So the Rock admitted to believing in aliens, fine — he should! His new movie is about little kid aliens with mind powers. But what kind of aliens do you believe in Rock, little kid aliens of big slime aliens? He explained, "I think they come in all forms and they increase when you drink."

The X-Files Conspiracy Timeline

Beginning four and a half billion years ago and ending with 2002 series finale "The Truth," this timeline chronicles every event of The X-Files by episode title and exact date. Website creator Mike Marek also provides a conspiracy-specific timeline that collects only the events pertaining to the show's unique mythology, a Lone Gunmen timeline, and an essay with Marek's own interpretation of what the X-Files mythology means.

The X-Files Mythology Guide

For every mythology-related episode in each season, sitemaster Derek Beebe provides a rundown, an analysis, and a bulleted list of plot points. This is a painstakingly detailed and thoughtful exploration of the series, and, impressively, it's near-complete: the Mythology Guide covers the first eight seasons and the first movie.

Cracking the Conspiracy: Making Sense of the X-Files Mythology Arc

This giant essay by Anthony Leong takes readers through each separate aspect of the X-Files mythology, complete with pictures and quotes. Though it only covers the first five seasons of the show, it is a well-organized and reasonably concise overview of the conspiracy arc — I'm sure it was no easy task to complete. Plus, there's an appendix with summaries of all the mythology episodes.

The X-Files Wiki

In this enlightened age, there's a wiki for everything; this is the one for The X-Files, related series Millennium and The Lone Gunmen, both X-Files movies, and even two X-Files video games. It's extensive and detailed, so start clicking — and if you've got as much free time and pathetic obsession as I do, feel free to edit some articles as well.

Red Wolf's X-Files Episode Guide

It's simple, it's not image-heavy, and it's way less work than going through the complete transcripts. This episode guide collects summaries, cast lists, and memorable quotes from each installment of The X-Files. The best part? The entire thing is available in PDF files, either in A4 or US Letter paper sizes. You can thank devoted fans Jens Vogel, Autumn Tysko, and Kevin Patterson for that convenience.

BONUS: The X-Files Relationship Episode Guide

If you're looking for some mind candy after that dense parade of complex mythology, here's your treat. Fanfic writer Kipler provides us with a hilarious quip on every bit of Mulder/Scully tension in the nine seasons of the show and the film; it's shipperdom at its best. Don't miss "Ode to Bambi," by Fox Mulder (1960-?).

All this internet knowledge should save you the 300 dollars it would take to buy the complete X-Files collection on DVD. This is the great gift that keeps on giving, from a show that arguably started web fandom. Enjoy — the truth, it seems, is only a click away.

Talking about the shooting of the movie, David Duchovny is happy to explain how not fun it was:

I did a lot of running for this movie,... You know action is pretty boring to do as an actor. Action and sex are silly because it’s all faking. I mean, it’s all fake, but those things are faker than the rest. Chris wanted a scene where I chase someone as fast as I can for five minutes. I will be interested to see how it cuts together, but we sure ran our asses off, for like, five or six nights in a row, in the rain. It was pretty stupid and I hated it.

Gillian Anderson is equally ready to complain about the difficulty:

It’s been a long time since I’ve done such a long shoot - I’ve chosen things between three and six weeks, and this has been the first time for ages that I’ve done two-and-a-half months. David has a lot of physical stuff to do in the film, and I feel like on the one hand I’ve gotten off easy and on the other hand I’m still exhausted. I just feel old.

Whatever happened to interviews where the actors sound excited and enthused about whatever it is that they're supposed to be promoting?

io9's intrepid intern Nivair H. Gabriel was one of the first to jump up and into the question line. When she asked Carter and Spotnitz whether Mulder and Scully had been communicating with one another during the six years that elapse between the series and the movie. Carter's good-natured, ever-elusive response? "Well," he answered coyly, "they've been texting."

Other random movie details:

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• They showed the same trailer we already featured at io9 a couple of weeks ago.
• As we've heard before, it's a stand-alone story, without the government conspiracy/UFO mythos that made up a large bulk of the show's plot arc.
• The movie also provided a chance to get personal with the characters of Mulder and Sculy in a way the series never could, Spotnitz and Carter said.
• They're hoping this will only help move X-Files into the future and didn't rule out additional projects.
• One sort-of straight answer, at least: no, Scully's family, an emotionally wrought subject for her on TV, won't be appearing in the film. Carter was squirrelly, though: that doesn't mean we'll never see "references" to them again.
• Carter says that the X-Files is, and has been, not about aliens, but about other people.
• Spotnitz is happy to hand over full credit to Carter for the movie's title, "I Want To Believe"
• No word on extra or cut footage, but we're promised that a future Blu-Ray will be "very cool"
• A question comes about the political climate today. Mysteriously, we're told that while the X-Files movie isn't political, it feels like it's taking place "right now." "We live in scary times," Carter adds, tracing his own initiation into paranoia to the Watergate era and suggesting that we look to what our own government is up to more often.
• What should we take away from the movie? Spotnitz: Hope. Carter: The trash from under your seat.
• A question is fielded as to whether the movie has an underlying theology. Spotnitz says there's no theology, but that there's meaning and value in the world (always a critical element of the X-Files, he says.)
• Carter and Spotnitz have generously extended the Q&A several times to accomodate a long line of fan questions. Any actual information about the film's plot or the characters included are mostly skirted, though Amanda Peet and Xzibit are reconfirmed as playing FBI agents, and Billy Connolly, noted as an excellent comedian, will be very much "not funny" in "I Want to Believe." Carter neglected to mention sci fi favorite Callum Keith Rennie's inclusion, which likely would have brought cheers from some of the gathered fangirls/boys.
• A Q comes about whether the men have seen fan efforts online. Carter congenially responds that while it's appreciated, "that stuff is waaaay too racy" but he appreciates that "people are living much more hot and racy lives than I am" and using his characters for a medium. While Iappreciate Carter saying so, that's quite a change in tune from from the years when 20th Century Fox lawyers used to hound the websites of small X-Files fanfic websites with cease-and-desist letters.
• A fan asks: was Carter inspired at all by the late Arthur C. Clarke? Yes, Carter answers, without having to think about it: he was inspired by Clarke's uncanny way of predicting the future.
• Some old series issues wrapped up: by the 7th season Mulder has accepted that his sister Samantha is dead, and Mulder is, indeed, the father of Scully's baby, which I'm sure I wrote a story about once.
• No love for Mitch Pileggi as FBI boss Skinner? Carter joked that Skinner was surely a part of the excised steamy love scene Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny had talked about shooting together in order to mess with our fragile fan brains.

Here's what came through the io9 emailbox this morning:

If you're really interested in the X-Files, I'm the guy who got Chris Carter (and a stunning brunette not his wife) to come to a Navajo peyote ceremony outside Window Rock, Arizona. It's quite an interesting story, and I'd be willing to tell it for... one million dollars! ;-)

(Why $1,000,000? Simple: I will have to leave the country, and possibly the planet, to evade the shapeshifting alien hit men Carter will send to silence me if I dare speak out!)

Actually, I'd be willing to tell it to anybody who'd listen, but I write for a living and I like to pay my bills.