Movie Scene-Stealer
Orion
1997
The unassuming tabby from Men in Black whose ordinary-looking collar bell secretly held an entire galaxy — making a house cat the object of a frantic intergalactic hunt.
- Owner
- Men in Black (1997 film)
- Years
- 1997
- Known for
- Movie Scene-Stealer
In Barry Sonnenfeld's 1997 science-fiction comedy Men in Black, an entire alien war hinges on a small, placid tabby cat named Orion. Orion belongs to an Arquillian prince living on Earth in human disguise, and hidden on the little jewel that hangs from the cat's collar is 'the galaxy' — a whole miniaturised universe of unimaginable power, shrunk down and worn, in plain sight, as an ordinary pet's bell.
The film's plot turns on a line that has become one of its most quoted: agents Kay and Jay are told 'the galaxy is on Orion's belt', and spend much of the story misreading it as a reference to the constellation before realising, almost too late, that Orion is the cat sitting quietly on a morgue table the whole time. The gag works precisely because Orion behaves like any real cat — indifferent, unbothered, entirely uninterested in the chaos its collar is causing.
Orion has since become a favourite example of the 'the answer was in front of you all along' twist, and one of the most memorable movie cats of the 1990s. That so much cosmic weight rests on so ordinary an animal is the joke, and it is a very feline one: the universe may hang in the balance, but the cat still just wants to be left alone.
Further reading: Orion on Wikipedia