As I've said, Utopia or Deuteranopia? (U/D from here on) is not an episode I'm happy with, and I'm going to discuss why in this space. I hope this process might lead into a more general discussion of what aspects of a story matter to viewers, since I've long since realized that my own views on the subject are fairly unorthodox.
First off, it wasn't a story I felt a great urgency to tell, being a response to MTV's demands that we NOT begin the series with the Demiurge, and to set up the background to the series: Trevor's role as leader of Bregna; Aeon's role as an enemy of the state, an agent provocateur, seductress/dominatrix, and object of Trevor's desire. The episode needed to fulfill a laundry list of exposition as well as restrictions, such as Aeon not trying to kill anyone, but still somehow be herself. Yes, the word came down that the killer should not be shown actually killing anyone. That did seem ridiculous at first, but I then saw it as a great challenge.
(to be contiinued)
― Peter Chung, Tuesday, 17 January 2006 12:46 (eighteen years ago) link
On topic though, U/D has always been an episode that bothered me. Some of the elements I really enjoyed, like Trevor having a secret place for him and Aeon, and the shiverharnesses always made me smile. Other things I hated, like the 'new openness'. Breen culture seems too restrictive for that. How do people go from flaunting chastity belts to public nudity in two days? Ultimately though, the episode really doesn't reveal anything about the characters or setting that isn't better covered elsewhere, so the episode either seems superfluous or cursory.
Of course, I treasure all the episodes, but if I were forced to pick one never to see again, that would be it.
(The Purge is, and always will be, my favorite. I thought adding the overlay at the end dumbed it down a little, but that's another topic. I love all the other edits, I promise!)
I look forward to reading your thoughts on the episode, and am, again, glad to have found the board. =D
― Divinus, Tuesday, 17 January 2006 15:40 (eighteen years ago) link
― Voltero, Tuesday, 17 January 2006 18:39 (eighteen years ago) link
Peter, you may not have felt a great urgency to tell the story, but I think you worked wonders with what you had, so I certainly wouldn't consider it a failure, by any means. The story may have had simple, explanatory goals, but I liked the way you told it.
The kind of restrictions handed down to you from MTV probably did make it an interesting challenge. In fact, the fact that Aeon wasn't allowed to kill anyone this time might make it all the more obvious that she's lying to the camera (about killing Trevor), thus making us wonder about her words. Surely, someone who can kill so many so ruthlessly (as we last saw in the shorts, were you to watch them in the order they aired) would have no trouble getting to Trevor. So why doesn't she? Obviously, she's lying, and this gets the viewer to think about her real motives. So I think this particular restriction might have done some good.
By the way, I haven't seen the DVD version yet, so I'm only working from old memories here.
― Matt Rebholz (Matt Rebholz), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 03:39 (eighteen years ago) link
― Joshua Aldridge, Wednesday, 18 January 2006 08:11 (eighteen years ago) link
The restrictions were good in that they shifted the stakes away from generic life-or-death to more scenario-specific struggles. I'll elaborate on that idea later. A few more preliminaries to get out of the way:
One of the most glaring problems is that the characters are not drawn correctly through most of the episode. I won't dwell on this since I want to focus on the script, but the animation went to a crew with whom I'd never worked, and they didn't get the style. Trevor and Aeon both look too cold and hard. Not sexy or charming enough.
The voice acting style wasn't quite right yet, so some of the dialogue sounds pretty stilted Especially Trevor and Aeon's encounter in Clavius' chamber. Gildemere came out very well (appropriately uptight), but Clavius was totally off.
Also Drew's score included a lot of unnecessary music playing under dialogue. We cut a lot of that out for the rerelease, and it plays much better. (We had a similar problem on Demiurge, the 2nd episode we did. After that, I just told Drew to cut out while people spoke.)
OK enough about all that-- onto the script.
