Eyes

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What's the deal with eyeballs in this series? In the opening we see thousands of identical soldiers marching under a gaint eyball, then of course there is Aeon's eyeball catching the fly. And there is eyeball imagery in a lot of the epidodes as well, end sinister being the most obvious. And in two of the shorts the eyeball is made into an errogenous zone.

-- Logo (vosepherus@aol.com), September 25, 2001

Answers

Pretty interesting to read about this process Mark, it really is. I find as far as this sequence goes I wonder what would this Breen anthem sounds like? Would it be marchy, I know it's supposed to be an anarchic industrial cacaphony after a bit, but the original anthem, like maybe the Whiffenpoof song? Allusions to Trevor's earlier more lofty silver spooned idealistic college days? That would be fascinating to hear about. Did he go to an ivy league like Yale? I can't find any more misguided sheep than those Breens...baa baa baaa.

-- Barb e. (Suesuesbeo9@cs.com), October 30, 2002.

whiffenpoofsong "Gentlemen songsters off on a spree...doomed from here to eternity. Lord have mercy on such as we"

-- Barb e. (Suesuesbeo9@cs.com), October 30, 2002.

I hope you know I was just kidding about suggesting the Whiffenpoof song for their anthem, I hadn't considered it wasn't the writers department regarding the music. It seems like everyone connected to A.F. had artistic uniqueness to in their own respective departments. The music was really perfect but I have wondered about the origins of Trevor and his ideologies. I once knew a man who went to Princeton back in the 40's, he was tremendously intelligent and known as a maverick in his field, (he was an architect and rivaled Frank Lloyd Wright for a time, which was why I was interested in the Fountainhead but that's another column..) He wore shirts like Trevor with sleeves rolled up a bit, fastidious, masculine and elitist. He was the only Ivy leaguer I've ever known, and he reminded me of Trevor a lot. So I have a question for you, was Trevor's history ever worked up? Where did he 'come' from?

-- Barb e. (Suesuesbeo9@cs.com), November 01, 2002.

It's not supposed to make sense, just look cool :-)

-- William (stateofflux@yahoo.com), September 25, 2001.

I imagine it plays into the militaristic totalitarian suppression portrayed in Monica. Big Brother Trevor's got his eye on you!

-- Mometer R (royvis.geo@yahoo.com), September 25, 2001.


I have a feeling sir William has nailed it, but I'll spout on a bit just for kicks.

I think that Peter Chung probably has a thing for eyeballs. I think that the two sequences are pretty different from each other, too. The one from season one, I think, has a predatory, sort of venusflytrap quality to it. Something that seems harmless but is, in fact, deadly.

As far as the eye featured in the opening of season three, I'm at a loss, honestly. Trevor's waxing philosophical about "a dream to awaken our world" approximately the same time as we see the eye. So maybe his little army of scientists marching below the giant eye is his dream, and the eye represents either the state of awakenedness of his desire for it. Seems like I read a similar account of this somewhere on here . . . not sure who was behind that, so I'll bow to whomever that may be.

And it looks cool, too.

-- Dr. Razzmatazz (boogiebaby37@yahoo.com), September 26, 2001.


Um yeah um okayyeah: You may consult "Story Of The Eye" by Georges Bataille - also I have been tipped off to a certain school of theory that well actually some several years ago but anyhow Christian Metz is an author who apparently contributed a matter of discussion to Psychology RE: the (gravity?-I'm improvising-) of the gaze or the language of the gaze.

Anyhow I can go try to look up the original script pages I wrote for the credits.

Thanks very much -MM

-- dangerboy (artian@earthlink.net), November 10, 2001.


So with Trevor's giant eye ball staring down at the army of men mindlessly staring ahead it seems as if the populace may be getting the better part of the deal here. If if Trevor is kind of twisted, at least they are the subject of someone's gaze. Other than Aeon's, who's gaze does Trevor's existence occupy? Although maybe Aeon's gaze is enough. I know I wouldn't mind.

