I agree that it's arbitrary but my issue is you said "Cassie kept failing miserably" operative word being kept. She tried twice only failed once.

Oh. Still imo it felt like character development to me. Idk what else to say

You make a good point @MarvelSharky and if you're right about Scott being more focused on his life aside from being an Avenger I wish the filmed had been more clear on why Cassie feels Scott isn't around enough instead of keeping it vague and alluding to the previous MCU movies.

The director could had done it better for sure. I think the scene with the 3 of them in the car and his tape was playing was a more humorous approach to what was happening. In fact, there was a lot of humor used to show his life post Endgame, that sort kept the issues hidden.

This is going to be another long one.

Ok so I saw this Thursday and had a bunch of notes. Then I lost my notes. Then I saw it again on Saturday and made new notes. Haven't had a chance to reply until now.

Love the intro - but it brings up a nagging question - did this always happen? This is treated as the backstory of Loki's version of Kang who creates the TVA. But Kang was only down there in the first place because the other Kang exiled him.

So did Janet and Kang meet in the Quantum Realm in the original Sacred Timeline? Or is this movie a deviation from that continuity because of Loki?

The probability creature is cool, though I would have liked more rules for how that works.

"Welcome back" is an appropriate lyric choice.

I would have preferred this movie deal a little more with the fallout of other movies. Hank and Hope were fugitives in Ant-Man & The Wasp.

Are they still fugitives?

Why is only Hope working at the company?

If she's allowed to do that, wouldn't Hank want to do that too?

How does Janet struggle to adapt to the modern world?

How does Hank feel about the fact that his technology saved the world?

Does it change his opinion of the Avengers?

Or does it make him even more guarded and want to protect it more?

Does the government want Pym Tech?

Does Hank know about Bruce's time machine?

Are the Pyms and Bruce working together now?

What about Ava?

Scott only got stuck in the QR in the first place because they were trying to get healing particles for Ava, so how come they're not still trying to help her?

Sonny Birch went to prison but did the Snap change that?

Is Sonny still incarcerated or is he back at large?

Also who gave Hawkeye the Pym arrows?

Are we going to address that?

Instead, the only question the opening of this film seems to want to ask is "Why did you and Captain America time travel? That doesn't make sense."

Seriously? That's the question people ask Scott? Surely it should be obvious why they did it -- they did it to reverse the Snap. Surely the Avengers would have said that in a press conference or something -- if the time travel itself is common knowledge.

The question I would be asking if I was an MCU citizen is "Aaah! Is the Dust thing going to happen again? Are any of us safe???" That's what I'd be asking.

I like the Jimmy Woo magic callback and the Baskin Robbins callback. And the fact that Scott wrote a book is a nice framing device for the narration...I guess. Though it's a bit careless of Scott to mention that "jail" is calling, in front of a bunch of kids. And it's clunky. He doesn't need to say it for us because we can see it on the phone.

Having Cassie be in jail reminded me of Scott being in jail in the first film - in that it falls flat. Movies usually have protagonists in jail to show that they're edgy characters, but there's nothing particularly edgy about Scott or Cassie. We don't even really see the events that led Cassie to jail; we only hear about them. If we'd seen Cassie get into an altercation then maybe I would buy the edginess, but instead we just start with her in jail and it feels like the movie is trying to force the appearance of edge. Mind you, I'm not saying the movie should be super edgy - just that it feels like it's transparently pretending to be.

I do like the idea that everyone returning from the Snap led to a housing crisis and that led to the incident with the police. But as usual, that's all we get. The rest of the world is pretty normal.

So Cassie, Hope, and Co are judgmental of Scott for "doing nothing with his life".

First of all, surely that ought not to be true. Scott ought to be working with Bruce to keep the Quantum Time Machine safe, etc.

But Second of all, if that is true and he's not doing anything -- then why?

But third of all -- it's not like he's doing absolutely nothing. It's not like he's not making money. He's probably getting royalties for that book so he's still providing for Cassie (he literally bailed her out of jail).

And then they're like "You went all the way to Germany to fight Captain America." And he corrects her to say "fight with Captain America."

NO. Neither of those are why he went to Germany. He went to Germany to help Steve stop ZEMO from releasing the other Winter Soldiers onto the world. He says that in the movie "a bunch of psycho assassins."

So Cassie has a quantum device. If she spent five years looking at quantum stuff, then wouldn't she have found the van? Like all it took was to just push the "come back" button, which the rat did. Feels weird she'd never find the van in five years.

