Size change in fiction

Resizing (including miniaturization, growth, shrinking, and enlargement) is a recurring theme in fiction, in particular in fairy tales, fantasy, and science fiction. Resizing is often achieved through the consumption of mushrooms or toadstools, which might have been established due to their psychedelic properties,[1], magic, freaks of nature, or size-changing rays of ambiguous properties.[2]

In literature
  • An early example of resizing occurs in the 16th century Chinese novel, Journey to the West.
  • Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has repeated resizing themes, where Alice grows or shrinks as she eats foodstuffs or drinks potions. These themes are also present in the crossover sequel Cheshire Crossing.[3]
  • The novel The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth by H. G. Wells describes a kind of food that can accelerate and extend the growth process, which when introduced to the world causes great upheavals. In Wells' novel, giants have great powers, and they seek to continue growing and improving; only the small people with their small minds stand in their way. This is a symbol of social groups with great potential suppressed by mainstream society, and an expectation for them to eventually change the world in a radical way. Though one of Wells' lesser-known works, many of the features of the novel have been incorporated into other works.
  • In the novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Violet Beauregarde grows into a giant blueberry using magical gum and Mike Teevee uses Wonka's shrink ray to miniaturize himself.
  • In the children's book series The Magic School Bus, the bus is able to shrink to a very small size in order to allow science field trips to impossible locations such as the human body.
  • Wiplala, the man with a magical spell to shrink all the family to four inches in height.

Film
  • In 1940's Dr. Cyclops, the protagonists are reduced to less than a foot in size by the titular mad scientist and are subjected to his whims. 1957's The Incredible Shrinking Man inspired a boom in science fiction films that made use of size-alteration in the late 1950s and the 1960s, and also inspired a comic remake in 1981's The Incredible Shrinking Woman. 1957 also saw the release of The Amazing Colossal Man.
  • In science fiction/horror B-movies, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s, enlargement of people or creatures to monstrous size (often accomplished via radiation) was a common theme. Films featuring enlargement include Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, Village of the Giants, The Food of the Gods, 1954's Them!, and Tarantula. Bert I. Gordon is the filmmaker most closely associated with this genre.
  • Each of the five monsters in DreamWorks 2009 science fiction film Monsters vs. Aliens can be traced to sci-fi/horror B movies from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.[4] The heroine, Susan, who grows to be 49 feet 11 inches tall, was inspired by Attack of the 50 Foot Woman.
  • Shrinking is often accomplished with a machine of some kind, as in the films Fantastic Voyage, Innerspace and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. In some works, the machine can enlarge as well; in Honey, I Blew Up the Kid, a shrinking machine makes a toddler 100 feet tall. Both types of machine normally have the ability to reverse the shrinking process (though sometimes, as in Fantastic Voyage, the reversal happens automatically after a certain period).
  • In the 1999 science fiction film My Favorite Martian, Tim shrinks to tiny size.
  • In the 2010 film Tooth Fairy, the main character is given a shrinking paste which he uses to shrink to a tiny fairy size.
  • In the Japanese film Big Man Japan, the protagonist is the latest in a dynasty of heroes who can grow to enormous size to fight equally huge monsters.
  • In the 2001 animated film Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, the teacher and Jimmy Neutron shrink to ant-size.
  • In the musical Babes in Toyland, a shrink gun is used to shrink items and people to the size of toys.
  • In the 2014 animated film Penguins of Madagascar, a character is shrunk and trapped in a snow globe.
  • The twist in the BAFTA-winning 2013 short Room 8 concerns a brutal miniaturisation.
  • The plot of 2017's Downsizing centers on characters voluntarily undergoing miniaturisation to improve their lives and reduce their carbon footprints.

