Actually, it began with Liquid Tv and Akira – stuff a 7 or 8-year outdated in all probability shouldn’t have been watching, however did anyway. That early publicity cracked one thing open. Similar with horror. It wasn’t nearly shock or cool visuals. It was the paradox, the dread, the sensation that one thing large was occurring and nobody was going to elucidate it to you. Exhibits like Aeon Flux hit due to that. They don’t hand you solutions – they lure you in a temper, a bizarre little world, and go away you to determine tips on how to breathe in it. That stays with you. It did with me. Nonetheless does.
Aeon Flux began as a handful of experimental shorts on MTV’s Liquid Tv within the early ’90s – Peter Chung’s approach of throwing a wrench into every thing he hated about protected, formulaic animation. He wasn’t keen on characters that adopted guidelines or tales that held your hand. It was bizarre, beautiful, and smarter than I noticed on the time. Chung’s influences, Moebius, Schiele, a touch of Lynch, have been baked into it. It felt like one thing I wasn’t supposed to know, and I believe that’s why I couldn’t cease watching. The result’s one thing that feels alien however weirdly grounded. Aeon was designed to interrupt the mildew – she’s sensible, expert, attractive, and completely unreadable. She’s not your typical feminine motion lead; she’s a contradiction that refuses to make sense in a approach that works as a result of it doesn’t.
When the shorts blew up, MTV gave Chung the go-ahead to develop it right into a full collection – and as a substitute of smoothing issues out, he made it weirder. The collection added dialogue, however it by no means dulled the sting. It was sharp, philosophical, and in some way precisely what you’d count on these characters to sound like with out ever listening to them communicate earlier than. Aeon and Trevor’s dynamic additionally grew – it wasn’t nearly bodily rigidity anymore, it was ideological. The plots stayed messy and morally gray. The episodes don’t simply inform tales; they dare you to interpret them, mess with what you assume you recognize, and go away you questioning when you missed one thing (you probably did, lean in nearer). Chung centered arduous into design and visible storytelling, with layered background particulars and symbolism that rewards rewatching. It’s chaos by design, and nobody’s ever actually replicated it – not efficiently, anyway.
A Final Time for All the pieces:
This may be my favourite episode of Aeon Flux as a result of it lets us see a model of Aeon we not often get: one who’s not continually on the hunt, not simply the badass provocateur. She’s “playing house” with Trevor, and whereas there’s one thing tender and oddly excellent about it, it’s additionally clearly not actual – for both of them. The episode performs with that rigidity. Aeon sends her clone to do recon, whereas the true model of herself goes to Trevor. And Trevor, after all, thinks he’s getting what he desires: Aeon, shut and moldable. However he realizes it’s the chase he’s hooked on – the backwards and forwards, the resistance, the ability battle. Aeon has her personal model of that realization. She’s not constructed for consolation. She solely is aware of tips on how to survive in movement, in opposition. Being tethered to Trevor feels candy, however it’s not who she is. And by the top, that softness unravels into one thing colder – perhaps even a bit tragic.
And naturally, in true Aeon Flux vogue, it ends on a be aware that’s equal components brutal and poetic. The actual Aeon is gunned down – not as a result of Trevor hesitates, however as a result of he can’t shut the system down quick sufficient. He tries. He’s determined. Nevertheless it doesn’t matter. The clone Aeon is the one who makes it over the border, laser-focused and unshaken. And that’s the half that stings. The one who was starting to query the position, who tried on softness and connection, is the one who dies. What survives is the mission.
It’s a last intestine punch and an ideal reset– bringing us full circle to the concept the unique shorts hammered dwelling: perhaps there’s no true model of Aeon. Possibly there by no means was. What issues is that she survives – all the time shifting, all the time refusing to remain pinned down.