My idea was to first offer the audience the most obvious premise for the series: that Aeon is on a mission to kill Trevor-- then defy expectation and reveal that she actually wants to preserve him. (At least one MTV exec insisted we use this as the overarching, ultimate motive for Aeon in EVERY instance: she's out to kill Trevor she's out to kill Trevor she's out to kill Trevorshe'souttokillTrevor ... He compared Aeon and Trevor to Sylvester and Tweety. That should be our model. No, I am not making this up.)One of my main goals was to illustrate in the story why killing Trevor may not be such a good thing: Clavius and the likes of Gildemere would end up running things.
(more to come)
― Peter Chung, Wednesday, 18 January 2006 10:06 (eighteen years ago) link
― Peter Chung, Wednesday, 18 January 2006 16:22 (eighteen years ago) link
A good story is not about the plot mechanics. Certainly, the course of events should become integral to how the characters are affected, but they are not the ends, but the means. Too many films suffer from getting bogged down in a literal-minded treatment of the "how" rather than the "why". It's why I find Charlie Kaufman's scripts so frustrating. They set up an intriguing premise, only to get stuck describing mundane consequences, especially in regard to how the characters commodify the metaphysical.
Anyway, about U/D...
Trevor decides he must monitor all activity to achieve justice. He displays a public attempt on his life (staged?) by a reporter to reinforce the presence of hidden enemies. The "new openness" stuff is to set up the pervasive surveillance system which will have the effect of rendering speech unreliable. (That was to set up the way dialogue would be used: to cloak as much as to reveal actual intent.) Trevor has a dirty little secret: he is the one keeping Clavius, the former leader prisoner. Even more secret is the bedroom hidden inside the vibrating body in which he wishes to keep Aeon. He is proven right that a loyal Breen like Gildemere would not violate the portal built into Clavius, so for him, hiding the chamber thus is the ultimate safeguard against discovery. Trevor lets Aeon go about her plotting with Gildemere. He waits for the right moment to capture her and charge her with the kidnapping of Clavius. Her partnership with Gildemere intrigues him enough that he lets it go to see what they're up to. She uses her seduction of Gildemere in the meantime to torment Trevor as well as to eventually manipulate him into killing Clavius himself, which he does. Aeon had planned everything to work as it did-- we see her setting up her escape route at the beginning: placing the bomb in the wall, dropping the ladder in the manhole. The part she wasn't prepared for was the hidden lovenest in Clavius' body.
Clavius, it turns out, is dangerously insane. Trevor's has taken power by staging the kidnapping, then using the disappearance to promote fear and anxiety, against which he offers himself as the people's protector. Meanwhile, Aeon runs an illicit B&D chamber secretly frequented by a clientele of Breens. She lures and captures Trevor, forcing him to watch as she cavorts with his own officers, making a mockery of his attempt to enforce compliance by suggesting they are under his gaze. If he wants to see their secrets, she's only too willing to oblige.
Aeon ultimately wished to eliminate Trevor's Clavius problem by forcing a Breen loyalist to take the fall. In the process, she gets rid of the anti-Trevor agent Gildemere, revealing the threat to Trevor himself. It is not only for Trevor's benefit, but indirectly for hers. She'd rather square off against Trevor than anyone else, plus she thinks (perhaps in a way that Trevor doesn't) that no punishment could be worse for him than being leader of Bregna.
Trevor, for his part, planned to frame Aeon for Clavius' disappearance, though how he intended to do so isn't really worked out in the script. He does catch her at the end with what he presumes to be Clavius' body, but that's more a matter of chance than anything. I though it would be OK to leave that part vague, as I didn't want to engineer the mechanics of how that would work to the detriment of other scenes in the story, which I liked.
That's a lot for 22 minutes. I think the script tries to do too much (though I guess that's preferable to trying to do too little.) If I'd focused on how pervasive surveillance affects public and private behavior, the story might have been more cogent and succinct. As it is, one gets stuck trying to sort out the plot.
I will say that I think it suffers heavily in the execution. As Divinus points out, compressing the events into a few days makes the shifts seem arbitrary. That was largely a problem of trying to fit so much into a short running time.
