Who do you think is the mysterious Man in Black and what goals does he pursue? Dark Business: A Guide to Aliens and Gadgets "Men in Black" Yellow dudes from Men in Black

"Men in Black" is a popular American film that consists of four parts. This is a fascinating story about the adventures of super agents performing various tasks. The film contains many interesting characters of alien origin - worms, Arkillians and other creatures.

Based on this film, an animated series for adults was subsequently filmed. There are also mini-series of Marvel comics of the same name. The latter were created by Lowell Cunningham. They were the literary source and were used when writing the script.

Who filmed

Men in Black was directed by talented director Barry Sonnefeld. It turned out to be one of his best creations. The masterpiece premiered in 1997. The film was a wild success at that time and received many awards, including the famous Oscar.

About the plot

This is the story of how, in the distant future, the government created an organization called the Men in Black. Its goal was to control alien immigration and prevent invasions of aliens from other worlds on our planet. But not all alien beings were denied access to Earth. The organization provided political asylum to those who arrived for peaceful purposes. The activities of the secret bureau remained strictly secret from other people for a long time, because the agents successfully used supernova technologies in their work. For example, they had a unique device for erasing memory.

About the heroes

The main characters are super agents Kay and Jay. Kay has an impenetrable character, with a complete lack of emotions and feelings. He has been with the organization since its founding, is experienced and fearless, and has a specific sense of humor. Jay is the complete opposite of his partner. He is young and energetic, very sociable. Previously worked in the police. He is a little naive, so he often brings on various problems.

A distinctive feature of the heroes in appearance is that they wear black overalls. Black glasses and ties should also be an indispensable attribute. This appearance allows them to remain unnoticed in the crowd.

In addition to the main characters, there are other interesting characters. More details about them:

1. Worms. These are short, yellow-skinned aliens who live in the LHF kitchen. Four characters appear in all parts of the film "Men in Black". Their names are Gible, Nible, Mannix and Slible. Worms are very flexible because they do not have a skeleton. They have primitive arms and legs. They love coffee, so they often take over Zed’s office, because it houses the coveted coffee machine. One of the main characteristics of these creatures is the fear of their emperor. The fact is that on their home planet, coffee is considered a royal drink. Not everyone is allowed to drink it, but only the elite. When the emperor visited planet Earth, these characters pretended that they had never tried the drink. The four worms are restless and regularly find themselves in unpleasant situations. This usually involves going out for coffee. When they are in mortal danger, they think only of him. For example, when a threat from a deadly force field appeared, the worms began to warm up the aromatic drink against the wall of the field.

The Earth, as depicted in Men in Black, is a complex and amazing place. A small blue planet orbiting an unremarkable, medium-sized star. Home to both the thousands of aliens brought here and the secret agency that protects them and people from the “scum of the universe.”

But according to franchise producers Walter Parks and Laurie MacDonald, all these global ideas did not appear immediately. “The idea of ​​'what if?' was certainly attractive - what if aliens actually live among us? What if there was a secret police unit? What if by joining him you could learn everything about the universe, but you would have to give up the most intimate aspects of your life? says Parks. “But to be honest, it was the style elements that initially attracted us: the guns, the sunglasses... and the black suits.”

Indeed, the visuals of a franchise are just as important as its plot. The creation of the alien characters is well illustrated by the evolution from the hand-made puppets and pounds of makeup in the first film in 1997 to the modern computer graphics and motion capture technology of the new sequel to the story, Men in Black: International. The process of filmmaking of all parts of the film - from the selection of actors and the birth of heroes to the design of weapons of the future and the appearance of aliens of all sorts - is described in detail in our new book “Men in Black. A guide to the adventures of the Earth's defenders from the scum of the Universe." Here we want to describe the stories of several bright heroes who were created almost spontaneously and with great pleasure.

Frank the Pug

Typically, trainers would bring six to eight dogs on set to play one character, but one of them, named Moo Shu, was so great that “we ended up using him ninety percent of the time,” recalls Barry Sonnenfeld. He acted in all three Men in Black films. “Mu Shu was simply an amazing animal, and his trainers were true professionals.” One day he asked Christy, the trainer, “Do you think there is a chance that I can make Mu Shu hold a martini glass and smoke a cigar?” Ultimately this effect was done on a computer. No animals were forced to smoke cigars on the set of this film. And there was no real smoke on the set!

