Honey, I Made a Video About Shrinking Movies and The Miniature Wife

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]I shrink. I'm shrinking. Okay, now I'm small. Like many of you, I saw the poster for The Miniature Wife and thought, "This surely is not a real show. I'm being pranked." But it is real. And it got me thinking, how did we get here? What are shrinking stories about? What does this genre say? So, I watched six of the most culturally impactful science fiction movies about shrinking people in preparation to watch The Miniature Wife. I'm going to talk about what was good and bad. Ah, I'm going to talk about what was good and bad with each of them and what they mean to the genre. Let's start with probably the most recognizable shrinking movie of my generation, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

[00:00:38]From here on out, I'm going to refer to this movie as HT TK, as my brothers and sisters on Reddit do. All right. Rick Morenus plays a goofball mad scientist dad trying to perfect his shrink ray.

[00:00:48]But when the neighbor kid hits a baseball through his attic lab window, Rube Goldberg orchestrates a series of events that fixes and activates the shrink ray. And while trying to retrieve the ball, the Zillinsky and Thompson kids end up small and then they are mistakenly swept up and dumped into the backyard. Yeah, their name is Zalinsky.

[00:01:05]That's funny. The best part about this movie is the production design. Like, look at this grass. This is great. This is clearly the work of clinically insane production designers and fabricators, and they absolutely crushed it. Shout outs. Thank you for your service. It adds a charm to the movie that is so difficult to replicate when everyone's on a green screen. The obvious gag in shrinking movies is regular thing big to guy who is small. But Histk is very clever about it. Like this legitimately made me laugh very hard.

[00:01:35]>> You're allergic to pollen.

[00:01:37]>> It's too big, too little to breathe it in.

[00:01:45]>> [ __ ] that's funny. The plot is simple and effective. The kids need to traverse like 20 yards of backyard to get back to Rick Morenus who can hopefully reverse the ensolaning uh the littleification, if you will. They're dumping buckets of water on these little bastards. They're riding an ant. I really hope nothing bad happens to him. And while this is happening, there's pretty good comedy happening with both sets of parents as well. Like Rick Morenus is the heart and soul of this movie. He's so good.

[00:02:09]>> Are you saying if that machine blew >> blew up my kid?

[00:02:12]>> Oh no. If the machine had blown up the kids, there'd be pieces of them everywhere.

[00:02:17]Like obviously the kids won't actually get exploded. It's a children's movie.

[00:02:21]But that doesn't mean the story is not afraid to kill.

[00:02:31]>> Okay, at the last second I actually cut out the mortal wounding of Auntie because it's it's really it's really traumatic. It kind of throws off the vibe of the whole video. Thank you for your service. Moment of silence for Auntie. He was just an ant. It didn't have to do anything. actor is actually a really bad guy. So, it really makes his death hollow. Also, the claimation of the scorpion is so unsettling. Like, it sends it into the uncanny valley just enough to make it scarier but not distracting. The kids fail to avenge auntie, but they chase the scorpion off, leaving the potential for a sequel. See what Scorpion's up to. Maybe even a prequel. Find out how he got so evil.

[00:03:07]Bob Iger, I are you Wait, it's not Bob Iger anymore. Let me Josh Demaro, are you listening? Cuz I'm spitting gold here. The last big set piece of the movie, the kids are almost eviscerated by a lawnmower blade, which was legitimately suspenseful because we know this movie is not afraid to shed blood.

[00:03:22]But at the last second, the blade is turned off and the kids make their way into Rick Marinus' cereal bowl and they're larified, if you will. So, what does HTK teach us? It doesn't matter how small you are. You can still witness one of your friends be murdered by a scorpion. But for real, the through line of the movie is that closeness and togetherness is what makes life worth living. In the end, the families unite and the Zillinsky girl and the Thompson boy are dating or whatever. Oh, and the Thompson kids are convinced that their dad loves them after all, which is nice.

[00:03:51]The movie is good. The Shrinking is a great catalyst, backdrop, and focus of their great adventure. A lot of heart packed into a tight 90 minutes, handcrafted with real passion. No notes, great movie. But what came before his TK to get us here? How's my hair look? I got to go look how my hair looks. Oh, it looks like the mayor from the Grinch.

