The X-Files Movie (Fight the Future)
(Note from Phil: I think we’ve done all we’re going to do on this movie. Time to seal the file. You’re welcome to send additional comments but I’ll file them away instead of uploading them.)
In North Texas, a young boy crashes down through the earth into a cave. As he regains his breath, black ooze surges from the group and quickly immobilizes him. His body is quick seized by government officials and a week later the building in which it is kept is bombed to hide the true cause of death. In fact, the boy was a victim of a mutated strain of the black cancer. (The "liquid-wormy-guck" that infects multiple people during "Piper Maru" and "Apocrypha" as well as staring in "Tunguska" and "Terma.") Apparently, it's been around for a long time and is a virus that enslaves a race in preparation for alien colonization. This is what the "consortium" has been working on for the last fifty years. They have been negotiating with the aliens who are preparing to colonize Earth while at the same time attempting to find a vaccine to use against the black cancer (or black virus). Unfortunately, this new virus doesn't just enslave humans, it eats away their body to gestate alien and this discovery alarms the conspirators. Meanwhile, in true X-files' fashion, Mulder and Scully draw closer and closer to the truth only to have Scully abducted once again by the conspirators. But with the help of the Well-Manicured Man--who dies because of his actions--Mulder is able to rescue her.
Brash Reflections
Okay, those of you who have seen the movie will recognize that I left a bunch of stuff out in the plot summary! In the first place, I like to keep my plot summaries short and in the second place, I didn't want to ruin the movie for anyone if they happened to stumble by this page and not know what it's about. (If you're in that category, you really need to take a tour around the introductory material first!
Anyway, on with the show! I enjoyed the movie! It's was nice to see the X-Files in it's "bigger than life" format. Certainly worth the $3.25 I paid for the ticket! ;-) As usual, the script was well-written in that inimitable "open-ended" X-Files style. There were revelations and aliens but not too much resolution.
And the kiss? Ah yes, the kiss/bee-sting. Well . . . I thought that was pushing it but it certainly did get a rise out of the audience. ;-) I can heartily recommend the movie to anyone who's even moderately interested in The X-File Phenomenon. Even if you've never seen the series, it will give you a great introduction to the whole "look-and-feel, scratch-and-sniff" style of the series.
It's late so I won't spend too much time nitpicking but there were some amusing moments during the movie for me (ones that the creators never intended to be funny).
The opening scene sparked a great comment from my wife. We were watching the two cave guys trudged through the snow when "North Texas" came up on the screen followed by "35,000 BC." My wife leaned over and snickered, "I didn't realize Texas was that old." (Think about it. ;-)
And once again, dear friend, we are called to question whether or not the lovely Agent Scully has a death wish. She's in the middle of an unauthorized autopsy of a man who has obviously died of some untoward and foul means--probably from a biological agent of some kind. Guards approach the room. Scully scampers into the cooler. She gets a phone call from Mulder and--while flailing about to find her phone--actually turns it on and holds it up to her face using a hand that still wears the latex glove! Now granted the glove looks clean but I think can I guarantee that as I was scampering into the cooler I would have been stripping off the gloves at the same time because there's no where I would get the anywhere near my face!
Of course, there was the standard stuff. Mulder calling Scully on her cell phone with sensitive information. And what about the scientist who gets attacked by the alien who leaves its human host? You might recall that the conspirators are getting ready to transport the hapless human and everyone conveniently leaves the human alone so the alien can escape and no one will see it happen. Now, I ask you dear friends, does this seem like an intelligent thing to do? You have this alien gestating in this human and you know it's a new strain of alien and you know it's getting ready to hatch and you don't leave I anyone in the room to keep an eye on it?!
I'm sorry but I have a hard time believe that a bee would ride all the way from Dallas to Washington DC in Scully's clothes, hang around her all day and 1) not be notice and 2) not sting her sooner. Scully identified it as an Africanize Amercian honey bee. From what I understand, those things are a bit on the aggressive side. (Obviously, it was a male drone bee and mesmerized by her perfume.)
Mulder gets all the coolest toys. Here he is in the Antarctic. He up on an outcropping, looking over some domed buildings. He pulls his binoculars up to his face and gets a decent medium-wide shot of the buildings. Then he diddes with them, puts them back to his eyes and gets this amazing view that's not only a whole lot closer but has somehow change to a ground-level perspective! (Must be some of those "right-angle" binoculars.)
There's more but I leave it to you, fellow nitpickers!
Reflections from the Guild
[Note from Phil: I have not verified these but they sounded good to me!]
[From Someone Identified Only As Musca domestica]: I know that you already have these, but Here are a couple of nits for the movie.
1.The last sequence is in the Antartic, and Mulder gets there in 48 hours from Washington. I thought that Antartica was un manned, and it seemed way to fake of an idea, like a Superman thing. Why didn't they just say Alaska, people do not have to take a three week long boat ride to get there.
2. Scully gains clothes, From naked, then Mulder puts on sheet on her. Then it changes into a nice jacket, She then gains clothes and other things, until she had a full winter wardrobe.
3.The next scene Scully is wet and in the Antartic, where it is 100 below, she would have a little more frostbite then it is shown at the end.
Mike Leo: I just saw the movie and it was great!! I loved it.
Not without nits though. Here are two that I found. The first gives nothing away about the movie. However, the second one does, so don't read it if you don't want to know the ending.
Here is the first one. Toward the beginning Mulder asks Scully if she wants a Coke or a Pepsi or something. She says to just get something sweet. Mulder goes into the room with the vending machines, and there is no coke or pepsi machine. Why did he give her a choice, if there isn't a vending machine for either of the two choices?
Here is the second one. I find it hard to believe that an alien ship that big would be noticed by no one. It should have been seen on radar screens all over the world, or seen by some one with a telescope or some thing.
Murray Leeder: I agree with the criticisms that the movies doesn't exactly go BEYOND what the TV series did, but it's a darn entertaining movie nevertheless. An anecdote first off. While waiting in line just a few hours ago, a couple of teenagers asked me if I wanted to join their X-Files Cult. I declined, but mentioned that my name was in the X-Phile Guide. One of them says "Oh, you must be Murray something!" Wow, it's nice to be a celebrity.
Nits: Despite promising the truth, neither this movie nor the "Truth at 1013"on the soundtrack explain one key part of the plan. We know that the colonists gave the Consortium the recipe to produce alien human hybrids, but why? What function do the hybrids serve? It seems to me that they're more trouble than they're worth, since the Samanthas and the Kurts both went renegade to some extent.
So, uh, did Agent Diana (the Ex-Mrs. Mulder???) from "The End" (the title of a Doors song, and this movie features "Crystal Ship"...hmmmm....) die or not?
35000 BC? The exact year? Yeah, okay, I'll accept that, but why not just say "35000 years ago", so we know that it's an approximation?
The film's biggest coincidence - Mulder decides out of the blue to check out the wrong building for a bomb. Despite the fact that the federal building is flanked by other skyscrapers on all sides, Mulder decides to check the RIGHT wrong building. And to compound the coincidentality of it all, he finds the bomb by accident!
Darius Michaud bears a striking resemblence to the sheriff from "Aubrey" (the name escapes me), not to mention Peter Watts of "Millennium".
In case you missed it, Scully's cell phone number is 555-1013.
So the baddies just made those kids "promise" not to tell anyone? I guess the Consortium couldn't risk killing them, but don't they have some sort of mind-alerting thingamajigs? What was that bee doing on Scully? We have to assume that it wasn't just an accident, that the Consortium planted it there, but when did they have the opportunity? Or was it a coincidence and they just seized the opportunity?
Incidentally, that's got to be the world's quietest bee.
Not a nit, just housekeeping- it's now apparent that the smallpox-carrying bees were just used for a dry run, and that the black cancerbees are the real deal.
And a neat touch - the mine from "Paper Clip" was owned by the Strughold Mining Corportation. I guess Strughold is a bold man to use his name so openly.
It's a shame Mulder doesn't carry a camera any longer. He could have taken some great pictures in this film!
I wonder if Mulder can find out Well-Manicured Man's name now. His car bomb should certainly make the papers.
Who is Kurtzweil and where does he get his information? So Mulder can get from D.C. to Antarctic in two days, rent a landrover, and attract zero attention? Impressive.
What's more, how come no one in Antarctica's breath shows? I'm still trying to figure out how contamination inside the saucer causes an earthquake (I guess aliens don't believe in RED ALERT!)
A telegram? Whoever sent it must have been a romantic. A phone call, a fax, or an email... all of those things are easier to arrange and have far better security.
And isn't it nice that the Consortium would go out of their way to place a digital readout on a bomb just where nobody is supposed to see it? How courteous of them.
Clay: One big nit I saw in a clip of the movie on TV. There shouldn't be mountainsto be seen in Dallas. I live near there.
Robert J. Woolley: Pretty cool show. I think the creators set us up for some degree of disappointment by making the series so consistently movie-like that it's hard to make an actual film feel qualitatively different. This is a compliment to the series, not an insult to the movie.
Surprisingly few nits. Maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention, or maybe I really need the Rewind and Pause buttons to spot 'em!
There were plenty of implausibilities and coincidences--in fact, the entire plot is driven by them. I'm mostly willing to let these go by without comment; I accept that this is a movie and suspend disbelief. But one of them really bugged me (no pun intended). The last third or so of the movie is driven by the conspiracy arranging for Scully to be kidnapped in an ambulance and whisked off to Antarctica. But this is precipitated by her being stung by a bee that had been--what?--sleeping (?) since the previous night. The elements were all in place waiting for her to get stung, intercept Mulder's call to 911, etc. This means that they had Mulder's apartment phone tapped. Which means that they expected her to get stung in Mulder's apartment building. How in the world couldthey know that she had a bee hitchhiking under her collar, let alone that it would sting her *right then*???
I think I also must have missed a fairly major plot point--again, maybe I'm dense. How is it that Mulder is being set up to take the fall for the bombing? They don't think he *set* the bomb, or conspired to, do they? (For if so, you'd expect them to arrest him, not hold an internal hearing.) Yeah, so he violated protocol and searched the wrong building; he found the bomb, for goodness sake--how could that make him anything but the hero? It's not his fault 5 people died in the blast (well, at least as seen by the investigating committee). (Note from Phil: From what I gathered he also violated protocol in that he left the other guy alone with the bomb. I assumed that upper-management wanted to use the ploy "Well . . . if he had stayed around and helped, the bomb wouldn't have gone off and there wouldn't have been millions of dollars in damage.")
And now for the nits.
From when we see the bomb clock read 35 seconds, I counted about 46 seconds before it detonated. (This was just mental counting, so don't expect precision.)
During the hearing, M&S have a chat in the hall. In two consecutive shots of Mulder, he is out of focus. I don't think this was just the projection in my theater, because a shot of Scully in between is in focus.
Scully seems, without much doubt, to wear a bra to bed. Never can tell when you'll have to jump out of bed, get dressed fast, and go chasing aliens!
At Dr. Kurzweil's apartment, we see his medical journals. There's an oddity here. There are two main obstetrics journals in the US. The American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology is commonly called the "gray journal" because it has used a gray cover for decades. Similarly, the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology is commonly called the "green journal." In the stack of journals, we first see a copy of the former of these, but they have changed the title to something like the "National Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics," while retaining the typeface and color and general style of the real gray journal. Mulder (I think) moves this out of the way and we see the one underneath, which appears to be a real, unaltered copy of the green journal. Why did they change the title of one but not the other?
Scully's infection control procedure still need a lot of work. After cutting into a body infected with a virus--whose mode of transmission she admits she doesn't understand--she uses the gloved hand to answer her cell phone, hold it to her ear, etc. Not to mention the exposure to possible air-borne contamination.
During the conversation in Mulder's hall, there's a reverse shot of Mulder (over his shoulder) where his mouth keeps moving for a couple of seconds after he stops talking (by the dialogue track).
Mulder finds Scully frozen and infected and tied into some sort of alien-virus life-support system. He breaks into her cell, gives her the vaccine, pulls her out, and gives her his parka to warm her up. She appears at least topless, if not fully nude, in the cell. But in shots after he puts his parka on her, she is also wearing pants and shoes. The official movie magazine has a still that shows her wearing these items as she is pulled out, so maybe I missed that. But either way we have a puzzlement. If Mulder dressed her lower half, when and how? If he didn't, why was she made topless for freezing but not bottomless? (This is not to say that I *wanted* her to be either one, just to point out that I can't see any logical reason for being half-naked; if she were either fully clothed or fully naked, it would sort of make sense.)
Brian: In short. A very entertaining movie. Probably the best movie I have seenthis summer, the big dud of one it's been. I haven't watched much of the X-Files in the last, oh, 5 years, but I started to get back in it this pastseason.
So without further adue, here are my nit submissions.
The young boy fell some distance. I'm no expert, but I think if someone fellthat distance they would break, crack, or puncture something. Not just getthe wind knocked out of them. Also, has NO ONE stepped on that paticular spotin the last 35,1998 years to open the cave?
I knew there was something up with that soda machine the second I saw it. Ithad that rather odd "Buy Cola Here!" front graphic, rather than a Coke orPepsi graphic. But a few things are odd about this. 1. Mulder asks if Scullywants Coke or Pepsi. Now both of these products are very different, withvastly unique tastes, and with drinkers who prefer one over the other. Mulderhas known Scully for 5 years now, and he dosen't know whether she likes Coke or Pepsi? 2. 90% of the time, for obvious reasons, only one brand would have a vending machine in a building.