And yes, it looks cool as well.

-- Logo (vosepherus@aol.com), November 10, 2001.


I always kind of associated it with big brother, too. But it also reminds me of Tantric Yoga, (like that scene between Trevor and the Alien where they are having some kind of alien sex, staring at each other and reaching some higher level of consciousness). "A dream to awaken our world" might be his desire to reach his populace on a spiritual level and raise their consciousness in some 'new agey' type of way, he being their guru and all. Trevor strikes me as the New Age type with a touch of Stalin.

-- Barb e. (Suesuebeo9@cs.com), November 11, 2001.

A new age type with a touch of Stalin? LOL. I can't help but picture Uncle Joe with his Big Brother totalitarian mustache ordering the secret police to make the rounds as he gets high on the ganja while one of his aids strums out power chords on the zither.

Then again, I like the idea of a leader who can bring a little tantric enlightenment to the masses. Hmmmm....free will vs. eight hour orgasm.....what to choose, what to choose.

-- Logo (vosepherus@aol.com), November 11, 2001.



Yeah yeah but waut up wait up - I mean before you know it we could cast TG as Obi Wan after bin Laden , then or some spun to th nine's ass crazy shit as well I mean hold up with some of all this I'm trippin

-- dangerboy (artian@earthlink.net), November 11, 2001.

Peep dis dangerboy. Following your suggestion I checked out 'Story of the Eye' and all I have to say is that is some fucked up shiat. Imagine my surprise upon finding out by page two that it is a pornographic fiction. And pleasant surprise though that was, I was ill prepared for the shock of how completely demented the whole thing is. The depths of depravity to which these people sink is beyond comprehension. Of course I couldn't put the book down and read the whole thing in one sitting (which isn't saying much since it is only about 100 pages in large type). All jokes aside, though it's a pretty interesting read on a deeper pschological level (I love how the whole thing is such a blatant realization of Freud's theories of Eros and Thanotos); especially with the addition of Bataille's notes from his personal life at the end. I'll definitely look into more of Bataille's work, but first I think I'll check out Christian Metz. Thanks again dangerboy. I now have faith in forums as more than just electronic agora for village idiots to get on a soapbox and drone incessantly about stuff no one really cares about(not that I haven't been guilty of that myself).

-- Logo (vosepherus@aol.com), November 15, 2001.

Any specific works by Christian Metz that you can suggest dangerboy?

-- Logo (vosepherus@aol.com), November 16, 2001.

®ON FLUX - Opening Title Sequence (MM: 12/7[?])

"Trevor is on a balcony, watching as a long parade of Breen men in white lab coats and glasses march in step. The middle column of the corps are conducting a long, trailing kite they fly above them (the Omega/keyhole symbol of Bregna). Strange and glorious machines of huge proportion (Tesla coils, X-ray lasers, ancient pulp sci-fi contraptions) roll along with them through the square below, through a storm of gray confetti.[...]"

-- dangerboy (artian@earthlink.net), November 17, 2001.


This is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. A new vision of that world never before beheld by us, the heart of the vortex. Beautiful.

-- Barb e. (Suesuebeo9@cs.com), November 17, 2001.


NO. Logo, I cannot.

Please don't ask me again. I just can't do it. And that's really only since I never read anything by Metz or Batailles: Isn't that funny?

You know, though, even if I have, though, I never recommended actually READING ANYTHONG. What is with people now!! Rilly! ESPECIALLY anythAng from those of such pseudoschools! Poststructuralists! Quasimetaparalinguists!! Retrobait, I tell you!! RETROBAIT!!!!! And as for friggin' Noan Chomsky -- !!?

I, you see, am at a different level. I'm the student of a doubleminus vulgar or corregated protocol. Now before you let go or go lego gog or gug om mee remind yourself whom you're talking to here coz I don't. Thankx. But the I. Rom Sudjinnii is what I mean. It's what I am. I rilly mean that.

