So what finally happened to him.


I usually like deep endings that make you think, but I honestly did not get the ending to this! What finally happened to him at the end, he seemed to be at peace but does he live or what?

Most people see things that are and ask "why?", I dream things that never were and ask, "why not?"

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He just well... kept on shrinking to oblivion, a microbe as he accepted his fate as it is.

OBVIOUSLY

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I kinda thought thats what happened but wouldn't he dissapear eventually? Just curious about this.

Most people see things that are and ask "why?", I dream things that never were and ask, "why not?"

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If you mean by the naked eye, yeah... Pretty much he shrank down to nothingness and is even smaller than anything else to the world, if possible. You sort of have to think about this for a second though, I mean like what would be smaller than atoms or any particles at all or if they all jus happen to just disappear in different realms? I mean after nothing, does it still sort of cease to exist?

This is all of something that really interest me alot, cuz I do have a lot of curiousity. heheheh

OBVIOUSLY

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Well then I guess the term "He's not as big as ANYTHING!" could apply LITERALLY to him, LOL.

I think he prolly died, b/c what could he eat being that small?
And how lonely would this be?

Thinking about it like this, it really does have a depressing ending. It COULD have had a little bit of more of a happier ending and still been sorta horrific. I wish he had stopped shrinking, but maybe never got back to his normal size, He could have stayed 3 or 4 inches tall and had this revelation at the end.

Most people see things that are and ask "why?", I dream things that never were and ask, "why not?"

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I think he prolly died, b/c what could he eat being that small?

Depending on his ability to acquire a food source, what COULDN'T he eat? Once you're down to that size, it hardly takes much of a normal-sized food source to fill you up!

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Depending on his ability to acquire a food source, what COULDN'T he eat? Once you're down to that size, it hardly takes much of a normal-sized food source to fill you up!
But as he shrank to molecular size, there wouldn't be food for him, because food (and everything) is made up of a combination of different molecules/atoms/whathaveyou. (I AM NOT A SCIENTIST!)

But, the point is, he would eventually reach a tiny state where there was nothing left to eat because the particles that make up food would be individualized, and not actual foods any more. So there would be no "food" to eat.

For instance, if water is hydrogen and oxygen, he would eventually be facing those two elements individually....not the combination of them that equal "water"....right?

At that point, he would starve/die from thirst.


.

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Just for fun - the elementary particles comprising his body can't shrink, just the gaps between them. Eventually he would become a single atom of a completely new transuranic element which would be unstable and naturally disintegrate into one or more stable elements with a brief emission of radiation. Discuss...

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Umm, I believe you...LOL

OBVIOUSLY

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Will he have reached the single atom stage by now?
Assuming he was say 0.5cm when the film ended; he was reducing at a rate of say 20% per day and fifty years have since elapsed. 50 x 365 days = 18250 days. Can anyone do the math?

Regards

Dave

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I've never seen this film, but "The Incredible Shrinking Woman" is pretty much the same concept. except it turns out to be a happy ending. I was kinda disturbed though, at the scene where the maid thinks Pat was killed by the garbage disposal, since she sees that lone tennis shoe and all the stuff from the garbage disposal. that kinda freaked me out.

HiFis around me, HiTech just turns me on
From my Video to my Radio

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Using your numbers, I calculate it only would take about 130 days before he reached the size of a proton (diameter of about 1.5Ă—10−15 m).

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Ive thought of shrinking down to particle size, but this possibility is brilliant!!

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Wow that's a pretty cool explanation, but would he even be able to get that small in the first place? There's an episode of Star Trek DS9 where they use the standard shrunken characters plotline, but they turn it on its head by revealing that they have to remain in their shrunken craft because their lungs have become too small to process oxygen.

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You have to read "The Biology of B-Movie Monsters" by Michael C. LaBarbera

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Consider this. The Director Jack Arnold wrote the final monologue, not the writer Richard Matheson. To quote Robert Osbourne from TCM, rather than go with a heroic death or a last minute antidote, Arnold got kind of....spiritual. As to the book by Matheson, the ending had our hero wake up the next morning on the leaves outside the house. Our hero then discovers that he has entered a microscopic world and with great optimism sets off in search of food.

So the book and movie both end positively. And who knows, with a bigger budget
the movie might have shown us a little (no pun intended) of the microscopic world.
Lets face it, to God there is no zero.

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Well not technically if you shrink like he did- his body stays the same structurally. I do think his normal human life is done, so it is pretty deep that he'd be alright with it. I'd think I interprit the ending as his body changed gradually so he'd be able to survive in any condition, why not its not that far out that he could have gained immortality also.

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In the (I believe unpublished) sequel to the shrinking man book, Scott's wife starts to shrink too, and finds Scott in the basement, and not only has he stopped shrinking but started to get bigger. Glad they didn't make that into a movie as it would have spoiled the ending of the first one.

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Me too, it would have been nice if he stopped shrinking and maybe stayed 2 or 3 inches tall, but don't like the idea of his wife shrinking. That's just berates everthing.

Most people see things that are and ask "why?", I dream things that never were and ask, "why not?"

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How...? Why...? Well, I'm really glad that book never happened (if that was even true).

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No one has mentioned that perhaps he reached a point where he was in God's presence and the realization (as he said) that there really wasn't any difference between the infinite and the infintisimal. In other words he reached a point of eternal peace...

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Yes, when he looks up at the sky and stares at the stars he realises that he isnt so different from a normal human. They both inhabit the same space, but live in completely different worlds, however, in both worlds the reality is that you will cease to live someday. I thought it was a very philosophical end to the film.

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No one has mentioned that perhaps he reached a point where he was in God's presence and the realization (as he said) that there really wasn't any difference between the infinite and the infintisimal. In other words he reached a point of eternal peace...



Nobody mentioned that because that was the clear and expressly-stated point of the final monologue.


My real name is Jeff

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Insects are very fast, vicious, merciless and incredibly strong. He wouldn't stand a chance, something would eat him ... I'm sorry to say.

Frank Booth: You stay alive, baby. Do it for Van Gogh.

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Einstein could never work the amthematics out but he had a theory that every atom is a solar system and every solar system an atom. Our hero is just on his way to another level of existance.



The past is a series of presents. The present is living history we are priviledged to witness

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Much like a particle, he shrunk into a "possibility".




Im the Alpha and the Omoxus. The Omoxus and the Omega

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I saw this on TV when I was very young, and even then I thought, what would he eat if he continues shrinking?

At some point he would become so small that his blood wouldn't be able to transport oxygen around his body. His lungs would be too small to breathe air. His brain would be too small to be capable of 'human intelligence' long before that.

Or the molecules of his body are shrinking which I would think means anything in the 'normal' world couldn't sustain him.

But as a child I thought about the loneliness he would feel.

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