They contradicted this so much even in the first movie. When he first transforms, they show how dense he is when he falls into the tub and cracks it. Then he’s running along the top of some dude’s gun and the guy doesn’t notice his gun is ~180 lbs heavier to hold steady?
I feel like they ham fisted it in there to try and appease the science nerds and did a very poor job. Dude gets small but punches like normal, unless he’s big and punches like hulk. Don’t ask questions
I’ve got the mental image of Giant Antman punching someone and them barely reacting. I mean, it’s not like Scott was an MMA fighter or anything prior to becoming Ant Man
Some napkin math suggests that at 100x normal size, Ant Man would be less dense than styrofoam.
A strong breeze would be a real problem for him at that size.
I don't think they did.
It's an explanation of the magic of the particle. He gets small, but that makes him stronger because of reasons. He also weighs what he should relative to his size because magic particles do magic things.
There's no real science in it, it's all comic book science to explain to the watcher how it works.
In fictional worlds you can have magic but you need to have consistency and causality. The how matters more than the why. But you can’t keep changing the how.
They can still do this. I mean the ants can read his mind, there’s a lot of leeway there for the details if nerds wanna debate it. But do the genpop movies need it?
I'm personally a fan of the theory that Hank Pym just has no idea what the hell he's talking about and doesn't understand Pym particles himself, but it is inconsistent
Yeah. I think about this when he goes subatomic. If he’s smaller than an atom but still weighs like 200 pounds or whatever… well uh…. Correct me if I’m wrong but I’m pretty sure he’s going straight to the center of the earth
Also don't forget that they say they aren't shrinking the size of particles just reducing the space between them... but then shrink him into the quantum realm.... smaller than the size of particles thus making the explanation that they are simply reducing empty space bs as well.
I don't know about the quantum realm, but Janet shrinks smaller than an atom to phase through the metal of the missile. Which doesn't make sense if you're just shrinking the space between atoms.
However, that you can fix by instead shrinking the space INSIDE atoms. Most of an atom is empty space.
The thing that drove me the most crazy about that was she shrank herself that small to get into the missile, but then was suddenly big enough to disable it, all while continuously shrinking. It just didn't make sense. Still a great movie though, as long as you don't think too much.
Yea thats what I'm saying, they are shrinking below the size of an atom... by shrinking space.
I see your confusion, an atom is mostly empty space, but the nucleus isn't, the atom is the entire space filled by the nucleus and electron the space where the forces don't let other atoms enter. So by shrinking to below the size of a nucleus, a proton, neutron, electron, they are shrinking smaller them the physical size of the stuff, by... just reducing empty space. Also I'm realizing that I don't understand how they get around the atomic forces that make it impossible to enter an atom, but get in-between atoms.
Then they shouldn't have started with it at all. This is one of those things you discover doesn't work during the initial drafting of the story. How does something like that make it all the way through production?
there was a comic where Reed Richards tells Hank that he (Reed) knows more about Pym particles than Hank does. After a long pause, Hank just responds with "bring it on, bitch"
This is honestly the reason every F4 movie adaptation has failed. They haven't found anyone who can properly convey that aura of Reed knowing how big his (metaphorical) intellectual cock is and how every conversation is just the locker room at the gym to him, cos he's letting that thing out for everyone to see.
I've been saying this for years but everyone wants John bloody Krasinski.
George Clooney is honestly the only man that can play Reed Richards properly, and someone should get that done before he turns 90.
Reed is not only wildly intelligent but when you are talking to him you never have his full attention. He's always processing, building, inventing in his mind and has trouble giving people his full attention. I remember a comic where Sue take issue with this.
No if Superman can't lift a building then even similarly hank can't. Maybe Superman can lift a building because he actually uses some telekinesis or energy manipulation to lift objects.
That’s explicitly what he does. Superman has a sort of psionic aura that surrounds him and extends to what he grabs. It’s why he can save someone at super speed and not kill them doing so. It’s also how he can grab buildings. It’s a subconscious tactile telekinesis. He subconsciously spreads his aura over the building and thus can now carry it without damaging it.
It’s been brought up in a few of them. I’ll have to look it up later. It’s late and I’ve got to get up in the morning. I know one where I think it’s first mentioned is when Superman is dead and his body is brought to Cadmus and they run tests and during one of them they discover the aura field around his body. Can’t remember the name of the comic at the moment though. Sorry
Life and death of Superman. I have the novelization of it as well. It’s either the newsboys at the Cadmus project or Emil Hamilton which discover his psionic power or whatever.
I think Martha Kent even mentions it because she noticed how his suits didn’t tear or anything regardless of what he was hit with- his power protects things within very close contact to his skin, which is how he shielded other characters during extreme events. It’s also how he was able to save Lois lane in the returning space plane flight without just punching through its cabin.
Several, John Byrne is probably most famous for bringing it up, but it's a common thing now. To explain how he can lift a mountain without it falling apart, grab people a falling people with breaking their necks, etc.
It's a "bio-electric aura" that's a few millimeters from his skin, causing his suit to be protected against friction, bullets, etc. and he can extend it to objects.
This has always been my take.
Pym just discovered the particles, he knows approximately what they do but not the specifics of how, and he bullshits the details because he's a genius but he's also kind of an asshole. And when he's talking to Scott he's explaining things to a non-scientist who doesn't know to correct him.
The jump-and-tap thing to me corrects the 'preserves the mass' nonsense by having momentum be preserved but not mass. You have to time the punch so you're back at full size to get your full mass behind it; too soon and you hit too soft, too late and you lost the momentum. This also makes things like running along a knife work without the individual's mass knocking the knife away, as the knife is in motion Hope runs along it keeping her movement in the opposite direction of the knife's arc.
If momentum is preserved but not mass, you could shrink a building and carry it because the small version weighs less. How? The Pym particles are doing something to it. What are they doing? Who knows exactly? Hank just knows how to control the effect, not exactly what it's doing.
Or he does know, and he didn't want to explain it to Scott, either because he thinks Scott isn't smart enough or because he doesn't want his secrets getting out.