It's like I think, therefore it's like I think, I think. But I'm not even thinking. Does that make me a bad person? But maybe I'm not really thinking, you know?

-- dangerboy (artian@earthlink.net), November 17, 2001.


I don't know what the hell you are talking about, but I don't see how you can just ignore the isms. How do you ever expect to go beyond that level of thought? Just out of curiosity, if you don't read, then how do you slake your intellectual thirst?

-- Logo (vosepherus@aol.com), November 17, 2001.

Logo, I'm terribly embarassed. You see, I never thought anybody would have the nerve to go and pick up that Godless -- EEyEUHHh, that -- that THANG. I certainly never have! I am such a dilletante. Jus' becuzza yoo! Wadz duh dEEEL, here! HAY!!

So then I went and wrung my hands, pacing, just SURE there's some way out of here! And Logo's no putz I gadda figwa oudda gud wone...Yeh, wiw doo zum zdan-dop! Yeh, umm - MO - kay....

I couldn't even get it straight on my posting the one bit of any potentially redeeming good humor - the self-deprecation bit, which should have read (I mean, I did mean to render it to the following effect, at the time - no, honest): "Yuh owda wemembuh woo yer tawkin too, here, fella - cos I shur won't. "

-- dangerboy (artian@earthlink.net), November 19, 2001.


Dude. You have got to lay off the crack pipe. At least wait until after you post to start smoking again.

-- Logo (vosepherus@aol.com), November 20, 2001.

My teacher in art design recently told me to discard one of my concepts because the eye graphic I used looked "to vaginal". This gave me a little fright, but I also had to try not to laugh because funnily enough I had named the concept, ConceptPhallic (just the file name). I created the eye graphic myself with photoshop, making a point to remove the surrounding lid and lashes, like an eye out of a socket, hence the name phallic (truth however is that at the time, I had no idea what that word meant, it honestly just came to mind, so I used it). She was right though; it looked like some vulval monstrosity about to take over the world. I was like, "oops!!"

Has anyone seen the movie "Doctor T and the Woman"? It stars Richard Gere. It's this seemingly regular comedy/romance/drama. However, I'm sure the ending will affect most viewers in a very unexpected fashion. Its so, brave I guess. SPOILERs NOW. Nothing particuarly out of the ordinary untill now: Doctor T (Gere) is rejected by his love interest, he gets upset and decides to drive off out of town, then he gets picked up by a twister which dumps him somewhere over in mexico, where he after gaining consciousness, instantly gets up and rushes after some children over to some village, where he instantly delivers some baby (full frontal close up here from beginning to end. EWW), the end. I guess the final explicit imagery here does appropriately give birth to a new sort of significance for the film. I'd love to know what the director was thinking.

The use of eyes in AF is part of what really connotes the shows quintessence to me personally.

-- Sam (janecherrington@paradise.net.nz), October 26, 2002.


"Trevor is on a balcony watching as a long parade of Breen men in white lab coats and glasses marching in step. The middle column of the corp are conducting a long trailing kite they fly above them; (the Omega/keyhole symbol of Bregna). Strange and glorious machines of huge proportions (Tesla coils, X-ray lasers ancient pulp sci-fi contraptions) roll along with them through the square below through a storm of gray confetti..." Mars, any chance we could get another paragraph out of you?

-- rian (esper@aol.com), October 27, 2002.

ARE YOU KIDDING? I'm fkn' MANIAC!!! Who, moreover, IS CBS ONTO AWLLLLLa'yuh SHIIIID ALL of the TIME and FOR ALLLLL time. Now that we have THAT understood, let me tell you that Sam's fkn' art teacher is so fkn SO fkn' WROOONG I am in absolute massive and hemorrhaging STITCHESSSSSSSSSS!!

As to Rian's request for more of the original scripting for the beginning title credits, it certainly is my pleazure to divulge to you the ENTIRE SORRRRRRRDID TEXT of the original document!!

