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Episode Guide: Fight The Future

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x-files movie poster


Release Dates:
Australia: July 23, 1998
USA: June 19, 1998
United Kingdom: August 21, 1998

The X-Files Movie sits between the final episode of season 5 and the first episode of season 6.

The X-Files Movie, originally filmed with the working title Blackwood and then promoted as Fight The Future, was released in the USA on June 19, 1998. It premiered on Australian screens on Thursday July 23, 1998 and I was one of the many fans who was there on opening night at the local cinema, The Australia 4, in Orange, New South Wales.

The movie was the subject of unprecedented rumours and spoilers on the internet with Chris Carter doing his best to overcome this by spreading rumours of his own. The end result though was a film that many fans and critics didn't like.

In my opinion it was a good movie, certainly as good as most of the better television episodes but on a grander scale and with bigger special effects. Sure it could have been better but I think many fans were expecting too much. Chris Carter had to try and appeal to a wider audience and that annoyed some fans and as usual there were just as many questions raised as answers given but that's one of the reasons why we watch The X-Files isn't it?

My rating 9/10



Plot

How do you condense all that happened into a few lines?
OK, Mulder and Scully, no longer working on The X-Files (see "The End" from season 5), are in trouble when a building in Dallas is detroyed by a bomb. Dr Alvin Kurtzweil informs Mulder that the reason for the bomb was to hide evidence - bodies infected with the mutated oil-alien virus. Mulder and Scully track a mysterious tanker and discover a corn field and bees in the middle of the desert. After the long awaited (almost) kiss, Scully, infected with the virus, is abducted. The Well Manicured Man gives Mulder the antidote and Scully's location before being killed by a car bomb. (There's plenty of rumours that he's still alive.) Mulder ends up in Antarctica and rescues Scully from an alien craft buried in the ice.

Credits
David Duchovny		Fox Mulder
Gillian Anderson	Dana Scully
Mitch Pileggi		Assistant Director Walter Skinner
Martin Landau		Dr Alvin Kurtzweil
John Neville		Well Manicured Man
William B Davis		Cigarette Smoking Man
Armin Mueller-Stahl	Conrad Strughold
Blythe Danner		Assistant Director Jana Cassidy
Glenne Headley		Barmaid
Lucas Black		Stevie
Jeffrey DeMunn		Dr Ben Bronschweig
Terry O'Quinn		Darius Michaud
Dean Hagland		Langly
Bruce Harwood		Byers
Tom Braidwood		Frohike

Director		Rob Bowman
Screenplay		Chris Carter
Story			Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz
Producers		Chris Carter and Daniel Sackheim
Music			Mark Snow



Notable Quotables

Scully (pretending the rooftop door is locked)
"I had you big time"


The bar-room scene

Barmaid
"So, what do you do?"
Mulder
"What do I do?"
Barmaid
"Uh-huh."
Mulder
"I'm the key figure in an ongoing government charade, the plot to conceal the truth about the existence of extraterrestrials. It's a global conspiracy actually, with key players in the highest levels of power, that reaches down into the lives of every man, woman and child on this planet, so of course no one believes me. I'm an annoyance to my superiors, a joke to my peers. They call me Spooky. Spooky Mulder, whose sister was abducted by aliens when he was just a kid and now chases after little green men with a badge and a gun, shouting to the heavens or to anyone who will listen that the fix is in, that the sky is falling, and when the sky falls its going to be the shit storm of all time."
Barmaid (taking his glass away from him)
"Well, I would say that about does it, Spooky."
Mulder
"Does what?"
Barmaid
"Looks like eighty-six is your lucky number."
Mulder
"You know, one is the loneliest number."



Well Manicured Man
"Trust no one, Mr Mulder"



Strughold
"He's but one man. One Man alone cannot fight the future"


Trivia:
As is the case with many 20th Century Fox Films, the film cans for the advance screening prints and show prints had a code name. The X-Files was "Nuts and Bolts."

After consuming much alcohol and finding the bar's bathroom locked, Mulder relieves himself in an alley onto a poster for Independence Day (1996).

The working title "Blackwood" comes from the writings of Englishman Algernon Blackwood, a member of the Golden Dawn Society, about a race of intelligent beings who predated humans.