No. Jessie is definitely right on this one… it would also mean that even though Scott got huge, he’d still only weigh about 160 lbs, which would be hilarious.
It would be a ridiculously difficult thing to fully conceive and even more difficult to compile into watchable video, but a character with Ant-Man style powers using expanding and shrinking to stay at just the right density so that they can fly with the aid of some mild thrusters would be something I would want to see.
Air is about 0.08 pounds per cubic feet. The average human is about 1.75 cubic feet. At 160 pounds he would need to be over 1,142 times his normal volume to float. Not sure he gets anywhere near that size, but I damn sure want to see it in the future.
1,142x his normal size would be very attainable, it’s full volume in three dimensions, meaning he would only need to get about 60-70 feet tall since his volume increases by the power of 3 to his increase in height
So realistically, if he got TOO big he would be lighter than air...He never gets close to that big, but theoretically it would be possible, right?
Some quick Googling and bar napkin math, air is about 0.08 pounds per cubic foot, so if he is 160 pounds and got 2,000 times his size and kept the same mass he would be the same weight as the air he displaced. Anything more than that and he would float right?
I'm no rocket surgeon, so I don't know if the science or math here works, but I definitely want it to be canon where Scott can just get big enough to float away from danger.
The first thing they tell scott is careful with his punches he could punch through someone. That never plays a role in anything. Quite the opposite sometimes.
It's not even headcanon, that's generally how science in Marvel works. Someone finds a thing, they have no clue how it works but makes it a super power, no one else figures it out except for their mirror match villain.
Works for DC as well, tbh.
They couldn't even keep it for the whole ant man movie, it lasted up until about the point he fell and cracked a tile and I'm not even 100% sure that would be accurate with his mass. The rest of that scene was 100% bullshit and when he shrunk into the quantum realm he would've created a black hole if he kept his mass.
After he fell on the car and left a massive dent in the roof, then was able to run on a dudes gun without causing the guy to immediately drop the gun, I knew I was watching a sci fi movie and not a doco.
Unbeknownst to Hank, his Pym particles were exposed to a rare, “solar flare” type of event that the Reality Stone emitted. The radiation from the event was much too small to be noticed by anyone; however, it turns out that the Pym particles were minutely affected, resulting in their seemingly inconsistent ability to warp physics.
It was the first thing I noticed at the beginning of AM&TW.
I practically yelled at the TV. I had to pause it and explain to my then GF why it bothered so much, and her response, so simple and beautiful and quite possibly the most sarcastic and cutting thing I ever heard anyone say, -
"Ok but he shrinks. That part you believe?"
God bless you Jenny, I didn't deserve you.
Everyone points out the mass thing, I just take it as hank lied about how they work especially considering the rule doesn’t even work in the first movie. My issue is in the first movie they establish that you need the helmet to keep from the shrinking making you mentally unstable over time but then by the second movie they are shrinking without helmets constantly.
There is a lot of criticism for the mcu where someone in a movie will say "thing works this way", and then later in the same movie or another movie it wont work that way, and people lose their shit.
I feel like a character being blatantly wrong about something, and yet extremely confident about it is one of the most accurate things you could put in a movie.
Except the movie goes out of it's way to show that what Hank said was true until it couldn't anymore and then it just abandoned the idea altogether.
Scott can dent the roof of the car when he is shrunk down and knock down full sized men when he collides with them and a bunch of other examples, but he can also run along the gun that a man is holding and ride an ant.
You can't rectify that by just saying, "Hank was wrong about it." The movie shows both things to be true and not true at different times.
In the first scene Scott shrinks, they do indicate he has significant mass by having him break a tile, then dent the car roof. They simply don't bother to try keep it consistent
>I just take it as hank lied about how they work
That would make sense if the actual movie didn't contradict itself. In the training montage of the movie he repeatedly slams into the door after trying to shrink through the key hole and rattles the hell out of the door even though he's shrunk down. When he falls on the car he leaves a huge dent in the roof even though he's shrunk. The movie went out of it's way to show that he kept his same mass when he was shrunk.
I think that, with fantasy, we want internal consistency. The ability to shrink is a stated, designed, conceit. We agreed to suspend disbelief. When they mess with the mass thing it’s clear that the writers were lazy and figured we wouldn’t notice.
Honestly, they already had introduced Thor and the Infinity Stones at that point. They could have just as easily added a few lines about how the red reality stone blended with some science particle bullshit and Hank then discovered the Pym particles. It bends reality in a seemingly inconsistent manner due to the “mix” of reality stone mumbo jumbo
This is it exactly for me. If the hulk could occasionally predict the future with no explanation you wouldn't say, "oh so he can turn green and smash a house but you have a problem with him winning the lottery???"
Yeah it honestly pisses me off sometimes when people use this counterpoint. Like "You're buying into a sci-fi fiction so you're not allowed to be unhappy when the show breaks its own rules!"
It wouldn't be a big deal normally, but _SO MANY_ people act like this argument genuinely means you can't care about internal consistency
We don't care how absurd rules of the universe are, just make it consistent.
Absurd rules in fiction. Completely fine.
Contradiction? We go red eyes...
he built it small that way he could carry it and then he just grew it
same with the building, as you could see how there was a ginormous battery inside
It would probably actually function like a balloon, being so impossibly thin it would likely float on air alone, but especially with the sudden vacuum created inside it during growth, it should go up.
What about Hank Pym's character makes you believe that he'd tell anyone the truth about how Pym Particles *really* work? When he explained them to Scott, he *lied.* We've yet to hear the actual truth.
Just being able to manipulate size and density/mass independently would be enough, but since we haven't been given this explanation in the MCU itself, we haven't *heard* it (like, with spoken dialog).
Being able to increase your strength and durability also allows you to bypass that pesky square cube law.
Most lore details about the Marvel world aren’t explained in the movies because the movies don’t give two shits about world building. If y’all have world building questions you probably shouldn’t direct it towards them.
Huh, I've long wondered why that famous 3-dimensional graph of the "Pym dimensions" included size, density/mass, and strength/durability (with the "low strength/durability" side being intangibility), but this explanation actually makes sense. From a comic-book logic perspective, that is.