[00:04:08]Perfect. The Incredible Shrinking Man, Tism for short, is the first American film to feature being shrunk as a main plot point, and it's good. It feels like an extended Twilight Zone episode in Witcher sort of spoonfed the themes in a way that makes it easy to watch. It's getting hot. No way it's 70. No way it's 73 in here. Released in 1957, based off a book of the same name, it features our main man, Scott Carrey, getting irradiated by a mysterious cloud of mist while on his boat. In old movies, you always find out the makeup is something hilariously toxic. Like the original Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz had to be replaced because he inhaled too much aluminum powder from the makeup that had it almost killed him. I feel like you just know whatever they sprayed Grant Williams with here surely cut his life expectancy. The radioactive mist interacts with some of the pesticides he was exposed to offscreen, which causes him to shrink slowly over the course of a few months, which was a surprise to me because I don't think I've ever seen another movie or show with this mechanic. You're either small all at once or you're big all at once. Not slow style. This is a Benjamin Button ass shrinking move. The beginning of his shrinking is pretty funny. He's like, "Fuck, I'm only 5'11 now."

[00:05:14]>> Still get 5'11 in, Mr. Carrie. I've been 6'1 since I was 17. People don't get shorter, Mr. Carrie.

[00:05:22]They just don't get shorter.

[00:05:23]>> No sympathy from here, brother. Long way down to 5'9. Enjoy the ride. Don't let the inches hit you on the way out. Short King revenge aside, the movie has got heart.

[00:05:33]>> You love Scott Carrey. He has a size and a shape and a way of thinking. All that's changing now.

[00:05:38]>> Not a darn thing's changed. I know I have. When I married you, I meant what I said. And as long as you've got this wedding ring on, you've got me.

[00:05:48]>> Then we jump forward in time, and he's actually small as hell now.

[00:05:51]>> Think about it.

[00:05:55]>> Now, the acting in this movie is of the time, but I think it's still good today.

[00:05:59]And it really holds up, especially when you know they're not on screen at the same time. When green screen and CGI became the main tools for tiny interaction, we lose that feeling that actors are really together in the same room. But there's an implicit connection here that I think they're still achieving.

[00:06:14]>> Didn't you tell them who you're married to? The incredible Scott Carrey, the shrinking freak.

[00:06:18]>> Scott, don't use your influence, LOUISE.

[00:06:20]I'M A BIG MAN. I'M FAMOUS.

[00:06:22]>> Please don't.

[00:06:23]>> Something I think the film does really well is play to the horror of the situation. Eventually, our short king is small enough to live in a dollhouse, and more and more stuff is becoming life-threatening.

[00:06:36]Oh.

[00:06:40]Oh.

[00:06:43]Oh. After the cat attack, Scott falls into the basement and his wife finds a tattered piece of his shirt, so she believes he's died. And now Scott is on his own. While in the basement, Scott continues to shrink and we get more fun perspective shots. Look at this match.

[00:06:57]Hell yeah. Scott gears up for a fight with a spider, which symbolizes death and Scott's struggle with his own will to live in the face of an impossible situation. Also, the way he prepares for this makes me think this was an influential movie for Predator when Arnold is gearing up to fight the alien.

[00:07:13]Yeah, a little bit of a stretch maybe, but it made me think of it. Scott battles with the spider and ultimately wins. And he also wins back his desire to live, but it was suspenseful and also very scary. Good job. Then the movie ties everything up with a monologue that's hard as [ __ ] >> The unbelievably small and the unbelievably vast eventually meet like the closing of a gigantic circle. And in that moment, I knew the answer to the riddle of the infinite. I had presumed upon nature that existence begins and ends man's conception, not nature's. My fears melted away, and in their place came acceptance. Yes, smaller than the smallest, I meant something, too. To God, there is no zero.

[00:07:58]I still exist.

[00:08:00]>> So, what's The Shrinking Man about?

[00:08:01]Well, it's about the acceptance of your circumstances, the indomitable human spirit and fearlessness of the infinite.

