Jarv’s Birthday Series Redux: The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998)
Damned stupid title, this one. How can you possibly fight the future? It’s the future, and is going to happen whether you like it or not. You can change the future, sure, and I suppose you can fight the legacy of the past, but by definition as the future is not set you can’t fight it. It’s like trying to pin diarrhoea to the ceiling. Nevertheless, back in the 90’s the X-Files was one of the most successful television programmes going, and a spin off was inevitable, this 1998 effort (21st August in the UK) was the result.
Contains nothing but the Truth in there and spoilers below
“I think I’ve spotted the truth, Scully, just over there”
I remember quite liking the X-Files back in 1994-5 ish. Well, I remember liking the one with the stretchy dude that lived under an escalator and could squeeze up people’s toilets to eat their liver. I seem to remember that one being quite exciting. Anyhow, I gradually grew bored of the series, partially because of the never ending will they/ won’t they romance crap with Mulder and Scully, but more because it felt like every single episode was either Aliens or The Government behind it, and it was frankly boring and repetitive. I also seem to remember Mulder’s sister turning up, but she was really a lesbian space octopus controlled by the government. Or she might have been a clone or something. Anyway, by the time 1998 rolled around, I hadn’t watched an episode of the X-Files in about 2 years. As a result, the news that there was going to be a spin off film didn’t exactly make me set off fireworks.
His eyes are sealing up in a defense mechanism to stop him watching Almodovar’s latest film.
For good reason, as it turned out. I actually didn’t bother seeing this at the time, because of the aforementioned complete boredom with the subject matter, characters, and plots. So, when I saw this come out of the hat for 1998, I instantly thought it would be a good one- a nice chance to catch up with something that I’d just let pass me by. Not to mention I’d get the nostalgia value of seeing a film based on a TV series that I used to watch.
*Straps on tinfoil hat*
OK- this is the X-Files, so we know how it works. Something weird happens, and buggers up some local rural types. In this case, poisonous evil black goop. Agents Mully and Sculder (meh, they may as well be by this stage) are called in. Despite having been at it for years, he believes absolutely everything, and she believes nothing. It turns out that the weird explanation is the correct one, but the Government and a dude that smokes too much know something they shouldn’t/ are covering it up. Mulder pouts a lot and whines about the Truth, while Scully looks all serious and protests about “hard science” and “evidence”, and the story ends with some unsatisfactory cock tease as to what the government has planned. Evil, evil government types.
“The truth is not out there Scully. It’s in my pants”
This has dated very, very badly. It’s frankly a bit (very) boring now, if I’m honest. Maybe the disconnect with the series is to great, and I do seem to remember at the time reading that it features many of the tropes that helped The X-Files run for the better part of a decade. Nevertheless, it almost seems to sleepwalk along, with Mulder and Scully meandering around stating the fecking obvious to each other while some shadowy Government agency lurks in the background and threatens them with banishment to Salt Lake City (actually happens). David Duchovny and Gillain Anderson had been playing these two parts for at least 5 years by this stage, and it shows- they’re as comfortable in these two roles and with each other as I am in a pair of comfy slippers sitting on a comfy sofa drinking a delicious beverage of some description. If anything, they’re almost a bit complacent, and Anderson in particular is practically sleepwalking through the film. Still, can’t say I blame her, it must be bloody tiresome saying “Oh this little green man with 87 eyes and 9 nutsacks can’t possibly be an alien, SCIENCE WON’T HAVE IT”.
“Fuck’s sake Scully, stop watching the skies and help me find my contact lens”
Basically, the film can’t transcend it’s TV origins. There’s no point rehashing the series on the big screen with a slightly larger scale, as, well, you may as well just rewatch an episode the TV series (the one with the stretchy dude). Nevertheless, that’s what they’ve done- it’s all “bigger”, and our heroes zip around all over the place dealing with special effects. Nevertheless, the dramatic beats of a film and a TV episode are different and they haven’t taken this into account. There’s no point basically writing a glorified episode of the series (Set piece, conversation, set piece, conspiracy, end) and then padding it with filler, such as the terminally dull crap about Scully “protecting” Mulder, or nonsense about his father that doesn’t help in the slightest. Furthermore, it relies heavily on anyone watching the film being familiar with smoking dude and so forth. I’m not totally unfamiliar with it, but I had problems trying to keep tabs on who these weird shady agent types were, but more importantly, I didn’t really give a fuck.
