The Abridged Script
FADE IN:
INT. SPACE JAIL
NICOLE SCHERZINGER shows up at an ULTRA-SECRET PRISON on the MOON carrying a CAKE.
PRISON GUARD #1
Really? A motherfucking cake? Why didn't you just draw a giant middle finger to the audience in icing?
NICOLE SCHERZINGER
I'm here to visit Jemaine Clement.
PRISON GUARD #2
Sure! That guy is hilarious!
(singing)
It's business... It's business time!
NICOLE SCHERZINGER
Actually, he's horrifyingly dangerous and evil. In fact, you built this entire prison on the moon just because everyone's so pants-shittingly terrified of him.
PRISON GUARD #1
Jemaine Clement? Really?
NICOLE SCHERZINGER
Yeah. You've kept him chained to a wall in solitary confinement for the past 42 years.
PRISON GUARD #2
Well, that's no reason not to let him have visitors.
INT. JEMAINE'S CELL
JEMAINE CLEMENT has MOTORCYCLE GOOGLES built into his FACE for reasons the COSTUME DESIGNER will take to his GRAVE.
PRISON GUARD #1
Visitor for Jemaine the Conchord.
JEMAINE CLEMENT
Looking 'round the jail... I can tell that you... are the most stupidest guard in the jail.
NICOLE SCHERZINGER
In the whole wide jail.
A small ALIEN CREATURE crawls out of the cake and burrows into the palm of JEMAINE's hand.
PRISON GUARD #2
That's disgusting.
JEMAINE CLEMENT
And it makes masturbation very difficult. But more importantly, it gives me the magical power to shoot unlimited daggers out of my hands!
JEMAINE kills the first two PRISON GUARDS, only to be SURROUNDED by a DOZEN MORE.
JEMAINE CLEMENT
Ah ha! This is the perfect chance for me to use my patented villainous catchphrase!
PRISON GUARDS
Okay, let's hear it.
JEMAINE CLEMENT
Are you sure you're ready for it? I've spent the last 42 years honing to perfection!
PRISON GUARDS
Get on with it already!
JEMAINE CLEMENT
(actual line)
Let's agree to disagree.
PRISON GUARDS
Groan.
AUDIENCE
Groan.
JEMAINE CLEMENT'S DIGNITY
Groan.
JEMAINE blows a giant hole in the wall of space jail, and ALL OF THE PRISON GUARDS are SUCKED into OUTER SPACE.
NICOLE SCHERZINGER
If we're on the moon, how the fuck did I even get here anyway?
JEMAINE CLEMENT
Who cares? You serve two purposes in this movie, and they're both stuffed in your bra. Now get out.
NICOLE is SUCKED into OUTER SPACE.
JEMAINE calmly walks out onto the SURFACE of the MOON. Then he begins to TALK. Out LOUD. In SPACE.
JEMAINE CLEMENT
My character motivation is to kill Tommy Lee Jones!
EXT. NEW YORK CITY
WILL SMITH is investigating a CRASHED SPACESHIP. TOMMY LEE JONES's GREAT GRANDFATHER walks up.
TOMMY LEE JONES
No, this is just what I look like now. Anyway, we should go get orders from our leader, Zed.
WILL SMITH
Zed's dead, baby. Zed's dead.
TOMMY LEE JONES
Oh.
WILL SMITH
She's still alive. Let's get orders from her.
INT. MEN IN BLACK HEADQUARTERS
There is a brief memorial service for RIP TORN. WILL SMITH runs around throwing confetti on everyone.
TOMMY LEE JONES
That's Rip Taylor, asshole.
WILL SMITH
Why are you so mean and humorless?
TOMMY LEE JONES
I'll never tell you. Never, ever! Ever, ever, ever, ever, ever!!!
That night.
TOMMY LEE JONES
(on the phone)
Okay, I'll tell you now.
WILL SMITH
Fuck off, I'm playing video games.
(hangs up)
TOMMY LEE JONES disappears from the spacetime continuum.
INT. MEN IN BLACK HEADQUARTERS
WILL SMITH
Where's Tommy Lee Jones?
EMMA THOMPSON
Dead for 42 years.
WILL SMITH
Oh well. Got any chocolate milk?
EMMA THOMPSON
Chocolate milk? Chocolate milk! That's a sign that the timeline of the entire universe has been rewritten!
RANDOM MAN IN BLACK
ARGH! Giant floating jellyfish are destroying every city on the planet simultaneously!
WILL SMITH
Tommy Lee Jones was supposed to have prevented this alien attack in 1969, but Jemaine Clement must have jumped back in time and killed him instead!
EMMA THOMPSON
Then why is the attack happening now instead of 42 years ago? And why are you still a Man In Black when Tommy Lee Jones wasn't around to recruit you over everyone else's objection?
WILL SMITH
Screw this, I'm going back to the 1990s when these movies were funny and I was still relevant! Seven Pounds will never exist!
WILL jumps off the CHRYSLER BUILDING, and through the miracle of 3D MAGIC, bounces into an AUSTIN POWERS MOVIE.