― Peter Chung, Thursday, 19 January 2006 10:07 (eighteen years ago) link
― Peter Chung, Thursday, 19 January 2006 11:00 (eighteen years ago) link
Aeon is clearly Deuteranopia. Clavius and Gilgamere are clearly Utopian. But Treavor seems to be waivering. He has a secret desire to be like Clavius (the Blue Velvet reference) since it plays to the crowd better. An endless source of amusement for Aeon.
Aeon: Good-bye.Gilgamere: Good-bye??Aeon: Good-bye!
― Ray Lee, Thursday, 19 January 2006 18:05 (eighteen years ago) link
Regarding the Purge: identifying the custodian's action in the last scene was never meant to be an issue. We should recognize it immediately, as Aeon does. Making clearer the connection between its movements and Aeon's does not take away from the question of what it means that it is performing the action.
― Peter Chung, Friday, 20 January 2006 08:46 (eighteen years ago) link
― Logo, Saturday, 21 January 2006 10:20 (eighteen years ago) link
― Logo, Saturday, 21 January 2006 10:41 (eighteen years ago) link
If viewers, upon watching it once, thought the point of the scene was to show the custodian trying to break free (as you did), then the film failed to communicate its intention. It isn't "dumbed down" because there was never supposed to be any ambiguity about what the custodian was doing. The mystery is what it means that there's a custodian mirroring her act of pulling the lever. That is still up to interpretation, and should have been the focus. As it was, viewers are stuck at the question "what is it doing?", which was detracting from "what does it mean"?
Here is the portion of the original script:
INT. THE CUSTODIAN ROOM - DAY (CONT.)
Aeon revolves into a room whose ceiling cannot cannot be seen. Everything is black except for a large spot-lit aquarium located in the room's center. The aquarium's walls extend into the blackness above. We see the continuous BLOOPS of air-bubbles --- the liquid shimmering an unearthly red light.
TRACKING CLOSE:Inside the aquarium floats a Custodian --- It is animated and moves in the same cycle of motion over and over again -- a mantra of action. This sequence of movement is familiar to us --- and we realize that this is exactly how Aeon moved when she pushed the lever down --- the nuance, subtlety and gesture is so exact one could say that the Custodian is of Aeon's essence.
Aeon slowly looks down at her own navel and then back at the Custodian.
An uncanny moment in time as Aeon just stands there and watches this machine push the lever down - over and over again -- hypnotizing -- we are under its spell. In a trance...
― Peter Chung, Saturday, 21 January 2006 18:34 (eighteen years ago) link
For example, if it wasn't clear that Judy on the stage is the same character as Judy who'd invited Aeon to the Hostess' lair, then that's just bad execution. If the episode had been finished and seen in a version say, where we don't see her face drawn correctly, and viewers weren't sure it was the same character, they may wonder about things irrelevant to the story's themes, such as "do the custodians alter the appearance of their hosts", or "Trevor is masquerading a different person who is playing the role of Judy on the stage", etc, all of which does not help the story. Thinking that the custodian had a will of its own and wanted to break free is the same type of undesired speculation.
I am going to go into an area which I've been reluctant to in the past, so if you want to hold onto your reading of the episode based on your original viewing, DON'T read on...
The original script also included the following which I decided, for various reasons, to cut from the film. They were storyboarded but never animated. The ensuing action WOULD have helped make the custodian's motions clearer, but would have added too many twists and muddled the impact. More convolutions do not necessarily make a story richer in meaning. Many options are considered, tried and rejected during the process. I hope you'll agree that the episode's existing ending is superior.
An then suddenly the Custodian stops moving --- It looks down and then looks up as if something were about to fall on it---
We HEAR a DREAD RATTLING THUNDER
Out of the darkness within the aquarium drops a lead pyramid, landing directly on top of the Custodian.
SLOW MOTION : The aquarium explodes under the pyramid's weight... A cul de sac of fluid, glass and metal.
Covered in fluid, Aeon stands knee-deep in the ruin. A few moments of silence before Aeon looks down and then looks up as if something were about to fall on her--- (just like the Custodian did a few moments ago)
POV: AEON
The bottom face of a lead pyramid HURTLING TOWARDS US as we
BLACK OUT.