[00:08:07]It's also about what it means to be a man when you don't fit the traditional image of one. Also, I left it out, but he gets really mean to his wife the smaller he gets. The movie takes the concept of shrinking and uses it to explore huge ideas about existence and death, and I legitimately enjoyed it.

[00:08:22]Much like in Histk Tism is a tight 80 minutes and in every scene they are getting something done. Also, its influence on science fiction is apparent. This ending is very Men in Black and as we'll see later, The Mini Wife borrows heavily from our mini man.

[00:08:36]Then I watched Greta Gerwig's Little Women. It turns out they're not small, but now I miss Beth.

[00:08:40]>> So the Fantastic Voyage was released just 9 years after Tism, and it is a really huge leap forward in film making.

[00:08:47]The Americans and the Soviets both have shrinking capabilities, but the stuff they shrink only stays small for 60 minutes. But the Americans have a scientist who can fix that. But the Soviets ram his car, which results in an inoperable blood clot that can only be fixed by, you guessed it, getting a cracked team of submarine doctors together to shrink down, pilot a vessel through the body, and destroy the clot with a laser gun. Now that's a premise.

[00:09:12]Like HDK, this is a great shrinking movie because of the production design.

[00:09:19]Look at this. The other thing this movie does really well is it plays to the horror and the stress of the setting.

[00:09:25]They're sweating cuz they're scared and they should be cop. Breathe.

[00:09:30]>> Dr. Michael, >> got to get out.

[00:09:32]>> The concept is great because it's a military action adventure mission movie, but it still leaves room for some really impactful philosophical moments.

[00:09:41]>> The engineering of the cycle of a breath.

[00:09:43]>> Well, I wouldn't call it a miracle. just an interchange of gases. The end product of 500 million years of evolution.

[00:09:51]>> You can't believe all that is accidental.

[00:10:01]>> You'll wind up a Hindu. They respect all forms of life, however small.

[00:10:06]>> He's realizing that just cuz it's small don't mean it can't laser a blood clot in someone's brain that you need to be alive. They ultimately got small in this movie to ask big questions. And along the way, there was great action and adventure. No notes. This movie is awesome. Look at the submarine. They went all out with the submarine. Staying in the spirit of submarine inside the body movies, I also watched 1987's Inner Space, which is essentially the zany version of the Fantastic Voyage. So, during a miniaturization test, an evil group of arms dealer tries to steal the shrunken submarine piloted by Dennis Quaid. And in an effort to save the tech, the lead scientist injects it via syringe into a stranger, Martin Short, right before bleeding out and dying.

[00:10:48]Then Martin Short and Dennis Quaid need to work together to evade the Armsteelers and get him re-enlarged. I don't have a ton to say about Inner Space other than it's really silly. like they're doing a heist slashselling the technology to the evil highest bitter trope, but we're also witnessing Martin Short learn how to be cool and seize the day while hotheaded pilot Dennis Quaid is learning how to be sweet. And then there's a love triangle between uh Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan and also Martin Short. And when Martin Short and Mega Ryan kiss, the submarine goes back and forth between their bodies, which you know, I don't want to be a stickler.

[00:11:24]I mean, well, this whole channel is me being a stickler, but like it doesn't matter where Dennis Quaid is in the submarine in the body. When they kiss, he always shoots through their mouths and rides the saliva down to just wherever. Dennis Quaid ends up in her uterus and finds a fetus that looks like an alien, but it's like it it's like, "Oh, it's my baby." Like, that's oh, she's pregnant. Ah. While that's all happening, they're being hunted by the Professor Gadget version of the Terminator. I wish it was funnier. I think it could have justified um how silly the rest of the movie was if it was just uh funnier. Something that stood out to me is the start of the sort of disconnect between performances between big and small actors. Like for 99% of the movie, Dennis Quaid is in the submarine and it doesn't really feel like he was acting opposite the rest of the cast when they were in scenes together. You know, the movie wasn't for me. I think if I had seen it as a kid, I would have carved out a nostalgic spot for it and and would want to defend it.

[00:12:16]Uh but I didn't, so it's just okay.

