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 It was 1991 when MTV debuted their original animated program Liquid Television, a collection of adult-oriented short films that ran constantly during the lucrative 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. timeslot. Around the same time, my mother decided to pick up a cable subscription, and I quickly glued myself to the television screen. I was at that age where cartoons were seen as “baby stuff,” but thanks to the wonders of cable and a growing problem with insomnia that continues to this day, Liquid Television proved me wrong. There were two specific shorts that always stuck out in my mind; one was Mike Judge’s Frog Baseball short starring the soon-to-be-loved Beavis and Butthead, and Peter Chung’s Aeon Flux.
I think Aeon Flux stuck with me for such a long period of time because, up until that point, I hadn’t seen anything like it. A collection of silent five-minute shorts, each episode full of what seemed to be mindless violence but which continuously gave way to a bigger picture with each passing minute, always climaxing in Aeon’s death – usually brought on by Aeon herself. The shorts went against the typical superhero archetype, subverting the image of the immortal do-gooder and replacing it with a fallible character who was prone to actions that were ultimately for her benefit (in theory that is; remember that she get killed in every episode) instead of for the greater good.
 MTV smelled a spin-off (rightfully so) and launched the 30-minute series in 1995 – but with a few alterations. The characters talked. There was plot. There was character development. And where was the blood? No one’s even shooting guns anymore! What the hell is this?! I turned the show off five minutes into the first episode and didn’t pay attention to the series ever again.
Ten years after its initial airing on television, the complete Aeon Flux is now out on DVD, including the entire 10-episode run of the full-length show, along with each short film from Liquid Television. And damn it, this time I have to watch it. But hey, the release of the live action Aeon Flux film starring Charlize Theron is just around the corner and at this point the full-length animated series isn’t sounding too bad. I forgive you for making the characters talk Peter Chung, but I refuse to watch your movie.
 Originally conceived as an adult-oriented Spy Vs. Spy, Aeon Flux is, at the most basic, a story about power struggle. Trevor Goodchild (say it with me now: an insane madman hellbent on taking over the Earth) has recently seized power in the nation of Bregna by kidnapping the former leader, Clavius, and installing a snuggly little apartment in his bulbous stomach. While he might have the entire nation in his iron fist, he pines for Aeon Flux and hopes to one day live with her in Clavius’ stomach. Of course, this isn’t going to work at all considering that Aeon is a terrorist whose main goal is to assassinate Trevor.
And that’s only the first episode. But to save my sanity and hopefully prevent boredom, I’m not going through a rundown of each episode. While each episode is a fairly self-contained plot, there are a  few themes that run through the entire series; Trevor is a bit of a madman who thinks his plans for world domination are really plans for bringing about world peace. However, one man’s utopia is another man’s fascism and Aeon Flux is always ready to destroy Trevor’s work (or at least attempt to), kill him or have sex with him. And sex seems to be a very important part of the show – both Aeon and Trevor are willing to exploit their sexuality to get what they want. Trevor will disrobe for a television interviewer to prove he has nothing to hide; Aeon will hit on a child if it means she’ll get what she wants. Hell, when the two unearth an alien that has no orifices on its body, both of their reactions are “Well… How do we have sex with it?”
 While the general plot is easy to wrap your head around, it’s the interaction between Aeon and Trevor that makes the series more than just a collection of whacked-out scenes of extreme violence and disfigured sex. Yes, Trevor Goodchild is a psychotic who wants nothing more than to better his own situation, but so is Aeon Flux. Both want to make their goals sound world changing, but in the end they’re simply trying to manipulate the other into submission. It’s a schoolyard dick-measuring contest on a global scale.
So, do the full-length episodes of Aeon Flux hold up after my initial shunning of the series? Surprisingly, they do. While I’m still in favor of the original silent shorts, the full-length episodes managed to draw me into each episode’s story, culminating in the excellent final episode End Sinister, which doesn’t tie up any loose plotline and doesn’t come with a resolution, but wraps up the series with an appropriate amount of satisfying ambiguity.
