Line #265 Film/MenInBlack3


1	! All spoilers for ''Film/MenInBlack'' and ''Film/MenInBlackII'' will be left unmarked. Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.
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3	[[quoteright:299:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/81011fb8261a8325d390bd66290b2d26.jpg]]
4	->''"Let’s rewrite history, shall we, K?"''
5	-->-- '''Boris the Animal'''
6
7	''Men in Black 3'' (stylized ''MIB[[superscript:3]]'', but '''not''' ''MIB:[[ThirdIs3D 3D]]'', though it was released in 3D in select theatres) is the 2012 sequel to ''Film/MenInBlackII'' and the third film in the ''Franchise/MenInBlack'' film series. It is directed by Creator/BarrySonnenfeld, who directed the previous two films in the series, with the screenplay by Etan Cohen (''Film/TropicThunder'' and ''Film/{{Idiocracy}}''). It was released on May 25th, 2012.
8
9	A very dangerous Boglodite named [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Boris the Animal]] (Creator/JemaineClement) breaks out of a lunar prison and swears revenge on K (Creator/TommyLeeJones), who arrested him 40 years ago and was responsible for him losing his left arm. He successfully erases K from the present by helping his younger self to kill him in [[TheSixties 1969]], allowing a Boglodite invasion. J (Creator/WillSmith), somehow the only one in the present who notices the change, must travel back to 1969 to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong. Music/{{Pitbull}} sings over the credits this time, though his single "Back in Time" was included in his studio album ''Global Warming'', and not on the OST itself.
10
11	The film also stars Creator/JoshBrolin as the younger K, Creator/MichaelStuhlbarg as Griffin, Creator/EmmaThompson as Agent O, and Creator/AliceEve as the younger O.
12
13	Loosely followed by the SpinOff ''Film/MenInBlackInternational'' with Emma Thompson returning as O.
14	----
15
16	!!This film provides examples of:
17
18	[[foldercontrol]]
19
20	[[folder:Tropes A to F]]
21	* ActorAllusion
22	** Hinted at. J doesn't like being called a dumbass in some dialogue reminiscent of ''Film/{{Hancock}}''.
23	** When J takes a little girl's chocolate milk, she mistakes him for "the president" (UsefulNotes/BarackObama). Creator/WillSmith has spoken of a desire to portray Obama in a biopic. Obama himself has said that if a biopic is made, Will Smith is his first choice to star in it.
24	** Griffin's love of baseball. Michael Stuhlbarg's ''other'' best-known role, Arnold Rothstein of ''Series/BoardwalkEmpire'', has quite a bit to do with the development of baseball in the US.
25	** An alien race that survives by going from planet to planet and exterminating the population [[Film/IndependenceDay sure sounds like another Will Smith movie.]]
26	** Keone Young also played a character named Wu in ''{{Series/Deadwood}}'' and ''WesternAnimation/TheMightyB''.
27	** Young Agent K doesn't like losing his gun and keeps a backup, just like [[Film/TheFugitive Samuel Gerard]].
28	** A character played by Will Smith has a disappeared dad. [[Series/TheFreshPrinceOfBelAir Where have we seen that before]]?
29	** J's unusual bowling form is nearly identical to the one Creator/WillSmith used in ''Series/TheFreshPrinceOfBelAir''.
30	* AdvertisedExtra:
31	** Lily, who appears in only the opening sequence. ([[SexSells being played by Nicole Scherzinger helped]])
32	** Wu, the Chinese-restaurant-owning alien got an action figure despite five minutes of screentime and is killed in the prologue.
33	* AgreeToDisagree: Boris the Animal's catchphrase.
34	* AlienInvasion: A Boglodite invasion occurs in the AlternateTimeline where K was killed in 1969.
35	* AllianceOfAlternates: In 1969, Boris the Animal teams up with his past counterpart from the 70s after traveling through time. They [[IHatePastMe don't really get along...]]
36	* AlternateTimeline: In which K was killed in 1969, allowing the invasion of the Earth by the Boglodites, with no [[DeflectorShields Arc Net Shield]] to stop them.
37	* AlwaysChaoticEvil: The Boglodites are pretty much this. They wipe out whole races, feeding on the corpses for nutrition. Then move on to the next populated world to continue the cycle. In fact they burn off so much energy moving on to the next world, all it takes is a planetary shield preventing them from feeding pretty much ends them via starvation.
38	* AmazingFreakingGrace: Played by the Worms with a bagpipe at Z's funeral.
39	* AnachronismStew:
40	** The Apollo 11 launch site is referred to as Cape Canaveral. While this would have been natural for Agent J, it would have been unnatural for young Agent K as the Cape was re-named Cape Kennedy after John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The name only reverted back to Cape Canaveral in 1973, way after Apollo 11 was launched.
41	** In 1969, green-and-white New York street signs introduced in the 1980s can be seen on light posts (back then, the signs would have been yellow with black lettering).
42	** The racist cops who pull J over for driving-while-black wear light powder blue shirts with NYPD patches on the sleeves. It wasn't until 1973 that these uniforms were introduced and the department emblem was designed. The correct uniform for 1969 would have been dark navy blue shirts without the patches.
43	** When J, K and Griffin enter MIB headquarters at the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel ventilation building to fly to Cape Canaveral, the tilting shot prominently features three medallions over the entrance doors. Those cast aluminum reliefs, designed by Paul Manship, would not have been over the building entrance in 1969. They would have been mounted on the New York Coliseum convention center in midtown Manhattan. The reliefs were removed from the Coliseum in 1999 as it was being prepared for demolition and only later mounted on the ventilation building.
44	** The flags of Burkina Faso, Greece, Papua New Guinea and Spain are all seen at Cape Canaveral. None of the flags shown were the flags used by the respective countries at the time.
45	** Aversion: The motorcycle ridden by Boris the Animal has a low-profile rear wheel and tire which were not made in 1969. However, given that the motorcycle burns with a blue-green flame after it crashes, it is probably reasonable to assume it is at least partly of extraterrestrial manufacture.
