MovieChat Forums > Men in Black³ (2012) Discussion > Did K plan all along for J to go back in...

Did K plan all along for J to go back in time?

posted 11 years ago by star_in_the_zenith_79
9 replies | jump to latest

When Boris gets away after they go to Wu's, K tells J imprisoning Boris instead of killing him was the worst mistake he ever made. But when J suggests they go get him K tells him to forget it, and then K makes no effort to get to Jeffrey Price first to stop Boris from going back in time to kill him, almost as though he is resigned to it. Even in the scene right before he disappears he grabs his space gun and sits In the chair like he knows what is going to happen.

So did K actually want Boris to go back in time to kill him so that J would go back as well and help him correct his mistake? If not, why didn't K make any effort to stop Boris In the future?

It does seem far fetched that K would take that kind of risk and have that much foresight to see that outcome, especially when not just his own life but the safety of the world was at stake. But I can't figure out why he would make no effort to stop Boris from going back in time in the first place.

[–] transmentalist 11 years ago

It seems as though, in the timeline we see in this movie, K knows J will go back in time to fix that mistake, somehow

Perhaps J tried and failed before, so K was planting the idea for correcting his mistake this time around

It also means we may or may not have seen this particular timeline before - goes a long way towards resolving any inconsistencies with the prior movies

[–] granitodiaz 11 years ago

This was a poorly writen movie

[–] 11 years ago

[deleted]

[–] captainramius 11 years ago

K had no idea about time travel. Earlier J mentioned that they were partners and had the same pay grade the. Later O mentioned the knowledge of time travel was classified above his pay grade therefore K would not know about it.

[–] OneScotchNeat 11 years ago

Not exactly. All the information that was classified and restricted from J was known by both O and K, who were there. "Pay grade" had nothing to do with it. That's just an expression that's used regarding information or decisions one is not privileged to or responsible for, and J turned it into a joke by pointing out that if you were to take the expression literally, he gets paid the same as K.

Although I'm not defending the hole-ridden writing in general, I don't think the OP has a valid point here. What reason is there to think that K had any knowledge of Boris's plan to time travel? The only clue he had was Boris saying "You don't know it but you're already dead" (or something like that). There would have been no reason for him to seek out Jeffrey Price to prevent the time travel plan.

[–] lemner 10 years ago

Time travel is tricky. Logically, there had to be a first timeline where K survives, but J's father does not, leading to K keeping an eye on young J and wanting to recruit him as happened in MIB I. Then a second timeline occurs in which Boris escapes and succeeds in killing K in the past. At that point only J remembers the last 40 years of K as an MIB agent, the others all know he died in 1969. In the third timeline, J has gone back to 1969 and is able to help stop Boris. However, J's father still has to die in this timeline, because otherwise J would likely never have become a MIB agent, and so would not have been there to stop Boris. When that J returns to the future, the new K from this timeline remembers what happened and knows that J now knows about his father.

To answer the original question, K did not plan for J to go back in time, because he didn't know that would happen until after it happened in the third timeline.

The reason he wanted J not to go after Boris was probably that he thought J would get killed. At that point, he doesn't know Boris would go back in time and prevent the deployment of the Arcnet(sp), so he doesn't know the whole planet is at risk, he just thinks Boris is bent on revenge against himself.

Semper Contendere Propter Amoram et Formam


[–] virgiltx 8 years ago

I don't think K knew about time-travel, because that would have been on a need to know basis. They wouldn't tell field agents just because of their pay grades. O knew, but K was just a field agent and MIB leadership would want to keep TT hushed up.
O told J because he had symptoms of temporal fracture, indicating Boris had time-jumped, and J, because of his temporal fracture experience, must be involved.

____________________
The story is king.

[–] Nizzemancer-1 8 years ago

He knew that the events of the past had to play out for him not to change the past, and in order to do that, he had to keep J in the dark about what he would do in the past, helping him by even telling him would change history.

Light travels faster than sound,
that's why people seem bright,
until you hear them.

[–] movienchill31 (225) 6 years ago

I'm thinking he didn't want J to help because that would mean J would learn his secret(that J's father died saving him). I think K was resigned to that fact that Boris will kill him because it somehow will take the guilt over him being the cause that J doesn't have a father. And who knows once K "died" it could have meant in that timeline that J's father lived.