U/D

Boy, am I ever glad I found this board. After the Greenspun one got invaded and with the (ugh) movie, I was worried I'd never this community with it's amazingly 'available' format again. I'm sooo happy you're still around.

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

I have to agree, I feel The Purge comes the closest to the essence of the orginal shorts. When I listen to the commentaries it always breaks my heart when I hear about the arbitrary changes that had to be made. The Purge, in my opinion has the tension, feeling, and element of mystery that made the show so engaging and different.

U/D was always among my favorites actually, much better than "End Sinister," "Chronophasia" or "Reraizure" anyway. I think the reason I first got to like it was because it reintroduced me to Aeon after first seeing her in the shorts, when I was still pretty much just a kid. And in fact, I do like the plot, the humor (the naked reporter, quick to follow a new trend), the designs, the characters. The "naughty" aspect surrounding the chastity belt probably held my attention too, being young as I was and still fresh from the Beavis and Butthead wave that came before.

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.

I rather liked this episode, and I don't really see why her killing someone would even have been warranted. I mean Aeon never seemed to me like someone who kills people on a whim, except for in the Demiurge, but I thought that was more of a defensive impulse. The whole non-violent thing helped play into her coyness and in fact, I thought this was one of her strongest episodes. Her relationship with the man apposing Trevor, I don't remember his name, certainly set the standard for Aeons sense of control among not only combat, but in social interaction as well. The situation shows that its one thing to be able to beat someone’s ass, but to use them and outwit them in a constantly developing situation takes prowess, wit, and certainty. Then, while that man was afraid of the cameras in the newly founded "big brother" society catching onto his subversion, Aeon stands in front of the camera and makes claim to her motivations, which I didn't take as so much as an "enemy of the state" message, as an indication that she was free of the fear and cautiousness having camera's everywhere would almost inherently create, and This adds a new and unique perspective to her role as someone who opposes the new regime not for the restrictions it places on her, or because Trevor’s abuse of power has any effect on the way she will live her life, as revolutionaries would typically be defined, but simply for the fact that it is something she desires to do. She is free and she will freely oppose anyone she wants.
Plus I think it did help to set the stage, and it helped to break down Trevor’s evil ruler image by suggesting that at least he might be better then the other guy was. Also as silly as the “nothing hidden,” no clothes policy was, it’s still somewhat intriquing, and it showed the classic dictatorship zeal in a norm breaking Trevor Goodchild kind of way.
Plus the LuV SHacK inside the fat guy was cool. I’ve always wanted to hollow out a fat guy for a romantic get away.

Joshua, you describe very well how I chose to meet the challenge of shifting her agenda from assassin to psych-ops. You also understand that it's a far more interesting role for a continuing character than a killer who runs around shooting people. However you have the benefit of having seen where the series ended up going. At the time, viewers had only seen the LTV shorts. The positive response to them is what encouraged MTV to do the series. When U/D first aired, the reaction from fans of the AF shorts was almost universal rejection.

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)

I meant psyops.

The plot is very complicated . Maybe that's why a lot of people seem to think the shows are plotLESS. It's true that when a plot has too many twists, it may seem too convoluted to be worth sorting out. The trick is in presenting the events in a compelling enough way. Or the twists have the effect of becoming a muddle. Perhaps that's what happened here. An author will allow some leaps in logic in terms of plot mechanics in order to achieve the more important goal of character revelation and delineation of theme. That is why a shift in thinking patterns is needed. At that point, you are no longer stuck in deciphering "plot", and are mindful of what the intent was that begat the construction of the edifice of "plot" to begin with. Insight occurs to a viewer when they realize they'd been looking at a problem in the wrong way. It does not occur when the answer is explained. That's revelation, perhaps, but not the "Aha!" of spontaneous insight. That "Aha!" is ultimately the result I'm interested in evoking. Without that, making a film, to me, would be pointless.

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.

The thing about life-or-death stakes that are limiting is that they are universal. Everyone wants to avoid death. Set up a struggle for a goal unique to your character and circumstance. It may not be as instantly compelling, but coaxing interest from your audience becomes more challenging, and if you succeed, more satisfying.

I feel that U/D does belongs as the first (speaking) episode. After all, is it not a declaration of what Aeon Flux is about? Utopia = one dimensional whereas Deuteranopia = complex?

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!

U/D can't help but seem to be the first episode, since it was specifically tailored to be that. It's far from being the best expression of its agenda. The ending is too jokey, for one thing.

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.

U/D was the first episode I ever saw. It was easily the weirdest show I'd seen on TV so that's what hooked me and so I probably have a soft spot for it. Plus, Gildemere is so loveably naive. He's like the fly under Aeon's eye. And it's ironic how the only character with noble intentions is the one who gets screwed over at the end.

Chung's attempts to clarify are as confusing as the episodes themselves. Anyway, I just got the DVDs not too long ago and I've watched a couple of the episodes (is it just me, or could Japhet Asher be a voice double for John Lee)? That CG short was a pretty cool homage to the old shorts. When I first saw that change made at the end of the Purge I was a little taken aback. It did seem to dumb it down considerably. I don't know if I totally agree with Chung's assessment that explicitly showing Aeon overlayed on top of the custodian takes away from the meaning of it's action and I think this is one of those cases where the artists work is interpreted differently by most people than how the artist intended.
In the original release, I for one didn't notice right away that Aeon's and the custodian's motions were the same. In fact, I thought it was trying to break out of its tank, thereby showing it had a will of its own. Later on I realized what was really going on, but I don't like the fact that the connection is so obvious now. As usual though, my dislike is probably just a dysfunction of the fact that I saw the originals first. However, I would like to know why chung felt the need to make the change if the connection was supposed to be so obvious from the beginning.