“The truth isn’t out there Scully. It’s at the end of this corridor”
Adding to the problem is the utterly mundane direction of Bob Bowman who seems to be more interested in making sure Mulder and Scully share intimate moments than any actual action. He’s an utter TV Hack, anyway, and after the simply dreadful Elektra, he’s not likely to get any more big screen work. Good. Basically, this feels damned lazy, there’s nothing to it, no spark, no sense of life. It just trots smugly along, giving the “fans” the extended episode that they wank themselves senseless over always dreamed of. To be honest, it’s a checklist of X-Files memes, but with added snogging between the two leads, and this kind of shit is monumentally boring on the big screen.
“The truth is in the bees Scully. Nicholas Cage told me so”
Overall, I don’t like this film. I was over the series in 1998, and in 2012 I’m really over it. If I never see anything to do with the X-Files, then I’m not going to shed a tear. I don’t understand the point of this film, because if it’s for die hard fans of the series, then they’ve got the episodes to go back to, but it’s sure as fuck not going to draw any new fans to it. I give the X-Files movie 1 Dark Lord Xenu out of a possible 4, but I do concede that this is simply not for me.
I’m not even sure this would have been for me back in 1998, if I’m honest.
Until next time,
Jarv
The Full List for the Birthday Series Redux:
- 2011- The Skin I Live In (2.5 out of 4)
- 2010- The Last Exorcism (2.5 out of 4)
- 2009- Post Grad (1 out of 4)
- 2008- The House Bunny (1 out of 4)
- 2007- Knocked Up (1 out of 4)
- 2006- Volver (1 out of 4)
- 2005- Red Eye (2 out of 4)
- 2004- Dead Clowns (Orangutan of Doom)
- 2003- Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (1 out of 4)
- 2002- Talk to Her (4 out of 4)
- 2001- Jeepers Creepers (2 out of 4)
- 2000- Gossip (1 out of 4)
- 1999- All About My Mother (1 out of 4)
- 1998- The X-Files (1 out of 4)
- 1997- Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion
- 1996- The Last Supper
- 1995- The Usual Suspects
- 1994- The Color of Night
- 1993- Surf Ninjas
- 1992- The Gun in Betty Lou’s Handbag
- 1991- Pump Up the Volume
- 1990- Wild at Heart
- 1989- Bull Durham
- 1988- Crossing Delancey
- 1987- The Big Easy
- 1986- Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2
- 1985- Better off Dead
- 1984- Oxford Blues
- 1983- MetalStorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn
- 1982- The Thing
- 1981- Honky Tonk Freeway
- 1980- Schock
- 1979- Rich Kids
- 1978- Coma
Barfy
kloipy
Echo the Bunnyman
Judge Droid
Jarv
ThereWolf
Xiphos0311
Werewolves On The Moon 
Possibly the most sarcastic review I’ve written in a while. Really not for me.
Also, I’ve intentionally not seen the sequel for similar reasons.
I liked this, it was kinda flat to be honest but had its moments. They needlessly rehashed Tim McVeigh, and as always gave us 4 seconds of Aliens at the end, but it still works.
You have to like the series and you need to like the leads. The last movie they did was dull, from 2008. That could have been much better.
Black oil themed eps from 1996 or so, esp the jet crash one, are better bets.
This is the problem I think Bando, and the 2008 film also suffers- it’s just too remote from the series now.
Quite true. I think any sequel shoulda been made by 2001 or so. This is as much a 90s show as Miami Vice was to the 80s.
I’m not even sure they should have bothered with a sequel at all.
By 2008, though- definitely not.
This belongs on Tv
Absolutely.