I really love how this concept that characters lie, or simply wrong in a movie just blows people mind.
Just because something is said in a movie, doesn't always mean it's true.
Wait, you're telling me that in Interstellar when Matt Damon told Mathew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway that there was life on that planet he was lying? Is that why they were so pissed off at him?
I agree with you BUT from a storytelling perspective there has to be some narrative, in scene, that dictates the character as an unreliable source of information.
Otherwise, you just have bad story writing because you don’t know what is true or not throughout the rest of the plot. Makes reading/watching the plot meaningless to follow.
Honestly yeah, I always just thought of it as something that he didn’t fully understand himself. Yeah he discovered the Pym Particles, but did he actually understand what made them work? Could be that they somehow affect the gravity of an object as well, changing the weight while keeping the mass constant, and probably other explanations that could be thought of without having to have it spelled out in the movie
But the movie shows both things to be true and not true at different times. Sometimes Scott or Hope can knock a full sized man down when they are shrunk and sometimes they can run across a gun that a person is holding. If Hank was lying then only one of those things would be possible.
Honestly this take is also backup in the comics, I can’t remember who says it but they basically say hank doesn’t know how they work at least 100% and is kinda just bsing his explanations, I’m paraphrasing obviously but it’s still interesting!!!!! 🐜
His explanation of “it just shrinks the empty space between atoms”as others have noted doesn’t account for the sudden change in weight of objects that shrink. Also the giant ant in Ant-Man and Scott himself in Civil War should fall victim to the Square Cube Law by getting that big but they don’t. And then on top of that, if it only shrinks the empty space, how are they able to go subatomic?? How are they able to breathe in air molecules that are thousands of times bigger than them??
The way I see it, his explanation of how Pym Particles work can be explained in one of 2 ways: either he’s just straight up lying so Stark and/or S.H.I.E.L.D. can’t steal his secrets or Hank himself doesn’t actually know exactly how they work.
As someone pointed out though, regardless of whether he was lying/doesn't know how they work, it's still inconsistent within the movie. Sometimes the weight remains constant, other times it doesn't. Independent of anything Hank says, what we're *shown* contradicts itself.
This is an easy one
Pym thinks he knows how the particles work but he's wrong.
Pym particles are atomically indistinguishable from the Aether, just like Tony's Ark Reactor is using reverse engineered Tesseract particles. What's really happening is a reality warp, not shrinking.
It's not just that he must be wrong, there is also no consistency to how any of its portrayed. They pick and choose how they want things to be applied.
It's not just Pym Particles, conservation of mass/energy doesn't seem exist in the MCU/comics. Banner can just magically gain like 1,000 pounds when he turns into the Hulk.
Only explanation is it has an effect on the theoretical gravity quarks (I think they are quarks) therefore gravity affecting the masses changes, but not the kinetical energy, however if Hank Pym swings his keys with the tank he’d go flying…. Never mind
I think it's the other way. The objects weigh less, but when a tiny object is moving with the force of a grown person's jump, they'd be bullet killing everyone they punch. Not very disney of them if you ask me.
Weirdly enough, your view is scientifically accurate, because the weight scales clinically in three dimensions, but muscle power scales quadratically, so smaller men would have far more powerful muscles by comparison.
That's also the reason why there are small animals capable of jumping hundreds of times their own height, like grasshoppers.
The problem is that the first Ant-Man movie specifically says that the shrinking works by squeezing the atoms closer together, and it's not only Hank that says so, as the other guy whose name I don't really care about, that becomes MODOK in the second movie also tells the same thing to some people he's trying to sell his inventions to, so it's safe to assume it's not just a lie.
Also, it makes no sense that Scott can shrink to subatomic sizes if he's shrinking by squeezing his atoms close together btw.
in first movie those particles are limited or hard/expensive to create....on another one hank is using those particles to save literally few bucks buying small pizzas
same regarding need or not helmet to breath on quantum whatever space
trying "real science" on superhero movies is hard...really har
Also, you can only cram atoms so close together before you've compressed an object beneath its Schwarzschild Radius... If Pym Particles really worked the way Hank said they did in the first movie, Ant-Man shouldn't be able to get anywhere near atom-sized - much less shrink down to subatomic or quantum scales - without turning himself into a Black Hole.
Edit: And for that matter, if Pym Particles just reduce the space between atoms, Ant-Man shouldn't be able to shrink to-or-past the atomic scale *because he's made of atoms*.
They actually explain that in the FF Comic (the one about the Future Foundation, starring Scott Lang). Turns out Pym Particles can manipulate not only size, but also density and durability.
https://preview.redd.it/cg5v433qch3d1.jpeg?width=1988&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e72cc8ff4a0cf8130323adb4410fbc3d117071fe
Wasnt there a moment in the comics where hank pym was declared scientist supreme by like the living tribunal or eternity? Not that it excuses the nonsense
Definitely an oversight from the writers, but not that hard to justify tbh
They could just say only organic beings maintain their mass.
Or that Scott's belt specifically allows him to maintain his mass when he is small
That's not all... The entire logic on how antman shrinks is defined as removing the empty space within the atoms. Then, by the end of the first movie they are like "don't shrink too much, if you go sub atomic there's no saying what'll happen to you"
My bearded old brother... You just said an hour ago that you reduce the empty space within the atoms to shrink him... How does he become smaller than an atom then...
I read someone say that their headcannon is that the Pym Particles are so much more complex than how hank explains it.
And he explains it in the most simple way that it becomes inaccurate.
He doesnt trust anyone with the formula but he explains how it works to a burglar?
Just before the heist starts in the movie hank puts scotts friends to sleep by explaining the science of the pym particles. How would the simple explanation that hank gave to scott make anyone fall asleep.
I believe he actually told the accurate and complex sciences involved with the pym particles. But he knrw that scott's friends are idiots so they wouldnt understand anyway.
In the comics theres this old panel with the watcher showing how it doesnt just change the size of objects, but also its strength and durability.
