Jolt Country

I'm starting this review by stating that I have never read a superhero comic book, and haven't seen most of the Marvel or DC movies. Specifically, I have not seen any of the Avengers films. My only prior knowledge of Ant-Man comes from... well, I never heard of Ant-Man before. I have no idea how loyal Ant-Man the movie is to Ant-Man the comics.

A long time ago, a guy named Dr. Hank Pym created a suit that would let the wearing shrink down all itty-bitty but also get super strong. Then he showed it to his business partner and his partner was like hey we could make some real money with this bro but Pym was like nah, I'm going to keep it and make another one for my wife and we're gonna fight some crime, miniature style. Then his wife shrunk to the point of no return and Pym put his suit away. But then his old partner and former mentor make his own shrinky suit and so now Pym needs to use his suit to destroy the other suit... except Pym is Michael Douglas and 70 years old and he doesn't want his daughter (Kate from Lost) so instead he hires a former burglar (Paul Rudd) to do it. Paul Rudd's only credentials is that he was a burglar who got caught, and also he has three partners that kind of seem like dipshits.

I assumed Ant-Man was named Ant-Man because he was tiny like an ant, but he can also literally command ants! He's like the Aquaman of the ant world! This turns out to be more useful than it sounds. If someone offered me the choice between being able to control ants or $20, I would probably take the cash. But not Ant-Man! Also, both Ant-Man and Aquaman have no qualms about sending hundreds or thousands of animals to their death. Did I mention Ant-Man flies around on an ant named Ant-ony? That's super funny if you're six.

A bunch of characters in this movie are in other comic book movies I guess. There are a lot of references to them, too, like when Paul Rudd says, "shouldn't we just call the AVENGERS?" The only thing missing is a wink at the camera.

So eventually Ant-Man fights Yellow Robot Man and they fight some as tiny shrinky-dink guys and sometimes as big guys. Spoiler, Ant-Man wins.

In the second movie, Dr. Pym gets a tiny spaceship and shrinks down to go find his missing wife in tinyland. More bad guys show up and want to take Ant-Man's suit. There's a white ninja who rides a motorcycle, that was pretty cool. Also now the good guys have a remote control that can pretty much shrink or grow anything. Kate from Lost becomes the Wasp. Hilarity ensues.

Were these movies supposed to be campy? Like Deadpool and the 1989 Batman movies?

Didn't see Deadpool. It wasn't campy like Batman '89, no.

I wasn't able to make it through the first one, and I like Paul Rudd a lot. (And Ant-Man.)

I think the screw-ups all stem from the people that write screenplays being a lot less talented and competent than ole Stan Lee working by himself (or really, filling in the bubbles of the art that his pencillers gave him).

Hank Pym (Douglass) was the same age as everyone else (Thor, Hulk, etc.) when he and the Wasp debuted. So they made the weird decision to have an old guy play Pym.

Scott Land (the second Ant-Man) is unique in comics in that he cares about his kids. Rudd's a perfect casting for the second Ant-Man.

But there's only one Wasp anyone cares about and she has to be roughly the same age as Pym. So now there's a second Wasp. You could ignore Pym but the second Wasp wouldn't get involved with an everyman like Lang. Who knows.

Ah, whatever. I like Rudd, I hope we all like Rudd.

Flack wrote: Mon Aug 17, 2020 9:21 amDidn't see Deadpool.

Is this your next review?

Because this needs to be your next review.

Ant-man was also horrible to the extent, that I feel nauseous even naming it.

RetroRomper wrote: Wed Aug 26, 2020 9:04 pm Ant-man was also horrible to the extent, that I feel nauseous even naming it.

I saw Ant Man. I didn't think it was horrible. Using the - for lack of a better term - "entrapment robbery" to find someone capable of sneaking in the building guarded by people with super powers was a bit contrived, but I thought the movie was okay.

Now Fargo on the other hand, was horrible. Let's start with the first problem. Everything in the story happens in Brainerd, Minnesota. Nothing happens in Fargo, let alone anywhere in the State of North Dakota.

Ant Man was relatively entertaining escapist science fiction and violates a number of the laws of physics. There have been books or articles I've probably read on why shrinking living things won't work, usually in the context of a Fantastic Voyage plot. I'll give you my take on why it won't work. To shrink someone that size means you do one of four things: reduce the number of atoms, shrink the size of the atoms, squeeze the space between the atoms, or shrink and squeeze.

First, if you discard most of their atoms, the loss of brain matter makes them as stupid as something that size, plus losing a lot of body functions; human beings are not built that size, whether it's ant sized or amoeba sized (in Fantastic Voyage). Matter can neither be created nor destroyed; where do you put the rest of the body in the interim and how do you re-integrate it?

