Physics and the MCU's Ant-Man

 I've enjoyed the two Ant-Man movies (and his appearances in "Captain America: Civil War" and "Avengers: Endgame"), but I just do not understand the physics of his size transformations -- or those of his partner, the Wasp.

Through the use of Pym particles, Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) can shrink to insect-size or expand to as tall as 60 feet. When he shrinks, he can ride on flying insects, but somehow he retains enough mass that when he rams into a person, he delivers quite a punch. I don't understand how both of these can be true. Either his shrinking is in dimensions (height, width, girth) only, meaning basically the atoms in his body move closer together; or his mass somehow changes, perhaps because 99 out of 100 atoms disappear.

The dimensional shrinking is the explanation given in the 1966 sci-fi thriller Fantastic Voyage (one of the recently passed Raquel Welch's first big roles), where a submarine and specialized crew are shrunk to the size of a bacteria so that they can navigate the blood vessels of a defecting scientist to repair a dangerous blood clot near the brain that can't be reached by other means. (Yeah, the dimensional shrinking didn't make sense there either, since the mass of a submarine being injected into a person should collapse through the body to the ground.)

Ant-Man's tiny form seems consistent with this dimensional shrinking, though -- even though he's insect-sized, he packs a punch like a human still. But then, how can the flying insect carry him?

And worse yet, when he expands to Giant-Man, if he retained human mass, then he should have an approximate density of 1/1000 -- at 60 feet tall, he's approximately 10 times taller, so he's gaining 10 times in each of the three dimensions, leading to 1/1000. With such light density, he should blow over in the wind, and certainly not be able to deliver giant punches with authority.

I know, they are comic book movies, literally. I do enjoy them. I just don't get the physics.

Another argument for why I think "Deep Space Nine" is the best Star Trek series

One of my controversial pop culture opinions is that "Deep Space Nine" is the best Star Trek series. Usually, it's the original series or "Next Generation" that tends to sit atop rankings of the various shows. I get that: the original kicked off 50+ years of the franchise, and there are iconic episodes and some of the even-numbered movies. Meanwhile, "Next Gen" added much better visual effects, the beginning of some continuing story threads and character arcs, and more subtle acting.

But consider this -- the funniest episode of the original series is generally thought to be "The Trouble with Tribbles," or maybe "A Piece of the Action" (the gangster episode). The "Deep Space Nine" sequel to "Tribbles" is "Trials and Tribble-ations," and ingeniously sends the DS9 crew back in time to keep a Klingon agent from changing the events in the original episode. It's even funnier than the original episode -- the attempt to explain the retconning of the way Klingons look is enough by itself:

However, as great as "Trials and Tribble-ations" is, it's not at all clear that it's the funniest "DS9" episode. It gets strong competition from the following episodes:

"The Magnificent Ferengi," remaking "The Magnificent Seven" with a ragtag group of Ferengi to rescue Quark's mom!:

"House of Quark," where Quark tries to explain financial shenanigans to the Klingons:

"Our Man Bashir," where Dr. Bashir's James Bond fantasy goes very wrong:

and "Take Me Out to the Holosuite," pitching the DS9 crew versus Vulcans in baseball:

 These episodes are funnier than anything in any of the other live-action series.*

* I haven't watched any of the animated series "Lower Decks," which I gather is a comedy, so I can't compare "DS9" to it.

 "DS9" isn't generally thought of as a funny show; it has the reputation for being the darkest of the Star Trek shows, and it excels in that regard. Yet, for a dark show, it also has the best comic episodes. It's like the Shohei Otani of Star Trek series.

Ranking the Jack Ryans on screen

 

Jack Ryan, the protagonist of most of the Tom Clancy spy novels, has been played by five actors over the past 30+ years, starting with Alec Baldwin in The Hunt for Red October (1990). Harrison Ford picked up the role in Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994). Ben Affleck took over in The Sum of All Fears (2002), which apparently killed off interest in the character for a while, as Chris Pine did not play Ryan until 2014 in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. Finally, John Krasinski assumed the role in the Amazon series Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan starting in 2018, with season 2 in 2019, and season 3 in 2022.