People of cell S-18

Creating the Camera was a shared effort, notes Douglas Harlocker. As we've seen throughout the franchise, "I was always looking for ways to play with scale," says Barry Sonnenfeld. “I love these guys,” he continues. “They're sweet and charming, but they talk like they're from New Jersey.” Their city consists entirely of particles of garbage collected from the floor of New York's Grand Central Station. They're part hamster, part rat, with big eyes and antennae that add to their weirdness. "Their entire village is made of trash," says Rick Baker, who created all these creatures. And if you're a truly die-hard MIB fan, rewatch the Chamber scene and see if you can spot the continuity error.

Worms Gleable, Snible, Nible, Mannix and Gordy

When creating aliens for films, Barry Sonnenfeld and Rick Baker were in constant dialogue. Barry often complained that aliens always looked human, and Rick began to develop several non-humanoid concepts. Barry inevitably responded, “But without eyes, how do viewers know where the alien is looking? And without ears, and without mouth...” - and so on. The search was not easy, but they stuck to the main idea - not to make every alien look like a person. Baker recalls, “The worms were the result of that thought.” Later, Rick asked not only to draw the worms with computer graphics, but also to find puppeteers so that it would be easier for the actors to improvise on the set. And indeed, when the puppeteer team was assembled, the worm guys on the set literally came to life. In the second film, they even had their own bachelor pad - with mini-furniture, a jacuzzi and a soft carpet, on which the entire film crew loved to lie.

Universe on a chessboard

In the new part of the film, agents M and H meet a new character - Pawn. “The idea was that Pawn and his people live in the back room of an antique store,” explained designer Charles Wood. “The backstory was that they were allowed to live here incognito, but they paid for the housing by producing weapons.”

The original idea for Civilization on a Chessboard came from executive producer Walter Parks. “It was one of the long-standing ideas of all context - could there be an alien civilization living on a chessboard?” says writer Matt Holloway. This was just one of the ideas: a world where everyone - from pawns to the queen - would fulfill their roles.

Designer Charles Wood and his team of conceptual artists had to visualize the idea. They created cute little figures that lived on the chessboard and created a special atmosphere there. Chief among them was the character Pawn - funny and sarcastic. His face (using motion capture technology) and voice was comedian Kumail Nanjiani, who was given freedom to improvise and brought a lot of new things to his character.

Background

The myth of government agents who know the whole truth about the alien presence on Earth, but choose to hide it, was extremely popular in the United States in the second half of the 20th century. Conspiracy theorists, fueled by the Roswell Incident, Project Blue Book, the tabloids, and other credible sources, reacted with interest to any reports of top-secret agents interfering in the affairs of ordinary citizens. People in black suits and glasses driving black cars have taken the place in the popular consciousness of ancient folklore demons, the appearance of which did not bode well: according to a widespread urban legend, if a person happens to encounter something inexplicable, agents in black will come to him, They will throw lies on their ears, accusing them of groundless alarmism, or even erase their memory in order to keep their dark secrets intact. Some sensationalists are not satisfied with the tired thesis of a government that "can't help but lie" and are inclined to believe that the agents themselves are most likely aliens - because then their desire to maintain secrecy becomes even more motivated...

The theme was waiting to burst into pop culture, and this happened in 1990, when Lowell Cunningham's comic book Men in Black was released by Aircel Comics. Three issues were released within a year, after which the publishing house was bought by competitors from Malibu Comics and continued publishing the series under their own banner.

“I heard about the Men in Black from a friend,” the author later recalled. “He saw a big black car on the street and said: “This is what “men in black” drive.” Those that appear at UFO landing sites and keep everything classified." I thought it would make a great project.”

In 1992, the comic book caught the eye of film producer husband-and-wife team Walter F. Parks and Laurie MacDonald, who immediately acquired the film rights to it: the couple believed that with the right approach, Cunningham's story could be developed into a profitable franchise. But this required a very special director, capable of filling even a gloomy plot with humor, and the director of the Addams Family dilogy, Barry Sonnenfeld, seemed to be a very suitable candidate. Before making his directorial debut, Barry worked as a cinematographer on the first films of the Coen brothers, and in addition stood behind the camera on the production of such acclaimed films as Throw Momma from the Train, Big and Misery. But by the time Parks and MacDonald were ready for the offer, Sonnenfeld had signed on to direct the film Get Shorty, and was forced to refuse the offer. Quentin Tarantino and John Landis also showed no interest in the project (the latter, who called the film “The Blues Brothers” with aliens,” later regretted it). The alternate candidate was Les Mayfield: according to rumors, the remake of “Miracle on 34th Street” he was baking was quite consistent with the expectations of Walter and Laurie, but when the film was released, both were disappointed. Deciding that it would be too risky to trust Mayfield with a $90 million sci-fi comedy, the producers again approached Sonnenfeld, who agreed to make Men in Black his next directorial project, promising that no time would be wasted and that " Get Shorty “he will do pre-production on their tape.

