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).

Wow!

I want to believe!

Wait, what?!

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).

Re:Wait, what?!

Better than what I first read. I was still groggy from a nap and read "New X-Men movie starring starring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson." Worse still, my first thought at that wasn't that I'd read something wrong but rather "who cares if Solid Snake isn't writing this one?"

Re:Wait, what?!

At least you did not read it as "X-File themed episode of Red Shoe Diaries" starring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson.

it's funny

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

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.

Re:it's funny

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

I think the work of tolkien you refer to at the beggining is his essay "On Fairy-Stories" published in "Tree and Leaf [wikipedia.org]".

At some point he says something about fantasy and world creation (or sub-creation) being not so much 'escapism' as in a deserting soldier (a rather demeaning word), but rather as in a prisoner escaping to freedom.

Highly recommended reading.

Re:it's funny

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.

Re:The conspiracy stuff....

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.

Oh man, I Think I Just....

Had a geekgasm!

Aliens won't probe anymore

Gillian Anderson has got to be pretty old by now. The fun may be gone.

Re:Aliens won't probe anymore

Makeup and plastic surgery, son. Makeup and plastic surgery.

Re:Aliens won't probe anymore

she only going to be 40. She's not that old.

Re:Aliens won't probe anymore

>Gillian Anderson has got to be pretty old by now.
Well I wouldn't climb over her to get to you.

but as I always say...

Beauty is only a light-switch away.

Age aside, I lost my fascination with Sculley when they made her vulnerable and emotional. The ice-maiden thing was quite the draw, but when I saw her crying and needy...hell, I can find that anywhere. Cerebral and aloof? Sign me up.

well, the aliens left

a movie about the return of the sideshow freaks might be good.

and a high probability of a good soundtrack.

Lost its edge

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.

The Lone Gunmen die!

Oh wait, was I suppose to put a spoiler alert first?

It will never reach the cinema

As someone who shares a flat with an avid X-Files (or more correctly Gillian Anderson) fan, I've been hearing rumours about this for, oh, at least two years now. And even now it sounds as though the script hasn't even been finalised yet, and they might not have all the funding they require at this point. Because the series finished so long ago, and (even according to a significant portion of fans) lost it's way over the final couple of series I think this movie is going to be a hard sell for a mainstream audience. Which I think will result in budgeting problems for the producers, which could mean delays or the filming not even being completed. I'd love to seen another X-Files outing, (and not just to watch my flat mate explode in the ecstasy of a celluloid Anderson experience) however I'm a very long way from getting my hopes up.

So what's the point?

said the film "would stay away from the series' (and first film's) sometimes tortured mythology"

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.

Re:So what's the point?

So what's the point, other than to cash in on the franchise?

In the film industry, sequels get created precisely for that purpose: to cash in on the franchise.

Executive producers greenlight these types of films because they're virtually guaranteed a certain audience.

-ben
(BCIT Film)

Duchovney & Anderson

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.

Re:"hot" women

If you want consistently "hot" women then try watching porn

The truth really *is* out there.
I just didn't expect to find it on Slashdot.

Re:Duchovney & Anderson

An X-Files movie would be great. But you don't need Fox or Dana to do it. Fresh faces, fresh talent, less annoying.

Yup. Other movie ideas I'm having along the same approach:

X-Men movie but swap the DNA mutations for emo culture and hard metal/rock underground.
Batman movie without costumes and gadgets, about the struggles of a billionaire Bruce Wayne to increase his company revenue.
James Bond prequel. Like, how his parents met up and married or something?
Toy Story movie about alcoholic toys in mid-life crisis, sexual problems and physical abuse.
Star Wars movie set in the wild west.
Jurassic Park, but instead of real dinosaurs, it turns out Dr. John Hammond hired ILM to make elaborate fake computer dinosaurs and escape abroad with hundreds of millions of investor funding.
Saw 4, where it turns out everything in Saw 1, 2, 3 was a dream sequence of a poor patient dying of cancer, and telling the story of a cancer patient finding true love in his last days of life.

Vampires, Gah!

If not for the "tortured mythology" the series would have been nothing but "vampire" episodes. PLEASE, give us the tortured mythology!

Anderson is back

Welcome back, Miss Anderson. We miss you... Oops, sorry, wrong movie quote.

No "tortured mythology"?

I'm going to chime in with the others and say that the X-Files mythology was what made X-Files so great. ***SPOILERS:***

At the end of the series, we're waiting for the alien apocalypse (or *something* significant*) in 2012. Mulder and Scully are finally together. Everything's pointing towards an end of the world scenario, and they're going to give us a MotW? Why bother? Unless, of course, there's a third movie planned to cover the events in 2012... or X-Files 2 is a Jose Chung-style "episode." That I'd pay to see. It'd be great to see Mulder back on the screen - he was missed during S8&9 - but honestly, I'd prefer a new mythology ep.

NSA posting stories again

An anonymous reader writes to let us know...

It's too late for that, we all know who you are Deep Throat!

