Hello Internet!
Welcome to Film Theory, where no matter how much the Theorist Dynasty grows, we promise
to never get a big head.
Well, theorists, my buddy Paul Rudd is back
With a new hit movie, Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania.
Maybe “hit” is overselling it a bit based on audience review scores for this one.
So let me just try that again.
Of all the MCU movies, Ant-Man Quantumania is one of them.
Says a lot about a movie when the most excitement I get is the final title that reveals that
the words Ant-Man were actually hidden in quANTuMANia the entire time.
I was like, Whoa, no way.
It’s like when you find out that the FedEx logo has a secret arrow hiding inside of it.
But with this latest release, we officially have entered the beginning of MCU Phase 5,
where, as the marketing hype says, nothing will ever be the same, which is actually very
much the same for Marvel movies.
Hey, guys, maybe you just consider changing up your press releases every once in a while.
Or you know what? Nevermind. Scratch that.
Maybe I should be careful what I wish for, considering change is the thing that single
handedly drove this movie into the ground.
Well, that and soggy bottom MODOK.
Seriously, this is like the alternate universe if they had waited to reveal Ugly Sonic is
part of the movie.
Here we're just stuck with this thing for 2 hours.
Anyway, if you're really into PG Rick and Morty episodes, then this one is the movie for you.
Whether you like the film or not, something that I've seen everyone agree on is that things
felt off about the story.
Scenes that felt awkwardly placed, moments that resolved to quickly character arcs that
were more like character cliffs.
And this time, there's no one around to break the fourth wall and argue with producers about it.
Something major changed here, and I'm not just talking about normal production stuff
where things get left on the cutting room floor.
There's another movie hiding in here somewhere, one that got chopped up, shuffled around,
re-edited, rearranged and reshot for some reason.
And I want to know what that original movie was.
I want to see the story that this was trying to tell because my boy Ant-Man deserved better.
I want to still care about this franchise and its Pharoh Kang that looks like it just
rolled out of the party city.
I want to, but it’s getting real hard.
And if I need to stop caring about this franchise, I want to know what went wrong along the way.
Short version.
Get it? Short ver…
Anyway.
I think at one point Scott Lang's adventure to the quantum realm not only had a very different,
much darker ending, it also had a more complicated, morally complex story arc for the main character.
But here's the biggest twist I think solving what this movie could have been tells us a
fascinating tale of the major mistakes that Marvel and the rest of Hollywood are making right now.
Okay, so let me give you the quick recap of the movie we got so we can then, you know, actually
piece together the movie we should have got.
So it's 2025 and Scott Lang is kind of sort of retired from Ant-Maning since there really
hasn't been an Avengers level threat lately.
Except for a city being taken hostage, a giant Kaiju battle over Egypt, the multiverse ripping
apart, and the complete rampage of a deadly witch gone rogue.
Everyone just forgot Scott's number for those.
So instead, he wrote a book available on Audible.com, I have no doubt.
Meanwhile, Hope is running Pym Industries as a do-gooder Girlboss, Hank is collecting
fat paychecks for mildly reacting to CGI ants and Janet is definitely not talking about
what she did while stuck in the quantum realm for the past 30 years.
Seriously, don't even bring it up, she just doesn't have time to talk about it right now.
Okay, guy?
As for Scott's daughter, Cassie, she's all grown up into a completely different human being.
She's also grown up to be an activist stealing cop cars and protesting for the land rights
of blip victims.
So basically, she's a flag smasher.
But don't worry, it's okay for her to do it because she's the hero's daughter.
She also thinks that the grown ups in her life are kind of resting on their saved-the-world-that-one-time
laurels, Instead of being as angry about all this stuff like she is.
Then everyone gets zapped into the quantum realm so this whole boomers versus zoomers
allegory can play out with cool monsters and lasers.
The good guys get split up between Hank, Hope and Janet.
So she can very slowly reveal the plot, while Scott and Cassie get caught up with a group
of refugees being oppressed by an evil dictator, Kang the Conqueror.
And yeah, it's going exactly where you think it is.
This is the kind of cause that Cassie is super passionate about, and she wants to use her
powers to help.
Scott, meanwhile, says it's not their fight and he's only focused on getting her home.
