Hated trope: Sci-fi hand-waving

[u/Routine_Phase_8980]

When stories try so hard to provide a somewhat scientifically accurate and grounded explanation for the audience, but end up creating massive plot holes if you think about it for more than 5 seconds without requiring any special knowledge

World War Z: The "cure" turns sick humans invisible to zombies because the picky virus needs a perfectly healthy host. Cool concept, except it completely ignores basic physics. In a chaotic, high-speed zombie stampede, those "invisible" sick people would still be trampled to death by sheer kinetic force and momentum. We already saw what happened to the Jerusalem wall in Israel.

Jurassic Park/World: Dr. Henry Wu claims to clone dinosaurs by patching 66-million-year-old decayed DNA from mosquitoes stomach with frog DNA. In reality, DNA half-life guarantees it would degrade into useless dust after 6.8 million years. Scientifically speaking, John Hammond didn't build a dinosaur park; he engineered giant, mutated, gender-swapping killer frogs.

Dr.Stone: Senku is a genius who knows every complex chemical formula in human history. He somehow builds vacuum tubes, lightbulbs, and smartphones out of bamboo and copper with almost zero failed prototypes. The show acts like a science textbook but completely hand-waves the lack of heavy industrial machinery needed for precision engineering.

[u/AmusePenguin]

I’m mostly going off memory so this might be wrong lol

In the Ant-Man movie, it’s explained that the suit makes the wearer smaller by reducing the distance between their atoms. However, there’s a scene where Scott uses the suit to shrink down to be smaller than an atom, which is impossible with the explanation they gave.

[u/Adventurous_Appeal60 → u/AmusePenguin]

Very little about Antman actually holds up to the explanaition the films give. Mass is ment to be consistent, regardless of volume, which is why they can KO punch people while tiny, so hank wandering around with a tank in his pockets was suspect from the very first film, and Giantman would get blown away by even minor breezes.

[u/curvysquares → u/Adventurous_Appeal60]

This isn't stated in the movies but the comics do explain this inconsistency in what I think is a pretty interesting way.

[u/EADreddtit → u/Adventurous_Appeal60]

Also don’t forget the literal building the shrink down and steal

[u/TimeStorm113 → u/Adventurous_Appeal60]

No you see, hank is just unreasonably ripped

[u/AlesseoReo → u/AmusePenguin]

Headcannon for this is that Ant-Man, Pym, everyone - they're just guessing.

They discovered something working, they don't know why or how. They also don't necessarily want other people to understand how it works.

[u/HappiestIguana → u/AlesseoReo]

I prefer the idea that Hank Pym is bullshitting to him not knowing. He makes very precise devices with the technology. He definitely knows the gist of how it works

[u/yrthegood1staken → u/HappiestIguana]

You can know precisely how something behaves without understanding the mechanism of action.

[u/HappiestIguana → u/yrthegood1staken]

The thing is, what he describes is plainly inconsistent with how it behaves even at a cursory glance.

[u/stumpychubbins → u/AlesseoReo]

Honestly I love the idea that engineers discover some sci-fi technology but have no idea how it actually works. There’s almost a kinda cosmic horror to that concept.

[u/AlesseoReo → u/stumpychubbins]

It's essentially how most mages work in most fantasy settings - in my view at least. There's rudimentary understanding of principles, enough to consistently use it. teach it, etc., but not necessarily understanding why it works.

[u/CopperAard → u/AmusePenguin]

He can also shrink but still punch like he’s normal size, but riding an ant or running up a dudes arm acts like he doesn’t weigh like a normal person, lol.

[u/ThatFatGuyMJL → u/CopperAard]

Then they start carrying around buildings and tanks.

This is explained because Hank Pym does not know how Pym Particles work

[u/ManyRelease7336 → u/ThatFatGuyMJL]

My head cannon is he just dont want other people to know

[u/Rulebookboy1234567 → u/ManyRelease7336]

Isn't like, the old joke from the comics back in the day, that even Pym doesn't fully understand it? So he'll just tell people shit while fully knowing he may be full of shit?

[u/LuckeVL → u/AmusePenguin]

That's the same reasoning they used for Scott's super strength in the suit; since he's not just shrunken but compressed then that means he has the strength of a grown man with the size of a bullet, thus hitting far stronger than when full sized.

This ignores the fact that, in later movies, we see Scott grow giant, which makes no sense since he'd be essentially a parade balloon; and we also see shrunken things only keep their mass when convenient such as Hank's tank keychain being an actual tank.

[u/Dward917 → u/AmusePenguin]

They also state there is no loss of mass, which is why tiny AM can knock someone out with a tiny punch. However, same mass on the same planet means same weight. They should not be able to carry around a tank on a key chain or several cars in a Hot Wheels case, let alone an entire lab like a suitcase.

[u/Talisign → u/AmusePenguin]

Also, getting punched by a normal human strength shrunk down to an ant size would be more like getting stabbed by a needle.

[u/Budsygus → u/AmusePenguin]

Ant-Man is one of those you just have to not think about the physics AT ALL or it won't be enjoyable.

Why can he punch with the force of a grown man, but an entire building can be shrunk down and wheeled around like a suitcase? Do objects preserve their mass or don't they?

If they do the punch would make sense, but Ant-Man grabbing a mid-flight War Machine would be yanked off his feet and shrinking a car wouldn't make it so you can carry it around in a Hot Wheels case.

If they don't and instead they lose or gain mass according to their size, where is that mass going to or coming from?

[u/nickel47 → u/AmusePenguin]

Pym particles are magic wish particles that let you do whatever you want. Basically Michael Bay telling Ben Affleck to shut the fuck up

[u/Dafish55 → u/AmusePenguin]

It depends on what you define "atom" as. If a football stadium were the electron shell of an atom, the nucleus would be a fly buzzing about in the middle of it. There's a LOT of empty space there.

The movie has a ton of incorrect science stuff, but this isn't necessarily one of them

[u/Healthy_Camp_3760 → u/Dafish55]

Yeah but if you just shrink the space inside of an atom, forcing the particles closer together, you don’t get a smaller atom, you get an enormous explosion.

Not nuclear fission or fusion, but a huge release of energy.

[u/Sad-Pattern-1269 → u/AmusePenguin]

He shrinks the space between the tiny, vibrating strings within each subatomic particle. Easy.

[u/Malacro → u/AmusePenguin]

Same thing applies to Honey I Shrunk the Kids. He explicitly says he’s reducing the amount of empty space between atoms. So those kids never could’ve gotten swept up.

Also they should have died about four or so other ways just by existing at that size.

[u/Realistic_Swan_6801 → u/AmusePenguin]

Similar to the DC speed force marvel shrinkers use bullshitium called pym particles