Fan Video Friday – The Best of The X-Files

Posted by Kim and Sage

HAPPY SUMMER EVERYONE!  Fan Video Friday has returned to cure your end-of-the-work-week boredom!

In case you’ve been living under a rock or never go on the internet, The X-Files started filming this week in Vancouver.  We’re beside ourselves and still can’t believe this is ACTUALLY HAPPENING (and it’s happening with Joel McHale, which I will never be over).  Because trolling Twitter for images from the set will not FULLY sustain our Mulder/Scully addiction until January, we bring you our favorite X-Files fan videos.  ENJOY!

— Kim

1) “Ships in the Night” 

Kim:  It wouldn’t be a fan video compilation post without “Ships in the Night”.  This was the first video I showed Kelly after we finished watching “The Truth”.  Mainly, I was trying to get her off the floor.  Really, this just glued her more solidly to it. “We’re just wasting time…trying to prove who’s right. And if it all goes crashing into the sea, if it’s just you and me trying to find the light, like ships in the night.” Yeah. Written about these two idiots.

Sage: If your OTP can’t relate to “Ships in the Night” then they need WAY more character-building tragedy in their lives. “We can feel so far from sooooo close…”

2) “What Does the Fox Say?”

Kim: God bless this video. God bless Fox William Mulder.  God bless this song.  God bless us, everyone.

Sage: You knew this video must exist. But you didn’t know it would be this good.

3) “Love Like Fools” 

Kim:  For some reason, I had never seen this video until Kelly insisted that we include it in this post.  Dude.  All the DIALOGUE.  In retrospect, you really see how much Chris Carter and company was trolling the entire fandom in regards to the Mulder/Scully love story.

Sage: I was just going to play a little bit of this one to remind myself of the content, but oops, I watched the whole thing. The paaaain. The exquisite, delirious pain. Still, I dare you not to smile through all six minutes. “Aren’t you the Secret Squirrel?”

4) “Starships” 

Kim: With all the conspiracies, horror, angst, and the OMG PLEASE HAVE SEX ALREADY, it’s easy to forget that The X-Files was often wickedly funny.  This video reminds us of that fact.

Sage: YES. Never forget that Fox Mulder is a giant nerd, and that Dana Scully was able to find uncharted levels of sarcasm. And we can all agree that these two deserve a little fun every once in a while. This video is a DELIGHT.

5) “Open Your Eyes” 

Kim:  This video was also included in the post “The Truth” fan vid binge.  When Sage found out we watched this without her, there was great weeping and gnashing of teeth.  I’m a horrible friend when it comes to showing other friends fan videos that they had been banned from watching until they finished the series.  However, Sage met Christopher Eccleston without me, so I would say we are even now.

Sage: I’m still not over it, tbh. Thanks to this video, “Open Your Eyes” has joined the canon MSR songs (“Walking After You”, “Walking In Memphis”) in my shortlist of those that completely define this relationship. (“I want so much to open your eyes, ’cause I need you to look into mine.”) Also, those smash cuts over the instrumental break of Mulder and Scully’s most traumatic/triumphant moments? Brilliant.

6) “Fancy” 

Kim:  All hail Dana Katherine Scully, Ginger Queen of the Universe.  We’re not worthy.  She’s so fancy, and we very much know.

Sage: I knew this had to be on the list when the lyric “change to throw” was laid over Scully putting her quarter in the Magic Fingers. Make a clever “Bad Blood” reference, and I’m yours.

7) “Fix You” 

Kim:  It’s brilliant how this video uses “Fix You” in the context of Mulder’s search for Samantha and all his family tragedy. (Seriously…are there TV parents worse than Bill and Teena Mulder?  Someone tell me.) It’s brilliant how this video fully illustrates how quickly Mulder would have lost himself had The Syndicate not put Dana Scully in his path, creating his biggest ally and the rock that he clung to above all things.  She’s his constant.  His touchstone.  His one in five billion.  “Lights will guide you home and ignite your bones. And I will try to fix you.”

But the BEST thing about this show is that YES, Scully and her “goddamn strict rationalism and science” saved Mulder “a thousand times over”.  But Mulder saved Scully too.  He opened her mind.  He pushed her to see beyond the comforting logic she surrounded herself with. He tore down her carefully constructed walls.  They are two halves of a whole.  They fixed each other.  She wouldn’t change a day (except for the Flukeman, natch).  If you don’t take that away from the show, you’re watching it wrong.