Parks and McDonald, who launched production at Amblin Entertainment, planned to take only the general concept from the original comic, since the dark and dry tone of Lowell Cunningham's story was not fun and could scare off the general public, while the partners were targeting a family audience. In Cunningham's account, agents of a secret supra-governmental organization, calling themselves the "Men in Black" ("MBL"), were interested not only in aliens, but also in demons, werewolves and all kinds of paranormal phenomena, and were ready to maintain secrecy at any cost, including physical destruction unwanted witnesses. The central character of the comic was the disgraced Agent X, who was forced to flee from his own colleagues in order to stay alive. Screenwriter Ed Solomon has done a great job crafting out of it all the story of rookie ex-New York cop-turned-Agent Jay discovering that planet Earth is home to many alien life forms disguised as humans, and that his mission now includes to make sure that they don’t make a fuss, and at the same time to powder the brains of the population who are sticking their nose into things that aren’t their own. The scriptwriter made Jay's partner the experienced agent Kay, and the main villain was a giant alien cockroach that landed on Earth without permission, whose activities could lead to the destruction of the planet. The agents received at their disposal a neutralizer wand for instantly erasing someone else's memory, a variety of superweapons and a car that James Bond himself would envy.

Casting

Few people know, but the main characters of “Men in Black” could not have been Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, but David Schwimmer and Clint Eastwood. But both refused to participate in the project at an early stage. Chris O'Donnell also didn't want to play the "recruit", deciding that it was too similar to his roles in "Batman Forever" and "Batman and Robin". And only then did Sonnenfeld listen to the opinion of his wife, who was a fan of Smith's performance in the series." The Prince of Bel-Air." Remembering that he had seen a black actor in Six Points of Distance, the director agreed that he was good and contacted Will. The actor was dissatisfied with the script sent to him and wanted to refuse the role of Agent Jay, but the next female intervention helped resolve this issue: Will's wife Jade found the story interesting and persuaded him to accept the offer.

Pre-production

Before production got into full swing, there was a full year of pre-production, during which Sonnefeld completed Get Shorty. One of the producers, Steve Molen, invited Rick Baker to the project - a master of special effects and special makeup, winner of several Oscars, who had a hand in such cult projects as Star Wars, An American Werewolf in London, Gremlins 2 ", "The Nutty Professor", "The Scarecrows", etc. Baker was given the script and tasked with designing the aliens, giving him plenty of time and space to get creative.

“We did more drawings for this one film than I did in my entire career,” Baker later recalled. - Everything that I drew was sent to Steven Spielberg, everything had to be endorsed, every wrinkle. And often I received the answer: “Stephen liked the head of this creature, and Barry liked the torso of another. Is it possible to connect them?

But even if he wanted to, even with a year's head start, Baker would not be able to provide special effects for the entire film. This is how Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) appeared on the horizon - George Lucas's company, headed by Eric Brevig, creating visual effects for films, which, among other hits, included Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Back to the Future, Indiana Jones" and, of course, "Star Wars". Although Baker worked the old fashioned way - with the help of animatronic puppets, his skills were very useful to ILM: in many cases, Brevig's wards took Baker's ready-made designs and created computer versions based on them.

Filming

Filming started in March 1996 and lasted until the end of July. At that time, Smith was still finishing up work on the series “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” so the first couple of weeks they filmed the episodes without his participation. The opening scene with agents and illegal Mexican immigrants was entirely done on the soundstage in a couple of days: the director was afraid that night filming in the real desert would slow down the process for weeks. Besides, in a real desert it would not be possible to arrange cacti so beautifully. In the end, the slightly unrealistic lighting only benefited the picture, giving the events an interesting ambiance. Most of this scene was written by Tommy Lee Jones himself, who really wanted to show off his knowledge of Spanish.