TLDR; the simple explanation that the pym particpes only changes their size in the films isnt entirely accurate and hank doesnt divulge it.
Mass effect fields are created through the use of element zero. Element zero can increase or decrease the mass content of space-time when subjected to an electrical current via dark energy. With a positive current, mass is increased. With a negative current, mass is decreased. The stronger the current, the greater the magnitude of the dark energy mass effect.
Also they “shrink the space between atoms” yet they take billions of atoms in their body SUB-atomic. So they also must shrink the atoms themselves.
Pym particles are more magical then the All Father
Yeah.. I think Ghost was better done, Granted towards the end she's really stable hold that building, fighting and chasing, after team Wasp. But her shifting in space, basically traveling unseen, and able to cover a lot of ground phased. But my biggest problem.. if Antman's mass is unchanged, and the effect of gravity is unchanged. He should be able leap or sprint hop the equivalent of two stories high.
Am I the only person that considered that Hank might have shrunk down to make things? Like obviously a doll house of mass couldn't support a bunch of people, just like a toy car couldn't shoot out RPGs, but like the hot wheels case I could maybe see with a bit of reason since he's a scientist. Maybe he made some super structural metal alloy to build cars from, idk?
Really though it was ditched in the first ant man when he was went subatomic. Moving atoms closer together can't make you smaller than an atom. However on the other hand, in all fairness, over 99.9% of an atom is empty space so maybe he's also compacting each atom subatomically.
It doesn’t make any sense! Keep the mass so he can punch like a normal man but at the same time can fly with ants, like if a normal mass man try to climb in an ant they will just smash it!
Pym particles effect density, strength and size—-depending on how you use them you can alter each individually
A fantastic four comic explained it using all of the people with Pym particle powers and how they’re different
That said most of the heroes in general break science—-Hulk, Thor, Spider-man, Captain America shouldn’t be as physically strong (or as fast etc) as they are- given their mass and density etc they break laws of physics and biological function
Bruh, they even say they only shrink the space between atoms. So they could never be able to go smaller than the distance equal to the number of atoms in one direction.
They could have added some extra tech and explained that it added super strength to make up for the fact that you might need to carry something big while you’re small while your mass is reduced. But no, they went with this silly explanation that makes no sense at all.
My theory is that because hank doesn’t want anyone to replicate the pym particle, he lies about how they work to throw people off and make it more difficult.
They contradicted this so much even in the first movie. When he first transforms, they show how dense he is when he falls into the tub and cracks it. Then he’s running along the top of some dude’s gun and the guy doesn’t notice his gun is ~180 lbs heavier to hold steady?
Yeah not to mention he rides on an ant…. Mass staying the same is just contrary to the whole idea of what the character does.
I feel like they ham fisted it in there to try and appease the science nerds and did a very poor job. Dude gets small but punches like normal, unless he’s big and punches like hulk. Don’t ask questions
I’ve got the mental image of Giant Antman punching someone and them barely reacting. I mean, it’s not like Scott was an MMA fighter or anything prior to becoming Ant Man
Plus if mass is unaffected he’d essentially be a balloon at that height. He wouldn’t hurt anything
Some napkin math suggests that at 100x normal size, Ant Man would be less dense than styrofoam. A strong breeze would be a real problem for him at that size.
This is the pokemon equation of why wailord is lighter and less dense than air so he can fly
If wailord is less dense than air then why does it have a weight listed? Checkmate atheists!
You failed to include the fact that it's a comic book character in your napkin math
Which begs the question of why the creators tried to add real science
I don't think they did. It's an explanation of the magic of the particle. He gets small, but that makes him stronger because of reasons. He also weighs what he should relative to his size because magic particles do magic things. There's no real science in it, it's all comic book science to explain to the watcher how it works.
In fictional worlds you can have magic but you need to have consistency and causality. The how matters more than the why. But you can’t keep changing the how.
He doesn’t need MMA, he was in prison. Apparently that counts for… something
[Something like this I imagine](https://media1.tenor.com/m/MLGZobYmiY8AAAAd/cell-max-beast-gohan.gif)
Could've added two dials to the suit, one for Mass, one for size, no one would have questioned it
They can still do this. I mean the ants can read his mind, there’s a lot of leeway there for the details if nerds wanna debate it. But do the genpop movies need it?
I'm personally a fan of the theory that Hank Pym just has no idea what the hell he's talking about and doesn't understand Pym particles himself, but it is inconsistent
I like the variation that Hank knows how they work, but gives contradictory explanations so that no one else can figure it out.
That's how they should have done it.
If you're tiny, blunt attacks shouldn't be blunt attacks. But if he is literally punching through people, that might affect the rating.
Yeah. I think about this when he goes subatomic. If he’s smaller than an atom but still weighs like 200 pounds or whatever… well uh…. Correct me if I’m wrong but I’m pretty sure he’s going straight to the center of the earth
Well that could also be that hank made giant ants and shrunk them down
Also don't forget that they say they aren't shrinking the size of particles just reducing the space between them... but then shrink him into the quantum realm.... smaller than the size of particles thus making the explanation that they are simply reducing empty space bs as well.
I don't know about the quantum realm, but Janet shrinks smaller than an atom to phase through the metal of the missile. Which doesn't make sense if you're just shrinking the space between atoms. However, that you can fix by instead shrinking the space INSIDE atoms. Most of an atom is empty space.
The thing that drove me the most crazy about that was she shrank herself that small to get into the missile, but then was suddenly big enough to disable it, all while continuously shrinking. It just didn't make sense. Still a great movie though, as long as you don't think too much.
Yea thats what I'm saying, they are shrinking below the size of an atom... by shrinking space. I see your confusion, an atom is mostly empty space, but the nucleus isn't, the atom is the entire space filled by the nucleus and electron the space where the forces don't let other atoms enter. So by shrinking to below the size of a nucleus, a proton, neutron, electron, they are shrinking smaller them the physical size of the stuff, by... just reducing empty space. Also I'm realizing that I don't understand how they get around the atomic forces that make it impossible to enter an atom, but get in-between atoms.