WILL SMITH
Shit. I guess I'll just try and stop Jemaine the Conchord instead.
EXT. CONEY ISLAND
YOUNG JEMAINE CLEMENT is here to kill a RANDOM ALIEN DUDE for reasons the SCREENWRITER couldn't be BOTHERED to come up with.
RANDOM ALIEN DUDE
You know, Jemaine, the fact that you have molars for all your teeth may look creepy as hell, but it indicates you're actually from a race of vegetarians who slowly grind grains into cud.
JEMAINE CLEMENT
You know, the fact that you're not human means Will Smith is going to arrive here a moment after your death rather than a movement before. Only humans get saved in the nick of time; dead aliens are just a device to keep the plot moving.
Sure enough, RANDOM ALIEN DUDE gets DEAD. Only then does WILL SMITH show up. He tries to chase JEMAINE, but JOSH BROLIN gets in the way.
JOSH BROLIN
Hi. I'm Tommy Lee Jones. Except when I accidently slip into George W. Bush. Which is always.
WILL SMITH
I'm from the future. We need to team up, kill Jemaine the Conchord, and then deploy the McGuf-Net to keep Jemaine's species from conquering the Earth.
JOSH BROLIN
Okay, future-boy. Tell me all the details on what's about to happen and how I stopped it the first time.
WILL SMITH
Actually, that's all classified and I wasn't allowed to see it even after they decided to send me back in time.
JOSH BROLIN
Well, then, why don't you just set your time machine back another 24 hours and take another shot at stopping Jemaine on Coney Island. Hell, take as many shots as you need until you get it right. It's a fucking time machine.
WILL SMITH
Wow, I never thought of that.
HERMIONE GRANGER
Me either.
SKYNET
Me either.
MARTY MCFLY
Me either.
CAPTAIN KIRK
Me either.
EVERYONE IN A TIME TRAVEL FILM EVER
Us either.
JOSH BROLIN
Anyway, let's go to The Factory to see Andy Warhol.
WILL SMITH
You mean The Factory that closed in 1968?
JOSH BROLIN
No one in the audience fucking knows that so shut up.
INT. THE FACTORY
WEIRD 1960S PEOPLE are doing WEIRD 1960S THINGS.
ANDY WARHOL
Peace, dope, and love, man.
WILL SMITH
That's a terrible Warhol impression. What is this, a bad Saturday Night Live skit?
ANDY WARHOL is revealed to be BILL HADER.
WILL SMITH
Damn, hit that one on the nose.
BILL HADER
Here's Michael Stuhlbarg. He can see the future, but not in a way that's remotely helpful to anyone, including himself.
MICHAEL STUHLBARG
There are several timelines where I die here at The Factory. There are others where only random extras die here. Guess which one this is?
JEMAINE shows up and kills some ALIEN EXTRAS. He then KIDNAPS MICHAEL STUHLBARG rather than KILLING HIM for some reason. WILL and JOSH chase after them.
WILL SMITH
Remember that scene in The Dark Knight when a motorcycle pops out of the bottom of the Batmobile?
JOSH BROLIN
No, this is 1969.
WILL SMITH
Great, then you can't say we're ripping it off.
RETRO-FUTURISTIC UNICYCLES pop out from the bottom of the MEN IN BLACK CAR. Then JOSH rescues MICHAEL while WILL fails to kill JEMAINE.
JOSH BROLIN
We've got one last chance to stop him! We have to get to Cape Canaveral in less than 12 hours!
WILL SMITH
You mean Cape Kennedy. It won't be called Cape Canaveral until 1973.
JOSH BROLIN
What, did you bring the entire World Book Encyclopedia back with you? No one cares! Let's go!
WILL, JOSH, and MICHAEL fly to Florida in Cobra Commander's TROUBLE BUBBLE. Because apparently the Men In Black never thought to buy a Cessna. Or fly commercial.
EXT. CAPE CANAVERAL
MICHAEL STUHLBARG
Good thing this wasn't one of the many timelines where we crashed and died on the way here. And now, in my very next sentence, let me warn you that death is unavoidable from timeline to timeline. Where there's death, there will always be death.
JOSH BROLIN
Fine. Got any useful advice?
MICHAEL STUHLBARG
Nope. Just this tiny box that sets up an impenetrable force field around your planet that for some reason my people didn't use to protect ours. Go put it on the Apollo 11 as it launches for the moon, and the Earth will be safe from Jemaine's people and only Jemaine's people forever.
WILL SMITH
Wow, that's a very specific force field.
MICHAEL STUHLBARG
Not only that, but it's also a genocidal device that will eradicate Jemaine's race from the universe. Good thing they're just aliens and not, you know, sentient and unique individuals like humans are. That would be a real downer for a screwball sci-fi comedy. And now that the screenwriter is done with me, I'm going to inexplicably walk away.
JOSH BROLIN
Wait! Why didn't you give us the McGuf-Net months ago? Why wait until minutes before the launch? Do you love watching people race against the clock, or are you just an asshole, or what?
MICHAEL leaves, never acknowledging the MOST OBVIOUS QUESTIONS anyone in the AUDIENCE over the AGE OF TWO is demanding to KNOW.