Second, to shrink something that size would require a huge amount of power, like a good-sized power plant, to break the molecular bonds, assuming the test subject lived with that much energy applied to them, instead of cooking (or being vaporized) from the heat generated.

Let's talk about energy. Cold things are slow, hot things are fast. To turn water from liquid to a gas (boiling) requires putting a lot of energy into it to speed up the mplecules. To cool down water (or freeze it) requires you suck a lot of energy out of it to slow down the molecules. This is why ice makes drinks cold, the heat in the drink breaks the molecular bonds in the ice, absorbing energy amd releasing slow molecules of water. This tremendously slows down the atoms in the drink, cooling it.

The same thing would apply to atomic manipulation. To compress or contract atoms requires you put energy into them, to expand, you'd have to take energy out. As one of Robert A. Heinlein's books mentioned, the typical human being burns food sufficient to keep the entire body near 37°c (98.6°F), which is enough energy to melt about 23Kg (50 pounds) of ice a day.

Just to boil tap water takes about 0.44 Kwh per liter, so if it takes the equivalent of 440 watts to just boil a liter of tap water, (1Kg of water), how much is it going to take to compress an 82Kg (180lb) human to 1/100 of its size?

Third, if you reduced the empty space between atoms, you'd need thousands, no, hundreds of thousands of tons of pressure to do it, which, of course, would turn the test subject into bloody paste.

Fourth, for reasons 2 and 3, shrink and squeeze combined won't work either.

you didnt watch the movie so much as analyze it.

Fantastic work, Commander. What's your take on Wonder Woman's invisible jet?

Flack wrote: Thu Aug 27, 2020 3:34 pm Fantastic work, Commander. What's your take on Wonder Woman's invisible jet?

I think you probably could do it, now, or we're very close; it depends on the state of bendable video displays. You could not do it with '70s or '80s technology.

What you would do is create a matrix of led panels similar to "The Freemont Street Experience" display over the 3-block-long path in Las Vegas, It's in two parts; one is to have a set of very small cameras on the four sides (port, starboard, top, bottom), adequate to pick up everything in the field of vision. A cell phone has cameras smaller then an aspirin tablet.

You transmit the camera pictures to the led displays opposite to them. The plane simply shows the sky (or ground) on the other side of it, making the plane disappear.

I have one more take on Hank Pym, the original Ant-Man. He should be one of the (forgive the expression) giants of the Marvel Universe. He was an original Avenger for Christ's sake, not even Captain America was that.

In the 1980s, this unfortunate incident happened with his character:



(An aside about how terrible Wikipedia is - that is the ACTUAL SIZE of the panel uploaded. They are the worst for anything. Also, they take in several million in profit each year, never give them a dime when they beg.)

Context for the above:

Pym is eventually captured by an upgraded Ultron that brainwashes his creator, causing the character to regress to his original Ant-Man costume and personality — arriving at Avengers Mansion, thinking it to be the very first meeting of the team. Seeing several unfamiliar members, Pym attacks the team until stopped by the Wasp. After Ultron's brainwashing is reversed, Pym rejoins the Avengers as Yellowjacket. Hank Pym participates in several missions until, after demonstrating hostile behavior toward Janet van Dyne, he attacks a foe from behind once the opponent had ceased fighting. Captain America suspends Yellowjacket from Avengers duty pending the verdict of a court-martial.

Pym suffers a mental breakdown and concocts a plan to salvage his credibility. He plans to build a robot and program it to launch an attack on the Avengers; Pym will then counter the false flag attack at a critical moment using his knowledge of the robot's weaknesses, thereby presenting himself as the other Avengers' savior. The Wasp discovers the plan and begs Pym to stop, whereupon he strikes her.

Okay, well, the whole "create a crisis and pretend you are the only one who can solve it" is practically ripped from today's headlines. Ultron is a robot that Pym made and I've been fucked over plenty of time by code I have written, so that is relatable too. But of course, him smacking a superhero who is a GIRL becomes a permanent part of his character history. However --

Hank Pym is a scientific genius with a Ph.D in biochemistry and nanotechnology, and expertise in the fields of quantum physics, robotics/cybernetics, artificial intelligence, and entomology.

I dare say that's about 7 more degrees than the average guy making comics in the 1960s had, and about 6 more than all of them combined. It's the height of arrogance to think you can write a single line of dialogue for a character that Stan Lee said was that intelligent that when most of the people making comics back then were salt of the earth types who lived in New York City. No wonder they had him throw down with his old lady, it was probably the most relatable thing they could have thought of for him to do.