Men in Black General Thread

If I saw the new trailer I'm sure I would have loved it. Alas, just as I was going to these two people in black suits showed up and I decided to watch something else instead.

Don't worry. They were probably good guys.

A wise man (from Belair) once said that Good Guys dress in black.

Remember that.

...oh wait. You can't!

I suppose. I'm willing to be surprised. I'm just not as ready to ditch the two actors that made me invested in the premise to begin with for Liam Neeson, Tessa Thompson, and Chris Hemsworth. You can't just throw out Will Smith and expect a film to be okay because the setting is wide. Independence Day 2 can attest to that.

I'm against forming franchises off of actors so those actors can leave and the franchise can get tanked afterward (cough) schmig wang theory (cough). But, MIB being born in that era as it was, that was the MIB I was invested in.

If this movie ends up below-average, well, maybe we shouldn't risk bringing franchises back without Netflix or Adult Swim's support. If it ends up being great, well, that's great. But I can still name more films that lost their leads and suffered for it than ones that excelled. Nobody's really looking forward to Home Alone 5, Karate Kid 4, or a Back to the Future reboot.

Edited by Soble on Dec 20th 2018 at 8:13:03 AM

Independence Day never had any sort of "vast universe". It was always a mediocre, by-the-numbers alien invasion movie with some neat effects.

MIB actually introduced a pretty nifty urban sci-fi universe stuff that could (and indeed should) work without J and K, even though I like the characters. I'm in many ways kind of glad the franchise is trying to move past them. MIB consists of two good movies (I and III) and a mediocre one (II), I think that trilogy already gave J and K their time to shine. Let someone else take the wheel.

Also, Agent O (from MIB III) is in this, so I guess at least some link is here.

I was never huge on Men in Black but if this is just a Thor and Valkyrie movie, then that's really all I need to be interested.

Edited by LordVatek on Dec 20th 2018 at 11:47:26 AM

I’m seeing a lot of hatred for this online and I’m honestly confused. This is actually what Ghostbusters should have done (and was kinda setting up in the video game with the idea of franchising the Ghostbusters), take this big world, and set it somewhere else. I’m sure in the US the Fresh Prince and the World’s Crankiest Old Man are still having adventures because nothing here is saying “that didn’t happen, like these characters now.” This is not Ghostbusters 2016.

I wonder what Liam Neeson's role in all this is. I figured he'd be the partner, but that's Thor's role. I figured he'd be the one in charge, but that's still O.

I'm going with Mentor Figure Who Turns Out To Be Evil. Any takers?

Yes. I believe Liam Neeson's character is The Mole.

Solely from the trailer, I figured it was a flashback and Neeson was MentorOccupationalHazarded.

Edit: Given a rewatch, I see that it isn't a flashback. So yeah, definitely mentor turned evil. They wouldn't use a big name actor if they were just going to use him as a generic mentor. Since it's a Buddy Cop Show between Agents M and H, I don't supposed there's room for MOH.

Maybe he's Alpha.

Edited by Eagal on Dec 20th 2018 at 9:33:14 AM

I wasn't entirely sure about the film until they started assembling weaponry from parts of their car. That sort of insanity is exactly what the movies were about. Much of the humor was right on that edge, slightly different in tone but in the same category.

A real problem was that the movies thrived not strictly on the premise, but on the character types that Jones and Smith evoked. Kay's Seen It All deadpan mixed with Jay's hip attitude made, and still makes, the first film so refreshing. As a result, making Jay more world weary while still the less experienced partner is what harmed the sequels. The original comics were about more than just aliens, but included the occult, conspiracies and other things MIB characters are trying to cover up. By limiting it to aliens that limits what you can really do, as most stories would just fall back on some form of alien invasion (and the neuralizer means it would be difficult to develop a human-centric evil plot).

At the least, the lower stakes of the animated series gave them an opportunity for nore stories about day to day life. Slice of Life movies are difficult to get right, because they still need to be seen as cinematic.

Independence Day was never franchise-worthy. It was the story of one thing that happened one time to the whole planet, and then it was defeated and the world moved on. It was about a single event, which means that in order to make more stories, you need to find ways to milk that single event over and over and over.

Men in Black is not about that time J and K fought a Bug. It's framed like the Bug is just a day at the office, no different from everything else that hundreds if not thousands of Agents are always doing. It establishes an Adventure World. That's what makes it a setting ripe for building a franchise.

