Aeon Flux (the movie)

[kimpossible]

I can't wait for this movie.

Helmer Loved Flux Instinct

Karyn Kusama, the director of the upcoming SF adventure film Aeon Flux, told SCI FI Wire that she was attracted to the movie because of its strong central character: a woman warrior 400 years in the future who leads a rebellion against an oppressive government. "Aeon Flux is such an interesting kind of flawed and ambiguous heroine in that she behaves sort of irrationally at times, or she behaves sort of from a place of just sort of instinct or animus," Kusama (Girlfight) said in an interview during a break in filming on the movie's set in Berlin. "And I think that's really interesting."

SCI FI Wire visited the set of Aeon Flux at Germany's famed Babelsberg Studios last week and spoke with Kusama and the cast. Kusama added that she's a longtime science fiction fan. "I've always actually loved science fiction, and my interest in Girlfight was an interest in trying out a social-realist kind of movie within a contemporary setting," she said. "I think all movies end up being a kind of a form of experiment in that you're always trying to do something new, for yourself and hopefully for the genre. So I thought there was something in Aeon Flux that was particularly fresh and had the opportunity also to be really, really beautiful: ... visually beautiful and sort of bracing to look at and to interpret on a narrative level. I feel like that's something that's sort of missing from a lot of sci fi recently. It's sort of become so much about a kind of gray, dark apocalypse. And we have the opportunity to tell a story that's quite a bit brighter on the outside and perhaps even darker on the inside."

Aeon Flux is based on Peter Chung's animated TV series for MTV and stars Charlize Theron in the title role, fresh off her Oscar win for the serial-killer movie Monster. "For me what's interesting is that ... in Monster she could play someone who had a tremendous amount of pride and humiliation and violence and tenderness in herself at the same time," Kusama said of Theron. "And I found it to be her most committed and honest performance I think that I'd ever seen. And that commitment to ambiguity, to some degree, is why I think she's perfect for this role. That she can sort of play with the gray area and not be always on this straight trajectory is part of what ... I hope ... interests her about the character, and I know it interests me about the character." Aeon Flux is in production with an eye to a 2005 release.

[Meki]

Um... I just have trouble imaging Charlize Theron in this role... When I first heard about it I was like "Charlize Theron?!?!" But I guess I'd still watch it... Aeon Flux gives me a bit of a nostalgic high... It reminds me of high school. I had a friend who was obsessed with it b/c he was an illustrator & Peter Chung was one of the first AA's that was put into the mainstream at the time...

[VV o n g B a]

Um... I just have trouble imaging Charlize Theron in this role... When I first heard about it I was like "Charlize Theron?!?!"same here. if angelina hadn't done tomb raider i'd say she should be in this role instead.

[TB4000]

http://www.aeonflux.com/

I didn't think they could do it, but they got the hairstyle down.

[TB4000]

The cast and crew were featured at that Comic-Con thing, including the creator Peter Chung and the director Karyn Kusama, both of which you can see in the shots below. Looks like they may have captured the series' look and style, hopefully.