I am with Bando on this one,I liked it -ridiculous, colossal, Starter Trek level of coincidences and wild luck aside (Mulder finding a frozen Scully amidst what appears to be thousands if not tens of thousands of frozen humancicles and he found her by accidentally falling through a crevasse). Still, you really needed to have liked the characters from the TV show to appreciate the flick and I thought it was a neat capstone for the series. It tied some things up even though it was ridiculous at times. The second movie was just plain awful, truly a turrible thing to behold
I’d agree TKD, if it hadn’t finished with smoking dude and another guy meeting to say that Mulder is a threat as they’ve re-opened the X-Files. It’s a companion piece to the series, and doesn’t stand alone.
yeah, you would think that an org as far flung as that could wipe out one fbi dude without causing a ruckus.
there are severe plot in consistencies and out right howlers that can not be ignored, but …but, because i liked the interaction between the characters and my expectations were for a TV show on big screen i chose to overlook those things. I would never grade this as a good movie, but i would grade it as an entertaining one for fans of the series
Got to totally agree with that. Totally.
I liken it to the 1966 Batman movie. Just great seeing the characters on the big screen
Didn’t work for me- probably because I’m not attached to the TV series, and them being on the big screen was just a big blah to me.
Batman and Robin or Mulder and Scully?
Mulder and Scully. I was already bored of the series when this made it to the screen. I remember all the build up circling round them kissing and it felt like the height of redundancy.
Decent review. Prepare for nerdery.
“I don’t understand the point of this film, because if it’s for die hard fans of the series, then they’ve got the episodes to go back to, but it’s sure as fuck not going to draw any new fans to it.”
When it was released in 1998, drawing new fans was entirely the point because—right or wrong—it WAS a large episode of the series. It was two summers after ID4 and MIB had used the big screen to cash in on a tend that X-Files had already re-ignited in 1993—the alien film. So, X-Files figured it would cash-in on the cyclical nature of trends, and made their own big budget entry but made it an episode that clearly led into the next season. It was some attempt at ultimate synergy, but I don’t think it brought in new followers, it only ensured that a reasonable amount of already fans went to the movie. It was sort of a fun idea for tv fans—you get a filler in between seasons that can play with the toys of the big budget film. So, that’s the context, but it doesn’t help the fact they only made a passable episode with some slightly bigger scope.
I like it because I like Mulder and Scully and the series, and overlooked quite a bit. As a summer film, it’s not that satisfying unless you are already an X-Files faithful.That’s the problem with this approach.
What it did do for X-Files it give it arguably it’s most entertaining season in 1997/98, season five, as they filmed the movie a year before and then had to work to make the season match up with where the film starts. The result is a tight mythology year, inserted with some really original and well-written MOTW episodes.
The film that really has no leg to stand on is X-Files: I want to Believe. Again, though, I tend to enjoy both to a certain point. I’d go higher with this as a fan and give it 2 as a movie and 2.5 as a series insert.
I’ve no interest in an extended episode of a series I was over in 1998, though.
Nowadays, there’s no real reason to watch this film, and it’s a bit, well, dull. It’s also totally flat.
No, I agree. The point is though, that wasn’t the intention when it was made. The second one made the mistake of being a movie long after the fact of a series. In 98 it was relevant to X-Files fans, and to my memory, the series didnt lose steam until about a year later…and by the time Duchovny left it was over. It was still running strong on Sunday night–had just made the jump actually–when it was picked up.
IThe problemn nlow is they were only thinking in the moment. Carter is much to blame for that. I dont know how it would play now, but it played ok back in the day. It did effectively kill dead that idea that Fox could really charge money for people to see what is essentially a TV special or series finale. I think it might be the only example of a movie releasing to theaters while it was still on the air, in the middle of its run no less.
I dunno Jonah, it had already been on for about 5 years when this came out. I admit that I’d stopped watching it, but it felt like a final hurrah.
It did kill the idea stone dead though.
Also, if they were trying to attract new fans, then this was NOT the way to go about it. It relies a hell of a lot on stuff that you need to know from the series. I spent half my time on bloody wikipedia afterwards looking things up that it was referring to.
Nevertheless, in 2012, it’s a total waste of time.
it wasnt intended as a final hurrah. It was specifically created to occur between season five and six. the current storyline continued for another two years after season six. They had filmed it first and then did a season, and clearly the end is set-up to have them go on in their usual form. It was really a gimmick, but for people watching the show–he finds his sister incidentally in the manner you mention a few eps before the movie–it never felt like, or was intended as a finale. The big problem is still the same, it’s a giant episode. What was really wrong was it was never supposed to be anything more. A few eps into season six, the story threads it brings up had already been rendered moot. X-Files was seriously mismanaged though on the macro level, almost from day one.