The graphics for the desert sequence were done by ILM under the direction of Eric Brevig. A turtle-fish-toad-like alien named Mikey was portrayed in different frames either by Baker’s assistant John Alexander, hidden in the depths of a rubber suit, or by his computer double (rubber Mikey would not have been able to run and bare his teeth so naturalistically). Mikey ends up getting shot - a simulated shot, but with a very tangible result: instead, a 50-gallon barrel of blue goo is blown up in front of the lens.

Steven Spielberg's favorite scene - childbirth in a car - was also filmed jointly by Brevig and Baker. While Tommy Lee Jones was talking to actor Patrick Breen (Sonnenfeld cast him in all his films because he, he said, could look natural), Will Smith was in the background trying to give birth to an alien squid. The first frame was shot on location, the second was shot in a pavilion against a chromakey background, later both shots were glued together, and the dangling tentacles were added to them. There was no need to draw a newborn squid: Baker brought to the set an animatronic doll that could not only move its limbs, but even vomit Will Smith in a very naturalistic manner.

Initially, the script jumped to different locations from California and Kansas to Nevada and Washington, but the director decided that it would be more appropriate to focus the plot in his native New York, since it is easier for an alien to get lost in this colorful city: “I wanted to move the action there because many New Yorkers resemble aliens themselves. I decided that if aliens live on Earth, then they will be very comfortable in this city, and none of the New Yorkers will even look at them again.” Barry also liked the appearance of the city itself, the architectural elements of which could very well be disguised spaceships.

According to the script, the headquarters of the “men in black” looked like a chain of featureless buildings with a complex layout. Production designer Bo Welsh rejected this idea and persuaded the director to give the design of the building the spirit of the 60s (when, in fact, the organization "LvCh" arose). He filled the interiors of the building, the scenery of which was built on the Sony studio pavilion, with rounded elements reminiscent of flying saucers, and made the main hall look like the TWA terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport to emphasize that the organization deals with guests from outer space. The exterior plans for the headquarters were given by a gigantic building near New York's Battery Park, which in real life houses the ventilation system of the Holland Tunnel.

In one of the first scenes where Will Smith is chasing a cephalopoid, he jumps from the very bridge on which he will be chased by infected nonhumans a decade later in the film “I, Legend” (and this is not the only interesting coincidence: for example, Smith makes a joke in the frame about Captain America, not yet knowing that Tommy Lee Jones would play the role in the film of the same name). The actor's fall inside a passing bus needed to be accompanied by some kind of joke, and Smith came up with it over lunch: “Black men are raining out of the sky today!” - Agent Kay stated to the passengers. Since the New York Philharmonic, where they wanted to film the chase, demanded a million dollars for rent, Sonnenfeld found another place: the Guggenheim Museum; he just looked very alien.

It was hard for everyone on set. So, John Alexander almost drowned in his own sweat inside Mikey's rubber suit, and Vincent D'Onofrio in the guise of Farmer Edgar had to drink water and sugar for fifteen takes, so that by the end of the day he felt sick. By the way, for the role of the beetle, who had put on the skin of a farmer, Vincent took it very seriously: before filming, he watched a lot of documentaries about insects, adopting a cockroach's demeanor, and eventually developed a stiff-legged gait, which became the hallmark of his character. Smith also prepared: before filming, he made a special visit convention of contactees with aliens to gain impressions. Tommy Lee Jones on set was terribly worried about the fact that his tie was constantly on one side, and this moment is reflected in the plot when Smith’s character declares: “You know what the difference between us is "The suit suits me."

Vincent's makeup was applied for 6 hours every day. To make his own face look like an ill-fitting mask, the actor had the skin on his cheeks pulled together and fixed in that position. “Poor Vincent, we put him through hell,” Baker recalled. “He walked like that all day, unable to even blink.”

The famous scene in which D'Onofrio pulls the loose skin on his skull was made by combining Rick Baker's mask and the efforts of ILM. But for Tony Shaloub, who played pawn shop owner Jack Jeebs, Rick Baker embellished his face not for the sake of alienity, but simply so that he would not cause sympathies: the actor was given protruding teeth, squints and huge ears. The complex shot, in which a new one rapidly grew in place of the buyer's shot head of stolen goods, took a whole 7 months to draw. In addition, Sonnenfeld made sure that Shaloub's voice sounded unnatural. “In this scene we “they forced Tony to breathe helium,” the director recalled, “so his voice went from very high to normal in literally seconds.”

