# 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:** 4
**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, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/61 "2015-07-23T17:17:28Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > 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). They’re probably setting up Janet van Dyne. But what I really hope they’re setting up? [Micronauts!](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/32/Micronauts-1.jpg) If they can bring a tree and a talking raccoon to the big screen, they can bring a mullet-wearing centaur Darth Vader, too. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/62 "2015-07-23T19:58:48Z")
Honestly I am okay with Comic Book physics as long as it’s internally consistent and one my single viewing, this seemed to be. ---
**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 23, 2015, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/63 "2015-07-23T22:30:32Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > Lasers. > > 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. That was a cool moment… but remember he knocked out TWO guys… Who rescued the other one? ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2015, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/64 "2015-07-25T21:14:59Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > 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?” I’m very happy that the little girl who is under the care of your fellow officer is safe. His bravery has really inspired me to put some of my fabulous wealth aside for the children of any officer killed in the line of duty. ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/65 "2015-07-26T23:08:14Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > On the other hand, are we _sure_ the villain in _Ant-Man_ wasn’t played by [Cory Booker](http://d35brb9zkkbdsd.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/CoryBooker.jpg)? omg, you’re right! And given that Cory Booker is a superhero in real life…oh wow, that’s deep, man. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/66 "2015-07-27T00:42:44Z")
One nice touch was they made the Step father a decent, if stern, guy. Almost any other movie would have made him at best a complete irredeemable asshole or at worse complicit with the bad guy so the Hero could get his wife back. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/67 "2015-07-27T15:09:48Z")
Regarding the implosion, I was under the impression blowing up the containers of Pym Particles is what caused the entire building to implode. ---
**Author:** ![MegaNazz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/858c86/32.png) [@MegaNazz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MegaNazz)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/68 "2015-07-27T17:17:38Z")
I liked it a lot too and feel that the Marvel movies rumored to potentially flop (_Guardians of the Galaxy_ and _Ant-Man_) turned out to be the most personally enjoyable for me. I wonder if it’s because there’s less pressure put on them than something like _Age of Ultron_. I have really high hopes for _Civil War_ but I think that I’ll probably continue having the most fun with these low-pressure, high comedy one-offs. ---
**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 27, 2015, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/69 "2015-07-27T18:13:46Z")
> [@Quimby](#): > > Honestly I am okay with Comic Book physics as long as it’s internally consistent and one my single viewing, this seemed to be. I wouldn’t say that it was consistent. He needs ants in order to get over a microscopic rivine, since he can’t jump any further than he can jump, but then he can jump up and punch someone and fly all around them, attacking from different directions when in battle. Based on the logic of the show, the giant toy train and ant should have both maintained their original mass, making them both insanely light at that size and, presumably, super not-dense. The train shouldn’t have been able to punch through the wall and the ant should have blown away the instant it got out of the house. ---
**Author:** ![MegaNazz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/858c86/32.png) [@MegaNazz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MegaNazz)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2015, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/70 "2015-07-28T16:47:40Z")
I love the analytical age we live in because it holds entertainment to a pretty high standard. At the same time, dumb, feel-good movies get dropped in a meat grinder. I have a lot of suspension of disbelief so honestly I never really questioned the physics of _Ant-Man_ (nor do the scientific inconsistencies bother me) but I’m glad people notice these things so that the people behind these movies are urged to think about them a bit more. ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2015, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/71 "2015-07-28T17:35:43Z")
