The X-Files: Fight the Future

Series:	The X-Files
Release Date:	June 19, 1998
Year:	35,000 B.C.; "Present Day"
Runtime:	121 minutes
Budget:	$66,000,000
Written by:	Chris Carter & Frank Spotnitz
Produced by:	Chris Carter & Daniel Sackheim
Directed by:	Rob Bowman

"Fight The Future"

Mulder and Scully uncover a government conspiracy attempting to hide the truth about an alien colonization of Earth.

Summary

NORTH TEXAS
35,000 B.C.

A primitive is alarmingly covered in a black oily substance.

As the wind howls around them, two cavemen follow a set of strange tracks across a vast snowy plain in prehistoric North Texas. Entering a cave, they are attacked by the long-clawed alien that left the tracks. Although one of the men is killed, the other manages to injure the creature with a bone weapon. However, a thick, black substance pours out of the alien as it lies dormant on a rock. The remaining man touches the substance with a primitive torch made from wood and soon discovers that he is covered in it. As the substance begins to move over him, he grunts and roars in intense agony.

NORTH TEXAS
PRESENT DAY

Thousands of years later, a boy called Stevie falls into a large pit in the ground. Three of his friends gather round the top of the pit, gazing down at Stevie with concern. He soon finds many human bones, including a human skull with a hole at the back, and becomes infected with the same black substance that killed the prehistoric cavemen. In an attempt to find help, Stevie's friends run from the top of the pit to a nearby residential area in Blackwood County.

Later that day, two fire engines from the County Fire Department arrive at the scene. Fire Captain Miles Cooles exits one of the vehicles and runs towards the cave. He sends two firefighters, Danny and T.C., into the pit and reports the location of the rescue situation to officers in Dallas. After Cooles loses contact with his two dispatched firefighters, however, he orders two other officers, Glenn and Sal, to enter the cave.

Later, a helicopter from Dallas arrives at the scene and HAZMAT suited men in white exit the aircraft, carrying a bubble litter. A doctor named Ben Bronschweig also exits the craft and clears the area of several curious civilians, clustered nearby. Cooles informs Dr. Bronschweig of the situation as they walk towards the cave. They watch while the HAZMAT team carry Stevie to the helicopter inside the bubble litter. Bronschweig seems extremely concerned, as the boy's paralyzed body passes him, but Cooles' only concern is for his officers in the pit. As the helicopter takes flight with Stevie aboard, a fleet of unmarked, white Freightliner trucks arrive and surround the fire engines. Cooles is puzzled at their arrival as Bronschweig walks away. Near one of the trucks, the doctor phones his employer and tells him that an impossible scenario, the like of which they have never planned for, is imminent.

FEDERAL BUILDING
DALLAS, TEXAS
ONE WEEK LATER

A helicopter transports Special Agent in Charge Darius Michaud to the roof of the Federal Building, where many FBI agents are positioned. Michaud meets with another FBI agent, who reports that, even though the building has been evacuated and searched, no trace of an explosive device has been found. Although the agents have already sent dogs to search through the building, Michaud tells the man to send the dogs again and walks away. Reluctantly, the wearisome FBI agent tells the other officers to begin again. Michaud walks to the edge of the roof and watches another FBI agent on top of an adjacent building.

While Scully talks to Mulder on a phone, he creeps up behind her.

There, Special Agent Dana Scully calls Special Agent Fox Mulder, informing him of her location and launching into a lengthy diatribe in which she criticizes his hunch that the building where she is contains the bomb, even though the FBI are answering a bomb threat that was called in to the Federal Building across the street. Moments after she ends her long tirade, he sneaks up on her and uses the element of surprise to intentionally startle her, as a practical joke. He then verbosely supports his decision to act on his hunch. Believing he is bored with their assignment, Scully reminds him that the X-files have been closed and that there is new procedure and protocol for them to follow. Scully seemingly tricks Mulder into thinking that the door to enter the building from the roof is locked but, upon discovering her cunning, he claims to have always known the door had been open.

Inside the building, the agents continue their jesting and Mulder shows her an emotionless expression that he describes as the face he makes when he is panicking. They playfully argue whether he made that expression when Scully had pretended the door was locked and, on Scully's instruction, Mulder heads away to buy drinks for them both. He passes a Black-Haired Man on the way into a vending room where he finds the bomb within a drinks dispenser. Also discovering that the door to the vending room is locked, he contacts Scully and apprehensively alerts her to the situation. She is initially skeptical that he is in serious danger, instead believing that he is trying to trick her, but then confirms for herself that he is indeed in jeopardy, when she sees that the keyhole to the vending room door has been freshly soldered over.