The bomb is odd too. There seems to be several pounds of C-4 in it. Plusthree "jugs" of "explosive liquid stuff" in it. Seems to me the bomb shouldhave been more devestating than it was. And, how easy would it be to evacuatea building that size in a matter of minutes?
The government isn't very conspicuos is it? A grassy park in the middle ofTexas wilderness? Corn feild in the middle of Texas wilderness and Tatoounie, somewhere or another.
Amazes me how far Mulder and Scully can drive w/o running out of gas.
Amazes me how Mulder and Scully can get out of a jam between sceen changes.(trapped in cooler, middle of Antartica.)
Amazes me how Mulder can jump out of bed and go running around after being SHOT IN THE HEAD!! Granted it was little more than a flesh wound, but come on.
OK the big one. Antartica is a pretty cold place. Mulder seems fairly well covered, although his face and ears aren't protected. When he arrives. But later on he takes off his coat and gives it to Scully, who is wearing that and her flimsy suit. With her recovering illness (she's getting alot of these mysterious government diseases isn't she?) wouldn't last very long in the cold. I could be wrong, but in temperatures as cold as they are in Antartica a person would only last a few minutes, half-hour at the most. And being wet only compounds the problem, as water will transmit heat, or lack there of, into the body much more efficently than air.
Shane Tourtellotte: Well, I saw it. I may or may not comment on the movie itself later, but for now, here are the nits:
North Texas, 35,000 BC. Had humans crossed the Siberian land bridge by that time? The figure 30,000 years keeps popping into my head.
Am I hallucinating, or did one of the kids who discovers the hole look a *lot* like young Wil Wheaton? Could ST-TNG and time travel be involved in this somehow? Aaaaaahhhh ... (Note from Phil: Don't think that was Wheaton. You have to remember that Wil Wheaton doesn't look like Wil Wheaton anymore! Snicker, snicker ;-)
Why is Scully explaining psychology to Mulder, who's supposed to be a serial killer profiler and thus should know more psychology than her?
Why wouldn't the FBI have evacuated *both* federal buildings, if there was a bomb threat in one. Even forgetting they're similar places, likely to be interchangeable to a mad bomber, isn't their serious risk of collateral damage? When they do find the bomb, Scully orders an evacuation of a *one-mile* perimeter. They should have done something like that lots earlier.
Not that it was their greatest concern at that moment, but there were no airbags in the Dallas patrol car in which Scully and Mulder fled the federal building bombing. Coulda used them, IMHO.
How did Mulder get out of the building with the dead firemen to see Kurtzweil(sp?)? He had to pass a security guard to get in. Did he leave by the fire escape?
Bones and fossils are not the same thing. *Very* briefly, fossils are mineral deposits left behind as bone material decomposes over millions of years. Of course, the FBI guy in Dallas might not know this, but do I remember Scully referring to them as fossils herself? In the final meeting, perhaps?
Note the screen text: "London, England -- 6:47 pm." We got a 47 on the big screen. Yay!
When the train carrying the unmarked tankers passes Mulder, there are three tankers in a row. As the train recedes into the distance, there are two.
Now really, just *why* were Scully and Mulder let go by the black helicopters? Yes, it lets the baddies theoretically isolate Mulder by detaching Scully from him, but why not just kill them? "To keep Mulder's obsession from becoming a crusade," you say? Presumably, Mulder's mysterious disappearance would get people scratching their heads, wondering if he was on to something. So why not fake a more mundane death for him and Scully? Have them 'die' together in a motel room fire, say? People then would just shake their heads and say, "I knew they were doing more than chasing aliens in that basement office." (Yes, that's naughty. So sue me.) (Note from Phil: And since the conspiracy doesn’t seem to be above smeared someone's reputation and since Mulder has a penchant for erotic, the mind reels at the possibilities! Wait, never mind, we shouldn't be thinking about stuff like that. Forget I mentioned it.)
How long does a bee live after it stings? Scully's fella lasts several seconds. Another fact to check.
Boy, Byers takes a lot of abuse. First Mulder announces his desire to strip him naked in front of Skinner and the other Gunmen, then when he does get outside, he just shucks Byers's jacket and leaves it on the street. Nice way to treat a friend, Fox. (I guess everybody just naturally hates 'suits'.)
Someone may point out that vaccines are meant to prevent diseases, not cure them. This is not quite true. Rabies vaccines can prevent onset of rabies in a person already infected, if administered promptly--just like the Black Oil vaccine.
I could also go into a long argument over whether a virus could really be able to construct itself into a full-sized creature, but I think I'll just file it under "RRRI", for "really, really, really improbable".
Nobody ever bothers to explain to us how Mulder gets to Antarctica in 48 hours, or manages to borrow Dad's snow-cruiser for a joyride.
When Mulder runs out of gas, his GPS device shows him at exactly the coordinates the Well-Barbecued--er, Manicured Man gave him. However, the secret base is a couple miles from there. That's a few minutes of longitude or latitude, so WB--er, MM's coordinates were wrong. Odd to give someone a precise location from which they can climb a mountain and spot the place they're really headed toward.
And what's with Mulder's exposed face and hands? It's *Antarctica*, for Pete's sake. Dress for it! Okay, the sun's out, so presumably it's summer--oh wait, that's *another* thing! If this is happening in the usual timeline(show time roughly matching Real Time), it's summer back in D.C. That means it's winter in Antarctica, and winter that close to the South Pole means darkness. The sun will barely peek over the horizon, if at all. Yet it's brightly lit all the time Mulder's there.
Boy, Scully certainly was active and able to clamber around a minute after being brought back from clinical death.
And did you note the location given for the new secret base. "Foum Tataouine"--the very place name George Lucas read from a sign while scouting locations for "Star Wars", after which he named Luke Skywalker's home planet: Tatooine. Just more candy for us Science Fiction types--and a small gift after the hope of a Star Wars prequel trailer was dashed.
One more thing. The Charcoal Briquette Formerly Known As The Well-Manicured Man speaks of expecting humanity to be enslaved by the alien creatures, and is horrified that they might instead become disposable incubators. My question is: what's in it for these guys? It sounds from him like they're all willing to go into perpetual servitude to the aliens. Why? No power, no riches, no harems for them, just cede control to the UFO-flying oil slicks. What could conceivably be their motivation? What worse terrestrial fate could they be averting this way? They can't be using the Black Menace to counter the Red Menace: they said the fight against communism was a front. What, then? I don't understand.
That's it for the nits. As for the movie itself ... I had the same thought I did while walking home from "Star Trek: Generations": that I'd just watched a photographically enlarged version of the TV show. Not that that is bad--I liked both films--but it's an odd feeling.
Chris Carter really likes to play with our heads. Notice how the damage to the Dallas federal building is so similar to that done to the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City in 1994. That could *not* have been coincidence. Perhaps it was easier to pattern a special effect after the real-life occurrence--but you just know he was hoping to cause a twinge of paranoiac deja vu, to get you wondering ...
I was pleasantly surprised that the movie actually did answer a couple questions, but really no more than a TV episode could have. For instance, now we know why bees were bred to carry smallpox: it was a test of virus-carrying ability, to be followed by the real payload. Oh, and to interrupt nascent intimate moments between Special Agents of the FBI. I begin to think we'll see the takeover of Earth by black slime before we see Scully and Mulder kiss.
I guess I'm done. But please, if anyone can explain the Syndicate's motivation, I'm all ears.
John Latchem: When Mulder visits Dallas the second time the investigators of the blast tell him they sent the bodies to Washington. Okay. So they didn't notice that the bodies were covered in slime? Did this slime appear after the explosion? If that's the case then why bother to try to burn them?
I have a nit to throw your way, Phil. You identify the movie as "Fight the Future," but the title of the movie is twice shown as "The X-Files." "Fight the Future" was a working subtitle, but in the end is merely an ad slogan, although its useful in distinguishing the film from the TV show in the grand scheme of things. (Note from Phil: Yup! But . . . the website for the movie is www.fightthefuture.com. Hmmm.)
I'm interested in how the events in the movie will be incorporated into next season. Will they proceed assuming everyone has seen the movie? But not everyone will have seen the movie. I'd imagine some exposition that refers to it, but that's going to have to be some heavy exposition. I also find it interesting that the film's running time of 122 minutes can be broken down into three 40 minute segments, which is about the length of an episode, which might be something to consider for syndication purposes (but I doubt that's how it'll end up).
Scott Padulsky: For the record, I really enjoyed the movie. I don't have a nit but I just wanted to say that I knew as soon as Mulder walked into that vending area that the soda machine was the bomb. How? Well, the machine was just labeled a generic "Cold Drinks" rather than Coke or Pepsi or something and I figured no soft drink company would pass up the product placement unless they had a good reason. Avoiding having a soda machine with your name on it being a bomb seemed like a good enough reason :-)
Melanie F. Koleini: I just saw the X-Files movie. I thought it was great. I'd have to see it again to spot all the nits though. Only two nits really caught my attention.
6/22/98 Update (Note: It's not my intention to upload the full content of everyone's message. If a nit has been picked--especially if it's been picked more than once--I usually don't "re-list" it. Although, I will usually always upload general commentary about the film--i.e. "I liked it," "I didn't like it because . . .")
Jason Allan Haase: I really enjoyed this movie! Lots of humor, action, and mystery. I think the subtitle for this one should be "When Aliens Attack!" A takeoff on all those Fox shows "When Animals, bees, cars, etc. Attack!" *Usually* the aliens who appear on the X-Files are a kinder, gentler type of being. I know there are a *few* exceptions to this. But all in all when an alien would be seen(or barely seen), all they do is stand or scamper around looking cute. The aliens in this movie are vicious things.
I'm not sure I see how the season(especially the season finale) *really* led up to this movie. Oh sure, they say the X-Files are shut down. But they don't say "burned" down. I believe because last summer the writers hadn't come up with that idea yet. The only time in the series that I remember anyone saying "the X-Files are closed down" was at the end of the first season.
I don't see how this movie couldn't have happened at ANY time during the series. The only things that were referenced from the series' plots were the oil slick(black cancer) and maybe that agent that got blown up at the beginning. He looked familiar, was he in a few episodes? Of course the Lone Gunmen are from the series as well. But they were there only as cameos if anything.
There was nothing about Cancer Man maybe being Mulder's father. Or how about that young agent on the series who Cancer Man said was his son. Where was he? What about Mimi Rogers' character? I thought that since they were such a big part of the "cliffhanger" that leads up to the movie, that they would at least make a Lone Gunmen-type cameo.
Don't get me wrong! As I said before: I *really* liked this movie! It made me flinch a few times, and it made me laugh a lot. It had lots of great special effects as well. I thought the corn field in the middle of the desert was really cool looking. I plan on seeing it at least once more in theaters, if not more. I'm also already planning to buy the widescreen version when it comes out on video.
David Tayman: Outside the bar, right before he meets the guy played by Landau (Kertsweil?), he sees an ID4: Independence Day poster. Contradiction city here! In ID4, when the cable went out, thee's a quick scene of a cable operator talking to someone on the phone. He says something like, "Yeah, I like the X-Files too, I hope you get to see it.". Perhaps Carter was giving homage to the movie because they first gave homage to him?
Tim Thompson: Some people objected to Mulder's offer to Scully of Coke or Pepsi -- he should have known by now what she likes to drink, there wasn't a Coke or Pepsi machine there, etc. However, what he actually gave her a choice of was "Coke, Pepsi, or saline IV?", so he was really just saying it to make a joke. As for the generic "Soft Drinks" machine, it's not hard to believe that such a machine could be owned by the building and stocked with different brands of drinks... but its presence there was a big tip-off to us as to the location of the bomb. One wonders why the bomb installers didn't plug the thing in, too.
When Well-Manicured Man shows up to kill Kurtzweil (sp?), his car is driven up into the alley facing them. But when Mulder comes out of the bar, he sees them shutting the trunk (presumably with Kurtzweil's body in it), which is now facing his direction. So either before or after disposing of Kurtzweil, the driver backs the car all the way out of the alley, turns around, and backs all the way into the alley. I'd have just dragged his body to the back of the car instead.
They sure pick weird locations for these cornfields. Why don't they just buy up a few thousand acres in Iowa or somewhere, instead of repeatedly sticking them in the desert where they'll stick out like a sore thumb on satellite imagery?
I'm no entomologist but to me that honeybee looked like it still had its stinger after it supposedly stung Scully.
Jo-Hanna Goettsche: Since it may not seem obvious after all the comments I am going to make, I will say it now. I LIKED THE MOVIE. Even at evening rate price of seven dollars.
A couple of observations: 1) One of the fellow nitpickers notes that Scully must have been wearing a brassiere to bed. Well, I wasn't paying that much attention at that :-). However, I have seen "sleeping bras" sold in catalogs. In some cultures, women do wear bras to bed.
2) Speaking of undergarments...didn't the whole building to control the black cancer look like the cups of a brassiere? (OK, enough about that) (Note from Phil: Boys will be boys. There is some imagery that just appeals to us! ;-)
3) When Mulder is at the hospital, wearing a hospital gown, he is visited by the Lone Gunmen and Skinner. He has Byers (the bearded one who wears a suit) switch clothes with him so he can leave the hospital in company of Frohicke and Langley. Meanwhile, Byers gets to stay at the hospital in a hospital gown. How is Byers going to get out of the hospital? For how long can he impersonate Mulder without someone noticing? Next mention of symptons in Mulder's chart: "Patient unexplicably has grown a full mustache and beard, changed faces, and healed wound."