[00:12:18]Next. I'm not a huge Marvel head, but I have seen 32 out of the 37 films since Iron Man 2007. Okay, I guess that does sort of make me a Marvel head. And generally, they've sort of slid from singular creative vision per movie to being directed by the same group of shareholders. Like, for example, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness only had like one Sam Ramy moment in it, and it was kind of sick, probably the best part of the movie. And I suppose if your gross box office earnings are over $32.4 4 billion for the franchise. The powers that be are not going to let you do a silly one. Like they didn't want a Sam Ramy movie. They wanted to slap his name on it and make it seem like this one would be different when it really wasn't. But in a franchise where like 31 of the 37 movies are really similar, it's probably good to do a silly one every once in a while. But I'll say that Ant-Man was maybe the last Marvel movie to bring in a director and really let them put their spin on. Like this feels like an Edgar Wright movie to me and it's good. This movie is different from the other movies we've talked about because the shrinking tech is fully solved. They can get small, they can get big, whenever they want, all the time.

[00:13:24]Also, you keep the same strength when you're little. So, you can be a little guy and punch with the force of an adult man. The only real risk to the technology is that if you shrink too small, you'll be lost in the quantum realm. And that's only accessible by making three Ant-Man movies. So, the general plot is Hank Py, the original inventor of Tiny Guys, enlists Paul Rudd, an ex-con who is locked up for grand lararseny, to steal the shrinking technology that's being developed by Hank Py former corrupted protege, Darren Cross. And I think it's a fun heist movie that uses shrinking to put a spin on the regular heist formula. And this movie came out in 2015, so we were fully CG with these miniature sets. And for the most part, it works. It looks pretty polished and it's out of the uncanny valley except for this one ridiculous shot of Paul. Like what? I can't win them all. We also of course have a lot of ants in the movie and it's sweet that Scott starts naming the ants.

[00:14:13]>> Wait a minute. I know this guy. I'm going to call him Anthony. It does a lot for us to really like Scott and the ants, which makes it tough when there's another onscreen ant death. Never forget Anthony or Auntie. Thank you for your service. The action in this movie is probably the best action out of any shrinking movie ever.

[00:14:42]Was that the Hoth laser noise from Star Wars? Oh, yeah. And during the heist, the vault that they're breaking into is basically set up like the Death Star, which is fun. I think my biggest complaint about the film is the idea that the pin particle, the tech that makes the shrinking and growing possible, also makes you insane if not handled correctly, like it's the ring.

[00:15:01]Like, I'm with you. They can get big.

[00:15:03]They can get small. But to say the proximity to the particle without proper protection makes you evil, is a little too heavy-handed for me. Like, just make Darren Cross evil. He has the motivations. He wants power. He wants recognition. You know, he's basically already evil. you don't need to kind of let him off the hook by being like he spent too much time around these crazy atoms. Like conveniently Paul Rudd's character is not affected by it because Hank Py figured that part out. Could have been good if it was corrupting Paul Rudd 2. Feels like there's some material there that they could explore. To be transparent, I have not read any of the comics. So like maybe this was explored elsewhere. But you can tell this film was crafted with intent. Great stakes, great rules, great action, and the movie's got heart. I hate to say it. I think this is the best modern movie about shrinking post history. Anyway, the first 45 minutes of downsizing is really interesting. The premise is that essentially if you partake in downsizing, which is a process where you're paid to be made about 6 in tall and are moved into a downsized community where your dollar is worth roughly 50x, you get to retire and live a luxurious life at a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the size. Also, the movie pitches it as a more ethical way to live. I hold here in my hand all of the uncompostable waste produced by 36 people over four years.

[00:16:23]>> What I like most about the setup is how this Nobel Prizewinning accomplishment is sold back to regular people like it's a highinterest credit card or some time share.

[00:16:32]>> Leisure Land's where you want to be.

[00:16:33]Best houses, best appliances, best doctors. The kids love Cheesecake Factory and Leisure Land's got three of them. And hey, I'm not just saying all this for the referral credit, just so you know. and happy homeowner here at Leisureland Estates. You having a good time? Come on, guys. You're a heck of a lot bigger than I am. Make some noise.

[00:16:49]Are you having a good time?

