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Missed Opportunities for SW

Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2018 3:52 am
by Sdk
I started a similar thread in another forum on missed oppirtunities for shrinking women in TV/movies.

Here are a couple

Lois & Clark - Its a Small World - A jealous woman decides to take revenge on her high school foes with a shrinking potion. However, the woman she shrinks is already small when the episode begins.

The episode ends when the woman gets soaked with the potion and shrinks to nothing. Her reaction is great, but the shrink is so fast, and uses no effects. It could've been great.

Attack of the 50 Foot Cheerleader - Good girl turns into a giantess, then a bad girl does. They engage is an epic giantess battle, but the bad girl is accidentally given too big of a dose and she winds up three feet tall.

Sounds great, but, again no effects used. The actress just stands on her knees. Like Lois and Clark, the actress reaction is great, but it could've been so much better.

Any others?

Re: Missed Opportunities for SW

Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2018 5:03 am
by rscholar
Eureka: "O Little Town" - The entire town is shrunk during Christmas. Local nutty inventor Taggert creates a shrink ray to easily deliver Christmas presents, but the device is stolen to shrink fruitcakes into bite-sized appetizers. The literal explanation of the result is an out-of-control field effect caused by the energy necessary to shrink the super-thick cakes, which, coupled with the town's newly installed protective dome, shrinks everyone and everything inside. Aside from a quick zoom out of two characters, one played by the super-hot Erica Cera, looking up at the giant town sign and a brief scene of a Christmas ornament (somehow) rolling through town, nothing interesting happens. Everyone mentions they've shrunk, do their b-stories about what Christmas means to them, then quickly solve the problem. I wasn't expecting handhelds necessarily, but there was hardly any comparison shots or decent sense of scale to show.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (mentioning in part because I just heard they're looking to launch a reboot) - Supposedly there's a gag where some geeks were mapping out a shrink ray to rob a bank or something, plus there's an actual shrinking scene involving two guys trading sizes, but nothing actually happened to Buffy. Worse, there were plans for an animated series with a confirmed episode involving Buffy being shrunk, but no one would greenlight it.

Once Upon a Time / OUAT in Wonderland: Both had a few scenes, but OUAT never had something happen to the main female characters (outside a GT handheld) and only like towards series end had tangible sw but wasn't a major part of the plot (I think Ariel was once accidentally shrunk inside a ship in a bottle, but it's just implied). In OUATiW, Alice shrinks twice, but only one (in the pilot) has process; the other is her appearing tiny next to another character. I've actually heard a youtube podcast crew (all women I believe) say they wished they could've seen Alice shrink onscreen, then claim it would've been too costly to the studio, yet they took the time to graft Iggy Pop's face onto a caterpillar.

Mars Attacks: Towards the end, the lead alien whips out a shrink ray and zaps a crazy general, then stomps him. I actually think it's a really cool scene conceptually, but obviously it never happens to, say, Sarah Jessica Parker.

The Flash: Honey I Shrunk Team Flash - Despite the title, only two male characters are shrunk by the supervillain Dwarfstar, then mostly stand around and gripe (one of them, Elongated Man, gets stepped on and appears cartoonishly smooshed on the bottom of a boot). The main season villain, The Thinker, later steals a bunch of superpowers, including the shrinking ability, then raids a military compound and shrinks and stomps a guard. Far as I can tell it's never used again.

Supergirl: They introduced the concept of Red Kryptonite back in season 1, but so far it was only demonstrated to make her aggressive and evil. No word yet on Kandor or Shrinking Violet since the League of Superheroes was recently introduced.

Duke Nukem Forever: Supposedly there were plans for Duke to have a female sidekick, Bombshell, join him. The game features an extensive area involving Duke being shrunk to action figure size and riding an RC car. Bombshell seemingly would have been able to do the same.

Power Rangers: I believe there was an un-filmed two-parter involving some of the rangers being shrunk out of costume and involving at least one of the women rangers. In any case, the Zeo series has Tommy and Cat being shrunk to insect size, then restored by Billy with his own invention, meaning that universe depicted a human discovering how to alter the size of other beings whenever he wanted. Aside from sw potential, that should've been a game-changer in general.

Harry Potter: At least two forms of shrinking - spell and potion - and the only time I've seen anyone use on themselves or others was from the mobile game where the player's custom character shrinks themselves to sneak into a House.

He-Man: No Small Problem - The villains use a ray to shrink Orko, Man-At-Arms, and Teela and set a trap. He-Man, realizing he can't save his friends directly, reverts to Prince Adam and shrinks himself to foil the trap, then shrinks two male villains. Evil-Lyn, realizing she's beaten, cowers at the threat of being shrunk as well, but He-Man says her punishment will be to explain things to Skellator. Wow.

K3 - Love Cruise: Dutch(?) girl-pop band go on a cruise, but then have to deal with a freed vengeful genie/elf who at one point shrinks all three girls to about an inch tall. There's some great shots and one of the girls actually picks up her shrunken friend, but once all three are tiny they just sit at the edge of a table and talk, then, just as the boyfriend of one of the girls enters their room, they instantly poof back to normal seemingly for no reason.

Re: Missed Opportunities for SW

Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2018 1:22 pm
by Sdk
Witch Hunt - This mis 90s HBO original features a great shrinking out of clothes sequence......unfortunately, its a man.

American Horror Story - Coven - I thought Ryan Murphy's mix of taboo, horror, camp, and sex might have a shrinking spell somewhere along the line, but the main power used throughout this disappointing series is resurrection, rendering any death in the show free of drama. A pity, Lily Rabe or Emma Roberts would be great SWs.

The Real Ghostbusters - An evil ghost shrinks the four Ghostbusters. Unfortunately, Jeanine was not in the firehouse when the shrinking spirit arrived.