4) About Scully going from being naked to suddenly acquiring a winter wardrobe: OK, we see Mulder donating his parka. My guess is that Mulder also (offscreen) donated an outer pair of pants (Back when I was a grad student in Illinois and completely unprepared for the realities of windchill, I usually wore baggy jeans and a pair of leggings underneath) and his socks (they DO look incredibly thick).
5) How does the bee that stings Scully get preserved? OK, our heroes are about to kiss, and then Scully gets stung. She finds the guilty bee, starts detailing all her symptons (pain, funny taste in the back of her throat, the mention she is not allergic to bee stings) and passes out. When the ambulance comes to get Scully, Mulder is shot and left unconscious in the middle of the street. IS IT POSSIBLE... that offscreen while the ambulance is coming, Mulder takes the trouble of finding the bee and a proper vial to store her? It must be another case of "Somehow, It Happened Off Screen" or SIHOS principle.
6) At times during the series, Mulder has come close to uttering an expletive, but is cut mid-word so the episode can be shown in one of the networks at prime-time. Perhaps the movie was made and given an R-rating (I DID notice several children at the movie. Don't people pay attention to ratings?) just so Mulder can cuss at freedom. (Note from Phil: Actually, I think the movie was rated PG-13, wasn't it?)
That's it. I LIKED THE MOVIE.
Ned Raggett: One of your not-regular-at-all correspondents here -- in that I haven't written in months, probably longer! Dunno if you've started getting _X-Files_ movie comments yet, but here's the one I'll offer up: I'm still trying to figure out how Mulder gets to Antarctica. I don't mean the exact means of transportation -- if he had 96 hours, thus 4 days to get there, I know it can be done these days without a problem. But how does an agent currently under review regarding a domestic terrorist incident, and already well known to be something of a loose cannon [well, as loose as the generally low-key Mulder can get], pull off a request to go down to Antarctica for no stated reason whatsoever [presumably], not to mention using what is also presumably a government-owned snowmobile to get to where he's at? Unless we want to accept that the Well-Manicured Man [RIP] arranged everything beforehand for him, which I could see happening, but still. And did the disappearance of Scully during this review process while she was on ice for 4 days or more raise no comment? Call me curious! If it weren't for the fact that the end of the movie suggests that the review was still continuing throughout, I wouldn't wonder so much!
That said, I did thoroughly enjoy the fact that the location of the new bee base at the end of the movie was called something like "Om Tatouine" in Tunisia -- the country where they filmed the Tatooine sequences for _Star Wars_ and the new Episode I. Nice touch...
Murray Leeder: The black cancer appears to penetrate Stevie's skin directly (as it did with several people in "Tunguska/Terma"). That's surprising, given that sewing a person up, as seen in "Patient X/The Red and the Black" seemed quite effective. Can they get in but not get out? (Note from Phil: Either that or the hybrid aliens have tougher skin.) Yet another big coincidence is that Mulder and Scully just happened to be on this particular bomb threat. I can't imagine the Consortium would have set that up! A car chasing a train has shades of "The French Connection". From what I've heard, only certain bees die when they sting. We can figure Scully's tagalong was an exception (and I still hold that the only sensible reason for it to be on her was that it was planted somewhere along the line, and Mulder was meant to figure that it had been along for the ride the whole time). Did that gunman have the intent of killing Mulder? Probably not, since we had Well-Manicured Man agree to protect him earlier on. He must be one great shot to shoot the side of his head and not do too much damage! On the other hand, if he did kill him, if the Consortium was defying WMM's wishes, why didn't he just stick his gun out the window and shoot him again? (Note from Phil: Because then there wouldn't be a sixth season.)
Kevin Loughlin: One thing I want to get off my chest - this crazy pop machine/bomb. Various folks have posted about how sill a generic 'Cold Drinks' machine looks. I'd like to respond.
1. Despite the fact that Mulder mentioned both brands, neither is usually shown on a machine in a Hollywood production unless there's some product placement going on. The generic machine is, really, the best way out.
2. Such machines exist in the real world. At my college, we have a very similar 'Cold Drinks' machine that, yes, provides both Coke and Pepsi.
There, that's my rant.
A side points about it: If the machine was unplugged, why were the fluorescent tubes still glowing? (Note from Phil: Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding . . . my thought as well. Unless the batteries for the bomb were powering the lights.)
And some other things:
I love how Mulder quite literally... sullied the image of a film in the same genre: Independence Day.
Did anyone get a close look at the written coordinates? Is the location actually in Antarctica? If not, as I suspect, it explains a lot. If they originally intended the scenes to take place in the arctic and only changed the title at the last minute, then: -Mulder could have gotten there in 48 hours much easier -He could have rented the snow-tractor easier, and not been obtrusive -It would have been sunny -I would not have been as cold. I don't believe the setting is explicitly given, other than in that flashed-up title. Any other similar-minded theorists? (Note from Phil: I believe on of the coordinates was eighty-three degrees south which would put it in Antarctica.)
I, too, am puzzled by the Syndicate's motives. Why are they involved with slavers and conquerors? Promised power? Obviously, that's a bit of a pipe dream considering what they're capable of, so it's very obfuscating. (What this show does to one's vocabulary...)
I always knew Byers' suit would come in handy, despite Mulder's treatment of it.
Brian T. Henley: Aw, bummer! ya started the fun without me! I'd just like to say that it was a great flick! Lotsa fun! the continuity was great! So were the details! Mulder snarfs on his sunflower seeds! The victims of the black cancer look like the same guys we've seen in the episodes! Yay!! June 19 was my 22nd birthday, and It's always fun to see a flick opening day. The Last time that happened was in 1992 with Batman Returns.
For interrupting what promised to be the one of the most eagerly awaited screen kisses, I think that bee got his just deserts. Scully should have pulled the wings anf legs off of him before he died. Darn that bee!
And there are nits ..... Oh, yes there are nits ...
-- At the beginning of the flick, a rescue of the kid is attempted by the Metro/Rural fire Department. (at least that's what it says on the trucks) Hmm. Where is Metro/Rural on the map? Couldn't they invent a town name or something? Maybe they could have just called the place "Anywhere, Texas" and printed THAT on the trucks.
ATTENTION ALL NITPICKERS- Particularly those in Ordinance Disposal Units. I really need your help on this one. I'm no expert, but it seems to me that Mulder and Scully's chatting on cell phones whilst looking for a device was a BAD BAD BAD!! idea. I'm not a cop, but I do a lot of reading. This is an excerpt from the book "Pure Cop" by Connie Fletcher. The book contains almost nothing but interviews from Chicago Police Officers. Some of them are bomb techs.
" Static Electricity is the great danger in approaching a bomb. If it's electrically initiated, you can set a bomb off just by walking across the carpet, or having too much nylon on your body. We had a woman bomb tech for about a year; she could never wear pantyhose. You try to wear crepe soles; crepe soles are best for crossing a carpet. We were cotton coveralls because cotton doesn't generate electricity. And there's no metal on these coveralls at all, whatsoever. We have static wrist straps to take the electricity and put it in the ground. We turn off our radios when we approach the device."
Sooooo, It would seem that looking for a bomb and chatting on a cell phone would be a bad idea, an idea that could have put an abrupt end to the phone call. Am I getting this right? Would cell phones be as dangerous as radios? Or are we talking about two different kinds of electricity? Can any bomb squad nitpickers help me out on this one? Do we have any? Please help - I wanna feel smart!
Was it really a good idea to put the bodies of the two firemen and the kid in the bombed building? I mean, the Dallas-Ft.Worth F.D is going to say that they didn't have any casualties in the bombing. Aren't people going to wonder who those firemen were? (Note from Phil: I think the bodies were being held in the building to begin with and the conspirators just blew up the building to cover the cause of death.)
I didn't really understand the de-contamination procedures in North Texas. Shouldn't the room where the technicians enter upon immediately entering the hazard zone (i.e the space above the hole) be sealed off from the environment?
Suspense essential stupidity comes highly into play here. I knew that moon- suit guy was a goner as soon as he decended into the well alone. I mentally yelled at the screen ... "No! Don't go down alone!!!!" "The being's out of the abdominal cavity! Run for it! The ladder! The ladder!" "Don't stand there LOOKING at this thing! Climb! Climb! Climb!" "No! No! No, whiz-kid! don't come back down! Up! Up! That-a way!" "Arrg! Told ya so." Some folk are just too dumb to make it through a flick. At least the above ground guys had some sense. Moon-suit guy cries for help and they don't even budge! ( And neither would I!)
Bombs and moon suits aside, I'd just like to say that Mulder has himself a cool set of binoculars.
- They appear to be nothing more then little Tasco field glasses (which only magnify four or five times) but they magnify a whole lot for binocs of that size!
- Mulder's first look through the binocs shows a medium shot of the tent- like buildings and the snow cats. The shot changest to a close up of Mulder looking throught the 'nocs'. Then the shot changes again to a look throught the binocs. Only now it's a much closer shot of Cancerman getting into the snow cat. Mulder's glasses has a zoom function? Gotta get me one of dose!
- On second thought, maybe not. Like all movie binoculars, Mulder sees two joined circles thought his glasses.
- These consortium agents drive their snowcats in perfect circles around the Antarctica site? Why? (BILC, of course)
True, we have to avoid the sleaze factor, but one is left to wonder where Mulder bought his change of clothes for Scully. He couldn't have thought of that while he was on the way down, because Mulder didn't know that scully was berift of wardrobe untill he saw her clothes lying in the chamber. But nonetheless, our virtuous agent manages to summon wardrobe out of nowhere to gallently clothe our heroine. (Note from Phil: As mentioned above, he could have been wearing multiple layers.)
This is the "In" door.
-- Keep your eye on step number "2".
Okay, we find Scully, cure her, cloth her, now it's time to escape up the pipe before the aliens hatch.
This is the "Out" Door
Okay, how're we going to get out of Antarctica now? There must have been a payphone at the local Starbuck's.
Boy, and we thought the USS Voyager had bad Security. Scully and mulder make it into the wierdest places unnoticed and unchallenged. The morgue ... the cornfield ... and the Hoth base (had to call it that ;) Cancer man said at the end that Mulder has seen too much. Well duh! Maybe if you posted a sentry or a guard or a minefiled here or there he wouldn't have. But I didn't even see so much as a "No Trespassing" sign!
Okay, about the kiss that wasn't ... Are we ever going to hear about it again? Probably not, but how is the audience supposed to believe their continued platonicy?
Scully: Well gee, Mulder, I was about to throw myself into your arms, but that darn little honeybee completely changed and rendered moot any feelings I have for you ...
I mean c'mon! I thought the end of "Small Potatoes" was tough to beleive - the part about the two of them "leaving it at that". The two of them ignoring that almost-kiss (a curse on that stupid bee!) is really getting silly! (Note from Phil: Well, it seems obvious at least to me that Mulder is in love with Scully. Either that or maybe he thought that she's in love with him and he was just trying to manipulate her into staying by pretending that he was in love with her--as opposed to the bimbos that he pays $3 a minute to talk to on the phone. ;-)
Eric Brasure: I didn't really notice many nits, I was too busy trying to follow the story! But I did notice one: when Mulder gets Scully out of bed to go "hunting", she's wearing makeup! Maybe there's more sexual tension there than previously thought.
Murray Leeder: If Isaac Asimov is an authority, then homonids were confined to Africa/Asia/Europe at 35000 B.C. ALso, does anyone know if the Ice Age reached Texas?
Joanthan Carter: Why did the conspirators call in the bomb threat? Scully said something about the usual methods of terrorists, but we know that in real life terrorists don't always call up and tell their plans. If the conspirators called to try to save innocent lives from the bomb, why didn't they tell which building it was really in? They had no way of knowing it'd be found.
That's actually a minor problem when you begin to wonder why they blew up the building at all. Martin Landau said they blew it up to hide the bodies infected by the virus. But the explosion actually brought attention to the bodies, and from what I could tell, the explosion did not damage the bodies in any way. Why not just burn them someplace secluded? Why not just bury them like they apparently did with the body the hatched the alien in the cave?
The conspirators change their minds quickly: in one scene they say that killing Mulder is not an option because it would encourage others to follow his work, but the very next day Mulder runs into John Neville, who (with his driver) was apperently sent to kill him.
The conspirators don't really seem to be bad guys; they want to save the world from the aliens but they know the aliens will make their movie if the general population finds out the truth. If they just sat down with Mulder, he might begin to understand their point of view. Of course, then things would get just like Dark Skies.
Alexander Shearer I saw the movie Saturday at Jack London square, in Oakland. Much nicer than the local UA (and it was entertaining watching all the little kids dressed in traditional Chinese clothes for Mulan).
First, in a somewhat unhelpful response to Shane Tourtellotte's question: Humans have been verifiably in North America since 12,000 BC. They could have been there much earlier, though 35,000 BC is much closer to the beginnings of Homo Sapiens Sapiens as a species.
I'm sort of surprised Mulder doesn't feel a little guilty about the death of the bomb-defuser at the beginning of the movie.With a mere 4:40 left on the handy digital timer, he wasted another twenty seconds or so arguing about staying or leaving, then in a staring contest. Since he didn't learn until later that the guy wasn't trying, you might think he'd worry if all that wasted time made the difference. Of course, there was no indicator that the bottles of explosive liquid were in any way actually tied into the bomb, so it's a little suprising that no one suggested removing them to reduce the damage.
In the breeder ship, faced by a bunch of hatching aliens, Mulder doesn't whip out his gun, either to defend himself or to hand off to Scully as he climbs. That surprised me. It also surprised me that a middle-sized clump of snow was able to disable one of those previously vigorous aliens.