46	* AnArmAndALeg: Boris lost his arm to K before going to a lunar prison.
47	* ArbitrarySkepticism: J has this towards TimeTravel on the grounds that he felt a senior Agent like he was now would have been made aware of it. O then it explains it was made classified and above his pay grade. This dispels his skepticism but leads to this response:
48	-->'''Agent J:''' You know what? I need a pay raise.
49	* ArtisticLicenseHistory:
50	** Griffin says that, before they won the World Series, the New York Mets finished bottom every season since joining the MLB. They finished second-last in both 1966 and 1968.
51	* ArtisticLicenseMilitary: The Army would never send prisoners to the brig, as that is a Navy term. The Army term is the stockade.
52	* ArtisticLicensePhysics: During the time jump sequence, it takes J about thirty seconds to fall far enough for the device to work. Given that he jumped from one of the Chrysler Building's eagle statues, which are located on the 61st floor, he's around 828 feet off the ground. It would've only taken about 6 seconds to fall that same distance. Falling for thirty seconds implies the Chrysler Building is over ''14,000'' feet tall.
53	* AsianSpeekeeEngrish: Exploited by Wu who is an alien disguised as a Chinese restaurant owner who does this to appease the tourists. He drops the act when K and J don't play along.
54	-->'''J:''' Save the chop socky bullshit for the tourists, alright, Wu?
55	* BackstoryInvader: After the alternate timeline is put into place: J gets on the elevator to go to work and is joined by another agent, AA, who addresses J as if J's his partner, whom he (nor the audience) has ever met before much less been partnered up with. J naturally knows something's wrong.
56	* BadToTheLastDrop: A running gag has Agent K lamenting every morning that "This coffee tastes like dirt", to which Agent J (in the present) or Agent O (in the past) would reply, "It should, it was just [[{{pun}} ground]] this morning." [[spoiler:(This joke clues O in on the fact that J actually knew K, after K was killed in the past by Boris the Animal.)]]
57	* BalancingDeathsBooks: Griffin advises J that the only way to save K is to sacrifice another life, because "Where there is death there will always be death."
58	* BatmanCanBreatheInSpace: Boris can survive and even speak in a vaccuum.
59	* BavarianFireDrill: The newly arrived J acquires a car in 1969 by letting its owner assume that the black man in a suit must be the hotel's valet.
60	* BeatWithoutABut: When K delivers a eulogy for Zed during his funeral, he lists all the things Zed never did with him before making a pause, making it look that he's about to say something positive in the end... But no, he only says "Thank you" and leaves, much to J's dismay.
61	-->'''K:''' I worked with Zed for over forty years, and in all that time he never invited me to dinner. He never asked me to his house, or watch a game. He never shared a single detail of his personal life. ''(pause)'' Thank you.
62	* BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy: [[Creator/BillHader Andy Warhol]] was a MIB agent. And Music/MickJagger was a promiscuous alien.
63	* BerserkButton: Boris the Animal has one. It's '''just''' Boris. [[NoIndoorVoice NOT BORIS THE ANIMAL!!!]] And STOP STARING AT HIS ARM!!
64	* BigBad: Boris the Animal.
65	* BigBadDuumvirate: Boris the Animal and his younger self in 1969.
66	* BigotWithABadge: When J travels back to 1969 to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong, he's pulled over by two older, somewhat dimwitted cops while driving an expensive vehicle they automatically assume he can't afford. J tricks them into using the [[LaserGuidedAmnesia neuralizer]] on themselves. He sheepishly admits that he ''did'' [[HeroStoleMyBike steal the car]], but him being black has nothing to do with it.
67	* BizarreAlienSenses: Griffin lives in 5 dimensions, which gives [[ForWantOfANail him a rather]] [[InSpiteOfANail interesting view of]] [[TimeyWimeyBall time in general]].
68	* BlessedWithSuck: Griffin's future sight. At one point he shows J and K the Mets winning the 1969 World Series three months before it happens. J says it's incredible; Griffin replies that it's a pain in the ass due to him not only having to juggle constantly seeing a multitude of possible futures with no clue as to which one is the one that's going to occur, but also seeing those futures long before they are anywhere near relevant in the first place. (Though he does still enjoy it to some extent.)
69	* BriarPatching:
70	-->'''J:''' Listen, I have rights and I demand to see my lawyer [[SchmuckBait before you press that small button]] [[LaserGuidedAmnesia on the side firmly]].
71	* BrickJoke:
72	** Possibly with Agent J being pulled over in 1969 simply because he was black (he had stolen a car but the cops didn't know that). In ''Men in Black II'', J remarks that the inflatable autopilot agent in the car used to be a black guy, but he kept getting pulled over.
73	** "Man, what happened to you?"
74	* BrokenAesop: Played for laughs with the cops that pull J over in 1969.
75	-->'''J:''' Just because you see a black man driving a nice car does ''not'' mean ''it's stolen!'' ''[{{beat}}]'' A'ight, I stole this one, but not because I'm black!
76	* BrutalHonesty: The guy who gives J the time travel device warns him about traveling back to 1969, telling him "[[NoEqualOpportunityTimeTravel It wasn't the best time for your...people.]]"
77	* ButterflyOfDoom: Griffin is constantly referring to those. The trope is actually lampshaded when he is really worried upon seeing a butterfly... and with good reason, because [[spoiler:in the timeline in which the butterflies appear Boris enters and begins shooting from the window, not the door]].
78	* CallBack: When J encounters the young K, K says "We'll take it from here...", which was his first spoken line in the first film.
79	* TheCameo: Will Arnett as Agent AA and Bill Hader as Creator/AndyWarhol.
80	* CassandraTruth: Inverted. J is surprised when K immediately believe's he's a time-traveler, no questions asked.
81	* CatchPhrase: Boris has "Let's agree to disagree." and [[BerserkButton "It's just BORIS!"]]
