| Æon Flux | |
|---|---|
Cover of Æon Flux DVD box set (2005) |
|
| Format | Animated series Science fiction |
| Created by | Peter Chung |
| Starring | Denise Poirier John Rafter Lee Julia Fletcher |
| Country of origin | United States South Korea |
| No. of episodes | 16 (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Japhet Asher Abby Terkuhle |
| Running time | Season 1: 2 minutes (6 parts)[1] Season 2: 3-5 minutes (5 episodes) Season 3: 30 minutes with commercials (10 episodes) |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | MTV (Locomotion in Latin America) |
| Original run | September 1991 – October 10, 1995 |
| External links | |
| Website | |
Æon Flux ( /ˌiːɒn ˈflʌks/) was originally an avant-garde science fiction animated television series that aired on MTV in various forms throughout the 1990s, with film, comic book, and video game adaptations following thereafter. 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, rated TV-MA.[2] Æon Flux was created by Korean American animator Peter Chung (also the man behind Phantom 2040, which used the same animation style as Æon Flux).[3]
A live action motion picture loosely based upon the series and starring Charlize Theron was released in theaters on December 2, 2005, preceded in November of that year by a tie-in video game based mostly on the movie but containing some elements of the original TV series.
The title is based on the Gnostic notion of an Æon[4] – emanations of God – specifically the Valentinian notion of a syzygy,[5] a sexually complementary pair of emanations, here the two main characters. The Gnostic influence is also present in the use of a demiurge in one episode.[4] To avoid the "Æ" ligature, the title is often spelled Aeon Flux.
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Æon Flux is set in a bizarre, dystopian future world. The title character is a tall, leather-clad secret agent from the nation 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 sometimes-nemesis and sometimes-lover Trevor Goodchild. Monica apparently represents a dynamic anarchist society, while Bregna embodies a centralized technocratic state—referred to on one occasion as a republic by Goodchild.[6] The names of their respective characters reflect this: Flux as the self-directed agent from Monica and Goodchild as the technocratic leader of Bregna. Although Bregna is shown to be repressive, in the first full-length episode, "Utopia or Deuteranopia?", Clavius, the president deposed by Goodchild, is described by a questioning journalist as having been democratically elected. In the same episode, an upper house of parliament is also mentioned by the character Gildemere.
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 was also influenced by the limitations of the 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. Instead, the sound track employs a variety of sound effects including sounds such as laughter, grunts, and sighs. Unintelligible dialogue was voiced by the series' music composer Drew Neumann.
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, while other times 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. (In the episode "Chronophasia", Æon is apparently killed repeatedly by a monstrous baby, but the reality of these events is ambiguous. In "Ether Drift Theory", Æon is suspended indefinitely in an inanimate state, but remains technically alive.)
Although continuity is virtually non-existent in the series—and Chung made some adjustments for the 2005 DVD collection to improve this—the primary unchanging elements in the episodes are the two main characters of Trevor and Æon. There is intentionally no continuity between the second season 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 fourth season of half-hour episodes was considered, but never materialized. In late 2005, around the time the DVD collection was released, Chung announced plans to work on another Æon Flux project. In an online interview conducted after the release of the film, Chung indicated that it was to be a made-for-DVD animated feature.[7] However, by the summer of 2008, Chung reported that Paramount had decided to pass on the new production and that he had lost interest in pursuing the project.[8]
The music and sound design for the original television series was created by Drew Neumann. Peter Stone (of Xorcist) served as assistant sound editor for the original MTV series. The music was later compiled on an album titled Eye Spy, Ears Only Confidential. The initials "AF" were used on song titles and in the credits to replace the words "Æon Flux" due to the lack of licensing permissions from MTV. The album includes two discs worth of material from the series and also from the defunct original (1995) PC and PlayStation videogame project. A CD entitled Æon Flux: Music from the Animated Series was included as a bonus with certain editions of the 2005 series compilation DVD that included 11 songs from the show with dialogue snippets featuring Æon and Trevor in-between the songs as standalone tracks. The extended fully remastered soundtrack Eye Spy: Declassified, Freedom of Information Act was re-released in 2010 as high resolution MP3s with new artwork by Peter Chung. For a time, the recordings were available on droomusic.com, but are no longer accessible.
