Aeon Flux not screened for critics?!

you can hear the voices from five years previous echoing through the empty halls and heads at paramount... "it should be made as an animated film..."

The ending, however, is anathema to everything Flux stands for. Or at least, everything Flux has come to stand for in my mind.

...Okay, so we have Aeon saying (in effect) "take a leap of faith" and "the old ways are best"? The real Aeon didn't have faith in anything but herself. And her goals were murkily defined, but I don't think her opposition to the established order had to do with a return to the old ways. It was just who she was; a violent, subversive force of nature. Aeon Flux means change, revolution, not comforting homilies.

Because we have to have a Big Bad Guy, Trevor's brother with a quasi-incestuous attachment to him (which turns into murder when the object of love doesn't reciprocate, natch) hatches this preposterous scheme to keep people from reproducing, and Aeon and Trevor team up to take him down. That's it. You don't need to see the film now, although it's less painful if you know the story's going to hurt bad.

It ends with a meet cute. Let me repeat that. It ends with a meet cute. I'm sorry, Aeon and Trevor do not 'meet cute'. Meet sinister, perhaps. Meet perverse. But not cute.

Bregna uses thousands of soldiers (and killer plants), yet leaves their skylights conveniently open.

The writing violates 'show, don't tell' in one key aspect, and that's a shame, because it really is the lynchpin of the plot. Don't just have Aeon SAY "our minds are unravelling"! FFS, show it, man! Two main characters acting vaguely uneasy fails to convince.

A lot was made of the drug-induced virtual meeting space where Monicans receive their orders. Alright, fair enough. It was slickly surreal, and one of the better points of the film. So were the, erm, tentacular vibrasuits (I'm just going to call them that :). But nothing is made of them in this weak retread of Parts: The Clonus Horror and every other clone movie ever made.

As a final comment, I'm sick of dystopian films where the 'outside of the city' is better than everyone says it is. Just once, I'd like it to be WORSE... :-P

Another thing that bothered me, I just realized, was the emphasis on "strong genes". Putting aside how bad that sounds in itself, Aeon's strength shouldn't come from her DNA; it should come from her character, her unique (and somewhat warped) psychology. Explaining away Aeon Flux as a genetic anomaly is like SW1's mitochondria, or Riddick's Furians. It adds nothing while detracting from the heft of the story.

And genetic memory is a /very/ interesting topic, that deserves better treatment than this ham-handed approach.

To put it in PG-13 terms, Flux this movie.

Okay, I'm done ranting.

Prob not too important to most of you, but what is everyone wearing to this movie? Honestly I see leather and blondes all over the place in my mind, and that's just the guys.

Actually I loved the movie. Just seeing Aeon Flux, the character, in any form seemed great. It was fun to go see her 'new' again. The whole Monica/Bregna thing resurrected.

I always thought Bregna was pronounced "Brenya" though. I'm surprised I screwed that up the way I did Herodotus, the first 'o' being 'ah'. I can only hope someone comes on here and tells me they got the pronunciation wrong.

I didn't go with the expectation of seeing more Chungian mindboggling enigmatic edgyness. I knew they couldn't get that, after all, they're Hollywood. But I didn't expect them to be so respectful of the original series. There were lots of little pieces lifted from it. The first scene of the city there was a man looking directly at the camera whose total look was like the series art. How did they find such a guy? I can't describe that face, except to say he looked like one of Peter's characters come to life.

The fact that they met at the 'forum' I got a kick out of. The fact that the forum looked like Trevor's home in Last Time. In fact the whole part with Aeon racing across the knife bladed grass and flipping about seemed to be designed from the scenes in Last Time. Even with the wall they entered over. The 'Relical' is right out of the Herodotus file. Take a look at the Herodotus file on page 13, (if you count, there are no numbers on the pages). The page with "Priority High 7" in the right corner. I think they more or less did a tribute to the series in doing these things. It was fun to see.

Scaphandra was played well, but had an inexplicable name change. The biggest mystery of the movie for me.

Trevor well, not sure why he was a handsome and bondlike brunette instead of a cold Hitchcock blonde. He needed more 'dangerboy' in him. Theron did a great job playing Aeon. She had the voice style down really well.

I liked a lot of aspects of the movie. They did a better job than I expected. To do better than that they needed Peter. Should've asked him in.

I hope the movie is wildly successful and creates a hunger for more, for the series to get the okay from MTV to be renewed. Then we can all be really satiated.

I'm buying a copy of the movie as soon as it becomes available.

Hey Barb, how did they pronounce Bregna? It's already got a precedent in the TV show, did they actually change it?

The movie really wasn't bad, it just wasn't especially good. Though I HATE that effect they did with the little balls. Why didn't they explode?

... Anyways, I really wish they'd followed the themes of the show a little more strongly, but I can't really complain too much. It's the PG-13 adaptation Aeon Flux, without any of the original writers, directors, or artists. I'm amazed it came through at all!

What I do wonder is: why the heck WASN'T it screened for critics? What the hell was Paramount thinking?

I think this review captures my sentiments pretty well.

http://www.tvguide.com/News/Insider/default.htm?cmsGuid={BE71BA24-48E4-46C0-A529-D58A317F23E2}

I'll rent the film and watch with the sound turned off. It'll probably have reams of deleted scenes.

Slant Review

"That hope is derived from belief rather than knowledge is part and parcel of (the Aeon Flux film's) conservative outlook".

There is an old movie by the name of Laura, (1944) that revolves around a critic, Waldo Lyedecker. He is played brilliantly by Clifton Webb, for which he won the Oscar. He is the quintessential critic personality, a 'poison pen'. A man who was not the best specimen of the beautiful male, and so didn't get the girl. He unleashed his anger on the public through sarcastic and snearing columns. Made him feel better. The race of critics has not evolved since this 1940's movie was made. Some things will never change.

Had they done a just little homework they would know Scaphandra was a white girl in the anime, and their comments are misplaced since the characters came from the series. Also, the Matrix was inspired by Aeon Flux. I actually feel a little admiration for whoever at MTV decided not to screen for critics. They decided to leave it up to the audience to use their own minds.

I got a laugh out of one review in which the critic says, 'why didn't they push the nudity limits of pg13'. Gee, is that the way we evaluate a films worth?

Still can't get the girl.

Regardless, I thought the movie was good. I thought it sucked compared to the show, but if I saw it and it was called "metropadeutropolis," I probably would have gotten a kick out of it, so I treated it the same. (Although I agree, Trevor was weak.)

Not to mention the world of Aeon has gotten dry in the past few years, so who am I to bitch about any sort of revival.

Plus the boxset kicks anus. Had to wait a few days and visit coinstar but it's Mine. ALL MINE.

Oh, and I saw that Mr. Chung made suggestions towards the movie, which were mostly dismissed. Is anyone else curious as hell to what those comments were? You think we could squeeze that out of him?

Minority Report was supposed to be an interesting look into "Free Will." What does it mean to have free will if people can see the future? Instead the movie was about "OMG EXPLOITING THE POOR PSYCHICS!" That's fucking boring, no one gives a shit about the psychics. They are a plot device.

Aeon Flux is supposed to be about freedom versus control, or social good. Anarchism versus tyranny. Instead it veered off into "OMG CLONING IS BAD!"

Blade Runner didn't have this problem, since it stayed close to the theme of the book, "What makes something human?" Even Total Recall captured its theme fairly well. C'est la movie process.