82	* CerebusRetcon:
83	** [[spoiler:The reason K has always been such a curmudgeonly old guy is because he witnessed J's father sacrificing himself to save K from Boris back in 1969, which ended up with him somewhat becoming a surrogate to J.]]
84	** The movie also added to why he selected J to be an MIB candidate in the first place [[spoiler:since he kept an eye on him since then.]]
85	* ChekhovsGun: [[spoiler:The Moon landing]].
86	* ChekhovsGunman: You can see Griffin in the crowd of aliens in the establishing shots of 1969 [=MiB=] headquarters, scenes before he is officially introduced.
87	* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Due to him seeing multiple futures at the same time, Griffin is this.
88	* ContinuityNod:
89	** When J runs out of the factory after Boris attempts to kill Griffin, he runs out onto the top of a parked car and takes aim with a standard revolver. This whole scene is exactly like the scene in the first film where he is given the "Noisy Cricket" and attempts to stop the bad guy, virtually everything from the weapon he's not happy about to his missing the bad guy and the collateral damage is an exact replica of the same scene.
90	** While he doesn't appear in the film, Frank is referenced twice. Over J's bed, a huge portrait of a pug is hung, and a sideshow poster on Coney Island references the "amazing talking dog" -- a pug.
91	** Jack Jeebs (or someone who looks a lot like him) is the guy in the newspaper stand in front of the Chrysler Building in 1969 (it's a blink-and-you-miss-it thing).
92	** Agent K is back living in the apartment that he used to have prior to ''Men in Black II''.
93	*** In the scene where J goes to K's apartment, he's greeted by a woman who has a lot of kids. She's played by the same actress who portrayed the waitress in the the second movie, whom T told to marry and have a bunch of kids with.
94	** [[spoiler:The Colonel says "that's some next-level stuff" as the Arc Net Shield is deployed. J said "there's some next-level shit" when getting on the elevator as he returned to officially join up in the first film]].
95	** The cafe K and J go to is the same one J took T and Laura to in the second film.
96	** [[spoiler:"Hey, K, have you ever flashy-thinged me?"]]
97	** Using "Eye exam" as a euphemism for neuralization.
98	** The worms leaving Earth when an alien invasion is about to occur.
99	** J climbing on top of a car to shoot an escaping alien and ending up in a pile of trash.
100	** [[spoiler:The younger Boris dies exactly the same way as Mikey from the first movie, sound effect and everything.]]
101	** A ChaseScene begins with a shot of the New York Pavilion's metal globe that was destroyed by the Bug's ship in the first film.
102	* ConvenientlyAnOrphan: [[spoiler:Agent J]].
103	* CreatorCameo: Director Barry Sonnenfeld appears as one of the people watching [[spoiler:the rocket launch.]]
104	* DarkerAndEdgier: The film 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.
105	* DeceasedParentsAreTheBest: [[spoiler:J's father]]. Agent K's actions make this an InvokedTrope [[spoiler:as he neuralizes the young J and tells him that all he needs to know is that his father was a hero.]]
106	* DeliberateValuesDissonance: The 1969 MIB resembles a sci-fi version of the set from ''Series/MadMen'', including female agents working as secretaries. Chief X is also clearly speciesist by not caring if an alien got himself killed, as long as no human got hurt. The moment that J steals a nice car, he is ''[[TruthInTelevision shortly]]'' pulled over by two racist white cops.
107	-->'''J:''' Just because you see a black man driving a nice car does ''not'' mean ''it's stolen!'' ''[{{beat}}]'' A'ight, [[NotHelpingYourCase I stole this one]], but not because I'm ''black!''
108	* DisneyVillainDeath: [[spoiler:Subverted by both versions of Boris. Future Boris survives getting pushed off a great height, but he is burned alive by the Apollo 11 rocket as it takes off. Past Boris falls after his arm is frozen and blown off, but he gets shot to oblivion by K using a laser gun.]]
109	* DoorFocus: In the scene with Griffin, an alien who [[TheOmniscient observes multiple future timelines as they're about to happen]], [[BlessedWithSuck but doesn't know which one will actually happen until it becomes the present]]. As J and K ask him if he knows that [[BigBad Boris the Animal]] is out to kill him...
110	-->'''Griffin''': Yes, he'll be here in two minutes, unless of course we're in the possible future where he made all the lights on Bowery and got here early and is just about to discharge a weapon through the doorway, in which case we're all dead in two seconds.\
111	''(cut to a nearby door... [[SubvertedTrope which proceeds to do nothing]])''\
112	'''Griffin''': Ah, good, that was a close one.
113	* DroppedABridgeOnHim: Zed, DaChief, died between films.
114	* DrivingQuestion:
115	** What exactly occurred during K's original apprehension of Boris the Animal in July 1969? What happened down in Cape Canaveral that would leave K changed and turn him into the curmudgeon J and audiences know in the Present Day? And why would O restrict access to the mission records and prevent J from learning these details?
116	** If history has been changed and nobody else remembers the original timeline, then why does J alone have RippleEffectProofMemory? What did Jeffrey Prince mean when he realized that J's memory must have remained intact [[spoiler: "[because] you were there!"]]?
117	* EquippableAlly: The symbiote that lives in Boris's hand is also his primary weapon through the movie.
118	* EurekaMoment: J figures out where Griffin is by hearing two diner patrons talk about the Mets. This is K's intent, deliberately invoking this by interrupting the case to get pie and getting their minds off the case.
119	* EvilLaugh: A real creepy one courtesy of Boris. Downplayed, however, because it seems to be more of a [[GoneHorriblyWrong nightmare-inducing imitation]] of the human laughter he just elicited from a young hippy couple, instead of something he came up with himself to celebrate his evil plan.
120	* ExactWords:
121	** Why do you think it's called a time ''jump?''
122	** Lily's cake was 96% ''organic material'', as analyzed by the [=LunarMax=] guards.
123	* {{Expy}}: [[Music/FlightOfTheConchords Jemaine Clement]] (Boris) is doing his best Creator/TimCurry impression for the role.
