Aeon Flux
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Wikipedia-Article "Aeon Flux"
| Æon Flux | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Directed by | Peter Chung |
| Produced by | Japhet Asher Abby Terkuhle |
| Written by | Peter Chung |
| Starring | Denise Poirier John Rafter Lee Julia Fletcher |
| Music by | Drew Neumann |
| Cinematography by | {{{cinematography}}} |
| Editing by | {{{editing}}} |
| Distributed by | MTV (Locomotion in Latin America) |
| Released | 1995 |
| Running time | >5 minutes (6 episodes) 30 min (10 Episodes) |
| Language | English |
| Budget | |
| Preceded by | {{{preceded_by}}} |
| Followed by | {{{followed_by}}} |
| IMDb profile | |
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For the film, see Æon Flux (film). For the video game, see Æon Flux (video game).
Æon Flux is an avant garde animated science fiction television series that aired on MTV. It premiered in 1991 on MTV's Liquid Television experimental animation show as a six-part serial of short films, followed in 1992 by five individual short episodes. In 1995 a season of ten half-hour episodes aired as a stand-alone series. Most viewers prefer the Liquid Television serials to the show for their lack of dialogue and narration, which greatly heightened the story's mystery. Æon Flux was created by Korean American animator Peter Chung. A live action motion picture loosely based upon the series and starring Charlize Theron was released in late 2005. Due to technical limitations, and/or lack of awareness of the "Æ" letter, the title is often misspelled Aeon Flux.
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Background
Æon Flux is set in a surreal, futuristic universe of mutant creatures, clones, and robots. The title character is a tall, sexy, scantily-clad secret agent from the society of Monica, skilled in assassination and acrobatics. Her mission is to infiltrate the strongholds of the neighboring country of Bregna, which is led by her sworn enemy, and sometimes lover, Trevor Goodchild. Monica represents a dynamic anarchist society while Bregna embodies a centralized scientific planned state. The names of their respective characters reflect this: Flux as the self-directed agent from Monica and Goodchild as the technocratic leader of Bregna. The term Æon comes from the Gnostic notion of Æons as emanations of the God, who come in male/female pairs (here Flux and Goodchild). This juxtaposition also maps accordingly to the characterizations of Eris and Greyface in the Discordian mythos. Further mythic parallels can be drawn in likening Goodchild to Apollo and Flux to Artemis.
The visual style of Æon Flux was deeply influenced by the figurative paintings and drawings of the Austrian artist Egon Schiele. Other key influences on Æon Flux can be found in Japanese anime (especially grittier fare like Akira), and European comic works such as the work of Moebius (particularly in lineforms, color palettes, and figure characterizations); Æon Flux is often erroneously classified as an anime series. Graphic violence and sexuality, including fetishism and domination, are frequently depicted. In the featurette Investigation: The History of Æon Flux (included on the 2005 DVD release), Peter Chung says the visual style also was influenced by the children's animated series, Rugrats, which he worked on prior to Æon Flux and found highly frustrating in the limitations of what the characters could do.
With the exceptions of the exclamation "No!" in the pilot and the single spoken word "Plop" in the episode "Leisure", all of the short episodes are completely devoid of intelligible dialogue. (Unintelligble dialogue, particularly in season one, was voiced by the series music composer.)
One peculiarity of the early shorts is the violent death of Æon Flux, which occurs in each of the installments (by contrast, she only "dies" once in the half-hour series). Often her death is caused by fate; sometimes she dies due to her own incompetence. One of the half-hour episodes, "A Last Time For Everything", ends with the original Æon being killed and replaced by an identical clone. Although continuity is not non-existent in the series -- and Chung made some adjustments for the DVD release to improve this -- the only unchanging continuity between half-hour episodes is the two main characters of Trevor and Æon. There is intentionally no continuity between the shorts. Peter Chung has said that this plot ambiguity and disregard for continuity are meant as a satire of mainstream action films, and his stories often emphasize the futility of violence and the ambiguity of personal morality.
A second season of half-hour episodes was considered, but never materialized. As of 2005, Chung has announced plans to work on another Æon Flux project though it is not known what form it will take.
