The Post-Modern Prometheus of the show. To achieve his vision, he wrote a script that blurred the real world with the "X-Files" reality and that had a distinct fantasy element. Carter combined elements of the original story with fairy tales and elements of folk tales. In order to make the episode "as moving" as possible, Carter sought to echo elements of James Whale's 1931 film version of "Frankenstein". He later noted that, by "using modern science, I took an old style, which is black and white, and an old approach, which is a kind of James Whale approach to science fiction, and came
The Post-Modern Prometheus as a snake handler on the set of "The X-Files" feature film—the shooting of which overlapped that of season five—and the other worked at a Vancouver coffee shop that Carter frequented. Chris Owens played the Great Mutato, and to many, he was unrecognizable in heavy makeup. Owens had played a younger version of The Smoking Man in two episodes of season four and was later cast as the recurring character of FBI special agent Jeffrey Spender. During his audition, Owens noted, "Chris said, 'Okay, did you ever see "Elephant Man"? ... What I'm looking for is dignity. He's got dignity.