The X-Files: Fight the Future on DVD
Chris Carter’s 1998 Summer Hit
The X-Files: Fight the Future, originally released on DVD in 1999, was a first of its kind movie, serving as a bridge between seasons five and six of the series and continuing where season five left off. It quickly became a summer blockbuster hit for FOX and took the vast blanket of X-Files popularity and spread it further than ever imagined.
The X-Files moves from Small Screen to Big Screen
After tossing around the idea of creating a feature film out the series, creator Chris Carter and producer Frank Spotnitz hammered out the script for the movie and turned it over to FOX executives. The worry that this movie, based on a show which up to this point had what was generically dubbed a “cult following,” would not generate enough money was the major issue at hand; FOX had spent $66 million on production and another $60 million on promotion for the film, totaling $129 million in costs; however, whether due to the fan following or just good moviemaking, the film pulled in a whopping $189 million over its two and a half month 1998 summer release.
Blackwood Secrecy and Carter Brilliance
Due to the secret nature surrounding The X-Files and a leak that something big was going to happen between the two lead characters, nosy reporters and avid fans began trying their hardest to crack the code and discover exactly what secrets were to be unearthed. Carter, because of the need to keep the storyline under wraps until the release date (the movie was filmed during the hiatus of the fourth and fifth seasons), printed the script on special red paper that prevented photocopying and changed the name of the film to “Blackwood” on the daily call sheets. He and the production crew also started their own “campaign of misinformation” by giving false accounts of the happenings to the media.
The movie’s plot, which became known to the United States on June, 19, 1998, centers on the mythology of the series. After the X-Files office is destroyed at the end of season five, Mulder and Scully are reassigned to basic FBI duties, with the threat of being split up once again looming on the horizon. Unchallenged and unfulfilled by her current undertakings (and faced with a semi-strained relationship with Mulder after the momentary reappearance of an old flame, Diana Fowley, in the finale of season five), Scully faces a monumental choice: to stay at the FBI or leave to become a full-time medical doctor.
Mulder, who slowly comes to realize that he is losing the only person he has ever been able to trust implicitly, is drawn into a series of events that initially appear to insinuate a government cover-up instigated to destroy him and his partner, but that eventually turns into something far greater in magnitude. Taking giant leaps on intuitional hunches and advised by a suspicious informant, Dr. Alvin Kurzweil (played by Marin Landau), Mulder manages to acquiesce Scully’s assistance once again on his quest for the truth, put her life in ultimate danger and go to the end of the earth (Antarctica) in order to get her back.
Perhaps the most memorable moment from the film (it tends to differ depending on the review) is the immortalized “almost-a-kiss” scene in Mulder’s hallway after Scully announces her intention to quit the FBI. Nearly broken and struggling to rescue the last piece of meaning in his life, Mulder defies the boundaries erected through his partnership with Scully and makes one last attempt to keep her by admitting attraction through a silent language they both understand.
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