Culver City, U.S.A – In ‘Men in Black 3′, Agents J (Will Smith) and K (Tommy Lee Jones) are back … in time. J has seen some inexplicable things in his 15 years with the Men in Black, but nothing, not even aliens, perplexes him as much as his wry, reticent partner.

But when K’s life and the fate of the planet are put at stake, Agent J will have to travel back in time to put things right. J discovers that there are secrets to the universe that K never told him — secrets that will reveal themselves as he teams up with the young Agent K (Josh Brolin) to save his partner, the agency, and the future of humankind.

Ken Ralston explains that though several sequences in the film represented exciting VFX challenges – from building a prison on the moon to re-creating the Apollo 11 launch – the biggest challenge of all was to achieve a look that meshed with the film Barry Sonnenfeld was directing. “Barry has a very distinct style,” says Ralston. “It’s very graphic, very distinctive to his movies. Our designs had to be stylized, they had to live within his world, but at the same time, it had to feel believable – even when something unbelievable was happening.”

“Even though technology has changed a lot since the last Men in Black came out, we wanted to make sure we were firmly in the MIB world, and Barry allowed and encouraged us to play and bend the rules inside what is expected to be real. It’s not every day you get to design and create such a wide, wacky, and challenging variety of effects and creatures, and have fun doing it. This, in no small part, is thanks to Barry’s direction and whimsical take on the material and the artists who made it all come alive,” says Jay Redd.

With a mix of humor and style, the visual effects in ‘Men in Black 3′ take us back to the year 1969 with a digital creation of the Apollo 11 Rocket Launch and New York’s Shea Stadium, a chronology shifting time jump, and an action-packed monocycle chase through the streets of Brooklyn.

Men in Black films are known for their unusual and extraordinary alien characters and this film is no exception. Among the digital characters created for ‘Men In Black 3′ are the giant alien fish, the weasel alien, the villain alien Boris, the bowling ball headed alien known as Tony, and a return of the popular Worm Guys.

Imageworks also created digital doubles for Agent J (Will Smith), Young Agent K (Josh Brolin) and Griffin (Michael Stuhlbarg). Imageworks worked closely with Oscar-winning special effects make-up artist Rick Baker, digitally extending and recreating physical characteristics in the digital world.

Image Courtesy of   Men in Black 3

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Last Friday, North Korea announced that it will launch a long range rocket attached to a satellite between April 12 and 16 to celebrate the 100th birthday of the regime’s founding leader, Kim Il-Sung.

Pyongyang’s announcement sparked widespread criticism from the world. The US, Japan, and Britain among others have advised the regime to cancel the launch. According to AFP, this plan was announced 16 days after North Korea agreed to suspend long-range missile tests in exchange for food aid from the US.

Hillary Clinton referred to the rocket launch as “highly provocative” saying that: “Such a missile launch would pose a threat to regional security and would also be inconsistent with North Korea’s recent undertaking to refrain from long-range missile launches.” South Korea also criticized the announcement as a “grave provocation.”

AFP also reported that a Unha-3 rocket will be launching the Kwangmyongsong-3, a home-built polar-orbiting earth observation satellite towards the south from a new location at Tongchang-ri on the northwestern side of the country. Foreign observers and journalists have been invited to attend the launch. ”The peaceful development and use of space is a universally recognized legitimate right of a sovereign state” the North’s state KCNA news agency said.

Some experts say that this missile test is projected to enhance the standing of the North’s new young leader, while others say it is to threaten “regional security to leverage concessions, from the United States in particular.”

“The launch will take place. Nobody is really going to do anything, because there’s nothing you can do. It’s not like China is going support more sanctions at the U.N. It really puts the US in an awkward position; whichever way it breaks out for the North, they can spin this as a win for Kim Jong-un and the regime.” — Daniel Pinkston, an expert on North Korea with the International Crisis Group in Seoul

In April 2009, North Korea led a similar missile launch, which was viewed by the west as “a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions prohibiting North Korea from engaging in nuclear and ballistic missile activity,” and consequently resulted in more U.N. censorship. According to Al Jazeera, that launch failed, as its first stage fell into the Japanese sea without a satellite orbiting. A similar example is the 1998 launch.

“The launch reflects the North’s desire to take the upper hand in negotiations with Washington and extract more concessions” Kim Yong-Hyun, a professor at Seoul’s Dongguk University said.

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