10 Genius Edits That Totally Saved Movies
3. Alien Dialogue Was Re-Dubbed & Re-Subtitled To Change The Plot - Men In Black
The fact that Men in Black is as smoothly confident as it appears is basically a minor miracle, given that director Barry Sonnenfeld actually re-jigged the bones of the alien plot during post-production.
Originally, the alien narrative as written and shot was much more complex, typified by the scene in which the two Arquillian aliens (Carel Struycken and Mike Nussbaum) meet at a restaurant.
The scene originally depicted the two as ambassadors of warring alien factions trying to mend their feud, all while Edgar the Bug (Vincent D'Onofrio) desperately attempted to keep the war waging.
It was ultimately decided that this was too involved for a blockbuster movie, and Sonnenfeld made the decision to re-cast both actors in post-production as Arquillians out for lunch.
This allowed him to dub over their original English dialogue with any gibberish noises he wanted to match their lip movements, and then add subtitles to support any dialogue he came up with.
In the end, the new version of the scene cut through all the expository guff while setting up the reveal that the Arquillians are in fact tiny little aliens living inside mechanical human suits.