I started watching The X-Files when I was 13 years old. I watched it obsessively for the next 8 years, taping every episode onto a specially labeled VHS tape and bleeping out all the commercials. My junior high and high school lockers were completely plastered with pictures printed off the internet of Mulder and Scully; my bedroom was covered in XF posters, pictures and framed art; even my college dorm had its own XF Wall. I bought every magazine with XF on the cover and even bought an extra copy just to rip the pictures out of so the first copy would be kept in pristine condition. I owned every XFiles soundtrack, every poster, every action figure (I ripped them out of the box, I'm not lame enough to keep them in.) I had an entire binder full of XF fan fiction that I printed off various websites and message boards back in the day. My high school nickname was Scully but it was in college that I got my first Scully haircut. Anytime I need a login name/screenname/etc, you can bet the numbers "3 6 92", "10 13" or "11 21" are involved. (Pop quiz: what are ALL the meanings behind those numbers?) I was also a member of both X-Philes Anonymous (XPA) and X-Phile Relationshippers Anonymous (XPRA)....hello, my name is Jenny and I have a problem....

I ramble because it has been difficult in the past several years since XF went off the air to explain to people just how obsessed I was/am. This show has been a HUGE part of me for over half of my life. I also ramble because it was for us, the obsessed fans that have stayed obsessed over the years, that this movie was made. Chris Carter said they made this film with us in mind first, while striving to introduce a new audience to the franchise second. That brings me to my thoughts on the movie.

I, an obsessed X-Phile relationshipper, loved the movie. It was different: it felt different, it looked different. DD and GA have been saying in interviews that it was not easy getting back into these characters after so long, especially since the time that has lapsed in the movie parallels real time, as the movie picks up 6 years after we last saw M & S. It was the same for me; it took about 15 minutes to get back into the X-Phile groove and that only happened after they were on screen together.

[SPOILER ALERT!]

Mulder and Scully are no longer with the FBI, Scully is working as a surgeon at a Catholic children's hospital and Mulder is on the lam. The FBI comes to Scully as a means to find Mulder; an agent is missing and they think he can help with the case because it involves a potential psychic. Scully, with much longer hair, heads to a remote, snow-covered house in rural Virginia, lets herself in and finds Mulder, looking very much like a grizzled mountain man, in a room covered with clippings and pictures of paranormal phenomena...remniscent of his old FBI office. Faster than you can say "Hey, this chick showed up at my door named Samantha looking for you", M & S are on the case. Provided Mulder gets a lift to DC from a government issue black helicopter, of course (instead of being chased by one this time).

The plot that follows is classic creepy XF Monster of the Week, a la Flukeman or "Home". Two women have gone missing and the only clue is a bizarre, disgraced-by-Catholic-sex-scandal priest who claims to have seen these women in visions. A very elogant storyline pulls M & S from snow-covered fields in Virginia, to her hospital, to the home they share and back to the snow (the first movie had shloads of snow too, what's up with the snow?)

Did you catch that? They share a home. They are a couple. AND IT'S ABOUT DAMN FREAKIN TIME! The 'shipper in me squealed like a little kid given a lollipop when Scully was laying in bed and you heard Mulder say "I can feel you thinking" before he poked his head up and started cuddling with her.

The one point of the movie, music and poster I keep coming back to is how sleek and silver the whole feeling is. It was filmed in Vancouver, which explains the habitual grayness, but it had a very different, much more mature, cleaned up feeling than the previous movie or any of the episodes. It wasn't going back to what they had done before and redid it, it was something completely new and I think they totally "nailed it". Mark Snow did some wonderfully different music this time around, much more emotional on a personal level and less chasing-aliens-in-the-dark (check out "Home Again" on the soundtrack.) There is also a delicious new version of the theme played over the end credits by an artist named UNKLE (I added it to my playlist, it should be playing as you read this).

It was creepy, it was cute, it was mature, it left me wanting more. Which is what XFiles has always done, left you with more questions than answers, always leaving you unsatisfied with the meager amount you had been given. It wouldn't be The X-Files if we had seen everything and been told everything, now would it? CC & Co did not make this film for the critics, they made it for the fans and they did a damn good job. I want more.