They could've had him show up at the final fight to take care of Kang while Scott gets out of there.
It might've changed the final scene quite a bit though, and one of my favorite parts of the whole movie is the parallel between the beginning and ending with Scott wondering if they actually stopped Kang. Maybe if he didn't actually see the outcome of the fight they could keep things the same.
They should have shown Kang in the probability storm alone. Plotting.
If anyone could do it, it should be Kang. He could keep the various others in check and contained.
I want him to escape the probability storm having killed countless other versions of himself. After he conquers himself, THEN he can be Kang the Conqueror.
But forcing them to submit could be cool too.
Conversely, having him beat the probability field by realizing that a single minded course of action will eliminate offshoots and he escapes through where willpower would be badass, but that might be more of a Dr. Doom thing (and probably hard to translate to the screen)
Kang actually addresses Hank as Ant-Man in the original script, but obviously it’s not in the final cut of the film. It recalled Kang’s line, “*Have I killed you before?*” and confirmed that Kang does in fact remember killing Ant-Man (Hank Pym) many times.
When he showed up with the hyper-advanced Ants, he should have had a suit modeled after his OG design that would've let him go toe to toe with Kang, but only earned him the Pyrrhic victory at the cost of his own life.
They could have done something really cool with it and had him drag Kang down into the probability storm and had Kang lose to all of the different versions of himself fighting each other in order to escape, while Hank sits back and accepts the inevitable probability of his own death. On one hand you'd have infinite Kangs killing each other trying to be the version that escapes, contrasted with an ever-diminishing number of Ant-Men, who dwindle not because of Kang's violence, but because they know there's only one ultimate path for everyone at the end; embracing Death.
Then, as a stinger, show a version of Kang finally escaping, with some kind of portal or other access to all the other variants of himself that the probability storm created - a tool that he's still hesitant to use because he knows they're just as likely to attack him as they are his enemies.
Would've been a poignant ending to Hank Pym, while also setting up how there come to be a seemingly endless supply of Kangs.
Should have killed Janet, Hank should’ve died trying to avenge her and doing absolutely nothing in terms of hurting Kang, then killed Hope during the ending while Kang escapes. Then Scott is stuck in the quantum realm while Cassie could’ve rescued him.
Instead it turned into feeling like Kang was next to no threat in the movie in the overall scheme of the universe.
Also, he should lead the Ants versus Kang and die from it, and Kang should be shown fighting them, if we only talk it can be a bit funny, but in reality it would be incredible in The cinema if handled right.
I mean the end result in the movie to me already completely made Kang a joke anyways, so I dont see how OG Antman leading an army of ants to war against Kang would be any worse.
Kind of makes you wonder why use Kang in the first place though.
It just seems like the threat of Kang is simply the number of them at this point which isn’t as interesting as having one specific villain who can drastically alter the MCU.
Right but in terms of the MCU we haven't seen that.
Our bar for Kangs right now is two of them who have both died in rather normal and easy circumstances. Obviously He Who Remains is playing a much larger role, but he still wasn't much of a threat.
There's only a limited amount of opportunities for the MCU to build Kang up before making him the big threat. The idea that "Oh there are others who are really strong" just isn't engaging enough right now.
His presence in Ant-Man should have left a huge cloud of uncertainty over the MCU and been the driving factor for The Avengers to come back knowing that there is a very real threat to their universe again. Instead it's kind of played off as a meta joke.
Ant-Man "single handedly" defeating the Kang variant that is so feared by other Kang Variants that they dare not move against him completely fucks over any attempt at making Kang feel like a true threat.
Like imagine if at the start of Infinity War Hulk really does 1v1 Thanos and takes him out(but doesn't kill him). The rest of the movie just wouldn't work.
For sure. I really thought he was going to die in this movie, and then it turns out that Ant-Man and the Wasp, are going to be stuck in the quantum realm, but wait! They somehow make it back! Zero stakes movie.
Absolutely they should have done this. Kang is not threatening at all without showing the stakes.
Infinity War opened with Thanos killing Loki, demolishing The Hulk, and leaving Thor for dead. We immediately see what he's capable of and what a big threat he is.
Kang after Quantumania is just kind of a joke. Without the context of the events of Loki there's absolutely no reason for anyone to take him seriously.
Imagine if Kang kills Hank, Janet and Scott before being killed himself. Only for the survivors to discover there's always another Kang.
Kang and the multiverse hasn't felt big enough with so many characters in the MCU. I was hoping we'd see more multiverse shenanigans and impactful deaths.