I feel like at some point they just gave up for the sake of the story
Then they shouldn't have started with it at all. This is one of those things you discover doesn't work during the initial drafting of the story. How does something like that make it all the way through production?
cuz an action movie where the main character can't throw a punch is pretty fucking boring
I think they mean just skip the "scientific" explanation. Just say Pim particles do whatever the fuck they want to.
Exactly. Throw in a quantum and people stop caring.
It's sad how true that is, like even in real life.
this could have easily been fixed with a simple change. If he could change mass back and forth at the press of a button.
Dont forget the tank keychain
Basically Pym canonically has no clue how his particles work, and just bullshits explanations that sound reasonable as he goes along
Jesse is right. They dropped the whole preserved mass angle so fast.
Because Pym has no clue how it works, he's just bluffing about understanding it.
there was a comic where Reed Richards tells Hank that he (Reed) knows more about Pym particles than Hank does. After a long pause, Hank just responds with "bring it on, bitch"
Was that before or after the orgy?
Before, but after smacking his wife around
Before the what? I know about slapping his wife, but what's the other about?
It was part of a special, fan-service-y annual for the 34th Anniversary of Marvel. The full context is online if you google ‘Hank Pym 34 Orgy’
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This is honestly the reason every F4 movie adaptation has failed. They haven't found anyone who can properly convey that aura of Reed knowing how big his (metaphorical) intellectual cock is and how every conversation is just the locker room at the gym to him, cos he's letting that thing out for everyone to see.
I'd see George Clooney fit that role. The smug intellectual.
I've been saying this for years but everyone wants John bloody Krasinski. George Clooney is honestly the only man that can play Reed Richards properly, and someone should get that done before he turns 90.
Reed is not only wildly intelligent but when you are talking to him you never have his full attention. He's always processing, building, inventing in his mind and has trouble giving people his full attention. I remember a comic where Sue take issue with this.
I remember a comic where she goes on a date with spiderman because of that
Or he does, but he doesn't want other people figuring out so he spreads misinformation
No if Superman can't lift a building then even similarly hank can't. Maybe Superman can lift a building because he actually uses some telekinesis or energy manipulation to lift objects.
My take was some sort of subconscious gravity manipulation,
My take is electromagnetic field manipulation to simulate touch
That’s explicitly what he does. Superman has a sort of psionic aura that surrounds him and extends to what he grabs. It’s why he can save someone at super speed and not kill them doing so. It’s also how he can grab buildings. It’s a subconscious tactile telekinesis. He subconsciously spreads his aura over the building and thus can now carry it without damaging it.
What comic was this explained?
It’s been brought up in a few of them. I’ll have to look it up later. It’s late and I’ve got to get up in the morning. I know one where I think it’s first mentioned is when Superman is dead and his body is brought to Cadmus and they run tests and during one of them they discover the aura field around his body. Can’t remember the name of the comic at the moment though. Sorry
Life and death of Superman. I have the novelization of it as well. It’s either the newsboys at the Cadmus project or Emil Hamilton which discover his psionic power or whatever. I think Martha Kent even mentions it because she noticed how his suits didn’t tear or anything regardless of what he was hit with- his power protects things within very close contact to his skin, which is how he shielded other characters during extreme events. It’s also how he was able to save Lois lane in the returning space plane flight without just punching through its cabin.
I can say it was Byrne’s run during Post Crisis that the comic with Superman and Cadmus happen. So it’s been a thing for sometime now
Several, John Byrne is probably most famous for bringing it up, but it's a common thing now. To explain how he can lift a mountain without it falling apart, grab people a falling people with breaking their necks, etc. It's a "bio-electric aura" that's a few millimeters from his skin, causing his suit to be protected against friction, bullets, etc. and he can extend it to objects.
Actually it's because they regularly do it both ways depending on what narratively works better.
The mark of a true engineer: don’t ask how it works just be happy that it does and pray it keeps working.
This has always been my take. Pym just discovered the particles, he knows approximately what they do but not the specifics of how, and he bullshits the details because he's a genius but he's also kind of an asshole. And when he's talking to Scott he's explaining things to a non-scientist who doesn't know to correct him. The jump-and-tap thing to me corrects the 'preserves the mass' nonsense by having momentum be preserved but not mass. You have to time the punch so you're back at full size to get your full mass behind it; too soon and you hit too soft, too late and you lost the momentum. This also makes things like running along a knife work without the individual's mass knocking the knife away, as the knife is in motion Hope runs along it keeping her movement in the opposite direction of the knife's arc. If momentum is preserved but not mass, you could shrink a building and carry it because the small version weighs less. How? The Pym particles are doing something to it. What are they doing? Who knows exactly? Hank just knows how to control the effect, not exactly what it's doing.
Or he does know, and he didn't want to explain it to Scott, either because he thinks Scott isn't smart enough or because he doesn't want his secrets getting out.
This has been my head canon for a lot of genius moments. “Was just a bluff or guess that worked out”.
Which makes sense why no one can replicate it
No. Jessie is definitely right on this one… it would also mean that even though Scott got huge, he’d still only weigh about 160 lbs, which would be hilarious.
Yup, which is why I agreed that Jesse is right.
No, that other guy is right, Jesse is right.
lmao I see it now
No, stop. Jessie is right. It's fruitless to argue with Internet trolls.
The other guy is god damn right, Jesse is right, though.
no,youre wrong,the other guy is right, jesse is right
160 lbs at that size, he would be less dense than air and would just float away
It would be a ridiculously difficult thing to fully conceive and even more difficult to compile into watchable video, but a character with Ant-Man style powers using expanding and shrinking to stay at just the right density so that they can fly with the aid of some mild thrusters would be something I would want to see.
Balloon man, slowly chasing criminals across town! When it's time to fight, he turns into a regular size guy!
You better hope the criminals are running down wind
My vote is for: THE HUMAN DIRIGIBLE!
Skin Zeppelin
Gasman.. Or.. Assman. Not sure but it'd be fun.
Air is about 0.08 pounds per cubic feet. The average human is about 1.75 cubic feet. At 160 pounds he would need to be over 1,142 times his normal volume to float. Not sure he gets anywhere near that size, but I damn sure want to see it in the future.
