"Ant-Man" Thread (Spoilers are likely, beware!)

[Simon_Jester]

Alternatively, Pym himself might take over the 'scientist' role. Lang isn't in the same league as a researcher, I think, although he's no slouch.

I just saw it and generally enjoyed it, as always a few plot holes but it generally worked. I liked the use of the actual ants.

The rules of shrinking don't seem to be consistent, if he retains his full mass while small how can he fly on ants? They probably could have put in another line about there being more controls that allowed him to control his mass as well as his size but maybe it made things to complicated.

I wasn't sure why they had the shrinking effects your brain chemistry bit, I guess it was to explain the bad guy being psychotic but there was no evidence he'd ever experimented on himself does just being near Pym Partials mess you up? Why have any explanation, why not just say he's crazy.

Well, it's also implicitly a justification for why Pym can't wear the Ant-Man suit anymore. Over and above the fact that he's an old man now, by his own admission the suit "took a toll" on him. Which is probably related to the brain chemistry issue.

Come to think of it... maybe Pym is unstable and (sometimes) aggressive because the Ant-Man helmet imperfectly protected him from Pym particle exposure. Or maybe he too was exposed without protection in the early days of his research.

Maybe I'm jaded and cynical, but was what so horrible about Pym particles and shrinking people getting out into the world as a technology? For one thing, shrinking could do wonders for pollution and storage reduction. If armies start having access to shrunken soldiers, I don't see how this is different than militaries having access to telekinetics, helicarriers, super-serums, power suits, or the other weird crap that has been shown in the Marvel Universe.

Helicarriers are huge and expensive and can be countered by normal weapons. They're not that big a game-changer, although they are very useful for an organization like SHIELD.

Super-serums are something people have been trying to duplicate with limited success for seventy years, and Cap is still the only truly successful example of implementation of this technology in the Marvel Cinematics Universe. The only other known individuals to receive the serum were the Red Skull, who was horribly deformed and insane... And Emil Blonsky, who became even MORE horribly deformed and insane.

Telekinetics don't appear to be something the MCU knows how to duplicate it. Wanda Maximoff has it, but a lot of other test subjects died in the attempt to give them such abilities- it wouldn't be a good method for manufacturing super-soldiers.

Power suits are an issue, but so far nobody has successfully duplicated Starktech except by stealing part or all of the required Starktech for their own purposes.

So basically, all of these technologies are still 'controlled' in the sense that they are in the hands of only one or a few operators, duplicating them is nearly impossible, or it's not hard to counteract them. For instance, the logical counter to a helicarrier is a nuclear tipped SAM, and we've known how to build those for decades.
____________________

Meanwhile, the 'shrunken soldier' technology has major advantages of deniability and subtlety- it's almost the perfect covert weapon and only the most highly secured facilities have even a prayer of defending against it.

In and prior to 1989 (when we see Pym retire and refuse to share his work with anyone), well... at that point we hadn't had the mass proliferation of superpowers. So far as we know, Ant-Man was top contender for "the weirdest thing science created," to borrow Captain America's phrase.

And in 2015, Cross wasn't planning to sell the technology to national governments or anything, he sold directly to Hydra of all people. Hydra. The guys who abandoned the Nazis for being insufficiently evil!

So yes, Pym has every reason to think 'shrunken soldier' technology is a major threat to world peace if it proliferates, especially if it proliferates into the hands of Hydra.

Or is Hank Pym just overly upset about what happened to his wife?

Probably that too, yes.

[Lord Revan]

Scott Lang seems best to replace Iron-man/Tony Stark as both are primarly engineers, Lang was said to a certified electrical engineer in the movie.

Hank Pym on the the other hand seems something that the Avengers don't have yet aka primarly a biochemist with expertise in physics as well (though Banner might have that). That said Hank Pym doesn't like the Starks or SHIELD at all and seems to think Avengers are the same crowd anyway.

Also Hank Pym seemed to imply that Cross wasn't all that balanced to begin with so it could be that the combination of poor protection from the shinking tech and inherent mental problems was that pushed him over the edge into cartoon villany while Hank Pym only became a crankly loner.

[Steve]

IIRC, RDJ hasn't even committed to Avengers IW I and II yet. He seems to renew this by movie.