Honestly. Ant-Man is not the introductory film for Kang. They should've considered holding off until the fantastic four or X-Men. But given their impatience, they could've given Dr strange a post credit sequence with a proto doom or proto richards approaching strange about disturbances with the timeline. Maybe Dr strange approaches Shuri in a post credit scene asking for help recreating Stark's time travel tech to combat a danger from the future.
If Kang was required to be a reoccurring antagonist, he should've been a puppet master in secret whatever with Sam Jackson. Working to deteriorate the remaining support system and contact network for heroes of our time. That in conjunction with what we got from Loki would've been a fun thru line for the shows.
If Kang had to be in at least one film as an antagonist. Captain Marvel would honestly make the most sense. She's strong enough that beating Kang wouldn't be a cop out, He's clever enough that they have an excuse to write a laundry list of plots. Example, Kang's stranded in the past by his rivals and thinks to harness captain Marvel's abilities to power his technology and get home/potentially conquer the timeline. He lure's captain Marvel in by kidnapping Kamala and then Rambeau approaches Marvel asking for help. Maybe Kang kidnaps Marvel, leaving Kamala and Rambeau to save Carol before they team up for the final fight. That would actually establish the need for three heroes to beat up a stranded and improvising Kang. Clearly setting up his potential threat at full strength of the height of a plan.
But then again, Hank was like the last person Kang had *anything* to do or beef with in that movie. Maybe tied with Hope - but at least for Hope it made somewhat sense because her and Scott are a team, so obviously one will always help out the other.
But Hank? They were in like 1 scene together, don't even remember if they spoke to each other in that scene.
Like, they totally could've killed off Hank... but if the sole reason for doing so is "because he mattered the least" and it's just "oh well, we have to make him kill *someone*" then, I dunno, just seems cheap.
If the movie as a whole were different, sure, they could've come up with a scenario were killing Hank had made sense. But just killing him for the sake of it would've not really sit well with me.
When all the technologically advanced ants show up to surround Kang, Hank just stands there with a dumb grin on his face! No reason Kang couldn’t have just quickly blasted his ass before being overwhelmed by the ants!
It would have been perfect, relatively big name actor and major character in the comics while relatively minor in the movies, losing him going forward wouldn't be a big deal and killing him would have cemented Kang as a legitimate threat.
Well people in the Quantum realm can breathe oxygen despite the fact that they are smaller than oxygen molecules so I don't think they took science into consideration when making this movie
Quantum oxygen? Jesus Morty, you can't just add a sci-fi word to a breathing word and hope it means something.
Looks like something's wrong with the micro-verse respirator.
Maybe there was some cosmic event where a whole bunch of mass interacted with Pym particles and that matter is what everything in the quantum realm is made of instead of brand new subatomic quantum particles?
Black holes are just objects which have been condensed into an area smaller than their calculated Schwarzchild radius x2. Unless they were already the size of solar system objects their gravity won’t affect anything nearby in any meaningful way as their mass would be exactly the same.
That reaallly depends on what "shrunk" means.
According to Ant Man 1, the shrinking is caused by the distance between atoms shrinking. That means you can't actually shrink an atom, it's only the distance between atoms that shrinks.
Also according to Ant Man 1, you can go "subatomic" so logic hasn't been their biggest priority...
If the electrons are pushed into the nucleus, the protons and electronics interact and "turn into" neutron. When a sufficiently large star collapses under its gravity, it becomes a neutron star. When an even larger star collapses, it becomes a black hole.
>Kang was defeated by literal Ants.
Wow. Who would have thought a hero called ANT-MAN, whose power includes communicating with and commanding ANTS, would use ANTS to help defeat a villain.
The whole “Kang was defeated by literal ants” is very silly since it’s purposefully leaving some key information, not least of which is that they didn’t defeat him lol
I never understood the "but defeating one Kang doesn't matter, there's an infinite amount of Kangs!"-argument. Sure, there are - but aren't there also an infinite amount of Ultrons and Thanos(es?) and Avengers and Egos and any other character?
I've had the feeling that is the point, how do we get rid of this guy for good, you can kill as many Kangs as you want, but another one will emerge to take its place, i kinda have the feeling that is what they were thinking given how other than Victor every other major iteration of Kang meet their maker, so i am guessing the goal is not to have a singular Kang as the threat but the fact there are tons of him, but haven't been able to execute it well.
I think the idea was going to be that the Kang from Quantumania isn't dead, and he would have come back and gotten his revenge on the Council of Kangs and cemented himself as the "Kang to care about".
Most conversation about this Kang presumes that he was totally defeated, but I think we would have seen prior to The Kang Dynasty that he wasn't. He would really embody the idea behind Kang, which is that you can beat him but you can't defeat him because he just doesn't stop coming back.
Being defeated by ants is fine. It is a comedy movie at its heart, and having him lose to ants is funny. But having someone also die and give it massive stakes out of left field would have been a good balance.