Mulder and Scully inspect the damage caused by a bomb

Thanks to her efforts, Mulder is released from the sealed room by their fellow FBI agents and the building is evacuated. However, SAC Michaud, apparently intent on defusing the bomb, remains inside the vending room, where he sits, looking at the bomb without taking action, as Mulder senses, now outside, that something is dreadfully wrong. He turns back to the building but ultimately complies with Scully's anxious urges for them to flee before it is too late. The bomb detonates as Scully, Mulder and another agent start to rush away from the building in a car. The explosion of the bomb causes major devastation to the building. While Mulder and Scully gaze up at the wreckage after exiting their car, Mulder tries to make light of the situation by telling Scully — with darkest irony — that next time will be her turn to buy them both drinks but his comment is not met with laughter from Scully, who instead continues to look up at the devastation as Mulder wanders away.

Part Two

FBI HEADQUARTERS
WASHINGTON, D.C.

OFFICE OF PROFESSIONAL REVIEW

Scully attends an OPR hearing.

In Washington, D.C.'s J. Edgar Hoover Building, Scully is attending an OPR hearing, presided over by Assistant Director Jana Cassidy. Mulder enters, late for the meeting, as AD Cassidy begins to cite a list of individuals who – the FBI have discovered – were in the bombed building, upon its destruction; the list not only includes SAC Michaud but also three firemen and a young boy. Even though Mulder interrupts the Assistant Director by questioning the list (because he and Scully have been told that the building had been clear), AD Cassidy asks him to leave the room until Scully has been debriefed. Mulder eventually complies with the request.

AD Walter Skinner finds him in a corridor outside the room, where Mulder argues that he himself should be assigned OPR's blame for the blast – claiming that he breached protocol – even though Skinner says that, on the contrary, Scully is meanwhile taking the blame and defending Mulder. She herself exits the OPR room and, advising Skinner that the OPR panelists wish to speak with him, Skinner leaves the two agents. The duo calmly but passionately discuss the likely imminent end of their partnership, with Scully mentioning that OPR is reassigning her and that she would be uninterested in a transfer to an FBI field office, after having experienced the things she has. Mulder correctly deduces from her latter pronouncement that she instead intends to quit the FBI. Skinner calls Mulder back to the OPR review room and, as he returns there, Scully hands him his otherwise discarded FBI jacket, also wishing him good luck.

A drunken Mulder is later at Casey’s Bar & Grill when he notices an elderly man, observing him from the other end of the establishment's counter. When a barmaid starts taking an interest in Mulder's occupation, he begins unconfidently deriding his own work and the humiliation he endures at the FBI due to his convictions regarding aliens. Reacting as if even she thinks he is crazy, the barmaid implies that she will no longer serve him so he pays for the drinks he has already ordered and they part company. Mulder sees that the watchful, elderly man is no longer at the end of the bar and goes in search of a place to relieve himself but finds that the bathroom door bears a makeshift "out of order" sign and the women's room is already occupied, by an unseen female.

COUNTY OF SOMERSET, ENGLAND

When spending time with his family in England, the Well-Manicured Man is called to a meeting of the Syndicate in London. Upon arrival, all of the other members are present, and he has to give his apoloies for being late, owing to his grandson breaking his leg.

Background Information

Teaser trailer

• This film was only the second movie adaptation of a series produced for television by 20th Century Fox; the first was Batman in 1966.

• A working title of this movie was X-Files: Blackwood.

• The phrase Fight the Future was included as a tagline on some promotion for this film, although not all. The phrase is also not included in the title card that begins this film, leading some to assume that it was not meant to be part of the film's title. However, the use of the phrase as a subheading for the film's script suggests that it was indeed meant to be part of the movie's title, more than just one of several taglines used to the promote the film, and that it was conceived in this fashion.

• The movie was filmed in the hiatus between Seasons 4 and 5 of The X-Files, and reshoots were done during the filming of Season 5, which meant that some episodes of that season do not revolve around Mulder and/or Scully, because either David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson or both actors were unavailable. Examples of these episodes include "Unusual Suspects" (in which Scully does not appear), "Christmas Carol" (featuring a single scene with Mulder), "Chinga" (which focuses primarily on Scully), and "Travelers" (in which Scully does not appear).