[00:16:53]>> See, you have to look at this column, Audrey. Equivalent value. You're solidly inside the blue chip zone. You're $152,000 translates to $12.5 million to live on.

[00:17:05]>> Essentially, moving to leisure land is like when an American retires to a low-income country to stretch their retirement dollar. After deciding to downsize, our main characters, while big, have their going away party and a crazy guy in the bar says this.

[00:17:17]>> You think if you're that small, you should still have all the same rights as rest of us normalsized people? I mean, like the right to vote.

[00:17:24]>> Why wouldn't we?

[00:17:24]>> You're not buying as many products.

[00:17:26]You're not paying as much sales tax.

[00:17:27]Some of you aren't even paying any income tax. This sci-fi twist on this current world feels fully baked by these talking points being brought up in the background, either through this guy or snippets of news broadcasts. After talking to that guy, Matt Damon and Kristen Wig still decide to go through with the process known as Downside. And when Matt Damon wakes up, he finds that his wife got cold feet and did not go through with the procedure.

[00:17:50]>> Don't hate me.

[00:17:51]>> You're not leaving me here.

[00:17:53]>> I let you down. I feel awful.

[00:17:56]>> Audrey, if you don't come back here right now >> and see you all small. I want to see a dark marital comedy where a couple's irreconcilable differences are manifested in their literal sizes. I'm fully bought in on this premise and the world building. Let's go.

[00:18:14]Oh, what? You're telling me we're skipping a whole year already? I Okay, I was looking forward to some of the stuff that was going to happen immediately after the last scene we just saw. You're telling me Kristen Wig just isn't in the movie anymore? We just never see her again. She didn't even get to do anything weird. So now Matt Damon loses his big nest egg in the divorce and he's forced to live a relatively middle class life in this tiny world who I can only assume is built by the guy who built the Americana and uh Grove probably Matt Damon uh meets and falls in love with Hongch who is a uh a cleaner in the apartment building for one of his friends uh and realizes that while he's in this middle class world there is a whole community of impoverished immigrants who are also small who do all the hard work it takes to make luxury living possible. possible. But my issue with the movie at large is the second half of the film has nothing to do with being small. Like this drama about class struggle and white saviorism would be the same without the shrinking stuff. If anything, it's a distracting thing that's going on in the background. For example, later in the movie, they're on a boat in Norway on their way to the original small person colony. And like this is so nonsensical. A splash from a fish would capsize the tiny boat. It goes against the logic of all the safeguards we've seen installed.

[00:19:27]Everywhere else there are shrunken people.

[00:19:30]Isn't that the Game of Thrones wall horn noise? Oh yeah, and Kristoff Waltz is in this movie playing a Frenchman named Duchon. He's fine. One of the big misses of this movie, I think, is nothing really looks miniature. Like once they're shrunk, everything to them is just normal. Their houses are indistinguishable relative to normal regularsized houses, which feels lazy.

[00:19:49]Just sort of makes for a charmless setting for this movie. In the last 20 minutes, it's revealed there's going to be an extinction level methane gas release in the world that will kill literally everybody. And Matt Damon initially chooses to leave Hongchow to go into the bunker that will live on until the surface is safe again. But then he decides to return to her so they can keep serving the poor together before the world ends. What the hell is going on, dude? What the hell is going on in this movie? I think there's a much longer video to be made about if Downsizing is successful in its critique of capitalism, but as far as a movie holistically, it's not very good. And as far as a shrinking movie, I think it's probably the worst one ever made. And I'm including Quantum Mania.

[00:20:34]>> Wow.

[00:20:35]>> Get shrinking movie technology.

[00:20:37]>> OUT YOUR MOUTH.

[00:20:39]>> GUN TO MY HEAD. I have to rewrite this movie. So, when Kristen Wig calls Matt Damon to say she didn't get the procedure, instead of cutting to black, I'm having these characters interact and try to figure it out. I'd really lean into the idea that they're differing sizes are representative of their their wants and problems in life. And I would just have them work it out over the course of the next hour. Just like really try to figure out how they can proceed as a married couple, as one big, one small. Then I think it would end with them holding hands or, you know, little Matt Damon in Kristen Wig's hand.

