# Ant-Man (Seen it Thread) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 17, 2015, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428 "2015-07-17T17:19:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/41 "2015-07-21T03:38:20Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > It’s not really too fair to critique a superhero film for not having realistic physics–pretty much all of the heroes, including the unpowered human ones–regularly do things that completely violate physics as we know it on a routine basis. (There is no way the Falcon could generate any significant amount of lift on his tiny folding wings, or Hawkeye can crash through a plate glass window after falling many stories and be uninjured, or Tony Stark could survive the massive g-loads and impacts regardless of how well padded his suit may be.) > Stranger To be fair in the case of Stark Jr, they do at least try to handwave it by showing the various retro rocket firing when he falls from great distances and IIRC it also doubles as a very effective G-suit, although I would love to see Tony Stark straining like they do on some of the centrifuge films I have seen. Cap’s frisbee/boomarang OTH, they have no excuse for ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/42 "2015-07-21T04:03:07Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > For that matter, Hank Pym just blew up a bullding after driving a tank through it. How is he not immediately arrested and charged with multiple acts of terrorism? I’m not sure there’s any real evidence to link him to the crime, is there? Sure, he drove a tank through the building, but only after he was shot by the same guy who was later killed while menacing the step-daughter of a policeman. “Well, officer, I went to talk to Mr. Cross about my concerns over his use of my technology. When I threatened to reveal who he was dealing with to the authorities, he shot me and locked me in that room. The tank was mine, of course - an early success with my Pym particles that I keep as a good luck charm. The bombs? I have no idea. Maybe Cross was trying to cover his tracks?” ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/43 "2015-07-21T15:59:56Z")
You’re absolutely right, **The Other Waldo Pepper** and **MovieMogul** , I shamefully forgot about both of them, which is especially annoying given that Duncan did such an excellent job as Kingpin. I’d still like the MCU proper to have a POC superbaddy, but they do definitely fall under that category. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/44 "2015-07-22T19:04:26Z")
I agree with all of these… > [@obfusciatrist](#): > > apparently taking Cross’s version of the suit and destroying some information on computers would have destroyed Cross’s ability to recreate the Ant-Man suit technology. Apparently they just wipe the minds of people who make that stuff and megacorporations keep their secrets on a single computer in the basement.) AKA the Terminator 2 effect. “Thank god these people have never heard of off-site storage.” > [@](#): > > if they had the ability to plant a few bombs around the building and completely implode it into nothing, why was it necessary to sneak into the super secure vault and steal the suit. It would have been destroyed with the building.) And why were they labelled “Explosive”? They’re implosives; Pym wouldn’t make that kind of mistake. > [@](#): > > ants are apparently not constrained by the space-time continuum and can magically be wherever they are needed, even if it means already being inside the place they are very laboriously sneaking into.) Yeah, if some of his ants could get there ahead of him to pull him up out of the water, why didn’t he just go with them? > [@Love Rhombus](#): > > it’s a job that lots of people could have done as well or better, and it would have been fun to have Marvel have the first POC supervillain. Not accusing the studio of anything, just making an observation. … Red is a color… ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/45 "2015-07-22T19:06:31Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > It’s not really too fair to critique a superhero film for not having realistic physics–pretty much all of the heroes, including the unpowered human ones–regularly do things that completely violate physics as we know it on a routine basis. I have no problem with superhero movies (or any other movie) not obeying the laws of physics in the real world. I have a problem with them not obeying the laws of physics they define within their own world. And as defined within Ant-Man, many of the things we see happen make no sense or are contradictory. If you can’t be bothered to think through the implications of the definitions you provide, then just don’t provide an explanation. I’m good with that too. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/46 "2015-07-22T19:48:57Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Quoth **Love Rhombus** , “it would have been fun to have Marvel have the first POC supervillain.” Not _its_ first POC supervillain or _their_ first POC supervillain, but _the_. > > (I nitpick your nitpick of my nitpick!) Unbreakable - Samuel L Jackson ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/47 "2015-07-22T19:58:25Z")
James Earl Jones – Conan the Barbarian [del](and some space movie…)[/del] Ok, that second one prolly shouldn’t count. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/48 "2015-07-22T20:50:34Z")
Catwoman, as played by Earrrrrrrrtha Kitt. ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/49 "2015-07-22T21:53:42Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > Yeah, if some of his ants could get there ahead of him to pull him up out of the water, why didn’t he just go with them? I never was given the impression that the ants we saw throughout the movie were specially trained. They established that Pym did have ants he worked with regularly, but they never said that those were special ones. The helmet lets him control all ants. I assumed that the stretch is that there are LOT OF ANTS everywhere. So when Scott is in the water tube he’s summoning ants to his location and then prompting them bridge to catch him…which is differently problematic. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/50 "2015-07-22T23:07:42Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > Yeah, if some of his ants could get there ahead of him to pull him up out of the water, why didn’t he just go with them? It’s at least plausible that some of the very secure entrances to the building had some kinds of electronic scanners or countermeasures on them which would keep out (or fry) a tiny guy in a suit, but not affect ants. Or as someone else suggested, those were just ants that were already present. ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/51 "2015-07-23T00:04:05Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Or as someone else suggested, those were just ants that were already present. The movie went to great lengths to explain that they have four different species of ant with very specific technical skills. One of those species was the one shown to build bridges to make it possible to get across gaps. Then, while sneaking in to the building each of those particular skills was used and this was where that ant species got used. If those just happened to be random ants that just happened to be there then that other section was pointless. Plus, again, it wasn’t necessary for them to have already been in the pipe, they could have just been shown doing it the same way they did in the training sequence where they just crawled over each other to form a bridge. And if they were just random ants it seems like an incredibly key part of the plan to leave to randomly hoping there were some ants about when needed. Especially since it should be questionable there would be any. After all, they were going in through the water main because it was explained there was no other hole big enough for them go in through. And all of that still ignores completely that it wasn’t even necessary for Ant-Man to infiltrate the building and steal the suit. Within the movie, Dr. Pym is shown controlling ants from great distances and doing very complicated maneuvers. Therefore there is no reason they couldn’t have put cameras on ants and sent just them into the building with the explosive/implosives and destroyed the building (with the suit and lots of innocent people in it). Sure, there was some hand waving about them needing a leader but the rest of the movie contradicted that since they never needed a leader for any of other very complex things ants were made to do without one. That further ignores that there was no particular threat in the suit that it was so vital to steal it. Dr. Cross has long since perfected the technology for miniaturizing non-organic material. He could have had 50 of those suits. He could have distributed that version of the Pym Particle technology worldwide already. The threat was the ability to do humans. Stealing the suit in no way reduced that threat. Still, I had fun watching it. The story and internal consistency, however, was way worse than the average Marvel movie. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/52 "2015-07-23T00:18:27Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > Yeah, if some of his ants could get there ahead of him to pull him up out of the water, why didn’t he just go with them? If he needed someone to pull him up out of the water into the pipe in the ceiling, then Scott couldn’t go in with the first group of ants, because then there’d be no one to pull him up out of the water into the pipe in the ceiling. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/53 "2015-07-23T03:38:59Z")
Yes, a technical genius building a previously unworkable microfusion reactor from scraps in an Afghan cave or a kidnapped child running around as a futuristic Indiana Jones with Sony Walkman and mix tape still inexplicably functioning thirty years later is all about physical realism and rigorous plot integrity. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/54 "2015-07-23T12:43:06Z")
Don’t forget the nigh-indestructible shield that absorbs all vibration and also rings like a bell when struck. And somehow kinetic energy is a vibration, which it can also absorb. And you can punch things with it, too, rather than having that kinetic energy absorbed. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/55 "2015-07-23T13:14:17Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > Don’t forget the nigh-indestructible shield that absorbs all vibration and also rings like a bell when struck. And somehow kinetic energy is a vibration, which it can also absorb. And you can punch things with it, too, rather than having that kinetic energy absorbed. you punch people from the back side - that amplifies teh energy - when hit from the front it absorbs it to re-use later when thrown. ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/56 "2015-07-23T13:16:01Z")
Oh, I make no claim that the other movies are paragons, just that Ant-Man is particularly stupid on this front. But please, explain to me, within the story and needs presented in the movie WHY they needed to steal the suit? And why it is ok they planned to blow up (then implode) a building full of people after doing so? ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/57 "2015-07-23T14:09:02Z")
> [@obfusciatrist](#): > > But please, explain to me, within the story and needs presented in the movie WHY they needed to steal the suit? Lasers. > [@](#): > > And why it is ok they planned to blow up (then implode) a building full of people after doing so? They didn’t think it through. Wearing the suit for all those years did take its toll, after all. Pym spent so many years talking to ants more than to his own daughter that he got used to the idea that the teeming minions are all expendable. That’s why I absolutely loved when the henchman went back for the guy he knocked out… HE was the hero of the story, for at least that moment. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/58 "2015-07-23T14:29:20Z")
> [@obfusciatrist](#): > > But please, explain to me, within the story and needs presented in the movie WHY they needed to steal the suit? And why it is ok they planned to blow up (then implode) a building full of people after doing so? Because baldy was getting really close to figuring out how the particle worked and once that happened he would sell the suit to the military…which is bad. They needed to steal the suit because it worked, and then ex(im)plode the building because it housed the servers where the information on how to build the thing were stored. Apparently Dropbox doesn’t exist, nor do flash drives, also why are the servers in the building they’re doing the stuff in? spoiler alert (kinda sorta): I’m seeing a ton of talk that in the scene where Paul Rudd is spiraling super small that there is an easter egg about a character or something…anyone see it? know what it is? ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/59 "2015-07-23T14:29:50Z")
> [@obfusciatrist](#): > > Oh, I make no claim that the other movies are paragons, just that Ant-Man is particularly stupid on this front. > > But please, explain to me, within the story and needs presented in the movie WHY they needed to steal the suit? And why it is ok they planned to blow up (then implode) a building full of people after doing so? Pulling the fire alarm to evacuate the building was always part of the plan. Why would you think it wasn’t? ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/60 "2015-07-23T14:34:07Z")
> [@Sir\_T-Cups](#): > > spoiler alert (kinda sorta): I’m seeing a ton of talk that in the scene where Paul Rudd is spiraling super small that there is an easter egg about a character or something…anyone see it? know what it is? I was assuming that they were setting up the return of Janet van Dyne, in that she would give him a power cell so he could return to normal size. I don’t recall seeing anything particularly spoilery; other heroes who have been portrayed as having that level of smallification are DC heroes (Atom & Green Lantern come to mind). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428.md?page=4)