These are what we call the 'YMMV items.' Things that some people find in this work. We call them 'your mileage might vary' because not everyone sees these things in the same way. This starts discussions in the trope lists, a thing we don't want. Please use the discussion page if you'd like to discuss any of these items.
YMMV: Men In Black
From the films:
Acceptable Targets: The wife-beating redneck who gets bugified at the start of the first film. Obviously didn't want any worrying about what happens to someone who gets eaten by a space cockroach.
Adaptation Displacement: It was originally an indie comic book. One that didn't focus exclusively on aliens, either. Originally, the MiB's job was to snuff anything too weird for the American public. The first issue was all about a New Mexico death cult, for example.
Additionally, MIB was not nearly as benevolent in the comics. Instead of having a neuralyzer, agents would outright murder a witness to cover-up or complete a mission. The organization also had an ulterior agenda that involved manipulating Earth as opposed to simply protecting it.
Complete Monster: Boris the animal, from the third movie. He commits several murders; when his girlfriend helped him escape from prison, he left her to her death; also, upon escape he deliberately uses time travel to go back before his arrest, not to commit fewer murders but to be more careful to get away with them, and also to get rid of those who would stop him from summoning an alien invasion, which in one "potential future" he actually went through with.
Darker and Edgier: The third movie. It includes a much darker villain than any from the first two, and partly as a result of this the heroes face tougher moral dilemmas and more emotionally overwhelming circumstances than before.
Evil Is Sexy: The form Serleena takes on as soon as she arrives on Earth? Lara Flynn Boyle in a Victoria's Secret catalog. The first part stays on throughout the film.
Fridge Brilliance: In the first two films, the majority of the aliens were done via CG with some practical tossed in. In the third film during the 1969 scenes, most of the aliens are done via practical makeup/animatronic effects via Rick Baker, to give them a more "retro" feel similar to how they would have looked during that era.
Any movie set in New York before 2001 is sure to feature the World Trade Center in skyline shots.
Genius Bonus: The first film included a "practical joke by the Great Attractor" — Great Attractor being the name for a strange gravitational anomaly with an apparent mass equal to tens of thousands of Milky Way galaxies.
Jay: I ain't playing with you, K. Did you ever flashy-thing me?
Kay: No.
Though it could have referring to the fact that Jay had been memory wiped earlier in the movie, we later find out that yes, Kay did wipe Jay's memory when he was little after his father was killed in Men in Black 3.
Hilarious in Hindsight: Will Smith was originally slated to play Neo in the Matrix trilogy. In that movie, he would have fought Agent Smith, a villain who greatly resembles an MIB agent.
The first film (released in 1997) includes a scene where Kay talks about a "fascinating little gadget" confiscated from aliens that's "going to replace CDs soon". To anyone watching the movie after 2001, he sounds like a time traveler describing the iPod to someone in The Nineties.
For added irony, Kay also offhandedly remarks that "I'll have to buy The White Album again". In the early years of iTunes, the store's failure to carry music by The Beatles was one of the biggest complaints against it.
The device itself was a Sony MiniDisc player, one of the company's many failed attempts to get past the CD era.
Ho Yay: J constantly referring to K as his partner. Enough to cause Mistaken for Gay at one point.
I Am Not Shazam: The Bug Alien's name is NOT "Edgar". Edgar is the name of the farmer the Bug Alien kills and disguises himself as in the first movie. The animated series seems to forget this. In the first movie, J calls it "the bug in the Edgar suit".
Wearing shades, followed by the use of The Neuralyzer, are a must in any MIB parody.
A common phrase to compare a new trend with an out-dated one:
*pointing at old trend* Old and busted. *pointing at himself (new trend)* New hotness.
You know the difference between you and me? I make this look good.
Nightmare Fuel: The alien at the beginning of the first Men in Black film freaking out when the police officer saw him. What the hell is that thing?
Boris. he can send tiny, knife like parasites to kill instantly, murders his girlfriend for no reason at all, and can erase you from time. Well, less murders her, given he made an attempt to hold her from being sucked into space. Granted, he didn't try very hard at all.
In the sequel, Jay takes a neuralyzed Kay under his wing to try and stop a threat only Kay knew how to deal with, and the rest of MiB is compromised from the inside. Hotshot rookie Jay is now the jaded veteran, and Kay is the over-his-head smartass! ... for about thirty minutes.
Word Of God says he didn't want Will Smith to play the straight man after seeing how badly it went in Wild Wild West.
Which only makes it worse, since Will is about the only passable thing in that movie.
On top of that, Smith has since demonstrated that he is more than capable of playing the straight man. Of course, those projects received considerably better critical praise than Wild Wild West did.
In MIBł, we never really get to see Boris kicking ass in his original alien form.
Ugly Cute: The guck-spitting squidling that J delivers.
The little Alien Lunch creature that K confiscates from the Chinese restaurant in the third film.
"Let's you and me take the ultimate thrill-ride..."
And the Fandom Rejoiced: After years of not getting a DVD release, the first season has been released at Target. Granted, it's a bare-bones set and mostly to promote the third film this summer but still ...
"Funny Aneurysm" Moment: The episode where Kay is given amnesia becomes a lot more unsettling after 9/11, due to the references to the Twin Towers (and one part of the episode being to avoid having an airship ram into the Twin Towers). It's also a major reason why the episode never reaired after 9/11.
