By: Jay Dyer

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.