The X-Files: A response to Lois Wadsworth I'll be the first to say it. I'm biased. I'm one of those rabid Internet geeks that's seen every episode of The X-Files. Most of them, I've seen twice. I even had a cool shirt made up for the premiere... says "X-Philes: The Truth Is Online." Yep, I'm a fan. This is the only television show or movie in my life that I've every been this devoted to. Obsessed? To quote another fan: "We're not obsessed, we're focused." Paranoid? Not in the least. A conspiracy nut? Nope. What I am is a storyteller. I cannot resist a good yarn. The reason I love the X-Files is that it consistently delivers STORIES. Not reality, not verisimilitude, but stories. Fiction. Suspension of disbelief entertainment. I loved this movie. I've already seen it five times, and I'll probably see it again in the theater once every week or two until it's gone. Quit rolling your eyes. I know this movie inside up, upside down, and backwards. I even know which scenes were cut from the original script. Do I think it's perfect? Nope. There are some plot holes that I could drive an oil-filled tanker truck through, if I could drive a tanker truck. There are inconsistencies that make even me go "huh?" and I think I've got a pretty darn good understanding of the whole conspiracy subplot. I know a number of inconsistencies which weren't mentioned in the review. But the fact remains that from the second viewing on, this movie grabs my attention and the story absorbs me to the point that it surprises me when it's done. Yes, I said the second viewing. I'm lucky. See, I bought my tickets four days in advance. I was there at 8:30 in the morning the day it opened, and I was the first person in the theater for the 10:35 a.m. showing on June 19. The first showing was actually not fun for me. It was intense, and I was absorbed by the story, but I was left wondering if I really should use my second set of tickets. I stretched my legs, bought some lunch, went back in, and watched it again. I'm not alone in saying it's better the second time. I'm so glad I did the unheard of thing of buying myself tickets to three showings on the same day. Never done that before in my life. Heck, I see maybe four movies a year in the theater, most years. The second time through, having stopped wondering, "When is that scene from the trailer on Leno going to happen?" I really started to get into the movie. I do feel lucky that I gave it that second chance, that I already had my tickets for that second show. What the reviewer in the Eugene Weekly June 25 edition missed was that second viewing. It is rare that a movie gets better the more you see it, but in this case, this movie, repeat viewing seems to improve it. Many of the "plot holes" are simply places where the explanation is in the movie, if you pay attention. Other "plot holes" are actually places where Chris Carter, the creator of the series and the author of the screenplay, has decided not to spoon feed his audience. He gives us credit for being intelligent enough to make the leaps he suggests. There are only two scenes in the whole movie that jump out as "Exposition for non-fans," and I enjoyed them anyway. There are inconsistencies, but to demand exactitude from a universe that regularly brings monsters to life is like complaining that a stage production set isn't built to scale. Could there have been more realism? Sure. Another fifty million dollars and six months worth of shooting can buy a lot of realism. But the story doesn't need it. If one is willing to watch the show as it is meant to be seen, as a story, then it is easier to see the picture Chris Carter painted. The reviewer complains about the location shots, the snow in Texas. Was there snow 35,000 years ago in Texas? Maybe. Probably not the glacier shown, but that's not the point. The story is well enough told that while I'm watching the movie, I just don't care. It doesn't look quite like the Dallas that the reviewer knows. The X-Files "universe" doesn't behave like the universe I know, never has, never will, and it's still an engaging story. Chris Carter's storytelling tends to lean toward the archetypal. He paints broad expanses with a tiny brush. When you look too closely at the paint, the picture disintegrates. When you step back and look at the picture from the distance intended, it's beautiful in a delightfully scary and humorous way. I know from the "Making of the X- Files Movie" book that the scenes in Texas had to be shot in California due to time constraints, that they composited Dallas into the picture later. I don't really mind, because the point is not that this happened outside Dallas, the point is that this happened in a normal, everyday small community that could be just about anywhere. The next complaint was about the aliens. Yes, they are quite deliberately similar to the belly hatching teeth-monsters that were so terrifying in Aliens. But this is quintessential X-Files. In