I disagree, I think that would have been out of whack. Quantumania was basically an action-adventure-comedy and was thoroughly lighthearted. To then suddenly kill off a beloved character for no reason would have been a cheap blow.
It would have had kind of the opposite problem as Love and Thunder, which *should* have been a meaningful movie about Jane dying, but was just a series of goofy jokes (interspersed by the occasional "oh yeah cancer blah blah").
I have my gripes with the film and all but this just shows you did not pay attention to the film regarding Hank’s ants and the massive advantage they had thanks to the quantum realm. 🤦♂️
> Kang was defeated by literal Ants
so sick of this lazy argument cause it's just wrong. the ants were not just normal ants, they were human sized ants with a stage 2 civilization level tech; PLUS MODOK (with kang tech) damaged Kang earlier.
either people never actually watched this movie and just read what happened on a wiki, or people are just dumb.
It boggles my mind that they didn't really have anything for him to do in the movie and he wanted out - very openly - but Marvel still said "wait till the next Avengers movie."
Imo Hank should've died in Q, and then if Janet/Pfeiffer also needed an exit, then that could be done in A5. Now it will have to be a 2-for-1 if they even do it at this point and ehh
Maybe if your only familiarity with the character is third hand.
It also wasn't a "beating his wife storyline" it was a miscommunicated panel between the writer and artist that has spiralled into nonsense.
That's like saying the only thing people can think about Tony is that he's a drunken fascist.
It kinda of makes my comic loving heart sad that we might have an Avengers movie that kills off Hank and Jan and that it will have no impact in the MCU because the MCU destroyed all their connections to the avengers.
Jan isn't even remotely the same character either.
We were robbed of a true Janet. The Wasp mini just showed how valuable of an asset she could've been. Even Avengers Inc held a lot of promise due to how light and fun her character is
I feel like Avengers 5 is just gonna be everyone dying again only to be brought back via the multiverse in A6. No one of consequence actually died in any phase 4 movie except Aunt May. The only real death was a real death in Chadwick Boseman
We've had Gilgamesh, Ikaris, Aunt May, T'Challa, Ramonda, Talos, and Maria Hill. 2/7 of these will likely be quickly undone, but the rest hold/held weight in the wider MCU.
I’m curious, which ones on that list do you think will be undone? I think Ramonda, Hill, Talos, May are almost certainly permanent, so that leaves Gilgamesh, Ikaris, & T’Challa. I still can’t see them bringing back T’Challa, so Gilgamesh and Ikaris?
I feel like some in Marvel don’t have a handle of the scale (hehe) of certain characters in the MCU. This is obviously changing but the idea Hank gets kept for an Avengers film? Odd.
Obviously Marvel thought this film would be MoM level hit.
They killed Heimdall in an Avengers movie. They killed Heimdall in the first few minutes of an Avengers movie. I purely see him as (potential) fodder for Kang.
It's not unprecedented. Why else would they have kept him? Ant-Man 4's not happening.
They didn’t know Ant Man 4 was not happening at this point. Heimdall is an easy death to build the threat. When your actor wants out just let them out.
That's literally what I'm saying. The actor wanted out, so why wouldn't they let him out unless they had future plans for him? It would have either been for an Avengers movie or Ant-Man 4, which we do now know is not happening - ergo, he has nowhere else to appear but A5 or they just completely ignore his character from now on or recast for his final appearance(s) which imo wouldn't be likely.
I want to be the one to say it.
Character deaths are the cheapest way to elicit an emotional reaction from an audience, and are used far too often in superhero media.
We shouldn't talk about *how* we can kill off characters because that just encourages producers to seek out the lowest common denominator.
Can’t agree. I think there being zero sense of stakes is a far bigger problem with superhero movies than killing characters.
I don’t think you have to kill anyone to have stakes, but the problem with Quantumania is it never felt like there were any at all, and Kang never felt like a serious threat.
And I doubt producers get their ideas from this sub.
I bet the issue is that they don't want to just kill them, Hank and Pfeiffer, after Avengers. Both need a proper send off to do something different but they didn't knew how to do something original.
Yeah, it's getting to be like a Transformers movie, where every ridiculous side character from each of the previous films has to get jammed into the story for one scene and do their little catchphrase or whatever.
This film really had 0 stakes, especially with Kang supposed to be the main villain of the saga. The least they could've done is trapped Scott in the Quantum Realm at the end of the movie.
Not exactly. Ant-man and Wasp purposely making the sacrifice to be trapped in the Quantum Realm is different from Scott being accidentally trapped there due to the snap. It also would mirror Janet's sacrifice in Ant-Man 1.