You guys made some excellent points regarding the density of objects expanding and contracting and the inconsistencies of the internal physics within the universe of Ant-Man. I’ll add two more that I guess I have to take with a grain of salt because in a universe with Pym’s Particles who knows what really happens? First, it’s funny that because a structure is made of titanium, suddenly the only way to penetrate it is reducing your size to subatomic size. It’s not a uniform piece of metal. Both the suit and the missile were welded together and if there’s a flaw in the weld, there’s your opening. Also, presumably the suit had some sort of breathing apparatus linking it to the outside world. So again, opening. Also, I got a chuckle when Dr. Pym said he spent 10 years studying subatomic particles and had no clue what happens when you shrink someone down that small. Well, I’m no scientist, but what the hell, I’ll give it a shot. At some point, your mass will compact itself to the point where an event horizon will occur and your gravitational pull will be such that you’ll essentially be micro black hole. This will happen well before Ant-Man as a person made up of quadrillions of atoms is now smaller than a single atom. Oh and if Dr. Pym really wanted to find his wife? Setting up a machine that searches for Hawking Radiation here on Earth would be a good start. ---
**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 28, 2015, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/72 "2015-07-28T18:11:58Z")
> [@Enderw24](#): > > First, it’s funny that because a structure is made of titanium, suddenly the only way to penetrate it is reducing your size to subatomic size. It’s not a uniform piece of metal. Both the suit and the missile were welded together and if there’s a flaw in the weld, there’s your opening. Also, presumably the suit had some sort of breathing apparatus linking it to the outside world. So again, opening. My understanding was that the regulator kept him from shrinking much smaller than an ant, because that’s the minimum size where he could maintain a controlled shrinkage. Smaller than that and he collapses. > [@](#): > > Oh and if Dr. Pym really wanted to find his wife? Setting up a machine that searches for Hawking Radiation here on Earth would be a good start. People who spend a lot of time researching exotic effects in the MCU like tunneling effects found near black holes and gamma radiation have demonstrated an interesting habit of vanishing off the face of the earth. Perhaps he didn’t want to attract that kind of attention… particularly since he was trying to keep his research out of Stark’s hands. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2015, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/73 "2015-07-28T20:30:24Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I wouldn’t say that it was consistent. He needs ants in order to get over a microscopic rivine, since he can’t jump any further than he can jump, but then he can jump up and punch someone and fly all around them, attacking from different directions when in battle. > > Based on the logic of the show, the giant toy train and ant should have both maintained their original mass, making them both insanely light at that size and, presumably, super not-dense. The train shouldn’t have been able to punch through the wall and the ant should have blown away the instant it got out of the house. Also, thinking about it, the plot point was if you don’t have a regulator you keep shrinking. Ant-Man turns off his regulator so he can slip between molecules to get into the equipment but somehow regrows a little to be big enough to damage it but then has to jury rig a new Regulator to get back to normal size. ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2015, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/74 "2015-07-28T20:38:23Z")
On suspension of disbelief. I’m cool with that, I just tend to disagree on who has responsibility for it. Lots of people say “you just have to turn off your brain and enjoy it.” Now, I really like all kinds of stupid movies. But I consider it the job of the movie to reach into my brain and turn off the disbelief; it’s not my responsibility to do that. Anyway, in the next Ant Man movie where the makers have striven for a completely consistent and scientifically real Ant Man world, I look forward to Paul Rudd going really small and getting knocked unconscious by Brownian motion. And if Pym’s wife is still alive an explanation for why she didn’t die within three minutes due to an inability to breathe since she was smaller than all the available oxygen molecules. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2015, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/75 "2015-07-28T21:38:24Z")
> [@obfusciatrist](#): > > And if Pym’s wife is still alive an explanation for why she didn’t die within three minutes due to an inability to breathe since she was smaller than all the available oxygen molecules. Pym said time and space get distorted in the quantum realm, so my guess is when she comes back she won’t have aged. ---
**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 28, 2015, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/76 "2015-07-28T22:07:03Z")
It’s a movie about a guy who controls ants with his brain, set in a universe where sexy Russian assassins survive falling dozens of feet onto a rooftop with guns blazing, a physicist turns into an indestructable “giant green rage monster” if his heartbeat goes over 200 BPM, and the leader of a top secret organization chartered with protecting the world from threats flies around in giant flying aircraft carriers that are stored in underwater hangers in the Potomac. I don’t think adhering to quantum field theory were high on the list of concerns for anyone involved. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2015, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/77 "2015-07-28T22:11:38Z")