When Scully temporarily stops breathing, the CPR and quick recovery are pretty implausible. CPR usually doesn't revive the person, especially not after one or two breaths and some desultory chest pushes. Of course, as in The Abyss, swearing at the victim seems to help. Or maybe Scully was just foolin'. :)
The whole virus/goop/bees/aliens thing needs a bit of explanation. We've seen that it apparently can move as the goop, insert itself into a person, and then begin the gestation process. It can also be transgenically inserted into corn, picked up in the pollen, and inserted by bee stings. This latter point is bothersome because of the "transgenic corn" bit. That implies a substantial...compatibility between the aliens and the corn. That aside (as we may assume that's why the slime guys picked the planet) -- why is the Consortium even working on a vector for this stuff? If even one of those bees gets loose early, and you somehow miss it, the world is a goner. They seem awfully eager to help the colonization effort. Did the well-manicured man really find the idea of having his children be slaves to an alien species all that palatable? This was a good movie for its own sake, but it reminded me why I don't usually bother to watch X-Files. There's a basic problem with "a few versus the conspiracy" plots, even if they're sort of gratifying, root-for-the-underdog setups. There are so many good ways to knock off any number of people without arousing undue suspicion. The line about one man's war becoming a crusade is just goofy. Who's going to pick things up if Mulder dies in a random car accident? No one else is even half as effective as he is at drawing this stuff out (...and this is my pet theory: they keep Mulder around as a sort of troubleshooter. He finds the leaks in their system; they plug them. Other than that, he's harmless). Regardless, a well-done film -- though I'd like to know if other people were in audiences that laughed through much of it (not maliciously...but a lot of it is pretty funny, like the Bee Sting Kiss).
Gareth Wilson: Several Nitpickers have complained about Mulder being insufficiently covered up in the Antarctica scenes. However, if it was the Southern Hemisphere summer he was probably OK. We have an Antarctica theme park in Christchurch which includes a refrigerated, snow-filled room that simulates the Antarctic spring. The participants are given jackets, but no face protection or gloves. I've gone in myself, and I was in no danger of freezing to death...
Jeni Gordon ( fan) and Mike Trudell (Married to one): Both of us Liked it! The Bees in the building was GREAT and scary, and there was a LOUD audience reaction when the scientist was buried alive with the creature! But, we have a few nits! From Mike: 1)When the little boy was taken by the black oil and the scientists, WHERE WERE HIS PARENTS?? There should have been at least one parent around asking questions about the dissapearance. You can NOT buy off a parent with a new playground and new bikes (especially a new playground without a sprinkler system -- wonder how long that sod will last?) 2) Mike is unsure about the coordinates of the South Pole station. When Mulder was on the rock hill, it seemed that the distance to the coordinates was too far! The distance between each degree of longitude at the south pole is less than in Washington, DC... 3) Did the Well Manicured Man actually get in the car before it exploded? from Jeni: Why was Scully abducted (again?) because she was important to Mulder? in Sleepless, Krycheck said that Scully was more of a threat than she appeared to be! And, didn't the assistant chief in Dallas wheel Cassandra Spender to Skyland mountain, why didn't Scully recognize him? She was at skyland mountain!
David Tayman: Did you catch it?! Didja?!Many times in tonights episode of the X-Files ("The Red And The Black"), the theme from the last track on the X-FILES movie score album CRATER HUG is repeated. The first appearance of the theme is right after the opening titles, and you see the view of the bridge. It's un-missable if you've heard that track on the CD. It's simply beautiful. So I wonder which he wrote first, the movie score, or the episode. I would be thinking the movie score, butcha never know.
Ryan Hunter: Just saw the X-Files movie. It was good, but I thought it could have been done better. I think they answered too many questions. Anyway, I enjoyed it, and that's what counts. Nits:
I also had a hard time figuring out the motives of the consortium. When an invading nation conquers a country, there's always a faction in that country called the fifth collumn that supports the invaders. Obviously, that's what the Consortium is. I suppose that they must just be a bunch of power-hungry men who don't really care about the human race. The Well-Manicured Man, it seems, couldn't stand to see the entire human race wiped out; he just wanted to rule them, so he gave himself up (and I'd imagine there were other members of the Consortium who did the same thing). It's a tenuous explanation at best, but here's what REALLY stumps me. How did the aliens find these men? How did they convince at least fifty or so men in positions of world power to aid them in subjugating the entire planet? Hmm...
The other thing I noted was this: The Consortium had ample opportunity to kill Mulder (and Scully), but they explain that away with a quick little line about stirring up a scandal or something. Okaaaay... I don't buy that for a second, but just for the sake of argument, I'll play along. At the beginning of the movie, Mulder was nearly killed in the bombing. If he'd rushed back in at the last second, or even if he'd hesitated a few more moments, he might have died. The Consortium planted that bomb, and they could have used their bomb guy (the one who was supposed to diffuse the bomb) to stop the explosion. But they didn't, even though they knew Mulder was in the area. It would've looked like an accident, sure, and, in a sense, it would have been, but they certainly could've killed him somewhere else and made it appear to be accidental. So why didn't they? I know, I know. Because then, the aliens would win, the human race would die, and, most importantly, there'd be no more television series ;)
BTW, the reason that the movie's web page is www.fightthefuture.com is probably because there's already a www.x-files.com (Note from Phil: Ah . . . but what happens when the next X-File movies comes out? How will we identify this one? "That first X-File movie"? "X1"? "Fight the Future"? ;-)
Shaun Foley: First of all, I really enjoyed the movie, because I like the mythology episodes... Even if it brought up new questions, it answered some, too. I decided to enjoy it the first time I saw it, but I did notice a few.
1. Doesn't anyone want to find out where that cave leads to?
2. When the bomb squad people were trying to get in, why not just burn off the part of the door surrounding thehandle, instead of going all the way down the middle? Of course I know the answer... BILC.
3. (In the first cornfield). Granted these bees are alien, or have something to do with the alien black goo, but don't most bees polinate(sp?) during the day? Why were they let out at night, unless they were a form of security... Even if they were, why didn't any bees follow them out? The scene went by sort of fast, so maybe I missed something.
Jeni Gordon: Why is Scully going down hills in BIG heels? Seems like it would make it VERY difficult to climb and run!
Greg Reed: The rooftop scenes in Dallas , well it wasn't Dallas, but Los Angeles. Having worked in downtown LA I know the skyline quite well.
Robert Woolley: [Concerning Murray Leeder's comments that the car chase scene had shades of "The FrenchConnection",] Very true. And of course the helicopters chasing our heros through the cornfield is reminiscent of Hitchcock's "North by Northwest." (Duchovny showed this clip on "Late Night," and Letterman said, "That looks like it's a tribute to "North by Northwest."" Duchovny chortled and replied,"'Tribute' is a kind way to put it!")
So, are there any other obvious film references/tributes/homages/ripoffshere?
[Also, concerning the coordinates for the location in Antarctica,] Last week's Newsweek magazine featured the movie. The reporter was apparently visiting Chris Carter the day they were working out the longitude and latitude for this location. Carter looked on a globe, and decided the ones they had originally picked were too far into the interior of the continent for Mulder plausibly to get there. So they changed them to what we have now. I haven't looked at my globe, but form this story I trust that they really are in Antarctica, and probably fairly close to its edge. (Some of us might quibble with Carter over whether this change turns implausibility into plausibility, but hey, at least they were considering the matter!)
Dave Tayman: The movie site has a new addy! While the front door to the site is still connected to http://www.fightthefuture.com it now leads you into http://www.xfilesmovie.com Why? Because the movie isn't called fight the future! Just a tag line! And they must have noticed the confusion ;)
Murray Leeder: In "Patient X/The Red and the Black", it was not only the hybrids but the Russian kid who had their faces sewn up. (Note from Phil: Oops, sorry, oops. I was confused there for a moment. There is the matter of the rebel aliens having their "passages" sealed, however, and I think there was even commentary from the conspirators that this was done to avoid infection.)
Peter Shu: I enjoyed this movie despite hopes that they would somehow answer some of the questions regarding Mulder's sister. Most of the nits I've seen have already been posted except this one, I think. When the car blows up and kills the Well-Manicured Man, how does it know when to explode? They get in the car, talk for a while, kill the driver, get out of the car, W-M Man gets back in the car, closes the door to activate the bomb, then BOOM? This must be some kind of really smart bomb or something. I suppose that the driver could have activated the device before he was shot, but who did he plan to kill? There seems to be no way that they would both get out and come back in the car and who's to say that the Well-Manicured Man wouldn't have chosen to get another ride since he shot the driver? I guess it's a question not meant to be answered. Enjoyable movie nonetheless!
Herb: Just saw X-Files feature film and overall was good, however: Just why was the bomb threat called in the first place? There was never any danger of the bomb being diffused if it was found (since they had an inside FBI guy) so why the ruse with the bomb being in a different building altogether? Does not add up. And just why was Mulder across the street? They never said. Also, would an FBI agent really start screaming at the top of his/her lungs to evacuate a building and cause a massive wave of panic and hysteria? Maybe they would. Just asking. And Scully's bee sting. Are we to believe that bee traveled from Texas to DC then sting her and then be whisked away by the bad guys? Why were they so sure she would be needing an ambulance? And I won't mention that Mulder showsup in Antartica or wherever without gloves. And Scully, who was naked at some point, ends up with socks when they reach the outside even though inside she was barefoot. I guess she had time to stop at Wal-Mart.
Brian Straight: First some un-nits.
(( regarding the "Fight the Future" subtitle). "Fight the Future" is obviously not the subtitle. Why? Because it wasn't used in the opening title card. Only "The X-Files" was shown.
(( regarding the bee not losing its stinger )) Not necessarily a nit. I was once "stung" by a bee, but the instnat i felt the pain of the sting i jerked my hand, before the bee had a chance to completly insert its stinger. Apparently the same thing happened to Scully.
(( regarding the preservation of the bee )) The Lone Gunmen tell Mulder in the hospital they found a bee in his hall. Perhaps they placed it in the vile and later gave it to him. (side nit) The nitpicker refers to the bee as a "her." It's my understanding that the only "her" bees are queens. I know, pick, pick, pick.
(( regarding how Mulder got to Antartica while under review )) Maybe he got Skinner to pull a few strings for him? Skinner did say before Mulder leaves the hospital that he'd be willing to get Scully.
(( regarding the lights in the bomb )) It's possible they could have been powered by the bomb batteries, but why go to the expense? Why waste that much more space where you could place more explosives? The machine ha its own power supply, you don't need to provide your own. Of course, the answer to this is because if the bomb did use the machines power supply (i.e. if it where plugged in) Mulder would never discover it was the bomb.
(( regarding Antartica's (S. Hemisphere) Summer )) An out for the creators! But they blew it. It was summer in the Norther Hemisphere, thus winter in the southern hemisphere. While on the roof Mulder and Scully both complain about it being "hot as h****." I'm not sure what the climate is like in Texas, but I doubt even the hottest winter day can be described as such. So, it would bewinter in Antartica, and therefore VERY cold!
Now a couple new nits.
I picked these up on a second viewing.
The people in the black helicopters searching for Mulder and Scully should of had some night vision goggles, or heat detectors. So they shouldn't have been searching rather franticly for our heros.
I'm begining to think the number "47" is a global conspiracy in itself. This number occurs too many times for it to be random, even in everyday life. In fact right now! As I type this it's 10:47! A car I was behind today on my way to work had a 47 in it! My pre-assigned PIN number (since changed) on my bank card had a 47 in it! Star Trek is littered with 47's. And even the X-Files movie had some! One no one else may have noticed, the bartender, after Mulder describes what he is to her (funny, funny, line too!) she says "86" is his lucky number. 6 times 8 is 48. Mulder then remarks that "one is the lonliest number." 48 less 1 is.....
Ron Saarna: Well, I loved the movie. And it was strange actually being an action film, considering that the only action we see in the series is usually moving flashlights. But the scene of Mulder taking his little slide in the spaceship reminded me too much of Romancing the Stone. Now as for my take on the Consortium, here is how I figure their motives, if only to keep my sanity: The reason that the Well-Manicured Man was upset that they wouldn't be slaves and instead harvestdevices is because they have been diligently working on the vaccine to keep their own power intact. If they had a defense against the aliens, they wouldn't mind sharing power. But with the tables turned, and the aliens true agenda known, it was time to panic...at least for the Well-Manicured Man. He was hoping to help his children. Perhaps the rest of the Consortium believes that they can still gain control. Anyway, that's my way of sleeping at night.
Joshua Truax: As many of you know, I'm not exactly a religious viewer of the X-Files TV series. Still, I wanted to see what it was like on the silver screen, so I went to see it on its opening night. It turned out to be exactly as most critics had described it. That is, that it may have been a feature film with a SPFX budget to match, but it was clearly written as if it were just another episode of the TV series. That, plus the use of a number of alien-invasion and conspiracy movie cliches (black ooze, black helicopters, etc.) should have made "The X-Files" a hilariously bad movie -- but it didn't. It wasn't a great movie by any stretch, though, either...
Since I'm not an X-phile, I'll leave the heavy-duty nitpicking for those who are. I did notice one odd thing, though. In the final scene, there is a telegraph message that reads:
X-FILES REOPENED STOP PLEASE ADVISE STOP
Note the hyphen in the word "X-Files". I always thought telegraph messages were always transmitted in Morse Code. I also always thought that Morse Code only covered the letters of the alphabet -- no numerals or punctuation. If this is true, then how can "X-Files" be hyphenated in this telegraph message?
