A query for a certain Mr Chung

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Oh, hello. I didn't see you there.
A new face has washed up on these sands. It is I, known to many and yet swathed in shadow. A recognisable face, yes - but from where? I'll leave you to wonder.
As for my question, I direct it to Peter 'straight answers' Chung, AKA 'Chungy-baby', in case the man himself lays eye upon it.
Okay, here goes: For some time now, a rather perplexing and fascinating question has recurred in my mind, unable to be displaced by reason, ration or repetition, only piqued by your (Mr P. Chung's) reluctance to comment on it, and, though not a point fit to rend the cosmos with its importance, my curiosity is a cruel dictator. With that in mind, I must ask:
Whence sprang the inspiration for the heavenly sequence at the end of the Pilot episode? I'm very curious to learn why in particular it is foot fetish based, within the context of the show, yes, but especially from the creators' standpoint. The cerulean, anenome-tongued being? The core of my question is to inquire whose idea it was to include this foot theme, here and elsewhere, and why.
Of course, I have my own take on everything, but in this one instance my own judgment doesn't seem sufficient to resolve it. A decent comparison would be to music; a piece will evoke a certain atmosphere all of its own, and needs no explanation from the composer: if one is provided, it won't change one's perceptions of said piece, as they have already been ingrained. At least not for me. But if there is one piece that, for whatever reason, commands such fascination that I must learn the source of its inspiration, then I shall attempt to do so. Such is the case here. So come on Chungy-baby, 'fess up! What's it all about? It might be late in the day to ask, but Flux is eternal, and lives on in the minds of fans spanning the globe. Thus, it cannot be tagged with calender nor clock.

Yours intangibly...

― Tim K (that long haired muscular fellow, the one with the long coat), Wednesday, 14 March 2007 05:46 (seventeen years ago) link

I can't wait for more action.

By the way dude, you talk like an ass.
Regardless, I think I remember him saying the S&M and such like that were done to draw crowds. That's probably your answer.

― J. F. Aldridge, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 06:44 (seventeen years ago) link

If you knew who I was, I doubt you'd be saying that. (Deep rolling laughter.)
Have you never regretted a post because you did it under the influence?
Anyway, way to make me feel welcome. No wonder I've kept my head down these past several years.
Typed words can't convey the sound of my voice; it'd sound much better if I was saying it aloud.
They mock you if you talk this way, they mock you if you talk that way, they mock you you if you have long hair, they mock you when you're overweight, they mock you when you're too muscular, they mock you if you wear long leather jackets... water off a duck's back. (Interesting to note that no one has ever done that to my face, and people in the street hurry past at a glance.) Even here, rejected for my superiority. (semi-joking) Come on man, let's not have one of those petty arguments.
I stand by my question, though.

― Tim K (that long haired muscular fellow, the one with the long coat), Wednesday, 14 March 2007 18:36 (seventeen years ago) link

It's a good question, and maybe he wasn't here when Peter answered it, I for one don't remember the answer and I'm here a lot. Hey, it doesn't mean it wasn't said it just means it wasn't answered.

Let's not cause writers block here, just because a style is different doesn't mean it isn't a way of expressing oneself. Freedom of expression should exist here of all places.

Personally I hope your Arnold Swarzenegger, but whoever you are, welcome to our forum, guy!

― Barb e., Wednesday, 14 March 2007 22:52 (seventeen years ago) link

Thanks for your support Barb. The first post suffered at the hands of taking a sertraline and a melatonin at the same time, rendering much of my wording strange. I actually felt like an asshole after the second post. My life has got to be more bizarre than anyone else's here (massive presumption alert, do not take literally) and something happened during the day to... well anyway, let's not get biographical. Blood was involved. If only this was fantasy... Josh said I talked like an ass; how uncanny. I was making a disturbing braying noise at the time. That first post was not indicative of how I talk at all. Phew. I thought was gonna be blackballed and everyone'd hate me.
'Chungy-baby?' HA HA HA! What was I on? Oh yeah, I already said.
Enough waffle from me. Actually I look (and even act and sound a little) like Tom Sizemore's character from Strange Days. But more 'evil.' And that odd reference to being someone you might know... Well...
Ah, the humming. The drip drip drip. The sudden silence. I must be going...
In closing: Aeon lives!
(Figure rises from chair, dons jacket in one motion. Troubled look back at the screen.
Hand rises to light switch... then darkness, and the sound of a door.)