The World of Æon Flux
The worlds of Æon Flux vary between the original Television series and the Hollywood adaption.
Television Series
Television versions of Æon Flux depict the two separate countries of Bregna and Monica, adjacent to each other and separated by a wall (although very small). Citizens of Bregna are not permitted to cross through the wall and it is protected by a range of cruel traps. Trevor Goodchild is not the original ruler of Bregna, instead taking control in "Utopia or Deuteranopia". According to The Herodotus File graphic novel, Bregna and Monica were originally a single nation called Berognica. When the separation occured, memories of Berognica were erased among the Breen citizens. However, the graphic novel suggests, Monican citizens launched the Relical, an airship containing artifacts proving the existance of Berognica. It should be noted the TV series makes no reference to any of this, and it is not known if The Herodotus File is considered canon.
Hollywood Adaptation
In the Æon Flux film, Monica is not a separate country. Instead, Monicans are a group of political rebels who live in secret among the citizens of Bregna. Whereas the television series saw Trevor Goodchild seize command of Bregna from a previous ruler, the Bregna of the Hollywood film is established by the Goodchild family, after they cured the industrial virus. Instead of a barren, desolate landscape (although some vegetation is featured in the TV series) Bregna is constricted by an aggressive, regenerating jungle. The walls of Bregna frequently spray a chemical acid to keep the jungle from moving in and destroying the city. Additionally, the Relical is also featured, however it was created by the rulers of Bregna and for an entirely different purpose.
VHS and DVD release
The entire series was issued as three VHS tapes between 1996 and 1998 (volumes dubbed Aeon Flux, Mission Infinite and Operative Terminus) and later collected in a box set, while some of the shorts also appeared on a Best of Liquid Television compilation around the same time. The first VHS volume (which contained four of the half hour shows, and all of the shorts sans "Night") was later released on a now out-of-print DVD.
With the 2005 release of the live-action movie, the complete series (shorts and half-hour episodes) was compiled into a DVD box set which was released on November 22. Dubbed a "director's edition", the set features altered versions of several episodes, with improved special effects, and in a few cases, new scenes were written by Peter Chung and recorded by the original voice actors in order to improve character continuity between episodes (according to a note by Chung included with the DVD set). Among the numerous changes to the dialogue in the DVD release the voice of the character "Clavius" in the episode "Utopia or Deuteranopia", originally recorded by voice actor Joseph Drelich, was re-recorded by series executive producer Japhet Asher for the 2005 release.
The first disc of the DVD set opens with a CGI short created to promote the above mentioned video game, with Flux taking on the likeness of Charlize Theron's rendition. The short, which runs about the same length as one of the Liquid Television shorts, sees Flux conducting an ambiguous mission, killing many Breen soldiers while pursuing some small, insect-like robots. In a throwback to the ongoing theme of the original shorts, the character is ultimately killed due to human error.
Series cast
- Denise Poirier - Æon Flux (voice)
- John Rafter Lee - Trevor Goodchild (voice)
Series episodes
Season 1 (1991)
Serial, six parts of two to three minutes each, shown on Liquid Television. The DVD and VHS releases combine the parts into one short film.
Pilot
Æon breaks into a Breen complex in order to assasinate a powerful member of the Breen Government during a battle between Breen Soldiers and at least one other Monican terror agent. She kills many soldiers in the process, many of which were already dying from a disease spread by a small blue insect that causes swelling of veins prior to death. The film switches focus several times to show the point of view of several Breen soldiers and their hallucinatory experiences as they lie dying either from the virus or from Æon's bullets.
Æon makes her way up to the top of the building after killing the other Monican, briefly sighting Trevor Goodchild and his lover in a fully furnished elevator. When Trevor reaches the top of the building, it is seen that the man Æon came to kill is already dead, possibly of the disease. Trevor's lover watches a wall-sized television playing a programme on the disease. She refuses his advances, noting that he in fact has been bitten by the insect. He shows her an injection mark, signifying that he has taken an anti-virus of his own creation, which apparently involves ingesting a liquid made from an insect-like creature extracted from one of his fingers.
