While I wait for pumpkin bread to bake and chili to cook (our apartment smells delicious, by the way), I figured I'd use this time wisely and correct the monstrosity that was X-Files: I Want to Believe. For those who don't know, The X-Files was the best show ever made. Never mind that rewatching episodes makes me giggle a little bit at HOW obsessed I was, but seriously, it's still the best. And never mind that Scully was actually super annoying and overly-skeptical. As a scientist, don't you think she'd notice the statistics of how Mulder was right 100% of the time every time of every moment in time?
Now that I've emphasized the greatness of the show, let me also say how I don't include anything after Season 7 in the true story of The X-Files. For one, Mulder was barely in the show after Season 7 and the last movie, as I've stated, was as if they took the bold epic heroism of Mulder and Scully, skinned them, put them on some lame marionette puppets and then had them sit in a sterile hospital waiting room for two hours. Something like that. It was just laziness. For instance, Scully decides to basically invent a cancer surgery for some patient (I didn't bother to remember the details) and where does she begin her research? GOOGLE. Really, Scully? Or should I say, really Chris Carter? GOOGLE?! You don't have to be a comp. teacher to know that if she was back at med school she'd be thrown out before the second O was typed.
Ok ok ok. I could rant more, but on to my point: I decided to fix this dilemma since I believe the greatness of The X-Files former glory can still be resurrected with some gentle prodding and actually awesome plot. Granted, I won't act like I'm about to create the best story ever. I'm just going to prove that in an hour, I can make up a MUCH better movie than that last one. There will be plot holes and stereotyped storytelling all over the place, but again, this is just to prove that an amateur blogger can make a more thrilling story that actually extends the story of Mulder and Scully instead of having them hiding out in some cabin in the woods for six years (as if Mulder would stay in the shadows for that long. Come on, people).
So, first, we'd start from the end of Season 9 (for the sake of time, I'll just act like the last two seasons were part of the true X-Files story). So, Mulder and Scully are finally reunited and fleeing to Mexico because the government is actually going to kill Mulder. They know that this epic alien attack is going to take place in 2012 (so why wouldn't the next movie BE ABOUT THE ALIEN ATTACK????). They're laying in a hotel room, like in the first episode, speculating on this attack. So that's where the series left off and here's where my correction of the next movie begins:
So Mulder and Scully wake up the next morning, realizing they'd had this CRAZY dream where they were in a crappy cabin six years in the future, realizing they were super lame, and decided to go back in time. Therefore, the problem of the second movie is erased. They wake up and spend the next six years solving paranormal cases in Mexico, on the sly of course, and finding allies along the way (Spanish Lone Gunmen, anyone????). Their Hispanic friends help them out, telling them about various crazy events, children turning into pinatas and, I don't know, tacos having the exact shape of Mexican leaders? Whatever, it doesn't matter because all of this will just be a brief snippet at the beginning of the movie to show the audience how awesome Mulder and Scully continued to be after the last night in that hotel and DIDN'T turn lame, hiding out for 6 years while Scully somehow worked in a hospital where no one knew that (duh) Mulder would be living in the EXACT SAME PLACE as she did, and Scully DIDN'T turn into a boring anti-investigator, telling Mulder "No, don't solve crimes. Let's just live quietly and not do anything ever."
So back to my story: after this montage of them solving cases in Mexico for the next six years, they continue to wait for the epic alien attack of 2012. Now, they don't know the official day, of course, so are just preparing for anytime that year. With the help of their Hispanic friends, they form a counterattack that they won't reveal until the end of the movie (I haven't thought of it yet...). So, one lovely summer day in some village on the coast of Ecuador, local fishermen notice abnormally large waves rolling under their boats. Speaking in Spanish (X-Files was great with subtitles instead of pretending everyone around the world speaks English), the fishermen are like, "What's that? What's going on?" and then BAM, lights and noises and chaos erupt. The boats are engulfed in a massive water storm of chaos. The audience has no idea what's going on, but you hear broken Spanish of "What IS that?" and "Hold on!" I don't know. Just regular sci-fi reactions to crazy crap.
The screen pans back to Mulder and Scully, three days later, riding in the back of a pick-up truck with sunglasses. The truck stops at a gas station where they hear frantic women talk next to them at the pump. Mulder awesomely jumps over the rail of the truck bed, asking the women what the problem is. He's, of course, fluent in Spanish now. They tell him about the Ecuador fiasco, leading him to walk into the gas station, seeing a news clip (also subtitled) of a reporter, trying to look unafraid, telling about the odd events in the fishing village. Knowing what's going on, Mulder runs out of the shop, yelling at Scully to contact the others. She whips out a sweet cellphone and calls up their Spanish Lone Gunmen.