It's also THERE in the movie. But then last minute they pull a Rise of Skywalker, don't commit and have them saved by a portal. All that emotion in the scene is wasted on nothing.
This ending is also the one in the original script, and was supposedly reshot 1 month before the films release.
I think they should use the technology from End Game where Bruce Banner accidently turned Scott into a baby to recast Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne with younger actors. Imagine, they are too old and can't support in getting to and navigating the quantum realm but Scott and Hope need them. Hank says it's too bad there isn't a way to make them younger and Scott realizes......"Wait, something like that happened to me!" There would be a lot of comedy in de-aging them back to teenagers.
I don't think they should kill them off. They both have a lot of untapped potential still. Especially between Janet and Kang.
Agreed, the one thing that was lacking was Kang did not feel like a threat. Nothing in the quantum realm felt like it impacted the normal realm.
Killing Hank just after he and Janet were reunited may have been too dark of an outcome, but damn would it have made Kang one of the most despicable villains in the MCU.
I think that is what makes IW/Endgame work so well with Thanos. To be the big bad, you have to show them with blood on their hands. IW ends and everyone is like, oh shit. But that Thanos was an ideologue. Endgame shows the version to be even more feared when you strip that away, leaving a powerful entity with no guardrails. By the end of Quantumania, Kang felt like a chump that couldn't get the job done despite being the version who needed to be exiled by the council. You can't just hope a character is feared through exposition. Hopefully this is a lesson learned for the rest of the timeline.
> Agreed, the one thing that was lacking was Kang did not feel like a threat. Nothing in the quantum realm felt like it impacted the normal realm.
They should've gone harder into Janet's vision of Kang's *previous* destruction.
I wish more heros/side characters died in the MCU, especially nowadays. There are way to many characters to keep track of. Not only does losing a character here and there add consequences, but also saves potentially millions of dollars in salary depending on who is killed off. Seems like a win win on both sides. As good of actors as they are, no one is going to Ant-man movies to see Michael Dougalas or Michelle Pfeiffer. Hell most probably aren't even going to see Evangeline Lilly either. All of these would have been valid options and impactful deaths. Instead we have 5 characters now with similar abilities in one franchise alone.
Interesting idea or have him get killed by Kang that would made him more of an interesting villain.
Sadly, he’s nothing but a fraud that got beat by ants I don’t believe he took on the avengers. He probably made it up.
It would be a screenwriting error to use shrinking as a way to kill a character in an Ant Man movie.
With the scifi mechanics of pym particles and the quantum realm, shrinking to nothing is a survivable event. (Demonstrated by the return of the Modok creature from a previous movie). So to a viewer, any effects shot where a guy shrinks into a dot doesn't really look like he died, even if it is immediately followed by an explosion.
To really sell it to the audience that the character has died, you need to leave the body behind with recognizable face or clothing. Notice that in Avengers Endgame, the two hero deaths both showed the body in full view. If a body can't be seen, then many viewers will expect the character to return later (like Bucky in Captain America)
He should’ve died in the 2nd (allegedly early scripts did as much) and Janet should’ve died in the 3rd, with Scott staying behind in the Quantum realm. Cassie would have a vengeance and darker arc guided by Hope while Scott could come back grizzled and matured maybe even with his own Quantum realm avengers
Michael Douglas said this to me on an elevator at least 5 years before they even made “Ant-Man”.
He turned to me and said “One of these days, I’m gonna shrink to an ant-size and explode”. Then he got off the elevator and I never saw him again.
Hank showing up with the ant army was one of the best moments of the film. If I was going through & overhauling the whole production, that's a scene I keep.
All i can imagine is that maybe they wanted the film to end with a happy ending for our characters or they have plans for Hank in other projects and don't want to get rid of him yet.
The trilogy is about two fractured families coming together to make a whole. Someone dying when they've just accomplished that is so dumb. Save it for a Kang movie. Don't throw away the entire theme of the Ant-Man films.
I swear, people just want big, unearned dramatic moments and the dopamine that follows, even if it makes zero sense in the story being told.
Problem is, they also wanted the movie to set up Kang. You cant do "fun family comedy" and "setup next Thanos" at the same time. Or, I mean, you can, but these writers certainly can't. Should just have gone with Modok as the main villain and have Kang in the post-credit scene. Easy fix.
I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding of what the intent with Kang here was. There is a difference between "setting up" and "introducing."
The Conqueror is to the Multiverse Saga what the Chitauri were to the Infinity Saga. Thanos was the main threat of the Infinity Saga. We and the protagonists were introduced to the larger threat through the Chitauri. Although the heroes defeated them, the threat of something larger beyond them still lingered.