the X- Files universe, the fundamental premise is that all the bad hack science fiction stories, the folk tales, the ghost stories, the conspiracy tales are all real. The reason that our heroes are never believed is that the truth they see every week sounds just like a B horror flick or cheesy scifi movie. We've seen werewolves, vampires, ghosts, angels, bigfoot, mothmen, giant flukeworms... Of course the aliens really are slimy and hatch from human stomachs! The third major complaint was about the dialogue. "No one talks like this," Lois Wadsworth says. But the truth is, in the X-Files, Mulder and Scully do talk like this. In fact, the characterization of the two of them was incredibly well done. Scully's first speech is known on the Internet as a "SRE" -a Scully Rational Explanation- and as such is completely in character. Do normal people talk this way? Average people don't talk this way, but Scully is supposed to be unnervingly intelligent with less that perfect communication skills. In other words, she tends to rattle on. It's rather endearing, in fact. I actually know people like this. Mulder, too, is completely in character. Do normal people spout paragraphs without taking a breath? Nope. But Mulder does it, all the time. He's deadpan, sardonic, and tends to crack jokes when he's under stress. Again, his character is supposed to be unnervingly intelligent, with even fewer communication skills than Scully has. Lecturing to the audience? Rarely. There are two scenes in the movie I can think of that might qualify, early on, but they were still pretty amusing and very in-character. Suspense? Watch the scene in the car with the Well Manicured Man. When it blows, it still makes me jump. The climax as well has me on the edge of my seat every time. Now I will say that seeing the movie with THX sound makes a huge difference here. The first three times I saw it were at a theater with smaller screens and no THX. I saw it in Portland a few days later in a very large theater with THX, and it was like a whole different movie. The difference was astounding. I won't be seeing any movies in theaters without THX anymore. Not worth the $3.25. But with good sound, even knowing the movie from start to finish, the story is engaging enough that it's still fresh, still gets me on the edge of my seat. Not only that, but it makes me look at the world around me a bit differently. An article ran in the Register-Guard a few days ago about a Hantavirus outbreak. It gave me pause, and that tells me that this story has something special. As for the Mulder/Scully relationship... This, for me, was the heart of the movie. The fundamental plot was not the bombs, not the aliens, but the issue of the dissolution and reestablishment of the partnership. We start the movie with a duo divided, we see them finally forced to voice the fact that each depends on the other more than air, and in the end, they are recommitted to the quest. The much voiced question "Do they kiss?" is trivial. The words they speak to each other, the connection re-established, that, right there is enough to satisfy my 'shipper heart. The one thing I missed in the fifth season of the show was seeing Mulder and Scully work together to solve a case. [Note: 'shipper is short for "relationshipper."] The movie gave us that in spades. I'm looking forward to the next season. I know I'm not alone. I've gone with a number of the less devoted, and they enjoyed it more the first time than I did myself. Each audience has reacted differently to the movie, but I've heard a lot of laughs and a lot of gasps and very little talking during the show. My recommendation to anyone who didn't "get it" the first time around: SEE IT AGAIN.... and make sure you go to a theater with THX sound. This is a multilayered story, and is worth the second viewing to look beyond the big bangs, the slime, and the Texas thing. Don't wait for this movie to come out on video. It just won't be the same. If you're thinking about skipping it because of some negative reviews-- don't. The one thing you can guarantee about anything X-Files is that no two people will see it exactly the same way. There is no one episode that everyone likes, not even among the most devoted and die-hard fans. This is one movie that each person will see differently. For every person who found this movie "dull" there is another who has gone back five times because they found it so interesting. Are we dumb? I don't think so. We just are looking for different things in our entertainment. Jennifer Rosenberg jenroses@email.msn.com JenRose - Haven www.dejanews.com/group/dejanews.members.arts.jenrose.xphiles- storytelling _________________________________________________________________ "Complex systems thrive at the thin edge of chaos." __________________________________________________________________ Any discussion of conversational tactics can be elaborated at: http://www.vandruff.com/art_converse.html