FADE IN:
EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE - DAY
A SMALL BOY plays in the construction site where Aeon confronted Bambara in Act One. He is pretending to operate the control panel. He notices the lever Aeon failed to pull that would have brought the weight down on Bambara. Looking around to see if the coast is clear, he pulls the lever. Instead of releasing the weight, the lever triggers a small hatch to open in the ground. Out pops a small mechanical BUNNY, which plays an old MUSIC BOX tune.
FADE OUT
THE END
― Peter Chung, Saturday, 21 January 2006 19:24 (eighteen years ago) link
For me, however, it's always valuable to hear the thoughts of viewers who have looked closely at the episodes. The episodes were truly experimental-- that means I was willing to try methods I wasn't sure would yield the intended results. Measuring the results of the experiment involves listening to the responses of viewers. Thank you.
― Peter Chung, Saturday, 21 January 2006 20:18 (eighteen years ago) link
At first I thought that the ambiguity at the end of The Purge was good, because it left the watcher to interpret whether Aeon was implanted or not. My friends and I would debate whether the custodian was mimicking her or demonstrating control. For some reason I thought that making the connection more obvious took away from that freedom to interpret, but it doesn't at all. It just makes it clear that the custodian was making the same motion that she was. So, in retrospect, I apologise for saying that it dumbed down the scene.
But back to U/D, which is the episode of discussion here. =)
I did catch something on the DVD release that I don't remember noticing during the MTV or VHS releases. Clavius' documents are all one page of a document about UN peacekeeping forces in Cambodia. Let me tell you how odd it was seeing the words "President Clinton" in an episode of Aeon Flux!
Most Breen documents (almost all writing) we see are in non-linguistic dingbats or scribbly pseudocursive, most notably in Isthsmus Crypticus. Why use an actual document for this scene instead of scribbly-gook?
― Divinus, Sunday, 22 January 2006 12:48 (eighteen years ago) link
Also, thanks for posting that cut from the end of the original script - it was really interesting, but I think you made the right choice in leaving those twists out. The "more open" ending is more satisfying and interesting, I think.
As for U/D, I was one of those people who had a negative reaction to the dialogue upon first airing, but I continued to watch the show anyway (which I'm glad I did, as I love many of the other episodes). I still don't really like that episode anyway, especially for the plucky ending. The new dialogue is better, but it doesn't quite fit in because the actor's reading sounds noticibly different from the old lines... like it's not even the same man. I don't mean that in content, I mean it really doesn't SOUND like the same guy.
Some elements of the episode are still pretty cool and interesting, particular Clavius and the "body suit", and I was actually pleasantly surprised when I saw that show up in the movie recently. Still, it's probably my least favorite of the ten.
― Nhex (Nhex), Sunday, 22 January 2006 17:17 (eighteen years ago) link
― Logo, Sunday, 22 January 2006 20:21 (eighteen years ago) link
" it really doesn't SOUND like the same guy."Nhex-- not sure what you're referring to. Trevor's voice doesn't sound like John Lee? Or Clavius' voice doesn't sound like the old Clavius? Trevor's new dialogue was recorded by John. Clavius was recast with Japhet Asher doing the voice. The original voice actor was wrong. None of the old Clavius lines remain, so it's all Japhet. Yeah, it doesn't sound like the same guy; it's not supposed to sound the same; the old voice was no good. I don't understand the complaint.
As for the text being legible-- that's what happened when we transferred the film onto high-definition digital video. You can actually read the words now. Improved video resolution has some unintended consequences. We originally didn't worry about the content of the text, figuring it wouldn't be legible on TV, so some random text was used. Please do not read any hidden meaning into it.
In Reraizure, when Rorty discovers Aeon's secret photos, and at the end, we had to composite the images onto the photos because they'd been left blank. Blank was OK for vhs, but not DVD. It plays much better now.