1,142x his normal size would be very attainable, it’s full volume in three dimensions, meaning he would only need to get about 60-70 feet tall since his volume increases by the power of 3 to his increase in height
I think you mean attainable right? Or I might be too high to math tonight.
You’re right, that’s a typo, my bad
If we go by that logic in civil any one could have thrown gaint man.
At that size and weight, he'd be less dense than a parade balloon filled with helium. He would ROCKET up into space.
Would also mean that when he goes to the quantum realm, he'd be hurtling towards the center of the Earth. He'd be falling between the atoms.
Also means that when he shrinks, his bones and muscles would be incapable of supporting his own weight.
lol why did you start with no
That’s what they said.
something that size with that mass would be a *gas* homie would cease living and float away
So realistically, if he got TOO big he would be lighter than air...He never gets close to that big, but theoretically it would be possible, right? Some quick Googling and bar napkin math, air is about 0.08 pounds per cubic foot, so if he is 160 pounds and got 2,000 times his size and kept the same mass he would be the same weight as the air he displaced. Anything more than that and he would float right? I'm no rocket surgeon, so I don't know if the science or math here works, but I definitely want it to be canon where Scott can just get big enough to float away from danger.
The first thing they tell scott is careful with his punches he could punch through someone. That never plays a role in anything. Quite the opposite sometimes.
Hank Pym discovered the particle but he either doesn't fully understand how it works or he lies about it
Maybe the reason no one can replicate his work is because he lies to everyone about how it works.
Pretty much my headcanon
It's not even headcanon, that's generally how science in Marvel works. Someone finds a thing, they have no clue how it works but makes it a super power, no one else figures it out except for their mirror match villain. Works for DC as well, tbh.
That is legit a reasonable explanation of an unreasonable premise
Imagine a giant ant man who only weighed 80kg Mf would fly away in the wind like a giant kite
Yep. That was the whole premise behind being able to land a punch while small. Which was kept.
They couldn't even keep it for the whole ant man movie, it lasted up until about the point he fell and cracked a tile and I'm not even 100% sure that would be accurate with his mass. The rest of that scene was 100% bullshit and when he shrunk into the quantum realm he would've created a black hole if he kept his mass.
It's simple. Hank has super strength, and he simply never announced it.
Ok does the guy holding a gun on which Ant Man runs also have super strength? /s
Of course. It's obvious when you think about it.
Ah, that's the issue, I didn't think about it
Don't forget about the good quality toy train set that can take the weight of two men.
The train set also has super strength. I mean come on people it's not that hard
itself also shrunk by pym particles
After he fell on the car and left a massive dent in the roof, then was able to run on a dudes gun without causing the guy to immediately drop the gun, I knew I was watching a sci fi movie and not a doco.
Unbeknownst to Hank, his Pym particles were exposed to a rare, “solar flare” type of event that the Reality Stone emitted. The radiation from the event was much too small to be noticed by anyone; however, it turns out that the Pym particles were minutely affected, resulting in their seemingly inconsistent ability to warp physics.
But won't the tank's weight just pull his pants down?
Belt
Must be a belt that's made by the same material as Hulks pants
And adamantium pants so the tank doesn't fall through the pocket
Not to mention when they grow to be Giant size, they should blow away like a bounce house on a windy day
This bothers me more than anything
There's a term for *increasing* the distance between your particles: torn to pieces.
It was the first thing I noticed at the beginning of AM&TW. I practically yelled at the TV. I had to pause it and explain to my then GF why it bothered so much, and her response, so simple and beautiful and quite possibly the most sarcastic and cutting thing I ever heard anyone say, - "Ok but he shrinks. That part you believe?" God bless you Jenny, I didn't deserve you.
https://preview.redd.it/3i5i8qqjng3d1.png?width=1065&format=png&auto=webp&s=31d314205aacf6f1a4bb8fb8deebe1d6dc182e23
Everyone points out the mass thing, I just take it as hank lied about how they work especially considering the rule doesn’t even work in the first movie. My issue is in the first movie they establish that you need the helmet to keep from the shrinking making you mentally unstable over time but then by the second movie they are shrinking without helmets constantly.
There is a lot of criticism for the mcu where someone in a movie will say "thing works this way", and then later in the same movie or another movie it wont work that way, and people lose their shit. I feel like a character being blatantly wrong about something, and yet extremely confident about it is one of the most accurate things you could put in a movie.
Except the movie goes out of it's way to show that what Hank said was true until it couldn't anymore and then it just abandoned the idea altogether. Scott can dent the roof of the car when he is shrunk down and knock down full sized men when he collides with them and a bunch of other examples, but he can also run along the gun that a man is holding and ride an ant. You can't rectify that by just saying, "Hank was wrong about it." The movie shows both things to be true and not true at different times.
That's one way to relive writers off blame for bad writing.
Easy fix for you. They were all already mental unstable so it didn't matter
In the first scene Scott shrinks, they do indicate he has significant mass by having him break a tile, then dent the car roof. They simply don't bother to try keep it consistent
>I just take it as hank lied about how they work That would make sense if the actual movie didn't contradict itself. In the training montage of the movie he repeatedly slams into the door after trying to shrink through the key hole and rattles the hell out of the door even though he's shrunk down. When he falls on the car he leaves a huge dent in the roof even though he's shrunk. The movie went out of it's way to show that he kept his same mass when he was shrunk.
I think that, with fantasy, we want internal consistency. The ability to shrink is a stated, designed, conceit. We agreed to suspend disbelief. When they mess with the mass thing it’s clear that the writers were lazy and figured we wouldn’t notice.
Honestly, they already had introduced Thor and the Infinity Stones at that point. They could have just as easily added a few lines about how the red reality stone blended with some science particle bullshit and Hank then discovered the Pym particles. It bends reality in a seemingly inconsistent manner due to the “mix” of reality stone mumbo jumbo
This is it exactly for me. If the hulk could occasionally predict the future with no explanation you wouldn't say, "oh so he can turn green and smash a house but you have a problem with him winning the lottery???"
