: (Mark Snow) Rare is
it that a feature film based upon a television series is released right
in the middle of that series' lifespan on the small screen, but
producer/creator Chris Carter and his regular "The X-Files" crew managed
to pull it off. Even more remarkable is that the film not only
integrated into the fifth and sixth seasons of the storyline of the show
perfectly, but was also a narrative success on its own. Generating
positive buzz from people who had never seen a single episode on TV,
intelligently satisfied both avid
fans and the regular mainstream, a rare feat that was in no way
duplicated ten years later with the ill-fated second feature film in the
franchise,
. Directed by one of the
show's regulars,
and its successful
run promised of the possibility of another film in the future, though by
the time the 2008 "sequel" debuted, the magic of the show (and lingering
interest in the concept after actor loyalty issues caused its
disintegration in its late seasons) had waned. The plotline of
runs like that of an extended episode,
with larger production budgets for locations, sets, soundtrack, and
guest stars. The fact that the film leads fans to a huge
governmental/alien conspiracy and an associated alien spacecraft in
Antarctica is no surprise to aficionados of the series, and the script
developed several new plotlines for future television episodes to
reference. Composer Mark Snow had been writing music for the series for
all of its five seasons to the date of the film and had his own cult
following as a result. He had received six Emmy nominations spanning
work for "The X-Files" and "Millennium" and had begun to venture into
television and video films with varying success. His work for the "The
X-Files" episodes was typically dominated by synthesizers, for the
weekly television schedule never afforded him the time to work with an
orchestra. With two months and a significant number of re-cuts to work
around in producing the score for the feature film, Snow was given a
large enough budget to hire a studio orchestra to create a beefed-up,
more complex version of his weekly "X-Files" music, a decision later
described as an obvious way to adapt the concept to the big screen.
In the early days of the show (the film came at the end
of that period), Snow's music was not really that listenable outside of
context. Only in later years of the series did he explore more harmonic
ideas for the growing romantic aspect of the show's overarching
plotline. This feature film score serves as an interesting transitional
bridge for the two sounds. As expected, the electronically whistled
title theme for the show is translated to
The X-Files: Fight the
Future, and its incarnations are among the highlights of the score.
In "Threnody in X," Snow provides the theme over masculine, synthetic
rhythms reminiscent of the early scores in franchise of
The
Terminator. In its favor are those rhythms and harmonic bass
accompaniment, though fans will immediately note the absence of some of
the elements of the theme frm the show that truly make it what it is.
Mostly gone from the theme (and the entire album) is the trademark
echoing effect that is almost as famous at the whistling, a serious
omission. Curiously, the film was treated to a performance of this
variety during a helicopter-shot driving scene in the middle of the
film, but this cue, "Crossroads," was ultimately a substitution for a
much better orchestral version of the same general idea. The theme
rarely makes subsequent appearances, its fragments finally put together
once again for the finale's "Crater Hug" cue. The action and suspense
cues seem like an odd combination of Snow's non-"X-Files" efforts and
the dissonant experimentation of Elliot Goldenthal. The Goldenthal
influence is clear in several places where Snow plants incongruous
layers of shrieking strings and brass, in some cases mirroring what
Goldenthal did the same year in
Sphere. The resemblance to some
of Snow's superior feature efforts is best heard in the back-to-back
"Crossroads" and "Corn Hives" cues, which introduce the composer's
trademark synthetic choir from the era. The driving orchestral rhythms
in "Crossroads," led by timpani and largely absent of the murky
electronics, produce the single best cue of the score, though this
recording was replaced in the movie with a synthetic alternative better
connected to the television show's musical style. A few pieces later in
the score will remind of other composers, including James Horner's
Aliens in "Corn Copters" and an adaptation of the title theme
into vintage James Bond fashion in "Cargo Hold" (don't be surprised if
you encounter a fair number of singular moments that attempt to recall
Barry melodramatic suspense).
It's important to remember that
The X-Files: Fight
the Future is mostly a suspense film, and you should expect to
encounter a fair number of barely audible atmospheric cues of an
electronic nature, hardly a surprise in this circumstance. Some of these
more ambient cues are highlighted by the translation of the solo piano
from the show into the film. Many of the motifs heard regularly in the
show are not featured in the film, however, and this choice is most
curious considering that the filmmakers positioned this movie to
function as mostly an extra-long episode in between seasons. Still, fans
of the concept will find considerable merit in the score's adherence to
the basic parameters of Snow's treatment of the concept, though coming
on the heels of his simply spectacular (but still sadly synthetic) score
for the television production of
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
only months earlier, Snow is definitely capable of better a merging of
romanticism and suspense. The original 67-minute album for
The
X-Files: Fight the Future was not complete, missing arguably the
most memorable sequence of music in the picture. A limited, 2014 La-La
Land Records expanded product rectified this issue, adding five minutes
or so of previously unreleased material. This added music includes a few
unimportant incidental cues in the middle of the score, but it more
vitally provides the film version of "Crossroads," which, although it is
clearly inferior to the already-available, boldly orchestral album
version of the cue, is perhaps this score's best connection to the
show's iconic main theme. The orchestral version of "Crossroads," which
recalls his 1997 work for
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea well, is
among Snow's most satisfying career cues and is fortunately included at
the very end of the 2014 album as a bonus track. Enthusiasts of the
score and concept will enjoy this revisiting of "The X-Files" in
general, along with La-La Land's impressive sets of music from the show,
and it's disappointing that this logical presentation wasn't provided by
Elektra on the 1998 product. The sound quality does not seem to enjoy as
major an improvement on the 2014 album as expected. In general, traditional orchestral
film score collectors will find parts of the music for
The X-Files:
Fight the Future quite tedious, with only ten to fifteen of the
whole on the expanded album worthy of compilation inclusion. Snow has,
quite sadly, slipped from mainstream view in the years since "The
X-Files" concluded on television, but at least the album treatment of
his legacy for this concept has been well-handled years later.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
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