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[[File:
{{quote|''"The original impetus behind the
|Peter Chung}}
Back when [[MTV]] produced animated programming (yes, this was a long, long time ago...), they fronted some experimental animation. ''[[
Probably the best way to describe ''
▲Probably the best way to describe ''Aeon Flux'' is that if you had ever seen it before, you would be able to recognize it immediately. The art style is a strange combination of [[German Expressionism|Expressionism]], [[Cyberpunk]], and Gnosticism. One of the most enduring images of the series is that of a human eye staring at a fly that is trapped in its eyelashes, wherein the eye's iris rolls in to stare at it. The episodes would attempt to use the art style to further the viewer's interest as opposed to wordiness. The early shorts had no spoken words to speak of, unless you count a single "plop". As a whole, the show was a thorough [[Deconstruction]] of action hero tropes and cliches.
The actual content proves even stranger than the art - our lead character is a highly self-motivated secret agent doing spywork (or possibly just sabotage in the name of anarchy), and is [[Stripperific]] to pretty much the greatest conceivable extent. Her arch-nemesis and lover, also a main character, is a morally-ambiguous totalitarian ruler attempting to be a sort of benevolent dictator.
The episodes tend to be fairly disconnected from each other, and center on the two main characters' (
The show was made into a [[Æon Flux (film)|live-action movie in late 2005]] starring [[Charlize Theron]], in which [[Adaptation Decay|the plot, characters, themes and artistic style were unrelated enough to original series]] to cause the original creator to feel humiliated when he saw it. A licensed tie-in game was made to try and link the two, [[The Problem with Licensed Games|but that didn't end well.]]
{{tropelist}}
* [[All There in the Manual]]: There was a companion book published during the airing of the third season, ''The Herodotus File'', which saw a brief return to print as a tie-in with the movie. It was a set of [[Fictional Document|Fictional Documents]] telling the story of how
▲* [[All There in the Manual]]: There was a companion book published during the airing of the third season, ''The Herodotus File'', which saw a brief return to print as a tie-in with the movie. It was a set of [[Fictional Document|Fictional Documents]] telling the story of how Aeon and Trevor first met and other info about their world. This being Aeon Flux, it doesn't really have much effect on the [[Canon]], such as it is.
* [[All There in the Script]]: The names of most of the characters in the silent shorts, which are also mentioned in the DVD commentaries.
** The other three "heroes" in ''War'' are Vaarsche Lockney, Romeo Svengali, and [[Punny Name|Donna Matrix]].
** The blonde agent who assists
* [[Animesque]]: Obviously the show's ''unique'' style of animation was at least inspired by Japanese anime.
* [[Anti-Hero]]: [[
* [[Anti-Villain]]: Trevor Goodchild is a morally ambiguous figure much like
* [[An Arm and a Leg]]: Amputees are common in Bregna, most of them apparently being people who failed to make it across the border into Monica.
* [[The Artifact]]: Both
* [[Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny]]: One of
* [[Author Appeal]]: Peter Chung obviously has a thing for domination, feet and eyes.
* [[
* [[Bootstrapped Theme]] - See under [[The Artifact]].
* [[Broken Pedestal]] - Gildemere spends most of ''Utopia or Deuteronopia'' trying to rescue Bregna's elected leader, Clavius and spends hours pouring over the documents he left behind, believing their incomprehensible gibberish to be a brilliant cipher. He's none too pleased when Clavius comes back and immediately orders the gangsters he'd been colluding with released from prison and reveals that [[Conspiracy Theorist|the flying saucer men are not, in fact, a codename for the ministry of justice]].
* [[The Caligula]] - Clavius, as it turns out. Trevor himself, while generally competent, isn't above using his position to gratify his own sexual appetites.
* [[Characterization Marches On]] - Between seasons two and three,
* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: Extensively used to set up the small events that screw up
* [[Cloning Blues]]: Averted hard by the clone of {{spoiler|
* [[Chickification]]: Arguably happens several times.
** In "A Last Time for Everything,"
** In "Reirazure,"
** The ending of "Chronophasia" where
* [[Combat Stilettos]]: Averted in most episodes.
* [[Creator Breakdown]] - According to Peter Chung, ''
* [[Creator Cameo]]: Producer Japhet Asher appears in a significant minor role in the Season 3 opener; several extras throughout the third season are voiced by writer Mark Mars.
* [[Cyberpunk]] - [[
* [[Disaster Dominoes]]: Several of
* [[Emperor Scientist]] - Trevor.
* [[Even Evil Has Standards|Even Kinkiness Has Standards]]: When an "alien" offers to trade eyeballs with
{{quote|'''
* [[Exotic Equipment]] - Various forms, partly to get past censors by using nonstandard methods of copulation, and partly because, well it's ''
* [[Face Palm]]: Done by
* [[Fake Ultimate Mook]]: "Ether Drift Theory" introduces a stunning six-armed, purple woman with [[Prehensile Hair]] who is Trevor's new right-hand woman, "the Republic's tax money at work." She's killed by metal-seeking bees a moment later.
* [[Foot Focus]] -
* [[Freeze-Frame Bonus]]: The ending of the pilot reveals Trevor Goodchild's name, since his signature can be seen on the money where his face also appears.
