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).

Comments

Lost its edge

[Tablizer]

Part of the fun of the original series was the non-closure (no solid proof or clarity) and the tension between believer and skeptic. They drifted away from this later in the series, and even the first movie. At the end of the series, Scully became the believer and the new guy the skeptic, but it never quite worked right. For one, there was no sense of sexual tension between the new dude and Scully like there was in the original pair.

Duchovney & Anderson

[Bitsy Boffin]

Meh. I never really liked Fox Mulder, Dana Scully was hot initially, but over time she got older, and whinier, and then the whole hooking up with Fox, and the child and the.... oh man, totally sucked the hot right out and replaced it with booooring.

An X-Files movie would be great. But you don't need Fox or Dana to do it. Fresh faces, fresh talent, less annoying. Although, if they could get W. B. Davis back as the C.S.M in a major plot part that would be fine by me, I liked that guy. It could be a pre-quel, before the X-Files, examining some aspect of the origins of the whole back story. That'd be cool.

it's funny

[caitsith01]

There has always been a big division amongst fans.

Myself, I have always loved the conspiracy arc in the x-files, and I know a lot of others who feel the same way. Although it got rather convoluted with the bees and so on, some parts of it (such as Tunguska and all that stuff with Krycek, and the shifting role of the Cancer Man/X/Deep Throat/Bill Mulder) were fascinating and were definitely what kept me tuning in week after week.

Yet some people hated that stuff, and loved the "locals tell of the mythical swamp monster... and here it is!!!!11!!!1!" type episodes, the "monster of the week" as someone called it here (also "serial killer of the week" at times). Personally I feel like those episodes were frequently poorly done, and the sfx never really carried the silly plotlines adequately. There are some notable exceptions of course (I loved the Loch Ness Monster episode, but of course that was great mostly because they never show the thing).

Of course some of the better episodes had a bit of both - a "monster of the week" which turned out to be part of the broader conspiracy arc, or segued into it.

My perception is that more hard core fans tend to prefer the aliens, casual fans prefer the wolf-man stuff. Maybe it's an attention span thing too. It will be a shame if the new episode does nothing to move the conspiracy arc forward - of course, it may well be set earlyish in the series, rather than at the end.

Re:it's funny

[Curien]

He was refering to the themes and morals, not to the mechanics or plotpoints. Obviously, the world being created and guided by a paganesque pantheon wouldn't mesh well with Catholicism. If you see a clash between Islam and Chritianity (or the Middle-east and Europe or whatever) when you read Tolkien, that says a lot more about you than it does about Tolkien.

Re:it's funny

[Himring]

There are some notable exceptions of course (I loved the Loch Ness Monster episode, but of course that was great mostly because they never show the thing).

There was not an actual episode on the Loch Ness monster that I remember. It was rather an episode on 'a' lake monster (one like nessy). And they did indeed show it, at the very end of the episode after Mulder and Skully finished a great dialogue wherein Skully compared Mulder to Ahab and his quest the white whale. They leave the lake area and then the thing pops up.

I re-watched the entire series recently. The running mythos episodes were indeed good ... at times. Rather, they were good until the movie. The "jump the shark" episode for the x files is arguable, but to me the movie was it. The mythos worked until that point, but afterwards you could sense Carter losing a grip on things. The writers actually admitted to killing off the syndicate because it made no more sense and they couldn't keep up with all the complexities themselves.

You must remember, the mythos migrated from uncovering the government hiding aliens, to bees being used to inject the black oil alien and enslave the human race (no, wait, they were going to be used to inject the green stuff from the movie and convert all humans to sleestacks -- see my point?), to a government plot in building super soldiers, to all sorts of junk in-between.

Carter fell into the trap of keeping a series alive by never really revealing anything, but making fans think you were gonna -- the "revealing for revealing's sake." Underneath all the mystery and revealing, there was nothing there. There was no big "aha!"

Were the mythos episodes good? Yes, at first, but they fell apart and the last couple of years -- the super soldiers episodes -- were taxing at best. Now, what were always good about the mythos were some of the characters. CSM, Krychek & TLG were awesome no matter how sucky the mythos episode.

The stand-alone episodes were always up in the air, but by-and-large had staying power. Some were incredible and, yes, some sucked. To me, my best memories of x-files are from these stand alones. The Chung episode, the genie episode in the last year of Mulder, even the Burt Reynolds episode. These are some of my favorites.

I have always suspected, though, that Carter was inspired by Oliver Stone's JFK. I re-watched it a few years back and the scene between Costner and Southerland's character is like watching Mulder talking to Mr. X or the CSM. "You're closer to the truth than you realize" says Southerland to Costner. My gosh, put that into any x-files mythos episode.

No one...

[SlashDev]

can come close to David Duchovny to play the role of Fox mulder. Gillian Anderson as 'old' as she is, plays the perfect role as well. Intelligent, skeptic, yet unable to poke holes into Fox Mulder's theories. For me, X-Files ended when Duchovny left. It will resume again in this movie. I found the first movie excellent, of high caliber, big production and not cheezy whatsoever.

Re:"hot" women

[LarsWestergren]

Umm so whats special about Duchovny's hands?

You would have to have seen Zoolander to get that joke.

Galaxy Quest

[Derrikex]

I was kinda hoping if X-files ever returned it would be in a parody/tribute to itself, a la Galaxy Quest. Duchovny is a pretty funny guy.