Television
  • In numerous Doctor Who episodes, characters have undergone a reversible shrinking process. These include: in the 1964 three-part serial Planet of Giants, the First Doctor and his companions arrive in contemporary England, but miniaturised due to an accident with their space/time-travel craft, the TARDIS; in the 1973 four-part serial Carnival of Monsters, the TARDIS is caught in the miniaturisation field of a peepshow machine, the Miniscope, reducing the Third Doctor and his companion Jo Grant in size within the confines of its various captured environments; the 1977 four-part serial The Invisible Enemy sees the Fourth Doctor use a component from the TARDIS, called a Relative Dimensional Stabiliser (RDS), to shrink clone copies of himself and his companion Leela for injection into his own brain – later, the RDS is used to increase the size of a micro-dimensional virus so that it can interact with the macrocosm; a not dissimilar trick is pulled by the Doctor and his ally Drax in the 1979 six-part serial The Armageddon Factor, to elude pursuers – and use robotic companion K9 as a 'Trojan Horse'; in the 1984 four-part serial Planet of Fire, the Fifth Doctor finds the murderous habit of his old enemy the Master – of shrinking victims to death with a Tissue Compression Eliminator (TCE) weapon – has backfired, leaving him alive but in "reduced circumstances". Into the Dalek in 2014 featured the Twelfth Doctor, his companion Clara Oswald and a group of rebel fighters are miniaturised and 'injected' into a battle-scarred, broken Dalek aboard the command ship Aristotle.
  • Micro Ventures, a short-lived segment on the Banana Splits, about a father and his two kids being shrunk to observe the life of insects.
  • In 'Dr. Shrinker', a segment of the mid-1970s children's show The Krofft Supershow, the eponymous doctor uses his invention to shrink three young adults to six inches tall.
  • The Schoolhouse Rock episode "Unpack Your Adjectives" includes a scene where a girl grows into a giant size and a boy shrinks into a small size, just before the girl steps on the boy.
  • In the animated series Adventure Time, Jake the Dog is able to magically stretch or shrink himself to various sizes.
  • In The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog episode "Too Tall Tails", a machine used by Dr. Robotnik causes Tails to grow to enormous size.[5]
  • In the Star Trek: The Animated Series episode "The Terratin Incident", a ray of unknown origin strikes the Enterprise and causes everyone aboard to begin gradually shrinking. Spock explains this as the gaps between molecules reducing, though only in organic material such as flesh and the crews' algae-based xenylon uniforms. When Captain Kirk beams down to the planet from which the ray emanated, the effect of the transporter restores him to normal size.
  • In the Mega Man cartoon episode "Incredible Shrinking Mega Man", stolen gems are used in a shrink ray to miniaturize cities and the protagonist.
  • In The Powerpuff Girls episode "What's the Big Idea", Mojo Jojo uses his invention to make Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup grow to gigantic sizes. However, he is foiled when Professor Utonium uses his own machine to reverse the effects by making Townsville bigger.
  • In the television series Ally McBeal, the titular main character is shown shrinking to about six inches in height.
  • In the MGM cartoons Tom and Jerry shorts Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse, Tom shrinks to the size of a fly. In Is There a Doctor in the Mouse?, Jerry grows to a very large size.
  • In each episode of the animated show Micro Ventures, a machine is used to shrink characters and their dune buggy to miniature size for the purpose of exploration.
  • In the animated series Wild Kratts, the Kratt Brothers often make use of the Miniaturizer, a machine invented by Aviva, to shrink down to smaller size and back again. Despite its name, the Miniaturizer is also capable of enlarging objects that are in their normal size, resulting in gigantification rather than reverse-miniaturization.
  • In the Gravity Falls episode "Little Dipper", magical crystals are used to grow and shrink.
  • In the 1990 television musical film Mother Goose Rock 'n' Rhyme, Gordon Goose and Bo Beep shrink and grow.
  • In the Secret World of Santa Claus episode "The Tall Little Girl", a girl named Kinshey is grown to giant size by a potion made by Santa's elves.
  • In the Power Rangers, the villains make all the monsters grow, using magical powers, to get ready for the Megazord transformation fight in the final battle. In the Power Rangers Zeo episode "Good as Gold" Trey of Triforia uses his staff to grow himself and the Rangers to giant size in order to battle.
  • Each of the three television series in the Lilo & Stitch franchise involved resizing in several episodes, with lead character Stitch growing into a giant via different methods in each of the shows.
    • Lilo & Stitch: The Series featured several episodes where a genetic experiment grows larger; "Tank" features an experiment (Experiment 586/Tank) that grows larger by eating metal, "Short Stuff" has Stitch, Experiment 625/Reuben, and a crab-like experiment (Experiment 297/Shortstuff) grow into giants thanks to a growth ray made by Jumba; "Ploot" features an experiment (Experiment 505/Ploot; misnumbered 515 in the episode) that grows larger from ingesting trash, and "Phoon" has a small wind-blowing experiment (Experiment 540/Phoon) mutated into a giant monster by a different device Jumba makes that was supposed to defeat it. Additionally, the episode "Poxy" has Lilo, Stitch, and later Gantu shrunk to a microscopic size by the same machine from "Short Stuff".
    • Two episodes of the anime series Stitch! feature Experiment 001/Shrink, an experiment first introduced in the Lilo & Stitch: The Series finale film Leroy & Stitch (as a cameo) who has the ability to either shrink or enlarge objects. In the episode "Shrink", the experiment shrinks several characters to a smaller size until he returns them to their regular sizes, although at the end of the episode he instead grows the alien BooGoo to become larger than the planet Earth. In "Experiment-A-Palooza", Shrink grows Stitch into a giant; because Experiment 210/Retro's own powers were also used on Stitch, Stitch essentially becomes a giant version of his former destructive self.
    • The Chinese animated series Stitch & Ai reveals that Stitch has an apparent, previously-unrevealed metamorphosis ability that causes him to grow into a giant monster with four laser-firing tentacles sprouting from his back when his destructive programming is fully triggered. This is one of the major overarching plot points of the series, as the main villainous races in the series try to manipulate Stitch into becoming this form in order to use him for their own means.
  • In the animated series Fish Hooks episode "Fish Out of Water", Milo, Oscar, and Bea explore the tank as a song plays. They go laughing at a predatory fish, bounce on chew toys, and take pictures in front of a giant chair. As Milo decides to get Bea back to her audition, the ground shakes and stomping noise heard. Oscar asks if they are seeing a shadow around the corner. A giant cat named Wilford is in front of the fish. A fly lands on his left eye. Trying to calm Bea and Oscar down, Milo comments "Maybe he's friendly."