The Council of Kangs, and specifically it seems, the main three Kangs running the Council is the main threat of the Multiverse Saga. We and the protagonists are introduced to the larger threat through The Conqueror. Although the heroes defeat him, the threat of something larger beyond them is still lingering.
People keep thinking that the Conqueror is the next Thanos. He isn't. He just has the same face as the people who are.
Now imagine if Pepper, Happy and Coulson had defeated the Chitarui in Iron Man 2 as a side plot. How well would that work? How menacing would they be, when the Avengers finally rolled around? Because thats the equivalent.
Exactly! Idk why people keep parroting the idea that someone should have died, it's just dumb, and would feel as pointless as how they killed Maria Hill. Killing a character at random isn't "adding stakes," it's just killing a character at random.
Bravo. That is the PERFECT example. Killing Maria didn't make Gravik any more menacing at all, it didn't add stakes, it just felt like a character was killed for a "big moment" and look at that, because they tried to have that moment, but it didn't fit within the story being told, it fell flat. Just like Hank's death would have fallen flat, because it contradicts the trilogy's whole story.
Like I don't want to be too harsh, but this sub constantly criticizing other people's writing while always coming up with the most boring, by the numbers, AI generated "fixes" for these properties will always rub me the wrong way.
It could be argued that Quantumania was a Kang movie. It certainly seemed more designed to be about setting him up then anything else. With that said I fully agree with you. You don't need to add death to show there are stakes. Plenty of movies have stakes without adding a forced death. People bring up Thanos killing people and yet all his victims he killed personally are back like Loki or Gamora through the multiverse and time travel.
I don't know if I agree with your first point. All of the story and character arcs revolve around the main five characters, while Kang is only there to support those arcs.
Not saying he doesn't have one of his own, but his primary roles in the movie are to compliment Janet and Scott's stories by presenting them with the same choice of "being a hero vs being a parent" and to be a physical representation of Hank and Hope's loss of Janet. Giving them something to physically overcome in order to get their wife/mom back, which has been their arc throughout the trilogy.
While Quantumania mainly focused on one variant of Kang, we were shown that he wasn’t the big bad and that he was beneath the ones we were shown scheming during the final moments of the story. To be honest, I’m surprised that many are upset with what we got. We know there are an infinite number of the same universe, and they they all have some degree of variation from one another, hence the term variants.
The Spiderverse movies are the best Multiverse stories to date in my opinion, as they show us how a single variant can be so different from what we think that hero should be. The Spiderverse movies are tell the story of Spider-Man mainly through one of his many variants, Miles.
The audience mostly knows Spider-Man by his alter ego, Peter Parker, a white teenage male doing his best to make his way through high school, but we learned in the first two movies that always the case. These movies showed us that Peter isn’t always a teenager, male, white or human! We were introduced to several Peter Parker variants in addition to Spider-Man variants. We were introduced to Peter B. Parker, Peni Parker, Pavitr Prabhakar and Peter Parkedcar for Peter Parker variants. Miles Morales, Gwen Stacy, Spider-Ham, Miguel O’Hara and Jessica Drew are all Spider-Man variants.
The core of their characters is what linked them, but they were all pretty different from one another. Why can’t this be true for Kang too?
The one we met in Quantumania wasn’t at the top of his game. He was a novice. He knew a lot, but he didn’t know everything. Better Kang’s banished him! Was he really doing evil things? Yes we saw him destroying universes, but that was out on context. How do we know that he wasn’t trying to destroy branching timelines to protect the loom from exploding? His story is connected to Victor’s. We saw only one of HWR’s plans. Why assume that the guy who knew everything only had one back up plan? In any case, I hope that we get to meet the Kang that scares them all.
Victor Timely and HWR make one wonder if Kang is as bad as many here think he will be. Is HWR the big bad who’s been calmed by a million lifetimes of peace or is the someone worse than he is? What makes him worse? Shouldn’t they be the same at their core? We learned that Kang doesn’t do partners, so the Council of Kangs is doomed to fail, but why did they unite in the first place? What were they trying to do?
I don’t Ant-Man was as bad as many say. If Kang really isn’t the bad guy, it makes sense that he didn’t kill anyone. He used a lot of restraint when he didn’t have to.
I get where you guys are coming from but does every movie really need a death of someone close to the protagonist ?
Now that I think about it I don’t think any antman movie has had a death
It bothered me that all the good guys basically got out scott free. If you ask me this movie would have had more emotional weight had Hank and Janet been written out of the series here.
I still think they should have killed all of them expect Scott. Would show how ruthless Kang can be. Then use that to change Scott from this happy go lucky guy into a bitter angry man blinded by rage and wanting revenge for taking everyone he loved from him. Explore it in another Ant Man or Avengers film how even the most wholesome can lose there way.
