Character Analysis
Antagonists can be complex, deep characters whom you want to see defeated while at the same time empathizing with their personal plight and struggles. Think your Jack Torrances, your Daniel Plainviews, your HAL 9000s.
Men in Black's Bug is not this kind of antagonist. He's a simple, by-the-books villain who performs evil acts because that's just how he gets down. And, he's disgusting to look at, so that helps a lot. One of the film's running jokes is that the Bug kills an exterminator and spends the rest of the movie driving around in his van.
D'Onofrio had a whole makeup department behind him, but most of the Bug's lurching, grimacing character was all him. The actor's performance was driven by how just plain uncomfortable it would have been for the alien to squeeze into that tiny human skin—Edgar Bug looks more and more agitated throughout the film until he finally can't take it any more and tears off the human disguise in the final face-off (source).
And we mean face-off.
Paint by Numbers
After the Bug's UFO destroys a truck, a farmer named Edgar goes to investigate the wreckage. The Bug attacks Edgar, skins him alive, and then proceeds to wear his skin around town like some demented Halloween costume. With an introduction like that, we know this guy isn't going to be an introspective insectoid Hamlet from beyond the stars.
As if that weren't enough of a giveaway, Kay later spells the situation out for Jay:
KAY: Imagine a giant cockroach with unlimited strength, a massive inferiority complex, and a real short temper is terrorizing around Manhattan Island in a brand-new Edgar suit. Does that sound like fun?
No, Kay, it doesn't.
Unfortunately for our heroes, that's also a spot-on description of our antagonist. He spends the entirety of the film chasing the Galaxy, and wherever he goes, he's either killing someone or, at a bare minimum, knocking them down like a school-yard bully.
And his motivations cement his status as the villainous villain of the week.
As Frank explains it:
FRANK: The Galaxy is the best source for subatomic energy in the universe. If the bugs get their slimy claws on it, kiss the Arquillians goodbye.
And that's it. We don't know if the Arquillians provoked the Bug's response or if there was a broken treaty or maybe an intergalactic Romeo and Juliet scenario where a Bug ran off with an Arquillian and now the races are feuding. Nope, all we know about the Bug's motivations are that the Galaxy will allow him to harness the subatomic energy necessary to destroy the Arquillians because… reasons?
The closest we get to a reason for the Bug's love of carnage and violence comes when he tries to kidnap Laurel:
LAUREL: There are those who worship me. I'm not telling you this to try to impress you. I'm just letting you know it could start a war.
EDGAR BUG: Good, war. That means more food for my family. All 78 million of them. That's a lot of mouths to feed, your highness.
LAUREL: You're a wonderful dad, but I'm staying here!
Hey, maybe we've got this guy all wrong. He's just a father trying to take care of his 78 million buggy boys and girls. That or maybe he should consider a more farm-to-table approach.
Family Ties
While not a terribly interesting villain, the Bug's fun because he's essentially all the classic science fiction villains combined into one.
First and most obvious, he's a bug, and science fiction stories love to cast insectoid villains. This is probably because insects are so different than humans in anatomy, social structure, and temperament that it becomes difficult for us mammals to empathize with them. Hence a villain we enjoy watching the human hero triumph over. The Formic of Ender's Game, the xenomorphs of Alien, and the Bugs of Starship Troopers are classic examples.
Like these bugs, our Bug is pretty nondescript. It's always suggested that it's just one of several bug aliens. Let's not forget that the name Edgar belongs to the farmer the alien wears as a disguise. The only true name we have for the Bug is "the Bug," a personality-free moniker if ever there was one. The Bugs of Starship Troopers, by the way, are no relation to our guy.
The Bug also borrows from the classic "Big Creepy-Crawlies" trope, too. If insects are bad, then big insects are worst because they tend to be impervious to rolled up newspapers. The ants of Them are a perfect example of this trope, and despite their atomic origins, they share a lot in common with the Bug.
Finally, the Bug also gives a nod to the body snatchers of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. In this science fiction classic, aliens come down to Earth and replace humans with identical copies controlled by them. The Bug's version is a little more visceral and way less convincing but his snatching of Edgar's skin is a clear shout-out in this direction.
One area where the Bug varies from its science fiction brethren is its "soft spot." The creature isn't just out to kill all humans and/or Arquillians, but it also cares about the insects of Earth, getting very, very angry whenever he sees someone abusing them. Imagine a planet where the inhabitants regularly stomp, swat, squish, stomp, or gas big-eyed, bushy tailed rabbits Watership Down-style, and you get a sense of what the bug must feel about us. He's not a fan:
EDGAR BUG: You know, I've noticed an infestation here. Everywhere I look, in fact, nothing but undeveloped, unevolved barely conscious pond scum totally convinced of their own superiority as they scurry about their short, pointless lives.
EXTERMINATOR: Well, yeah. Don't you want to get rid of them?
EDGAR BUG: Ah, in the worst way.
Think about that next time you grab a can of Raid.
E-I-E-I-Doh
Let's take a sec to discuss Farmer Edgar, the Bug's, um, volunteer skin donor. As we mentioned, the bug kills and skins him and then wears his skin all around New York City. A pretty dark fate if there ever was one.
But since Men in Black is an adventure comedy, it does try to marginalize just how horrible the situation is by (a) making the scene almost Looney Tunes in its presentation and (b) making Edgar just a horrible person from the start.
Seriously, the guy has like two minute's worth of dialogue and you just can't stand him by the end of it. Consider how he speaks to his wife:
EDGAR: It looks like poison. Don't you take that away. I'm eating that, dammit. It is poison, isn't it? I swear to God, I would not be surprised if it was, the way you skulk around like a dog who been hit too much or ain't been hit enough. I can't make up my mind. You're useless, Beatrice.
Far be it for Shmoop to suggest that anyone deserves to be skinned alive, but the film sure does make it easy to not shed a tear for this guy.
Edgar (the Bug)'s Timeline