I've been wanting to add to the Ep Guide a small description of each of the shorts: their names ("War" or "Night" for example) and their descriptions (should be a couple paragraphs, but not two pages). One of the great things about this forum is that I don't have to ask simply one person to do that; whoever visits can do whatever part of it they want.

This is just for a FAQ that I'm building, so no need to go into plot analysis ("Romeo gets killed because he's too much of a swashbuckler" is going too into depth, for right now). I'd like, for now, to just be able to quickly assemble a list of the shorts and what each is so anyone could identify one if s/he saw it.

So let's do this, and once it's finished I'll add it to my Flux page, with all credits duly noted and attributed!

SRM

-- Steve Rach Mirarchi (rach@earthlink.net), April 09, 1998

Answers

There is a short that comes I think right before the episode where Trevor has the bug that causes the disease...kind of like the preemtive to the third season....anyway, in this episode I am talking about (It's on the Liquid Television video, if anyone wants to check it out?) Anyway, the short entails Aeon staking out a house and sneaking into it....she goes down a ladder into an underground type of place and then falls on accident and holds her head in pain......she goes to watch a video camera which is taping the ladder entrance she came through....she watches the video and watches herself fall with humor....for it was taping her....the picture on the monitor starts to blurr and we realize that there is a problem with the tv in the back....a wire is loose and she reaches for it, so she can connect the wire and have a better picture....unfortunately, she tips a cup of coffee on her gloves and goes to wash off her glove....she goes over to a tub and begins to wash her hands and glove,(This is obviously Aeon's hideout) meanwhile, she doesn't see that someone is coming down the ladder....a premptive to Trevor Goodchild is coming down.....she goes back to the television and by time she rewinds the tape she realizes that someone is here...it's too late! Trevor is behind her and shoots her in the head.....we see Trevor more prominently and and Aeon lies dying and we see her die from her eyes...that's the end of that short.....I am doing this from memory Steve so you might want to wait for an update from me OK? I will double check, but that is the general idea of that short....i don't know if it has a name or not?

Alright see you Steve! Gina aka x-phile

-- Gina Holechko (gina.holechko@mailexcite.com), April 13, 1998.

One of my favorite shorts is "War" because of the message that there are heroes on all sides in battle.

We begin with seeing Aeon slaughtering millions of Breens in the middle of a vast battlefield. She is aparently trying to enter some sort of Breen fortress, but one of the "dead" Breens comes to life and grabs Aeon. Her gun falls away and the Breen is preparing to kill her. She sees a Monican behind him, so she distracts the Breen with some sensual tongue action. The Breen realizes her game, shoots the Monican, then kills Aeon.

The Breen removes his mask to reveal himself as Varsh Lockney. Varsh walks to the edge of a cliff to see tons of Monicans running up to attack him. Varsh takes out two guns and begins killing Monicans. He slides down a bungee cord of a dead Monican to kill more Monicans. After infiltrating the Monican fortress, he walks to a door. Romeo Svengali comes out, brandishing his sword. Varsh thinks he will kill Romeo, but unfortunately for Varsh, Romeo slices Varsh in his abdomen.

Romeo then plays with a little girl (his daughter?), but the sirens make him go to battle. From within the Monican fortress, we see another soldier, a painter, walking off to his doom. Romeo runs out of the fortress and sees an enemy spacecraft approaching. The enemies shoot at him, but he kills them all, finally reaching the spacecraft. Once inside, he slices all, but is killed by the gun-wielding Donna Matrix.

Donna is then responsible for the death of even more Monicans, including the painter. She infiltrates the fortress and frees a prisoner, one of her kind. They hug, but must leave due to approaching Monicans. We leave the scene looking at a red puddle (blood? oil?)

That was the most confusing thing in the short for me. What was that puddle? I'd appreciate answers/

-- TGoodchild (Wierd97@aol.com), April 14, 1998.

