Men in Black
Hey, Do You Remember...?
Christopher Schrader
4.8 • 676 Ratings
🗓️ 28 July 2017
⏱️ 130 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It's hard to believe that the original Men in Black is twenty-years-old this summer. Part of the reason for that might be that the footprint it left in pop-culture is still firmly cemented, but there are also so many aspects of this that feel timeless. Between the retro-futuristic production design, the seamless blend of practical effects & CGI, and an irreverent sense of humor that never gets old, this could go toe-to-toe with a lot of more current releases.
As kids, all of us enjoyed this more than we expected to going in - which is not to say we weren't looking forward to it. It's just that the film was even better than we imagined. So it was a pleasant surprise to discover that almost all of this still works two decades later.
Topics include: the fairly dramatic liberties the filmmakers took with the comic book source material, original choices for the roles of J and K, the understated brilliance of Tommy Lee Jones' performance, the fact that no one really passed the MiB tryouts, how you'd deploy a neuralizer in your everyday life if those actually existed, where second film went wrong, how the third out sorta made up for it, and much much more!
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, do you remember men in black? |
| 0:07.0 | Hello and welcome, Hey, do you remember Hey Do You Remember, a show where we reminisce about a movie or TV series we grew up with, then take off the rose-tinted glasses to see how it holds up. |
| 0:31.5 | I'm Chris. |
| 0:32.2 | I'm Donna. |
| 0:33.0 | I'm Carlos. |
| 0:33.9 | And I'm Kristen. |
| 0:34.6 | And today we're revisiting Men in Black. |
| 0:58.6 | Yeah. Carlos. And I'm Kristen. And today we're revisiting men in black. They are the best kept secret in the universe, our best, last, and only line of defense. |
| 1:02.6 | They work in secret, exist in shadow, and dress in black. |
| 1:06.8 | Their mission isn't just to monitor extraterrestrial activity on Earth. They also handle all manner of paranormal and supernatural threats as well, including but not |
| 1:11.8 | limited to zombies, werewolves, ghosts, and demons. But their greatest adversary might be a |
| 1:18.2 | flesh and blood former agent who went rogue after becoming disenchanted with their brutal methods |
| 1:23.0 | and discovering some of their more sinister secrets. No, you didn't download the wrong episode. |
| 1:28.5 | And yes, I watched the right movie. |
| 1:30.7 | That's the premise of the six-issue comic book series from Lowell Cunningham that |
| 1:34.5 | Men in Black is based on. |
| 1:36.4 | And yeah, it's pretty grim by comparison. |
| 1:39.2 | These agents are authorized to use any means necessary to complete a mission, meaning |
| 1:43.1 | if a neuralizer doesn't do the |
| 1:44.6 | trick, they'll just put a bullet in your head. And their goal isn't simply to maintain order on the |
| 1:49.0 | planet. They're essentially puppet masters actively trying to steer the course of civilization. |
| 1:54.3 | Now, that obviously would have made for a very different movie, but when producers Walter F. Parks |
... |
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