We really need a better category. Beyond “horror,” I mean. My wife and I have been re-watching the X-Files on DVD (we know how to stream but we bought these before streaming was a thing). Having reached the end of season five, we knew it was time to slot in the movie, Fight the Future. You see, in case your memory’s hazy, the X-Files were closed at the end of season five. The X-Files movie shows how they reopened. The X-Files has lots of monsters, some gruesome murders, and some spiritual elements. It’s categorized in different ways, one of which is horror. You see, horror and monsters are related. Others prefer to call it science fiction but that doesn’t really help because sci-fi and horror are closely related and this isn’t exactly like Star Trek. In any case, we saw the movie when we were first watching the series but I didn’t recall much of it.
As a hybrid—rather like an alien-human mix—it’s both movie and television show. You could watch the movie without having followed the mythology up to this point, but you’d miss an awful lot. And you can watch the television series without seeing the movie, since it’s episodic. You’d also miss some detail that way. It struck me as strange that this hybrid had trouble working for me. Was this a movie or a television show? Our minds (or at least mine) compartmentalize such things. You know what to expect from television. You know what to expect from a movie. Mixing them perhaps adds to the mystique of the X-Files mythology. The big-budget effects are only temporary, however.
A couple days after, we picked up with season six. The first episode incorporates the movie into the long-running plot. You see, movies may be a couple hours long, but a series that runs for several seasons is even longer. And since the movie is about hybrids, it’s strangely appropriate. I’ve always been disappointed that they never came out with a third X-Files movie. It would’ve been nice if they’d wrapped up the mythology in a definitive way. Although, I suppose, that was part of the draw for the series. It was open-ended. And Mulder’s poster said why. It’s not “I believe,” but “I want to believe.” That’s the way of the human psyche. I’m glad to have watched the movie again. The storyline is intriguing and I’m a fan of mythologies, both ancient and modern.