Kathryn Lewis: Just 2 little thing that make Chris Carter terrific! Scully's phone number 555-0113 (not 555-1013 - that one is probably for Mulder's cell.), but you see my point! The Well Manicured Man's license plate was, LA365. Remember now that this movie was made last year (1 year before the big move!), so that would be Los Angeles in 365 days (1 year!). Neat huh?!
Bob Woolley: Watching the repeat of "The Red and the Black" Sunday, I got to wondering: why does the vaccine work within seconds on Scully, but seems to take forever on Maria Covarubbias (sp?)? Did I miss something (again!)?
Andy Grieser: A couple of secondhand nits (I haven't seen the movie yet) about "The X-Files" film. First, there are no mountains anywhere near Dallas. Toward the northern Texas border, maybe, but north central Texas is long and flat. Second, the kids' accents don't fit the north Texas suburb (I think my friend said it was Plano) that they're in. Such thick accents are generally from west Texas. Sure, they could've all moved from there, but what are the odds? With some exceptions, Dallasites tend to have very neutral accents, probably as a result of the constant international traffic through D/FW. That's why it's often referred to as an East Coast city that got lost in the Southwest.
Joe Griffin: The first of many nits about nits, I'm certain.
[Concerning the reference to ID4 being a movie in the X-Files movie and The X-Files being a television show in ID4,] How is this a contradiction? In ID4's universe, X-Files is a show. In the X-Files universe, ID4 is a movie. And ne'er do the twain need to meet. (Note from Phil: Unless you happen to be a nitpicker who believes that everything that happens in the glossy world happens in the same universe!)
[Concerning Carter's "homage" to ID4,] I doubt it. Mulder pees on the poster.
Alice Basinski: Brian T. Henley didn't like Metro/Rural on the side of the rescue trucks. I believe it said Rural/Metro. This is the name of a company that contracts EMS units in many cities. It may sound made up but it's not!
[From Someone Identified Only as ReyEclipse]: Okay...just saw the movie, finally. Um...hmm...looks like you guys have already pretty much taken every nit I had thought of. But....that doesn't matter since I'm writing more for the purpose of clearing a few things up than for pointing out the nits in this movie.
First...I don't know if this is actually a nit, I think it's more along the lines of "I just don't get it." I've watched the series before, but not in depth enough so I could fully appreciate some of the events in the movie. Anyway, I just have a few questions, maybe someone can answer them briefly or something...
1) Didn't that guy that's always smoking get shot in the series? I realize they never found a body, but I must have missed the episode that explains why he's still alive. Can anyone give me a brief answer? (Note from Phil: The brief answer is: the creators wanted him to live.)
2) I really am missing the whole basis for this conspiracy. Let me see if I have it right : somehow, these group of senior citizens have been contacted by aliens, and informed that these aliens are going to release a killer virus to wipe out the human race leaving Earth open for colonization. Um...okay...so....why exactly are these guys conspiring to help out the aliens? What do they get out of it? And why don't these aliens with their amazing technology just conquer Earth by themselves? Why do they need these senior citizens to go carry out secret mysterious operations involving bees and giant bras. Why not just do one of them full-blown Independence Day style invasions? They obviously have the technology. Are we to believe these aliens who build spaceships of that magnitude are incapable of releasing this virus onto Earth without the aid of conspiring humans?
Okay...so...maybe for some reason they need the conspirators to help them conquer Earth because they have no means of releasing the virus other than with bees or something. Fine....but still, WHY are these conspirators helping them? Do they just realize colonization is inevitable and decide if you can't beat 'em, join 'em? Even so...what kind of an existence would that be, being human in a world of aliens, assuming that the aliens don't just kill the conspirators as well. How come they just secretly conspire for all these years and not actually do something about it. Well...yeah, they are trying for a vaccine. I can understand keeping it secret, to avoid general panic...but I just don't understand the whole basis for the conspiracy. Maybe I'm missing something, or maybe I just don't watch the X-Files enough.
3) And finally...this is just an opinion, I'd just like to say that the only thing that dissapointed me about this movie was the appearance of the aliens. It was so unoriginal. I want big tentacles and crazy insect like beings, not those boring big-eyed stereotypical gray aliens! =)
Melanie F. Koleini: On to what I forgot to put in my earlyer comments about the X-Files movie. These aren't real nits but I'm submitting them none the less. After the first exsplosion of the movie, Mulder and Scully were in big troble with the people up-stairs because they didn't fallow proceder and because of this (at least in their view) the bomb wasn't defused in time. Question: Why didn't anyone even menchon the fact that Mulder found the bomb while he was fallowing a hunch. If Maulder had fallowed corect procedure the bomb wouldn't have been found untel after the exploshion and hundreds of people would have died instead of 4. (Or was it 5? Well acualy only 1 person died, the others were already dead.) Maulder should have been hailed as a hero.
That Africanized honny bee had a great sence of timming. (But then, juging from the audience's reaction nearly everyone in the theiter knew it would.) Not only did it prevent some thing that is never going to happen from happening, it ruined the bad guys' plans and nearly got our heros killed. Scully was about to quit the FBI because they had tranfered her out of Washington. This would separate Maulder "from the thing without which he could not servive." (sorry, I can't remember the exact quote) But because the bee infected her with the viris, the men in dark suits had to kidnap her. Every time they do something to Scully, Maulder does everything he can to save her. Because of this, they desided to kill Maulder even if it ment turning him into a marter. (I dout the ambulence drive had spesefic orders to kill Maulder. If he had they would have let him on the ambulence then killed him.)
And as long as I'm on the subject of hurting Scully to get to Maulder; Has anyone else noticed how often it happens? She's been kidnaped at least twice and broght to the brink of death on at least three separate ocashions. It's close to becoming cliche. Like getting to Supper Man by hurting Louis Lane. Exept Maulder is no Supper Man. Or may be he is... Maulder's parents were involved with the goverment consperisy since before he was born. Could he be an early attempt at a human-alien hybrib? Maybe he has abilities he's not even aware of. Nah, it's to far feched even for X-Files. There are enoff threads in the X-Files story I don't need to start spinning my own.
Pauline Alama (with help from Paul Cunneen): We saw the X-Files movie yesterday. About what I should have expected: some nice moments between the characters, some amusing dry one-liners, some exciting escapes, and if the truth is out there, we sure ain't seen it. Just like a regular episode, only longer.
I may have missed some key logical connections, as I went into the theater with a slight headache which progressed to excruciating over the course of the movie, but as far as I could see, there were a number of plot holes. You already know my opinion of FEMA as a force for world domination, so I'll concentrate on other matters:
When the kid is stuck in the cave, his friends look down at him, see his eyes go black, get scared, and run away. How can they see him so clearly? He's a good way below them in an unlighted cave, while they have the sun above them. I wouldn't think they could make out his face at all.
How could blowing up the building be imagined to cover up the deaths of the boy & the firemen? It didn't even destroy the bodies (which a simple cremation could have accomplished, much more easily and cheaply). It certainly couldn't account for their whereabouts to people who would miss them at home; how would you explain what they were doing in a Dallas office building after they'd disappeared into a hole in the ground near a small town?
How did the Lone Gunmen know Mulder was in the hospital? Did Skinner notify them as Mulder's next of kin?
Neat trick of Mulder's to rip the tube out of his nose and the bandage off his head and be back in action minutes after recovering consciousness from being shot in the head. It must not be a very vital part of him.
I may have missed something in the larger plot, because my head was really throbbing during the conversation between Mulder and Well-Manicured Man, and I think I zoned out for a few crucial seconds. It sounded like they were saying that the black oil is an alien virus, but has actually been on earth longer than humans, but is now colonizing the planet. That sounds like a pretty slow invasion to me. Talk about thinking in the long term. How do you "cooperate" with this? Does the virus send messages to the conspiracy guys? Does it actually need anyone's cooperation?
As Paul observed, to judge by the folks Mulder found in deep freeze, the black oil only attacks white people. It may colonize most of North America and Europe, then, but not the whole world.
Final comment: When the conspiracy guys talked about taking from Mulder "that with which he cannot live without" [or some similar ungrammatical nightmare], I thought they were going to take away his cell phone. :-)
James Macklin: I absolutely loved all of the little stuff the creators put in we, the obsessive, to find. For example, ever so casualy, the it turns out that Mulder lives in Arlington and that Scully lives in Georgetown. I'm sure many other nitpickers all felt much better that that little datum was resolved, for now we can make sure all of the times Mulder or Scully race to each other's apartments align and make sense. Second, the magazine touched on the reference to "Foum Tatooine, Tunisia" at the end of the movie, explaining it as a gesture of respect to George Lucas and his Tatooine sequence. What they didn't mention is that not only is Tatooine in the "Star Wars" movies, but that sequence was actually filmed in Tunisia! That was terrific. Finally, I feel I should mention the "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" homage, when the UFO rises from the ice and goes through the cloud. This sequence was especially clever because they manage to visually salute Steven Spielberg while keeping the external design of the ship consistent with what we saw in the episode "E.B.E." Again, kudos to the creators.
Jason Gorel: *Script Revision* - - - Scene: Mulder and Scully have just escaped from the alien ship and both are on the ground watching it take off. Mulder is wide-eyed at having found definitive proof of life existing beyond Earth. Once the ship is out of sight, he turns to Scully...
MULDER: "Scully, how extraordinary! Actual proof of alien life! And we saw it firsthand. These past five years, always wondering if it was all just a wild goose chase, if it was all for nothing, now we know!"
SCULLY: "Uh, Mulder, where are we?"
MULDER: "Scully, you were stung by one of the carrier bees, it infected you with the virus. They took you to this place, this alien ship buried underground here in the frozen waste lands. They put you in some kind of incubation chamber. Fortunately I was able to get ahold of an antidote before it was too late. And now, we have just witnessed actual proof of extraterrestrial life."
SCULLY: "Incubation chamber, alien ship...Mulder what are you talking about?"
MULDER: "Scully! You just saw, right in front of you, an alien ship rise up out of the ice, almost carry us into space, and take off...tell me you saw it!"
SCULLY: "Mulder, to be honest, I don't know what I saw. Quite frankly, I remember coming out of the hearing room and speaking to you, that's it. As for seeing any alien ship, I really don't know what you are talking about." - - -
Watching the movie and seeing the actual scene unfold, I thought of this scenario. If it would have happened, it would not be totally out of character for Scully. During the last season, when the mass burnings were occurring, Scully saw alien ships and the men with now face openings. Afterwards, she remembers nothing, and even doubts herself after going to a hypnotist.
I just thought it would be a little humorous to see it in there. I would, though, keep Scully as the disbeliever. Now, she is a believer. It will be interesting to see how her character acts next season.
Jamie C. Roberts: I'm already a member, but I can't get this nit from the X-Files Movie out of my mind. While inspecting the body of the infected fireman, DR. Dana Scully describes his tissue as (phonetically) "adam-maitous." As a former health care professional, who taught medical terminology for two years, I puzzled over this word until I saw it spelled out in the novelization. The word is edematous, pronounced, "ed-em-a-tus," and describes a condition of swelling.
Methinks the good doctor needs a refresher course before refiling with the state board of medicine.
Melanie Roberts: When I went to the X-files movie with my mom, I found this mistake. A the end, at the last scene when CSM was in Tunisia, he went up to that guy, gave him the telegram and the guy dropped it. The telegram had the word STOP between sentences. STOPs stand for periods in telegrams. But after each stop and sentence, there was a period. I hope you like this one.
L. Sumrall: At last a safe haven for Nitpicking. I've encountered hostility wherever I post my nitpicks. For instance, my latest nitpicks about the movie "The X-Files: Fight The Future."
Scully travels all the way from Dallas, Texas to Washington D.C. (which I'm sure is a long flight), goes to a meeting (which was probably lengthy), then goes to Mulder's apartment, where we notice that it's dark again, meaning it's been at least 10 or 12 hours since they're encounter with the bee hives, and only now does the bee decide to sting Scully. It never once felt the need to go pollinate something, or fly away just to stretch it's wings. No, it stayed snugly in Scully's clothing until just the right moment.
Mulder gets from Washington D.C. to Antarctica in 48 hours. A fellow X-Phile (and I am a fan of the show, otherwise I wouldn't be nitpicking it, would I?) who's husband served in the Army in Antarctica, commented that in order for Mulder to travel that far that fast would need the assistance of the military.
Where'd Mulder get that snowcat to drive around in anyway? Is there a Hertz rental counter down there?
Mulder happens to fall through the ice in the right place and find an opening in the space ship to crawl in. Does this sound like a space-worthy craft, with holes in it's side? And not only does Mulder find a way in to this gigantic complex, but he enters at just the right place to see Scully's travel pod and know she's nearby.
Why did the vents on the bee hives open up at night? I'm no bee keeper, but I know I've never seen a bee flying around in the dark at night time.
Murray Leeder: Someone commented on a mistake in the movie in Roger Ebert's answerman column. Here's the URL - http://www.suntimes.com/output/answman/28eber.html Incidentally, the movie was dated September 6, 1998 from the telegram at the end (which could have been a while after the major action).
VY Boyd: OK, the Syndicate seems baffled by the fact that the virus has mutated. The Well Manicured Man himself tells Mulder that until Dallas they had no idea about the whole thing. And the gentleman who died in the cave, when he was on the phone, called it the "Impossible Scenario." Question: Why didn't they know about it?! They have an entire ship full of the things gestating in Antarctica! Do they simply never tour the facility? On top of this, the gentleman who died in the cave(hereafter referred to as "TGWDITC") asked Cancerman if they should "burn this one like we did the others." That implies they DID know about this before Dallas.
Scott Neugroschl: I had a big problem with the black oil AND with the aliens.