* [[Friendly Enemy]] - Despite having completely opposing philosophies and fighting against each other regularly, neither
* [[Government Conspiracy]]
* [[Grey and Grey Morality]] - Or, arguably, [[Blue and Orange Morality]], since both
* [[Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy]]: To a ridiculous extent. (In fact, intentionally overdone as a deconstruction.)
* [[In Love with the Mark]]
* [[In Medias Res]]: Each episode begins this way.
* [[Leg Cannon]]: See Foot Focus.
* [[Le Parkour]]:
* [[Lost in Transmission]]: A rare example that doesn't involve actual transmitting equipment. At the beginning of "The Demiurge", Trevor is speaking with an underling when he suddenly recalls a vital piece of information. What he says is "Wait, I remember!" -- and what he says next is drowned out by the sound of an explosion behind him. It ''is'' possible to make out what he's saying if you listen extremely carefully, but the line appears to have been lifted at random from a later speech in the same episode and the animators made no attempt to match the lip flaps.
* [[Meaningful Name]]: Some of the characters' names are somewhere between this and [[Punny Name]].
* [[Mind Screw]]: And how! The DVD commentary for the episode "Chronophasia" explicitly apologizes that ''they'' don't even really have any good, objective answers as to what it's all about. Peter Chung has explicitly said that [[Death of the Author|he'd rather the viewers work it out for themselves]] than rely on [[Word of God]].
* [[Mundane Dogmatic]]: Aside from most of the episodes directed by Howard Baker. And the aliens. See above.
* [[Negative Continuity]]: Most obviously in the silent episodes, and to a lesser extent in the talkie ones.
* [[Monologuing]]: Trevor was deliberately conceived as being overly verbose and having a certain amount of pomposity as a contrast to
* [[Never Bring a Knife to A Fist Fight]]: Subverted and then played straight. In the pilot,
* [[Omnidisciplinary Scientist]]: Trevor Goodchild is many things--he's a spymaster, a political leader, and a military leader, but he's also a doctor, and he regularly does doctor work even in other capacities as a form of "community volunteer work." This includes both work with "mental patients" as well as physical things like spinal surgery. Trevor is a very hands-on guy.
* [[Opening Narration]]:
Line 73:
''I take no sides.''
'''You're skating the edge.'''
''[[I Am the Trope|I am the edge]].''
'''What you truly want, only I can give.'''
''You can't give it, can't even buy it, and you just don't get it.''}}
* [[Order Versus Chaos]]:
* [[Our Hero Is Dead]]: Literally in [[Once an Episode|every single episode]] during the silent shorts. During the half-hour episodes, however,
* [[Playing with Syringes]]: Trevor.
* [[Police State]]: Both incarnations of Bregna.
* [[Post Cyber Punk]]: [[Deconstruction]] of [[Cyberpunk]], anyway.
* [[Pragmatic Adaptation]]: The
* [[Red Oni, Blue Oni]]: Trevor and
* [[Royals Who Actually Do Something]]: Trevor Goodchild is the leader of Bregna, but he's also a doctor and he does lots of community volunteer work. He's also extremely hands-on in whatever the episode is about; he doesn't just issue orders, he gets in there and gets his hands dirty.
* [[Scaramanga Special]]: Trevor's got a cigarette case that unfolds into a pistol; this becomes very important in one episode.
* [[Shout-Out]]: The plot of "End Sinister" is [[Whole-Plot Reference|one big shout
** In a reference to ''[[Indiana Jones]]'', the episode "War" has a soldier making an elaborate sword dance while facing another who simply looks at his gun and then back to the swordsman. In this case however, the swordsman blocks the bullet with his sword and then impales the shooter.
* [[Stripperiffic]]: Many outfits worn by various characters are a shade away from pure bondage gear, most notably
* [[Sympathetic POV]]: Played with in the original short episode pilot and in the second short episode. "Pilot" opens with typical action movie music and
* [[They Killed Kenny Again]]:
* [[Too Dumb to Live]]: Literally. Most of
* [[Twinmaker]]: In one episode, {{spoiler|
** Duplicated, not cloned. The show avoided using the term clone because Trevor's process was apparently quite different, as duplicates retained full memories and personalities of the original.
* [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]]: The security-obsessed technocrat Trevor is the more obvious example, but one could make a convincing argument that the anarchist
* [[What Measure Is a Mook?]]: The concept of [[Mooks]] is brutally deconstructed in the second part of the pilot, which reminds us that under their masks, [[Faceless Goons]] are human beings too. (Also see [[Anti-Hero]] and [[Sympathetic POV]].) The film plays it completely straight, by having
* [[Why Do You Keep Changing Jobs?]]: Trevor has so many different sub-occupations he can be slotted into whatever role the story requires of him; he's always a leader of some sort, and always an intellectually skilled person (usually a doctor or scientist).
* [[Writing Around Trademarks]]: Because MTV didn't support the release of Drew Neumann's soundtrack album, the album had to use the title ''Eye Spy: Ears Only, Confidential'' and not mention
* [[You Are Number Six]]: Many of Trevor's immediate subordinates have numbers instead of names.
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Science Fiction Western Animation]]
[[Category:Western Animation]]
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