[FaxModem1]

Maybe I'm jaded and cynical, but was what so horrible about Pym particles and shrinking people getting out into the world as a technology? For one thing, shrinking could do wonders for pollution and storage reduction. If armies start having access to shrunken soldiers, I don't see how this is different than militaries having access to telekinetics, helicarriers, super-serums, power suits, or the other weird crap that has been shown in the Marvel Universe.

Helicarriers are huge and expensive and can be countered by normal weapons. They're not that big a game-changer, although they are very useful for an organization like SHIELD.

Super-serums are something people have been trying to duplicate with limited success for seventy years, and Cap is still the only truly successful example of implementation of this technology in the Marvel Cinematics Universe. The only other known individuals to receive the serum were the Red Skull, who was horribly deformed and insane... And Emil Blonsky, who became even MORE horribly deformed and insane.

Telekinetics don't appear to be something the MCU knows how to duplicate it. Wanda Maximoff has it, but a lot of other test subjects died in the attempt to give them such abilities- it wouldn't be a good method for manufacturing super-soldiers.

Power suits are an issue, but so far nobody has successfully duplicated Starktech except by stealing part or all of the required Starktech for their own purposes.

So basically, all of these technologies are still 'controlled' in the sense that they are in the hands of only one or a few operators, duplicating them is nearly impossible, or it's not hard to counteract them. For instance, the logical counter to a helicarrier is a nuclear tipped SAM, and we've known how to build those for decades.
____________________

Meanwhile, the 'shrunken soldier' technology has major advantages of deniability and subtlety- it's almost the perfect covert weapon and only the most highly secured facilities have even a prayer of defending against it.

In and prior to 1989 (when we see Pym retire and refuse to share his work with anyone), well... at that point we hadn't had the mass proliferation of superpowers. So far as we know, Ant-Man was top contender for "the weirdest thing science created," to borrow Captain America's phrase.

And in 2015, Cross wasn't planning to sell the technology to national governments or anything, he sold directly to Hydra of all people. Hydra. The guys who abandoned the Nazis for being insufficiently evil!

So yes, Pym has every reason to think 'shrunken soldier' technology is a major threat to world peace if it proliferates, especially if it proliferates into the hands of Hydra.

Admittedly, I don't think Cross is someone who should be trusted with a stapler, let alone a multi-billion dollar potential weapon, but the peaceful applications of this technology are rather tremendous, that could be used for peaceful pursuits such as reduction of waste, radioactive and regular, potentially help with over-population and space, cargo storage, transportation, and all sorts of other ideas that haven't been used.

Pym has had decades to do whatever he wished with this technology, including his time in SHIELD as well. If Pym was really worried about the war applications of this tech, why on Earth did he even join SHIELD anyway?

Why wasn't SHIELD regularly taking samples from Steve Rogers and Bruce Banner in order to figure out what makes them tick? While making a super serum may not be possible, but the ability to rapidly heal, survive huge circumstances or other such things may be a priority.

Hell, why is everyone still using fossil fuels when Stark mastered arc reactor technology back in 2007 and could, if he wanted, bring about a new era of green energy production?

[madd0ct0r]

That was a big plot point in Avengers assemble. Stark towers was the first to use an arc reactor instead of mains.

[Simon_Jester]

Admittedly, I don't think Cross is someone who should be trusted with a stapler, let alone a multi-billion dollar potential weapon, but the peaceful applications of this technology are rather tremendous, that could be used for peaceful pursuits such as reduction of waste, radioactive and regular, potentially help with over-population and space, cargo storage, transportation, and all sorts of other ideas that haven't been used.

Pym has had decades to do whatever he wished with this technology, including his time in SHIELD as well. If Pym was really worried about the war applications of this tech, why on Earth did he even join SHIELD anyway?

He presumably joined SHIELD in the '60s or '70s out of an idealistic desire to fight evildoers and/or communism. By the late '80s we can see that he's become very cynical about that- but look at the mission on which his wife died, stopping a nuclear missile from hitting the US. That's kind of important.

So we can see why Pym joined SHIELD and fought for them. And indeed, fighting for them may have been his concession to the reality that it was the ONLY way to ensure that his technology stayed under his control. Otherwise, SHIELD would have kept trying to steal or duplicate it, the same way that in Iron Man 2 the US government kept funding Hammer to build suits and apparently backed Rhodes' attempt to outright steal a suit from Stark.