In some places, Baker with his ideas rather unceremoniously invaded the script. “In the story, Smith’s character learned about the existence of aliens during a conversation in a bar, when, at the request of his future partner, the bartender lifted the skin on his neck, and light poured out,” Rick recalled. - That's all. I said: I'm sorry, but I think this is unconvincing. As a result, we came up with a face for the bartender that opens like a door. And so that inside there would be a little green man sitting in front of the monitors. True, then we replayed everything and inserted a little man into the head of the deceased Mr. Gentle, and left the bartender alone.”

As a result, the future agent Jay encountered aliens not in a bar, but in the headquarters of the Men in Black, where he met certain “worm-like guys” with mustaches, invented by Baker, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. “I thought there weren’t enough aliens in the script,” the special effects master later explained. “But when I go to the cinema to see a film like this, I count on something.” For this scene where Tommy Lee asks the worm-like creatures to pour him coffee, Baker suggested using real puppets and puppeteers. The wires that controlled the animatronic puppets were hidden in the wall panel, while the puppeteers themselves sat behind the wall and saw what was happening on the monitor. “I always dreamed of working with Kermit from Sesame Street, but I had no idea that I would get something ten times better! - Jones joked later. “Who knows, maybe one day you’ll have the same luck with Kermit?”

As for the head of Mr. Gentle Rosenberg, played by Mike Nussbaum, the humanoid planted inside it had to be made in two sizes. The first one, miniature, moved normally and worked in medium shots, but was not suitable for large ones: it immediately became clear that he was not real. The second doll, with carefully crafted external details, was made three meters tall and filmed against a blue screen, in order to then be inserted inside the head using the overlay method: in its reduced form it looked very authentic. “We nicknamed this little guy Chucky,” Sonnefeld recalled. “The whole scene is an alternation between big and little Chucky to the music of Danny Elfman.”

It was Chucky who was first seen by Will Smith, who came to the shooting. The actor was pleasantly surprised and later said that, having encountered an almost real alien, he immediately “got into the topic” and received a charge of inspiration for months to come. But he might not have gotten it: after all, in most of the scenes involving aliens, he and Tommy Lee had to act in front of an expressionless blue screen - the rest was then completed by specialists from ILM.

No one knew what the scene would look like with a flying ball, the ricochets of which cause a commotion at the headquarters of the “LvCh”. In general, she was not in the script, and no one gave permission for her filming. Sonnenfeld, at his own risk, filmed rough footage and showed it to Sony bosses, explaining that if a glowing ball was added here, the result would be an effective and funny parody of “pinball.” The authorities agreed and allocated more money.

A memorable episode in the tunnel, where special agents rush in their high-speed car along the ceiling while Elvis Presley sings, was filmed on the pavilion. The miniature tunnel was filled with cars, about eighty of which were made for this purpose, and the actors hanging upside down were filmed separately, so that later the camera would alternate between the camera traveling through the tunnel and the image of their faces. The episode cost its creators several hundred thousand dollars.

When it came time to film the final scene, in which the agents caught up with a giant, evil cockroach in Corona Park, Sonnefeld became nervous. He didn’t really like the script’s ending before, but now, five months after the start of work, the last doubts that it was too sluggish have disappeared. A brighter climax was needed. But the almost exhausted budget of the film and the fact that Rick Baker had already managed to build a giant three-meter-tall animatronic cockroach for the filming of the scene, into which he had invested all his love, was embarrassing.

Barry Sonnefeld: “We ended up rewriting the script because we didn’t have a proper ending. According to the original plan, Will and the beetle were discussing the essence of the universe. I convinced Sony that we didn’t need an argument, but an action, because after all, we were filming an action-adventure film. So we threw out Rick the beetle at the last moment: although he talked, he couldn’t move. Rick, of course, was shocked..."

Having asked his bosses for money, Barry decided to film the entire scene with the exploding cockroach against a blue screen - the actual insect was commissioned to be drawn and animated by specialists from Industrial Light & Magic. They decided to deprive the computer cockroach of his voice: having shed his farmer's skin, he lost all humanity and now could only roll his eyes angrily, attack and bite. For expressiveness, he was given extra legs and increased in size so that he could swallow the hero Tommy Lee Jones.

“We had 45 shots of the beetle, and each shot cost about a hundred thousand dollars,” the director recalled. - We had to spend four and a half million that were not budgeted for the final scene. But it was an extremely successful investment!”