And with that, we've set up yet again the clear ideological divide between these two
characters that we’ll then see inevitably play out over the next 2 hours of
*Record Scratch*
Oh, wait, Scott just decides to agree with Cassie.
Okay, that was quick to resolve itself.
But anyway, Cassie gets captured by Kang, forcing Ant-Man to cooperate.
They escape and ultimately return, storming the castle with their ragtag army of refugees.
Kang blasts a lot of people with the disintegration laser, but then makes the strategic decision
to only punch all the named characters.
Eventually, the script writers remember it's an Ant-Man movie.
So Kang is ultimately overwhelmed by an army of CGI ants.
Oh, and MODOK is here.
And then right before they escape the quantum realm through a portal, Kang returns.
Scott makes the ultimate self-sacrifice by pushing the rest of his family to safety while
he gets the beat down of his life.
just as it looks like he's about to die.
Hope comes in through the closing portal to finish off Kang for good.
Maybe.
Scott and Hope get a big, dramatic, heroes-looking-out-over-victory wide-shot.
Perfect for an ambiguous but hopeful cut to black cliffhanger.
And thus the movie ends with Scott and Hope trapped in the quantum realm with Cassie and
the rest of the young Avengers having to work to get them ba...
*Record Scratch*
Wait, another record scratch?
That is like two times we've used the same bit this episode.
No, actually, instead of being stranded in the quantum realm, Cassie immediately opens
another portal to the real world…
Somehow.
And we get a weirdly abrupt, happy ending coda almost entirely in VO, where Scott wonders
whether Kang will return.
And then two post-credits scenes in the end of the film teaser confirmed that yes.
Yes he will return.
So that's the movie.
And largely it works as a film, I guess.
Are there plot threads left awkwardly dangling?
Absolutely.
Is it an Ant-Man movie?
No, definitely not.
But all of those things weren't what set my theorist senses a-tingling.
What really convinced me to start digging deeper here was the ending.
Everything that happens from when Cassie turns the portal back on looks a lot like something
that was put together after the fact in post-production, using a bunch of recycled B-roll, a few minimal
reshoots and new voiceover.
I mean, Scott's self-sacrifice fake-out lasts less than a minute.
Just from a visual storytelling perspective alone, doesn't fit the very affectionate hug
it out family above all tone that the rest of the movie sets up.
No big “How am I going to get out this time?” moment.
No big reunion scene on the other side of the portal.
No restatement of the lessons that were learned along the way.
This is Marvel Studios here, people.
If that stuff ain't in there it’s because it wasn't shot to begin with.
Kevin runs himself a tight ship.
And that conclusion is supported by leaks that happened as far back as last September,
which said that while no one was meant to die in the end, Hope and Scott were meant
to get stranded in the quantum realm.
That shot of Cassie turning on the portal.
I suspect that it was originally going to be her activating something else entirely,
possibly even as part of a post-credits scene.
My personal head canon is that she was flipping a switch to signal her father's old team to
come help them.
Our first confirmation that The Avengers are coming back.
Except this time they're young.
You wouldn't even need to know who the Avengers actually were at this point.
Just a tense zoom on a digital screen and then: ASSEMBLE.
But also a self-sacrificial ending here makes logical sense as well.
See while it might be a bit of an exaggeration to say
One thing you probably did notice is that heroic self-sacrifice happens a lot.
Far and away, the MCU’s third favorite trope after bad dads and villains who are actually
evil versions of the hero.
Thor giving up Jane to stop Loki, Wanda lose and vision to destroy the Mind Stone, Black
Widow yeeting herself off the cliff for the Soul Stone, Wenwu protecting his son from
The Dweller In Darkness.
Peter Parker giving up his life to fix the multiverse and of course, Iron Man's sacrifice
to snap away Thanos.
Hack, the way that we know that Captain America is the goodest of the good guys is that he's
a jump on the grenade guy at the beginning of his story without needing to learn any
lessons about humility or respect on the way.
Be ready to lay down your life for others is the moral baseline of the MCU.
It's the thing that makes the good guys, “the good guys” here.
Even newer characters are being put to the same tried and true test.
In Multiverse of Madness, America Chavez is only able to defeat Evil Wanda after she says
that she'd be willing to sacrifice herself for the good of the many.
Then and only then is she able to become a marvel hero who can sucker punch someone who
once held her own against Thanos.