EXT. APOLLO 11
JOSH is climbing up the scaffolding to place the McGuf-Net box on top of the Apollo 11 rocket when both PAST and FUTURE JEMAINE CLEMENTS attack!
FUTURE JEMAINE CLEMENT
You'd think one of us would just blow up the entire damn rocket with one of our space guns. We know it's sitting on a gazillion tons of rocket fuel, right?
WILL SMITH confronts FUTURE JEMAINE -- then charges him, getting IMPALED MULTIPLE TIMES with JEMAINE'S INFINITE DAGGERS! He drags JEMAINE off the scaffolding, and both FALL TO THEIR DEATHS!
AUDIENCE
Wow, I never thought they'd have the balls to follow through with all the foreshadowing and deliver a powerful, meaningful, heroic death that would add new levels of depth and emotion to every character in the movie!
WILL SMITH
Actually, we don't. ZOINK!
WILL BOUNCES back up to the top of the scaffolding in the familiar 3D TIME TRAVEL EFFECT! It's now 60 SECONDS earlier!
This time, WILL knows exactly how FUTURE JEMAINE will attack him -- so he can DODGE ALL THE DAGGERS and PUSH FUTURE JEMAINE off the scaffolding to his death!
HALF OF AUDIENCE
Why didn't Jemaine get pulled back in time, too?!
OTHER HALF OF AUDIENCE
Why didn't you go back in time more than 60 seconds?!
ALL OF AUDIENCE
And why aren't there TWO WILL SMITHS on top of the scaffolding now?!?!?!
SCREENWRITER ETAN COHEN
Fuck, I knew I forgot something.
Just seconds before the Apollo 11 launch, WILL rides the official Universal Theme Parks MEN IN BLACK III Zip Line Experience away from the blast zone.
FUTURE JEMAINE CLEMENT
Wait, I'm not dead!
The FIRE from Apollo 11 CONSUMES HIM.
FUTURE JEMAINE CLEMENT
Okay, now I'm dead.
Meanwhile, as the rocket launches, JOSH BROLIN confronts PAST JEMAINE CLEMENT on a BEACH near the LAUNCH SITE.
PAST JEMAINE CLEMENT
I may not have stopped you from launching the force field that's going to wipe out my entire race, but you can't stop me from killing the head of Cape Canaveral security whose importance and likeability were played up for exactly this reason.
He DOES.
PAST JEMAINE CLEMENT
Now I can kill you and get away scot free!
(pause)
Or I could inexplicably surrender!
(pause)
Yeah, the second one.
JOSH kills JEMAINE anyway.
Suddenly, there's a YOUNG BOY in a PICK-UP sitting on the EMPTY BEACH.
JOSH BROLIN
Did I wander into a John Cougar Mellencamp video?
The YOUNG BOY gets out of the truck and, with no motivation whatsoever, shows JOSH the VERY SAME WATCH we know WILL SMITH got from HIS DAD.
JOSH BROLIN
You weren't keeping that up your ass, were you?
YOUNG WILL SMITH
Where's my daddy? Apparently he likes to leave me all alone out here all day while he's at work as head of security at Cape Canaveral.
JOSH BROLIN
What, you mean that dead guy three feet away that you couldn't possibly not see lying there?
YOUNG WILL SMITH
Let's pretend that's not true.
JOSH BROLIN
Wow, how heartbreaking. This could be the defining moment of my entire life.
(pause)
Or I could take the easy way out.
JOSH hits YOUNG WILL with the MEMORY WIPE FLASHY THING.
And apparently his MOTHER, too.
And his ENTIRE FAMILY. And ALL HIS FRIENDS and EVERYONE WHO WORKS AT CAPE CANAVERAL and NASA and the U.S. MILITARY, too, because somehow WILL SMITH had no idea his father worked at Cape Canaveral and died there.
WILL SMITH
Well, I guess I'm done here.
AUDIENCE
What about --
WILL SMITH
(more loudly)
Yep, nothing else I can do.
AUDIENCE
-- your dad --
WILL SMITH
(shouting)
SO I'LL JUST GO BACK TO THE FUTURE NOW.
AUDIENCE
-- you have a time machine! You could save him just like you saved Tommy Lee Jones!
WILL SMITH
(fingers in his ears)
LONDON BRIDGE IS FALLING DOWN! LA-LA-LA-LA-LA!
AUDIENCE
Fine, just get this movie over with!
INT. DINER – MODERN DAY
WILL SMITH and TOMMY LEE JONES are eating PIE.
WILL SMITH
...and so I basically sacrificed my father to save my partner.
(pause)
Hey, I guess that explains why you're such a dick to me, huh?
TOMMY LEE JONES
That's precisely the thing about our relationship it doesn't explain.
SCREENWRITER ETAN COHEN
Fuck, I knew I forgot something.
WILL SMITH
Hell with it. Let's just get out of here before they decide to add some weirdly homoerotic overtones to the end of the movie.
PITBULL
(serenading Tommy and Will over the closing credits)
Baby... My sweet baby... You're the one.
END.