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.
So basically the entire point of phase 4 was getting in touch with reality after the aftermaths of phase 3
Lower expectations so the next avengers seems amazing by comparison?
Lmao jk jk, I loved everything phase 4 xD