[00:21:10]It could be a melancholy kind of ending where they did actually choose each other again, but their lives are going to be weird from now on because he's small. Or all ending maybe while Matt Damon is making his final love plea that is working by the way. Uh he's snuck up on by a bug and as Kristen Wig goes to swat it away, she accidentally swats Matt Damon and he dies. Essentially, I would want my downsizing movie to be about these two characters and their differences and how people are so susceptible to corporate products that promise to change their life and fix their problems when really they can't.

[00:21:42]Something I didn't mention, Hongcha's character before the film was a activist who was shrunk down by the Vietnamese government in prison. And her and Paul have a conversation about that, but then I kind of feel like it's dropped. And I think that's a really great premise.

[00:21:58]Again, like in our fascist world, that's absolutely what governments would do.

[00:22:02]And I think that there's different and better avenues they could have gone down exploring that. Um, but they didn't. Big ideas that were underbaked and underexplored. So, uh, you know, it's just it's one of those movies that's on Instagram reels, you know. Which leads us to perhaps the most 30 rock throwaway joke of an IP ever created. The Miniature Wife, The Wife Who is Small.

[00:22:24]The show is really not good.

[00:22:27]>> Love, it's irrational. It can make us crazy. I should know. My husband made me small.

[00:22:36]>> Okay, that's how we're starting. Okay.

[00:22:38]Okay, sure. Matthew McFaden plays Less, who is a successobsessed failure of a scientist who has figured out how to shrink stuff but can't re-enlarge things. Elizabeth Banks plays Lindy, who is a one-hit wonder author who is cheating on Less with one of his lab associates. In the pilot, Les convinces a shady billionaire to give him the last bit of funding for his research. And Lindy decides to leave Les after he decides to punt their vow renewals for another year while he continues to work on his shrinking stuff. Less out of anger, presses the button to shrink Lindy after she accidentally grabs the device that does the uh shrinking. To give context to the rest of the season before I really start yapping, Les needs to figure out the second half of his formula in 30 days or his patent transfers to the evil billionaire. Lindy becomes increasingly frustrated with uh Les's crimes and her situation and basically turns the house into Home Alone trying to get back at him. Also, this plagiarism story continues, but it's it's not really relevant, I I think. Which leads us to our one of many problems. Neither of these characters are likable. Like, besides shrinking his wife on purpose out of rage, Les tries to kill Lindy at least twice. For example, he sticks the cat on her out of rage.

[00:23:49]>> I hate that cat. Well, that's funny. He told me he hates you, too.

[00:23:55]>> I'm having second thoughts about making you big. And so, I bid you farewell, and I wish you the best of luck.

[00:24:08]>> Lindy, while absolutely not the monster that Les is, is just not a very good person. Like, in the pilot, Les submits a short story that one of Lindy's students wrote to The New Yorker, thinking Lindy had written it already.

[00:24:20]kind of stupid. In response, Lindy tries to convince the student to go off the grid for a year to novelize the short story so she doesn't see her work plagiarized in The New Yorker. So, Lindy is sort of down with the plagiarism, but then also is stupid, I guess, because that's a terrible plan. The issues with the show don't stop there. The production design is fine. The regularsiz items being huge to a small person is tried and true. I mean, I liked I liked AirPod phone. I thought that was cute. I like that. But in general, I don't think they ever upgraded on any of the foundational ideas set up with the other movies we've talked about. And I know this part isn't the production design, but there's a lot of moments when it feels like Less and Lindy are not in the same room acting together. There's just this intangible connection missing when they're big and small scenes.

[00:25:07]>> PRISONER, I'M NOT A LAB RAT.

[00:25:09]>> Listen to me.

[00:25:10]>> NO. WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO ME.

[00:25:12]>> LINDY, NO.

[00:25:13]>> I don't trust you. And some of the green screen quality is distracting.

[00:25:22]>> Look who it is. See, she's not that scary.

[00:25:25]>> Why is she looking at me like that? Oh, it's puffing up. Do you see what it's doing?

