Post by kg redhead on Dec 11, 2005 7:46:39 GMT -5
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.
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 exception of a single spoken word, all of the short episodes are completely devoid of dialogue.
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. A PlayStation game based upon the series was also advertised in the late 1990s but never released.
A graphic novel called Æon Flux: the Herodotus File was published, 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.
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.
To coincide with the release of the 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. 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.
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 half-hour series was issued in a three-volume VHS set in the late 1990s, while some of the shorts appeared on a Best of Liquid Television compilation around the same time. Selected episodes were 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.
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 exception of a single spoken word, all of the short episodes are completely devoid of dialogue.
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. A PlayStation game based upon the series was also advertised in the late 1990s but never released.
A graphic novel called Æon Flux: the Herodotus File was published, 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.
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.
To coincide with the release of the 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. 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.
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 half-hour series was issued in a three-volume VHS set in the late 1990s, while some of the shorts appeared on a Best of Liquid Television compilation around the same time. Selected episodes were 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.