I don't see the point.

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.

The show that wouldn't die

X-Files stopped being cool after the first few seasons. It was at its best when the series focussed on unrelated weird stuff every episode. In the later seasons it basically became a big soap opera with aliens. I stopped watching when it got to the point where missing an episode or two meant you had no idea what was going on for the rest of the season.

Cool! New Movie!

But the MPAA still sucks...right?

Yeah,

I miss Mulder. I miss Scully. I missed the last freakin episode. It was just so hard to stay till the end with that Terminator guy and the Baby and agent Reyes.

Scully and Reyes Sex scene now we are talking Box Office Gold.

Old news?

Duchovny already stated this on a late night show interview quite awhile back. Why is this new news?

No one...

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.

As long as it's supernatural...

The X-Files started going downhill when most of the seasons had more impossible conspiracy episodes than anything else... it just started getting boring. As long as it's stand-alone and supernatural instead of the government conspiracy dribble from before it has great potential. I've often thought the series could come back without problems as long as they made the episodes all about one-off paranormal incidents and found a way to finish with the never-ending conspiracy.

Surprise

David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson in a new X-Files movie? That's a surprise, now that their individual, off-x-files careers have skyrocketed so completely!

"Evolution" is the only non-x-files movie I can remember having seen either of them in, and belive me; I'd rather I forgot.

Damnit

I have been a fan of the series for years. I even have all the DVDs.
The whole idea of making a one off episode rather than one that ties all the loose ends of the mythology annoys me.

I don't want to watch them do some of that quirky shit they did in some of the 'funny' episodes, I want the whole conspiracy thing. I'm sure most fans are with me on this, the one off episodes always seemed like filler to me, and I'll be damned if I'll go see a movie of that.

Balance was good

A lot of people have commented that the conspiracy plot was the real meat of the show, and the non-conspiracy episodes were a waste of time. And a lot of people have commented that the oddball episodes were the only interesting ones, and the conspiracy got stale. I personally think the success of the show comes down to having both types of episodes. Obviously the FBI was not going to hire these two agents to investigate one single controversial case for a decade. It made sense that they had shifting responsibilities. The conspiracy would have gotten stale a lot sooner if this hadn't been the case.

That said, a movie always has to be bigger than an episode (*cough* Star Trek V *cough*) and if this is just a monster-of-the-week episode with a scope that is smaller than that of the previous film, and if they make no mention of the overall story arc whatsoever, it could end up being a waste of celluloid. They'd be safer making the movies exclusively about the conspiracy.

ehhh pass

Much like most of the X-Files series, if I see this movie, I'll be disappointed by an anticlimactic ending that solves absolutely nothing. I think I'll save my $8 now and add it to my Netflix queue now.

Hm...

The series did end on what was rather a cliff hanger. However, the series became very fucking stupid, so I'd imagine it's a good thing that they're straying from the mythology. To me, the "mythology" episodes were always the low points anyway. They just became worse as the series progressed and they were almost all that we had with no interspersed stand-alone monster hunts. Worse mythology stories than just UFOs too, like Uber Soldats! Besides, Doggett was an annoying character from day one. Having said that, I thought the first film fit in well and was entertaining.

The plot (spoiler warning!)

I'm glad this is happening, the world was crying out for a new X Files movie. I'm glad all my protest letters to Fox finally had an effect.

Now that it's starting, I can tell you all the plotline. In the first half of the movie, Scully and Mulder will travel deep into the artic to find the lost alien mothership that contains the special brand of bees needed to resurrect the Lone Gunmen.
In the second half of the movie, Scully and Mulder will try to save the world from Zombie Lone Gunmen.

Galaxy Quest

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.

lots of the best ones were MOTW eps anyway

the whole mythology arc lost all relevance after One Son anyway - so no loss there

and many of the greatest episodes were Monster of the Week ones anyway - even some of the very best mythology-arc eps (like Conduit) were all about showing us both the personas of mulder and scully and the ordinary characters involved in the military/alien stuff, not about any revelations of the mysteries of the mythology itself

it's just going to be a bit weird to have mulder and scully TOGETHER now, having had li'l william & all that

course i guess that's just new ground for a different sort of tension, as is having the whole aliens' thing more BEHIND them now

but, what, they've gone from being on the run and mulder's being a fugitive from a military prison to being at the FBI again? or non-FBI folks now? or...?

Re:Lost is better

For a start: the story actually goes somewhere in Lost. They actually did some story writing ahead of time instead of just tossing out some meaningless obscure crap every now and then. The suspense in Lost means something because you know it's eventually going to be dealt with, and that the story will change dramatically and in not entirely predictable ways. Lost can seem cheesy at times, but overall it has much more depth than x-files could ever hope to have.

Re:Lost is better (cliche too easy)

You'll have to wait until 1/18/08 for a Lost movie...well, you might get a Lost movie, anyway.

Eh, they "lost" the Lost movie. Well, it joins the Apollo 11 footage I guess.