Posted at 2:37 PM (PST) on Wednesday, March 3, 2004
From the April 2004 issue of Playstation Magazine, courtesy of Figaro30 at the X-Files Message Boards:
The Power of X
Gillian Anderson on The X-Files: Resist or Serve
Sunday, May 19, 2002, was a sad day for millions of sci-fi fans around the world. That was the day the final episode of The X-files aired, and with no definite news of a second film, the future looked grim for fans of the groundbreaking drama. But then Fox announced a new project in development: The X-files: Resist or Serve, a survival-horror game set during the seventh season of the show. So the fans waited.
And waited.
And waited. But now, finally, the game is nearing release. Why the delay? Neither Fox nor Vivendi Universal, the game's publisher, are saying. But it's made things a little more challenging for Gillian Anderson, who reprises her role as Special Agent Dana Scully in the game. It was "extremely difficult" to get back into character, she tells us. "I was working on a play and very much immersed in the rehearsal process for this other character. I kept saying things like this would and not like Scully. So it was very frustrating. I think if I was standing next to David [Duchovny, who plays her X-files partner Fox Mulder] and could hear his voice it might've made it easier."
More challenging still was the fact that game is set during the seventh of the series' nine seasons, requiring Anderson to reach that much further back. "The phrase 'missing episodes' was used", says Tom Schnauz, who penned the script for the game (as well as two season 9 episodes), "as if there were season seven episodes that were filmed but never aired. So we divided the game into three separate 'episodes', each with its own teaser. The game takes place some time after 'Sixth Extinction'; we tie in pieces from 'Sixth Extinction', 'Tunguska' and other episodes. The hope is that it all tracks logically for the fans, while still remaining interesting for players not that familiar with The X-files mythology."
Anderson is less confident that the game could take the place of actual filmed episodes. "There are a lot more complicated and psychological aspects in an actual screenplay than there are in a game, I think. There are things like character history and background that you don't necessarily need in a game. It's also different in that the script for a game doesn't flow like a normal script does, because there are different beginnings and endings depending on where the character goes. So I can't say it would work [as an episode on television]."
Still, the idea of diving back into the X-files mythos has got plenty of fans excited, especially with the prospect of directly controlling Scully and Mulder as they battle against the walking dead. The only other X-files game to hit the console world was a full-motion-video point-and-click adventure -- not exactly the most engaging format.
Anderson, for her part, is more excited to get Scully back onto the big screen. "We've always said it would be fun to do [another] movie years after the end of the series", she says, "I don't have any doubt there will be one, and I'm not alone in that."
_____________________________
Gillian Anderson talks about getting polygonal
"In order to match up the computer image of Scully with my mouth movements, they had a camera trained closely on my mouth and had me wear this bright red lipstick, which I had to wear the way Scully would wear it. Then I had to sit, not moving my head, while I [recorded dialogue]. So not only was I having difficulty getting back into the character but I couldn't move and had to wear this crazy lipstick. It was quite comical."