[00:25:34]>> Why is this show set during Christmas but released in April? Did something happen over at Peacock? Another problem is the stakes never really feel that high. So, anytime she's in danger, it's just boring.

[00:25:45]me.

[00:25:47]>> When there's no clearly defined stakes or rules in a show, science fiction or not, nothing means anything. What are we supposed to take away from this besides that he wants to kill her? I know I'm being like maybe too literal here. But like, so Lindy's indestructible. Like proportionally, if she was a real-sized person, that's like a wrecking ball coming and hitting you and knocking you 50 yards. She's just totally fine the next scene. The show just like sold itself out for a joke that's like not good. When her love interest shows up small and almost gets eaten by the cat, >> he doesn't even really get hurt. Like he's wearing bandages and stuff, but like he's not mortally wounded. So you're like, "Okay, I guess that that's not really a threat either." There's this whole side story about Lindy's publishing career, which is so hard to care about because like, girl, you are small. Another thing is the show is just too long. The story was based on a short story that was only like 13 pages. You really got to add in a lot of bloat to make that seven hours of run time. And worst of all, the show is just not very funny to me. Like all the stuff I mentioned above could be forgiven if the show was making sick jokes, but the show just does not have that kind of sauce.

[00:26:58]Having watched all 10 episodes of The Miniature Wife right after having watched Tism, it's clear they're going for some sort of homage here. So, we get Lindy fighting a fly with a needle. much like Scott fighting the spider and Lindy is also pursued by a cat, but these inclusions just don't really feel inspired and they're worse than the original. The other beef I have with the show is the shrinking mechanics. All right, so Les's shrinking tech is a liquid that once sprayed on the thing shrinks the space between atoms, which is actually a pretty common explanation in all these movies for how the shrinking actually works. The atoms part, not the liquid part. And then his plan is to grow many crops and then bigify their yields to end world hunger, which I think is a little underbaked.

[00:27:41]The main reason for world hunger is blockade conflict and poverty. We have enough food for everybody. We just can't get it to everyone because we live in hell. Also, the show tells us that less is a failure because he can't figure out how to make the food big again, which is just woefully underthought out. Some sort of shrinking liquid would be the most important invention since the printing press. It would be lock for most famous scientist of the modern era.

[00:28:08]I know what we could shrink and not need to make big again. Trash pollutants. We don't need to worry about making corn big. We just got to shrink the bad stuff we already have. Eventually less does crack the bigification and well >> x squ over two.

[00:28:31]>> I did it.

[00:28:34]>> Huh? Like fixing the math equation on the board and then telling this chemist to implement it and he just like mixes a couple liquids together seems lazy. And like in general, a lot of the chemistry scenes seem more like a chemistry rental set than like a true billiondoll laboratory. And the fact that the shrinking stuff is spray is like odd.

[00:28:54]Like in downsizing, I guess it's also some sort of mist or spray, but they're in an airtight chamber when it happens, which science-wise that makes a lot of sense. But this just being able to like spray it on something like it's Freze seems weird. Like when Lindy gets shrunk, she gets sprayed in the face, but her whole body and clothes and accessories shrink with her. Did they get wet, too? Is there some other explanation? I feel like they chose to make it spray to be different than other works in the genre, but it just led to more questions and it just makes stuff not feel so thought out. Like, if you don't lay the foundation well in a science fiction show, it just makes for a really wobbly story the rest of the time. Okay, so the evil billionaire character wants to sell this tech to the army to make more money and a general from the army says this to less.

[00:29:43]>> Oenheimer's got nothing on you, huh?

[00:29:46]>> And like that makes you think, oh, we're going to shrink nukes, I guess, maybe.

[00:29:50]And I and I'm not saying because he mentioned Oppenheimer he means nukes, but it's like okay, like they're going to show us some crazy military application for this that's really going to be like, whoa, these guys can't get it. But no, their idea is to shrank tanks and missiles so they can like ship them for lower costs around the world.