First of all, someone already commented on it, but the "weak vaccine" worked a lot faster on Scully than on Marita in Red&Black.
Now the aliens... They act like somehthing out of "Alien". What happened to the friendly little guys in "Paper Clip"? How come none of the other grays seen have the retractable claws?
The black oil has also changed... If the black oil has always been for alien procreation, how come Dmitri(?) in Pt.X/R&B or Marita (R&B) didn't start gestating an alien?
Why did the consortium/army destroy only the US cornfield/bee farm?
Andy Grieser: Glad to see my (secondhand) comments made it into the Brash Reflections. I finally say the X-movie last weekend. Our fellow 'pickers have covered most of the major nits, but I have some more Texas-related goofs:
First, an anti-nit of sorts. My wife swears they really were in Dallas on the rooftop (we live between Dallas and Fort Worth). She even picked out landmarks. I wasn't so easily convinced, though, and would have to see the movie again. Frankly, to me Dallas buildings look much more high-tech (glass and steel).
North Texas is prairie, not desert and definitely not mountainous.
Mulder mentioned that the cornfield was on the Texas border. Which one? They were just north of Dallas while inspecting the playground. Then they took off after the tanker trucks, and hit that dirt road at daylight. Not north or east Texas, because the cornfield is in the middle of the desert. That leaves west and south Texas. So the Oldsmobile Intrigue must include alien technology, because it takes more than 8 hours to drive from Dallas to either border. I challenge the Nitpicker Faithful to calculate which border they're on, based on gas mileage and shadow position. If I get more time, I'll try, too. More data: the sun doesn't set here until 8:30 or 9 in the summer, which it is, as our fearless agents comment on the heat (though a hot day elsewhere is considered pleasant in Texas).
Those kids' accents really are atrocious. They should be in a west Texas trailer park, not a north Texas suburb.
Gareth Wilson: There's been some discussion on whether a bee can be called "her". Almost all bees in a hive are female, not just the queen. The only males in the hive are a few "drones".
David Tayman: I can just picture Mulder and Scully in the theatre watching ID4. The scene comes where the cable guy says 'Yeah, I watch 'The X-Files' too. I hope you get to see it.' Mulder and Scully slowly turn towards each other, Mulder makes his terrified face. Scully's Jaw drops. Mulder then says, "What, is Cancerman now trying to make it look like we're crazy by making up a TELEVISION show about our work, making people think it's FICTION!" He then goes home, flips on Fox, sees this so-called X-Files show. "Man, Scully. They've got every detail down! The actors look just like us! Maybe this Chris Carter chap is a member of the Consortium?"
Kevin Sterner Commack: Speaking of film homages, such as the North By Northwest in the corn field, didn't the interview that Mulder and Scully did with the Texas kids remind anyone of Steven Speilberg's E.T. ? Just looking at smart-aleck teens on top of shiny new bikes not believing M/S are FBI agents because they are dressed like salesmen ?
Bob Canada: Saw the X-Files movie. It was ok. Seen better, seen worse. I'm not sure I would have liked it if I didn't watch the show. As usual, it raised more questions than it answered. One thing I didn't understand--The Well-Manicured Man gives Mulder the antidote and admits its only a WEAK version. Mulder injects it into Scully, and immediately the alien ship reacts by disgorging the contents of all its pods, activiating the ship and taking off for the heavens, or well, somewhere else at least. Wow. Hate to see what would have happened if he'd had a STRONG version of the antidote. Why would just a few ccs of liquid cause such a catastrophic reaction? What kind of security system is that? Wouldn't it make more sense if, when the ship detected the antidote in Scully's pod, it would isolate her pod and dump her and only her out? Seeemed a little extreme to me, but, who knows how aliens think. Mulder must also have some sort of animal-like homing sense--we see several shots showing us that the alien ship is vast and full of pods, yet Mulder is able to find Scully in only the third pod he looks thru.
Scott Neugroschl: Yet another question... Where does the black oil in "Piper Maru" and "Apocrypha" come from, and how does it relate to the black oil Tunguska/Terma/Pt.X/Red&Black/FightFuture?
In Piper Maru/Apocrypha, the black oil is like a possessor. The host is essentially shunted aside, and the oil is in complete control of the body. The oil also appears to be intelligent. Whereas in all the other black oil episodes, the oil appears to be mindless (or reproductive material). In any case, the oil of Piper Maru/Apocrypha is substantially different.
Meg Gillespie: First of all, i absolutely LOVED the movie. It had Action, Suspence, and the Freaky conspiracy plot.
I hated that Mulder and Scully didn't kiss. I'm one of those fans that just wants to see a relationship from these characters, kinda like I want a realtionship between Chakotay and Janeway, but thats a different story.
I can't belive that Mulder wasn't wearing sunglasses in Antartica. You have to when the sun is out down there because of snow-blindness. The snow can reflect the sunlight and be very blinding in the summer there. And as far as the nit where If it's summer ther it should be winter here, but it doesn't seem like winter, I have an explantion, blame El Nino It's being blamed for everything else in weather, even making winter, seem hot.
I remember when Mulder made his way onto the alien craft and I thought, "How's he going to get Scully? Look at the size of this place. He's never going to get to her in time." But lo and behold, there she is. He doesn't have to go running around to try and find her, but stroll around and convenlently, she's in the same hallway where he lands.
Also someone said that Scully was half naked when being lifted out of the tube. If my memory serves me, she didn't have on pants. I remember Mulder carrying her and her bare legs were showing. Also I think her pants were in that other containment tube that Mulder finds.
I really liked that part with the bees. They are in this Dome building and Mulder put his ear to the metal plates and then he says to run, And swarms of bees come up. That was a great moment.
Best line: You know that face I make when I'm nervous, well I'm making it now. Mulder to Scully on the phone, when he found the bomb.
My Dad pointed out, during the scene where the alien came out of the guy's stomach in the underground containment area, that the alien kinda looked like Spawn. I also thought that was a nice effect. We really couldn't see the alien totally, we saw it in deep shadows and the like, it gave a more eeire feel to it. You use your imaginaton more to try and piece together what the menacing alien looks like.
I thought it was clever to have the location of Tataotine(sp?) in the last bit of the movie. I almost yelled out "Star Wars is in the X-files" but i know that that would have been disturbing to the other people in the theatre.
I didn't like how people left the theatre. They left as if the movie was boring. They marched out of their seats up the rows and threw away their popcorn buckets. I almost got angry at these people. For me the movie thouoghly entertained me and I gave the movie the appluase it deserved, as for the others in the theatre they acted like it was just another movie. I also didn't like people bringing ther small children into the theatre ti see this movie. I was sitting in front of a family with ne kid talking through the entire movie and another one brought a baby in, and it started to cry. I can be toterant, but i couldn't let them go without a "Shhh". The movie expirence wasn't good, but the movie itself was fantastic.
Phil, I think you asked about if Texas would be in the Cold part of the Ice Age. No it wouldn't. I remember reading about the Ice Age, and I showed a map of where ice had once covered the land. Texas was no where near that. It could have been cold in Texas, but I don't think there would have been a blizzard going like it showed.
Paul Orrison: VY Boyd brings up a good point. Is Cancer Man running the Antarctica breeding op all by himself? It's feasible... or it could be that the Syndicate had no idea what was REALLY happening in the ship... but then what about the extensive computer monitoring system? "There's a contaminent in the system!" "Mulder's got the vaccine!" Not to mention humankind's natural curiosity, I bet at least ONE of those men had seen the gestating aliens.
Anti-nit for the bee under the collar: The bee may not only have been CARRYING the black oil, it may well have been CONTROLLED by it. Therefore, the alien-controlled bee would be very observant as to when would be a good time to sting Scully... right when she's about to kiss Mulder, and the black oil could get him too! Too bad its timing was a little bit off...
Anti-nit for the vicious alien at the end falling: the whole tunnel was collapsing under it, so it wasn't just one piece of snow hitting it. Plus, the alien creatures don't fare well in the cold. "We've brought the temperature to just below freezing. It seems to slow the metabolism and gestation of... it." (Or something to that effect). Point being, these things don't like the cold. (Why their base is in Antarctica is another matter.) So a large cold mass hitting it would pretty much stun it for a while.
Sharon D. Lee: First, I've noticed a couple of people have already remarked about the "primitives" seen in North Texas in the early scenes of the film (which I enjoyed, although it's no Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'). These folks seem to be in disagreement about whether there could've been humans in North America as early as "35,000 B.C."; and I, for one, don't know if there were or not. However, if there WERE humans on this continent at that time, they would certainly be ancestral Native Americans, NOT Neanderthals... an exclusively European racial group! Yet, that's the type of skull -- heavy brow ridges, big nasal opening, elongated cranium -- the boy discovers in the cave.
Perhaps that explains why Scully is so startled, when she looks at the recovered bone fragments under the microscope and notices there's something strange about them. It certainly can't be because she's "seen" the black-oil virus... because viruses are FAR too tiny, to observe under even the most-powerful light microscope! It would've taken an electron microscope, to distinguish viral material -- light microscopes are used for observing whole cells, not molecules like DNA or viral protein coats -- and to work such an instrument requires that the specimen undergo a LOT more preparation, than just sticking it beneath a lens, as we see Scully doing.
Finally, there's a question that breaks down the whole chain of logic behind the aliens' presumed plan to colonize Earth using humans as gestation-hosts. If they need hosts to procreate, why can't they use animals OTHER than humans...? If they can adapt to use human beings -- which, we've seen time and again, are biochemically very different from them; look at the hybrids, for examples! -- as incubators, they can surely adapt to use livestock just as easily. It'd make more sense to eliminate humanity altogether, and keep cattle for breeding purposes. That way, they wouldn't have everything from the jawbone-wielding Neanderthal at the beginning of the movie, to the Consortium's own covert vaccine research, out to stop them.
Marc Lowe: hmm.. of all the things, i can think of some anti-nit in each for each of them, but that would be too zealot-like of me... just like how I bought the score (not the soundtrack) weeks before the movie came out... but that is another story.
Well, I am surprised that no one found this... If only the syndicate (official name) guys would only get rid of those glowing white domes, then no body could find the cornfields. Why exactly did the bees have to be kept UNDERGROUND, right underneath glowing white domes? If the primary purpose of them is to pollenate the corn, why not simply have beehives every so and so feet, tied to a pole?
And if they would just put the cornfields in Iowa, then they would be set, wouldn't they?
Those silly Tunisians will work for anyone nowadays... sheesh (kidding! I really love Tunisians! Really!)
And, my friend predicted that in about 20 years, the X-Files sequel(s) (just like Star Trek) will have cornfields on Mars.
And I fail to see the practicality of having a GPS sattelite (or more than one) over Antartica. Who will be in Antartica (besides Mulder and the Sydicate men) besides researchers who have their own tracking methods/devices?
Simon Crowley with help from Jeff Albert: OK, in response to some questions: Shaun Foley asked why the dynamic duo were not chased by bees leaving the giant Jiffy-Poppers. :) In case you didn't notice as the couple entered, the domes were in negative pressure (lower pressure inside than out), so they would be sucked back in. Humans could run that hard, but bees aren't that strong.
To Peter Shu: The Well-Done Man went through a different door of the car than Mulder left by, so the bomb's contact points could have been there. Plus, he slammed it pretty hard.
Regarding Mulder's 911 call: I think the Syndicate tapped his phone, so they would be ready for everything.
Sorry, Brian Straight: "Six" was Mulder's lucky number; it was the number of whiskey shots he had had. (Isn't it neat that the song "One" is on the album?)
Oh, and another number nit: Mrs. Chris Carter's birthday is November 21. Did anyone catch the "11:21" time? (Plus, it's on _every_ digital clock in _every_ episode).
I don't think the movie was a two-hour episode; it seemed to have an entirely different mood than the TV series. I don't know if it was the wide screen, or the better music (Mark Snow outdid himself here), but it felt... _different_.
OK, now that that's out of the way.... I have a friend who is a _huge_ romantic. She is the world biggest 'shipper (relationshipper), and wants S & M to become an item. She made this comment to me: "Of course they're in love." I looked at her like she was nuts, but she continued: "Look at all the [stuff] Mulder goes through for her, and she for him. That's love." I have to agree. There's something more than partnerly devotion there, if you get my drift....
Julia D: Okay this nit is kinda obvious, but when I was watching the movie I noticed a continuity error...
When Mulder and Scully open the door to the Bee apiary the wind from inside blows Mulder's tie across his shoulder. They go inside, we see the fans... Mulder's tie is straight. We see the fans, we see Scully, Mulder's tie is crooked again and he straightens it as he's walking in!!
Lori Schiele: I presume you've been to see "Fight the Future". Great, wasn't it? I don't know if you are collecting nitpicks from it, but that is what the following list contains. I caught a few the first time I saw the movie, but I wanted to wait until I saw it again to find some more. And I did. I'm sure I missed more of them, but I ended up getting "sucked into" the plot more than once. The movie was great even a second time! So, with no further adeu--
— Where did the cavemen get torches to explore the ice cave?
— When Mulder approaches the lunchroom in the Federal Building, a man exits the room (presumably the guy who set the bomb) and walks past him. The door clicks shut and Mulder has to turn the knob to open the door. Yet the door mechanism is broken (as Scully finds out later) and Mulder should not have been able to open it.
— My husband says (I didn't see it) that you can see a boom mike in the reflection of the soda machine in the Federal Building. When Mulder is facing the machine, you can see the reflection of his head and right above it, you can see the reflection of a boom mike.