When did you last watch it Jonah?
Seriously, because seeing it now, there’s so much wrong- the pacing’s off, it’s dull, the actors appear to be going through the motions and so forth. It can’t exist without the series, and I can barely remember the ones I watched.
I see what you mean, but it was sold here as the LAST ONE EVER! that’s what I meant. Because I didn’t care by this stage, I didn’t bother going to see it.
Was Mulder’s sister a lesbian space octopus? Or a clone? I’ve nearly completely forgotten.
thats odd, because it was sold here as a cheat–it was implied that if you didnt get your ass to the theater, you would be lost when it came back on tv, but as you know, the story is circular, and the revelation of the black ooze having a gestational physical form–those toothy alien creatures are actually baby greys–was the only new piece of info the movie gave us. I think the idea with a new fan base was misguided, becasuse I think they literally thought—people will see this, and then be interested to watch, but at the same time they made it so series-centric.
I haven’t seen it since the second movie was released, but I know what you mean. Im not arguing with your assessment. I just mean some of the questions–why would they make an episode as a series finale or as an adaptation, this is why. It wasn’t just an offshoot–it should have been–it was a connective episode.
She was a clone. The real sister was actually assumed into heaven by God to save her.No really. she was.
You have to remember though, we’d have been a couple of years behind at this stage in the 90’s. That’ll be why.
Clone, eh? Rescued by God, eh?
Should have been a Lesbian Space Octopus. Possibly from the future.
I have to admit, her reappearing made me swear never to watch another X-Files episode again.
ah, yea…by that thinking, it’s crap. But its stupid. You can watch the original Men in Black, and outside the theme song it’s not that dated. X-Files and ID4 are both horribly dated, and it didnt have to be that way.
bart, batman 1966 did the same thing
Dr. Who did it as well- with Cushing as the Doctor. I like that one.
I liked that Dr Who as well, but it kinda sorta does not count because they did not use the same actor as in the series, then again it being Dr. Who does it really matter?
Yes, he would have been about the 5th Doctor. Saw it when I was a kid loved it.
Loved the Daleks, but always wondered how they managed steps!
I think they retroactively introduced anti-grav
Yes, they did. The most recent Dr. Who’s have the Daleks able to fly and open doors and shit.
Masterpiece of design, the Daleks. Considering they’re basically wheelie bins, they got a lot of mileage.
Great design, evil lil buggers and the Master? Whew boy! I loved Pertwee and Baker. Grew up on them moreso Baker, but PBS replayed all of the Who’s back in the 70’s and i ate them up. Pertwee stood out but Baker was phenomenal. I could never say which was my favorite. Pertwee was a more James Bond type, Baker had that crazy aloof yet warm and eccentric thing going on. Those shows along with Rigg and MacNee made me love the UK
Hehehehe.
Spud is the Who expert not me. Although I think the new ones have basically sucked solidly. They’re all message shit about how it is really ok to be gay. As if we care.
Of the new ones, only Blink, Human Nature, and The Family of Blood have been worth anything.
Sadly, I have not watched any Who in many a year.
I like the new Who. I agree, but oddly those episodes you mention are all literally next to each other–more or less. Have you seen all the series? Im on series 3 now. Ok to be gay? Which eps are those? There was a character named Captain Jack or something that was ‘pansexual’ or some nonsense, but I haven’t seen any other gay message stuff yet. is that coming up?
There’s shit loads of them, and it’s stupid things like the old lesbos in Gridlocked. Not as bad as Torchwood. Anything with Captain Jack in it.
Series 3? Prepare for the lame and crushing disappointment of the finale.
Series 4 is fucking horrible. Catherine Tate is painful on screen. Painful. The Unicorn and the Wasp made me hate it, and I struggled on to the end. I think I binned it after that.
From the next series: The Library double bill and the Doctor’s Daughter are good. The rest of them, particularly the last few are fucking rotten. The specials are quite good between the two series.
eh, the old lesbos was a throwaway moment. one barely notices it. I liked that ep, and that didnt harm it any. I have no plans for seeing torchwood.
Oh, great, disappointment. My favorite. Tate becomes his sidekick afterall? Oh no.