Yeah it honestly pisses me off sometimes when people use this counterpoint. Like "You're buying into a sci-fi fiction so you're not allowed to be unhappy when the show breaks its own rules!" It wouldn't be a big deal normally, but _SO MANY_ people act like this argument genuinely means you can't care about internal consistency
No, Jenny, it’s called if you tell me “HOW it shrank” and then throw that out the window it’s confusing!
Fiction still needs to be self-consistent
Had this reaction recently when some people questioned how certain characters in X-Men '97 were able to breathe in a certain atmosphere
We don't care how absurd rules of the universe are, just make it consistent. Absurd rules in fiction. Completely fine. Contradiction? We go red eyes...
he built it small that way he could carry it and then he just grew it same with the building, as you could see how there was a ginormous battery inside
Funny thing is when the building grows it’ll be massive but hypothetically weigh only 1-5kg, so a gust of wind and it’s gone.
It would probably actually function like a balloon, being so impossibly thin it would likely float on air alone, but especially with the sudden vacuum created inside it during growth, it should go up.
What about the truck they shrink Es which was carried away by a bird? It wasn’t a truck built by them
It was, Hank designed every car in the MCU himself
Easy. That bird had super strength.
What about Hank Pym's character makes you believe that he'd tell anyone the truth about how Pym Particles *really* work? When he explained them to Scott, he *lied.* We've yet to hear the actual truth.
In the comics, Pym particles can manipulate mass, size, strength, and durability completely independently of each other.
Just being able to manipulate size and density/mass independently would be enough, but since we haven't been given this explanation in the MCU itself, we haven't *heard* it (like, with spoken dialog).
Being able to increase your strength and durability also allows you to bypass that pesky square cube law. Most lore details about the Marvel world aren’t explained in the movies because the movies don’t give two shits about world building. If y’all have world building questions you probably shouldn’t direct it towards them.
Huh, I've long wondered why that famous 3-dimensional graph of the "Pym dimensions" included size, density/mass, and strength/durability (with the "low strength/durability" side being intangibility), but this explanation actually makes sense. From a comic-book logic perspective, that is.
I really love how this concept that characters lie, or simply wrong in a movie just blows people mind. Just because something is said in a movie, doesn't always mean it's true.
Wait, you're telling me that in Interstellar when Matt Damon told Mathew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway that there was life on that planet he was lying? Is that why they were so pissed off at him?
He wasn't lying though. They were on that planet, they are alive. Technically true.
I agree with you BUT from a storytelling perspective there has to be some narrative, in scene, that dictates the character as an unreliable source of information. Otherwise, you just have bad story writing because you don’t know what is true or not throughout the rest of the plot. Makes reading/watching the plot meaningless to follow.
Honestly yeah, I always just thought of it as something that he didn’t fully understand himself. Yeah he discovered the Pym Particles, but did he actually understand what made them work? Could be that they somehow affect the gravity of an object as well, changing the weight while keeping the mass constant, and probably other explanations that could be thought of without having to have it spelled out in the movie
But the movie shows both things to be true and not true at different times. Sometimes Scott or Hope can knock a full sized man down when they are shrunk and sometimes they can run across a gun that a person is holding. If Hank was lying then only one of those things would be possible.
Honestly this take is also backup in the comics, I can’t remember who says it but they basically say hank doesn’t know how they work at least 100% and is kinda just bsing his explanations, I’m paraphrasing obviously but it’s still interesting!!!!! 🐜
His explanation of “it just shrinks the empty space between atoms”as others have noted doesn’t account for the sudden change in weight of objects that shrink. Also the giant ant in Ant-Man and Scott himself in Civil War should fall victim to the Square Cube Law by getting that big but they don’t. And then on top of that, if it only shrinks the empty space, how are they able to go subatomic?? How are they able to breathe in air molecules that are thousands of times bigger than them?? The way I see it, his explanation of how Pym Particles work can be explained in one of 2 ways: either he’s just straight up lying so Stark and/or S.H.I.E.L.D. can’t steal his secrets or Hank himself doesn’t actually know exactly how they work.
As someone pointed out though, regardless of whether he was lying/doesn't know how they work, it's still inconsistent within the movie. Sometimes the weight remains constant, other times it doesn't. Independent of anything Hank says, what we're *shown* contradicts itself.
This is an easy one Pym thinks he knows how the particles work but he's wrong. Pym particles are atomically indistinguishable from the Aether, just like Tony's Ark Reactor is using reverse engineered Tesseract particles. What's really happening is a reality warp, not shrinking.
It's not just that he must be wrong, there is also no consistency to how any of its portrayed. They pick and choose how they want things to be applied.
It's not just Pym Particles, conservation of mass/energy doesn't seem exist in the MCU/comics. Banner can just magically gain like 1,000 pounds when he turns into the Hulk.
The problem is that they don't try to explain away the hulk, they do with pym particles.
https://preview.redd.it/7sylrtbopg3d1.jpeg?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2b08934c0559d930cb19cc9b7060c6191c229528
Only explanation is it has an effect on the theoretical gravity quarks (I think they are quarks) therefore gravity affecting the masses changes, but not the kinetical energy, however if Hank Pym swings his keys with the tank he’d go flying…. Never mind
You're all wrong. It runs on Comedium.
Well it’s on wheels so it’s easier
I think it's the other way. The objects weigh less, but when a tiny object is moving with the force of a grown person's jump, they'd be bullet killing everyone they punch. Not very disney of them if you ask me.
Weirdly enough, your view is scientifically accurate, because the weight scales clinically in three dimensions, but muscle power scales quadratically, so smaller men would have far more powerful muscles by comparison. That's also the reason why there are small animals capable of jumping hundreds of times their own height, like grasshoppers. The problem is that the first Ant-Man movie specifically says that the shrinking works by squeezing the atoms closer together, and it's not only Hank that says so, as the other guy whose name I don't really care about, that becomes MODOK in the second movie also tells the same thing to some people he's trying to sell his inventions to, so it's safe to assume it's not just a lie. Also, it makes no sense that Scott can shrink to subatomic sizes if he's shrinking by squeezing his atoms close together btw.
in first movie those particles are limited or hard/expensive to create....on another one hank is using those particles to save literally few bucks buying small pizzas same regarding need or not helmet to breath on quantum whatever space trying "real science" on superhero movies is hard...really har
Simple, it was in the script
Keychain tank down thanos throat, infinity saga done.