[00:30:09]They can like ship them to places and be undetected, which I think is just kind of stupid. What does that accomplish that a drone strike can't? I'm like, the United States military is the most powerful army in the world and they have infinite money. I'm just like pitching the shrinking as a sort of cost savings for the military um is not very creative. I think it would have made more sense if the guys they wanted to sell the shrinking tech to was like a terrorist cell, but that kind of doesn't really fit too cleanly into a comedy, I guess. So, I I don't know. Anyways, in the end, they destroy the formula to make things small and big. They detonate the lab and less makes himself small to help, I guess. And then they run out of the lab with the big serums like this.

[00:30:55]Oh, and they have a daughter. I didn't talk about the daughter. She's in like half the episodes. H she has to do with the plagiarism story line. I had to cut stuff out. Sorry. And then they both get big and they rekindle their marriage.

[00:31:06]Let's do this thing.

[00:31:08]>> Let's do this thing.

[00:31:10]>> Uh like Lindy did cheat on Les. That's not great. But Les literally shrunk her down to imprison her and then tried to kill her like three times. What? What are we doing show? But the real funniest part of the show is that while it's ending, Lindy says this.

[00:31:30]>> I have this idea, tiny big idea. I feel like I have to write it and I'm thinking that the working title might be the miniature wife.

[00:31:42]>> Jesus Christ. This is also another reference to The Incredible Shrinking Man, but worse. The show was a mess and two guns to my head. If I'm going to try to make it better, the first thing I'm gonna do is make it shorter. Six episodes tops, and that's probably pushing it. Then I'm changing the miniaturization process, making it look cooler, changing the shady buyer from the military to something more nefarious, and I'm making less less evil if they're going to get back together.

[00:32:07]Or I'm making him way more evil and probably killing him. Like the show has a weird War of the Roses, Mr. and Mrs. Smith vibe to it that um doesn't feel fair because Lindy is small, but that would be okay if they didn't make up at the end. But, you know, they do. I wasn't going to read the short story that this was based off of just for time sake. It takes me a long time to make these videos and like I have to just, you know, choose certain things not to include, but I did just read it because it's only like 16 pages and um it's a lot better than the show and it's a lot darker. And so in the show, I I didn't mention it. In the show, and the short story, um uh Lindy stabs Les in the pupil with a toothpick. And so he's blind in one eye. But like in the last line of the short story, he's talking about how he would sacrifice his other eye if it just gave him the opportunity to creep up on her one more time while she sleeps so he can kill her. The show bloats the short story full of stuff that doesn't make sense. And this clouds the heart of the show, which is really a conversation about power dynamics and relationships, which is completely undone when Les is forgiven for all of his transgressions in the finale. The show has a Rotten Tomato score of 71% from critics. And I think where the TV tomato meter fails is it's mostly only counting reviews from critics who get early access to a few episodes of a show before it's released, so there can be well thoughtout reviews when the show comes out. And I think the first couple episodes are okay, but then the show really drags and it botches the landing.

[00:33:42]And I think the scores would be closer to 50% or lower if they had actually watched the whole show. I just did the I just said the whole conclusion and I wasn't recording.

[00:33:50]I'm going to do the conclusion now.

[00:33:52]We're going to conclude the video. And I know what you're thinking. You missed some of my favorite shrinking movies.

[00:33:57]Osmosis Jones. Those guys were already small. Alice in Wonderland got shrunk, but that's magic. Charlie in the Chocolate Factory got shrunk, not what the movie is about. I think that there's a reason there's not more movies in this subgenre like there are with time traveling movies or zombie movies, and it's that shrinking movies are pretty silly at their heart. And I also think the stuff that you can do with a shrunken person is sort of played out at this point. They've really covered a lot of the bases. These movies work best when there are real stakes applied and the fear of death to our characters is tangible and it doesn't hurt if the set is awesome. These movies lack when they go on for too long or the effects just like aren't working or if they don't really lay a solid foundation for the the rules of the universe. These movies are about power dynamics, the infinite, the consideration that something can be truly valuable regardless of their size.

[00:34:56]But they're ultimately about the human spirit. When put in the face of great smallness, how big can you be? I wrote that. That doesn't that doesn't make sense really. You get it though? You get what I'm saying? Hey guys, thanks for watching. Please like, comment, subscribe if you haven't already. I hate to call to action, but I like to see the number go up. Thanks guys.