The set of Corona Park, which hosted the 1939 World's Fair, was built on Sony's gigantic pavilion (the yellow brick road scenes for The Wizard of Oz were once set here). The agents' date with the virtual bug was filmed for several weeks, and the actors had real grass under their feet the entire time. The huge pavilion was not easy to illuminate: the green color of the grass absorbed the light, as did the black velvet that covered all the backdrops around the set. To prevent the greenery from withering, high humidity and low temperature were maintained in the pavilion. “It was cold, damp and uncomfortable,” Tommy Lee Jones recalled with a shudder. And these were still little flowers: in the same scene, in order to depict the movement of an actor swallowed by a cockroach through the intestines of an insect, he was stuffed into a container with a nasty-looking liquid gelatin. In turn, Smith bravely fought with empty space all day long, throwing around jokes of his own composition (so that the actor at least knew where to look, they held a cockroach’s head on a stick in front of him).

How to make a space bug angry? It's simple: you need to start trampling the cockroaches crawling under your feet - the death of distant relatives will certainly agitate the newcomer. This scene, born out of a brainstorm, was written on the last weekend before filming and almost immediately brought to life. True, the Society for the Conservation of Nature did not allow real cockroaches to be trampled, representatives of which were present on the set and vigilantly ensured that not a single insect was harmed, so Smith crushed mustard packets with his soles. He wrote most of his accompanying monologue on set.

Add-ons

Having edited a rough version of the film, Sonnenfeld arranged a test screening and, to his chagrin, found out that viewers were confused about the plot. The script told about the confrontation between two races, the Baltians and the Arkillians, who fought for an inexhaustible source of energy - a small galaxy. A third race - the bugs - decided to steal the galaxy so that the war would continue forever, because then the scavengers could continue to feast on the slaughter of both sides. As a result, the ships of the enraged Baltians and Arkillians began to fire at each other, and the Earth, located between them, took all the blows. The script said this rather vaguely, and the director took a risky step, just a month and a half before the premiere, completely rewriting the plot: in the simplified version of the plot, the Baltians did not exist in nature, and the Arkillians decided to burn the Earth just in case so that the stolen galaxy would not go to them to beetles.

In the film, the director found three scenes that allowed him to change the tone of the plot: an episode with Frank the talking pug, an episode with a large monitor in the headquarters of the “LvCh”, on which ultimatums addressed to earthlings were displayed, and an episode in a Russian restaurant where two aliens were having lunch. In the final edit, the pug's words were changed, new text was written on the monitor, and Karel Stryken (who plays Larch from The Addams Family) and Mike Nussbaum were both made Arkillians and forced to communicate in an unknown language, signing the dialogue with captions with a completely new meaning. By the way, the cook in the restaurant, decorated with a balalaika and a portrait of Gorbachev on the wall, was played by a Soviet actor from Chisinau Boris Leskin - it is he who asks the hero D'Onofrio: “Where is Ivan?” " Oscar "has always been distinguished by an unusual sense of humor: even his own father, finding magazines about monsters in Rick's bedside table, for a long time seriously suspected that his son would grow up to be a sadist or masochist. Director Barry Sonnefeld also never missed an opportunity to have fun: some of the jokes that were born on the set , he laughed so much that he fell exhausted to the floor and writhed, clutching his stomach.

The sound of the neutralizer, used by the “men in black” to instantly erase the memory of unwanted witnesses, was borrowed by the tape’s sound engineer from a charging photographic flash.

The very last additions to the film were the first and last frames. At the beginning of the film, a computer-generated dragonfly flies, accompanied by credits, over a miniature highway and a six-meter piece of the Arizona desert, built in the Sony Pictures pavilion. Although this episode was always present in the script, it looked too expensive, so the money for it was given only six months after filming, when investors looked at the rough cut and decided that a dragonfly would not hurt for greater beauty. For this work, Sonnenfeld recruited Alan Munro, a special effects specialist with whom he worked on The Addams Family. The credits themselves were drawn by another of his longtime colleagues, the legendary artist Pablo Ferro, who stylized them to resemble his own credits from Kubrick’s Doctor Strangelove.

The final seconds of the film, in which the camera rapidly moves away from the central characters and into deep space, were invented by Sonnenfeld as a finishing touch. Sony bosses liked the idea, and the director was allowed to spend almost a million dollars on the implementation of his idea. The famous shots were partly filmed from a helicopter, partly drawn by Eric Brevig and his assistants, and before the premiere, all this was stitched into a single frame a la “reverse zoom”.