I'm not. Main character's a woman. This always happens. It's like clockwork.

Honestly I'd argue that bringing K back in MIB 2 was a bad idea since his character got a proper resolution at the end of the first film which fit, and it set up J to become a more wise and cool agent. Then K being brought back in 2 reeked of the studio going "well people really liked the dynamic in the first one, so we have to do it again." And it didn't work nearly as well because things had supposedly progressed since the first one. Not only did K's return feels really forced imo, but they had to regress J's competency level jus to make it happen.

MIB 3 got around that to some degree with the whole time travel/Young K idea.

And colored, don’t forget colored.

People were already pissed the moment they saw the first image of the duo simply because a black woman was involved.

Edited by slimcoder on Dec 21st 2018 at 12:00:36 PM

Say what you will about 2, which IMO is that it sucked, but I really liked 3 as a coda to K and J’s partnership. That’s why I don’t mind seeing what the rest of the world is up to.

Yeah, I thought MIB III ended things solidly for J and K, bringing things full-circle. I'm good with leaving them behind.

I don't know about III. The implication that K brought J in because of nepotism instead of J's skills takes a lot away from the movie. When K's arguing with Zed about giving J a chance in the first film, it was supposed to be because K recognizes the kid's talent. Now it's just because K made a promise and he's gonna keep it, qualifications be damned.

It's a cool movie, but the final twist at the end is something I think the series could have done well enough without.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Dec 21st 2018 at 4:20:27 AM

To be fair, K already saw J competency in the movie so it was more of "I want yo fulliet your full potencial".

In general, I will said that while there is a aventure world like tobias said, the movie is more into this two people with funny dynamic into a weirder world.

You just need personality that match between to protagonist and you are done.

That’s how I looked at it. He knows J will be one of the best and what he saw when he re-met him proved it.

This doesn’t erase those adventures, which is a good thing about the setting. It just looks at another part of a very big world.

Also, Maybe is just me but I kinda like Men in Black 2, the idea K just really love space make him more marry to the job and he is men on black other than just responsabilities.

And the idea he is the father of lorraine....sound nice.

I also agree that K's promise to J's father doesn't really change anything.

K was always going to find a way to keep his promise, but J actually pulling off the stunt he did (on his own merits too remember; it's not like K did anything to help him there. J chased that alien dude down without even knowing what he was dealing with) just let him do it in a different way.

K (probably, they never say it 100% but they do imply it) having been the lover of some alien queen and being the father of her child isn't a bad idea. I just that they'd done more with it, because it was kind of just shoehorned in at the end there.

But I have a HUGE problem with them basically getting rid of K's entire character arc/motivation with like 2 lines of throwaway dialogue just because the studio of whomever was afraid to try anything new. That was cheap and lazy imo.

The only thing that knowing the future change stuff is that he knows J unconvencional Style is actually a good asset in the end which is why he put with it and leverage for a try.

I think is a good way, since it just show that K is not a uptight as he want to be.

Also change motivations? can you explain?.

Edited by unknowing on Dec 22nd 2018 at 2:40:38 PM

K's entire thing in the first film was that he'd become weary and tired. He'd dedicated most of his life to MIB and made tremendous personal sacrifices, including giving up the chance to be with the woman he loved in the process. And as he got older, he'd started having regrets and that's where J came in. This is actually paralleled because the conversation that he has with J at the end mirrors the one that he'd had with Agent D (an even older agent who needed out as well) at the beginning. K was now where D was back then. And his reward for his years of services was to get to spend the rest of his days in piece with the woman he loved, not have to remember all of the messed-up stuff that he'd seen, and we know that he'd left a worthy replacement behind to carry on from where he'd left off.

It was a fitting end to his story, and J smiling while reading the tabloid article about him before returning to work was proof of this. Then in the second move, that all gets wiped away with J basically going "oh you couldn't give it up after all, so your wife left you." I nearly face-palmed when I heard that, it was that cringey.

Also again they had to kind of regress J's character to try and make it work. He was set up to be a more mature and effective agent at the end of the first film, but they basically made him back into the "bumbling rookie" in the second one just to bring K back.

New trailer -

Insert Thor and Valkyrie jokes here.

I knew they were going to make at least 1 crack about the name "Men in Black" but I'd really hoped they wouldn't.