X-Files Postmortem

Compiled by Lukas Kendall

A few weeks ago we had a review of Mark Snow's X-Files score followed by a letter (and our responses) from Snow's music editor. Here are some reader reactions to those comments, plus their thoughts on the score and film.

From: Andrew Emory Schmidt <aeschmid@indiana.edu>

I saw the X-Files movie last night, and I really loved the score by Mark Snow. But the song that was played over the end credits just ruined the atmosphere that he created. God, I hated it!! You know, if filmmakers want an orchestral score for the entire film, they should have the balls to keep it all orchestral. Someone else brought up the excellent point that other movies that we love would have been ruined by this practice, such as Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars, and so on.

I'm one of those weirdos who actually enjoys sitting through the credits of a good movie. Everyone else in the theater gets up right on cue at the sight of the first end credit and marches out of the theater. But my enthusiasm for doing that has gone way down because of crap-ass songs like the one at the end of the X-Files. It's like, "Okay, you want me to leave? You got it! I thought you had a classy production here, and I'd love to see the credits, but you'd rather drive me out of the theater. See ya."

There might have been a segue into orchestral score after the first minute or so, but I don't know, because I was too impatient to sit and wait.

From: Jeff Allen, Fruit13@aol.com

I am a loyal reader of FSM and I saw The X-Files: Fight the Future on Friday afternoon.

First of all, let me say, as a fan of the series music, I don't see why people thought that Mark Snow's score was boring and uninteresting. ALL THE SHOW'S MUSIC IS BORING TOO!!! But, in the context of what's happening on the screen, which is usually dark and scary, it works perfectly. You can't expect a hero's theme or romantic, John Williams scores to a show as dark as the X-Files. It just wouldn't work.

I, personally, LOVED the score. It scared the living crap out of me. Which is what it was supposed to do. Job well done, Marky. Chris Carter has said before that he wants the music to the x-files to be moody and atmospheric, and mark did a good job. from the opening credits with the spooky violins, to the final scenes in Antarctica and the moving, scary brass, the score fit the film PERFECTLY. Anyone who expected a more romantic score just doesn't know their X-Files.

People should also think to see a film first before they bash the score, because the final indicator of whether it's a good score or not is how well it works in the movie.

From: Ian Robinson, IRobiUK@aol.com

I don't know whether anything you said about the X-Files score is true or not, but you were right about the previous CD. All that dialogue gets annoying after a few listens, and you can't program it out. It's as if the producers didn't think a wholly musical CD would sell, but thought a few soundbites from Duchovny & Co. would make all the difference. And the packaging was rubbish, too - all those latin track names when what I'm thinking is "where the heck did this appear?!"

From: Faisal Juma <fjuma@yahoo.com>

This is in response to the article "The X-Files Files."

While I thought it was a bit premature to make speculations about temp-track borrowing, I cannot believe FSM did not go all-out and post an even more scathing review of this drivel of a score. The work for the television series displayed subtleness and intrigue, something that is completely lacking in the motion picture score. Instead we have Snow taking us on a tour ride of the last 15 years of action/suspense scoring. This is great, if you have been living in a cave, but a complete bore to anyone who forked out the cash to buy this thing. At one end you have tracks like 'Cave Base,' which contain note-by-note reference to 'The Hunt for Red October.' But what is even more embarrassing are the sudden 180 degree turns the orchestra takes, going from steady action to downright melodrama on tracks like 'Crater Hug,' where the string section breaks into sporadic wails of anguish. There is not an ounce of thematic material or otherwise that links any of these sudden changes.

Not all is lost though. Mark Snow displays a surprising level of complexity in some of the writing. He took the sledgehammer approach in composing a score for a big-budget feature, but I still look forward to his future works.

From: "RomanDeppe" <roman.deppe@metronet.de>

I was surprised that Mr. Charbonnaeu (or however this name is spelled) responded to Bond's article... cool to know, that some importnat people read your magazine, too... maybe the Star Trek producers did, too and after all the complaints about the music in their show they thought about it... but anyway, of course it is one thing to critize a score without having seen its movie, but as you said, it is the music that gets reviewed.

What does it help if the music works great in the movie, but is completely unlistenable on its own?

You can't give the CD a good rating, if it works great in the movie... on the other hand, there are scores great to listen to, but don't help the movie in any way, so would you give the CD a bad rating then? You should mention how it works in the movie, but I have completely your opinion, that if you are reviewing the CD then it is just about the music and it's not important how it works in the movie... sometimes you can understand the music better afterwards, like I didn't like STARSHIP TROOPERS when I heard it in the first place, but after seeing the movie I bought the CD some days later. Now I understood the connection between all the militaristic and propaganda music and wanted to join the STARSHIP TROOPERS, but to be honest to myself it didn't change the quality of the music... but why do I like it now? Still I think it is an ordinary Poledouris action-score, and for the fact that he had over 3 (or were it even 6 ?) months time to compose it I am still kind of shocked (I think it sounds like a score written in not more than 2 weeks...), so I wouldn't give it a great rating. I would write in my review that it worked incredibly in the movie, but would also mention that it is an ordinary Poledouris- score not more, not less and surely not worth to buy if you have all the other actionscores of Poledouris (and I don't own them, so I could buy it). I just like it so much for myself because of the movie and I understand what the music tries to express now, but without having seen the movie I think you can't understand that and that makes the CD not very interesting...

Anyway, I can't find any temp-tracks in the x-files-score. I wondered what Bond meant, some cues or sound-effects remind me of ALIEN RESURRECTION, but to hear ALIENS in CORN COPTERS... well, you have to listen to it very, very,very closely many, many times and let your imagination wander then you can find maybe one or two notes from ALIENS, but that's all... I found it ridiculous to name the article FIGHT THE TEMP-TRACK...

It's a nice album, something different to the usual hollywood-bombardments...

That's it. We also said we'd present our opinions on the score once we saw the film, and speaking for myself, I liked the movie and felt the score worked well. Some of the things that bothered me about the album (that it was too big, or like a generic action score) didn't come across in the picture. It's also possible that some of these moments were not used or were mixed differently for the final movie--if anyone knows for sure, let us know.

So there! Good movie, I dug it. I liked how the inside of the ship (not really a spoiler) looked like the Borg ship from QWho? (Star Trek: The Next Generation) since it's the same director, Rob Bowman.

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