Utopia- which has Jacobi, is good. Jacobi in particular is brilliant.
The Sound of Drums- the first part of the finale, is also good- John Simm is really good. It’s the crushing Last of the Timelords in the concluding part that hurts.
Part of the problem is that Tate is so aesthetically unappealing. That tumour on her face is just the worst thing ever.
It’s laced all the way through any episode Russel T. Davis wrote. I’ve forgotten most of them, but it’s fucking ridiculous and unnecessary.
almost all of the tennant episodes have been solid, save for something with Moaning Myrtle and an alien that looked like fat bastard. that was horrid.
Love and Monsters, which basically didn’t have the doctor in it was fucking dreadful. The one with those stupid farting monsters was awful as well.
The best ones were all written by Stephen Moffat. The Satan Pit was quite good. I haven’t seen any of these in yonks.
The thing is, the BBC was trying to turn Who into a franchise, so it spun off Sarah Jane Chronicles (OK, if you’re 9) and the fucking agonisingly bad Torchwood, which was legitimately the worst programme on TV. Alien fuck monster possessing minging welsh bint killed by Captain Jack’s massive sexual energy (WOOF!).
Daleks in Manhatten was shit as well. Martha was a shit sidekick. Spent the entire series mooning after the Doctor. Awful writing.
Have you seen the finale? “YOU CAN’T STOP THEM THINKING” and Dr. Dobby the House Elf? Indescribably bad.
Excellent song though.
sounds like ass. I’ve noticed Davies is a minging douche who doesnt seem to have any clue what Dr. Who is actually about. Love and Monsters felt like Davies too over every aspect of the show, and without Tennant to even offer levity most of the time, it was sucktastic. Satan Pit and that storyline about the wandering child and the firebombing of dresden from the Eccleston arc were great eps.
Love and Monsters was awful. It started as a competition to design a monster on a kids TV show, and that sprung from it.
Davis is an incredibly talented writer- Queer as Folk (starring the future mayor Carcetti) was brilliant- but it was about the Gay scene in Cardiff. He’s got totally the wrong sensibilities for Dr. Who. Moffatt was much better.
is captan jack the figurehead on the torchwood show? I thought he was an irritating character to be sure.
Always was. Basically every character in that series (which is apparently ADULT Dr. Who) is omnisexual and they all fuck each other constantly. It’s the most adolescent shit on TV. Never, ever watch it. It’s not adult, in any sense. It’s just horrible.
And they’re all fugly. One of the blokes looks like Crazy frog.
There’s a particularly bad one where Spike from Buffy comes in and spends the entire episode snogging Captain jack.
Marsters really didnt follow that buffy gig up properly. Seems like he could have had some level of stardom, but geez, talk about pissing it all in the wind.
He really should have done more. Really should.
he was always/is always making the wrong choice. Case in point, there was a tv show of the dresden files lined up. Granted it didnt last, but he was approached about playing the role after he narrated Butcher’s audio books. I personally think the show would have been stronger with him–might have even drawn some stronger writing talent and carved a niche on the syfy channel. now maybe not, but what project did he choose instead? dragonball z movie where he played a character so coated in makeup no one knew it was him anyway. He’s hid too successfully in the geek ghetto. I always thought he, emma caufield and Anthony Head were acting circles around everyone on Buffy. You dont see any of them enough to justify their talent. I can understand why the rest disappeared, more or less.
Head is a british Stage Actor primarily. We see him a lot. Caulfield and Marsters are a bit of a waste.
this is true about head, but over here he’s just wasted. For example, he shows up alot but in garbage–sidelined because I suppose people dont know how to use him: he was the lead actor in that Repo Opera crap, he was the boss on that hank azaria sitcom crap, he was playing second fiddle in that Iron Lady crap.
I just saw there was a new caufield movie available, but she’s costarring with bag of cocks cooper, so I have yet to see it. She did a fun little puff sci-fi movie called TImer. What’s funny is that she’s got the charisma and ability to be a leading rom-com actress, at least moreso than ones like Robert, Hudson, and Bullock.
I’m sure I’ve seen Timer. Probably not.
Yeah dude killed it in Ghost Rider 2.
