The X-Files: Fight the Future

I've now seen the first X-Files movie. And it wasn't entirely what I expected, which was more or less an extended episode in HD with better special effects and swearing. It was at least a little more than that, and I feel like they did a good job of telling a story that just wouldn't have fit on the small screen. Maybe not quite epic, but definitely cohesive, and definitely something that answered a LOT of questions about the series. And actually opened up one other major question.

Now what?

I say, "Now what?" because now I really think that season six will be something of a reset. The movie picked up more or less where season five left off, which kind of surprised me, since it would have been intended at least partly for an audience that had not watched the series. But here we were, meeting Mulder and Scully 'for the very first time' and the X-Files had been shut down and the FBI was working hard to separate the two of them and reassign them to boring positions elsewhere in the country.

I'm not sure that would have worked entirely for people unfamiliar with their prior interactions. We're kind of dumped into the middle of the story, which is perfect as a bridge between seasons five and six, but a lot of the stuff, like say, the near-miss kiss, probably wouldn't resonate the same with with newbies. (I'll get to the near-miss kiss in a minute.)

And by the end of the movie, the X-Files have been reinstated, much to the chagrin of the Cancer Man and his cohorts, and the experiments that Mulder and Scully uncovered in the course of the film have simply been moved to TatooineTunisia, apparently able to continue otherwise uninterrupted.

But during the course of the movie, many things are revealed that we've all been wondering for the first five seasons of the television series. At least, if the now deceased (presumably) 'Well-Manicured Man' is to be believed. He repeated a lot of what we already knew or suspected, including Deep Throat's original season one warning, "Trust no one." I'm surprised that Mulder, having heard that so many times at this point, still hasn't quite heeded the warning.

So it seems like to some extent, at least, many of the plots of the first five seasons will be set aside and there will be a whole new set of mythology and conspiracy episodes starting in season six.

Because I'm more interested in the conspiracy aspects of the show than the alien ones, this movie largely worked for me. I much prefer the plots that center around all the peripheral things that are needed for colonisation to work, rather than the colonisation itself. So the bee plots from 'Herrenvolk' and 'Zero Sum' and the Black Oil plots from many episodes, most recently 'Patient X' and 'The Red and the Black', are more interesting to me, and that's what we get in the movie, although again slightly different from the series.

Most of the movie is an adventure and a race against time for Mulder to try to save Scully (AGAIN). I hope the next movie is the opposite and Mulder's the one who needs Scully to rescue him. In this case, it was just one bee, which I find strange because in the past episodes that dealt with the bees, they always seemed to make a point of the fact that there were huge swarms of bees, but I suppose if they're carrying something akin to smallpox, one would be enough.

The scenes during the rescue were tense enough, but I guess even fans of the show would have known there was going to be a sixth season, so they probably weren't that worried about Scully. (It would have been a horrible trick to not revive her by the end of the movie and finish out the movie's plot at the beginning of season six.)

I also have to say, the Antarctica scenes looked completely silly. For one thing, the movie apparently takes place in July (I'm not sure where this is stated in the movie, but everything I've seen says so - I guess since it's between seasons, and TV seasons tend to align plot calendar to real life calendar, it makes sense). In July, Antarctica is dark, because it's winter. It would also be exceedingly cold. There is no way Mulder and Scully could survive outside for even a minute with any skin uncovered.

But even if you assume it's December, the scenes looked pretty silly. Running around Antarctica chasing the bad guys. Yes. This is apparently a Thing.

OK, so, that moment. The moment where they were cockblocked by a bee. Goddammitsomuch. I have been waiting for this for five seasons and now I guess I'll have to wait even longer, if it ever even happens at all. We know they like each other! We know they both want this but are too professional or too awkward or too WHATEVER to actually say anything about it.

But here's the thing. Even accounting for More Important Things^tm going on in the movie after Scully is stung by the bee, why not bring it up again? They were about to kiss, why not give us (and them!) that payoff at the end? Did everything suddenly change that much that now they can't? They walk off hand in hand at the end, after Scully echoes the line that Mulder said to her right before their near-kiss.

And I bet season six starts off as if that part of it never even happened. Because the writers just want to mess with our heads or something.