Aeon Flux (2005) – Brief Analysis
July 20, 2010 2 Comments
Note the All-Seeing-Eye
By: Jay
I recently re-watched Aeon Flux (2005). In the film adaptation, which departs from its older MTV predecessor, we see a dystopian Brave New World-type scenario where the human population has fallen back into rule by an elite dynasty of scientists, headed by Trevor Goodchild. Goodchild rules a large walled city where outside, the earth has been re-wilded. This brings to mind the infamous 1992 UN document. The reason for the prison city is the myth that outside the city, viral death reigns. The reason for this is that in 2011, a virus was released that killed 99% of the earth’s population, and supposedly Goodchild’s predecessor discovered the cure. As it turns out, the Goodchild regime is based on cloning, and eventually we find out he is a good guy. We are presented with the revolutionaries, made up of Aeon and her elite “Monicans,” battling the Goodchild regime. However, Goodchild and Aeon eventually team up and are fighting for a secret common cause, unbeknownst to the Monicans or the big brother police state.
What is thus presented is a blurred vision of good and evil, where both sides are really working for common goals, but take different paths to get there. In the end all was justified. But that is not how human morals work; we don’t autonomously do whatever we want and choose good or evil, based on an ends-justifies-the-means approach. The meaning then, appears to be that the new Aeon, or new age, will only emerge after a period of mass death, transhumanism and cloning (“flux”), all of which are fine, in the long run.
I can’t believe this movie came out 5 years ago! Time is just flying by!
I also thought that this was a great movie. I’ve missed not having a science fiction program to watch that explored such issues as the continued existence of humanity in an apocalyptic post world. The loss of the Star Gate Atlantis series just floored me. Instead, my wife and I have turned to watching tv series that we missed on Netflix streaming video like Jeremiah, Earth II, Roswell, and we picked up this movie by searching through Netflix offerings. Know we’ve discovered that there are some potential Anime series that might be worthwhile and it seems like some movies and series come out of games too. Thanks I think too that a well known organizational theorist: Herbert Simon wrote an article way back in about 1976 that argued forcefully against the idea of humans deciding rationally and rational choice theory. Like you have said JAY008. We just don’t do it that way. Seems to me that our ability to plan and make a path for our human development is way back in the days before the Enlightenment. The literature of planning theory says the same. There was a very good book on the topic published in 1998 (Comprehensive Planning for the 21st Century) by Melville Branch, a former dean of Planning at UCLA. It’s actually an interesting and not very long read. He has continued to write on that topic and on future planning for human society. Here’s a good link for the book I mentioned. http://www.allbusiness.com/professional-scientific/scientific-research/705469-1.html