My favorite Short is war, but that was already summarized, so i guess i can do another - Tide. I like this one a lot, too. fon, Trevor, and some blonde girl (the same blonde from leisure, if i remember correctly) are getting into an elevator heading down, on the 6th floor i believe. Trevor pushes all the buttons for stops on the floors on the way down. fon handcuffs trevor to the rail (yet in end sinister, she handcuffs him claiming it is a long time dream of hers ... hmn), and has the blonde guard him, at gunpoint with a gun fon gave her, at the first stop while she tries the key she's found at that floors storage closet. on her way to the closet, a breen shoots at her, she shoots back. both miss. the key doesnt fit, she darts back into the elevator after shooting a crane that is headed for the dock at the first floor. She missed her friend (?) flirting with trevor, though. Next stop, fon tries again at that floors closet, the breen on the steps keeps firing, the key doesnt fit, and the blonde and trevor kiss. on way to next stop, fon tries to get the keys tag, realizes it can be reached with the gun, and gets the blonde to do it as she tries again on this floor. same exchange between fon and the breen here. in the elevator, the blonde is sucking trevors nipple. fon comes back after again shooting the crane, the blonde jumps away, motioning she couldnt get it, fone moves her, and tastes her hair as she does. Gets the card, it reads 2, so she doesnt get out at the third floor. The blonde is pointing her gun at fon, and pulls the trigger. the gun isnt loaded. fon is unimpressed, and turns to dart out at the 2nd floor, but is hit in the head from behind with the empty gun. her head hits a doorstop (?) and a pool of blood forms. The blonde goes to that floors closet, opens the door, takes a canister back to the elevator. while she was doing that, though, the breen who had been attacking fon shoots trevor. the breen shoots the crane away, and darts down to the first floor. the blonde comes back, sees trevor dead, kind of sighs, and takes an odd shaped plug from the canister. the elevator opens at the first floor, and she runs out, without the plug. She gets to the dock just after the breen jumps on the platform that the crane finally hooked onto and pulled up, unplugging the facility, it seems. A plug the same shape and size as the one she had in the elevator rises with the platform - and the entire complex sinks. fade to black.

-- eric troll diamond (djahspuhr@aol.com), April 24, 1998.

Did you notice that Tide is basically 6 series of 20 camera shots, each shot held for 2 seconds? If this is confusing, let me explain. The short begins with a 2 second shot of that mysterious hanging wire which is shot by Aeon.The next scene is the large room outside the elevator. Then a shot of aeon running inside the elevator, with the floor buttons in main view. Then, there are several camera angles of the interior of the elevator, ending with the view of that bin near the floor. Then the camera angle where Aeon(or RU-486, the blond girl) runs out of the elevator. The shot where Aeon and the Breen(?) shoot at each other, then the two views of RU and Trevor flirting. Then the shot where aeon tries the key, then the closeup. then the shot of her firing the gun, then the closeup of the metal wire. Then it starts all over again.

The reason this is one of my favorite episodes is because the plot is mysterious, and it has nothing to do with the hidden agenda of the show. The agenda was to make a cartoon that was carefully coreographed within a strict, mathmatical form, like the measures or bars in music. My guess is, the camera angles were thought up first, then the action was added in almost as an afterthought.I'm pretty sure this has never been done before, and once again i commend Chung(or whoever's idea this was) for their creativity

-- Frostbite (http//foo@bar.com), April 26, 1998.

My second favorite would have to be Gravity. The opening is the most bizzare of them all; a view of the inside of two mouths French-kissing. A closer look shows that one persons tounge is putting a rolled-up piece of paper in a hollow tooth in the other persons mouth. Stranger still, as the camera backs up, we see that it is Aeon and Trevor kissing, one in a moving train and the other in a low-flying airplane. We see another example of Aeon's eye agility as she strokes Trevors eyeball with her eyelash. Some Breen guy gets off the train onto the plane and it flies off.

Aeon removes the piece of paper and sees that it is a picture of the guy and a suit case. She climbs out the window(come on Aeon, what were you thinking?!) and fumbles as she tries to jump to the ledge outside the rear door. She flails through the air and orients herself just in time to see the plane fly away overhead. (what and uh-oh that must be, eh?)

She sighs disgustedly and is just about to shoot herself when she sees a familiar vehicle below. She whips out her binoculars and sees two men get out and use a rope to retrieve something from over the edge of the cliff. She spots a bridge, and shoots at it with her grappling hook. Her rescue seems immenent, until she drops the binoculars and spins through the air to get it, inadvertantly wrapping the rope around her neck. Just as she's about to see what the mystery thing is, the screen goes black and we hear the sound of her neck snapping

-- Frostbite (http//foo@bar.com), April 26, 1998.

The eyelash stroking the eyeball thing is a kind of spy signal to confirm the reception of the message. (Try doing that next time you're getting cozy with a lover...just kidding).

The kissing is a means of passing the message inconspicuously, and parodies the typical spy interchanges of the bond-type flicks. Of course, it wouldn't draw any suspicion by the mere fact that the PLANE is making a special, difficult to execute, rendevous with a TRAIN (when was the last time you've seen that?). Also, no one is nearby to watch a simple passing of the tiny message by hand. You gotta love this show.

-pd

-- P D (Snazzman@Hotmail.com), May 04, 1998.

It wouldn't seem odd to anyone that the train and plane are docking because there is a purpose to it besides that of Aeon and Trevor; the main reason they are docking is to transfer the politician (or whatever he is).

-- Mat Rebholz (mer5@dana.ucc.nau.edu), May 04, 1998.

...and isn't the eye stroking thing just a strange masochism thing? You know what Aeon's like.

-- Philip Mills (philip.mills@cableinet.co.uk), May 05, 1998.

Ah, didn't really think of the politician. Stupid. Anyway, in what way is stroking an eye masochistic? not at all. It's cool though.

-- P D (snazzman@hotmail.com), May 14, 1998.