I have just one more episode of season 3 to go, so I feel like I can rank the Ryan portrayals -- with one exception: I haven't watched Affleck's try at it, so I'll leave him out of my rankings.

Again, this is a ranking of the portrayals, not the merits of the movies or TV show. It's how well each actor has inhabited the role of Jack Ryan.

1. Alec Baldwin

Jack Ryan is an analyst, not a field agent, but he did serve as a Marine, so he can get stuff done in the field. Baldwin really nailed the thinker who's sent into the field.

2. John Krasinski

Krasinski's Ryan is stockier and more action-oriented, but with the benefit of 24 episodes over three seasons, he's had the most room to make the role his. (As a side note, no one can match James Earl Jones as James Greer in terms of screen presence, so the TV show wisely doesn't try and instead has made Wendell Pierce's version an older peer who is still in the field.)

3. Harrison Ford

I've found Ford's version to be a little much of an earnest Boy Scout, culminating in the showdown scene in Clear and Present Danger where the President says to Ryan "how dare you come in here, barking like a junkyard dog," and Ryan responds, "how dare you, Mr. President." Too corny for me.

4. Chris Pine

I like Pine in pretty much everything I've seen him in (The Princess Diaries, Star Trek reboots, Wonder Woman) but he didn't really stand out as Ryan in his one appearance. He could've been any more or less generic American operative in Europe, and the movie would've been the same.

Let's talk about Hollywood and foreign languages

I'm a little more than halfway through season 3 of Amazon's "Jack Ryan" series and enjoying it quite a bit. But one thing that bothers me about the show is how it handles the use of foreign languages.

Major non-American characters in season 3 are Czech or Russian, including the Presidents of each of those two countries along with advisors, etc.

Yet, conversations among all Czech or all Russian characters take place in English (with slight Eastern European accents). How does this happen?

Okay, perhaps this is a conceit for the audience. The slight accents are there to tip off the viewer that "hey, this conversation is actually taking place in Czech/Russian, but the show is giving it to you in English because you probably don't want to read subtitles." (Not to mention, it's easier for the actors if they aren't conversant in Czech/Russian.)

Well, that might make sense, except that the same characters, when speaking English to an American character, have the same slight accent. Moreover, there is a scene where one of the American characters speaks in Russian to another character, and that entire conversation is indeed in Russian with English subtitling.

So it's very confusing -- I have no idea what language these conversations are actually being used. I would rather that conversations take place in their actual language, with English subtitling for non-English conversations. I get that this would be harder on the actors, but it's not as if large parts of the show are in foreign languages.

One of the best conceits that I've seen to deal with this language issue was in, ironically, the first Jack Ryan vehicle, The Hunt for Red October. At the start of that movie, the scenes on the Russian nuclear submarine are in Russian. This would be difficult to keep up for the entire movie, so there is a scene where Sean Connery's character is meeting with the political officer. The political officer takes a copy of the Bible from Connery's shelf and starts reading in Russian. The camera zooms in as this is happening, then stops, and then reverses to zoom out. When this happens, the political officer is speaking in English. It's a neat trick that cues the viewer in to the fact that it's all still in Russian, just that we're hearing it in English. Near the end of the movie, when the Russian sailors meet American sailors, the Russians speak in Russian to themselves.

Anyway, Hollywood is, to be fair, taking steps toward incorporating more foreign language dialogue -- something like 30% of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was in Mandarin, and large parts of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever are in the fictional language of Wakanda. I wish the trend would speed up.

Review of the C-drama "Love Me If You Dare" (2015)

This summer, I've embarked on a quest to improve my grasp of Chinese (Mandarin), and part of that involves watching Chinese movies and TV shows in the original language. I can understand about half of what is being said if I forego English subtitles, but I've been leaving them on to help with the other half.

I just finished this "C-drama" (Chinese drama) and highly recommend it for anyone who likes crime thrillers. It streams on Amazon Prime or you can find it on YouTube. If you have Prime, I would recommend using that because the picture and sound quality is much better. (The only advantage of the YouTube feed is if you want to follow the Chinese subtitling, which is readable if you turn off the English CC. Amazon, for understandable reasons, stripped the Chinese subtitling, which is otherwise standard for Chinese movies and shows.)