124	* ExtranormalPrison: There's a prison for alien criminals on the Moon. The guards have futuristic technology, and the fact that escape means [[ExplosiveDecompression exposure to vacuum]] also helps.
125	* FictionalGenevaConventions: When O tells J that K was killed in 1969, and that he's suffering the effects of a messed up TemporalParadox, she reveals that soon after it was invented, [=MIB=] successfully lobbied for TimeTravel to be made illegal all over the universe.
126	* {{Flanderization}}: In the original movie, K is a rather stoic individual who takes his job seriously, but approaches everything with a calm demeanor, contrasting J who doesn't take the job seriously, but overreacts to everything. By this movie, K is so stoic, he is unable to crack a joke or a smile [[spoiler:up until the ending.]] Justified by the fact that Boris, who K considers his archenemy, has escaped from prison, which clearly weighs heavily on his mind.
127	* FlashFreezingCoolant: In the FinalBattle, K blasts a tube delivering coolant to a rocket, causing his opponent Boris the Animal's arm to freeze solid. K then shatters the arm with a blast from his laser gun.
128	* FiveSecondForeshadowing: When K offers to give him a job in the MIB, the Colonel tells him "I wish I could" before he's interrupted [[spoiler: and killed by Boris.]] Although he doesn't get to finish his sentence, we can assume he was about to say something like "But I [[spoiler: [[LukeIAmYourFather got a little boy at home to take care of.]]]]"
129	* {{Foreshadowing}}: When Griffin shows The Colonel "the truth", [[spoiler: the Colonel looks straight at J and his face visibly softens.]]
130	** At the Chinese restaurant J makes a quip about how his dad never was around, K immediately tells him to not badmouth in his old man, in a rather out of character concern about someone he ostensibly doesn't know that even has J visibly frown.
131	** The scenes in present day tips its hand before the time-jump to 1969 that [[spoiler: J and his father were involved with the original capture of Boris by K]]:
132	*** Both K and O shield J from the details of Boris's capture at Cape Canaveral, despite his senior-agent status, and tell him not to ask anything he wouldn't want to know the answer to.
133	*** This is why J is the only person who remembers K in the altered timeline as he was in the prime timeline; as Jeffrey Price tells him before the jump, [[spoiler: "That means you were there!"]], although J and the audience doesn't know what this entails yet.
134	* TheFunInFuneral: K's tribute to Zed consists of two phrases with no emotion at all. [[Creator/EmmaThompson Agent O]] imitates a tearful female alien spewing high-pitched gibberish.
135	* FunnyBackgroundEvent:
136	** Music/LadyGaga, Yao Ming, Music/JustinBieber, UsefulNotes/DavidBeckham, Creator/TimBurton and UsefulNotes/RichardNixon are aliens; Gaga living under her given name.
137	** That one big-eyed alien at Zed's memorial service who keeps blinking, and blinking, and blinking...
138	** Look at one of the guards when J, K and Griffin are talking to the colonel.
139	[[/folder]]
140
141	[[folder:Tropes G to M]]
142	* GenreBlindness:
143	** The prison guards in the opening scene. Someone brings a cake into a prison and you don't think to check it beyond a cursory scan? Not to forget leaving massive guns in the same area of a prison some of the worst inmates are kept in and not shooting Boris, despite him having a gun that can punch a hole in the hull of the lunar prison.
144	** Boris is utterly sure he will be victorious, even despite [[spoiler:his future self coming back to tell him that he wasn't.]]
145	* GoodCopBadCop: J and K.
146	* GrandFinale: For the Original Trilogy and J and K's adventures. The franchise from hereon out would switch to new characters.
147	* GuiltFreeExterminationWar: At the end of the movie, when J asks K about Boris "the Animal," [[spoiler: K says he killed him in 1969; when J asks about the other Boglodites, K answers that they went extinct decades before, which J is very pleased to learn.]]
148	* HamToHamCombat: Boris does this with ''himself'' almost immediately after meeting himself in 1969.
149	* HandWave: How they explain why J remembers the original timeline.
150	* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:The Colonel, who turns out to be J's father.]]
151	* HistoricalInJoke: Undercover agent [[spoiler:Andy Warhol]] desperately needs a transfer. He's [[spoiler:so low on ideas he's been reduced to painting bananas and soup cans]]!
152	** 1969!O pulls away the current MIB director from J and K, noting that the "Viagrans" have arrived to talk about "[[RagingStiffie an extraordinary new pill.]]"
153	* HordeOfAlienLocusts: The Boglodites. Their species can only survive by conquest, they wipe out entire species as they move through the galaxy, and if they can't move on to a new species, they will die out.
154	* IHatePastMe: Boris. He sees in his past self all the mistakes that led to losing his arm and ending up TheLastOfHisKind. The loathing is mutual, though, as Young Boris sees in his future self all the failures that he hasn't suffered yet.
155	* InnocentInaccurate: "Mommy! [[UsefulNotes/BarackObama The president]] is drinking my milk. He didn't say please."
156	* InsectoidAliens: The symbiote that lodges in Boris' hand and "completes him".
157	* InsistentTerminology: It's '''JUST BORIS'''!
158	* InSpiteOfANail: Boris's initial change (killing K) seems to keep things the same enough for J to have become an agent in the first place. And despite J's involvement in the past it's implied minor things were also different but still "close enough." To the movie's credit, when J and 1960's K are together J makes a point of trying to keep K going along on the detective path he took in the original timeline rather than skipping to everything ahead of time due to J's future knowledge (which was minimal since he only glanced over the case report in the first place).
159	* IronicEcho: Throughout the film, Boris uses the CatchPhrase "Let's agree to disagree." Just after J outwits him with some SaveScumming, he throws the phrase back in his face as a PreMortemOneLiner.
160	* ItBeganWithATwistOfFate: Griff is a fifth-dimensional being who can see infinite probabilities all at once and describes how even the slightest nudge in one timeline can cause a major butterfly effect. K and J are amazed while Griff describes his perspective of the universe as a pain in the ass.
