Chris Carter Donates X-Files Artifacts to the Smithsonian (With Photos)
Written by: Carson McKnight, Special to CC2K
The Smithsonian Museum of American History gained some intriguing and mysterious items today when X-Files series creator Chris Carter donated several pieces of the popular television and movie series to the institute. Carter himself was on hand along with series director/producer Frank Spotnitz.
The museum will reopen in November 2008 after a two-year renovation and the X-Files items will join the over 6,000 other items in the museum’s entertainment collection. The display will include the FBI badges worn by the main characters of the show, a script of the pilot episode complete with storyboards, the cross worn by Agent Scully during the run of the show, the Alien Stiletto – known to fans as the instrument used to exterminate aliens disguised as people, a photograph of Samantha Mulder, sister of Fox Mulder who he believes was kidnapped by aliens, an alien maquette of one of the aliens from the first X-Files movie Fight the Future, and the “I Want to Believe” poster that hang in Mulder’s office throughout the show. The poster is signed by David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson and Chris Carter and supposedly belonged to series star Anderson before being acquired by the Smithsonian today. In addition the display will have an audio component which was recorded just before the press conference. It will include an oral history of the show by creator Chris Carter.
Also included in the exhibit will be the teaser poster for the upcoming film I Want to Believe which opens in theaters on July 25th. Carter plugged the movie several times in his talk about the objects as well as during the Q&A afterwards. When asked about coming back to the characters after the five years since the show ended Carter said it was difficult because they had never had a gap of time like five years to deal with when they were writing the show and the previous movie, so it was a challenge coming up with what had happened to these people during that time. But once the first scene in which the characters interacted was written the rest started to flow and it was, as Carter described it, “like riding a rusty bicycle.”
Carter also said that while one of the reasons for doing this new film was to introduce the characters and the story to a new generation of fans, the movie was made for the die-hard fans. Their urgent call for a new film was what he wanted to answer. He said the new film will not contain any of the conspiracy plot-line from the show and previous film, and while it does explain enough for the casual and new fan, it will not insult the die-hard fans.
