Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was the MCU’s second rotten movie and paired with the first rotten MCU movie Eternals as the lowest-ranked Marvel film on Rotten Tomatoes. The MCU has been struggling since the Infinity Saga ended afterward Avengers: Endgame, Marvel just hasn’t found a foothold four years later. Even with the apparent success of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3the bad taste left by Quantumania is still there.
Fans and critics were, to say the least, unimpressed with the third film after Ant-Man/Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and the Wasp/Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly), as there were problems across the board. The special effects were rendered poorly and were clearly rushed, which hurt viewers’ eyes.
There weren’t any character arcs present, so the characters were stagnant with no development, and the same as when we started the movie. With too much exposition and too little of the fun of the past two Ant man movies, Quantumania was simply intended as a prologue to the main villain of the Multiverse Saga, Kang the Conqueror.
The movie doesn’t even do that very well, killing off the menacing Kang variant (Jonathan Majors) we encounter in the Quantum Realm. So the movie has no impact on the MCU, with no consequences or redeeming features.
But all that could have changed if one thing had been different, and that’s if Scott and Hope had remained trapped in the Quantum Realm, like Kang. In the final act, Scott and Hope stay behind to prevent Kang from escaping, and the Multiversal generator that allowed their friends to escape explodes, killing Kang and self-destructing, leaving Scott and Hope stranded in the Quantum Realm.
What seems like a groundbreaking move and a development that could affect the entire MCU is quickly and casually undone when their friends simply open a way home with their own generator.
Leaving them behind would have added so much to the movie, and here’s how it would have been better for the MCU if Scott and Hope had remained imprisoned in the Quantum Realm Quantumania.
Created consequences
As mentioned above, Quantumania does not affect the MCU. The events of the film have no consequences outside of themselves and form a rather boring adventure in the vast, interconnected universe built by Marvel. If Scott and Hope were left trapped in the Quantum Realm, the movie would have become more meaningful and likely influenced other future MCU movies, adding meaning and value to the story and characters.
Hope’s mother, Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer), was incarcerated the Quantum Realm for thirty yearsadding real consequences to her sacrifice in the first Ant man movie to save lives. It becomes the focus of the second movie Ant-Man and the Wasp while her husband Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), the original Ant-Man, spends a lot of time trying with Scott and Hope to find her in the mysterious place between space and time.
Even though they had a way to get to her, they still had to find her in the infinitesimal subreality. It should have taken years to find Scott and Hope, not seconds, and they would have had a lot to do in the Quantum Realm.
Expand knowledge of Quantum Realm and MCU
Scott himself was trapped in the Quantum Realm for five years, and while it felt like five hours to him due to the inconsistent laws of reality down there, Scott came back with the knowledge of how to use the Quantum Realm for time travel.
These formed five hours in the Quantum Realm Avengers: Endgamethe MCU’s biggest movie and second highest-grossing movie ever – Endgame used to be deceived from the title of first through a reissue of avatar in China only made 0.1 billion more ten years after it was made, so really, these five hours were integral to the truly highest-grossing movie of all time.
Imagine what Scott and Hope could have discovered while in the Quantum Realm, however long they were, to shape the future of the MCU and movie history.
Continued their story separately
disney
The main impact had Scott and Hope remained trapped in the Quantum Realm would have been on Scott and Hope themselves. A less developed bunch of the MCU could have continued their story separately from the larger MCU for a while and stuck there for a while, returning to the petty roots of Ant man by literally getting smaller than ever before and exploring the exciting and unknown world we didn’t know existed.
Scott and Hope could have learned more and more about Kang’s origins and his time spent in the Quantum Realm. Of course, we’ll see plenty of Kang variants in the future, though the sacrifice of our two heroes would have made the payoff of their return home much sweeter.