Sage: I knew where the artist was going with this video when only Mulder appeared in the first few shots. But knowing didn’t make it any less effective when Coldplay’s chorus kicked in and Scully appeared haloed in light like a goddamn guardian angel. What would Mulder have done without her? What would he have BEEN without her?

But Kim’s right. They saved each other. Without Scully, Mulder would have been a lost cause in many ways – too passionate and intelligent and single-minded to relate to the life on this planet. Without Mulder, Scully would have been…okay, I guess. She would have been a doctor and probably married well and had dinner with her family every week. But allow me to cross the fandom streams and use a Doctor Who quote here: “When you’re a kid, they tell you it’s all…grow up. Get a job. Get married. Get a house. Have a kid, and that’s it. But the truth is, the world is so much stranger than that. It’s so much darker. And so much madder. And so much better.” Scully had her convictions, but Mulder gave her purpose. It was a shared quest from the moment she got on board. They are true equals in every sense of the word.

8) “Last Friday Night” 

Kim: It’s scary how many scenes fit the lyrics of this song perfectly. 

Sage: And it’s funny that both of them have been involuntarily drugged so many times over the years that this video is even possible.

9) “In My Veins” 

Kim: When Sage sent me this in our research for this post (our lives are HARD), I revoked our friendship.  “Oh, you’re in my veins and I cannot get you out.” Yep.  Basically sounds like this:

Sage: The Syndicate ships it so much.

“In My Veins” is another one that fits all my ships, because all my ships are DEEP CAVERNS OF DESPAIR AND LONGING. I still find it funny that some anti-shippers or NoRomos (heeey, Usenet 1995) were against Mulder and Scully being a romantic couple because they were “so much more than that.” Yeah. EXACTLY. They’re work partners and life partners and secret keepers. They’re each other’s family and best friend and only Christmas present recipient. Is that leap really so hard to imagine? Does it minimize any other aspect of their relationship? Of course not. What still hurts about my OTP is that they’re so bound to each other that any separation – any pain the other experiences – is just torture. (See: Seasons 7-9) Having your life tied to another person is beautiful, but’s it’s also terrifying and sorrowful, because that person is fallible. WHAT A FUN SHOW ABOUT ALIENS.

10) “Love Me Like You Do” 

Kim: “You’re the fear, I don’t care cause I’ve never been so high. Follow me to the dark, let me take you past our satellites. You can see the world you brought to life, to life. So love me like you do…what are you waiting for?”

“What are you waiting for?” = the battle cry of the fandom for 7.99 seasons until we got official confirmation that they WERE in love and had been for a long time.

Sage: I was fine until the William scene, and now I want to die.

11) “Hungry Eyes” 

Kim: If ever there was a time to use this…

Seriously though.  ALL THE GAZING.

Sage: Mulder and Scully’s soul-connection was never about what was on the surface, though it certainly doesn’t hurt that they are both blindingly attractive. I wouldn’t stop gazing either.

12) “Light Carries On” 

Kim:  If you can believe it, this video is from the same vidder who made “What Does the Fox Say?”.  In fact, we have FOUR videos made by this person (also “Fancy” and “Love Like Fools”).  So seriously.  Subscribe to Snakey973 on YouTube and spend ALL DAY watching their brilliant videos.  They are all so different and all odes to different aspects of the Mulder/Scully relationship.  This person GETS it and their talent is beyond amazing.

Also, I LOVE the worshipful coloring of Scully’s hair throughout this.  That red is a beacon in the night.

Sage: Okay, I’m bringing in another Doctor Who reference here, because I have to. Danny told Clara this season that there are more mysteries to be solved in really knowing another person than there are in all of time and space. And, though Danny was kind of a tool, he accidentally encapsulated our X-Files OTP right there. In the pilot, Mulder sits on the floor next to a motel room bed and tells Scully that finding proof of alien life and learning what happened to his sister are all that matters to him. Seven years later, he’s on that bed and holding her, telling her that “there’s so much more than this.” She’s the difference.

I love the way that this vidder explores the concepts of free will and fate. Because Mulder and Scully are made up of a little bit of both. There’s something bigger at work on this show – it always has that feeling. But they also choose each other over and over again, every single time. And will continue to. DO YOU HEAR ME, CHRIS CARTER?

What are YOUR favorite X-Files fan videos?? Let us know in the comments…we’re always dying for new ones!