Alternate Versions:
The video release has additional footage not shown in the theatrical release:

In the opening scene you now see more of the alien. In the theatrical release we see it fight off one of the cavemen, killing it, and the other caveman gets up to see it lying on the ground draining out the black blood (or what fans know as black oil). In the video release we see it run off after it kills one of the cavemen and when the other caveman gets up he tracks it down and then kills it using the broken end of his torch.

In the scene with Mulder talking to the Well Manicured Man in the car, he reveals to Mulder that Samantha, Mulder's sister, was abducted by aliens at the request of her father, William Mulder, so she could be part of the colonization project, thus ensuring her survival in the colonization of Earth by the visitors. Also revealed is that when plans went awry, Mulder was intened, by his father, to seek the truth and reveal what had been done.

There is also an added scene in the video release with Mulder running down the street after the hospital scene.

DVD Release:

new new newThe X-Files Movie DVD Page

Filming Locations:

Bloopers:

Fans have really picked over the bones of the movie and come up with the following goofs, bloopers and continuity errors:

Errors in geography: Dr. Kurtzweil's office is located at Dupont Circle in Washington, DC. However, when the police search it, some of the officers are wearing patches of the Arlington, Virginia, police department.

Miscellaneous: It was summer in the northern hemisphere (still light at 6:42 pm in London, no coats in Washington DC) so it must have been winter in Antarctica. The scenes there should have been dark and 60-80 degrees below zero, yet it was bright daylight and Mulder's breath was not visible until he was inside the tunnel.

Revealing mistakes: Mulder, a trained FBI agent, should know better than to activate his cell phone while standing right in front of a bomb with an electronic timer!

Continuity: Gelatinous red goop on Scully's gloves in the autopsy scene.

Plot holes: The Majestic 12 decide to "take away from Mulder what is most important to him," i.e. Scully, yet they don't take action, instead capitalizing on Scully being stung by a poisonous mutant bee that gets into her clothes by pure chance.

Factual errors: A journey to Antarctica requires two weeks and not 48 hours as depicted.

Factual errors: Bees don't pollinate corn.

Errors in geography: Scene with Dallas in the distance over the prairie was actually San Antonio--you can even see the Alamodome in the picture.

Factual errors: the temperature in the underground 'medi-lab' is stated to be close to zero. Yet when the doctor removes his bio-suit top his breath isn't visible.

Continuity: Mulder's mobile phone changes from a non-telescopic antenna type (presumably as a Nokia product placement) to a telescopic antenna type while he is in the room with the drink dispenser bomb.

Continuity: After Mulder is shot, he has a wound on his temple. The wound disappears in Antarctica and reappears after the hearing at the end of the movie.

Continuity: As Mulder and Scully are climbing down the rocks above the corn field, she is wearing flat-soled shoes. When they enter the beehive, she has high heels. (And not a scratch on them either!)

Factual errors: Most cell phones won't work if they're in a metal room in a big building.

Factual errors: There are not enough satellites over Antartica to provide accurate GPS information for a handheld device like Mulder's.

Continuity: While Scully was frozen in the Antartica underground, she was naked. Then, Mulder gave Scully his fur jacket. As soon as they came out from the tunnel, Scully was wearing fitted trousers.

Revealing mistakes: The black ooze that infects the boy (through his feet) at the beginning of the film is seen traveling up his legs. The camera pans up, where we see it traveling up his arms, too. But it should be traveling *down* his arms after spreading through his torso!

Continuity: The car which drove into a narrow alley drove out facing in the opposite direction.

Errors in geography: In the Syndicate meeting, the exterior is the Albert Hall, but the interior scenes were shot at the California Institute of Technology.

Continuity: For a closeup shot where Scully probes a fireman's corpse, she appears to be wearing a white lab coat that she's not wearing in longer shots in that scene.

Factual errors: In the vending machine scene, Mulder's coins are taken by the machine, but the buttons don't work because the machine isn't plugged in. All vending machines that are not receiving power do not keep any coins - any coins inserted come out the coin return immediately.

Continuity: Mulder has gloves on when he falls down the ice chute in the Antarctic, but the gloves mysteriously disappear when he come out of the chute into the main spaceship area.

Continuity: When Mulder discovers the bomb in the vending machine, the door to the room gets knocked down. Later, when Michaud is "disarming" the bomb, the door is back up.



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