I shall look this up and put it out online forthwith - It is because I would in particular like to hand our good friend Sam (above) a round of applause for the most outstanding post, here, I couldn't have done a better job myself!! As well as some applause for a happy, happy holiday to boot.

Very well:

AEON FLUX - Opening Title Sequence (MM: 12/7)

Trevor is on a balcony, watching as a long parade of Breen men in white lab coats and glasses march in step. The middle column of the corps are conducting a long, trailing kite they fly above them (the Omega/keyhole symbol of Bregna). Strange and glorious machines of huge proportion (Tesla coils, X-ray lasers, ancient pulp sci-fi contraptions) roll along with them through the square below, through a storm of gray confetti.

TREVOR (V.O.) The Dream to awaken our world.

Suddenly, a VOICE from OS shatters his reverie -

AEON (O.S.) Dash all panaceas! --

Trevor turns to its source: INT Trevor's office, where on a bank of monitors we see Aeon Flux -- from different angles -- engaged in a desperate run (or other piece of Aeon-like action) near the Border. AEON -- I defy all frontiers!

PUSH IN on one monitor and into scene, as Aeon knocks aside some Breen soldier or surmounts some other obstacle. The Border rears up ahead of her. Focus on the Border wall, which transforms into a graphic element splitting the screen. Aeon, still in action, is on one side. Trevor, now in lab coat, is in the midst of a vast laboratory on the other. He looks across the split screen at Aeon. He is clearly addressing her, in a quiet, insistent voice.

TREVOR (scoffingly) You would violate -- annihilate my designs...?

Aeon's side of the screen pushes Trevor's side off and now fills the whole screen. Aeon approaches the Border wall, now seen from a new angle, and begins a complex series of maneuvers (shifting panels, hitting buttons, etc.) to open a portal through which she passes into a series of labyrinthine tunnels.

TREVOR (cont'd., V.O.) You're out of control!

AEON I take control. I take what I want.

She grabs some high-tech piece of equipment and puts a bomb in its place. CLOSE UP OF BOMB. DISSOLVE TO TREVOR'S FACE. PULL BACK TO REVEAL TREVOR, in a robe, walking through his quarters, a glass of wine in his hand. XCU ON WINE GLASS - two scorpions scuttle within, under the wine at the bottom of the glass, dancing a Mexican standoff. WIDE ON TREVOR: He gazes out the window at the lights of Bregna. It is night.

TREVOR (to himself; he thinks he's alone) What you truly want, only I can afford you.

An explosion in the distance lights the glass, revealing the reflection of Aeon behind him, half menacing, half enticing.

AEON I am what you want; but you can't afford to.

CLOSE ON Trevor's wine glass; TRUCK IN SLOW as the scorpions continue their dance of mutual assured destruction...FADE OUT

-- Mark Mars (artian@charter.net), October 27, 2002.


Oh - and in fact there's another version I have here, slightly different...as well as, unfortunately, incomplete:

AEON FLUX Opening Title Sequence

1. Breen "Brave New World" parade (as described in present outline, its procession bracketed by two long rows of pasty-faced Breen schoolchildren in new-age academic uniforms on either side). More concentration on "toys" (Tesla coils, etc.). Nerdy, insipid Breen anthem is playing.

2. Telephoto zoom style pull back to low angle shot with black leather-booted feet suddenly charging past. Music change - now an anarchic, industrial cacophony.

3. Reverse angle - it's droves of rushing Monicans, charging towards and past us. Behind the first charging, unruly wave, a formation of Monican troops weilding burning Monican flags, conducting semaphores as they stare above to the sky. Pan up -

4. A battalion of sleek, black Monican fighter planes looms menacingly - zoom in and cut to wide, very high reverse-angle of same action. Pull back - the bodies of the aircraft now in FG with the troops far below. SFX - menacing drone of the fighter planes. As the formation of burning flags is conducted below, the movement of the planes shifts accordingly. Cut to previous angle - long shot of the formation of burning flags - they all suddenly stop and pitch their flags forward - above and ahead, the planes suddenly follow suit and plunge, kamikaze, toward Breen territory. Cut to previous aerial angle of same action - black planesin FG, pitching radically toward the ground below - accompanying SFX of drmatic sound of a suicidally-diving battalion of planes -

5. Cut to Breen targets being shattered and destroyed by the bombardment of kamikaze planes -

6. Cut to Breen paraders, mindlessly going on with their parade as if nothing were amiss; terrible explosions erupt all around (but never directly hitting the Breen parade itself).