― Tim K (that long haired muscular fellow, the one with the long coat), Wednesday, 14 March 2007 23:50 (seventeen years ago) link

Hmmm, well whoever you are, I'm fairly certain the answer I gave you was correct. The foot fetish was merely a tool to tap into the subcultures so the show could gain enough notoriety to survive. Not alone, of course, but that was the whole purpose of the S & M quality of the show.
Plus I suppose it worked well for the Aeon Flux character.
I don't presume to be able to talk for Peter Chung, but I believe this question has been asked before and I seem to recall what I said as being the summation of the response.
I know you probably want something grander, like references to Greek mythology, or some symbolism connecting the tongue licking a toe, to a penis under foot over a deep sea of feminine power, the tides representing menstruation and Aeon sitting above the uncertain flow on top of a metal pedestal is supposed to represent some icon that we should strive for or some such rubbish, but I'm afraid your answer is most likely that the scene was just a keen amalgamation of imagination and marketing. Plain and Simple.
Oh the world, the world is cold and gray.

― J. F. Aldridge, Thursday, 15 March 2007 01:40 (seventeen years ago) link

Thanks, Tim, for asking.
I won't argue with Josh's interpretation, generally speaking, but the question of "why feet?", (or for that matter, "why an ear" (Trevor in the elevator), "why teeth" (Trevor in the train) "why a wound in Sybil's back" etc.) does make me wonder whether simply showing celestial Aeon enjoying the attentions of a devoted cunniliguist for eternity might have quashed such questions and pre-empted the demand for a forum such as this.
In any case, Aeon's foot needed the relief after the trauma of a rusty nail embedding itself in her heel. And by sheer coincidence, we glimpse evidence that she may have freelanced as a cover model for the foot fetish magazine "Tickle" (spelled out phonetically in Hangul-- but really don't read any meaning behind that other than me being Korean and wanting to avoid written English text within the Breen visual landscape.)

― Peter Chung, Friday, 16 March 2007 14:41 (seventeen years ago) link

Hey, it's that guy again. Thank you for answering my question Peter! Much appreciated. (Starts acting like a schoolgirl at a convention.) I don't suppose I have to go into the whole area regarding interpretation and personal perception, and that constantly asking 'why why why' defeats the purpose of experiencing it in the first place. But this wasn't too colossal a question, so what the hell. I'm impulsive.
On a side note I'd just like to enthuse and effuse about what a huge fan of yours I am; (well, not that huge. I'm only about 6'2", 260) your work is deeply inspiring to me on many levels, from the aesthetics to the richly glowing, coruscating core. Rare indeed is it to stumble across a work that brings together into one place just about everything I love about art, but Aeon Flux was, and remains, such a work. So I thank you (and your accomplices in this strike against pabulum) for that. Maybe I'm a little late in the game to be saying this now, but there's so very much that goes unspoken. If you've felt the Grim Reaper's scythe whistle close to you on several occasions, you realise that it's best to say what you feel and say it now, before it's too late. Even if life as we know it, is nothing but a lucid dream.
Bregna and Monica, Aeon and Trevor, and all that lies between them. It's far too juicy a melon to take only ten bites and six nibbles. Here's hoping we soon see more of them. On a further side note... down with censorship! Friggin' censors grrrr...

Bye, before I become incoherent. Oh baby.

― Tim K (that long haired muscular fellow, the one with the long coat), Sunday, 18 March 2007 19:31 (seventeen years ago) link

I remember reading a treatment of said episode, from a surely now defunct Web site, that ended with Aeon resurrecting as a Goddess. ...Perhaps the last scene is Peter Chung's cynical depiction of a Heaven where everyone sits around, erm, pleasuring themselves?

It would fit with some of the movies he's enjoyed in the past (just saw Holy Mountain for the first time. OH DEAR)

― polyncephalic, Thursday, 29 March 2007 08:50 (seventeen years ago) link

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