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The X-Files has made me nostalgic for a time I never experienced

midnightmurmurations.substack.com

141–150 of 232 posts

Re: The X-Files has made me nostalgic for a time I never experienced

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

24 is another one that was at the right time, although the big one was not under their control. It started showing 2 months after the 9/11 attacks. More to the general point, it was also at the time that computers and internet usage was fast growing, but gaps in the digital side meant it was still plausible that field agents were important. They also had plot lines such as the bad guys using online video game chat (a…

24 was extreme racist pro-torture fear porn propaganda. So yes - definitely had its finger on the pulse of early 2000s America.

I'm at least happy to hear that you think America is better now. Typically agitators say things like America is more racist now than ever (including before Civil Rights).

Re: The X-Files has made me nostalgic for a time I never experienced

#142
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any, and I mean any, attempt to remake this show is doomed to failure I second that. Please, for the love of all good things, do not remake the X-Files, or Firefly.

Well, I for one would not be disappointed at a sequel or continuation of Firefly, as long as they figure out a way to bring Wash back from the dead and Joss Whedon has absolutely nothing at all to do with it.

I feel like I'm the only person who didn't really vibe with Firefly. I usually like the "space Western" motif but Firefly was so broad and over the top with it that it just seemed silly to me.

Re: The X-Files has made me nostalgic for a time I never experienced

#143

X-files was great for the first couple of seasons but then it went downhill, fast. I watched it start to finish twice, including fillers, and I gotta tell ya, past the first 2-3 seasons it really ain’t that great a show. I remember playing the live action video game that was split across several cd’s. that one was real nice. sometimes i still rewatch let’s plays on youtube about it. I feel like most people who are no…

I think the big mistake the X-Files made was trying to solve its own lore. The mystery was what made the show work. The more it explained, the less interesting it became.

Re: The X-Files has made me nostalgic for a time I never experienced

#144
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fringe was kind of a remake of The X-Files. It wasn't an exact copy but clearly derivative. Still a decent show. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1119644/

I wouldn't say it was "derivative", although it was clearly made by people who had enjoyed The X-Files, and Twin Peaks. I loved the trick with the colour grading. Won't say more because spoilers, if you know you know.

Fringe definitely handled the continuing storyline much better. The way they blend in, then transition from, the monster-of-the-week format is excellent writing. It did put a deadline on the story, something which the X-Files writers seemed allergic to as the series began aging.

Re: The X-Files has made me nostalgic for a time I never experienced

#145
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might just be age and experience, but the world felt bigger in the 90s than it does now.

Not only bigger, but more mysterious at that. Information wasn't instant and wasn't readily available. There were tales, there were rumors, there were news, and you had to rely on those for your own worldview. Anything further you had to make an expedition to your encyclopedia or library or other means to dive deeper into it. If you made an appointment with someone, you had to rely on the fact both sides will be ther…

It's funny, being someone who was terminally online then and now, back then I had immediate access to orders of magnitude more information than I did a few years prior as well as a normal person. These days the amount of information I can pull at the drop of a hat is so much more than back then it is mind boggling. Also a normal person isn't that much different in capability vs a terminally online person such as myself.

Re: The X-Files has made me nostalgic for a time I never experienced

#146
post #24

The X-Files was the right show at the right time; a "bubble" of the '90s, if you will. The internet and mobile technology was nascent. The world was getting bigger, but was still quite "small". I definitely feel quite privileged to have lived through this time, and enjoy all things '90s quite a bit. Any, and I mean any, attempt to remake this show is doomed to failure, and I wish they would just stop. Now, if you wil…

The one thing about that era that has always seemed unique is that for people who lived it, a few years was a very big deal. Even now that I'm much older, talking to people in my age range it still blows my mind how different people's life experiences were just due to be 2-3 years different in age.

Especially for anything tech oriented.

Talk to people who were computer science majors in the 90s, you'll find that their curriculum varied wildly depending on exactly what years they were there. a 2-3 year difference could be huge.

Same is true for how they experienced the internet, interacted with media, whether or not they were mobile native or landline native, and so much more.

Less tech oriented but the 90s had an enormous shift in terms of corporate culture. The people who were a few years older than me reported wearing suits to work. By the time I went off to be a corpo, it was usually casual wear, not even business casual. For the same types of roles & companies!

The list is endless.

Re: The X-Files has made me nostalgic for a time I never experienced

#147

To anyone with this kind of nostalgia I'd recommend watch 'Perfect Days'. You can live however you want. While it is impossible to not have a smart phone at this point you get to decide how you use it. Want to feel like you are in the 90's? Stop using your phone. Consume only old or physical media if you want, get rid of streaming services. Go buy an old car if you feel like it. Go read a book. Anything you could do…

That is larping. No amount of wacky pomo carpeting and Outhere Brothers cassette tapes can actually transport you to a post-cold-war-pre-9/11 world.

The nineties literally ended in a party where at least one person in the room thought they were going to die the next day. You cannot recreate that with a Doug t-shirt.

Re: The X-Files has made me nostalgic for a time I never experienced

#148
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The upcoming Firefly series will be animated, seems like the right choice

I hope they pick up on the thing in the last episode of Firefly, where River hears everyone's thoughts except for one person. There was someone else on the ship like River.

[dead]

Re: The X-Files has made me nostalgic for a time I never experienced

#149
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only bigger, but more mysterious at that. Information wasn't instant and wasn't readily available. There were tales, there were rumors, there were news, and you had to rely on those for your own worldview. Anything further you had to make an expedition to your encyclopedia or library or other means to dive deeper into it. If you made an appointment with someone, you had to rely on the fact both sides will be ther…

It's funny, being someone who was terminally online then and now, back then I had immediate access to orders of magnitude more information than I did a few years prior as well as a normal person. These days the amount of information I can pull at the drop of a hat is so much more than back then it is mind boggling. Also a normal person isn't that much different in capability vs a terminally online person such as myse…

Yes, and that imo kind of cheapens the whole effect of it. We're witnessing something similar now with genAI and slop people produce with it. First few moments it was wow, look at all of this and now it's noise.

Re: The X-Files has made me nostalgic for a time I never experienced

#150
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And let's be honest, that is also partially Clinton's legacy. Him and Tony Blair, with their "Third Way" triangulation bullshit, effectively moved the Overton window to the right for good. And here we are.

As a layman in politics, why did that shift things right in a bad way? Reading a summary of "third way triangulation" makes it sound good.

A couple of things happened. One, the Supreme Court handed the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush, and not Al Gore.

Bush did not continue the policies of Clinton. He cut taxes, which increased the deficit, which made interest rates rise, which made the subprime market collapse, which resulted in the worst recession since the great depression.

What gave him political cover to do this was 9/11. He took the opportunity to spend Trillions on oil wars, which we fought for the next 20 years, and which accomplished absolutely nothing.

The result was that for the first time in American history, the next generation had it worse than the previous generation. When I graduated from college, my biggest problem was choosing which stock option package to accept. When my son graduated from college, his biggest problem was deciding which meals to skip to afford his insulin.

Thank goodness Obamacare fixed my son's insulin problem. And Obama wasn't able to get rid of the deficit, but he at least put it on a path where it was shrinking relative to the size of the economy.

I can't bear to rehearse what the Trump administration has done. Absolutely incalculable damage to the budget, the deficit, civil discourse, our international goodwill, and to the rule of law.

It's hard to even convince people how bad it is, because nobody under the age 40 even really understands what a functional government and economy looks like.

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