When is a Scully not a Scully....??

[ethsnafu]

I have the X-Files set as a Google Alert so I am sent a little email every time the term returns a new hit on Google. In amongst today's slew of Ebay Auctions and download links I happened upon an article written by an individual who it would seem is a passionate XF fan and committed Doggett/Scully shipper. It was an article that does appear a little provocative but not with merit or without reason to consider the points so I shall paste an extract of it here in the hope we can generate some discussion on the subject.

MY CURRENT STANCE ON DOGGETT IN XF3

I'll be frank with you... I am probably one of the biggest, if not THE biggest John Doggett fan in the X-Files fandom, but having said that I feel the need to express that my desire to see the character again has waned considerably in the past few months. This is what happens when I have time to really think about what I want in XF3. I'm at the point now where I don't care if it's made or not.

A part of me really doesn't want it to be made because after having rewatched "I Want To Believe" several times, I have come to the conclusion that Chris Carter and perhaps Frank Spotnitz no longer have what it takes to tell a good X-Files story as is evidenced by how far off the Mulder and Scully characterizations were in the second movie. For me, Mulder and Scully were nearly unrecognizable as the characters that I know from the series. How they were written in "I Want To Believe" scares me as to how they would write Doggett if he were included in XF3. I don't want to see Doggett in a third movie and leave the theatre feeling as if the character had been destroyed (as I feel Mulder and Scully were in "I Want To Believe").

I want to be able to look back years from now and still love the character. I don't want to look bitterly upon the character because of character destruction that could happen. This is what happens to me sometimes when I watch old episodes of "The X-Files" and sit there watching Mulder and Scully and thinking to myself "what the f**k happened?". Pardon my French. But it's true. I love the Doggett character too much. So much that I don't want to see him again anymore for fear that Chris and Frank would write him so completely out of character that I would stop loving the character altogether. So yeah, at present that's where I stand on the whole Doggett In XF3 issue.

Take a breath folks.

Now at first I dismissed this out of hand but it brought me straight back a conversation I had with a writer not too long ago but before I get that here's the fluff. Mulder and Scully are different in XF2 than the characters we had watched back in the TV series. I will concur with that at least. You might not. The wisdom behind these differences is that a significant period of time has passed in the lives of these characters before we meet them again and they have evolved as their relationship and personal circumstances are now very different. Seems OK so far doesn't it? Now a writer told be recently that when you creating arcs and journeys for your characters this depiction of evolution and change is necessarily more rapid and more prominent than in reality. To illustrate a point, I met an old school chum a few days who I had seen for a decade. He was older, married, hassled by work and the countless other trappings of adult life but he was essentially the lad I remembered from school. His reactions, mannerisms, style of humour and so forth took me back to being fifteen again. He's older and wiser but still the same chap. I think this was the point the writer was trying to make. We force a more distinct character change in reaction to circumstances in literature and cinema to keep a story engaging and interesting but in reality few of us every really stray that far from the template. Maybe he's right. I'm not sure.

That said. When I watched XF2 again recently I was taken aback by how narcissistic Mulder was. He was a far less likeable character than I used to remember. He was always close to being glib and sarcastic but he seemed to have strayed too far into the less likeable aspects of his character and a lot of the warmth of at times boyishness seemed to have gone. Scully also struck me as coarse in some of her scenes with Father Joe. She was always a character with a great degree of personal passion but she remained dignified in the face of that passion whereas in the film she seemed emotionally unrestrained. This was evidenced by how illogical her thinking seemed to be at times. As you will recall, she was the primary reason Mulder agreed to retread his old life again but upon acquiescing to her suggestion she considered leaving him for doing so. She did seem like an emotional yo-yo in the movie which was quite different from the more contained and logical character I could remember. So......having read the above and given it some thought I wonder what you guys thought on the subject. Were Mulder and Scully, older, wiser and therefore a little different but understandably so or were the same characters up there on the screen for all to see. Maybe some of us just didn't get?

Eth

PS Still LOVE the movie though so please don't think otherwise.

[Earthnut]

I believe The X-Files has gone full circle, and even though the last movie was good, it wasn't great, which is what it should have been. I agree, the characters aren't the same either, and of course, even though time can change that, I feel it us time to leave well enough alone and move on while they are ahead of the game.

I love Doggett too, but maybe a movie with just him would be better received then him being in the next X-Files movie. I really don't have a clue myself. I keep going back to "full circle" and "move on."

[ethsnafu]

I think it's a really interesting subject. The article's author makes the assertion that the characters are unrecognisable. The obvious explanation for this is despite being different to how we left them wouldn't that be the case considering all that could have occurred in what is almost a decade? I don't see how the characters could have utilised 'as was'. If they had stepped back into character and not been a little battle-weary or hardened by events then that too could have been considered poor dramatisation. A large part of the arc of the show was the will-they-won't-they followed by the now-they-do-will-the-meet-again of the latter seasons and in the film they do and they have done so for some time. There wouldn't be the same innocence to their relationship as there was before. Would there?

Now I accept that my lack of understanding for Scully's 'I cannot enter the darkness again' stance coming shortly after the 'Mulder you should enter the darkness again' stance is a little odd. I accept that she's saying she can't go with him, not that he shouldn't go himself, but I still assert that he was reluctant to enter the fray and only did so because of her encouragement. It's this lack of foresight I find odd about the movie-Scully as well as how emotionally raw and reactive she seems to be (yeah I know: William memories, her Catholic faith compromised and so on but she's been through far worse with a much stiffer upper lip).

I might have to watch this yet again because I think I'm struggling with memory.

Eth

[Guest SpooktalkGiGi]

Well i did not like the second movie at all, thought it was way off the mark of X Files and yeah i can see where he sees that Mulder and Scully were not themselves, of course we do get older and wiser and change throughout our lives as we grow and learn but thats in real life, lets not make it so in the movies. LOL I want my Mulder and Scully back that i loved for so long.

Laura :)

[ethsnafu]

It would be very hard to portray them as they used to be considering we have been shown that they are essentially different people now. I think there's always a tendency that when you take characters from the small screen to the big screen that the potential of utilising the increased scope of a cinematic offering can tempt you to play with the characters to the detriment of the viewer. Case in point - I recall Lance saying that if Frank went from small screen to big screen it would allow them to use unsavoury language which they couldn't use on the small screen. Well that's no doubt true but the Millennium we are familiar with didn't have characters effing and jeffing if you tinker with the format too much you run the risk of creating a mood the fans cannot identify with. My feeling was that they tried to paint Mulder and Scully in strokes that were too broad in order to fill the screen and made them a little less like the characters we could remember and relate to. As I mentioned, Scully doesn't seem to take a beat at all in the film. She's angry, confused, emotional, angsty - one raw emotion to one raw emotion and the Scully I recall was much composed individual whose passions burned beneath surface not all over it.

Interesting subject isn't it?

Eth