I forgot to mention in that Lois and Clark episode, the villainness was stopped right when she was about to shrink Lois (Teri Hatcher). They could've had her pour the potion on Lois, have Lois crawl out of her clothes to watch Superman thrwart the villainness. Whoever wrote this episode dropped the ball so many times.

Re: Missed Opportunities for SW

Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2018 2:54 pm
by kira123
Let's not forget about the sequel to 'Help, I Shrunk My Teacher'. Like most shows that lead to buzzkills, even for me, you'd think they're be handhelds in that film since there are 2 SWs in there. We didn't. Instead, we get a too quick and an off-screen handheld. Didn't last long as the handheld of the shrunken teacher we had in the original. They got alot of stuff going on there, funny even, but it feels like it needs something more.

Re: Missed Opportunities for SW

Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2018 9:07 am
by goodshrnker
kira123 wrote:
Sat Jul 21, 2018 2:54 pm
Let's not forget about the sequel to 'Help, I Shrunk My Teacher'. Like most shows that lead to buzzkills, even for me, you'd think they're be handhelds in that film since there are 2 SWs in there. We didn't. Instead, we get a too quick and an off-screen handheld. Didn't last long as the handheld of the shrunken teacher we had in the original. They got alot of stuff going on there, funny even, but it feels like it needs something more.
Yeah, it was disappointing. There were more handhelds and stuff in the trailer for the first movie than in the entire second movie. Maybe there will be a third movie where his friend the blonde girl gets shrunk called, "Help, I Shrunk My Friend" or something.

Re: Missed Opportunities for SW

Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2018 10:28 am
by Sdk
goodshrnker wrote:
Sun Jul 22, 2018 9:07 am
kira123 wrote:
Sat Jul 21, 2018 2:54 pm
Let's not forget about the sequel to 'Help, I Shrunk My Teacher'. Like most shows that lead to buzzkills, even for me, you'd think they're be handhelds in that film since there are 2 SWs in there. We didn't. Instead, we get a too quick and an off-screen handheld. Didn't last long as the handheld of the shrunken teacher we had in the original. They got alot of stuff going on there, funny even, but it feels like it needs something more.
Yeah, it was disappointing. There were more handhelds and stuff in the trailer for the first movie than in the entire second movie. Maybe there will be a third movie where his friend the blonde girl gets shrunk called, "Help, I Shrunk My Friend" or something.
Speaking of sequels, Alice Through the Looking Glass was not only a very dull movie, but other than a very quick scene, had no SW content.

Re: Missed Opportunities for SW

Posted: Thu Jan 16, 2020 5:02 pm
by CaptainAtila
There is a missed one in the latest episode of the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover of the CW / DC TV universe.

The big (literally big) bad guy, the AntiMonitor has trapped Superman in his hand, so Atom shoots the man of steel to make him small, so he can escape in his new size.

Once the AntiMonitor is defeated, Supergirl asks for her cousin, and the next thing we can see is a shrunken Superman shaking her arms to be noticed.

If the roles had been reversed ... a little Supergirl had been sooo cute.

Re: Missed Opportunities for SW

Posted: Thu Jan 16, 2020 5:42 pm
by Gooner2
I thought that as well. Crossover was amazing, but the lack of sw in it, let alone mini supergirl, c mon!

Re: Missed Opportunities for SW

Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2020 3:08 am
by rscholar
CaptainAtila wrote:
Thu Jan 16, 2020 5:02 pm
There is a missed one in the latest episode of the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover of the CW / DC TV universe.

The big (literally big) bad guy, the AntiMonitor has trapped Superman in his hand, so Atom shoots the man of steel to make him small, so he can escape in his new size.

Once the AntiMonitor is defeated, Supergirl asks for her cousin, and the next thing we can see is a shrunken Superman shaking her arms to be noticed.

If the roles had been reversed ... a little Supergirl had been sooo cute.
And the disappoint continues: "The Bottle Episode" was indeed about a Brainiac 5 (one of several from the collapsed multiverse) revealing that he shrunk and bottled his home world to save it from destruction, but apparently shrinking amounts to turning into light and getting sucked into the bottle, which happens to him and 3 witches (also from another universe), so even if Supergirl takes a trip inside it likely won't look like anything interesting. The best hope at this point is either she meets Atom again or Mxysptlk comes back and messes with her.

Re: Missed Opportunities for SW

Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2020 2:09 am
by rscholar
Doom Patrol 2x01 "Fun Size Patrol"

Due to events from the season 1 finale, most of the team, including Jane and Rita, are stuck at about 1 inch tall.

Despite the premiere featuring everyone (except Negative Man) small, there's not much to see - the best I'd say are split second bits where the all the tinies leave their model city base and run across the floor of the mansion searching for Dorothy. There's no direct interaction, the main size-based moments are reserved for Cliff, and through magic they're back to normal by episode end. It's surprisingly disappointing for sw.

That said, the set is really fun, with makeshift tents, a mini racetrack, and props like giant popcorn, plus Cliff's shenanigans with rat punching are a riot. Despite the lack of direct content, I'd say it's worth finding some clips if you're looking for possible inspiration.

Other than that, it's clear Rita's arc is for her to master her powers, so there's still hope she learns to shrink.

Re: Missed Opportunities for SW

Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2020 3:56 am
by foreverlurk
rscholar wrote:
Wed Jul 01, 2020 2:09 am
Other than that, it's clear Rita's arc is for her to master her powers, so there's still hope she learns to shrink.
Agreed, the episode was not that bad but I expected more...

As for Rita, in the comics before she learns how to properly control her powers, she actually grows (and shrinks) out of her clothes. Almost no chance of happening, but you never know.