But we can also see why Pym feared the consequences of his technology being mass produced, or the consequences of new military applications of it. The historic example of Hydra, along with whatever exotic threats existed during the Cold War, make it very easy to extrapolate what could happen if 'super' weapons proliferate.

Why wasn't SHIELD regularly taking samples from Steve Rogers and Bruce Banner in order to figure out what makes them tick? While making a super serum may not be possible, but the ability to rapidly heal, survive huge circumstances or other such things may be a priority.

SHIELD (or its predecessor) DID take blood samples from Steve Rogers; that was a plot point in the Agent Carter TV show set in the 1940s (early '50s?) shortly after World War II. They (or the US military) also had leftover super-soldier serum lying around in the Marvel Cinematic version of The Incredible Hulk... and injected it into Blonsky. Come to think of it, that was ALSO when they procured samples from Bruce Banner... and injected those into Blonsky too... and hoo boy that did not end well.

As the resulting rampaging abomination-that-was-Blonsky illustrates, experimenting on Bruce Banner, his blood, and the exotic radiations that made him what he is, do NOT end well. People get turned into monsters. People get killed. People get turned into monsters, and then get killed, while killing other people. And that's before we even consider the fact that in such experiments, you always risk making Banner himself angry. You won't like him when he's angry.

Experimenting on Captain America is less likely to end in bloodshed, but we know that Howard Stark, who personally built most of the equipment used to enhance him, still couldn't duplicate the super-soldier serum created by Erskine. There is some component of Erskine's process that is just totally unknown and un-replicable, a secret he took to his grave. Presumably there have been many attempts to duplicate it, but this isn't just something people would have been trying to do for the past few years. It's something they'd have been trying to do since 1944... without success. If no one has succeeded before, it's unlikely anyone will succeed now.

Hell, why is everyone still using fossil fuels when Stark mastered arc reactor technology back in 2007 and could, if he wanted, bring about a new era of green energy production?

He was explicitly working on that as of the first Avengers movie.

That said, until Iron Man 2 in 2010, arc reactors burned up hunks of palladium for power, and palladium is not cheap. Moreover, they appear to have been burning it up fairly rapidly, and leaking palladium into their surroundings. Stark may have wanted to debug that part of the process.

Then during the events of that movie he finds a way to make arc reactors that don't burn palladium... and instead, this new reactor burns an entirely unknown element (I dub the... 'badassium'). An unknown element that can only be made by bombarding other metals with a particle accelerator, which is a very expensive way to create a fuel.

Moreover, arc reactors are very dangerous technology in the wrong hands, as Vanko demonstrated. They're not just clean power supplies, they're clean power supplies mobile and portable enough to power high-energy ray guns and so on. Therefore, the technology has to be disseminated a bit carefully.

So I'm not entirely surprised that, after the first working models of viable arc reactors were made in 2007 and the first 'mature' versions in 2010, that they have not yet completely taken over the world energy market to such an extent that gasoline powered cars are out of the mix. Although I would LOVE to see, in some future movie, a sports car powered by an arc reactor or something.

[Iroscato]

Saw it the other night. Not the best Marvel effort but I wasn't expecting it to be. It was greatly enjoyable, funny and emotionally satisfying.
One major point of interest to me - the scene at the start...the CGI used to de-age Hank Pym is the finest example of CGI I've ever seen. It was flawless, and kicked the shit out of the uncanny valley. Very impressive indeed.

The shrunken scenes were great fun. My brain made peace with the adsurdity of the MCU around the time the Helicarrier rose out of the ocean and then turned invisible, so the absolute howling impossiblity of it all went straight over my head.

And I've never felt so impacted by the death of an ant in my life...(though wouldn't "Anthony" actually be a female seeing as it had wings?)

[Panzersharkcat]

And I've never felt so impacted by the death of an ant in my life...(though wouldn't "Anthony" actually be a female seeing as it had wings?)

No, it's the males and queens who have wings.

[Lord Revan]

And I've never felt so impacted by the death of an ant in my life...(though wouldn't "Anthony" actually be a female seeing as it had wings?)

No, it's the males and queens who have wings.