161	* IWantMyJetpack: Lampshaded when O straps J and K to car-sized jetpacks. J remarks [[AwesomeButImpractical there is a reason]] they don't use them in the future. Griffin is overjoyed that the movie's timeline isn't one of the ones where they explode and kill all of them.
162	* JailBake: Though the thing inside the cake is an alien symbiont (nicknamed "Weasel" in the Blu-ray disc commentary) which helps Boris escape.
163	* LameComeback: While being hassled by J over his increasingly bad mood, K threatens to note in his report that J's behavior was "unbecoming."
164	--> '''Agent J:''' ''Well, maybe my report's gonna reflect some shit too!''
165	* LargeHam: Boris the Animal.
166	* LaserGuidedAmnesia: Two prototypes of the neuralyzer exist in 1969: the giant one that J is locked into, and a smaller one with a battery attached to K's belt (which for some reason has a ''dial-up modem''). Also if you listen carefully, the "modem" makes an AOL chime.
167	* LastOfHisKind:
168	** Boris is the last Boglodite alive.
169	** Griffin is the last of his kind as well.
170	* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: Towards the start of the movie, Agent J claims that a fallen flying saucer was caused by someone on an airplane not turning off their cellphone when instructed to do so. He then starts a lecture telling people to turn off their cellphones, which could also be a message directed at the audience in theaters.
171	* LiteralMetaphor:
172	-->'''Jeffrey Price''': But first, we gotta get high.\
173	'''J''': Hey... no.\
174	'''Jeffrey Price''': No, no, I meant really ''high''.\
175	''[Cut to the top of the Chrysler Building.]''
176	* MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight: Why Boris travels back in time.
177	* ManicPixieDreamGirl: A rare male version in Griffin, kinda.
178	* MeaningfulBackgroundEvent:
179	** In the scene where J tries to get a time machine, take a close look at the television screens, which play news reports showing the AlienInvasion underway in different parts of the world. It just takes a bit of time before said aliens actually ''reach'' New York.
180	** Also, watch closely as J looks around 1969 MIB for the first time, and you'll see Griffin walking around in the foreground.
181	* MentalTimeTravel: Griffin can see a variety of possible futures.
182	* MirthlessLaughter: Boris. Just [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw9gqEej5OA listen to it]]. Yikes.
183	* MistakenForGay: The guy who gives J the time travel device comments "You must really love him," referring to K, whom J had referred to as his [[NotThatKindOfPartner partner]].
184	* MisterSandmanSequence: The first things J sees when he travels back to 1969? Cars, hippies ...
185	* MonsterFangirl: In the opening, Boris the Animal escapes from his Lunar Prison when his prison mail girlfriend brings him [[JailBake a cake containing his lethal symbiont]]. The kill-crazy alien monster thanks her for her aid to him, but lets her be sucked out into space without remorse and goes back to trying to destroy Earth.
186	* MonumentalDamage: An alien ship pulls out the top of the Eiffel Tower.
187	* MoreTeethThanTheOsmondFamily: [[spoiler:Boris' "true form" seems to be nothing ''but'' teeth. Foreshadowed by the mouth-like fissures his body is covered with.]]
188	* MortonsFork:
189	** When O starts to consider that J is the victim of a temporal fracture, she notes that the symptoms he's experiencing (a craving for chocolate milk, headaches, dizziness, mood swings, etc.) could also be the result of him having been bitten by the Horvathian brain tick and could die in agony at any minute, but O rules that option out by slapping J.
190	** When J tells K why he shouldn't go to Cape Canaveral, K punches him in the face twice: once for lying to him earlier, and once for telling him the truth.
191	* MotorMouth: Griffin can lapse into this, but considering he can see every possible timeline all at once it's understandable.
192	* MsFanservice: Boris' girlfriend, played by real-life MsFanservice Nicole Scherzinger.
193	* MultinationalTeam: There are hints that the MIB have members from different countries, if O is any indication.
194	* MythologyGag:
195	** [[spoiler:The plot resembles the MIB animated series episode "The Head Trip Syndrome" which was about a human bigot who hated aliens and uses a time machine to kill off the founding members of MIB. The difference for the film is that the villain is an alien who wanted to travel back in time to kill K. Both also involve K in an important event in history. In the TV show episode, K was there when the first aliens landed and presented them flowers (originally meant for a date) as a welcome gift (this actually was a callback to the first movie when K mentions the MIB origins). In this movie, he was responsible for sending a defense network out into space around Earth to keep alien invasions from happening by planting it on the Apollo 11 launch. This is part of the reason Boris wants him dead (though the majority of his motive is revenge)]].
196	** Boris is also similar to Agent Alpha from the animated series, a PsychoPrototype who K knew in the past, fired spikes, and required J's help to take him down.
197	[[/folder]]
198
199	[[folder:Tropes N to S]]
200	* NewspaperDating: The attempt at newspaper dating doesn't work because the guy in the elevator keeps shifting the date on the paper out of J's line of sight. J finally just asks him WhatYearIsIt.
201	* NoIndoorVoice: Boris never speaks at any volume lower than a dull roar.
202	* NoNameGiven: The Colonel from 1969 is never referred to by name. [[spoiler:Given he's J's father, his full name must be James Darrell Edwards II.]]
203	* NoodleIncident: J telling K about finding out "too late" that all models are aliens.
204	* NotTheFallThatKillsYou: The only way to make the TimeTravel device work.
205	* ObfuscatingStupidity: This is how J leaves the MIB facility in the past, with K's assistance. After escaping the primitive [[LaserGuidedAmnesia neuralyzer]] chamber without authorization, K pretends to escort his guest out, for fear he may have "cooked him a little too long."
206	-->'''Agent J:''' I put my pants on!
207	* OlderThanTheyLook:
208	** Given she was a twenty-something in 1969, O is at the very least in her early sixties and could possibly be seventy. She looks about fifty. Young O was played by 30 year old Creator/AliceEve and old O was played by 53 year old Creator/EmmaThompson.
