The Demiurge

I Showed this episode to a friend the other day. It wet down well. But we both found it very strange to consider this it had been written by 4 people and directed by a 5th dude.. Because the episode is so esoteric and peculiar (perhaps more than all the others).. It's funny to imagine one person writing it, let alone four with a fifth to direct.

I think the episode resonates with some of the crazy stuff people are starting to propose in relation to quantum theory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oePY_MH3mqk&feature=player_embedded#at=112

The Demiurge was originally intended by me as the first episode of the stand-alone series. Aeon's mission to assassinate God: a perfect way to get attention and to set the tone for the kind of show that would follow.

I'd worked on the story on my own for months before the show was greenlit. Once we got money from MTV, they required us to hire an established Hollywood screenwriter. I chose Steve DeJarnatt, with whom I collaborated closely on the first draft. I was happy with that draft, but MTV still didn't like the script. They insisted on a rewrite with someone else. The team of Mike Ferris and John Brancato were chosen. They did a rewrite mostly without my involvement while I worked on other episodes. In the end, MTV still didn't really like the episode and agreed to allow it to be made as long as it wasn't the first episode. At that point, I went back and made changes to bring it back to something closer to the earlier version by Steve and me. Very little remains of Mike and John's draft in the finished episode. They get writing credits due to their contract.

While working on the story, I knew that I wanted to direct the episode myself. In the end, it became a matter of scheduling that made it impossible, as the show needed to go into production and the Demiurge was one of the only scripts that were ready to go.

I've often noticed that what is deemed esoteric is usually anything that deals with the necessary and universal aspects of life. Whereas what is deemed accessible usually deals with what is contingent and irrelevant. I felt it clearly during the summer of 1997, when Lost Highway came out, a movie that had a huge impact on me. David Lynch's film was criticized for being self-absorbed, inscrutable and masturbatory. Meanwhile, the biggest commercial hit, garnering widespread critical praise, was Men In Black.

I guess it depends on what an audience is more inclined to watch, escapism VS. authenticity...

I wonder what today's audience would watch, as the tv has turned to some pretty dumbed down stuff, food shows, reality and talent contests, news that is largely propaganda and passed on as news. I really feel there is a void out there for something as mesmerizing and mysterious as Aeon Flux was. The writing in the end seemed to still have a taste of the exotic, no matter how MTV tried to strain out the unfathomable mysteries it ended up with, and it was poetic in some of it's phrasing.

I wonder if anyone here has ever heard of The Fourth Tower of Inverness. Copied from Wikipedia: It is a 1972 radio drama, produced by the ZBS Foundation. It is the first of the Jack Flanders adventure series, and combines elements of Americana and Old-time radio with metaphysical concepts such as past life regression, Sufi wisdom, Tibetan Buddhism and shamanistic communication with the natural world.

They were written by a guy named Meatball Fulton. Way back when in June 1970, Meatball Fulton moved to Fort Edward, New York to help found ZBS Media, with a focus on producing commercials for various musical acts such as Billy Joel, Little Feat, Jefferson Airplane and Captain Beefheart. After about a year and a half of this, he became bored with writing commercials, and had an uncomfortable experience producing an album for Abbie Hoffman.

I bought a few of the cd's and they are pretty fun to listen to. They sell them on Amazon. I wish Amazon would sell Aeon Flux, be nice to see it out there.

I hadn't heard of the 'Fourth Tower of Inverness' before. Sounds cool :)

I find it interesting that we now have camera's around the cities, just like in Aeon Flux.

Whats next? Maybe anti personnel grass..

The other week I had a riot turn up right outside my door.. Everything unfolded in a great deal of quirky chaos with basically minimal injury and damage. The riot came about basically as a result of the police hoping to anticipate vandalism towards an unwanted supermarket. They came in large disorganized numbers and managed to 'kettle' an ever growing crowd of bemused locals all the way up to the unwanted supermarket. They then made a tactical retreat, leaving an agitated crowd to vent there frustrations on the unwelcome and undefended Tescos. Here's a good report: http://neurobonkers.com/?p=2509

But yeah, I reckon something could evolve out of something like the dance between Bregna and Monica.