Canadiens1131
ONE love, blood, life
- Joined
- Aug 18, 2004
- Messages
- 10,363
I <3 X-Files. Hope this movie doesn't stink like the first one, though
corianderstem said:Am I the only one who liked the first movie?
corianderstem said:Am I the only one who liked the first movie?
No offense, but I think you misunderstood what happened to Samantha. The story started with a child molester to relate it on an emotional level with what many people losing their children go through and to have someone relate to this extraordinary rescue by walk-ins to Mulder, since most people haven't had their children abducted by aliens. If you watch "Two Fathers/One Son" and "Sein Und Zeit/Closure", you get the answers. Perhaps Carter had early on wanted Samantha alive, but the decision she had died long before makes this whole quest that much more tragic and puts CSM's actions in a very touching and still dramatically-believable light, as when he took Mulder's file on Samantha in the 5th season finale or when he interacted with her clone in Redux II, and never really offered Samantha to Mulder, while promising her in the Season 3 finale because he knew he had lost her years ago and many of his actions were sentimental. As Frank Spotnitz said, most people never get back their abduted children and they wanted this to feel emotionally believable.unico said:
i suppose, but samantha's disappearance and "cover up" was the whole point of xfiles to begin with. it was why mulder did what he did. after they screwed upp that story, i really lost interest in the show. what's the point in keeping on with xfiles if she was just kidnapped by some sicko? it didn't make any sense with the little hints we were given throughout the other seasons. they had a great idea and screwed it up big time. imo the show was over after that.
it was always fun, learning more about the story, but not too much, you know? every few episodes somebody would drop references, and it was another piece of the puzzle. and the syndicate!!!! oooh remember well-manicured man? i can't believe CC just wrote them off!!!! what in the world??? everything he had built, he shat on and killed so he can create this bs mythology that i didn't buy and i thought didn't make much sense tied together with the rest of the story.
but...that's just my opinion. i guess i'm old school.
I followed the mythology carefully and had grown to love the oblique story telling using fascinating characters like Krychek and mysterious dialogue between CSM and Mulder (which they had to cut out of the movie because test audiences didn't understand it). The movie was just a waste because it could have explained all these elements with a more powerful dramatic story. Even if that story would only be understood by hardcore fans, it should have been told on TV to avoid fears of a box office flop. The quality of the mythology had been incredibly high at that point in the series, and really dropped with the movie and the Season 5 finale that had to set up the film.corianderstem said:Am I the only one who liked the first movie?
Muldfeld said:
No offense, but I think you misunderstood what happened to Samantha. The story started with a child molester to relate it on an emotional level with what many people losing their children go through and to have someone relate to this extraordinary rescue by walk-ins to Mulder, since most people haven't had their children abducted by aliens. If you watch "Two Fathers/One Son" and "Sein Und Zeit/Closure", you get the answers. Perhaps Carter had early on wanted Samantha alive, but the decision she had died long before makes this whole quest that much more tragic and puts CSM's actions in a very touching and still dramatically-believable light, as when he took Mulder's file on Samantha in the 5th season finale or when he interacted with her clone in Redux II, and never really offered Samantha to Mulder, while promising her in the Season 3 finale because he knew he had lost her years ago and many of his actions were sentimental. As Frank Spotnitz said, most people never get back their abduted children and they wanted this to feel emotionally believable.
Basically, CSM was their biological father and he persuaded Bill and Teena (Mulder's mother) Mulder to pick a child to give up. They initially picked Fox, but someone decided on Samantha. She was abducted in November 1973 from the home because they had resisted giving up one of their children in October 1973 at the airbase hangar, as the aliens had insisted in exchange for access to alien DNA, and to ensure the human collaborators would work quickly on a process to turn humans into alien-human hybrids if they wanted to see their children soon.