209	** [[spoiler:Griffin when he makes his appearance at the end of the movie looking no older than he did more than 40 years ago.]]
210	* OmnicidalManiac: The Boglodites need to regularly consume all the resources (and life forms) of a planet or they'll starve and die.
211	* TheOmniscient: Griffin. He's a spacetime omniscient alien who can see every single future possibility of given events and [[ForWantOfANail how these possibilities are influenced by other small events]].
212	* OnePhoneCall:
213	** After being pulled over in 1969 for driving while black, J demands a phone call, although he's just BriarPatching the cops into neuralizing themselves.
214	** At the 1969 MIB headquarters, J sees an alien calling his dad on the phone, asking for bail money.
215	* OneWingedAngel: Boris's true form at the end is pretty nasty looking. [[spoiler:K isn't fazed at all and wastes no time disintegrating Boris with his laser gun.]]
216	* OrphansPlotTrinket: [[spoiler:J's watch from his father.]]
217	* OverlyLongTongue:
218	** Boris's -- with plenty of {{squick}} to go along with it.
219	** The waitress at the "Chinese" restaurant has a green prehensile tongue and tries to disarm J with it.
220	* PalatePropping: J sticks a metal tray between his thighs when the fish-creature tries to swallow him, preventing it from biting his legs off.
221	* PhraseCatcher: "Boris the Animal!" [[InsistentTerminology "It's JUST BORIS!"]]
222	* PlotArmor: The protagonists of course don't die, but J gets an especially jarring case during the final showdown when Boris' spikes, which so far dealt out {{One Hit Kill}}s to anyone they hit, merely mildly inconvenience him despite four hits to his body (to be fair, J doesn't sustain hits to any immediately fatal areas such as his head or heart).
223	* PlotHole: In this case, ''characters ignoring or avoiding obvious solutions to their problems''. With the organization being a space-oriented organization in a universe with CasualInterstellarTravel, many viewers scratched their heads at having to put the MacGuffin on Apollo 11 specifically. Reasons can be justified and finagled out through WildMassGuessing, and even some potential FridgeBrilliance, but the fact that this alternative is ''never brought up in dialogue at all'' despite the fact that Agent J has been saying "what about this or that" every two minutes so far is a minor plot hole.
224	* PoliticallyCorrectHistory: Zig-zagged. J is warned before jumping back in time that "it wasn't the best time for your people," and is later pulled over simply due to being a black man driving a nice car, but then again, Cape Canaveral security is commanded by [[spoiler:J's father]], and no-one in the film even calls J "Black", let alone the N-word. MIB was also less alien-friendly in those days, as indicated by most aliens at the HQ being of the [[RubberForeheadAliens rubber forehead]] kind, O being a secretary, and Chief X casually dismissing the dead alien as long as no humans got hurt.
225	* ReedRichardsIsUseless: Okay, but seriously...the guy who's familiar enough with a time machine to casually hand it over to J without payment is ''the clerk at an electronics store?'' Possibly justified though - he mentions that these devices are very old, so he probably didn't construct them himself, and neither did his father.
226	* RememberTheNewGuy:
227	** O never appeared in the first two films but apparently had been working at MIB for at least as long as K had. It's a case of RealLifeWritesThePlot as Rip Torn's troubles made him uncastable, and a replacement was needed.
228	** J realizes that time has been rewritten when instead of K, he's greeted on the way to work by AA, who addresses J as his partner even though he's not someone J or the audience have ever seen before.
229	* ResolvedNoodleIncident: Downplayed, if not explicitly pointed out. Back at the end of the first film before he was neuralyzed, K mentioned that the Edgar the Bug incident was one of a hundred memories he'd be happy to forget. The climax and twist of this film reveals another of them: [[spoiler:That J's father sacrificed himself to save K from Boris. K still blames himself for that death and for orphaning the then-young J.]]
230	* {{Retcon}}: In the first movie, K deletes J's data, which shows a 1975 birth date. [[spoiler:In this movie, he finds a young James Edwards in 1969. James Edwards was then stated to have been born in 1965. To make it worse, Will Smith was born in '68.]]
231	* RightForTheWrongReasons: While J is in time to 1969, he gets pulled over by two racist cops who believe that he stole the car he's driving because it happens to be a very expensive model (and J is of course black). After neuralyzing them, J admits to the stupefied cops that he ''did'' steal the car, but it had nothing to do with the color of his skin.
232	* RippleEffectProofMemory: J can remember the "real" past, which is explained as an effect of [[spoiler:him being there, resulting in something of a StableTimeLoop]].
233	* RippleEffectIndicator: K's apartment.
234	* RubberForeheadAliens: [=MIB=] headquarters in 1969 is populated by aliens that are accurate to late '60s sci-fi portrayals. Including HumanAliens wearing space suits that look like they came from sci-fi movies about the future.
235	* RuleOfThree: J was a [=MIB=] agent for three years when he found out all models are aliens.
236	* RunningGag: "IT'S JUST BORIS!"
237	* SameRaceMeansRelated: The only two characters who are [[spoiler:black, Agent J and the Colonel]], are revealed to be father and son late in the film.
238	* SaveSat: The very end had one of these avert a potential asteroid strike, but seemingly only Griffin was aware of it. A [[CatchPhrase close one]], indeed.
239	* SaveScumming: [[spoiler:J time travels one minute backwards after memorizing Boris's attack pattern.]] Though [[spoiler:pay attention when Boris went back in time that minute as well. The first attacks are Left-Right-Left, the second are Right-Left-Left. This makes for a bit of FridgeLogic as to how J dodged perfectly the second time.]]
240	* ScaryBlackMan: The NASA launch site commander, who turns out to be a ReasonableAuthorityFigure [[spoiler:and J's DisappearedDad.]]
241	* SeaMonster: The alien fish the Chinese restaurant keeps for their non-human patrons. The reason K and J show up is that they're serving them to ''human'' patrons.