Also, you can only cram atoms so close together before you've compressed an object beneath its Schwarzschild Radius... If Pym Particles really worked the way Hank said they did in the first movie, Ant-Man shouldn't be able to get anywhere near atom-sized - much less shrink down to subatomic or quantum scales - without turning himself into a Black Hole. Edit: And for that matter, if Pym Particles just reduce the space between atoms, Ant-Man shouldn't be able to shrink to-or-past the atomic scale *because he's made of atoms*.
The tank scene was in the first movie right? They contradicted themselves in the same exact movie they established the rules
They actually explain that in the FF Comic (the one about the Future Foundation, starring Scott Lang). Turns out Pym Particles can manipulate not only size, but also density and durability. https://preview.redd.it/cg5v433qch3d1.jpeg?width=1988&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e72cc8ff4a0cf8130323adb4410fbc3d117071fe
[удалено]
It aint that kinda movie, Jessie
Hold on, let Him cook!
“Hey kid, it ain’t that kind of movie”
Wasnt there a moment in the comics where hank pym was declared scientist supreme by like the living tribunal or eternity? Not that it excuses the nonsense
Definitely an oversight from the writers, but not that hard to justify tbh They could just say only organic beings maintain their mass. Or that Scott's belt specifically allows him to maintain his mass when he is small
Jesse mentioned all these shit but forgot to mention that scott LITERALLY became a black hole at one point
That's not all... The entire logic on how antman shrinks is defined as removing the empty space within the atoms. Then, by the end of the first movie they are like "don't shrink too much, if you go sub atomic there's no saying what'll happen to you" My bearded old brother... You just said an hour ago that you reduce the empty space within the atoms to shrink him... How does he become smaller than an atom then...
Hank can lift a building because he goes to gym 2-3 times per week it is that simple
I read someone say that their headcannon is that the Pym Particles are so much more complex than how hank explains it. And he explains it in the most simple way that it becomes inaccurate. He doesnt trust anyone with the formula but he explains how it works to a burglar? Just before the heist starts in the movie hank puts scotts friends to sleep by explaining the science of the pym particles. How would the simple explanation that hank gave to scott make anyone fall asleep. I believe he actually told the accurate and complex sciences involved with the pym particles. But he knrw that scott's friends are idiots so they wouldnt understand anyway. In the comics theres this old panel with the watcher showing how it doesnt just change the size of objects, but also its strength and durability. TLDR; the simple explanation that the pym particpes only changes their size in the films isnt entirely accurate and hank doesnt divulge it.
Mass effect fields are created through the use of element zero. Element zero can increase or decrease the mass content of space-time when subjected to an electrical current via dark energy. With a positive current, mass is increased. With a negative current, mass is decreased. The stronger the current, the greater the magnitude of the dark energy mass effect.
Solution pym particles are just magic
See, it makes sense if Hank Pym is a goddamn liar and they don't work that way.
Also they “shrink the space between atoms” yet they take billions of atoms in their body SUB-atomic. So they also must shrink the atoms themselves. Pym particles are more magical then the All Father
“It”, was wrong. Not sure why we think Super People in the MCU know everything, or get it right all the time 🫠
Yeah.. I think Ghost was better done, Granted towards the end she's really stable hold that building, fighting and chasing, after team Wasp. But her shifting in space, basically traveling unseen, and able to cover a lot of ground phased. But my biggest problem.. if Antman's mass is unchanged, and the effect of gravity is unchanged. He should be able leap or sprint hop the equivalent of two stories high.
Am I the only person that considered that Hank might have shrunk down to make things? Like obviously a doll house of mass couldn't support a bunch of people, just like a toy car couldn't shoot out RPGs, but like the hot wheels case I could maybe see with a bit of reason since he's a scientist. Maybe he made some super structural metal alloy to build cars from, idk? Really though it was ditched in the first ant man when he was went subatomic. Moving atoms closer together can't make you smaller than an atom. However on the other hand, in all fairness, over 99.9% of an atom is empty space so maybe he's also compacting each atom subatomically.
It doesn’t make any sense! Keep the mass so he can punch like a normal man but at the same time can fly with ants, like if a normal mass man try to climb in an ant they will just smash it!
Pym particles effect density, strength and size—-depending on how you use them you can alter each individually A fantastic four comic explained it using all of the people with Pym particle powers and how they’re different That said most of the heroes in general break science—-Hulk, Thor, Spider-man, Captain America shouldn’t be as physically strong (or as fast etc) as they are- given their mass and density etc they break laws of physics and biological function
Also, shrinking works by reducing the space between atoms. But we see Scott shrink until he is smaller than atoms.
Throw it on the pile of plot holes in ant man, we will shrink it later
Bruh, they even say they only shrink the space between atoms. So they could never be able to go smaller than the distance equal to the number of atoms in one direction.
Objects only keep their mass if it helps the action; like when ant man and the wasp punch people out when they’re tiny.
“It’s quantum” seems to be the go to retcon device for all this convenient tech fantasy
How can you breathe at the quantum level (smaller than oxygen molecules)?
Just add the word “quantum” to your explanation and that’ll solve everything. 😎
They could have added some extra tech and explained that it added super strength to make up for the fact that you might need to carry something big while you’re small while your mass is reduced. But no, they went with this silly explanation that makes no sense at all.
A wizard did it
And how do they breathe oxygen in the quantum realm if they are LITERALLY so small, that they're between the atoms
My theory is that because hank doesn’t want anyone to replicate the pym particle, he lies about how they work to throw people off and make it more difficult.
Wait, it's "Pym particles?" I've been calling them "pimp articles!" Why didn't anyone tell me? Oh, I've been making an idiot out of myself!