Æon watches this from the window and is about to take action when she steps on a tack and falls to her death. The Monicans destroy her body by remote control and burn her apartment, and the audience briefly sees her bed and her camera. Later, Trevor is lauded for the creation of the anti-virus while his lover holds a baby. The press takes photographs of them. The statue of the Breen leader Æon was to kill is demolished. Meanwhile Æon finds herself in the afterlife, where her feet are licked for eternity. The episode ends with a young Breen man buying a foot fetish magazine with Æon on the cover, posing on her bed. The bills he uses to pay his purchase have Trevor's effigy on them.
Season 2 (1992)
Three to five minutes each, shown on Liquid Television
1. "War"
Æon is involved in a large battle between Bregna and Monica. After killing many soldiers, Æon is attacked from behind by a Breen fighter who was previously playing dead. With a gun aimed at her head Æon notices an approaching Monican soldier and tries to buy some time by distracting the soldier by licking her lips suggestively. The solider is too quick however and kills both Æon and the approaching Monican. He then removes his helmet, and facing down a large hill, fires at an approaching army of Monican soldiers, almost all of which are killed. Later the soldier moves towards the entrance of an underground Monican base. We see a tooth being thrown into an empty bottle. Arguably this tooth belongs to Æon as we see in the episode "Gravity" she has a fake tooth.
Inside the base the Breen soldier is confronted and eventually killed by a Monican soldier, who then comforts his daughter and sends her to her living quarters after an alarm goes off. Meanwhile another Monican soldier's painting is interrupted by the alarm and he leaves to join the Monican forces. While the first soldier opens a gate to leave the base, grease drips into a pool on the floor. Outside the solider kills oncoming Breen fighters who drop down from an air ship. Inside the ship he is killed by a female Breen solider, who then enters the Monican base using the painter Monican's body as a doorstop. She then frees her captive lover and they run from gunfire, unknowingly towards the dripping pool of grease. Their deaths are inevitable.
2. "Gravity"
While Æon and Trevor kiss Trevor uses his tounge to open up Æon's fake tooth and place a rolled up picture inside. We find Trevor is in a train and Æon on an airplane flying alongside the train. The two are kissing through the windows. Æon spies an industrial vehicle driving past at the same moment. A passenger from the train enters the plane and it flies off. Æon then retrives the picture from her tooth to find it is a photo of the passenger who just entered the plane, and a suitcase. She climbes out the window of the passenger area and moves along the side of the plane to spy on the man, who is reading documents from the same suitcase. Æon must jump mid-air to the back of the plane to get inside, but she misses and falls.
Realising her impending death Æon points her gun to her head, but before pulling the trigger notices the industrial vehicle from earlier stopping at the side of a cliff. Men get out and throw ropes over the side of the cliff to salvage something. They pull at the ropes to bring it to the surface while an intrigued Æon stuggles to keep her binoculars at her eyes from the air resistance. She notices a bridge near the point at which she will land, and shoots a rope at it to save herself. At the same time Trevor's train is passing over the bridge and inside he is kissing his Breen lover. While she swings from the rope Æon is distracted by the men salvaging the object which is obscured from view by the cliff, but is glowing brightly. Æon's distraction leads the rope to loop around her neck. A moment before she can clearly see what the object is, the rope tightens and she is killed.
3. "Leisure"
Æon enters her living quarters to find some one had disturbed a container of eggs she was keeping in her fridge. In a kitchen cupboard, she finds a disorientated Trevor (or a clone of Trevor) chained up, licking an egg. Æon leaves but before venturing outside the Monican base, practices jumping through a row of training grids. Later she enters a spaceship and collects some of the same eggs. She has an urge to take one out of her bag, but realises she is being watched by an alien entity, and drops one of the eggs. She analyses the broken contents under a microscope and finds it to be an aggresive infant form of an alien.
On her way out Æon is confronted by an adult alien, but holds up one of the eggs and threatens to break it if the alien attacks her. She runs away, and the alien triggers a grid barrier similar to the one at the Monican training base. Æon jumps through it with ease, until the alien catches up to her and attacks her from behind.
This episode contains the only English dialogue heard in the first season: the single word, "Plop." Given the title of the episode and subsequent themes of the third season, the alien eggs may be a recreational drug.