— The "bad guys" supposedly intercepted Mulder's 911 call (had his phones bugged maybe?) and sent an ambulance to kidnap Scully. How did they know Scully would get stung by a bee and that Mulder would be calling 911? How did they get a crew and an ambulance together and to Mulder's apartment before a real ambulance could show up?
— Two notes about Mulder's apartment--When did it move to the end of the hall? And--BIG NITPICK--when did a brick wall appear outside his window?!? How is he expected to place his masking tape "X" and get help from mysterious informants if there is a big brick wall where a street used to be!!!!!!!!!!!!??????
— When Scully is stung by the bee, she begins "diagnosing" her symptoms and telling them to Mulder. That's fine, however, one of her statements is: "My pulses are thready". How can she tell that her pulses are thready if she is not checking her pulses? It is not something a person can feel "inwardly", it is only something that can be detected when palpating pulses from the exterior.
— After his fall through the ice in Antarctica, Mulder lands heavily at the bottom of a snowy pit. His hood has fallen back off his head. Yet when he sits up, the hood is up and he has to pull it back off his head to see.
— I can't be certain of this (there's no "rewind" button in the movie theater) but when Cancerman first appears in Antarctica, they show a close-up of him smoking a cigarette. It appears as if there is a little brown camel on his cigarette, rather than "Morley".
— We won't even get into the question of how they managed to get out of Antarctica (alive and without losing any body parts to frostbite) when they were unconscious, stranded, without transport, after an "avalanche".
Just a couple other comments about the movie, not nitpicks, just comments: — It's the first time that Skinner and the Lone Gunmen are seen together.
— Notice Scully's face in the infamous kiss scene. Right when things are getting "heated" between them, she almost starts to crack up but then catches herself.
— Comments have been made about the relationship between Mulder and Scully seeming "different" and "more intense" in the movie. I think a lot of it is due to the fact that Mulder finally seems aware of Scully. There is more interaction, more eye contact, more compassion and consideration. Rather than being so absorbed in the case or the predicament, he seems more conscious of the fact that Scully is there to help him and cares about him.
Sarah Rowe I had a thought while watching the X-Files movie (great movie), the guy in charge of the rescue operation to save the little boy looses contact with two of his firemen after they go down to rescue a boy that's been attacked by some unknown substance, so what does he do? He send ANOTHER fireman down... if I were that fireman, I would of said no way, no how!!!
I'm not sure about this one, but a lot of people mentioned the "smart bomb" WMM's car. I only saw the movie once, but I think I can explain that. WMM and Mulder only used the door on one side of the car, WMM insisted that Mulder get in on his side, and then get out on his side, then WMM gets out too, hands mulder the vacine and walks around to the other side of the car, opens the door, stands there and thinks for a minute then gets in and blows himself up. If he didn't know that he was going to blow up, where exactly did he think he was going? He had just shot his driver, so the driver's not going to drive him anywhere, and he got in the back... So that's my theory, he knew he was going to blow up, and the bomb was intended to kill Mulder cause it was on the other side of the car. That's just my theory.
In response to Tim Thompson's saying that The Well-Manicured man's car must have turned around in the alley, when he got Kurtzweil, the car came towards him, in the alley facing the bar door. When Mulder saw TWMM slamming the trunk, Mulder had to look to the left. I think there are 2 alleys leading up to the bar door, and the car pulled up and turned right in front of the door, so TWMM could put dead Kurtzweil in the car....
Also, Jeni Gordon said the Dallas FBI bomb man was the guy that took Cassandra Spender to the bridge in "Patient X" but he was the police captain in "Aubrey" that got the murderer's granddaughter pregnant, setting off all that stuff....etc.
Aaron Dyer: Just wanted to put my two cents worth in about the X-Files:
No one mentioned the shots of Dallas to any length. The suburban neighborhood includes a shot of the downtown Dallas skyline. This was superimposed, of course, because nowhere can you stand on the kind of terrain shown (dust, no development TUMBLEWEEDS!) and see the Dallas skyline. The kids had accents that you can only find west of Abilene. And there are no desert mountains closer than 600 miles to the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
To get in the car and chase down those unmarked tankers and end up at the Texas border...What border? Mexico? New Mexico? Oklahoma? We have several. The Oklahoma border is about two hours away but it's all hills and low trees, not desert. To go south to the Mexican border near McAllen or west to the border near El Paso would have been a 10+ hour trip and a lot of bathroom breaks. And lonely interstate highways, no dirt roads. Maybe this was shot in Yuma...
And what a coincidence that the train drives by just at that time! Darn them for not exposing the "Nature's Best Corn Oil" before that time. It would have made their getaway much more secured. But less entertaining. Where was it loaded up with the tankers so it would drive by that location? And I can't remember now how Mulder and Scully knew to go where they went, other than one argued to turn left, the other argued to turn right, so Mulder (clever boy!) went straight ahead through the dirt road. OK...I'll bite on that one.
I am glad to hear someone talk about the downtown Dallas shots being L.A. I am from Dallas and didn't recognize any of the buildings supposedly in downtown Dallas.
Oh...and my wife is convinced that someone could see all the cornfields and domes in Tunisia from space or from somewhere. You know...infrared, that sort of thing. (Note from Phil: Unless, of course, the consortium controls the satellites as well)
Mark Luta: Recently went to see the "X-Files" movie. I thought it was more of an episode than a movie. They did not really use the big screen or longer time period to any great effect. And here is a show with a fairly good title sequence, and really a pretty drab opening for the movie. And I would rather have seen a title sequence which gave some information as to what the movie is about, as is done on the TV show, rather than that interminable scene with the ancestors of Mulder and Scully poking around in the cave.
Specific nits: How did Mulder and Scully get back up the ice shaft? Mulder seemed to fall a long way, and did not even seem to seriously consider climbing back up, and yet somehow he manages to climb back up carrying Scully. He did not seem to have any climbing gear, although it did not look like he had a flashlight either until he took it out.
Why is there bright sunlight in Antartica? Although it may not be summertime in Dallas at the start of the movie, all the comments about the heat, and the fact that the children in north Texas are playing instead of in school during the day, seem to imply it is summer. So it should be the dark of winter in Antarctica. I realize it is hot most of the year in Dallas, but even in spring or fall in the northern hemisphere the sun would be low on the horizon at 83 S. I realized this when I saw Mulder cross the ridge, and thought "Surely he will not attempt a daylight approach across several hundred yards of open snow." Then I though he had to hurry to get to Scully, and nightfall might be months away. And of course, then I realized it should be night! Another explanation could be that more time passes than seems apparent between the bombing and Mulder going to Antartica, but other things seem to suggest that the entire movie takes place over a matter of only a few days, or a couple of weeks at most (the hearing is in a hurry to place blame for the bombing, the Consortium is rushing to plan a new course of action, the children are watching the dig, and so on). They could have avoided the whole problem by going north, which would have tied in better with the fact that the alien bounty hunter ship had previously crashed there.
Why did the British defector from the Consortium give Mulder the wrong coordinates (down to the altitude)? This is actually a reasonable event, since in all likelihood the British man had never actually been to the site, or even if he had he may never have checked the GPS coordinates while there, so his information could be several hundred yards off. But then why show the discrepancy, if it is not to be explained? After all, they have been given coordinates before and gone places, so why make a big deal of the whole event?
I have heard some questions as to how Mulder and Scully got off of Antarctica, but I assumed that if Mulder could get there, he could get back. But this brings up another issue of making a movie instead of a TV show. Skinner probably got Mulder the resources to get there (Mulder's budget in the antiterrorism department is probably less than he had in the X-Files), and probably got him back. So why didn't we see what Skinner was doing? Two major characters, Skinner and Cancer Man, had such bit roles as to trivialize them, while they spent all that time on Landau's character, just to kill him off. I was hoping the movie format would have developed these two men who are the heroes among the power brokers in the series. (As an aside, I recently saw the episode where Mulder goes north to the submarine, and Scully tries to get help from the new Deep Throat. Watch the scene after Skinner beats the information out of him, and triumphantly gives the information to Scully. The view of Skinner is identical to Worf's triumph against the Borg on Enterprise's deflector dish in "First Contact.")
On the positive side, the cinemetography in the dark scene where Cancer Man gets off the helicopter is superb, and when the firemen go down after the child they do use pretty good confined space rescue procedures.
Sherilyn K. Brown: After reading all the posted nits about this film, I thought I'd add my own two cents' worth.
1. This whole "North Texas" thing just wrinkles me. I'm wondering if the creators *ever* do any research on locales! I'm a Texan and have been in the Dallas/Fort Worth area quite frequently. I have to say that I have NEVER seen a landscape around there that looks like the one depicted as "North Texas" in the film! I live in West Texas, close to the New Mexico border. The natural vegetation here consists of mesquite bushes, the occasional mesquite "tree," and grass, which is more than the "North Texas" of the film shows as being the area around Dallas. (And in an attempt to give the creators a break on this one, I told myself at first "Well, maybe it's not supposed to be close to Dallas" but the cityscape on the horizon was unquestionably supposed to be Dallas -- Reunion Tower is clearly visible.) Our annual rainfall in my area of West Texas is 15 inches a year, very dry. The farther east you travel in Texas, the wetter the climate becomes, something which we always notice when we travel to Dallas. The sparse desert vegetation and blowing dust in the film is, simply put, inaccurate. I was disppointed that Chris Carter and Co seem to subscribe to the misconception that all of Texas is some sort of wasteland, something that I see constantly in films.
2. As for the kids' accents, that too was wrong. Someone mentioned (rightly) that the accents were all wrong. That is true. We here in West Texas tend to speak with what most of the world considers a "Texas accent." (We like to say that everyone in Dallas and Houston talk like "Yankees") However, the kids' accents were even too strong for West Texas. They sounded more like my Tennessee aunt. The "Texas" accent has basically disappeared from all metropolitan area of Texas, which Dallas/Fort Worth most definitely is.
3. After four viewings, I figured out the the object that Mulder drops inside the ships are those really spiffy binoculars.
4. Hubby turned to me during the first viewing of the Antarctica scene and said "I cannot believe that Mulder is trudging through the snow with no hood and NO eye protection!" Poor guy would be snow blind in no time, especially after he'd entered the dark ship.
5. As for the boy's parents not being around when the firemen were attempting their rescue -- I believe this may have originally been part of the script but was cut. I bought the audiobook of the film and during this scene, the boy's mother hollers out "What about my boy?" or something to that effect.
6. I have to say something about the audiobook. It's read by John Neville aka Well-Barbecued Man who does a nice job. Unfortunately, nobody told him how to pronounce "Frohike." He repeatedly says "Fro-hike" -- two syllables and a long "I" sound. Something that shocked me in the audiobook though -- there was more revealed during the conversation in the limo! Samantha's disappearance was explained! Well, sorta ... Well-Barbecued Man told Mulder that his father chose Samantha to be abducted in an attempt to save her from the fate of the rest of the planet, that if she was being used as genetic material for cloning hybrids, she would be kept alive. Of course, it's not explained *fully* but for The X-Files, that's an explanation.
7. Not a nit, but it really made me laugh. At the end of the movie as the ship was rising above the chasm, my sister-in-law said "So long and thanks for all the flesh!" <<snicker>>
Tony H Forbes: Anyway, Shane Tourtellotte asks if humans had crossed the land bridge by 35,000 BC... the answer is.. No! I saw a Dynamax movie about Alaska over the weekend, and it gave the ice age that produced the Bering Lang Bridge at 18,000 years ago. 1998-18000=16002 BC, not 35,000. And that's only the date at which they crossed! It probably took them considerable time to reach "North Texas".
Radwell: [Concerning the kiss,] There was another kiss! Mulder gave Scully mouth-to-mouth to bring her back!
Mike Peterson: You've been trying to come up with a title for the X-Files movie. My father receives Biography magazine in the mail, and before the movie was released I was looking through the article on David Duchovny for information on it. I found something surprising. One of those false rumors Chris Carter let loose concerning the plot was picked up by the magazine. Apparently, according to the magazine, the movie was called X-Files: Blackwood, and was about an alien virus (presumably the black oil -- it didn't say) that turned people to lizards. Ridiculous, and obviously untrue. However, two things stand out: since you couldn't really see the alien in the beginning of the movie or when the "moon-suit guy" was killed by it, it is could be hypothesized that someone believed it was a large humanoid lizard, and made their own judgements after seeing only a tiny clip.
The second thing to note is the Behind the Scenes of the X-Files Movie special on Fox. At one point it shows a flurry of behind the scenes images, Carter directing, Duchovny sliding down the chute, etc. One image I caught with my keen nitpicking eyes (ha!) was a cameraman following action offscreen -- and the label on his camera said Blackwood. So it was at least a working title that they dropped, and for our purposes, a fine title for the first X-Files movie! The vaccine affected the ship because the ship was part biological in origin! The virus wounded the ship enough for it to retreat, but not didn't destroy it. Of course, this means now the aliens would be immune to the vaccine. Well, it's a working theory.
Christopher Logue Modem: In Robert Woolley's reaction to the X-Files movie, he mentions the bee sting incident, wondering if the bee had been "sleeping". Mr. Woolley also comments on the coincidences of the ambulance and so forth.
My theory is that, yes, the "consortium" more than likely did tap Fox's phone to wait for a call to 911, thus taking the place of the "real" ambulance. BUT, how do we, the viewers, know if the bee wasn't planted in the apartment by the "consortium"? Although nothing of this sort was shown, I feel this is a definite possibility. Hey, who knows?? Maybe Fox was the intended target?!?! :0)
when scully comes to mulder's apartment, it is broad daylight. but when she's wheeled out by the paramedics, it is pitch dark outside! i mean, they weren't out there THAT long! and i don't think the sun sets that fast. especially at that time of year. it seemed early summer. and i don't think scully's hearing ran THAT long. and yadda yadda yadda...
