Why is it when a character in a film has grown large (such as Ant-Man in the Avengers and Civil War), do all their movements appear slowed down, as if they are moving through water?

Question

Why is it when a character in a film has grown large (such as Ant-Man in the Avengers and Civil War), do all their movements appear slowed down, as if they are moving through water?

In: Other

Answer 1

In addition to the limiting effects of weight on acceleration mentioned by others, there is also a psychological effect.

Essentially, bigger animals tend to perceive time as passing more quickly than smaller animals. This is theorised to be because signals in their nervous system simply have more distance to travel, so their thoughts are slower. Because they can think less in a given time frame, that time frame will seem to be shorter.

For example, imagine a wasp, a human and an elephant all watching the *same* 90 minute film in a cinema. For the wasp, the film would seem to go on *forever*. The wasp would be super bored because everything in the film is in literal slow motion and the pacing of events is horribly slow. For the elephant, the film would feel pretty short, the elephant would not be able to keep up with the dialogue or the storyline at all because it is too fast.

So going back to antman, physically his mass doesn’t allow for agile movements (keep in mind his actual speed is still much faster, like if he swings his arm the tip of his fingers would be going super fast, but the swing would still take forever because the distance is so high). But at the same time, from his perspective, he is moving at normal speed and everybody else is buzzing about being hyperactive like a swarm of bees because his thoughts are just as slow as his movements.