Aeon Flux MTV Complete Collection

Looking for games for my new shiny PSP I was browsing around the clearance bin at the Zellers, that's the Canadian Wal-Mart but in less cool form, and I came across this Aeon Flux animated collection which they were practically giving away to my great delight.

I'm one of those strange people that really loves the Aeon Flux movie, maybe it's because I saw it without ever knowing what it what it was really based on, actually that's most probably why. The first time I saw it I kept thinking there must be more to this story, will they make a sequel or prequel and explain a bit more about Bregna and it's inhabitants? I mean they did make an Underworld sequel..... I really don't think it's ever going to happen, so discovering the original premise of Aeon Flux in it's animated form is the next best thing for me.

The very first episodes were not much more then experiments by Peter Chung in a way to explore facets of animation completely free of rules. With that in mind the original shorts where Aeon dies every episode during the same mission and in different ways each time, is really quite fascinating from both an artistic stand point and a social one. How many ways can a body contort? How many shapes can it take? And how many possible ways can someone's life change or end? I'm sure there's more you can see in it but that's what I can think of now.

The next set of shorts were made for the MTV audience and were supposed to follow each other better with stories that more or less flow. I can't say that the stories in each video really do flow together, some sort of do, but I can say that the themes in each are often the same or relate to each other. And along with Chung's edgy detailed style the themes are what has really captured my attention. Nothing is black or white, or even gray for that matter, each moral question, obsession and human condition is vibrantly colored with suggestion and 'what if's'.

The more I watch it the more of an animated classic this collection becomes, even though the overall story is somewhat disjointed in places each episode captivates, horrifies, seduces or repels enough to makes us think a little less concretely and wonder where limits really are.