When Downsizing released in 2017, it came packaged as a brilliant high-concept premise: what if you could shrink yourself to five inches tall, live like royalty on a fraction of your old budget, and save the planet in the process? It was a setup ripe for wonder, satire, and visual inventiveness. And yet, instead of reveling in its own conceit, the movie skipped right over the most exciting part — the initial amazement of the small world — and wandered off into an oddly disconnected plot about a disabled Vietnamese activist and a doomsday cult preparing for the end of the world.
It was an odd choice. Not because those subjects couldn’t work in another film, but because they made Downsizing feel less like an original and more like a second or even third sequel, the kind of thematic detour a franchise might attempt after audiences have already spent a movie or two immersed in the novelty of the concept. What we should have gotten was the obvious first story — the one that lets us live in the small world before tearing it apart.
What We Never Saw
Once the characters became small, the movie barely touched the premise at all. Where were the everyday hazards? Imagine weather events that barely rate a headline in the big world — “mildly windy” — becoming hurricane-level chaos for someone only a few inches tall. A boat ride on a pond would be a white-knuckle survival adventure, every ripple a towering wave.
Insects, too, would be an unavoidable terror. A single wasp could be a life-threatening encounter, ants a creeping army. Small people would need big people for constant protection, leading to a culture of dependency where the large are worshipped like gods — and feared like demons. Anger the wrong “big” and they could crush your car with a flick of a finger.
Even environmentalism would shift. Without the same pollution impact, litter might be ignored, garbage piling up in public spaces simply because it’s no longer seen as a global hazard. That tiny utopia could very quickly look less than perfect.
The World Inevitably Mirrors the Old One
The obvious long-term trajectory for a downsized society is that it would slowly become a mirror of the big world. At first, productivity might plummet — thanks to lower expenses, people could work just two hours a day and still live comfortably. But boredom and capitalism have a way of creeping back in. People would fill their empty hours with new ventures, competition would grow, and before long, many would be working eight hours again, often in jobs they didn’t like, simply because that’s how human systems drift.
Even the architecture would become impractical. Huge mansions — cheap to build in this scale — would prove isolating and hard to maintain. Neighborhoods would empty as people moved into smaller, closer-knit communities. Those left behind would find themselves lonely in echoing houses, far from friends.
Paul’s Story, Reimagined
The original Downsizing handicapped itself by making Paul’s first moments in the small world miserable — the heartbreak of his wife backing out left him sulking instead of letting us share in the thrill of the transformation. In a better version, Paul’s wife would leave him before the decision, taking half their wealth and leaving downsizing as his only real option.
He would arrive excited, wide-eyed, marveling at every new detail. But slowly, he’d notice the cracks — the wind, the pests, the creeping reappearance of social hierarchies, the loneliness of a mansion that feels more like an abandoned stage set. Eventually, Paul would see the writing on the wall: the small world is heading down the same path as the big one.
He’d try to fight it, giving speeches, lobbying for reforms, trying to hold back the tide — but he’d fail. And in that failure, he’d find acceptance. He’d stop worrying about saving the system and instead focus on his own purpose. His world would mirror the old one, and he’d no longer be bothered by it. Because he’d finally learned that life needs struggles, that these challenges are what make people stronger.
Start with the Obvious Before the Variations
When a concept is this fresh, let the first story be the most obvious one — the purest exploration of the premise that made the audience buy the ticket in the first place. Once that’s been explored, you can start playing with stranger, subtler variations in sequels. Downsizing skipped the most vital chapter of its own potential saga, leaving us with glimpses of a world we wanted to live in, but never really got to experience.
Thanks,
Ira