IIRC only male ants have wings permanently (as they pretty much die after the mating season) queens losing theirs after the mating season.

[Iroscato]

And I've never felt so impacted by the death of an ant in my life...(though wouldn't "Anthony" actually be a female seeing as it had wings?)

No, it's the males and queens who have wings.

Oh shit, really? Guess I'm not as good at half-remembering biology classes as I thought

[The Romulan Republic]

I thought that script-wise, this film was quite weak, despite seeming like its basically Iron Man 2.0 (it has a troubled hero with a high tech. suite trying to redeem himself and an evil businessman rival who wants the technology and makes his own suite as the villain). The after-credits scene with Captain America was something that I think needed more than an after-credits scene, a lot of the film seemed cliche, the romance between Ant Man and whatshername felt tacked on at the end because it was obligatory due to conventions, the Hydra connection also felt tacked on and out of sync with how weak Hydra has been portrayed as being now in other stuff, and some of the plot was terribly implausible.

However, the actors who played Pym and his daughter were pretty good. Also, I noted that the film's composer was Christophe Beck, who I'm familiar with because he did a lot of music for Buffy the Vampire Slayer back in the day.

Edit: I also quite liked the creativity of how they used the shrinking/enlarging technology and the ants.

[Elheru Aran]

OK, I hope this isn't too much of a necro, but I managed to watch it last night. Had the theater all to myself for the most part; that was kinda awesome. Even splurged on a drink. (Trust me, five bucks for a drink is a splurge...)

Overall impressions: Awesome. Nicely done. Decent story, decent plotting, some lovely tie-ins. A few fun references too ('Milgrom Hotel' anybody?).

Plot: Generally coherent enough. Biggest hole: Yellowjacket. We only ever see the suit in shrunken form until he puts it on. A brief scene at the start of the movie when he's doing his little presentation to the corporate bigwig types and Pym where they show it full-size and then shrink it, and Cross makes some remark to the effect of 'I know it works awesome, I've worn it myself a few times', cutting to Hank looking Very Worried (TM), would have taken care of that. But no, they just have Cross randomly putting on the Yellowjacket suit out of the blue and being semi-deranged to start with.

Speaking of the corporate bigwig types. Having Alexander Pierce take the place of Carson would have made more sense, IMO. Just a random HYDRA agent dude that happens to be in charge at SHIELD... not so much. Of course, Robert Redford probably costs too much to be put into a small-ish movie like this.

Another hole: Hank's keychain tank. How the hell did he re-size it? I suppose he could've had one of those expanding discs in his pocket, but nonetheless, that seems strange. Cute touch having the chain itself be enlarged.

And as TRR mentions, Scott and Hope's relationship seems a bit contrived. They seemed to have become something along the lines of former rivals turned grudgingly respectful friends, so Hank opening the door to find them in the middle of making out was a bit... unexpected. Having a bit where Scott unexpectedly lands a kiss on her lips as he's leaving would have been better, showing him initiating the relationship.

Of course, the shrinking stuff. Oy. I'm not going to bother getting into it, as it's gonna be one hell of a headache. Somehow though, I think the Quantum stuff is gonna be relevant at some point in the later movies, especially in regard to the Infinity Gauntlet... perhaps it's how you access the Soul Gem?

Timing is also problematic. Another reason they couldn't have used Alexander Pierce in the place of Carson-- this takes place after Age of Ultron (see Pym's crack about Avengers and floating cities), which is after Winter Soldier. I would have preferred if it'd happened roughly at the same time, perhaps immediately preceding Winter Soldier, but I can see how that would have caused audience confusion, especially with the stinger featuring Bucky.

I don't have an issue with Hank's wife's costume featuring wings; I imagine that either Hank didn't get around to making a winged suit for himself, or simply didn't see the need given he can ride flying ants.

Overall though. I had a lot of fun. Great little movie. Enjoyed it rather more than Age of Ultron.

Does anybody think that the 'I know a guy' line might well refer to Stephen Strange? Also the 'I know a guy that jumps, a guy that swings, a guy that climbs walls'-- Spider-Man fits 'swings' and 'climbs walls' but I'm not sure about 'jumps'. Of course if that's a cheesy reference to some cartoon theme song or something, I wouldn't know that. But Stephen Strange might make more sense in the context of the Cap/Falcon/Bucky stinger-- it appeared to me as though Cap was trying to help Bucky recover from all the mind-screwing he got, so Dr. Strange might be useful as far as that goes. How Falcon would know him, I have no idea.