A cat left in a Russian restaurant after the death of its Arkillian owner purrs exactly like the zombie monster from the 1996 computer game Quake.

There was one remaining hitch regarding the shooting range scene in which the recruits were shooting at silhouetted aliens: Sonnefeld didn't like the scene and was going to cut it, but first he wanted to show it to his superiors so that they could see for themselves that it wasn't funny. However, the authorities were delighted. Considering that the film was already short (to stretch it to 90 minutes, they even had to slow down the speed of the end credits), Sonnefeld ultimately decided to leave everything as it was.

Bottom line

After the release of the film, Vincent D'Onofrio, despite the death of his character, still had a hand in the franchise, voicing beetles in the animated series of the same name.

What happened next? On July 2, 1997, the premiere of Men in Black took place. The film grossed nearly $600 million worldwide. Ray-Ban has tripled sales of its sunglasses. An animated series and a parody called “Men in White” were made based on the film, a sequel and a threequel appeared, and several computer games were released. Rick Baker won another Oscar for his makeup. The Universal Studios Orlando theme park now has an attraction based on Men in Black. Publishing house Marvel, to which the rights to the original work by Lowell Cunningham managed to pass, has released an official comic book adaptation. Will Smith remembered that he was also a musician, wrote a hit of the same name and further expanded the army of his fans (later he would refuse the main role in “The Matrix” and would prefer to star in Sonnefeld’s “Wild, Wild West”, which he would regret for a long time ). After the premiere, the director was forced to appear on a popular talk show and explain to the indignant Americans that by making “worm-like guys” smokers, he was not at all trying to promote smoking among minor aliens.

And we? And we still don't know if aliens exist. And we’re not even entirely sure that the Americans flew to the moon... What? Do you think otherwise? Moreover, do you have indisputable evidence of the existence of UFOs? Thank you for the signal, we have already left for you.

Now the most mysterious and stern character looks like the one without a name, played by Ed Harris, who inherited the black outfit from Yul Brynner's character from the original film. However, if Brynner’s hero was a robot, then there is no exact opinion about who the Man in Black is. The most unexpected thing in the film is that the Man in Black turned out to be not a resident of Westworld, but a guest. In the first episode it was said that the Man in Black has been coming to the park every year for 30 years, so he can be called a real experienced gamer. This is a kind of VIP client who, most likely, brings a lot of money to the park. You can beat androids, this is the perverted meaning for a certain category of visitors. Here you can even rape or cut children (all this is legal), so there are probably worse perverts among the clients, and from the point of view of public safety, these actions can be seen as a big plus - it’s better to rape and kill robots than living people.

Jeffrey Wright's character, Lowe's developer, in one of the scenes mentions a certain glitch that occurred in the park 30 years ago. If we take into account the fact that we were talking about robots that do not obey commands, we can assume that a similar problem occurred several decades ago. Most likely, this is all somehow connected with the Man in Black, who began coming to the park just 30 years ago. Coincidence? Don't think. But perhaps this is just a reference to the events of the original film, which suggests that the original film and the series take place in the same universe. However, what is he looking for there, what kind of mysterious signs does he find under the scalps of robots and does this mean that he is evil character - here are the riddles for the coming season.

In the original 1973 film, the Gunslinger in Black (Yul Brynner) was a robot who constantly chased human guests and invariably took a bullet: until the virus hit the system, the androids could not harm people (and they could not harm each other).

In the new Westworld, the stakes are up: the park is not just an attraction, it is a testing ground for a god complex, and the virus is an awakening self-awareness. And if Mr. Ford (Anthony Hopkins) is the creator, then the Shooter in Black (Ed Harris) is obviously Satan, who brings confusion into the harmonious, programmed thinking of the inhabitants of the park. Accordingly, the “fall” of the mysterious character could have occurred thirty years ago: be it a glitch in the program from the original film or some new incident.

All that remains is to build theories. Perhaps Strelok, like Dolores, is one of the first androids, but found a loophole in the system and took advantage of it to leave the game (and there learned the terrifying truth). If we continue the biblical analogy, he could be among the leading developers (for example, the predecessor of Jeffrey Wright), but he disagreed with Ford (using the example of another programmer, it is easy to trace the line of doubt about the need to make robots so similar to people). At the same time, he can see the future in robots who, unlike the people in the park, do not fall into insignificance for the sake of fun.