242	-->'''J:''' Wu, we had a deal. Earth people get Earth fish!
243	* SerialEscalation: Each of the preceding MIB films have had the fate of the planet and the universe hanging in the balance should J and K fail to stop the BigBad. This still holds true with this film. But, befitting J and K's last adventure, the stakes are now higher than they've ever been before in the franchise. This time, it's not just the planet or the universe, but history itself should Boris succeed.
244	* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: Why J travels back in time. More precisely, he needs to set right what was once right but then was made wrong. Interestingly enough, along with J fixing the direct problem, future Boris and J also help fix something else by accident. [[spoiler:Because of future Boris, K has a legit reason to shoot him instead of arresting him. Likewise, meeting future J means K knows the boy will develop right, lessening the guilt of not having been able to save his father. Both changes cause K to be less grumpy and more friendly, somewhat.]]
245	* ShoutOut:
246	** Both the [=LunarMax=] prison in the beginning and the bunker to the Apollo launch site in the end are labeled CRM-114, a code that [[http://www.eeggs.com/items/1589.html pops up frequently]] in Creator/StanleyKubrick's films since ''Film/DrStrangelove''.
247	** Boris is a genocidal alien biker and also LastOfHisKind, just like the DC Comics character Lobo.
248	** The number of the MIB car used in the '60s starts with NX. Kind of reminds you of [[Series/StarTrekEnterprise another precursor vehicle]].
249	** [[Film/JerryMaguire "You]] [[Film/AustinPowers complete me..."]]
250	** [[Theatre/SweeneyTodd At last, Boris' arm is complete again.]]
251	** The alien at MIB HQ [[Film/ETTheExtraTerrestrial on the phone with his dad]]...
252	-->"Dad, I'm on Earth. I need bail."
253	** This banter between J and [[spoiler:Andy ]]W[[spoiler:arhol]] is definitely one to Film/{{Hancock}}:
254	--->'''J:''' Actually [[spoiler:Mr. Warhol]], I gotta tell you I really love your work.\
255	'''W:''' Oh! Oh, thank you. ''[beat, then turns to K]'' Who's the dumbass?\
256	'''J:''' Woah! Hey, how about a little professional courtesy here?\
257	'''W:''' What's that, dumbass?\
258	'''J:''' Say that again.\
259	'''W:''' You want me to?\
260	'''J:''' I dare you.\
261	'''W:''' Dumbass.\
262	'''K:''' Agents...\
263	'''J:''' You know, I have no problem pimp-slapping the ''shiznit'' out of [[spoiler:Andy Warhol]].
264	** Some of the nicknames that young K uses for J are from '50s cowboy shows like Hondo, Cochise, and Hoss.
265	* ShownTheirWork: Details of the Apollo launch gantry in the film, with the escape zip line, and the capsule escape tower.
266	* TheSixties: J travels back in time to 1969 to prevent K's death at the hands of Boris the Animal.
267	* SpaceWhaleAesop: J uses these as part of his neuralyzer cover stories: "You don't turn off electronics on a plane when told to, crashed satellite." "Flush a live goldfish, fish monster."
268	* SpannerInTheWorks: Boris' plan to kill K and restore the Boglodites. Under different circumstances, it ''would'' have worked and the MIB would've been none the wiser that history had been changed until it was too late. It only fails because Boris didn't know [[spoiler: his entire trip was actually part of a Stable Time Loop and that J, having witnessed the event as a child, would retain his memories of the original timeline.]]
269	* SpikeShooter: Boris' main attack, courtesy of "The Weasel", his parasitic alien partner who hides inside his hand.
270	* StableTimeLoop: The time travel plot was ''always'' supposed to happen. [[spoiler:It results in J's father not being there while he was growing up, K becoming TheStoic (and looking after J throughout his life), and J having RippleEffectProofMemory]]. Some things are changed around.
271	* StepfordSmiler: In a way, Griffin is one. He's always cheerful. Then he breaks down and nearly cries when remembering how the Boglodites have destroyed his planet, making him the [[LastOfHisKind last Archanan]].
272	* TheStoic: K. He has never been so stoic, and there's a good reason for that.
273	* StylisticSuck: The aliens in [=MiB=] headquarters in 1969 are all obviously actors in rubber suits, in contrast to the puppetry and CGI aliens of the present. What makes it this trope is that they're RubberForeheadAliens that look like the stereotypical depictions of aliens from those times.
274	* SubvertedRhymeEveryOccasion: The song "Back in Time" -- "Give credit where credit is due don't cha. / Know that I don't give a number two."
275	* SuddenSequelDeathSyndrome: Zed, whose death happens offscreen. The film opens with J and K discussing what K will say at his funeral. He does not make an appearance when J goes back in time despite being alive and well to avoid dealing with Creator/RipTorn, who was facing serious legal trouble at the time.
276	* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Jeffrey fills the same exact role as Jeebs in the first two films, although his characterization is different.
277	* SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: [[spoiler:When Agent J returns to 2012, and does a CallingTheOldManOut routine on K and O's relationship in 1969, Agent K cites an MIB no-fraternization rule between agents. But he never actually denies J's claim, and J doesn't believe K's deflection anyway.]]
278	* TheSymbiote: Boris the Animal has a symbiotic relationship with a small creature that burrows into his right hand so he can shoot lethal spikes at a very fast rate. Smuggling his symbiote into prison and giving him free use of his hand is what initially allows him to escape his confinement.
279	[[/folder]]
280
281	[[folder:Tropes T to Z]]
282	* TechnologyMarchesOn: [[invoked]] The movie has a lot of fun with this, as the 1960's MIB gear is still advanced but looks like what the 1960s thought future technology would look like. '60s K pulls out his communicator that looks like an infamous '80s "brick" cell phone with chrome plating. The reliable neuralizer is the size of a room, with a pocket-sized version that requires a connected belt battery and manual tuner. And this was before the creation of the BigRedButton, so J and K need to actually strap on some rocket packs to race to the climax.