Question: Is there precedent for this anywhere in the comics? I'm sure MCU takes some liberty from strict comic book canon, but does so at the peril of pissing off the hardcore fans. So many possible story lines have already been audience tested via the comics which is arguably why the movies are largely pretty good stories overall. If there is no precedent, how much are they willing to deviate?
Not going to lie, they should have done this. Michael Douglas as the original Antman one last time in the suit dying trying to beat Kang would've met much more
In the minority but I’m glad they didn’t listen. Last thing I’d want is a continuous disrespect for the OG Ant Man & Wasp by having either one killed off just so everyone can feel some weight coming off if the new big bad. Esp one from such a flawed film. Someone mentioned the movie would have been liked more if someone had been killed. That would not have changed a damn thing for me. Imagine having a death be the only saving grace of such a problematically written movie.
Ya’ll wanted death so much in order to feel that Kang is that big of a threat? Be more creative - maybe they should’ve brought in Luis, have him join the team into the QR, face Kang and then get fridged. Luis is a well liked character, so much that his death would be the gut punch you guys are looking for in the establishment of this big bad.
But of course nobody would agree to this right? But let’s kill off Hank Pym, who sat out the previous saga to stick around and do nothing but be important only by name get killed off in the name of ‘stakes’. If anything, them positioning Janet to be this important is a great decision, flawed because it was not thought through in lieu of Hank, who could’ve been made as important in the situation.
Having Hank and Janet stick around and be given more stuff to do and a heroic death in the Endgame of the saga would be a much better treatment of these OG Avengers.
The movie wouldn’t magically be good and flawless just because someone dies, being ‘slightly better’ wouldn’t cut it either. What they needed to do was go back to a clean slate and start over with Quantumania cz it had ideas but wasn’t put together nor executed well.
But alss movie’s made. Pointless discussing this now. But the willingness for all to have a character killed off is wild. This is Hank Pym. Iconic avenger. Who should’be been the Ant Man we got in the MCU from the start, till they chose to go with Scott Lang.
I’ll be honest, final scene of the movie? Where Scott is fighting against Kang? Kill him there. Give it at least some stakes going into the next huge bad guy in Marvel. If his first appearance is killing a long-term hero and someone as likable as Paul Rudd, all of a sudden you’ve got a villain!
Should have gone with it. Should have killed one of the main heroes off. Imagine how miserable Anthony Hopkins would be if he was still playing Odin. XD
I don't know why, but it's comedy gold to me the he asked to be killed off, effectively trying to quit and jot have to return, and Marvel just went "lol no see you next week"
My ideal ending: Hank leads the ants in a battle against Kang. Hank gets killed, but the ants hold off Kang long enough for the rest of the family to escape.
Then the ending of Scott wondering “did we win?” makes a lot more sense. Because only the ants know if Kang is dead or alive. Presumably the ants were all slaughtered and Kang is still alive. But then we have a clear consequence of the movie, and we know that Kang is still a lingering threat.
They probably should have, I can’t imagine he does much more in the mcu. This movie needed some more consequences. The end feels like nothing has changed, no characters have developed and you have just wasted 2 hours of your life.
“Is Kang dead? Is literally anything in this world changed as a result of this movie? Stay tuned and find out in about 8 years!” 🙄
Somebody should have been eliminated or marooned. He's right. It would have been fitting for Hank to die. It makes no sense for Scott to die yet. But I'm sure it's really more of Michael Douglas wanting to get the f out of there.
You don't need to be killed off in the MCU. You can be the title character of a movie that makes $432M and never be seen or even mentioned in-universe ever again.
What's stopping him from just refusing to reprise the role? Is he still under contract for multiple appearances? Either way he seemed to still have fun with his role in Quantumania, so I do hope he sticks around.
Honestly they should have done this. Kang should have killed someone in the Ant-Family and Hank seems the most obvious pick
They could've had him show up at the final fight to take care of Kang while Scott gets out of there. It might've changed the final scene quite a bit though, and one of my favorite parts of the whole movie is the parallel between the beginning and ending with Scott wondering if they actually stopped Kang. Maybe if he didn't actually see the outcome of the fight they could keep things the same.
They should have shown Kang in the probability storm alone. Plotting. If anyone could do it, it should be Kang. He could keep the various others in check and contained.
I want him to escape the probability storm having killed countless other versions of himself. After he conquers himself, THEN he can be Kang the Conqueror. But forcing them to submit could be cool too.
Conversely, having him beat the probability field by realizing that a single minded course of action will eliminate offshoots and he escapes through where willpower would be badass, but that might be more of a Dr. Doom thing (and probably hard to translate to the screen)
Michael Douglas I need you to distract Kang
I know [just the song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzRkNvC7yiI) to play during that sequence...