What all of these stories have in common is that the sacrifice is the payoff to an arc
in the growth of the character.
Thor learns how to put others' needs ahead of his own.
America stops running from her problem.
Tony has been trying to make up for being an arms dealer since he became Iron Man.
And here's the thing, Ant-Man movies have already used the trope.
In the first film Scott shrinks to quantum size to protect Cassie 1.0 and therefore stop
the man who would be MODOK, even though as far as he knew there was no coming back from that choice.
Why then would they do the same kind of payoff here again in the third outing?
Well, here's one possibility.
What if that subplot about Scott and Cassie butting heads over when and how to get involved
in other people's fights that just kind of resolves itself in one scene, was originally
meant to be a much bigger deal?
As in, the entire point of the movie kind of bigger.
One thing I made fun of in my plot summary about the movie, but that's really frustrating
when you actually watch it, is how slowly Janet reveals information about Kang.
She knows that he's been down here the entire time.
In fact, she's the one who helped Kang rise to power.
She's the reason all of this is happening and why all these Rick and Morty rejects are
being oppressed.
But the movie delivers that information to us in a weird way.
They drip feed it to us at a snail's pace, like much longer than a typical movie would
deliver this information.
They keep the name of the villain secret for a bunch of the runtime of the film, referring
to Kang as “Him”.
All of them talking in hushed tones much longer than you would expect.
And the fact that Janet is split up from Scott and Cassie means that even when she does finally
find the time to explain her backstory like an hour into the film.
Scott and Cassie still wouldn't know the danger that's around them.
I suspect that the film was originally structured this way so that Kang's appearance and the
fact that he's evil would be a big middle of the movie reveal.
Now, that might seem like a big leap, but consider what this does to the character arcs
in the film.
What if, in an earlier version of the movie, Scott didn't take Cassie's side right away?
Instead, he kept trying to only protect her.
As a result, he takes up Kang's go-get-a-thing-for-me offer willingly, despite her objections, because
from his perspective; Hey, we don't know what's happening down here really.
He seems to be the guy in charge.
Why are we assuming the weird aliens who made us drink goo are the good guys?
That then reinforces the opening beats of the movie, the generational gap and their
different priorities.
Then it all goes wrong and the rest of the story plays out mostly the same.
“Hey, I'm Kang.
Thanks for helping me achieve my true power.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm just going to go oppress everything.”
Look at what that does.
Scott suddenly realizes that he was wrong all along.
He feels guilty for enabling this villain and needs to do an MCU heroic sacrifice (trademark)
to atone for it, thereby reaffirming his good guy status while also establishing Cassie
as having had the clearer, more righteous moral judgment all along.
There's even this really strange moment in the actual film that makes me feel like we're
really on to something here.
Just before the big final battle, Scott stands up in giant man mode to confront Kang.
And he has this angry line, shouting more seriously than we've ever heard this character sound.
“We had a deal.
Our word is our bond!” which, okay, he's mad.
He should be.
But why is he outraged that Kang, a guy he just found out existed, a guy that he only
knows as an evil dictator, is Scott really that surprised that he was dishonest with him?
He has no reason to have assumed that he could trust Kang, unless all of that is a remnant
from a version of the story where he did.
I got to tell you theorists, all the pieces are in place for us.
It fixes the broken story arcs.
It explains the awkwardly paced storytelling.
It corrects the uncomfortable and reshot ending.
Kang's heel turn was meant to be a twist reveal rather than a core part of all the marketing.
So why then did they make such a drastic change and in the process butcher this movie to pieces?
Because I suspect that this wasn't meant to be a Phase 5 movie.
This was meant to be the end of phase 4.
Let me explain.
If I'm right about what this movie's plot and ending were meant to be, look at what
we're left with: a dark story about oppression, not trusting authority, and an ideological
divide between older and younger generations of heroes.
That doesn't sound like an Ant-Man movie, but it does sound like a marvel Phase 4 project.
For all its disjointed weirdness, Phase 4 did have itself a consistent theme: Instability.
Characters grappling with the realization that defeating Thanos, literally thwarting
the end of the universe, didn't end every other problem forever.
There's still suffering, injustice, inequality.
Some of it got even worse.