7. Cut to charging rush of Monican fighters, running and charging across the Breen Border, being pursued by automated machine-gun fire from the gun turrets -

As you well may infer, my mad, manic minions I am in a very very HAP-PYYYYY, HAPPYHAPPY MOOOOOD TODAAAAAAAY and I AM TERRIBLE.

-- Mark Mars (artian@charter.net), October 27, 2002.


Holy!!...CTRL P

-- Sam (janecherrington@paradise.net), October 27, 2002.

It's raining Monicans! Hallelujah, it's raining Monicans...

-- Inu (paul@nadisrec.com), October 27, 2002.

Good stuff. Been Jonesing for it. Thanks.

-- rian (esper@aol.com), October 27, 2002.

Yeah, well thank you! Now, obviously there's some really stupid line of dialogue in there or two (three) that just absolutely monumentally sucks!! (Guess who) Okay - "Dash all panaceas! I defy all frontiers!!" Now WHO, in THEIR RIGHT MIND, would EVER, EVER put such puerility onto a draft for something like this!? ME. THAT's who.

Look - my point is that SOME people, here, okay, just absolutely SUCK when they're SOBER so give me a fkn' break, PEOPLE.

(Just kidding...)

I mean, I could have edited that out for this but that would have been totally dishonest. Chung had to spot that one and he re-edited all of that dialog ("Uhhh...this is actually Trevor's line over here, and vice versa, Mark...." "HUH!!? -Oh." "And, really - can we just lose this -- let's lose this thing up here, I don't know..." "Um -- well, yeah, well, sure, yeah OH-kaaaay!" "You sure!" "Well, I - I, well, I, I, I - but but I--!!!" "OTHERWISE, MARK, IT'S FINE." "YEAH! WELL, YEAHYEAH!!!" etc...).

-- dangerboy (artian@charter.net), October 28, 2002.


You know, Drew and I are sort of okay but I think he has his own ideas and since I was always such a toal art nazi back in the day, he's always been pretty short with me ever since. I suppose I deserve it that any creative input I should have enjoyed was out of the question between he and I - I hate to admit I never would have dared to horn in on his department as any sort of creative consultant (whether I had any of my own ideas for any particular thing or not - the DANGERBOY song lyrics, for one particular example). And even in that case I was happy that he treated the matter with a deliberately minimalist soundtrack that also deliberately violated the cadence of the lyrics as well as everything but the atmosphere of the mise en scene itself, which was conveyed very nicely in his background sound for that scene. It's almost a shame AEon didn't just be heard mumbling along to herself something like, "Do You Know The Way To San Jose" or "Tallahachee Bridge" or something during that part, I don't know. 50/50 hindsight is a bitch from hell.

And I am sure that anybody would say that in fact my taste in music is pretty bizarre even for Drew Neuma

-- dangerboy (artianist@aol.com), November 01, 2002.


Holy Sht Barb.

You mthrfkr yu caught me drungk and now I'm going to say some wackid shid fer dih weackowd...D-D-D-D---DID !! (OWWWwww!!)--

But 1st of all, my dear I've no clue about the Whiphendoph Song. WTF are you talking about. You might as well figure I got no clue about Neumann's weird ideas, you know, I mean while you're at it.