So Cassie's quantum device being the catalyst for them going in was a stupid plot device. What the movie could have done was have them use the Endgame Quantum Gateway to get healing particles for Ava (which they were trying to do before anyway) but then Kang takes advantage of that and that's how they get sucked down.

I do like Scott changing size to save Cassie as they're falling. That's neat (although apparently Cassie has a suit? And apparently everyone just has nano tech now?)

Also, I get Janet not telling everyone about Kang when they're in the real world and it's all behind her -- but if you're back in the QR -- you need to start talking the second you get there.

I do like her explanation of "The Void" and "Subatomica" like there are different layers of the Quantum Realm. This film would have benefitted from more rules of how the QR works, especially time dilation. For instance, it would have been cool if the different regions of the QR were different sizes and depending on what "level" you're on, you're moving at a different speed in time relative to the real world.

The stabbing thing annoyed me -- until I realized it was a greeting. So it's fine I guess, but Janet should have warned Hank & Hope "Hey, just so you know they have a violent greeting so don't freak out."

The crazy creatures chanting to drink ooze I thought was silly -- until it became clear that the ooze was a translator. I thought that was neat -- but again, why couldn't Cassie just tell him that? As she did it first. Also, apparently the Ooze comes from a particular creature, Ebb. Are these Ebb creatures everywhere? Or does he just conveniently live where everyone landed? Why is his species the translation species? And how does his ooze get to that bar? Does he sell it to them? (I'm also not digging the creepy Adventure Time aesthetic but whatever). I do like that they made up a language for them to chant before the translation. I always appreciate that.

The Telepath guy is ridiculously convenient. Like how did Kang never conscript this guy into his service?

I knew I recognized Katy O'Brian.

The music in this film is cool. Christopher Beck went all out. I also like the shot of the Stingray flying across the vertical water.

This movie reminds me of the Star Wars Prequels. Lots of world building.

Hank "You were a freedom fighter?"

Janet "Or terrorist." I feel like she would never say that. Why not have someone call her a terrorist and then have her respond "I was a freedom fighter!"

Love the Bill Murray techno music but it felt like Murray was almost being too...Murray.

Like he says "I lie, a lot," while smiling, and then he says, "But not about this." That should be when you get grave -- but he still has that silly smile on his face. I don't know, some of his lines didn't land for me. But also he should have just said "You'll see the truth soon enough."

They kept alluding to Janet and Bill Murray sleeping together and it's like "We get it!" And I was fine with it for the most part during the Bill Murray conversation because it was mostly through subtext but then later on, Janet was like "I was down here for 30 years. I had needs." Yeah I could have guessed that. Do you really have to be explicit about it? But then Hank makes it worse by talking about a lady he "did it" with and I think Hope's disgusted response captured my reaction perfectly.

Am I the only one creeped out by the buildings with the crotch doors?

"The Conqueror burned our homes, our stories."

Wait, do you mean stories literally? Like is this some Once Upon a Time Season 6 "Land of Untold Stories" business? Or are you just being metaphorical like Tazer Face?

I don't like how Hank has become a joke in recent movies. I would prefer he was more dignified. When the controls for the ship come out, they make Hank dumber than he would be. He ought to have intuitively presumed those were the controls and said "Oh you've got to be kidding me." Instead, he's like "Where are the controls?" "Those are the controls." "The controls are alive?" And then Janet has to tell him to put his hands in to these two obviously hand-sized gels.

The electric poles the guards go down are cool and the fact that they disappear when you stab them is kind of neat.

Modok looks stupid. Should have just been Corey Stoll's face. I've always wanted Darren Cross to still be alive. When I found out he would be Modok I was like "WUT?" But after hearing the explanation, that his malfunctioning shrinking turned him into this, I was like "Ok, that's kind of clever." But all the same, I think Modok would have worked better as an alien in the Guardians movies.

Hank is surprised by the Multiverse -- is he not familiar with Doctor Strange? Did they not meet at Tony's funeral?

Did anyone else get Will and Jemma Monolith planet vibes from the Janet & Kang flashbacks?

But also, when did Kang enter the Quantum Realm? How much time has passed since then cause he's built a lot of stuff.

I love the way this movie finally continues the story of Loki. We even have the same visuals of the Timelines. Also, the design of Kang's ship and palace are really cool.

I like Kang's gravitas "Do not speak when I'm in the room." It's a neat contrast to Thanos's sympathy angle. Grace Randolph criticized this movie for "not having enough action" but I think scenes like Kang threatening Cassie are really compelling. You don't always need a ton of kinetic fight scenes to build tension.