Samantha had escaped badly injured from the experiments that were making her sick. She died as a Jane Doe in 1979, and, when CSM went to retrieve her body, it was gone -- rescued in some way before they could continue the experiments that would have killed her agonizingly. Why, in "One Son" did CSM then lie to Mulder about him being able to find Samantha if he just came to the Airbase? Because he loved him and wanted to keep him alive; before, he was willing to kill him if he posed a severe enough threat to the project, as when things became too risky over the digital tape in Season 2's Anasazi. By the end of Season 4 -- specifically "Zero Sum" -- we have some indication that CSM is having Marita Covarubias provide info to Mulder on the bee project. What we see with his treatment of Jeffrey Spender in Season 5 and 6 and see evidence of at the start of Season 5 is that CSM decided he wanted a successor. Before he was shot by the syndicate, he was trying to get Mulder to come to his side. When he was almost killed and Mulder had firmly said no, even when he gave him Scully's cure, he decided to regroup and become more cautious. He found Jeffrey and took him under his wing, while eventually destroying his other son, Fox. CSM's sadness but also his conflicted love for Fox, the wife he couldn't kill, and his former lover, and the petty and demanding qualities that led him to vengence against his sons and Kyrchek are observable all the way through the show. CSM had a great arc into "Closure" just as had Mulder.
On a great deleted scene commentary for "Two Fathers" by Frank Spotnitz, the writer comments on a pivotal scene that had to be cut for time. Usually the scenes are lame but this one really explained things so much better. It involved Krychek expressing great respect for CSM and implying he wanted to follow in his footsteps, if Mulder definitely wasn't and Spender was too weak to. Spotnitz comments that, tragically for CSM, he turns Krychek down because he thought him too untrustworthy, but actually it would have saved the project or at least ended up better for them.
I loved the conspiracy, too, and was so sad the Well-Manicured Man was wasted in the film. However, the show was starting to run out of themes and new ideas in some way, and if they hadn't ended and explained the conspiracy in Season 6, then it might have had a much worse explanation and less dramatic story than the amazing way it ended in "Two Fathers/One Son". I remember reading how the 6th season was going to end in a 3 part story that would be resolved in the 7th season premiere, but delays with Duchovny directing his stupid baseball episode meant delays for his availability for acting, and so they created the crappy Lone Gunman episode. It was even reported by the actors that Jeremiah Smith and the Bounty Hunter were both hired. It could have been amazing because the show was still fairly good!
You might want to watch the Season 6 two-parter "Two Fathers" and "One Son" which explains the conspiracy very well. I totally agree with you on the failed experimental shift to comedy in Season 6, though I did enjoy some episodes and some of the comedic moments. It was a lot better than Season 7, which tried to get back to dark stuff but felt really formulaic. Anyway, this 2-parter is quite good. The DVD sets are being sold without special features at a much lower price these days.unico said:
Thanks for the explanation. I really did misunderstand what happened to Samantha. I remember in an episode, after Mulder & Scully found all those files, he went his mother and asked "Did Dad make you choose?" And she cried and said she couldn't, and that Bill made the choice and she hated him for it.
I'm not saying Samantha should've been kept alive, but there was all this stuff we learned about the so-called clone wars. Samantha was clearly involved somehow in that. But then...the whole clone thing was just scrapped. I feel like CC jumped into another history for Samantha that seemed really out of place and didn't fit too well with what we had learned about her from the past.
I'll be fair, and repeat that I hardly saw Season 6 and beyond. I think part of me has consciously blocked most of it from my mind. I didn't like the new change in writing, the character shift, and the focus being turned away from mulder and scully.
BonoVoxSupastar said:I'm really not sure how excited I can get about his, usually sequals that happen this late tend to forget what made the original so special.
BonoVoxSupastar said:I'm really not sure how excited I can get about his, usually sequals that happen this late tend to forget what made the original so special.
FitzChivalry said:
Well, I think enough time has passed for them to know that: 1) Season 9 sucked, 2) The "truth" kinda sucked, 3) most fans hated the move to L.A., 4) most fans felt cheated by the resolution/convolution of the conspiracy theories in the later seasons.
corianderstem said:I'm still waiting to see it to believe it.