Whoever he is, Strelok is looking for a move to the “final level” - to a meeting with the “creator”, which makes the version with a robot more advantageous (Ridley Scott showed a similar plot from the perspective of people in “Prometheus”). And, perhaps, the feelings of Hopkins’ hero for Dolores and the talk about the imminent invention of resurrection are the key to their conflict (in any case, Strelok knew how to convey the message to the “chief architect”).

Despite the fact that only two episodes of Westworld have been released so far, the series has managed to acquire an army of ardent fans. Fans of “Westworld” began to build so-called fan theories even before the premiere of the pilot episode, and with the start of broadcasts, forecasts and speculation about the series began to multiply exponentially. The Man in Black, played by the brilliant Ed Harris, has become one of the main objects of viewer hypotheses. Below I will list the most notable theories currently known involving the mysterious character.

## The Man in Black and William are the same person

According to one of the most extravagant theories, the storylines involving William and Logan (park guests) and the Man in Black take place at different times, or rather, separated by thirty years. The authors of the hypothesis claim that once in the park, good-natured William became a participant in traumatic events and over the years turned into a cold-blooded killer - the Man in Black.

## The Man in Black is Ford's main creation

Ford, the creator of Westworld, is constantly improving his robots, trying to make them as human-like as possible. What if the Man in Black became the master's most successful creation? What if finding the "maze" is some kind of intelligence test that the robot must pass to demonstrate its abilities to Ford? What if the “labyrinth” is the administrative complex of the park, where the Man in Black will meet his creator?

## The man in black is connected to an accident thirty years ago

From the dialogues of the characters, we know that thirty years ago a serious accident occurred in the park. In addition, it is known that the Man in Black first appeared in “Western World” also three decades ago.

## The Man in Black is able to reprogram other robots

When this dark character drags Dolores into the barn, it seems that he intends to do something terrible to the girl. But according to one theory, the Man in Black is actually reprogramming Dolores, allowing her to free herself from the script that keeps her going in a vicious circle.

My theories never pan out, at least not on Game of Thrones. But I'll guess anyway)
I think the man in black is not a person at all, it is either a virus or an anti-virus, an Agent Smith-type controller.
The following dubious indirect facts support my theory:
1) A keen interest in Dolores, because it is obvious that she is not just part of the system.
2) Alienity, going beyond what is proposed.
3) Interaction with others is not reset daily.

And I think that he is a beta tester, because no amount of money will be enough to go there for 30 years. I started testing the game 30 years ago, and there I fell in love with a girl (as we know, one of the first models). And he’s still looking for how to get her out of there. That’s why he’s looking for a “secret level” - from there he can take her out.

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Worms | Worm Aliens

This term has other meanings, see Worm.

Worms, in original Worm Aliens- aliens from the “Men in Black” series. They look like yellow anthropomorphic worms with primitive arms and legs. Throughout the Men in Black series, there are four worm characters called The Worm Guys.

They do not have a skeleton, which is why they are very flexible.

In comics[edit]

In films[edit]

In the second film, they live in some ordinary house, but when entering their apartment you can easily notice that the ceiling is very low. In the film, they are not addicted to coffee, but to cigarettes.

In the animated series[edit]

They live in the headquarters of the MiB, although they do not work there and are of no political value. They love coffee and are always in the kitchen or trying to get to Zed’s coffee machine. It happens that when they are threatened with death, they think about coffee. For example, when they were in danger from a deadly force field, they heated coffee against the wall of the field. It is known that their civilization considers coffee a royal drink and only the Emperor of Hearts is allowed to drink it. When the Emperor arrived on Earth, the guys did not drink it, they pretended that they had never tried it.

In one of the episodes of the animated series (“The Future’s So Bright Syndrome”), their race conquered the Earth (in an alternative future).

The Worms are four short, yellow-skinned aliens who live in the LHF kitchen. They are addicted to coffee, so they periodically seize the Zeta office with the coffee machine located there. They are restless, which is why they often find themselves in various unpleasant situations, from which Kay and Jay have to save them, most often this happens when they make another outing for coffee. They are terribly afraid of their emperor, because only the elite are allowed to drink coffee on their planet, which they are not. In the series, which follows an alternate timeline, the worms managed to save him from the Bugs, but they never received official permission to drink coffee.