And 2'd -- I think Wagner SUCKS and therefore applaud Neumann's excellent sillyputtying of Wagner's fascist (hyper)trop(h)es as he (Neumann) incorporated them into our little "COLLECTIVIST" Scheme Of Things From Outer Space - SMEARING IT ON like a wad of cheap cheap bubble yum that sticks my hair up funny and I can't get it off without it's tearing my face off with it.

#'dly; I would like to let EEEEEEEverybody know the following bit concerning Trevor Goodchild's character development (or lack thereof):

You know, for years now, Trevor Goodchild has been gaping down at me from up there. Stagefroze all for want of even so much as a ready cue-card’s worth more character motivation. Something which now seems to remain merely conspicuous by its absence rather than mysterious, paradoxical or seductive.

I thought that since Trevor was the guy in the picture it would be okay for his character to be left at the office or for him to remain with all the infuriating personality symptoms of yer typical don’t say much type who we suspect is only drawing our attentions through calculated implementation of the Interaction Abhors A Vacuum trick;

OK see coz in ours we gat the Sexyzdentialist Babe who’s getting played see you got yer old saw Samson/Delilah dynamic the gimmick is in this version Trevor the twist here you got is this it’s we got it like coz here you have the GUY in the classic romantic Prisoner’s Dilemma Against the Self we got the GUY being the coy, prideful, Delilah-type working the wiles of wickedness and shrewd manipulative machinations - see here you get the guy is who’s being the Bad Guy (All About Eve) and yer AEon, The CHICK, dude, you got the hot ticket ultrababe being the Gud Guy (Adam Roarke), the Loner Individualist par existentiallance . . .” - That Which Does Not Kill Us Makes Us Str@nger” etc. etc... -

Yah I thought that’d take care of itself.

that it wouldn’t matter if we took a classic staple of:

relational insecurity denial disloyalty dishonor betrayal unworthiness charm temptation

it’d just have to take care of itself way we see it always do in regular life peoples’ lives men&women

that timeless paradox we all one day sooner or later all of us when we ready one way or another all wind up hit with that Cupid-arrow tie the knot lock and load you know what they say you know what it says about the balls and the bats and the birds and the planes and the bees and the blues and the tease of the if you please when you least expect when I say the word, “mine” on account of a three...two...one...nobody wants to be the first to say: ‘Farewell, My Love’; ‘Good-Bye.”

There's more that I have on file about this, but , maybe a couple more beers and I'll really hate myself for posting some more awful sordid confessions awweddie oh whud..I kynnawwazzay I wuz bein elmer fud twyenduh doo duh mel bwank intewpwuhtayshuinz......

-- MARS (artianist@aol.com), November 01, 2002.


by virtue of what one tries to read as his character’s “inscrutability” its absence, or its “negative presence” by way of any insinuated or implicated profile which ever managed to emerge out of some composite hindsight for us even now after all this time.

this apparent failure on the part of TG’s character profile and/or motivational dynamics, etc., to have emerged to any degree satisfactory. That is, to any degree that has found all manner of speculation unnecessary (as opposed to “maddeningly intriguing” or psychologically charged”).

I think Trevor’s opportunities for such evincing was, in all irony, fatally underdeveloped for the same sorts of reasons that we (until very, very recently) have forever found the male sexual object so conspicuously, unaccountably absent from every field of discourse or continuum of investigation (unless we should count the unspeakable ones - but they of course - being unspeakable - are absent).

What do we have for any identifiability in this supposedly sympathetic character of trevor! This cypher who may forever defer or prevaricate from character exposition because for his exemption of “Masculine Mystique” !

But what makes this male character so developmentally upstaged? It is Trevor’s dark, intrepid shadow side that draws us or, - and, Aeon.

Why did it seem to be fine to afford this guy so much immunity from the sort of scrutiny or illustration that AEon, his opposite number supposedly, is seen to enjoy so much extraordinary opportunity for exposition thoughout the series! ----------------------------------------------------------------

But, as they say: WE SHALL SEE. MM

-- Mark Mars (artianist@aol.com), November 01, 2002.


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