MovieChat Forums > The X Files (1993) Discussion > Glad to see they're still making up the ...

Glad to see they're still making up the mythology as they're going

posted 8 years ago by Sebastian_B
7 replies | jump to latest

Never mind the black oil, supersoldiers, little green men incubating inside vicious alien predators, something something Krycek... 

[–] sidekicknick43 8 years ago

Why are they so afraid to put Chris Carter on a leash? Seriously!

[–] krl97a 8 years ago

It's even worse than that, because the old mythology, as ad hoc as you correctly suggest it was, was finally shaped into something fairly coherent by the close of the classic series, and Carter just flipped over the board and replaced it with moronic 9/11 style conspiracy theories that are less interesting and a decade or so culturally out of date.

The old conspiracy was also uncovered piece by piece by Mulder and Scully investigating and uncovering evidence. What caused Mulder to completely flip his view in the new season? Some girl told him "men" abducted her. So "men" must be the master villains behind everything, not aliens. Never mind that men had abducted Scully and had been involved working with the aliens from almost the beginning in the classic mythology, or the wisdom of basing an entire theory on one person's very shaky recalled memories, which the X-Files has already shown many times can be unreliable.

Even the retcon was half-assed.

[–] 8 years ago

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[–] krl97a 8 years ago

The human element (men who betrayed their families) was compelling. The psychologically rich drama was the heart of the show, black and white alien villians running around chasing people with ray guns won't suffice by its self.

I agree with the first part, though I'm not sure that well was completely tapped. You still likely had remnants of that smashed conspiracy scattered around that could have formed the basis of new plots. You also could have had the dramatic turn of some of them gradually switching sides and providing insight and aid to Mulder and friends on how to fight the aliens, so we aren't necessarily talking about a black and white ray gun chase here. Instead of those potential complexities we're left with a new black and white human conspiracy with cartoonish villains being used as stand ins for some of Carter's real life political opponents.

Honestly there wasn't that much story left to tell on the X-Files mythology. I think they should have wrapped it up by thwarting the alien invasion, and either ended the franchise in grand fashion or started a new post-mythology phase where they focused back on paranormal events. They even could have started a new mythology without jettisoning the one they had spent nine years constructing.

[–] 8 years ago

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[–] WhoToTrust 8 years ago

The phrase "that was then, this is now" comes to mind.

Some aspects of the past conspiracy were addressed, but at this point we don't know how ALL of the aspects past and present will coalesce, so second-guessing and/or complaining about what's occurring in the story now because it hasn't transpired how some apparently would have preferred or because it simply calls into question certain political viewpoints would seem to fall under the category of egotistical armchair quarterbacking.

[–] krl97a 8 years ago

And I'm glad to see fans care enough to provide consumer feedback, invaluable to the process of product improvement in a free market system. Hopefully Carter will be smart enough to listen to some of it.