'Aeon Flux' Creator Peter Chung Talks

[Monday, November 28th, 2005]
Peter Chung (Aeon Flux creator) told SCI FI Wire that the character was originally intended to have ambiguous sexuality—and died at the end of each episode.

Chung's series, which first hit MTV in the early 1990s, is the basis of the upcoming live-action movie of the same name, starring Charlize Theron, but wasn't supposed to make much sense, Chung said.

"People were trying to figure out the backstory, the politics and all that, and I was trying to say that science fiction shouldn't be taken in a metaphorical level," Chung said in a phone interview from Korea. In the shorts he originally created for the character, the sexy secret agent was killed off every time. "I was trying to tell fans not to take it literally. They were wondering how she could be alive again in the next episode, thinking she's really a robot, or there's [an] army of clones, or there's a time warp and she goes back into time. I'd say, 'You're missing the point.' I loved killing her off. I hated watching movies and TV series with the same characters over and over, and you knew they wouldn't die. I said, 'To hell with that.' I know it's taboo, but it freed me up morally about what she is able to do. If she dies, she can cross all kinds of moral boundaries."

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