[Darth Holbytlan]

Biggest hole: Yellowjacket. We only ever see the suit in shrunken form until he puts it on. A brief scene at the start of the movie when he's doing his little presentation to the corporate bigwig types and Pym where they show it full-size and then shrink it, and Cross makes some remark to the effect of 'I know it works awesome, I've worn it myself a few times', cutting to Hank looking Very Worried (TM), would have taken care of that. But no, they just have Cross randomly putting on the Yellowjacket suit out of the blue and being semi-deranged to start with.

That doesn't work though. It's a big plot point that Cross et al. hadn't figured out how to shrink living matter without pulverizing it at that point. That's what was holding everything up.

[Elheru Aran]

Biggest hole: Yellowjacket. We only ever see the suit in shrunken form until he puts it on. A brief scene at the start of the movie when he's doing his little presentation to the corporate bigwig types and Pym where they show it full-size and then shrink it, and Cross makes some remark to the effect of 'I know it works awesome, I've worn it myself a few times', cutting to Hank looking Very Worried (TM), would have taken care of that. But no, they just have Cross randomly putting on the Yellowjacket suit out of the blue and being semi-deranged to start with.

That doesn't work though. It's a big plot point that Cross et al. hadn't figured out how to shrink living matter without pulverizing it at that point. That's what was holding everything up.

No, obviously they had made the suit full-size previously and then shrunk it (unless you really wanna theorize that they built it at shrunk scale). Cross doesn't act clumsy or un-handy in the suit when he wears it-- it's like he's been using it for quite some time already... which doesn't really make sense, unless he's already worked with it in full size. Obviously they wouldn't show it full-size and then shrink it with someone in it, splatting volunteers doesn't make a very good impression and they already did it to some poor SOB in Iron Man 2.

The derangement could be explained as simply the effect of being *around* his knock-off version of Pym Particles for a fair while... which I suppose I can buy, we see him experimenting on the poor lamb without any particular protection later on in the movie (when they successfully shrink it). His familiarity with the yellow goo breeds contempt, and since Pym was presumably very close-mouthed about the Particles at all (Lang and perhaps Hope being the only ones he talked to about them after his wife's death), he wouldn't have told Cross about their deleterious effects.

[Simon_Jester]

Speaking of the corporate bigwig types. Having Alexander Pierce take the place of Carson would have made more sense, IMO. Just a random HYDRA agent dude that happens to be in charge at SHIELD... not so much. Of course, Robert Redford probably costs too much to be put into a small-ish movie like this.

That would have made sense, except that Pierce is dead as of the time this movie happens.

Another hole: Hank's keychain tank. How the hell did he re-size it? I suppose he could've had one of those expanding discs in his pocket, but nonetheless, that seems strange.

He had to have known he'd need a getaway vehicle of some kind, plus the very fact that he shrank a fully functional tank at some point suggests he had a plan for re-expanding it. Maybe he stashed a container of Pym particles inside the tank and you just have to, oh, apply an electric current across the hull to make it re-expand?

And as TRR mentions, Scott and Hope's relationship seems a bit contrived. They seemed to have become something along the lines of former rivals turned grudgingly respectful friends, so Hank opening the door to find them in the middle of making out was a bit... unexpected. Having a bit where Scott unexpectedly lands a kiss on her lips as he's leaving would have been better, showing him initiating the relationship.

[Elheru Aran]

I did note that the timeline would have been an issue; Ant-Man happens after Age of Ultron. I feel it might have worked a little better if it was set roughly contemporaneous with Winter Soldier, but audience confusion with the timeline would have been an issue there. Of course, a small subtitle along the lines of 'Before the Attack on the Triskelion' or some such would have resolved that particular issue, and then you could have thrown in an extra dramatic element by HYDRA telling Cross that they're suddenly a little short for money due to being ganked by Cap's decapitation of their organization. This could be the impetus that pushes Cross over the line into using the Yellowjacket suit.