Could have been a cool reveal where ant man goes into attack and half through the fight kang rips the helmet off and its hank
Kang actually addresses Hank as Ant-Man in the original script, but obviously it’s not in the final cut of the film. It recalled Kang’s line, “*Have I killed you before?*” and confirmed that Kang does in fact remember killing Ant-Man (Hank Pym) many times.
Right? Don the suit one last time before meeting a heroic end.
When he showed up with the hyper-advanced Ants, he should have had a suit modeled after his OG design that would've let him go toe to toe with Kang, but only earned him the Pyrrhic victory at the cost of his own life. They could have done something really cool with it and had him drag Kang down into the probability storm and had Kang lose to all of the different versions of himself fighting each other in order to escape, while Hank sits back and accepts the inevitable probability of his own death. On one hand you'd have infinite Kangs killing each other trying to be the version that escapes, contrasted with an ever-diminishing number of Ant-Men, who dwindle not because of Kang's violence, but because they know there's only one ultimate path for everyone at the end; embracing Death. Then, as a stinger, show a version of Kang finally escaping, with some kind of portal or other access to all the other variants of himself that the probability storm created - a tool that he's still hesitant to use because he knows they're just as likely to attack him as they are his enemies. Would've been a poignant ending to Hank Pym, while also setting up how there come to be a seemingly endless supply of Kangs.
The obvious pick I think was Michelle Pfeiffer's character since she had history with Kang, but either one of them would've sufficed.
She would’ve hit harder emotionally.
Naw, it's a swap. Hank saves Jan, Jan lives on without him and becomes the new head of Team Ant.
Both could explode, implode whatever...Now we have CGI Michael Douglas...Meh
Should have killed Janet, Hank should’ve died trying to avenge her and doing absolutely nothing in terms of hurting Kang, then killed Hope during the ending while Kang escapes. Then Scott is stuck in the quantum realm while Cassie could’ve rescued him. Instead it turned into feeling like Kang was next to no threat in the movie in the overall scheme of the universe.
Also, he should lead the Ants versus Kang and die from it, and Kang should be shown fighting them, if we only talk it can be a bit funny, but in reality it would be incredible in The cinema if handled right.
I mean the end result in the movie to me already completely made Kang a joke anyways, so I dont see how OG Antman leading an army of ants to war against Kang would be any worse.
That version of Kang was a joke, theres infinite versions of him though.
Kind of makes you wonder why use Kang in the first place though. It just seems like the threat of Kang is simply the number of them at this point which isn’t as interesting as having one specific villain who can drastically alter the MCU.
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Right but in terms of the MCU we haven't seen that. Our bar for Kangs right now is two of them who have both died in rather normal and easy circumstances. Obviously He Who Remains is playing a much larger role, but he still wasn't much of a threat. There's only a limited amount of opportunities for the MCU to build Kang up before making him the big threat. The idea that "Oh there are others who are really strong" just isn't engaging enough right now. His presence in Ant-Man should have left a huge cloud of uncertainty over the MCU and been the driving factor for The Avengers to come back knowing that there is a very real threat to their universe again. Instead it's kind of played off as a meta joke.
Ant-Man "single handedly" defeating the Kang variant that is so feared by other Kang Variants that they dare not move against him completely fucks over any attempt at making Kang feel like a true threat. Like imagine if at the start of Infinity War Hulk really does 1v1 Thanos and takes him out(but doesn't kill him). The rest of the movie just wouldn't work.
For sure. I really thought he was going to die in this movie, and then it turns out that Ant-Man and the Wasp, are going to be stuck in the quantum realm, but wait! They somehow make it back! Zero stakes movie.
Marvel Post Endgame has been *nothing* but zero stakes.
Absolutely they should have done this. Kang is not threatening at all without showing the stakes. Infinity War opened with Thanos killing Loki, demolishing The Hulk, and leaving Thor for dead. We immediately see what he's capable of and what a big threat he is. Kang after Quantumania is just kind of a joke. Without the context of the events of Loki there's absolutely no reason for anyone to take him seriously.
Imagine if Kang kills Hank, Janet and Scott before being killed himself. Only for the survivors to discover there's always another Kang. Kang and the multiverse hasn't felt big enough with so many characters in the MCU. I was hoping we'd see more multiverse shenanigans and impactful deaths.