Yeah, dude killed it in his 2 minutes of screentime, funny looking little beard, one line and PG-13 offscreen murder.
He was awesome.
Yeah it was way more than he deserved really, he should be grateful.
Good lord. Really? And I thought True Blood was bad.
Nothing is as bad as Torchwood. Nothing.
Man,
Romy and Michelle is a big disappointment. I remember liking it at the time, but it clearly kind of sucks. I may well have been blinded by a vague crush on Mira Sorvino.
martha is bad because she’s clearly just a Rose clone, which isnt interesting since piper had a limited shelf life as it was, hence why it was a good idea to bin her after the second season a reasonable conclusion to her character.
The mistake is that there’s absolutely no call at all for Martha to moon around like a lovesick puppy. In the case of Rose, it was understandable, but Piper left before Davis was ready. So he basically dumped Martha in. She’s a qualified Doctor and has loads of things that Rose doesn’t have that he never took advantage of.
Rose too grew into the infatuation and felt, as you pointed out, reasonably realistic. Im on the Daleks in Manhattan episode now. It’s the second part, with Garfield and the pig people. It’s crap. I dont mind the daleks but in a modern series there’s no reason to see them literally every four or five episodes. By this point it’s their fourth appearance in three seasons, and if Im being honest, they should have stopped with the last dalek in the first season–that was a really good episode, with a nice poignant closure to the characters. Now they just keep coming back and back and back.
This is a problem. The daleks and cybermen are painfully overused. Need to retire the Daleks in particular for a few years.
romy and michelle sucks? I remember finding that a reasonably cute little comedy? Didn’t hold up huh? Also might have been the sorvino crush for me.
The second half is dramatically better than the first. Hugely so actually- and artfully hides a message about cliques in life etc. Smarter than it is pretending to be.
I think it’s another one of its time and place, because that’s exactly how I remembered it.
Series movie Too wasnt that great, one thing that Could have worked was a Monster of the Week(tm) approach, Moulder vs da Monsters. But they didnt wanna do that, so go figger.
I liked the series but this movie was drab and worthless.
1) Like Jarv said, it happened too late after the series had lost its steam.
2) It doesn’t even belong on the big screen anyway. The most successful were the stand alone episodes, which I don’t think is movie material. Why would you make a movie about some stretchy guy? There’s no big picture, but it’s a very effective one hour tv episode.
I didnt find Fight the Future drab and worthless, but it was pointless. It at least had them racing through the spaceship in the finale and a few attempted set pieces.
X-Files 2, which was a monster of the week episode, sans monster or any real x-file material save for psychic link, was the one I found drab and worthless. And it was six years after the show ended, and 9 years since the show had been relevant.
Always thought that Scully and co could have used some Giant Robots in their lives
You would think that they would have had a few.
At least something in the robot lion vicinity. I was disappointed.
I actually really enjoyed this movie when it came out. I was a lot more into the X-Files than you appear to have been, and although it did struggle to break out of the TV conventions, I found it enjoyable and a satisfactory continuation of the series.
That said, I haven’t seen it since, and when I watched season one of X-Files a few years ago it felt a bit dated.
I really think you have to be into the X-Files a lot more than I was. Try it again, I’d be curious as to what you thought with a bit of distance from the original series.
I was a huge X-Files fan when this film came out. After leaving the theater I almost got into a fight with my brother. Not because one of us liked it and the other hated it, but because we both hated it and were so pissed we were just looking to hit something.
I thought your review was pretty spot on Jarv.
Cheers Conti.
It really feels like something for the fans, not for me.
I was a fan and I despised it.
I’ve seen about 3 seasons of ‘X-Files’, maybe a few eps from S4 here and there. Don’t know why I stopped watching; I stopped and just didn’t start again. Anderson & Duchovny had a decent on-screen chemistry going on.
Not seen the movies. There’s been too much of a gap now, I wouldn’t know what the hell was going on if I watched it now. I remember the stretchy bloke. Also recall an ep with Peter Boyle in it as some kind of psychic. Brilliant episode.
Never liked Who much. I only tuned in when Perry (?) was the sidekick, American chick with big tits. Can’t think why I tuned in to her…
Dr Who puts me to sleep.
They had a giant Robot not too long ago Bando.
Yay for them.