Tide
I needed to go along with a brief – no, it’s not the one with the tonguing and the key message within the tooth. Just like the others, there’s no dialogue and solely sparse ambient sound, moaning, the episode leans arduous into rigidity and unease. Aeon strikes by means of a nail biting cycle – driving an elevator from flooring to flooring, capturing a sky hook to maintain it from latching, looking for the best door. The secret’s in hand, however the quantity it matches was tossed by Trevor into an unattainable spot. Her companion, whose loyalties stay a thriller, solely provides to the chaos. It performs like a ritual with no directions. There’s no clear objective, solely a way of urgency that builds till it breaks. Aeon dies earlier than we perceive why any of it mattered. And within the last moments, her companion removes a plug from the proper door– however as a substitute of utilizing it, she discards it. That call seals her destiny. Alone on a concrete slab in the midst of the ocean, it turns into clear: nobody betrayed her. There was no sabotage. Simply her personal selfishness. Aeon and Trevor are useless, and he or she’s left with the results – stranded, with nobody left to control. The ultimate shot isn’t a twist. It’s a punishment.
Reraizure
This episode is a gradual, deliberate unraveling of betrayal, grief, and manipulation, all revolving round whether or not reminiscence defines us – or if we’re simply what others select to recollect. Aeon and Trevor get twisted with a Breen couple, Rorty and Muriel, whose relationship is rooted in heartbreak and erasure. Aeon’s time with Rorty feels extra grounded than her traditional flings, however it’s no much less calculated – and finally, it leaves him devastated.
Aeon offers Muriel a move. Muriel panics anyway – stabs her. Within the chaos, she’s thrown into the vent. A single drop of blood lands on Muriel’s finger earlier than she falls. Aeon didn’t imply for it to occur. Nevertheless it registers. It’s the second that pushes her towards Rorty. Rorty and Muriel function foils to Aeon and Trevor: opposites of their want for devotion and peace. Possibly that’s why Aeon and Trevor are drawn to them – however it solely underscores that real connection or home bliss is all the time out of attain for Aeon and Trevor.
The ultimate blow is delicate however brutal: Aeon arrives seconds too late to avoid wasting Rorty, who’s already misplaced himself to the bliss tablet. There’s a pointy cruelty in the truth that Aeon and Trevor by no means take the tablet themselves – they don’t escape reminiscence. They bend it, weaponize it, and attempt to outrun the model of themselves others insist is actual. The episode closes with a chilling reminder: “We are not what we remember of ourselves. We can undo only what others have already forgotten. Learn from your mistakes so that one day you can repeat them precisely.” It’s not a warning. It’s a cycle.
Reraizure looks like a thematic cousin to Thanatophobia, the place the couple dynamic flips – Trevor is extra invested in Sibyl than Aeon, which makes you marvel if Trevor’s connection to Aeon runs deeper than hers to him. Each episodes discover difficult relationships beneath strain, however Reraizure highlights how reminiscence, manipulation, and loss form these connections, and go away everybody worse for it.
Ether Drift Idea
This one opens with a haunting picture: our bodies suspended in a viscous sea, frozen mid-scream, like a dream paused at its worst second. The Habitat is its personal unusual biome, equal components science experiment and existential lure, the place a single misplaced bullet, cracked egg, and spilled drink grow to be the catalyst for complete collapse. Aeon and Lindze arrive to rescue Bargeld, Lindze’s companion, and dismantle Trevor’s operation. However, as all the time, motives blur. Aeon may be serving to out of real care, or simply to undermine Trevor. Most likely each. There’s all the time a rigidity in her – self-interest threaded with bursts of sincerity. That duality sharpens when Lindze catches her in an intimate second with Trevor, though everybody is aware of about their tryst.
The Habitat feels particularly eerie this time round, virtually liminal, with its empty areas, countless corridors, and metallic robotic spiders (???) roam. In a humorous second, Trevor and Aeon find yourself on this bizarre standoff, every holding some weird lobster claw and tentacle weapon. Neither has a clue tips on how to truly use them: Trevor simply shrugs and goes, “I have no idea what this thing does.”
When the hybrid egg and drink sludge begins consuming by means of the construction, every thing accelerates. Aeon, true to her phrase, dives again in to retrieve the important thing. She makes it. However not quick sufficient. Because the constructing deteriorates round them, Bargeld’s plan to neutralize the paralyzing sea dies with him. Trapped and suspended within the fluid, Aeon turns into a part of the identical haunting picture that opened the episode. It’s jarring: she tries to do the best factor and pays for it. Trevor escapes with Lindze, however you get the sense that if Aeon had made it in time, it will’ve been her beside him, and Lindze left behind. Possibly.