• The movie plays an integral role in the ongoing storylines of the television series The X-Files, set between Seasons 5 and 6 of the series, but it is also a stand-alone film. Similarly, it can be understood by both fans, and viewers who have never seen The X-Files before. For example, the black alien virus is intended to be the black oil from the television series, but this fact is only implied by the appearance of the black substance and the connection is never outrightly stated. Due to its accessible nature, the movie was responsible for introducing the show to a new group of fans.

• The bomb at the start of the movie has been frequently likened to the real-life Oklahoma City Bombing of 1995.

• In one scene, Mulder urinates on a wall that displays a poster for the 1996 20th Century Fox co-produced film Independence Day. Apparently, writer and producer Chris Carter deliberately added the reference as he hated the film. Like The X-Files Movie, however, Independence Day also involved extraterrestrials and UFOs on Earth. It referenced The X-Files in a scene near the start of the movie in which a SETI employee talking during a phone call says, "I love The X-Files, too. I hope you get to see it." The line was not in the script used to film Independence Day and was presumably only added while filming the movie.

• According to several different May 1998 newspaper articles on the rising costs of film production, 20th Century Fox spent around 60 million dollars promoting the film worldwide, [1] and the production budget, originally said to be 60 million dollars as well, was eventually revealed to have been closer to 66 million. With a minimum expenditure of 126 million dollars for production/promotion, the movie had a worldwide gross of slightly over 189 million, of which the studio would have received around about 55%.

• This movie was released on both DVD and Blu-Ray.

Cast

• David Duchovny as Agent Fox Mulder
• Gillian Anderson as Agent Dana Scully
• John Neville as The Well-Manicured Man
• William B. Davis as The Cigarette-Smoking Man
• Martin Landau as Kurtzweil
• Mitch Pileggi as Assistant Director Walter Skinner
• Jeffrey De Munn as Bronschweig
• Blythe Danner as Cassidy
• Terry O'Quinn as Michaud
• Armin Mueller-Stahl as Strughold
• Lucas Black as Stevie
• Chris Fennell as 2nd Boy
• Cody Newton as 3rd Boy
• Blake Stokes as 4th Boy
• Dean Haglund as Langly (The Lone Gunmen)
• Bruce Harwood as Byers (The Lone Gunmen)
• Tom Braidwood as Frohike (The Lone Gunmen)
• Don S. Williams as Group Elder
• George Murdock as 2nd Elder
• Michael Shamus Wiles as Black-Haired Man
• Craig Davis as Primitive #1
• Carrick O'Quinn as Primitive #2
• Tom Woodruff, Jr. as Creature #1
• Gregory B. Ballora as Creature #2
• T.W. King as FBI Agent on Roof
• Luis Beckford as FBI Agent
• Steve Rankin as Field Agent
• Gary Grubbs as Fire Captain Miles Cooles
• Steven M. Gagnon as Last Agent Out
• Lawrence Joshua as DC Cop
• Glendon Rich as DC Cop #2
• Gunther Jenson as Security Guard
• Scott Smith as Technician
• Ian Ruskin as Well-Manicured Man's Valet
• Paul Welterlen as Control Room Operator
• Joel Traywick as Young Naval Guard
• Milton Johns as British Valet
• Paul Tuerpé as 1st Paramedic
• Michael A. Krawic as 2nd Paramedic
• Larry Rippenkroeger as Towncar Driver
• Josh McLaglen as Buzz Mihoe
• Randy Hall as Windbreakered Agent
• T.C. Badalato as Fireman
• Amine Zary as Tunisian

Uncredited

• Jason Beghe as FBI Man at Bomb Site
• Glenne Headly as Barmaid
• Vanessa Morley as Young Samantha Mulder
• Mitch Toles as Security Guard #2
• Marcus Turner as Young Fox Mulder

References

1998; Blackwood County; Blackwood County Rural/Metro Fire Department; Dallas; Danny; Distant past; Glenn; Sal; T.C.; Texas

External Links

• The X-Files Movie script
• The X-Files Movie at Wikipedia
• The X-Files Movie at the Internet Movie Database
• The X-Files Movie at Rotten Tomatoes
• The X-Files Movie at Metacritic
• The X-Files Movie at Box Office Mojo

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