A Probability Storm is such a cool concept and all the variants were interesting (and a cool way to foreshadow all the Kangs).

"Every choice you could make existing all at once" Well obviously it's not all of them or it would be infinite.

The Baskin Robbins Scott variant was funny but it feels a bit arbitrary that there's only one. Why wouldn't there be a bunch of them? How about a variant wearing the Endgame suit? Or the Ant-Man 1 suit? Or a Pym Tech employee Scott (or Cross Tech). Or a Scott in normal clothes with a wedding ring on? (like he's still married to Judy Greer)

I like that Cassie motivates all of them.

But you're telling me Scott's disk burns up but Hope's disk works? Why?

I like that Hank met Darren again.

But why wouldn't Kang give Cassie back? What does he have to gain by keeping her? It just makes him seem like a guy you can't trust. Why not give her back. It can be like a deal with the devil; you got your daughter but doomed the world.

And the Ant Time Dilation thing -- again, cool concept but how insanely convenient is it that no one else fell into the thousand year time dilation pockets?

When Cassie rescues Katy O'Brian, that was annoying cause it's like "How did you even get in there?" and Katy asks "How are you going to rescue me?" and Cassie's like "Good question." You didn't have a plan?

"History is not written. It is forged."

...Ok. Seems like those are synonyms but whatever. Generic speech time. But then, I'm sorry, Cassie can just hijack the speech? Ok?

I do like when Hank says "I'll drive," now confident in his abilities.

Scott's angry speech is pretty clunky and obvious "Kang! We had a deal! You took my daughter! You lied to me!" Feels like a pretty basic summary.

That was a neat callback to Ebb having holes - but the fake-outs are not over.

Darren's dialogue isn't great either. "Stop trying to be whatever this is." "I don't know what to be. Tell me what to be."

Feels like he'd be driven more by his devastation over what happened to him. The movie treats it as though he's just a random dick for the sake of being a dick when really he was probably traumatized by his transformation. He would be driven by a sense of hate and broken-ness. Some kid telling him "don't be a dick" isn't going to change that. The obvious response should be something like "I have nothing left. Destroying Scott is the only way I can get closure".

I like the Citrus callback to Civil War.

I like when Kang turned the Cannon head guy's yellow energy into blue energy.

People criticize the ants taking down Kang for being silly but it probably had to be that if this is an Ant-Man movie. Ants and the QR go hand in hand. If Kang says "You talk to ants" that's just begging for a pay off where the army of ants shows up.

It's nice that Hank got a payoff. Ironically, he's become more of an "Ant" man than Scott, though I suppose that's appropriate since he's the OG.

Darren's redemption is nice I guess (would have been cool to see his monitor flatline).

When everyone returned home, I thought the twist was going to be that it's like 100 years later or something because of the Quantum Realm. Like, they emerge in a future where the Avengers failed to stop Kang or something.

I love the POV shot from inside Scott's helmet as Kang kicks him.

Having Scott and Hope stranded there would have been SUCH A GOOD cliffhanger.

Having Cassie rescue them at the last second was SUCH A COP OUT!

At the restaurant, I thought the waiter was going to be Kang.

I was never a fan of the title Quantumania - until I realized "Ant-Man" was in the title.

The End Credits scenes were my favorite part. I Love Kang Tut. But I was bummed out that the Kang from this movie was dead. They did such a good job building him up - and he has a direct relationship to Scott and Co. And the scene with Loki was awesome too. Again, I like that we're finally paying this off.

At the finale restaurant scene I thought we were going to see something showing Kang had already taken over or somehow they went back to the wrong Earth. Like Kang’s face on the money. At last…none of that happened.

Or Kang is the president -- and then Jonathan Majors shows up as the President in Secret Invasion.

The president is already cast in Secret Invasion and its not him.

@TrueDogeMaster We were just talking about how we expected a twist at the end, especially considering Scott was worried about things. Didn’t say he would become the President.

So I've thought about this ever since I saw the movie over the weekend. Kang is an extremely dangerous for to face and even tougher to defeat. What makes him so dangerous is, because he's from the future, he know much of the history of the marvel heroes and universe. As he stated himself he believed that his battle with Ant-Man would be victorious and it wasn't. What if this was Kang's plan? What if Kang foresaw a victory in his own personal future that came as a result of his "defeat" by Ant-Man? I believe that Kang may have formed a plan to try and reach the boundaries beyond the edges of the multiverse, aka the beyond verse, home to the powerful Beyonder race. He could utilize them to wipe out all timelines he designates "unnecessary". It's just a theory I had.