Daily Dialogue — August 27, 2016

EXT. BATTERY PARK — DAY

EDWARDS, thrown for a major loop, sits like a zombie alongside KAY on a bench in Battery Park. Kay drinks his coffee while they talk.

KAY: Any given time, around fifteen hundred landed aliens are on the planet, the majority right here in Manhattan. Most aliens are decent enough, just trying to make a living.
EDWARDS: Cab drivers?
KAY: Not as many as you’d think. Humans, for the most part, don’t have a clue. Don’t want one, either. They’re happy. They think they’ve got a pretty good bead on things.
EDWARDS: Why the big secret? People are smart, they can handle it.
KAY: A person is smart. People are dumb. Everything they’ve ever “known” has been proven to be wrong. A thousand years ago everybody knew as a fact, that the earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, they knew it was flat. Fifteen minutes ago, you knew we humans were alone on it. Imagine what you’ll know tomorrow.
EDWARDS: So what’s the catch?
KAY: What you’ll gain in perspective, you’ll lose in ways you’re too young to comprehend. You give up everything. Sever every human contact. No one will know you exist. Ever.
EDWARDS: Nobody?
KAY: You’re not even allowed a favorite shirt. There. That’s the speech I never heard. That’s the choice I never got.
EDWARDS: Hold up. You track me down, put me through those stupid-ass tests, now you’re trying to talk me out of it. I don’t get it.
KAY: You got ’til sun-up.
EDWARDS: Is it worth it?
KAY: You find out, you let me know.

— Men In Black (1997), screenplay by Ed Solomon, screen story by Ed Solomon, comic by Lowell Cunningham

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Mentor, suggested by Michael Waters. Today’s suggestion by Lois Bernard.

Trivia: The climax was going to be a humorous existential dialogue between agents J and K and the Bug, but the studio called for a more action-packed climax, so it was changed to the Bug getting blown up.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Commentary by Lois: “I would never have guessed that last bit of trivia, to me the ending seemed perfect for the movie. This scene is basically pure exposition with enough comedy put in to make it entertaining.”

My thoughts: Mentors know ‘stuff’. Wisdom. Insight. And sometimes inside information. Here Kay reveals some real inside info about aliens.