Jessica Pitingolo: one minor thing. how can mulder live through so many things! first he doesn't get stung by the bee's, then he gets shot in the head at point blank range, the guy should've got him. then he falls down the ice thing in antartica, then that other thing on the spacecraft. and he gets up from all of those! finally he falls unconscious in the snow. Is he a cat with 9 lives or what??
Brian T. Henley: Many thanks to Ms. Alice Basinski for correcting me on my gripes about the name of the Rural/Metro Fire Department. Having an aunt who lives in San Antonio has taught me to accept the word of a Texan at face value, so I withdraw my nit. Hopfeully, I didn't insult any of the fine members of what I can assume is a brave and valliant Fire Department, with my complaints about the name. (Although it does sound really generic).
Marc Lowe: Okay, I'll be a zealot....
in response to: (7/6/98 update)
Simon Crowley with help from Jeff Albert: OK, in response to some questions: Shaun Foley asked why the dynamic duo were not chased by bees leaving the giant Jiffy-Poppers. :) In case you didn't notice as the couple entered, the domes were in negative pressure (lower pressure inside than out), so they would be sucked back in. Humans could run that hard, but bees aren't that strong.
The domes ARE NOT negative pressure, in fact, they are INFLATED. That is why there was a gust of air blowing OUTWARD when M&S opened the door. I have read about such a dome system in a past issue of Popular Mechanics, and they are basically held up by internal air pressure. There are instake fans that continuously blow in to keep the thing up.
Now the reason the bees can't get out the door is that there was a fan blowing downward in that semi-hall right in front of the door. If you have ever been to Las Vegas, Reno, etc, you will notice that there are fans/air vents right above the doorways of the casinos. This is based on the fact that insects cannot stay flying in a downward gust of air.
And another thing..... most of the nits could be anti-nitted with the simple phrase: "The syndicate wanted it that way....."
Matt Cotnoir: Um...I'm not sure if you want to put this in, but I wish everyone would stop refering to Mulder and Scully as "S&M". That has some SERIOUS negative connotations. "M&S" would be much more appropriate. Thanx...Matt
Lisa Sumrall: Robert J. Woolley commented on the unbelievable timing of the Evil EMT's
Here's my conspiracy theory. Remember way back in episode...oh, I don't recall what episode it was, but the Lone Gunmen were telling Mulder that a camera had been created small enough to fit on the back of a fly. I think those same brilliant inventors have now moved on to mind control, and that the bee had a small implant in it's brain and was under someone else's control, causing it to sting Scully at just the right moment. Either that, or it's a robotic bee, like one of those cockroaches from War Of The Corp...War of the Copor...War of the Cockroaches.
Melanie F. Koleini wrote : Even if the vehicle Mulder came in wasn’t taken by the bad guys or swallowed in the crater it was out of gas!
Me - While Mulder was fortuitously falling through just the right hole in the ice to get into the Swiss Cheese of a space craft, it was Cancer Man who came upon Mulder's SnoCat. Since Cancer Man is Mulder's father, CM gassed up the SnoCat in order for his son to escape certain death once again. Even if CM isn't Mulder's father (which I doubt), CM realizes the fact of how important Mulder is to The Plan, so perhaps even reluctantly, he gassed it up.
[Concerning Independence Day,] Homage is not the right word. Chris Carter absolutely hated Independance Day. This was a dis to the movie, not a compliment.
[Concerning Scully's heel,] Jeni, Scully has always worn big heels. She's learned the art of running, jumping, and kicking nurses' butts, all in big heels. It's a skill we can only dream of mastering.
Sean Marotta: Saw the X-Files Movie today. Great flick, but oh yes, the nits are out there. While most of mine have been taken, I have found one or two that has not. As the dynamic duo enters the bee hive thing in Texas, the wind blows Mulder's tie over his shoulder. We cut to a shot of the ceiling fans then back to Mulder with his tie back in place. Fine you say, he moved it while we were at the other shot. But then the ceiling fans blow and when we return to Mulder, his tie is back over his shoulder. And don't you think Scully would have invested in some sneakers by now? She's chased by helicopters and the like and she /still/ wears those pumps. And finally, was anyone expecting one of them to shout, "Polo!" as they called each other's names in the cornfield?
Mike Hanks: Here's a nit in the X-Files movie that no one seems to have picked up on yet: When Mulder is driving his snowcat across the tundra, we see a close-up of a pair of triangular treads. The camera then shows the snowcat in full, and we note that Mulder's snowcat has four treads, in more or less the same location as would be a car's tires, and that they are triangular.
Mulder's snowcat runs out of gas, and Mulder hoofs it up the mountain to check out the camp. We see another snowcat -- one from the Consortium this time -- drive up. It has two long, rectangular treads, one on each side. It drives off.
Time passes. Mulder does stuff. We're treated to a close up shot of two triangular treads plowing through the snow. Then we pull back and see one of the two-treaded Consortium snowcats pulling up to the camp. So who's triangular treads were the ones they showed us only seconds before?
And another thing: The Consortium won't kill Mulder because they don't want to make him a martyr. So why doesn't this same logic prevent them from killing Kurtzweil? (Or, indeed, any of the other folks they've killed over the past episodes of the series?)
(Note from Phil: Um . . . it’s been so long since I’ve updated this file that I can’t remember what nits have been picked! So . . . some of this maybe redundant! Sorry about that.)
Michele, Topeka, KS: I absolutley loved the movie. I think agent Scully and Mulder should have kissed. They make a great couple even in real life I think.
Gregory Sanders: While there are a good number of valid nits in this movie I think some factors actually work out.
Why not kill Mulder-In the series Cancerman used the crusade line in this if I remember correctly Well Manicured Man (WMM) used it. I doubt either really believed it Mulder might very well be Cancerman's son and WMM had decided to use Mulder to attempt resistance at this point.
Consortium motives--Remember the virus mutated. The original virus simply allowed mind control, when the bees are simply vectors for mind control drugs possibly intended at making humanity a slave race the consortium could actually have thought that the Aliens would need them as slave handlers. Also the relatively heroic of the consortium could have thought that if the objective was merely a slave race and were stalling for time planning to eventually resist. Once the vaguely heroic, WMM, found the mutation they backed out of the agreement.
So where do the smallpox vacines and Alien Hybrids fit in. While working with the Aliens any aliens or alien technology that fell into human hands would be researched and reverse engineered by the consortium either as part of a power play or for later resistance. Catagorizing human through the small pox vacine would be helpful for later enslavement. Also it is important to remember their aren't just one group of aliens, previous episodes have indicated that a civil war is happening and alien abductions don't really fit in to the whole black oil plans.
Also the weak vacine is weak against the orignal virus, it could just by luck be terrific against the mutated virus.
Maybe I'm rationalizing but I think that some of these plot twist work out.
John Edgar: Just saw the X-Files movie today. It was great! good to see that Scully finally got off her box-standing habit.
The Nits: When the train passes the car in one shot it's shown to pass almost all the way past Mulder and Scully are standing, then, in the next shot, the train is not only just passing them, but much shorter as well.
I submit the following entry to your Romance Tote Board: Times Mulder has held Scully in his arms naked: one (in this movie)
And she was naked, wasn't she? I agree with the previous comments that it would have been cold as heck (if you pardon the mixed idiom), but I think I saw some clothes lying around in her transport container; clothes that she probably put on.
Hypothermia city out there! At least they had the sense to huddle in the snow: the body warmth would have kept them warm while the snow would actually be warmer than the air around them. (I think. You might want to verify this)
An earlier nit mentioned that Mulder didn't draw his weapon in the breeder ship. I'm pretty sure that's because his weapon fell down a long, long shaft after Mulder's slide experience.
As for the spontanious rescue, three words: Magic Cell Phone. If it warks in a boxcar in New Mexico, it can work in the antartic.
Did you notice the time that was desplayed once: 9:47.
Nice use of a wielding torch towards the beginning. Considering how close they were to highly explosive materials, the FBI team showed amazing bravery, cutting the door like that.
About the guy in the hole with the newly-hatched alien. It seemed pretty clear to me that he had been exposed to the virus (can Black Oil really be called a virus? Seems more like a parasite to me!), and so he was smart to stay in the hole, to avoid contaigion.
Sooooo... the Shadowy Syndacate planted a bomb in a vending machine in a nearby building because they knew Fox was going to have a leap of imagination, search the building and buy a drink from exactly that vending machine. Whatever. It's their show.
This movie shows another example of a syndrome I call OFES, or Over-Firey Explosion Sequences. A simple blasting cap explosion like that will NOT cause a flame to burst out. It will just cause a shock wave which will knock things down. Ever see videos of a blasting operation? The only movie I've seen which even comes close to not having this syndrome is Volcano (watch the blasting scenes towards the end)
Other than that, the movie blew me away. Isn't it amazing how Mulder managed to sum up five years of a TV show in less than two minutes in the bar scene? Until the next movie: "One man alone can not nitpick the Future..."
Emma Poon: Did anyone notice that striking similarities between the alien ship in this movie and the one from Independence Day?
Elisabeth Westner: In your book you've mentioned the discrepancies between where Scully lives, whether she lives in DC or elsewhere (Baltimore, I think) but in the movie, doesn't Mulder tell the cabbie to take him to Georgetown just before he appears at Scully's apartment? I don't know too much about DC geography, but I think that Georgetown is part of DC. I think. Don't quote me on this one. (Note from Phil: Georgetown is in very close proximity to DC!)
Three. The number of the counting shall be three. The count is the number of women in the X-Files movie. (I could've counted wrong. In fact, I'm racking my brain trying to think of a fourth woman. Oh, well, I guess the woman with the Well-Manicured Man's grandchildren almost counts.) In "Soft Light" Scully does tell her partner, in defense of Kelly Ryan, that she's competing in the "boy's club." This does seem to imply that there are very few women in the FBI, but I still wonder about that. Why the lack of strong women? Why does Mulder do all the dirty work? How come Mulder usually figures out the answers while Scully continually asks questions?
Apparantly, Scully carries around latex gloves for the purpose of examination ("Soft Light"). Maybe she didn't have them in the first season for when Mulder sticks his fingers into the bile in "Squeeze." But jeez, with all the diseases and skin rots, etc., that they're always encountering, you'd think that they wouldn't just go around TOUCHING every gooey substance they encounter, wouldn't you?
Laura Reiminger: I have to say first of all that I LOVED the movie. I am a true X-Phile(if anyone has any information on how to join an X-Files fan club, please let me know). Before I began my nitpicking, let me just say that Mulder is a babe, and he has such gorgeous eyes. Okay, the nits: Why were Mulder and Scully involved in a bomb search to begin with? Maybe the Conspirators arranged it somehow and I just missed that, but a bomb threat doesn't really classify as an "x-file." The digital reading on the bomb: what was up with that? If it was already on 13something(?) how much time had the bombers set to begin with? If the FBI had been searching for quite a while then there was way too much time on that timer. Mulder entered the room with the machines and passed the sabotage guy, what was he still doing there? One would think that had been taken care off before the phone call. There was too much risk of someone discovering him in there, say if Mulder had entered the room even a minute earlier. Now I have to make a complaint about the Bee Sting/Almost Kiss-even though I've been waiting for something like that for a long time, we all knew it wasn't going to happen. Then there be no sexual tension between them during the season. Mulder's always depended on Scully for so much, as he admits to her as she's leaving, but I don't think that was a ploy to make her stay. Those were his true feelings that he's felt for a long time but never knew what to make of them. I think this outburst of feelings does make him realize how close he is to Scully, not sexually, but emotionally.(But there did seem to be passion in their attempt to kiss.) Who knows? Maybe when the last season of X-Files rolls around(not for a very long time I hope)we will see the kiss everyone is waiting for.
Chris Macklin: This really isn't a nit, but I think the creators were trying to play a little joke on their musically inclined audience. As I'm sure you know "Kurtzweil" is a highly respected brand name in the electronic music industry, manufacturing high-end synthesizers and the like. What I want to know is if the sound guys on "The X-Files" just recommended the name Kurtzweil as sort of a joke or if we are supposed to think that our OB-GYN conspiracy fiend was related to the guy who started the company. Like I said, not a nit, but fun to ponder.
Andy Jackson: When Mulder is out careening in one of "Big Bob's Antarctic Snow Vehicles," there is a shot from inside, presumably next to Mulder. I've seen the movie twice, so I know I wasn't hallucinating when I saw the water droplets on the windshield moving upward. Now, the windshield appears to be fairly vertical, and that snow vehicle ain't moving at too great a speed, so I can't think of any explanation other than "They spliced the film in backward."
(Note from Phil: I think we’ve done all we’re going to do on this movie. Time to seal the file. You’re welcome to send additional comments but I’ll file them away instead of uploading them.)
If you would like to add some comments, drop me a note at chief@nitcentral.com. Please put "The X-Files Movie" in the Subject line and include your real name, city and state (or province and county as the case may be) in the body of the e-mail so I can give you credit if you are the first person to bring up a particular nit. (Remember the legalese: Everything you submit becomes mine and you grant me the right to use your name in any future publication by me. I will do my best to give you credit if you are the first person to submit a particular nit but I make no guarantees. And finally, due to the volume of mail received at Nitpicker Central, your submission may or may not be acknowledged. However, your submission will earn you a membership in the Nitpickers Guild if you are not already a member!)