The animator found the baby and toddler characters to be too limiting in what they could do physically, and he wanted to create something with a much freer form of character animation. He not only directed the show's pilot, but he co-designed the main characters and helped establish the overall look of the show with Arlene Klasky and Gabor Csupo.ĭespite the fact that Rugrats and Aeon Flux seem to have nothing in common besides Chung and their parent company- both MTV and Nickelodeon are owned by Viacom- Chung's time on Rugrats ended up having a huge impact on the creation of Aeon Flux. But in terms of truly original creations, Chung's biggest and most well-known pre- Aeon work was on the Nickelodeon series Rugrats. All in all, I would recommend the film to people who enjoy Fifth Element, bright colours, a sense of visual alienation, and unoriginal science fiction dressed up in a bright, original and almost unique coating.Peter Chung had a pretty impressive resume prior to creating Aeon Flux, including storyboard artist on both the 1984 Transformers series and 1986 animated film, and art direction, character design, and opening title design on the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series. However, Aeon Flux is less satisfying than Luc Besson's classic - because it lacks a sense of humour and takes itself too seriously (which, given the plot, is a bad move). In that, it reminds me strongly of Fifth Element - another film where we feel as if we only get a glimpse of a futuristic, colourful world full of strangely dressed people, without the need to explain or expose every aspect of it. Visually, stylistically, and with its energy and futuristic fantasy (and constantly underdressed heroine). What Aeon Flux succeeds at the most is dazzling the audience. In fact, it sometimes feels as if the strangely organic gadgets of the rebels do not fit in this world - as the authorities seem to have more conventional technology and weapons. Strictly speaking, Aeon Flux is about 80% futuristic fantasy, with very little science fiction in it. A good chunk of the film is dazzling to watch, without any explanation behind it. A lake of tears acts as CCTV for the entire city, pills exchanged in French kisses are used for telepathy, little pellets of liquid metal have a will of their own. The world of Aeon Flux is drawn in bright, almost psychedelic colours, and it feels as if we glimpse only the tiniest part of this strange place. Charlieze Theron gets to prance around with an insect-like walk (her first appearance strongly reminded me of a praying mantis), salamander-like crawls, and other, animal-inspired, ballet-like movements. Let's just say the plot is entirely unoriginal, a derivative of many other Sci-Fi movies and stories. Aeon Flux is the story of a female, barely clothed rebel sent in to assassinate the ruler of a dystopian isolated city, which contains the entire remainder of mankind. However, after seeing a trailer somewhere, I loved the look and bright colours (being easily pleased) and decided to give the movie a chance. When I originally heard of Aeon Flux, it sounded absolutely terrible. Trailers for the film show some of alternate scenes which could be from Kusama's director's cut, like Æon in different clothes after she wakes up. Kusama's original cut was about 30 minutes longer and it also had different score, composed by Johnny Klimek and Reinhold Heil, which was rejected by the producers and replaced with Graeme Revell's score while they were re-editing different versions of the film for test screenings. In the end, they decided to go with PG-13 rating so violence and nude scenes were cut, including an entire sex scene, although you can still see several quick shots of Theron's breasts in post-sex scene. Despite Kusama's objections, alternate scenes were filmed which for example showed more bloodier fights and bullet hits, and more nudity from Charlize Theron in several of her scenes. It's possible that this 71-minute version of the film was an R-rated version which some producers wanted. Huge parts of the plot were left out and even one character's sexuality of being gay was cut out by the studio. According to director Karyn Kusama, after finishing the movie, the studio fired her, re-cut the movie to a 71-minute long version that tested poorly and then asked her to edit the film again, but not back to her original vision.
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