And now there are big disagreements over what to do about that, especially between people
who feel like the biggest fight ever has already been won, and those who think the fight has
only just started, which of course falls across generational lines.
And it's here that we pit a rising crop of young heroes who want to fight the power and
often hail from backgrounds that are, well, less significantly heavy on white guys named Chris.
Against older heroes who just want to retire.
Hawkeye and Ant-Man just want to be dads.
The Hulk is into meditation now.
The entire nation of Wakanda just wants to be left alone again.
And if you're really into heavy handed metaphors in a Multiverse Of Madness, Scarlet Witch
goes full super villain by trying to rip the lifeforce out of a Latina teenager in order
to resurrect a fake version of the American dream that only ever existed in her imagination.
Even the blackest sheep of Phase 4, Thor: Love and Thunder, got in on these same themes
of instability and generational change.
I mean, the bad guy wants to literally kill every God.
You don't get much more anti-authority than that.
And the movie ultimately agrees with Gorr.
We see that the gods do suck.
Thor is only able to win by blowing up his franchise's chosen-one conceit, by declaring
that all the kids are worthy to be Thor and that anything from random junk to a teddy
bear can be as good as Mjolnir.
That right there, that is Phase 4's narrative in one place.
The system is falling apart.
The people in charge are either corrupt or failing to fix it.
The young people know what's what and they're the ones who are going to save us.
The righteous path for any O.G.
Avenger still kicking around is to aid, mentor and pass that torch to the next generation.
Ant-Man getting tricked into empowering a time hopping Multiversal dictator?
Him and the Wasp getting trapped and needing help from a younger generation of heroes?
Sounds like a solid way to bring all these themes together and end this arc of storytelling
on a cliffhanger that then gets us eager for the next major chapter of the story in the
new Phase 5.
So then why would they have changed Quantumania’s Story?
But in this case, I'm talking about the real world blip: 2020 Covid happened, not only
delaying movie release dates, but the entire real world global economy.
Movie production was at a standstill.
Theaters were closing, people were turning to *GASP* YouTube and TikTok for their entertainment.
Suddenly, the pressure was on for Marvel to single handedly save the cinema, things had
to be churned out as fast as possible whenever they were able to get finished.
Looking at Marvel's original release schedule for Phase 4, you see that the plan was to
gradually introduce the multiverse as opposed to throwing it all out there at once.
No longer was there a chance to slowly build up to the reveal of Kang.
He had to be put out there front and center.
People loved Thanos, after all.
They'll have to love this guy too.
Make Endgame happen again because the world almost ended and the movie biz is on the verge
of dying.
Pander to how corporate suits see Gen Z. Make sure the fans are satisfied by giving them
MODOK, they've been asking for him for a while.
Bigger scale, bolder choices, multiscreen viewing experiences.
Look at this graph of MCU content released by year.
2021 had five times the amount of content of any other year before it.
It was a rush, a move of desperation to recover after a year without theaters.
Except, in all of this rush they forgot why people came out to these movies in the first place.
The stories, the characters, not years of a plot working together or fan service for
the sake of fan service.
Earned moments with tight narratives.
Compelling stories that made sense without massive plot holes.
Not an overreliance on quippy dialog, but dialog that was funny because yeah, that would
be what that character would say in that moment.
What's killing the MCU right now, and especially QuantumANTia here, are moves that are made
out of panic, self-doubt, a lack of confidence in the stories that they plan to tell, reedits
that result in choppy, uneven, compromised narratives as films are hacked to pieces.
It took the Marvel brand, which used to act as a seal of quality, and it's now reduced
it into something that, yeah, maybe I'll go see that when it airs on streaming.
The last time a studio acted in this sort of panicked way, rushing to get to the next big event?
That was DC, and we're still watching how long it's taking them to turn things around.
And there you have it, theorists.
The darker story for Ant-Man & The Wasp Quantumania.
Are we right? Totally off?
Will we ever know?
It's hard to say.
But what I'm sure about is that this isn't going to be the last time that this genre
of theory comes up.
The whole media industry is still putting itself back together after years of huge world
shaping events.
And even if it didn't play out as dark as it might have, the most relatable story that
this movie tried to tell is that you can't really unchange the world, only decide how
you are going to respond to it.
But hey, that's just a theory, A FILM THEORY!
aaaaaaaand cut.