― Peter Chung, Sunday, 22 January 2006 22:00 (eighteen years ago) link
This is mostly nitpicking anyway, I just brought it up because this episode is being discussed. Overall I absolutely loved the DVD box set and didn't really notice many huge changes, as you said, and it was really fun to back and watch this great stuff all over again, without the wearing out of my old VHS tapes.
The funny thing is, actually, I have a much better understanding of cinema and visual storytelling in general since I watched these years back (I was just a teenager back in those days), so I feel like I've got an even better appreciation now than I used to. I really can't say that for most TV shows I used to enjoy, it really speaks to the depth of Aeon Flux.
That unexpected consequence of higher definition video quality though, that's funny. I wouldn't have expected something like that to happen.
― Nhex (Nhex), Sunday, 22 January 2006 22:48 (eighteen years ago) link
Damn, I'm hot on these analogies tonight. I do agree that the other ending isn't as good as the one that made it through, for the most part because it doesn't make sense to me. All that construction site stuff happened before Aeon was even aware of the custodians, is that to say she was possibly always implanted? And why would the weight fall on either the bottled custodian or her? Maybe a representation of karma is the only thing I could guess, especially since the episode is so laden with different conceptions of morality.
As for the changes in U/D I actually didn't notice them. FOOLISH ME. But I liked the representation of it on the DVD, as I've already said, and I disagree that the separate Trevor recordings stand out like a sour thumb as the above man mentioned. They may for him, but I didn't notice.
I don’t agree with all the changes made, but I think you did a good job to release them the way you wanted. It’s better to put out something you’re satisfied with then try to cater to the appetites of the largest crowd, or I suppose in this case a ravenously devotional preexisting crowd. Plus, regardless of a lot of the bitterness over the changes I think people are over all happy to finally have the collection on DVD.
― Joshua Aldridge, Monday, 23 January 2006 01:57 (eighteen years ago) link
http://web.archive.org/web/20030501202558/www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=00053i
I wrote that scene, knowing it would be a challenge for me to animate. I animated it myself, partly to test my ability to convey a complex idea with only the movement of a stick figure. I'm deeply gratified that people are coming on here to tell me it worked for them. That's not the impression I usually got from showing the episode to fresh viewers, however.
It isn't "dumbed down" so much as the older version was "unnecessarily obscurantist". My original intention was to make the connection of their PHYSICAL movements as clear as day. It wasn't. Now it is.
There is still plenty of ambiguity about what it means.
I'm not following your comment on the construction site. What does Aeon's not knowing about the custodians at that point have to do with anything? She made a moral choice then, just as she made a series of them throughout the train-- just as you or I do throughout our day.
The weight falling after the lever-pull of the custodian was another way to help the viewer understand that its movement was pulling a lever. It would have made recognition of the movement easier, and it was originally written that way. With that part cut, the gesture by itself was misundertood. It was cut partly for the reason you mention.
...kind of like if you tried to draw a picture of someone depressed and he turns out looking stoic, but then so all the viewers understand, you write on his forehead "I'm sad".
That's exactly what MTV did to Aeon in the Demiurge by adding VO "I don't want to see" "I don't want it." etc. At least that crap is gone now.
― Peter Chung, Monday, 23 January 2006 10:17 (eighteen years ago) link
What's a Luvula?
― Logo, Monday, 23 January 2006 10:56 (eighteen years ago) link
― Peter Chung, Monday, 23 January 2006 15:33 (eighteen years ago) link
Logo mentioned that Peter's explanations were as confusing as the episodes themselves, which I disagree with. I think you were pretty explict in what you said here, Peter, maybe too much as you seem to think (but of course, from a fan's perspective, it's like paydirt -- especially the parts concerning the creative process).
Anyway, just wanted to say thank you Peter, for taking the time to write.
You mentioned Sylvester and Tweety. On the topic of Warner Bros. cartoons, I always thought the short "Gravity" had (and please forgive me for saying this) somehow the feel of a Roadrunner cartoon. Maybe that's what sparked those executives' imaginations (er, if you can call it that)?