4. "Mirror" (originally aired as "Night")
Æon is on an assassination mission and infiltrates her target's home. On her entry she falls over, and notices she is spied on by a security camera. While walking down a hallway she notices a room where the security camera recorder is being kept, and enters. She goes to destroy the tape but at the last minute decides to review the footage. The picture is faulty because of a loose video jack dangling in front of a running air conditioner. Æon goes to fix the connection but in the process spills coffee on herself. While she is in a nearby bathroom cleaning her arm, footage of another intruder entering the building plays. Æon accidentally sprays water on herself in the bathroom's shower.
Æon hears a gunshot, and evacuates out of the area to find her target has already been killed. She rushes out of the bedroom but is shot at by the assassin. While Æon lies on the floor dying, she looks at the figure in the security monitor, but the image is still distorted. Æon shoots a nearby temperature control knob; with the air conditioning system disabled, the loose video cable stops shaking, and the security camera picture clears up. The moment before her death she finds out it was Trevor Goodchild.
5. "Tide"
Æon and a partner are on an offshore facility. Æon is trying to prevent a plug from being removed by a rope key draped from a hovering helicopter by shooting at it, while her partner holds Trevor Goodchild captive in a nearby elevator. As Æon returns to the elevator Trevor has overpowered the partner, and attempts to leave, pressing all of the elevator's level buttons. Æon stops him and attempts to obtain the numbered key he possesses, but he throws it behind a sink. When retrieving it Æon accidentally rips off the attached numbered label, so it is unknown on which level the key will be useful.
Æon attempts to use the key in a storage locker on level six, while avoiding gunfire from a Breen soldier and again shooting at the hanging plug key, which has stopped swaying enough for another attempt to pull the plug. Upon returning to the elevator Æon chains Trevor up and attempts to retrieve the numbered label but it is out of her reach. Æon repeats the cycle for subsequent floors, while her traitorous partner kisses Trevor when Æon is gone. By level two the now injured Æon realises whats going on and the partner tries to stop her from killing Trevor, kicking Æon who falls back on her neck and is killed (although it is not explicitly indicated in the episode that she is dead, the DVD commentary indicates that she is). The partner takes the key and runs to the level two storage locker. A Breen soldier enters the elevator and shoots Trevor, and on his way out shoots the hanging key to buy him some time to get out of the facility.
The partner opens the storage locker with the key and retrieves a barrel, taking it back to the elevator. Inside she finds a giant rubber washer. Unsatisfied with what seems like such a measily prize, she runs out leaving the washer behind and neglecting to check the storage locker on level one. As she reaches the concrete cylinder holding the plug, the helicopter is just leaving, and pulls an identical rubber washer out of the plug, causing water to pour out. The facility behind her sinks into the ocean leaving her stranded standing on the empty plug.
Peter Chung states on the DVD commentary that he planned this episode like a piece of music. The entire segment is composed of twenty backgrounds shown for two seconds each in the same order and same angle for seven cycles.
Season 3 (1995)
Thirty minutes each with commercials.
- "Utopia or Deuteranopia?" (August 8, 1995)
- Æon searches for Clavius, the deposed ruler of Bregna, held captive by Trevor.
- "Isthmus Crypticus" (August 15, 1995)
- Trevor becomes obsessed with and imprisons an anthropomorphic bird-like creature, while Æon tries to rescue the creature's mate.
- "Thanatophobia" (August 22, 1995)
- After Trevor installs a vicious border-control system, two lovers try to escape to Monica.
- "A Last Time For Everything" (August 29, 1995)
- After Trevor clones Æon, the real Æon conspires with her doppleganger and switches places with her, but finds her loyalty to Monica challenged; meanwhile, the cloned Æon prepares to kill the original.
- "The Demiurge" (September 5, 1995)
- Trevor and Æon battle over the fate of a God-like being.
- "Reraizure" (September 12, 1995)
- After a mission to prevent the distribution of an amnesia-inducing pill goes wrong, Æon falls in love with the boyfriend of a woman she accidentally killed during the mission.
- "Chronophasia" (September 19, 1995)
- Æon's sense of reality is shattered when she finds herself trapped in an underground facility with an ancient, and possibly evil force.
