Æon Flux

Peter Chung is definitely one of the most creative minds in animation today. This is his groundbreaking work he is best known for.

Originally a recurring short for MTV's Liquid Television, Aeon Flux combined the flash of the sexy heroine and action movie violence with extremely surreal and bizarre scenarios. MTV later commissioned 10 half-hour episodes. Obviously the more high profile placement of a scheduled program lead to more network restrictions. Not quite the same surreal vision as the original shorts but definitely interesting in themselves.

A lot of people saw it as some kind of anime rip off. It's nothing of the sort. While without a doubt drawing influence from Japanese animation the more apparent influences are European fantasy illustrators like moebius.

I bought the TV episodes and shorts on a VHS several years ago. I'm not sure if it has made it to DVD. There's a live action movie based on the characters of the animation series coming out this winter. It's extremely doubtful they'll be able to pull off any of the weird stuff. It will probably be just another boringly ordinary Hollywood sci-fi/action movie. One of Peter Chung's ideas with his animation is to create something you can't do in live action.

I rewatched this little series lately and I just can state: Aeon Flux is still pushing boundaries regarding storytelling for a sci-fi animation show. With its own visual style and story (ideas) plus the sometimes weird storytelling techniques still a pleasure to watch. Such kind of experimental stuff they do only very rare these days - just look what MTV has become...

It's a futuristic "White Rabbit" that comes to mind whenever I recall any episode of this "Liquid TV" born legend. The style wasn't bubbly or cute like 75% of the Anime you witness, it's lines were crude, bodies were awkward but it's feel was seductive.

I personally feel that the creators wanted to give the audience a constant view into the side of what we don't see all that often. Such movies as "Total Recall" and "Blade Runner" danced just outside of those unseen elements using them as sight-gags, AF exploited them in an incredible way....if you didn't understand what you were watching, it was only a matter of a partial storyline before you understood it.

When it was originally created, Aeon herself was silent, an occassional moan, groan or sigh - the TV series added new elements giving that much needed dialog and shedding evil light onto an already unimaginable world.

The action is intense, the storylines are fluid and entrancing, the voice acting is top-notch and it's lifespan was cut short to make way for the new generation clot with teenie-boppers, hip-hoppers and wannabes. If AF proved anything, aside from it's jaded stance on a futuristic world that puts "Mad Max" to shame - it's that MTV DID INDEED SELL-OUT....for those of us who spent countless hours trying to get the station to even rekindle just ONE MARATHON of "Liquid TV", know the heartache.

If you're looking for the series that breaks Japanimation's stranglehold on quality mature cartoons, this is it. Aeon Flux is Peter Chung's twisted brainchild, a fantastic future world where everyone and no one are everything they seem, and more, and less. This is not the series you want if you're looking for easily acceptable doses of comprehensible violence and sex. Aeon Flux attacks your brainpan directly through your optic nerve, inducing afterthought in the brain. If you are ready to go beyond, to enjoy boundary-cracking animation that switches in and out of characterization, plot, action, and even dialogue, then go find this tape. Buy it. You'll thank me later.

First of all I have read the other reviews...these were done by tired no brain idiots who fail to appreciate the HOST of creative subtleties that made this show entirely unique. There is no material-biting , or boring skeletal sketches; everything in the series is done for a reason: these characters are drawn to make you think on a symbolic level, they act to make to you think on a symbolic level, their complicated idiosyncrasies are complicated, and repellent and sensuous at once...you HAVE to watch them more than once, that's why I LOVE them..Peter Chung worked extremely hard to fit so much meaning into so short a time frame. I have never seen anything like this series and likely never will again. One of the best things ever shown on MTV!