283	* TerminatorTwosome: Boris is the history-changer, J is the history-preserver. Interesting in that the pursuer actually arrives before the quarry.
284	* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodSandwich: In the ending when J reunites with K in present day at a diner and he's waiting for him with plates of pie and a coffee for him, but then they leave without touching the food shortly after.
285	* ThisCannotBe: [[spoiler:When J dodges Boris's darts and throws him off the top of the launch gantry, Boris shouts "That's not possible!"]]
286	* ThisIsAsFarAsIGo: When J and K get ready to confront Boris at the Cape Canaveral launch site of the Apollo mission, the omniscient alien Griffin (who helped them to enlist the aid of the base commander with his powers) says that they are on their own from that point onward, as they don't need him anymore.
287	* ThrownOutTheAirlock: How Boris deals with the prison guards when he escapes [=LunarMax=].
288	* TimeTravel: The premise of the movie is Agent J going back to TheSixties to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong.
289	* TimeTravelersDinosaur: When Agent J first does a time jump; by jumping off a skyscraper no less, he sees history unfold before his eyes, but just before he hits the bottom he nearly gets eaten by a dinosaur. Thankfully before that happens he gets to his destination in time.
290	* TimeyWimeyBall: Inevitable since TimeTravel is involved. There are explanations for some of them, at least.
291	** J was present at K's death in the alternate 1969 but remembers the original timeline's K, because alternate J doesn't exist due to regular J's immunity to the timeline change. O explains this shortly before J goes back in time.
292	** Jeffrey remembers sending Boris back in time, because for him it seems nothing that changed in the past changed his life up until the moment J walked into his shop.
293	** When [[spoiler:J time-jumps with Boris, there isn't a past J and Boris because Boris did not travel back in time fully, but J did as the time device is single-person only.]]
294	** Poor Griffin lives in one inside his head. He seems to enjoy it at times, but knowing how every moment in existence could go horribly wrong in infinite ways obviously wears on his nerves.
295	* TortureForFunAndInformation:
296	** Happens with the aliens in the bowling alley -- when one doesn't talk, J uses his head for a ball.
297	** Also done by 1969 K to J when they first meet, due to J's cover story sucking. K puts J in a EEG-machine styled neuralizer, and J spills what he knows, causing K to abort the neuralization.
298	* TreasureChestCavity: Griffin keeps the MacGuffin quite literally inside his head, which is actually mostly hollow and usually obscured by his hat.
299	* UnderTheTruck: Twice during the bike chase. First J slips under a truck on his [[MonowheelMayhem wheel-bike]] (which survives). Later Boris does the same on a conventional motorcycle (which gets trashed).
300	* UngratefulBastard: Boris' poor penpal girl goes through all the trouble to sneak an... alien thing... in to help him to escape. He repays it by letting her fly out into space. [[spoiler:Since young Boris got killed by K, this event was undone, leaving her presumably alive in the altered timeline.]]
301	* WeaponizedExhaust: The Saturn V's, which kills [[spoiler: 2012 Boris]].
302	* WeHardlyKnewYe: The girl who helps Boris escape, and the prison inmate who is the father of the store clerk that gives him the time-travel device. Although, after [[spoiler:'60s Boris's death in 1969]], they and anyone killed by Boris after that event should be inserted back into the new timeline.
303	* WhatHappenedToTheMouse:
304	** Jeebs, who is usually the go-to-guy for the latest not-very-legal technology, is nowhere to be seen. A fat man running a toy store replaces him, though as the tech that sends J back is human, it makes a bit more sense.
305	** Frank's nowhere to be seen, aside from a couple of references (a picture of him hanging on J's wall, and a sign advertising the Amazing Talking Pug at Coney Island). Frank's "actor"[[note]]Specifically, the dog, Mushu; his voice actor Tim Blaney is still alive[[/note]] died, necessitating his disappearance.
306	* WhatTheHellHero: K has a brief moment of this when he punches J in the face twice for "lying and then telling the truth". J was only trying to help, after all.
307	* WhenThingsSpinScienceHappens: The early model of the neuralyzer J is put into at the '60s MIB headquarters is a large cylindrical machine that spins horizontally and increasingly faster in order to do its thing.
308	* WritersCannotDoMath: When J explains himself to K in 1969, he says "25 years from now, you recruit me...". 25 years after 1969 is 1994, whereas the first film took place in 1997.
309	* WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants: InUniverse: Agent W ([[spoiler:Andy Warhol]]) admits having trouble keeping up his persona, and had recently resorted to drawing [[spoiler:soup cans]] and other mundane items due to running out of ideas.
310	* YouCantFightFate: When asked if a timeline exists in which J successfully saved K's life, Griffin affirmed that there is, but also cryptically pointed out "Where there is death, there will always be death". In the end, J found out that [[spoiler:his own father died in place of K, resulting in K secretly keeping watch over the younger J, invoking a StableTimeLoop]].
311	* YouDidntSeeThat: When K climbs over the command module, one of the astronauts points out that if they report it, the launch would be scrubbed. All deny seeing anything.
312	* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Boris's poor prison pen-pal.
313	* YouKilledMyFather: It is revealed [[spoiler:very late into the movie that Boris is the reason why J's father never saw him grow up. However, J never actually finds out until after '60s-era Boris does the deed and dies by K's hand and J finds his father dead, and likewise, J didn't remember until then because K neuralized him]].
314	* YoungerThanTheyLook: The young Agent K in 1969 (played by Creator/JoshBrolin). J asks K how old he is and he says 29. Josh Brolin was 44 at the time, only 21 years younger than Creator/TommyLeeJones, despite J going back in time 43 years. J lampshades this by telling K "got some city miles on ya, huh?"
315	* {{Zeerust}}: Done deliberately with the MIB headquarters in 1969, where the aliens seen resemble the RubberForeheadAliens predominantly seen in '60s media.
316	[[/folder]]
317

Context Film / MenInBlack3