FLUX INCAPACITATOR

IN 1991, PETER CHUNG’S AEON FLUX FLOORED MTV’S AUDIENCE WITH ITS THRILLING, SEXY AND INTELLIGENT ANIMATED STORIES

- LEILA LATIF

IN THE EARLY 1990S, MTV HAD unparalleled cultural currency. As well as showcasing the frontline of music, it explored other media, including experimental, edgy animation via its series Liquid Television. One of the jewels in its crown was Aeon Flux.

Created by Peter Chung, it challenged audiences not only with its heavily stylised action, featuring bloody massacres, but also by confronting ethical and existential quandaries. Aeon faced off against Trevor Goodchild: she an agent from the anarchic Monica, he the benign dictator of the ordered but oppressive Bregna – though to simplify the motives at play would underserve its rich complexity.

Chung devised Aeon Flux in part to explore the ambiguity behind what could easily have been labelled as a simple utopia vs dystopia narrative. But his background was in work that was much more innocuous. “I studied animation at CalArts [California Institute of the Arts] and went to work at Disney, and then on the original Transformers series,” Chung tells SFX. There, he was out of step with many of his colleagues, who felt that animation should be limited to stories that were simple or for children. “When you’re working in animation, it’s a lot of kids’ programmes. I did Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Rugrats, but I’d always been interested in making animation for adults.”

ADULT FILMS

Away from the Californian sunshine, however, the idea of animation filled with political satire, complex morality, sexuality and gore was nothing new. Chung had grown up in Korea, exposed to all that in Japanese animation.