The fact that you weren't able to recognize the custodian's motion as being the same as Aeon's right away is due to the failure of the animation by itself to adequately convey the idea. If I'd had time to reanimate both Aeon pulling the lever and the custodian doing it in a more recognizable way, I'd have done it. Many readers here didn't know what it was and probably only found out when Drew Neumann came on this board years ago and confirmed that it was repeating the lever-pull. Since you knew the answer, it seems obvious to you. I guess that maybe about 1 in 10 people made the connection. That was a problem, since if they didn't get that part, they weren't getting the point of the scene.

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...

For a viewer to think the custodian was trying to break free is the exact opposite of what the scene was supposed to convey. There is nothing gained from that kind of ambiguity. Ambiguity is not desirable or meaningful if it confuses an issue that is meant to be clear. This is the challenge of making a film that communicates but doesn't talk down: a lot of viewers and studio execs (and directors) hold that ANY ambiguity is the result of the filmmaker's failure. I disagree, but I also hold that, in order for ambiguity to be effective, certain things NEED to be unambiguous.

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 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...

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)

We HEAR a DREAD RATTLING THUNDER

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

Well, that's it. I'm not sure if this exercise was useful, interesting, or a waste to those taking the time to read it. I think I'll return to my stance of not trying to clarify meanings and intentions. It seems that the more I try to clarify, the more it elicits confusion. I'm not sure if it's because the ideas themselves are complicated, or I'm doing an inadequate job of expressing them. I got drawn into this discussion as a result of the process of recording commentaries and trying to explain the corrections made to the rereleased episodes..

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.

It's been busy since I was here last!

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?

My thoughts on The Purge: It was apparent to me from the first viewing what the Custodian's motions were implying (copying Aeon's motions), so when I saw the new DVD change I was a little taken aback as well - but I suppose if others were confused, than I can understand the choice. It remains my favorite episode.

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.

Well, yeah, now I'm more confused about "The Purge," but confused in that good Aeon Flux way.
Just out of curiosity I was wondering what the creater thinks about the ability to go back and digitally enhance anc correct old work like this. In the commentaries I remember you saying that the work is never done, but at some point you just have to stop. Now, with digital technology and rereleases and special director's cuts and anniversary additions and whatnot it's possible to revisit a work multiple times. Does this create more problems than it solves, or do you welcome the opportunity? I get the feeling from your posts that you enjoy the renewed interest, but at the same time you're frustrated by certain trivialities that people are focusing on that used to be a dead issue.
Would you ever do the retreatment thing again, either for this show or any of your other work, if you had the opportunity?

There has been so much focus on things have been changed, people seem to disregard the fact that most of the episodes have been left the way they first aired because I thought they were fine. Except for the added visual effects on the Pilot, the LTV shorts have been left untouched. Otherwise, I only made corrections where I found elements of the original versions unbearable.

" 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.

I should've been clearer, I was referring to John Lee's opening monologue. I realize it was the same man - that's what made it all the more baffling. His performance for the redubbed lines didn't match his performance as Trevor Goodchild whatsoever. It's really apparent when the switchover from old to new dialgue happens. OTOH, I didn't have a problem with Japhet Asher's takes at all.

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.

I agree with the dumbing down thing at the end of the purge. I understand that having ambiguity at the end would confuse the rest of the episode unnecessarily, but still, I can't help but feel as if I was the guy who sat down a week before school to learn arithmetic, then on the first day of class everyone else receives a calculator. I know this is a personal thing, but the change also feels a little cheap in a way, 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:("

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.

On the Custodian's action: even a lot of the most dedicated AF fans didn't get it without being told.

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.

Whatever people think about the changes, I'm just glad to have the whole series on one DVD set. It is ironic though that it's the people who love the show the most who are most critical of the changes, minute as they are.

What's a Luvula?

I should mention that the clarification MTV wanted in the Demiurge is "dumbing it down" because the point that Aeon is opposed to the Demiurge WAS the element that viewers were supposed to "get" by interpretation.

For my part, I'm happy with the fact that changes were made (I can't say yet whether they were good or not, because I haven't seen them, but from the sound of it I think I'll be happy with them). While I may have nostalgia for the "original" versions, that's really all it is, and actually the idea of looking at freshly rennovated episodes excites me.

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)?

HAHAHAAHahahahah, roadrunner. I never thought of that. Hahahahaha.

When I first saw it, I thought maybe it was a parody of that kind of cartoon on some level, though now I'm not so sure. But surely you could interperet it that way. The Coyote dies so often in those things that it no longer begins to matter, and you just start to get interested in how he dies. Aeon seemed to follow a similar plan in the second series of shorts. Only in her case, in "Gravity," you start to develop an empathy for that kind of character that you'd never usually get. We don't usually follow the Coyote on his trip down the canyon, but this time, with Aeon, we do.

Regarding the lever action in the Purge discussed earlier in this thread:

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.

Additions to the above:

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.

I just came across these articles. The second one is uncannily relevant to this thread in that it ties together the social engineering mechanisms of both U/D and the Purge.

http://www.davidbrin.com/tschp1.html

http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0665.html?printable=1

In fact, Mr. Freitas' whole article reads practically like a dissertation on Aeon Flux.

(I should mention also, that Mr. Freitas seems to be quite bonkers.)

"(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!)"

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.

"...is imitating observed behavior the same as actually having a conscious? "

^^^ That should spell conscience.
(I can do as bad as grammer check without it sometimes)
:)