Trevor muses that cats all the time land on their toes. However Aeon isn’t a cat – she’s a query mark. And we’re left asking: Will somebody come again for her? Or will they only make one other?
The Purge
The start of this one is straight away wild. Aeon boards a practice, and the very first thing we see is a man within the toilet, pants down, asking her handy him bathroom paper – which, after all, is nowhere close by. Then we begin transferring by means of the practice: there’s a child on a swing attempting to seize a piggy financial institution, a paraplegic with a canine, and finally a grassy cab the place Trevor’s arrange a miniature workplace, calmly tinkering with some weird little toy. In the meantime, Aeon’s charging forward, chasing down Bambara, and he or she doesn’t cease to assist anybody alongside the best way. Trevor finally stops Bambara and implants him with a custodian: a residing, crawling, metallic conscience that enters by means of the stomach button. Trevor sees this as a breakthrough. If somebody doesn’t have a conscience, why not give them one? However the true query turns into: the place’s the steadiness if everyone seems to be artificially programmed to be “good”? Trevor’s obsessive about free will, however solely when he’s the one curating it.
Aeon’s quest to purge Bambara is subsequent stage. She offers her blood after which is anticipated to eat some ice cream consistency cabbage from a distribution field. And two issues from this episode have by no means left my mind: the child singing that eerie tune whereas shoveling cabbage into his mouth (I randomly sing it, together with Hazard Boy)– and the second when the custodian tries to power its approach into Aeon’s physique. Later, in true Trevor as sport present host vogue, he marks Aeon with the telltale signal of implantation. She insists she feels no totally different, that she’s nonetheless in management. However when she will get the possibility to take Trevor out, she hesitates.
Solely, shock – Trevor isn’t Trevor. He’s a custodian shell, piloted by that creepy little dancing toy he was fidgeting with earlier. Bambara crashes the scene however will get dropped by means of a lure door earlier than he can end what he began. Aeon shrugs, walks away. However not earlier than seeing a custodian outdoors, reenacting the very same lever movement she made moments in the past. Did she select? Or was she all the time simply pulling the levers another person constructed?
The place to Discover it?
That is fairly available. There have been a couple of VHS choices, even a UMD providing, and naturally, the DVD which you will notice behind me within the video. If you would like the collection in its entirety multi functional place, that’s the choice to go along with. Right here’s hoping that sooner or later I get my hand on the VHS copies. OH, the rating is on vinyl and it’s majestic because of Waxwork Data. I don’t personal it. Possibly sooner or later.
What Occurred?
Oh, you’re actually going to make me discuss it, huh? Look, some issues simply shouldn’t be made reside motion. Everyone knows this. Akira is one among them (fortunately nonetheless untouched), however somebody thought the world of Aeon Flux would translate in 2005. It didn’t. Chung himself has stated he’d relatively see it keep animated, however Hollywood can’t assist themselves.
Do I believe Aeon Flux may come again? Completely. Ought to it? That’s the place I hesitate. I noticed a Chung-created tremendous quick floating round on-line – in that unique fashion: tough, unusual, and stuffed with potential. I’d like to see extra of that, so long as it’s not boxed in by expectations or stipulations. What I like most, except for every thing else I’ve already stated, is how Chung engages his viewers. Certain, that’s what any good creator ought to do, however he does it with care. He trusts us to maintain up, to dig deeper, to sit down with discomfort. That’s uncommon. And actually? That’s what makes Aeon Flux what it’s. I want we had two hours to speak about this. It doesn’t hand you solutions. It dares you to maintain asking higher questions. And for me, that’s the sort of story value holding onto.
A pair earlier episodes of Horror TV Exhibits We Miss could be seen under. For those who’d wish to see extra, and take a look at the opposite reveals we’ve to supply, head over to the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe when you’re there!
