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New X-Files Movie
An anonymous reader writes to let us know that a new X-Files movie is in pre-production, directed and written by Chris Carter and starring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. Duchovny said in an interview that his understanding is that filming will start in November for a summer 2008 release. The article notes that in an earlier interview, Anderson said the film "would stay away from the series' (and first film's) sometimes tortured mythology" (quoting the article, not Anderson).
I want to believe!
Don't mod me, bro'!!!!
Ok, so if the 2nd movie will be staying away from the "tortured mythology" of the series and the first movie.... how is it an X-Files movie?
God help us if this turns into some John Cusak-esque romantic comedy (with a dash of aliens).
Makeup and plastic surgery, son. Makeup and plastic surgery.
Karnal
So what's the point, other than to cash in on the franchise? Way bother to have an X-files move if you don't folow the X-files back story in it? It would be like taking some scifi space move that was completely unrelater to the star trek universe, casting a couple of aging trek actors, and slappimg the Star Trek name on it.
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The last episode tied up all loose ends, and said pretty much everything that they needed to say, IMHO. Not only that, I also felt that the X Files was only really sociologically relevant to the 90s, as well...I think pop culture is well and truly over the paranormal/ufology in general. The Greys have more than had their 15 minutes.
Non-fans - that is, people who don't have loyalties to series but simply look for quality stories - will want a good film that stands on its own, instead of engaging in self-absorbed world-building.
I'm really getting to hate fan-think. It's cheapening the way we think of narrative. Too much adolescent desire to inhabit an imaginary world, not enough use of art/narrative to think reflectively about our own world and lives.
I normally wouldn't be so abusive, but the way that you framed it actually valourized escapism over the creation of powerful cinema, and accused those of us who weren't playing as-if of having poor attention spans.
I think your portrayal of those intrigued by fictional worlds as "self-absorbed" is just a nasty a slight as the person to which you're replying.
While meandering about a library once I picked up some book vaguely related to Lord of the Rings or Tolkien or some such and read a bit of it wherein Tolkien was lamenting the popular (at the time of his writing) disdain for fictional worlds as works of art in their own, and the insistence that all fictional stories serve some allegorical purpose of illustrating something about some particulars here in the real world. (If anyone can cite the passage I'm trying to recall I'd much appreciate that!) Of course all stories, no matter what "world" they're set in, will touch on and illustrate themes about "human" nature, whether or not the characters are actually human, because for the story to be engaging at all they've still got to be recognizable as people and thus will have (and act according to, and suffer the consequences of) psychological traits just like humans in the real world do. But the War of the Rings doesn't have to be an allegory for World War II; Sauron's Orcish army doesn't have to be a representation of the German war machine; Gandalf is not Jesus Christ come to guide the West against the forces of evil! Certainly real-world events and history can influence the creation of a fictional world - e.g. Tolkien's mythology draws clear inspiration from real-world mythology, both Christian and pagan - but that doesn't mean the fictional world has to be somehow a proxy for the real one. Maybe someone just wanted to tell a cool story against a cool backdrop. Or maybe, as was the origin of Middle-Earth, maybe someone just wanted to create a cool backdrop. Reading real-world mythology isn't always that engaging, but it paints an interesting and sometimes beautiful picture of the world.
This debate seems to me like arguing whether portraits or landscapes make for better paintings; or more accurately, whether representational painting (of real things that actually exist before the painter) is better than purely imaginative painting (of things that exist nowhere but in the artist's mind). Each sort requires a different kind of talent and is useful to different ends: a representational painter must be able to accurately reproduce the details of the real things before him, and as such talk about the details of his painting, if it's well done, can serve as proxy for talk about the real thing. But an imaginative painter who creates fanciful images from whole cloth has a level of creativity and inspiration that someone who can only paint representationally lacks, and such fanciful art is great for - you said it - escapism, which is a perfectly fine recreational activity. Likewise with portraits vs landscapes - different levels of scope, different levels of detail, both valid art forms.
Some people like vast, epic stories that flesh out grand worlds; some people like close, character-driven stories instead; some people like stories set in the real world, during real events, with which the reader is familiar to some extent; others like stories created ex nihlo which transport you into a wholly original, novel experience. All of these things have their appeal, and arguing for one over the other is as silly as arguing over favorite colors or ice cream flavors.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
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The weird sci-fi ones were the best. I liked the one where the bugs would come if they didn;t have light, or the arctic research lab with the worm that made people go nuts, or even the one on the dead tanker where the water was poisonous. Those episodes are the ones that were really scary because it was a "what if" kind of effect. It was plausible that it could happen and so it was interesting. Thats good science fiction to me. Don't get me wrong, space operas like star wars are cool and all but thats all people see as sci-fi these days.
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
I think too much time has passed to try and re-indoctrinate folks to the "tortured mythology" of the X-files, and the monster-of-the-week episode could really work, because many of those types of episodes still stick out in my mind (like, as one user mentioned, the critter/sporeling in the arctic research station which admittedly was something of a rehash of The Thing).
However, the problem I've always had with TV-to-movie transitions is that nowadays, the production values are so good in the episodes that there's little a movie can do to add to the prestige of the original series. TV serial formats have the advantage of hours and hours of lore and backstory, while movies, though typically a bit better crafted and with bigger explosions/effects, have approximately two hours to get EVERYTHING across.
Serenity was at least an opportunity for Joss to get closure on his murdered television series, but I smell a cash cow and little else with this new X-Files flick (and maybe Duchovny's realization that his vanity exceeded his aptitude when he left the series aloft the marketing of his own name).
The moon may be smaller than the earth, but it's much farther away!