Anyway, "Love Me If You Dare" (or "He Comes Now, Please Close Your Eyes" in Chinese) is something like Silence of the Lambs if it had a rom-com element to it. The main characters are Bo Jin Yan aka Simon and Jian Yao aka Jenny. Names are given in traditional Chinese format, so Simon's surname is Bo and Jenny's is Jian. Professor Bo is a brilliant criminal psychologist with near zero EQ. He spent some time in the U.S. where he was captured by a serial killer known as the Flower Cannibal but managed to escape and is now recuperating back in China. He hires Jian, who is finishing college, to assist him in solving, as he puts it, cases involving the worst and most devious killers.

The first few episodes involve Bo and Jian chasing someone who has been abducting young boys and killing them in a gruesome fashion. With enough clues, Bo can sort of envision the crime from the killer's point-of-view (not unlike, say, Will Graham in Manhunter), and then he condescendingly prods Jian into figuring things out herself. This is the pattern for the first 3/4 of the series, before things kick into high gear.

Some of the rest of the case (to mention all of the characters would give away too much) include Fu Zi Yi, who is Bo's only friend and a tech genius (and my favorite character of the series for the comic edge that he added); and Li Xun Ran, who is a police officer and childhood friend of Jian's.

Lead actor Wallace Hou has a tough job, but succeeds in portraying Bo's supreme intelligence and his social awkwardness, and yet making the chemistry with Jian seem believable. Lead actress Ma Sichun (aka Sandra Ma) is terrific as Jian, showing her to be smart and fesity. In the later part of the show, she has less to do but even then Ma does some incredible acting, including one scene that's heartbreaking to watch. Yin Zheng (aka Andrew Yin) steals every scene he's in as Fu, and Wang Kai plays Li as a serious, dedicated police officer.

The production values are good. The music, in particular, really captures the mood of the show, from the creepy, "X-Files"-like main theme, to the light and funny rom-com ditty when the show veers away from the mysteries toward the developing relationship between Bo and Jian.

There's one really weird thing about the show, though. There are numerous scenes where Chinese characters speak to American characters, and everyone speaks in their own language without interpreters, yet everyone (save for one scene) understands everyone else. There aren't that many non-Chinese speakers of Mandarin in the United States...

Anyway, I really enjoyed this show. I picked up some new Chinese vocabulary, although I'm not sure how useful these words will be on a practical level for me: "perverted" (bian tai de), "victim" (so hai zhe), "fingerprint" (zhi wen), and so on.

MCU chronological rewatch -- sorting the movies into tiers

The combination of Covid-19 "stay at home" orders and Disney+ led the family to rewatch the MCU movies in chronological (not release) order, starting with "Captain America: The First Avenger" (1940s), then "Captain Marvel" (1995), and so on. The only MCU flick we didn't watch was "The Incredible Hulk," because it's not available on Disney+ and I was too cheap to rent it.

Overall, the MCU is very impressive, and collectively, far better than the Star Wars cinematic universe. The worst MCU movie ("Iron Man 2") is nowhere as bad as "The Phantom Menace," and the best MCU movies surpass "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Rogue One" (though the last half of "Rogue One" is spectacular).

Okay, here we go:

#1 - "Thor: Ragnorak"

Before this movie, I found Thor to be a dull character. Director Taika Watiti brilliantly fuses comedy with thrills, and just about everything works perfectly here. Hela is an incredible antagonist, played with chillingly hamminess by Cate Blanchett, and wait, there's more, with Jeff Goldblum's even smarmier Grandmaster. Thor gets so many funny lines, from "that's what heroes do" (as he throws a ball against a window, only to have it bounce back and hit in the face) to how he flatters the Hulk and Banner separately, each time saying he likes the current incarnation and not the other one to "he's a friend from work!" (when he is matched against the Hulk in the arena). Oh, and how Thor keeps trying to calm Hulk down by saying "the sun's getting low," which is (I think) mockery of the lame Black Widow-Bruce Banner forced romance in "Age of Ultron." This movie was so fun it reportedly made Chris Hemsworth change his mind about being done playing Thor.

