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THE X-FILES returns, in HD and widescreen


Werthead

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For reals.



Fox confirmed last year they were working on remastering The X-Files for Blu-Ray and HD TV in time for the show's 20th anniversary. They just missed that, but work on the first season at least seems to be complete, since it's now airing on ProSieben Maxx in Germany, of all places. UK/US release and airing dates have not yet been given.



Like the successful Star Trek: The Next Generation HD remastering, Fox have gone back and rescanned the original film negatives to produce a much higher-quality image. As a nice bonus, The X-Files was filmed with widescreen cameras and the camera fields were kept clear, meaning that the new masters are in widescreen. ST:TNG was filmed with widescreen cameras but only the centre of the image (producing the SD, square TV image in wide use at the time) was kept clear, meaning that props, crew, edges of the stage etc. are visible in the widescreen images, so they couldn't be used.



Unlike ST:TNG, it does not appear that Fox were willing to fund reshooting all of the effects for the series. As a result, the effects shots have simply been upscaled and probably don't look that great. The X-Files wasn't a show that used masses of CGI and other effects every episode, however (and its best stuff was mostly prosthetics and other in-camera work, which will have been remastered along with everything else), so it's not quite as big a problem as it is for, for example, Babylon 5. However, one issue is that The X-Files used a lot of archive footage for things like establishing shots of Washington, D.C., and the remastering team did not have access to this material, so the quality drops momentarily for these shots.



One bonus is that this remastering job certainly did not cost what ST:TNG's did ($9 million per season!) so the Blu-Ray prices should not be quite as high as TNG's. I'd expect to start seeing them later this year.


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There was some quality stuff in season 5 too. "Post-Modern Prometheus" and "Bad Blood" are amazing. Also the episode that Stephen King wrote, because every time I pick up my toolkit I say, "Let's play with the hammer!" in creepy doll voice.


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No waaaay!!!

X-files had some pretty amazing cinematography sometimes and TV format really didn't do it justice at all. I'm so excited about this :o

(I love X-Files up until when DD left the show, after that it's very hit or miss, but there's still some awesome episodes)

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I loved it at the time and I'm still a great admirer of the concept - it's just not one of those shows I really want to watch again. I guess if it was on TV and i had the time I'd possibly watch but the sheer weight of episodes puts me off a rewatch.



I was more excited at the prospect of it being back as a netflix show with new content. That,I'd watch,


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I loved it at the time and I'm still a great admirer of the concept - it's just not one of those shows I really want to watch again. I guess if it was on TV and i had the time I'd possibly watch but the sheer weight of episodes puts me off a rewatch.

I love this show and this is exciting news but I feel the same way. Sometimes I'll find myself in the mood and google "best standalone X-Files episodes" and watch one of those. Actually rewatching all the seasons and following the overarching plot seems really unappealing. It doesn't help that the first season is really uneven.

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The first x-files movie was fantastic, btw... the 2nd one was OK, but the first was top notch IMO

I haven't even watched the second I heard such bad things. The first was really an accomplishment. To this day are their any other TV shows that have done a theatrical movie between seasons?

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I love this show and this is exciting news but I feel the same way. Sometimes I'll find myself in the mood and google "best standalone X-Files episodes" and watch one of those. Actually rewatching all the seasons and following the overarching plot seems really unappealing. It doesn't help that the first season is really uneven.

Watching only the myth-arc episodes is pretty great but a little depressing, those episodes are bleakbleakbleak.

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Have to disagree and say that doing a complete rewatch has been a really rewarding experience. It's been fun seeing the clothes and hairstyles change too. I'll be sad when we get to the end.

We don't plan on watching the second movie.

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I'm a rabid fan. I even won a radio quiz-show in 2008 and got a trip to London to the european premiere of movie #2.



The season I liked best is already in widescreen - season 6. I'm right now re-watching and I must say even for me it's hard to swallow down the naive season 1 stuff, the way they act, dress, do stuff. After season 5 it gets more serious (though season 5 + movie #1 are superb, too, along with other stuff from the first three seasons)... Even season 8 without David is ok... the real problem for me starts with season 9.



But be that as it may - the XF is a beacon that helped many things be developed (internet discussions about this stuff, for instance), and there are many, many shows we loved afterwards that would have never been if there hadn't been XF.



The really big mistake was making the second movie a standalone-one.



So can't wait for the HD's.


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I haven't even watched the second I heard such bad things. The first was really an accomplishment. To this day are their any other TV shows that have done a theatrical movie between seasons?

South Park. The Simpsons. Doctor Who, sort of.

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The first x-files movie was fantastic, btw... the 2nd one was OK, but the first was top notch IMO

The first benefited from the fact that the show was at it's most popular so we all went into the film expecting to love it. The fact it was good meant it was excellent for the fans - I'm not sure how someone watching it solely as a film may have felt about it. The sequel was a couple of years after when pretty much everyone had stopped giving a shit about the show. I thought it worked fine as an episode of X-files but it was terrible as a film.

Awww. But we're already 152/204 eps into our complete rewatch. We can't start all over again!

204 episodes! That is reason enough why I couldn't do a complete rewatch again. Lottery winnings, unemployment or illness are the only way I could go through all of those. My partner would have to be someone who'd never seen it for me to spend that much time on it. Then again, i'm a bit like that with most shows - it's only when I'm trying to evangelise someone that I ever get around to rewatches. At least most other shows aren't quite so long though.

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