Got it, you don’t care if they apply the rules they state control things. That’s cool. I do. At least if the movie isn’t otherwise so overwhelmingly entertaining that it tricks me into ignoring that. All they have to do is shrug their shoulders and say “it’s magic, like Thor’s hammer” and I’m cool with it. But when they provide an “explanation” or set a constraint and then violate it 3 seconds later, it annoys me. ---
**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 28, 2015, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/78 "2015-07-28T22:48:09Z")
The best comic book science makes no sense at all. What does “proportional strength of a spider” even _mean_? Tiny Ant-Man being able to punch out full sized men, and also stand on a table without immediately driving a hole straight through it, is a feature, not a bug. ---
**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 28, 2015, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/79 "2015-07-28T23:48:15Z")
> [@obfusciatrist](#): > > All they have to do is shrug their shoulders and say “it’s magic, like Thor’s hammer” and I’m cool with it. But when they provide an “explanation” or set a constraint and then violate it 3 seconds later, it annoys me. Mjölnir (Thor’s hammer) isn’t magic; it is made very clear (in the Marvel Cinematic Universe) that Asguardian weapons and devices are technological in nature. However, the technology that unlies them is so advanced it is indistinguishable from magic. Similarly, we’re not really told any of the fundamental physics (such as it may be) behind the Infinity Stones except that they were “forged from the six singularities”. Why do they each have separate powers and can only be controlled by certain entities? Who knows. _Ant-Man_ spent of all of maybe forty-five seconds of exposition, mostly in the form of sound bytes during the obligatory training montage, explaining how Pym particles work. They could have added more to try to rationalize why a shrunken down man wouldn’t immediately suffocate or be crushed or whatever–and frankly if you want to take issues of shrinking a human being down to ant size, or an ant to the size of a large dog, there are bigger issues than just mass–but frankly, nobody cares, any more than they care that the vibranium in Captain America’s shield makes no sense or that The Hulk increases volume and weight by an order of magnitude without taking in an mass. You know, Indiana Jones couldn’t have ridden on top of a submarine all the way to the secret Nazi base in the Med, either, and James Bond couldn’t have survived being shot through the chest with an assault rifle and falling several hundred feet into a river. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428/80 "2015-07-29T02:05:03Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > However, the technology that unlies them is so advanced it is indistinguishable from magic…Who knows. Exactly. They don’t explain it. They just hand wave, shrug their shoulders and say, essentially, “it’s magic.” They didn’t say “it works on the power of mouse farts and every time a mouse farts it gets more difficult to lift” and then two minutes later show a mouse farting and it makes the hammer turn pink and get harder for Thor to hold. > [@](#): > > _Ant-Man_ spent of all of maybe forty-five seconds of exposition, mostly in the form of sound bytes during the obligatory training montage, explaining how Pym particles work. Exactly. And rather than adding more explanation if they weren’t going to realize they said it, or have that much explanation, if they weren’t going to realize they said it, they should just have said nothing more than “who knows, it works and some day maybe we’ll know how and why and why it’s so weird.” Again, I’m not saying they needed to be more realistic with the physics. Just that they should be more consistent with the physics they needlessly introduce. > [@](#): > > You know, Indiana Jones couldn’t have ridden on top of a submarine all the way to the secret Nazi base in the Med, Exactly. Which is fine, because they never said anythign in the movie about it. If earlier in the movie they’d said “you know, archaeologists dissolve in salt water” and then had that scene, there’d be an issue. > [@](#): > > and James Bond couldn’t have survived being shot through the chest with an assault rifle and falling several hundred feet into a river. Exactly. Which is fine, because that doesn’t contradict anything in the movie. Now, if there’d been an earlier scene with Q saying “now be careful Bond, when you get double 00 status we spray you with this thing that makes you super suave but also extremely fragile and prone to death if you fall from a height of more than 12 feet…” then there’d be an issue. But if you (as a filmmaker) don’t want me to think about the things said and shown in the movie, then don’t say or show them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ant-man-seen-it-thread/725428.md?page=5)