The X-Files LEGO set officially announced, finally after over ten years of efforts by fan WetWired, and it is beautiful! The announcement comes with a very nice promotional video where Gillian Anderson discovers the set, in-character as Scully!
global release: August 1st
1478 pieces
plenty of inside jokes and details (there’s a puddle of Black Oil for example)
figurines of Scully, Mulder, grey alien, Flukeman, Skinner, CSM (as “Carl Busch” in the description, and only hardcore fans will recognize the name! I guess because the word cigarette cannot be mentioned, and indeed he doesn’t have a cigarette), Krycek, and Mr. X
200 $ or € (expensive hobby!)
Scully’s Lab as extra gift with puchase (while stocks are available, which means just a few days)
io9 announcement: “The R-Rated Director’s Cut of ‘The X-Files’ Movie Has a Title and Release Date”
Non-clickbait title: The X-Files: “I Want to Believe Vrach Frankenshteyn” coming August 14 on Hulu and Disney+. As previously announced, an R-rated cut reworked by Chris Carter.
Spoiler: this means “Doctor Frankenstein” in Russian. A reference to the plot and perhaps to what Carter did, resurrecting an 18-year-old movie with discarded parts.
Experience the brand new, never-before-seen R-rated Chris Carter Director’s Cut, faithfully restoring the filmmaker’s original vision. When a group of women are mysteriously abducted, it becomes a case right out of The X-Files™. Years after walking away from the FBI, Fox Mulder and Dr. Dana Scully are pulled back from the shadows when a federal agent vanishes without a trace. In a case you’d never see on TV, their only lead is a disgraced, defrocked priest claiming to have horrific psychic visions of the crime. Forced to confront the ghosts of their past, the partners must navigate a chilling winter landscape and an even darker human monstrosity. The truth of these crimes is out there somewhere… and it will take Mulder and Scully to find it.
How different will it be? Will it make use of images in the original trailer that were cut from the final release? Will this get a physical release? Will this be the last new material we will see of Mulder and Scully?
“Knock, knock. It’s the Deep State, coming to take your liberties and impose the New Smoking Order.” Happy birthday USA, global provider of conspiracy theories since at least 1947! #July4th#America250
And a special Facebook page update: just crossed 3000+ followers! Not bad for a home-grown one-man-show no-budget page on a 30+ years old TV show, and on this ageing and AI-infested platform. Thank you for your trust on all things #TheXFiles.
June 14 – Panel with David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson and Mitch Pileggi.
Mitch: during season 1, David said “this thing won’t last 7 episodes”!
David would enter chat rooms, nobody believed it was him
Mitch watched the show with hs brother, “this is dad!”: he was a defence contractor for the military, bald, glasses, suit, “constipated”
Gillian: “because Scully was fearless, I became more fearless because of her”
Chris would dictate them new script changes over the phone, Daivd could pick it up very easily, Mitch was slower and he was pissed off at David
Gillian’s 10 month old daughter hit her in the eye, she had a scratched cornea, so they had to shoot a scene from one side of her face onl (that was the greenhouse scene with John Neville in Paper Clip)
David was multitasking, while he was in the toilet in his trailer he called Chris with questions, Chris said “are you trying to prove to me you are a producer?”
David tries to tease Mitch on Avatar, Mitch says the Skinner episodes are not his favourites. Later, when talking about sexy shows, David tells him “remember I wrote you as Skinman”
Only David has heard of the IWTB director’s cut, he hasn’t seen it himself
Gillian acknowledges the director of photography John Bartley
David announces that Marty McInally passed away recently, a focus puller and camera operator in the Vancouver seasons
What David remembers is the new things, the first episode David Nutter directed, the first Chris directed, thr esprit de corps they had to pull off something good with so much work. Gillian says that the comedy episodes got them going for such a long time.
After years in Vancouver, shooting FTF in Los Angeles felt much bigger
Shooting the bee domes: David had to be in his trailer for hours because they were shooting the bees first, it had to be before sundown because then they go to sleep or turn aggressive. He asked Josh [McLaglen, the first assistant director] why can’t the actors go first? The bees got a better agent than him!
Liverpool Comic Con
May 2-3 – Panel with Gillian Anderson, Nick Lea, Annabeth Gish and Brian Thompson. Not much here.
Nick Lea’s favourite episodes are the Tunguska/Terma two-parter
Brian Thompson listens to podcasts and mentions Donald Hoffman‘s theory of consciousness, a bit out there
Annabeth Gish talks about the latest conspiracy theory of the day, about the death or disappearance of scientists; unfortunately it has been debunked and she is just spreading misinformation; it would make a good X-File though.
Denver Fan Expo
May 28-31 – Two panels, one with the full cast (it’s the first time they were all together since a 30th anniversary panel in 2023), and one with just David and Gillian.
Nothing of note. Like, nothing. David remembers being scared of a 1979 B-movie: Parts: The Clonus Horror.
At least some nice photos came out of this!
Marty McInally
As mentioned by David above, Martin (Marty) McInally passed away recently. He was a focus puller and camera operator in the original Vancouver seasons — starting from right after the pilot, and for all episodes of seasons 1, 2, 4 and 5 + on the second film, I Want To Believe. As a single-camera production (as opposed to multiple cameras working simultaneously, like on live TV or soap operas), The X-Files probably had one or two camera operators working at any point in time: Marty must have been among the people most present on set across the entire shooting!
Here he is (right) with director Kim Manners (left, also RIP), in a photo from the “X Marks the Spot” book.
As I was watching Disclosure Day, it was impossible not to think of The X-Files. Of course both tap from similar UFOlogy sources and Spielberg was himself in turn an influence on TXF, but the similarities here are even greater — to the point where Disclosure Day could easily be reimagined as a possible resolution for the series’ mythology, a finale film that never was! Mulder and Scully bringing disclosure and changing the world would have been a nice ending, even though the world’s relationship with news and objective truth has become so complicated since the 1990s that I’m not sure if this wish fulfillment from Spielberg can still deeply touch people. Sure, there are some issues with the film’s script, the film hardly breaks any new ground, the positivity around empathy is more Spielbergian than Carterian, and you might have your own ideas on who is manipulating who with this whole UAP business. However, consider all the images I attach here, and I won’t say more to avoid spoilers: common points go from the generic to the very specific…
I think his character could have been used more in the series, but he was a busy actor in theatre, TV and movies. Most relevant for TXF, he was the main antagonist in one of the big paranoid thrillers of the 1970s, Klute, where he acted opposite Donald Sutherland and Jane Fonda. I am guessing that Carter cast him because of that role.
