MovieChat Forums > The X Files (1998) Discussion > Why did they get blamed? Everyone ELSE w...

Why did they get blamed? Everyone ELSE was at the wrong building


I've never understood this plot hole. Mulder and Scully get blamed for the explosion, but saved 1000s of lives. The building would have exploded and killed everyone without their hunch. No one else would have caught it.

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IIRC, that was just the specific powers that be at the FBI who were looking for ANY excuse to rid themselves of The X-Files project using the breaches of protocol of Mulder and Scully to do so, despite the fact that as you said, M&S's actions actually saved lives.

It was the blatant nitpicky nature of the breaches that were being cited that made it so easy to be disgusted with those in power who were out to discredit M&S, whether they were aware of the agenda they were enforcing or not.

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I've never understood this plot hole.
It's not a plot hole, because it's actually discussed onscreen. The top-down suit elements of the department and government just want any excuse to shut down the X - Files partnership, so they manufacture allegations on the flimsiest of premises, claiming "someone always has to be blamed".🐭

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I have been wondering about this since I first saw this movie. Logically, it's just like... "They were in the wrong building on a hunch. They found it. They were able to get as many people out alive as they could, which is ZILCH what the bomb squad in the neighboring building did. Yet they get blamed for all of it? Where's the logic?"

Yeah, turns out there wasn't any except, "Shoot, dem X-Files ppl f'd us up! We wanted to destroy those bodies! Oh hey, Mulder and Scully were there? K, let's blame it on them! Two for one!"

Though that also begs the question: why call in a bomb threat to the wrong building in the first place? Why not just.... blow the building up? Blame the explosion on the sneaky terrorists?

Maybe I answered my own question. Maybe that's what they were going to do, but Mulder and Scully just happened to be there, so it became a two-for-one deal.

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You can spend the rest of your life with me, but I cant spend the rest of mine with you.

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That's my only real gripe with the movie. Even though they hate the X-Files, this was a real stretch and a pretty farfetched plot procedure.

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by mattiasflgrtll6 » That's my only real gripe with the movie. Even though they hate the X-Files, this was a real stretch and a pretty farfetched plot procedure.

It's always seemed to me that showing the FBI powers-that-be using such a farfetched procedure to illustrate how badly they wanted to try to get rid of M&S was the whole point of including it in the movie.

Is it any different than real life these days when you have so many companies that operate on an "at will" basis, meaning they can get rid of you for whatever reason they can come up with? I'm sure many of us have heard stories anyway.

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