix Forums.
You'll need to read Simulacres et Simulation in the original French, as well as Meditationes de Prima Philosophia by Renatus Descartes (that one it is ok to read in english, however)
You'll also need to read Out of Control : The Rise of Neo-Biological Civilization.
You should also read up on Sophia Stweart's lawsuit against The Wachowski Sisters, Warner Brothers, James Cameron, and 20th Century Fox.
You do not, in order to understand The Matrix, need to listen to the commentary track featuring Dr. Cornel West & Ken Wilber. instead, just watch the films regular and set up a loop pedal to repeat every 17-38 seconds "...in a Manichaean sense." You'll get the same effect.
I do however recommend listening to the LaserDisc commentary for the 1996 film Bound.
Finally, to truly "understand" the films, you're going to have to take some dissociatives or hallucinogens (or even better both) and sip on a milkshake containing either reduced down pregnant horse pee or ground up goat testicles—whichever one works for you. I would not do both but I ain't here to tell you what to do, @livus.
I don't know where to begin but I'm saving this palimpsest of a comment of yours to explore during my next bout of insomnia. <3
I'm incapable of reading Simulacrum in the original but I have read Welcome To The Desert Of The Real so I let myself off the hook.