merrycaepa | I WANT TO BELIEVE

AHA HA I SAW THE MOVIE.

Oh, please. You know which movie. The movie.

AND IT DID NOT SUCK. I WAS KIND OF TERRIFIED THAT IT WOULD SUCK.

Instead, I loved it.

I loved that Scully had an automatic bag-dropping spot in Mulder's house. I loved that his living room was entirely too neat. I loved that they've both aged, and there's never any attempt made to hide that. Yes, Scully has wrinkles. Yes, Mulder's jowls are drooping a little more than they used to. This is what happens when real people age.

I loved that it tackled such tricky subjects as pedophilia and medical experiments of dubious ethical quality that do in fact exist (although the article I read cited rhesus monkeys, not dogs). I loved that none of it was romanticized.

I even managed to deal with the gay-russian-organ-transplanting-snowplow-driving mobsters. Although I have a sneaking suspicion that writers were guzzling deeply from the well of WTF when they wrote in the part about how Franz Tomczeszyn for whatever reason needed a female body - I don't know if they were royally screwing up their vague sort of notes from the gender theory classes they took circa 1905, if there was a cut scene that would have ironed out that fairly significant wrinkle (PotC: ATW, I'm looking at you), or if the writers simply assumed (as I did) that Tomczeszyn and Dacyshyn were under a time crunch and figured that a few women going missing would attract less attention than missing young men.

And it had Callum Keith Rennie speaking Russian and that was hot, so I was prepared to overlook an awful lot so long as he didn't stop talking.

I loved that they threw us a Samantha reference, a William reference, and a Classic Bed Scene (tm) without making a big fuss out of any of it. I loved that yes, they're involved, now can we move on? Good. I love that you just know that, a few years ago, some junior agent hauled Skinner out of a meeting for the following scene:

Junior Agent: Sir, we believe we've found Fox Mulder's whereabouts.
Skinner: Oh. Really? ...All right, what'ev you got?
Junior Agent: These photos, sir. [presents photos]
Skinner: And how did we find this?
Junior Agent: ....We tracked Dana Scully there, sir.
Skinner: ...Of course you did.
Junior Agent: Sir?
Skinner: Never mind. Say, howzabout we let this one simmer for a while?
Junior Agent: ...sir?
Skinner: DO YOU VALUE YOUR JOB, AGENT? WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE ON WIRETAPPING DUTY UNTIL YOU REACH PUBERTY, AGENT?
Junior Agent: ...no, sir...?
Skinner: Thank you, agent. Hey, here's a random file I've just pulled off my desk. Do something with this.

AND CHRIS CARTER SAID, "LET THERE BE SKINNER." AND LO, THERE WAS SKINNER.

And Father Joe. I can't even...I can't...guh. He was amazing. I would have loved to have seen more with he and Scully - he's, like, issue-central for her, that would have been fun - and I rather wish his death hadn't been handwaved at the end, but that's how they tended to do it on the show. Unless, of course, they were going to give us a shot of him coming back to life or whatnot.

AND IT ENDED WITH THEM IN A BOAT. IN THE TROPICS.

I CANNOT WAIT TO SEE IT AGAIN.

ETA: Salon has a truly wonderful essay on Scully here. And you should all go read it, because it's pretty much a love letter to our favorite red-headed pathologist. And I'm a little peeved that I didn't write it first, dammit.