[Elheru Aran]

I did find one WMG on TVTropes that kinda makes sense as far as the Cap/Bucky stinger goes-- it does appear that Bucky's arm is being held in a vise in the stinger, and the WMG is that the robot arm is capable of being remotely controlled by HYDRA. When Bucky went rogue, they decided to nip him in the bud by making the arm choke him out, but he immobilized it with the vise to save his life. And Cap, not knowing fancy mechanical shit, is slightly helpless. Stark is out of the picture thanks to the 'Accords'. But what can Ant-Man do... why, infiltrate complex electronics and disable them, as he did with Falcon and Yellowjacket. Therefore, 'I know a guy'.

Of course, the situation is pretty open-ended, so I think my guess of Dr Strange is as valid as any other notion regarding who Falcon is talking about...

[Lord Revan]

Btw am I the only one who found it a bit intresting that it's implied that publically the Pym family is so badly fractured that Hope being at Hank Pym's apparentment would a major warning bell to Cross instead of "I may not like him but he's still my dad" moment.

[Elheru Aran]

I thought that was more just Cross showing his crazy. It's possible for children to not get along with their parents but still stop by every now and then, and if he's that much of a control freak he has to know where she is, well, that's just more proof he's gone around the bend.

[Darth Holbytlan]

Biggest hole: Yellowjacket. We only ever see the suit in shrunken form until he puts it on. A brief scene at the start of the movie when he's doing his little presentation to the corporate bigwig types and Pym where they show it full-size and then shrink it, and Cross makes some remark to the effect of 'I know it works awesome, I've worn it myself a few times', cutting to Hank looking Very Worried (TM), would have taken care of that. But no, they just have Cross randomly putting on the Yellowjacket suit out of the blue and being semi-deranged to start with.

That doesn't work though. It's a big plot point that Cross et al. hadn't figured out how to shrink living matter without pulverizing it at that point. That's what was holding everything up.

No, obviously they had made the suit full-size previously and then shrunk it (unless you really wanna theorize that they built it at shrunk scale). Cross doesn't act clumsy or un-handy in the suit when he wears it-- it's like he's been using it for quite some time already... which doesn't really make sense, unless he's already worked with it in full size. Obviously they wouldn't show it full-size and then shrink it with someone in it, splatting volunteers doesn't make a very good impression and they already did it to some poor SOB in Iron Man 2.

But you seem to be implying that Cross's derangement was a result of the suit, right? At least that's how I interpreted your "Hank looking Very Worried (TM)". But being in the suit wouldn't expose anyone to Pym particles unless they shrank, which at that point would have killed Cross, not made him nuts. And he already seemed to be deranged by the time they worked out that kink.

The derangement could be explained as simply the effect of being *around* his knock-off version of Pym Particles for a fair while... which I suppose I can buy, we see him experimenting on the poor lamb without any particular protection later on in the movie (when they successfully shrink it). His familiarity with the yellow goo breeds contempt, and since Pym was presumably very close-mouthed about the Particles at all (Lang and perhaps Hope being the only ones he talked to about them after his wife's death), he wouldn't have told Cross about their deleterious effects.

There were a lot of experimenters working around Pym particles, though, and most of them would have more exposure than Cross. Maybe all of them were nuts, but it wasn't hinted at, and it makes the idea of Hank or Scott running around in the suit while shrinking and growing pretty unfriendly to everyone around.

[Simon_Jester]

Maybe it's because Cross deliberately exposed himself to the horribly distorted matter produced by failed Pym particle experiments, which are radioactive? Maybe he didn't use safety equipment that others did, on one or more occasions? Maybe Pym knows how to make his technology self-contained so it doesn't irradiate his surroundings, and only moderately irradiates himself?

[Elheru Aran]

Pym struck me as much more the lone scientist type. He gave off the impression that he had been extremely close-mouthed about the Pym Particles throughout his life. Perhaps others worked with the particles for a short time, but he kept the actual secrets of creating and using them close to his chest. The suit is developed specifically to channel the particles in a safe manner. If Cross wasn't using such safeguards...

[Lord Revan]

I think we're missing a key part here, if Cross was somewhat unstable to begin with and Hank Pym knows that unshielded exposure to Pym particles causes mental deteriation it could be that he was worried that Cross would not take the proper safety precautions due to his inherrent unstabilities and end up causing way too much damage.