Video games

Other media
  • Oyayubihime (Thumb Princess) is a Japanese work based on the fairy tale "Thumbelina". This story centers around the main character Saeko, who splashes a red liquid on individuals to shrink them to about three inches tall.
  • Minami-kun no Koibito is a Japanese manga which has been adapted into a television drama four times. The story centers around the main character, Chiyomi, who is shrunk by a magical curse when she and her boyfriend briefly went their separate ways. The caring boyfriend must do all he can to keep her condition a secret from inquisitive classmates and a relative who is a teacher at their school.
  • The protagonist of the magical girl manga and anime series Hime-chan's Ribbon is able to transform and resize herself by using a magic ribbon.
  • In the music video of Relient K's "Marilyn Manson Ate My Girlfriend", a giant Marilyn Manson eats a band member's girlfriend and the band has to go into Manson's body to save her.
  • The music video to the Bis song "Sweet Shop Avengerz" features Bis, having been miniaturized to only a few inches tall, performing next to a mouse hole. During the video, the band are nearly crushed by a man with a pen, and nearly eaten by a cat.
  • Similarly, the video to the Kerbdog song "Mexican Wave" portrays the band members as only one inch tall, performing the song on a woman's necklace.
  • In the anime series The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, miniaturizing cloning technology known as micloning (maikuro-n ka in Japanese) plays a significant role in the coexistence of a giant alien race called Zentradi and humanity.
  • In Marvel Comics, "Pym particles" (invented by character Henry Pym, variously known by the superhero identities Ant-Man, Giant-Man, Goliath and Yellowjacket) cause physical matter to shrink or enlarge by shunting mass into, or drawing mass from, another dimension. In addition to Pym, a number of other superheroes have used Pym particles to change their size, including the Wasp (Pym's ex-wife), the second Goliath, Black Goliath, the second Ant-Man, and the second Yellowjacket. Pym also designed a prison for supervillains that was dubbed "the Big House", in which superhuman criminals who could not be normally incarcerated were shrunk to six inches in height.
  • In DC Comics, the equivalent characters are the various individuals who go by the name The Atom. In particular of these people, Professor Ray Palmer is the foremost authority in size and molecular-density-changing technology. The DC Comics super-heroine Elasti-Girl also has the power to shrink and grow at will.
  • Tons of videos on YouTube discuss the improbability of resizing, including Vsauce3's What Would Happen if You Were Shrunk? and PBS's The Small Problem With Shrinking Ourselves.

See also
  • Miniaturization – the redesign of products to make smaller ones
  • Shapeshifting
  • Shrink ray
  • Square-cube law – a mathematical principle that defines why resizing is not possible in real life

References
  1. Jay, Mike. "Mushrooms in Wonderland". Retrieved 26 February 2020.
  2. "Miniaturization". Science Fiction Encyclopedia. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
  3. Lovell-Smith, R. (2004). "The Animals of Wonderland: Tenniel as Carroll's Reader". Criticism. 45 (4): 383. doi:10.1353/crt.2004.0020.
  4. Barnes, Brooks (March 19, 2009). "The Monsters That Inspired 'Monsters vs. Aliens'". The New York Times. Retrieved October 26, 2013.
  5. "Too Tall Tails" on IMDb

Further reading
  • Glassy, Mark C. The Biology of Science Fiction Cinema. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland. 2001.
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