- "Ether Drift Theory" (September 26, 1995)
- Trevor creates The Habitat, a place where experimental life forms are kept, and Æon and her friend infiltrate it.
- "The Purge" (October 3, 1995)
- Æon teams up with an all-woman insurgency and tries to stop Trevor's plan to give everyone an artificial conscience.
- "End Sinister" (October 10, 1995)
- The arrival of an alien spacecraft begins a battle of wills between Æon and Trevor that lasts for centuries.
Running order
The above list reflects the original broadcast order of the half-hour episodes, however the 2005 DVD release uses a different order, based upon production and having the episodes separated by director (the first 5 episodes are directed by Peter Chung, while the second five are directed by Howard Baker). The episodes can be viewed in virtually any order, except "Utopia or Deuteranopia?" which was intended to be the first, and "End Sinister", which was intended to be a finale of sorts.
"The Demiurge" was originally intended to be the first episode, but MTV felt that, although promising, it was too radical an introduction to the world of Aeon Flux. The episode was therefore moved to later in the production order, and "Utopia or Deuteranopia" was written to replace it.
Broadcasters
MTV was the exclusive broadcaster of the series in the United States. In Canada, the show aired a year or so later on the youth-oriented network YTV in a late-night timeslot during a period when the network was trying to appeal to an older audience.
In Australia during the early-mid nineties the Liquid TV shorts and the first series were shown on the program Eat Carpet on SBS television.
In South East Asia the third season was broadcast in 1996 via the MTV South East Asia channel (originating from Singapore), which at the time was free to anyone with a satellite dish.
Recent Broadcasts
In the lead up to the 2006 international release of Aeon Flux on DVD and the live action movie, MTV United Kingdom replayed the third season of Aeon Flux from October to November in 2005. The episodes were played at 2.00am weeknights.
MTV Australia followed with replays of the third season begining in December 2005, scheduled at 1.00am weeknights. The episodes were titled "Aeon Flux Animation" and were not played in the original order from 1995.
Æon Flux in Other Media
Film
An Æon Flux Hollywood adaptation, which was released in the United States on December 2, 2005, has provoked controversy among Æon Flux fans over initial reports that the film adaptation seemed to bear little resemblance to the original full-length animated series or the Liquid TV shorts. The screenplay was written by Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi (writers of teen drama-romance Crazy/Beautiful and action-comedy The Tuxedo), and directed by Karyn Kusama (Girlfight). The character of Æon Flux was played by Oscar-winner Charlize Theron. Filming was temporarily suspended during September 2004 while Theron recovered from a neck injury she suffered during stuntwork on the tenth day of shooting. Production resumed in early October.
The film, while it does take a number of major liberties with the character and concept of the series, nonetheless incorporates numerous characters, themes, and even gadgets featured in the TV version.
Books
A graphic novel called Æon Flux: the Herodotus File was published in 1995, which vaguely explained some of the show's setting and backstory. One tidbit suggested in the series and confirmed in the graphic novel is the character's foot fetish; it is suggested she augments her income posing for magazines devoted to the fetish. The graphic novel fell out of print in the years following the show's conclusion, but was reissued in 2005 to tie-in with the movie.
At the same time, Dark Horse Comics also launched a four-issue comic book miniseries based upon the film version of the character, although the artistic style of the comic book is closer to that of the TV series.
Pepsi Commercial
Though not directly connected to the series, a live-action/animated Pepsi commercial titled "Something Wrong?" was directed by Peter Chung and starred Malcolm McDowell as a Trevor Goodchild-like character and Cindy Crawford as an Æon Flux-like character. It was made for Super Bowl XXX in 1996, but was pulled and later aired for broadcast exclusive to MTV.
Video Games
A PlayStation game by Cryo Interactive based upon the series was also advertised in the late 1990s but never released. It was later adapted into the title Pax Corpus after being stripped all of association and context from Æon Flux, though the unused opening animated sequence from Peter Chung can be viewed today in the series DVD box set.
To coincide with the release of the 2005 movie, Majesco Games and developer Terminal Reality have released a videogame adaptation on Xbox and PlayStation 2 including elements from both the movie and the television series.