― Matt Rebholz (Matt Rebholz), Tuesday, 24 January 2006 07:10 (eighteen years ago) link
― Joshua Aldridge, Tuesday, 24 January 2006 22:33 (eighteen years ago) link
― Matt Rebholz (Matt Rebholz), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 03:31 (eighteen years ago) link
1. The single lever action of Aeon is to be contrasted with the multiple levers action of the "judges". Aeon is again Peter Chung, whose one-lever-that-doesn't-work represents Peter's clout (namely, he doesn't have any). The "judges" are the studio executives, whose levers do work. They have plenty of clout--they are the ones with the money (Reference an earlier scene with the piggy bank).
2. The lever action is also to be contrasted with the actions of Hostess (Twinkie?) Judy. MTV produced another top quality animation series called Daria. Daria has a taller friend named Jane. When we see them walking together, we see a subtle difference in their gate and arm swing. Contrast this with Fred and Barney: those dirty little carbuncles.
― Ray Lee, Saturday, 4 February 2006 20:27 (eighteen years ago) link
1a. Having watched the series a few more times, I forgot that the two blond girls also have levers that work...Kid Power.
3. An important issue in the final segment is whether or not Aeon is implanted with the custodian. Despite the medallion in her navel, I believe she hasn't. But she is being threatened with it.
Aeon: I don't have a conscience...you know what I mean.Treavor: That's not important. What's important is that you know.
Aeon, being ever defiant and independent rebuffs the threat: "Man alive, Goodchild, you give me the hinks!" (Reminds me of the "Nuts" response at the battle of the bulge). The final scene where Aeon sees the custodian mimicking her lever movements is still that same threat. Now, with Treavor no long present, she takes the threat seriously.
― Ray Lee, Sunday, 5 February 2006 17:34 (eighteen years ago) link
http://www.davidbrin.com/tschp1.html
http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0665.html?printable=1
― Peter Chung, Friday, 12 May 2006 07:28 (seventeen years ago) link
(I should mention also, that Mr. Freitas seems to be quite bonkers.)
― Peter Chung, Friday, 12 May 2006 08:13 (seventeen years ago) link
Aha, so I'm not the only one who felt a bit bothered by making the ending of the Purge so intentional with the silhouette. I also never realized that it was doing the same movement that Aeon had done earlier before. This changed my whole hard scrabbled previous theory of the ending.
I thought it was just displaying bizarre mechanical behavior as a comment on the validity of applying artificial conscience to the human condition (Drew seemed to say something similar in the commentary, “rote behavior”). Now the ending seems to imply that Aeon was indeed implanted, and her act of defiance was not actually her own but the custodians. Or, it could mean the custodians are programmed to imitate observed behavior, and were now imitating what they saw Aeon do as an example of an unaltered human. Which ironically would be once again similar to my previous theory for the original ending; even if not preprogrammed, is imitating observed behavior the same as actually having a conscious?
The third theory is actually similar to the first definition of “rote” on dictionary.com:
rote1 n. 1. A memorizing process using routine or repetition, often without full attention or comprehension: learn by rote. 2. Mechanical routine.
I’m not terribly offended at the change, but it did seem a bit ham-handed for such a wonderfully ambiguous episode and series. And I do still have the original, so the new version is just more new Aeon for me to enjoy.
Back to the subject,I thought UD had some very intriguing visual concepts. Such as the Clavious’s stomach cavern and his being mad and powered through an extension cord. The shiver vest. The surreal moment in the beginning where Aeon enters one door and instantly comes out another on the other side of the screen was a pleasant reminder of her silent days. And of course the nude interviewer is one of the more beautiful inhabitants of the series. But those were really the saving graces for me, as I wasn’t particularly drawn in by, or understand the rest of the episode. Of course understanding Aeon was never necessary for me to be entertained by it. But U/D just didn’t grab me. I would put it about in the middle of the final series as far as its quality. Last time, Reraizure, Chronophasia, and End sinister would be below it.
― chas, Saturday, 13 May 2006 02:06 (seventeen years ago) link
^^^ That should spell conscience.(I can do as bad as grammer check without it sometimes):)
― chas, Saturday, 13 May 2006 02:30 (seventeen years ago) link