There was a panel and a clip presentation. On the panel were Peter Chung (original creator of the animated Aeon Flux), producers David Gale and Gale Anne Hurd, director Karyn Kusama and stars Martin Csokas and Charlize Theron.
TIDBITS:
-Chung was asked about how much the film version differed from his original. He said that he reinvented who Aeon was and what her agenda was from the Liquid Television days, so he fully expected them to change her up again for the movie and didn't have a problem with it.
-They said the immorality of the character of Aeon is still there. Chung, "Well, Aeon is a killer, so that automatically puts her on the edge." But it won't be as hardcore as in the original cartoon.
-When asked about the costuming differences, Theron replied, to the dismay of 80% of the crowd, that the outfits would be much less revealing. "Certain things must be hidden." Crowd, "Awwwww..." Theron says her character is not shy sexually, but just not as butt-ass naked all the time as the original animation. The butt-ass naked part was my elaboration, but she did say she was still very sexual.
-Actor Martin Csokas tried to avoid what was done with his original character (Trevor Goodchild) and it'll have very little to do with what is in the original cartoon.
-The whole panel was asked why Martin Csokas was cast as Trevor when Johnny Lee Miller (who plays Oren Goodchild) was a much better choice for the character... This got a lot of "Oooooo"s from the audience considering Csokas was on the panel. There was something said about the way he plays the character... Nothing really satisfactory.
-Theron played the film for real, not fantasy. She superimposed the Aeon universe into our own society instead of going totally alien with it. Says that we could really end up where the Aeon Flux universe is.
-Theron trained for months with a Cirque de Soliel gymnist for the action of the film.
FOOTAGE:
We saw a bunch of clips... weird behind the scenes doco type stuff mixed with a rough trailer and a clip reel... The standouts from all the above were the assault on Goodchild's stronghold and the sexy shot of Theron wearing black panties and loose shirt.
With the assault it is Theron and Sophie Okonedo who I remember most as being the hottie tribal virgin that Jim Carey deflowers in ACE VENTURE: WHEN NATURE CALLS who do this series of running leaps across a green, bush covered acre or so of land, headed toward a big stone structure... kinda castle-y, but rounded, not spiky. Sophie's feet were hands, which really creeped me out.
You see her jump onto a section of grass and in slow motion you can see the grass move straight up just as her foot/hand comes down on it. She grunts with pain and you see her foot/hand pull up and the grass is sharp, having punctured her foot/hand in a dozen places. "Avoid the grass!"
Aeon is in mid-jump, about to land on a big patch of grass. She stops at the last second, the upper half of her body inches from the sharp grass blades. There's a pull back to reveal her legs in a split on the stone borders of the plot of grass. She struggles to pull herself up, the thousands of tiny blades sensing her there and almost stretching out for her.
There's also a scene where she's in a concrete cell and whistles, calling a few dozen little ball bearings that come rolling through the vent shaft and down halls together. The get to the door of her cell, stack on top of each other, then jump up, sticking to a door-shaped portion of the wall and blows it open.
And there's also a sequence where Aeon is wearing this hot little number... it's a veil that Vs out just above her nose, leaving her mouth and cheeks completely exposed, but covering her eyes. She bumps into a man. She grabs him, kisses him heavily and we cut in close to see their tongues passing a silver looking ball. She takes the ball into her mouth... um... maybe I should rephrase that...
Theron takes the silver object from his mouth to hers and swallows it. We get an X-Ray cam thing of the pill going down into her stomach. It releases something, causing whiteness to spread through her bloodstream and up into her brain. She receives the message, some sort of neural message that can be seen only when the information is released into her blood stream.
Lots of guns shooting and some clunky action...
I wasn't too impressed with what I saw. It had a very JUDGE DREDD-y quality to it, I'm afraid to say. Unless the effects are hardly begun at all, then it's going to look pretty shitty and there was nothing I saw in the way it was shot or how the action looked that makes me think that the director's style could overcome cruddy CG work.
Theron is hot, indeed and has some good singular moments, but I'm afraid this is one of the only presentations at the Con this year that left a bad taste in my mouth. I don't feel good vibes coming off this movie. I hope I'm wrong.
That's about it for this one. Got plenty more comin', so check back.
Aeon herself.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v215/terry78/TheronArriving.jpg
The director herself.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v215/terry78/FluxDirector.jpg
Aeon and Trevor Goodchild.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v215/terry78/Theron2.jpg
The man himself.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v215/terry78/ChungRipper.jpg

[TB4000]

http://www.mtv.com/movies/movie/254271/trailers.jhtml

Did she capture Peter Chung's vision? Time will tell....

[Martino]

This site has some nice Aeon Flux wallpaper.

http://www.siamzone.com/movie/download.phtml?p=4

[LaiSteve66]

I remember the old Aeon Flux cartoon on MTV. I never understood it.

[mr. x]

I remember the old Aeon Flux cartoon on MTV. I never understood it.
I saw like one episode. She picks up this boy from a cave with deadly gas and by the end she's like his mom or something. :confused:

I dont just mean she adobts him, I mean literally she's a soccer mom

[Chad]

One of the writers of the show, Mark Mars, lives in my town and can be seen wandering the streets at night looking to score meth and booze. He's in my top ten list of craziest people I've ever met.