However, I do have a few complaints, but they’re mostly personal bias. The episodes are altered. A little slip of paper comes in the set that reads, “In every episode, enhancements such as highlights, shadows, blurs or glows were added to  achieve a range of moods and atmospheres not seen in the earlier editions.” I’m not a fan of CG-type enhancements to cell animation, and the effects are quite noticeable – even jarring in some places. In addition to the video alterations, a few episodes have had selected dialogue rewritten, even far as recasting and re-recording the character of Clavius. Since I didn’t pay attention to the series in its initial run, these things went unnoticed by me. These little changes were approved by Peter Chung, so at least be happy that it was the creator’s choice for throwing in shoddy effects that don’t really match the original material.
Also, the episodes aren’t presented on the disc in either running or production order; they’re split up by director. Disc 1 contains the episodes directed by Peter Chung, while Disc 2 contains the episodes directed by Howard Baker. Thankfully the backs of the slipcases come with air dates, so if you want to watch them in sequence you can, but you’ll be going from disc-to-disc to do so. But like I mention, most of the episodes are self-contained, and there is little continuity that runs throughout the episodes.
Presentation
The original negatives for each episode were cleaned and remastered and, despite having a few new sparkly effects slapped onto them, the image is very clean, with a surprising sharpness and very nice color throughout the series. Well, as nice a color palette as a dystopian future could have. The 5.1 remix fares just as well; the frequent battle scenes obviously sound great, but the best part is the constant droning of the moody electronic soundtrack that surrounds you during the more quiet scenes.
 Extras
Considering Aeon Flux only ran for 10 episodes, this three-disc box set holds a decent, though sometimes frustrating, amount of extras. Over the span of the first two discs (which are dedicated to the episodes, five to a disc) there are seven commentary tracks, all featuring creator Peter Chung and a collection of writers and producers. While I probably shouldn’t have expected long-winded explanations, it was still a bit irritating to hear Peter Chung talk lightly about the process of creating the series rather than the ideas behind it. There are a few instances during the show where something particularly abnormal will flash onscreen, and Peter Chung will simply reply with, “I don’t want to talk about this.” Keeping your own secrets is fine, but damn it, I want to know why Heaven is a blue alien licking your feet with its French-tickler tongue!
Disc three contains the bulk of the extras, starting off with the Aeon Flux Pilot and subsequent shorts that aired on Liquid Television. The shorts have also been remastered and contain 5.1 soundtracks on par with the full-length episodes, but also include the enhancements. Each of these also features commentary tracks which are also light on the plot explanation.
Under Featurettes you’ll find Investigation: The History of Aeon Flux, a brisk 17-minute collection of interviews with the cast and crew, along with examples of how the episodes were enhanced. After that is the surprisingly detailed The Deviant Devices of Aeon Flux, which is narrated by Aeon herself as she not only explains her stock of artillery, but goes on to expand on the plot and mythos of the show. Outside of the Liquid Television shorts, this short featurette is possibly the best extra in the disc due to the brief but welcome exposition.
 Production Art features sketches, model sheets, storyboards, color stills and pencil tests for two episodes. The stills are fairly extensive, especially the model sheets, but don’t provide any close-up photographs to show off the detail. The pencil tests are exactly what to expect: quite rough, but interesting enough to watch at least once.
Under Other Works By Peter Chung there are three little promotional advertisements, one for MTV, (watched MTV throughout the early ‘90s? You’ve seen this a million times) an Aeon Flux CD-Rom and the Honda Coupe.
For a nice feeling of nostalgia, there are 12 minutes of footage from Liquid Television which will probably leave you going “Hey, I remember that!” if you caught the series originally. The material is pretty hit-and-miss (The Art School Girls of Doom is so steeped in the early ‘90s it hurts, while Psycho Gram is quite possibly the best thing on the show other than the Aeon Flux shorts), but if you’re familiar with the material, you’ll smile.
Finally under previews, there’s a collection of commercials for the Jackass guys hitting each other in the nuts repeatedly. It’s still funny to someone, I’m sure.
Overall
After 10 years of ignoring the series, Aeon Flux turned out to be quite decent, like a combination of The Prisoner, The Twilight Zone and bondage porno. I’m not big on the tweaking done on this “director’s cut” release, but your enjoyment won’t necessarily be determined by the changes. If you’re a fan of the series and would just like a copy in any form, pick it up as soon as possible. The set features a solid transfer and an excellent audio mix, though if you’re a diehard nerd who has been collecting bootleg tapes of each episode, you might want to hold on to them because of the changes made in this DVD edition.
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