We just got treated to a very brief clip from the new X-Files movie trailer, featuring a group of mysterious FBI types marching across the icy antarctic snows, with Ringo from the Lone Gunman in the lead, crying out, "We've found it!" Cut to lightning fast clips of a body being dragged over ice, Scully looking hotter than hell, Mulder looking not so bad himself, and lots of zoomy blurred stuff. No shots of Exhibit or Billy Connely, though Chris Carter did confirm for the millionth time that they would be in the film along with Amanda Peet as a federal agent. No word about that giant werewolf we keep hearing about. But director Chris Carter, writer Frank Spotnitz, and stars Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny were in attendance. Here's what they had to say about X-Files and 9/11, as well as what it's been like to return to the story after all these years.
Carter kicked things off by saying the film was worth the wait,"Because it will scare the pants off you. You'll see Mulder and Scully again in a whole new way."
Suddenly a bunch of adolescent girls behind us started yelling at Duchovny, "Can you give us your pants?" Sadly he did not oblige.
A fan asked asked about the X-Files and 9/11 controversy. (For those who don't know, the pilot episode of X-Files spinoff The Lone Gunmen is about a plot to crash a hijacked plane into the WTC.) Carter passed the question to Spotnitz, who said:
"We were really upset, and worried that somehow we had inspired the plot. But we were relieved to discover that the plot pre-dated The Lone Gunmen, and that 9/11 had nothing to do with our work. And then once we realized that, my next thought was how the government hadn't known about this plot. There have been a lot of conspiracy theories about the connection between 9/11 and The Lone Gunman, but none of them are true."
Explaining the end of the X-Files series, Carter said:
"There was lots more we could have done but we ended at the right time. Things had changed after 9/11... and now the mood is right once more."
He added that the movie is standalone, though it incorporates elements of the mythology (including the 2012 apocalypse date).
Anderson said it was hard to get back into character. "I had a really bad couple of days. I thought it would be really easy to step into it and I actually sucked for 48 hours."
Carter said, "I've always thought the series was a search for God."
Anderson said:
"One of my favorite episodes is Bad Blood. Probably because it's one of the only episodes I remember. It was each of our ideas of what took place in an event, and we both got to play the other person's perception of ourselves. So I was moody and bitchy and David was going on and on and on [with the talking]. "
Carter's favorite episodes are "Postmodern Prometheus" and "Beyond the Sea."