[TB4000]

Nothing else opening up tomorrow but Flux. Can Charlize handle the visuals of the show? We shall see....

http://us.movies1.yimg.com/movies.yahoo.com/images/hv/photo/movie_pix/paramount_pictures/aeon_flux/amelia_warner/flux1.jpg
http://us.movies1.yimg.com/movies.yahoo.com/images/hv/photo/movie_pix/paramount_pictures/aeon_flux/charlize_theron/flux28.jpg
http://us.movies1.yimg.com/movies.yahoo.com/images/hv/photo/movie_pix/paramount_pictures/aeon_flux/charlize_theron/flux9.jpg
http://us.movies1.yimg.com/movies.yahoo.com/images/hv/photo/movie_pix/paramount_pictures/aeon_flux/_group_photos/charlize_theron6.jpg

[VV o n g B a]

the cartoon looked so slick, but for some reason it just looks lame in the trailer. i think it has something to do w/ the crispness of the moves pulled off. if they had a jet li equivalent then maybe it would look cool.

[tommyhtown]

the cartoon looked so slick, but for some reason it just looks lame in the trailer. i think it has something to do w/ the crispness of the moves pulled off. if they had a jet li equivalent then maybe it would look cool.

I agree. Yeah, from the movie trailer, it looks so clean and sanitized. Aeon Flux series had a really dark and sleazy undertone. I don't even know that there was a background story with the cartoon version. She was like a spy or an assassin that went around, tried to her job, and in the process sometimes made out with both men and women. I loved it! Anyway, that's how I remember anyway.

From IMDB on the original series:

Aeon Flux is a mysterious and amoral secret agent from the country of Monica. Her motives or background are left unexplained, as are those of her her antagonist/love, Trevor Goodchild. On her missions, she deals swift, bloody "justice" to all that oppose her. The second season episodes of this series were unique in that Aeon died at the end of every single episode.

[TB4000]

http://www.allaboutduncan.com/images/vcd/aeon02.jpg

I'm guessing this just wouldn't cut it for a PG-13 movie.

[tommyhtown]

I just found out that they just had a DVD release of the original series. I am so getting it! I need to search for coupon and discount though.

[TB4000]

Yeah, they did. MTV2 shows it now, mostly due to promote the movie. I haven't seen it in a while, but it's a pretty crazy ass show. You must confess Peter Chung created a very cool character design.

[tommyhtown]

Yeah, they did. MTV2 shows it now, mostly due to promote the movie. I haven't seen it in a while, but it's a pretty crazy ass show. You must confess Peter Chung created a very cool character design.

I just read a review at DVD Talk site. It got a pretty good review. I really want to listen to the commentary and find out the ideas behind the series.

[Faithless]

Saw the DVD version. Watched the extra stuff.

I believe I heard Karyn pronounced as car-n.

Anyway, in the DVD extra, they showed how the cartoon had this one scene with a dude licking out an ear. I'm sad. There was no such part in the movie. There was the tongue swapping pill and that was nice.

So how much was Aeon modified? Not sure the movie told how she came to be. She was cloned that way?

[TB4000]

Basically cloned to an extent, but it's pretty convoluted.

[eos]

i never saw the original series. would i understand it if i watched the movie? in other words, is this worth putting on my netflix list?

[Faithless]

Basically cloned to an extent, but it's pretty convoluted.
I watched the dvd extra where the lady in the green shirt was talking about how to make the movie sell. And they had the two directors talking about to make a "narrative" out of the cartoon, which was basically not.

Not sure if they pulled it off. It certainly was a narrative, but it was not edgy enough, if that's what the cartoon series was.

The idea of cloning one's self is interesting, if you're some smarty and you have your clone continue to work on your scientific work until you get it right.

[SunWuKong]

watched it in the theater. i liked it, but i don't think the girlfriend liked it.

[moJo]

fluffy and stylized, but i stayed awake for it. charlize looks amazing in it.

[Irezumi Kiss]

I hope the DVD sales/rentals were good, cuz Paramount took a biiiiiig bath on this one. Which puts an even bigger blemish on Charlize's and Karyn's track records...at least this wasn't an insult to the cranium like "Ultraviolet" was.

When you make a sci-fi flick based on an animated (or otherwise) icon, you're better off doing it straight and all balls out or not at all. PG-13 just don't cut it if you have to neuter stuff down for a greater audience that isn't guaranteed. Fans ain't gonna go for it. Did not we learn anything from "AVP?" I weep for the future of great sci-fi in this country.

[SunWuKong]

three Aeon Flux movie threads have been merged.