Blah Blah Blah, they spend the next half hour figuring out how to connect the dots between ever-increasing attacks across the globe (the Ecuador event was just the beginning...ooooooo). They figure out, after this half-hour of intense investigation, that the aliens are attacking small villages first to avoid immediate reaction from the humans. They've also seen Independence Day where the aliens made the mistake of attacking large cities first. So, not only are they attacking small villages, but they're attacking small coastal villages. And not only are they attacking small coastal villages, but they're attacking small coastal villages in an elaborate, but identifiable zigzag pattern that Mulder has elaborately marked with push pins on a map in he and Scully's straw hut.
So now they know the next location of the aliens attack: Playa Gaviota, Argentina (I used Scully's model of scholarship and Googled "Argentina", zooming in on small villages). "But we don't even know exactly who or what we're fighting with," Scully rightly protests.
"We never have before," Mulder responds with a devilish grin that makes the audience grin because now they're thinking about the TV series and how they're also in on the fairly lame connection to Mulder and Scully's FBI past.
Scully and Mulder then hitch a ride down to Argentina, along with their new Lone Gunmen, and whatever secret plan we don't know about yet (seriously, I don't know it). When they get there, they have no idea how long until the attack or what they'll be looking at. From what they learned from TV reports, these "phenomena" happen on the water, so they warn everyone to avoid the shore (no one listens, except a darling little girl of about six who convinces her family to move farther inland. Will she come into play later on? I really don't know...).
Around three the next morning, Mulder awakes to a light trembling (he and Scully and their Lone Gunmen are sleeping in a hotel about a mile from the shore). Mulder wakes the others up and they all run outside to a brilliantly lit sky of rainbow colors, flashing and roaring. Amazed, they listen to the screams of those who didn't flee from the water's edge and run towards the sounds. The first person they find on the streets is an elderly man, clawing at his face, but nothing is on him. Another woman runs from behind him, clawing at the ground, scratching and screaming. Whatever, it's weird. Looking up, Scully yells that there's some kind of fog creeping from the bright-colored sky. Actually, the colors themselves are a fog, spreading toward them.
This is bad, obviously. So they all start to run and the fog of colors is nipping at their heels. They're not going to make it!!!!!!
But they make it and try to figure out what they just saw. Scully somehow deduces that the fog is emitted from rays that blah blah, science, blah. So they have to destroy the fog maker. Fortunately, their secret plan just might work. What is their secret plan? Crap......
Ok, so during the six years that Mulder and Scully roamed South America, they found a chemical in a pit, like, two miles below the earth. One of their contacts told them about this pit and that there was a foreign...something...that was never supposed to be uncovered. When they asked why it wasn't supposed to be found, they were told, "Because they know (they obviously meaning aliens) it will destroy them". So, whatever, they have this thing that can destroy them. We'll call it Netrablium. This sucks, I admit, but again, this is still better than the last movie, so go with it. No one knows how it will destroy the aliens, but they figure it out.
After they escape the fog, they continue to hear a distant buzzing, like bumblebees (a nice tribute to the first movie, I dare say). They follow the buzzing (why wouldn't they?) and see tubes creeping back into the water. The fog's now lifted and they follow the tubes. Mulder grabs the vial of Netrablium and, against Scully's logical warnings, he dives into the water and grabs one of the tubes. The tube pulls him almost a mile out into the sea until it jerks him under (don't worry, he gets a crazy big gulp of air that will last him an absurdly long time). With eyes open and magically unstung by the salt, he sees he's being pulled into a type of submarine, but more alien-looking. He's pulled under the sub and the camera zooms out to show just HOW alien-looking this thing is. Back on Mulder, we see him letting go of the tub and feeling his way around the equipment. Soon he finds a hatch and squeezes in side, taking as silent a gasp for air as he can.
So he's inside the underwater spaceship and prowls around. Blah blah, he finds the central area, throws the Netrablium in it, and the whole thing starts spazzing out. Aliens are shrieking and don't seem to have a backup plan for this sort of thing, so Mulder's the only one who gets out before the whole thing explodes or melts or whatever. He swims back to shore, gasping on the sand (he barely escaped the sub, so he's rightfully exhausted).
Mulder and Scully hug. It's emotional. The camera pans out and upward, and we see the sub dissolving into the water, knowing once again, our planetary health is due to our beloved agents.
BUT we have to have some hint that there will be another movie, so after the credits, we see some mystery person reading a newspaper with a headline like "Coastal Catastrophes out to Sea" or some lame pun implying there are no more alien disasters. The newspaper comes down and we see....THE SMOKING MAN...and he turns to a shadowy figure looming in the corner. He says, "We're going to have some explaining to do." The shadowy figure slowly walks into the light and we see....SKINNER. He says, "Yes. Yes, sir, we sure are."
So, again, not the best story ever, but I would gladly pay $9.25 to see this sucker opening night. So please, from the bottom of my heart, someone make this happen.
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