A soundtrack is also available for the 2005 live-action film, composed by Graeme Revell.[9]
MTV was the exclusive broadcaster of the series in the United States. In Canada, the shorts aired on MuchMusic and the third season 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- to mid-1990s, the Liquid Television 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, which at the time was free to anyone with a satellite dish. In the UK, MTV first showed the shorts and the 30-minute episodes from 1992. In the mid-1990s, the BBC showed the Liquid Television shorts, which included all of the Æon Flux shorts. Locomotion played the third season repeatedly, between 1998–1999 and 2002–2003, in Spanish and Portuguese for Latin America. The series was also aired on Norwegian channel NRK2, a sister channel to state channel NRK, alongside The Maxx, Phantom 2040, and The Head in the late 1990s.
In the lead-up to the 2006 international release of Æon Flux on DVD and the live-action movie, MTV UK replayed the third season of Æon Flux from October to November in 2005. The episodes were played at 2 a.m. on weeknights. MTV Australia followed with replays of the third season beginning in December 2005, scheduled at 1 a.m. on weeknights. The episodes were titled Æon Flux Animation and were not played in the original order from 1995.
As of 2009, MTV2 shows Aeon Flux shorts as a part of the block MTV2 Legit. During January and February 2011, Aeon Flux was aired once again in El Salvador on VH1, in English language with Spanish subtitles.
The entire series was issued as three VHS tapes between 1996 and 1998, entitled Æon Flux, Mission Infinite, and Operative Terminus. These were later collected in a box set. A few 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 in 1997 on a now out-of-print DVD that was distinct as it did not utilize any menus.[10]
With the 2005 release of the live-action movie, the complete series including the shorts and the episodic series was collected in a DVD box set, which was released on November 22, 2005.[11] The set features director's cut versions of several episodes, with improved special effects, and in a few cases, new scenes written by Peter Chung and recorded by the original voice actors in order to improve character continuity between episodes (this according to a note by Chung included with the DVD set). Among the many 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 movie's tie-in video game, with Flux taking on the likeness of the Charlize Theron version. The short, which ran about the same length as one of the Liquid Television shorts, sees Flux conducting an unclear 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.
The PlayStation Portable (PSP) handheld system received a 2-Universal Media Disc set release of the complete animated series in January 2008. This set included all ten digitally remastered episodes and the original MTV pilot and shorts.
An Æon Flux Hollywood adaptation, which was released in the United States on December 2, 2005, 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 Television shorts, as no one involved with the original television series had a role in the making of the film. While it does take a number of major liberties with the character and concept of the series (such as making the character of Una into Æon's sister and giving Trevor a previously-unmentioned brother who plays a major role), the film nonetheless incorporates numerous characters, themes, gadgets, and even specific scenes as featured in the TV version, most notably a reenactment of the TV show's most iconic image: Æon trapping a fly in her eyelashes. By and large, however, the movie was deemed both a critical and box office disappointment and is now considered little more than a minor footnote in the history of the Æon Flux franchise, despite being an introduction to the series for many.
The creator of Æon Flux, Peter Chung, gave an interview to the "Monican Spies" community on LiveJournal in 2006.[7] He was asked many questions about Æon Flux and her universe, including how he really felt about the movie. He replied, "[seeing it] made me feel helpless, humiliated and sad."
A "graphic novel" called Æon Flux: The Herodotus File (actually consisting of an assortment of false documents from the world of Æon Flux and a short story-board style sequence described as "security camera footage" rather than a comic strip story) was published in 1995,[12] which vaguely explained some of the show's setting and backstory, including how Trevor and Æon met. One hint suggested in the series and confirmed in the graphic novel is the character's foot fetish modeling; it is suggested she augments her income posing barefoot for magazines devoted to the fetish. The graphic novel fell out of print in the years following the show's conclusion, but was temporarily re-issued in 2005 with new cover art to tie-in with the movie.[13]
As another tie-in to the movie, Dark Horse Comics published a four-issue comic book mini-series, collected as a trade paperback,[14] based upon the film versions of the characters. Although the characters and situations were based on the newer movie versions, the penciling technique deliberately emulated Peter Chung's unique style from the TV series.
Though not directly connected to the series, a live-action/animated Diet 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. "Something Wrong?" is available online at Acme Filmworks.[15]
A PlayStation game by Cryo Interactive based upon the series was advertised in the mid-1990s, but never released, pictures of which can be found on various sites. It was later adapted into the title Pax Corpus after being stripped of all copyrighted association with Æon Flux.[16]
To coincide with the release of the 2005 movie, Majesco Games and developer Terminal Reality released a video game adaptation on Xbox and PlayStation 2. While primarily based heavily on the film, elements from both the movie and the television series are included, as the game sets out to be something of a canonical link between the two—although the Æon character in the game is modeled only after Theron and is also voiced by her.