#2 - "Avengers: Infinity War"

Yes, it ends in a cliffhanger (but so too did "The Empire Strikes Back"). It starts strong with Thanos crushing the Asgardians and the Hulk, and then never lets up. Lots of funny lines too. I got chills when Thanos finally made his appearance on the Earth - walking out of a mist of purple fog.

#3 - "Captain America - The Winter Soldier"

Until the rewatch, this was number 2 on my list. Its drop reflects my greater appreciation of "Infinity War," not any discontentment with this one. I love conspiracy thrillers, and this movie is as close to "24" as the MCU gets.

That's it in terms of individual rankings. The rest are sorted into tiers:

Great

"Ant-Man" - super funny; only thing that keeps it from breaking into the top 3 is that the villain is sort of derivative of the one from "Iron Man"

"Black Panther" - great villain who's almost sympathetic (one of my boys asked, "would Killmonger be the hero if he didn't kill all those random people?"), and T'Challa is a really good lead

"Iron Man" - started it all

"Guardians of the Galaxy, vol. 1" - it's like "The Avengers," but funny

"Spider-Man: Homecoming" - that reveal of Vulture was a knock-out

Good

"Ant-Man and the Wasp" - not as good as the first, but always good to see Walton Goggins

"Avengers: Endgame" - very moving but so much didn't make sense

"Captain America: Civil War" - liked it better the first time I watched it; still, introduces T'Challa and Peter Parker

"Doctor Strange" - really weird, appropriately so

"Spider-Man: Far From Home" - best for the chemistry between Tom Holland and Zendaya

Okay

"The Avengers" - bloated

"Avengers: Age of Ultron" - how can a movie featuring James Spader's snarky tone be so blase?

"Captain America: The First Avenger" - kind of boring

"Captain Marvel" - it's fine, but nothing special except for the Flerken

"Guardians of the Galaxy, vol. 2" - I liked the addition of Mantis to the GotG, but eh

"Iron Man 2" - the worst

"Iron Man 3" - better on rewatch

"Thor" - Shakespearean tone and MCU don't mesh well

"Thor: The Dark World" - too long

Fictional POTUSes in TV and movies

I rewatched "White House Down" last night, and one thought I had was, man, Channing Tatum was lucky he was guarding Jamie Foxx (who's spry and athletic), and not Trump or Biden! That inspired this list of

TV and movie POTUSes and my thoughts on whether I'd vote for them if they were real:

James Sawyer (Jamie Foxx) on "White House Down" - DEFINITELY YES; he's like a cooler version of Obama.

David Palmer (Dennis Haysbert) on "24" - DEFINITELY YES; he sent Jack Bauer after terrorists; does anything else need to be said?

Wayne Palmer (D.B. Woodside) on "24" - maybe; not as cool and inspiring as his older brother, but he did support Bauer as well.

Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart) in "Olympus Has Fallen" - NO WAY; just compare how he handled being coerced by terrorists versus Jamie Foxx in "White House Down"

Charles Logan (Gregory Itzen) on "24" - NO WAY. Have you seen "24"?!?(Great actor, though)

Thomas Whitmore (Bill Pullman) in "Independence Day" - Probably? He did give what is possibly the greatest ever Presidential speech...

James Marshall (Harrison Ford) in "Air Force One" - maybe. He seemed kind of boring, but he did fight off hijackers by himself.

President White (Donald Pleasance) in "Escape from New York" - um, no.

Fitz Grant (Tony Goldwyn) on "Scandal" - Probably. He was Shonda Rimes' conception of a Republican, which meant he was basically a moderate Democrat.

Thomas Kirkland (Kiefer Sutherland) on "Designated Survivor" - yeah, I know he's not Jack Bauer (we can only dream), but he was a straight-up nerd who told it as it was.

Allison Taylor (Cherry Jones) on "24" - probably? She was fine; her sniveling husband and conniving daughter were not.

Mellie Grant (Bellamy Young) on "Scandal" - Yes! I started off really disliking her (because she was set up as an antagonist to star Olivia Pope) but by the end, I was rooting for her.

***

Now, there are a few notable fictional Presidents missing from my list. I haven't watched "The West Wing," "The American President," or "House of Cards," so I can't say whether I'd vote for any of them. Also, I skipped some of the Presidents in "24" and other shows that I've watched. Create your own list!