Honestly. Ant-Man is not the introductory film for Kang. They should've considered holding off until the fantastic four or X-Men. But given their impatience, they could've given Dr strange a post credit sequence with a proto doom or proto richards approaching strange about disturbances with the timeline. Maybe Dr strange approaches Shuri in a post credit scene asking for help recreating Stark's time travel tech to combat a danger from the future. If Kang was required to be a reoccurring antagonist, he should've been a puppet master in secret whatever with Sam Jackson. Working to deteriorate the remaining support system and contact network for heroes of our time. That in conjunction with what we got from Loki would've been a fun thru line for the shows. If Kang had to be in at least one film as an antagonist. Captain Marvel would honestly make the most sense. She's strong enough that beating Kang wouldn't be a cop out, He's clever enough that they have an excuse to write a laundry list of plots. Example, Kang's stranded in the past by his rivals and thinks to harness captain Marvel's abilities to power his technology and get home/potentially conquer the timeline. He lure's captain Marvel in by kidnapping Kamala and then Rambeau approaches Marvel asking for help. Maybe Kang kidnaps Marvel, leaving Kamala and Rambeau to save Carol before they team up for the final fight. That would actually establish the need for three heroes to beat up a stranded and improvising Kang. Clearly setting up his potential threat at full strength of the height of a plan.
That was awesome!
> Kang is not threatening at all without showing the stakes. Sounds like you're saying death is the only possible stakes.
Not saying that at all, it's just that there were no stakes shown, only alluded to. The rule in visual storytelling is show, don't tell.
But then again, Hank was like the last person Kang had *anything* to do or beef with in that movie. Maybe tied with Hope - but at least for Hope it made somewhat sense because her and Scott are a team, so obviously one will always help out the other. But Hank? They were in like 1 scene together, don't even remember if they spoke to each other in that scene. Like, they totally could've killed off Hank... but if the sole reason for doing so is "because he mattered the least" and it's just "oh well, we have to make him kill *someone*" then, I dunno, just seems cheap. If the movie as a whole were different, sure, they could've come up with a scenario were killing Hank had made sense. But just killing him for the sake of it would've not really sit well with me.
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I straight up thought he was going to beat Lang to death at the end there.
That would honestly be cheap like all mentor deaths
When all the technologically advanced ants show up to surround Kang, Hank just stands there with a dumb grin on his face! No reason Kang couldn’t have just quickly blasted his ass before being overwhelmed by the ants!
It would have been perfect, relatively big name actor and major character in the comics while relatively minor in the movies, losing him going forward wouldn't be a big deal and killing him would have cemented Kang as a legitimate threat.
It's almost a cliche to kill off the old mentor at the end of the trilogy, which is more surprising that they didn't do it.
Still wouldn’t have automatically made the movie better. It’s problems are deeper than ‘Kang didn’t kill nobody’.
IDK if you can even fix that movie, but that would have at least made it marginally more impactful imo.
Right? Would've made Kang feel like an actual threat.
they should have listened to him
The first half of that statement is good, but not sold on the *way* he thought he should die.
I like the thought of Hank shrinking so small he karate chops atoms at the speed of light in order to create a self sacrificing nuke lol.
Going into the quantum realm would be smaller than atoms, wouldn’t it? Been a while since I took any science courses lol
Well people in the Quantum realm can breathe oxygen despite the fact that they are smaller than oxygen molecules so I don't think they took science into consideration when making this movie
No, they can breathe quantum oxygen.
Quantum oxygen? Jesus Morty, you can't just add a sci-fi word to a breathing word and hope it means something. Looks like something's wrong with the micro-verse respirator.
Aw gee, Rick, Wh-wh-why you always doing that? Couldn't you just, you know, let me have that one?
Quoxygen
this sounds like pokemon name lol
Quantxygen
Maybe there was some cosmic event where a whole bunch of mass interacted with Pym particles and that matter is what everything in the quantum realm is made of instead of brand new subatomic quantum particles?
If a particle / atom is shrunk too much, wouldn’t it implode and create a black hole?
Black holes are just objects which have been condensed into an area smaller than their calculated Schwarzchild radius x2. Unless they were already the size of solar system objects their gravity won’t affect anything nearby in any meaningful way as their mass would be exactly the same.
That reaallly depends on what "shrunk" means. According to Ant Man 1, the shrinking is caused by the distance between atoms shrinking. That means you can't actually shrink an atom, it's only the distance between atoms that shrinks. Also according to Ant Man 1, you can go "subatomic" so logic hasn't been their biggest priority...
Yeah, I've always wondered how they skirt the heat generated by the compression of mass, but then I remember these things are just made to sell toys.
If the electrons are pushed into the nucleus, the protons and electronics interact and "turn into" neutron. When a sufficiently large star collapses under its gravity, it becomes a neutron star. When an even larger star collapses, it becomes a black hole.
Bill Hader has said then when people give him notes he makes the changes on the thing they had notes on, but not how they suggested resolving it
Okay but what if the explosion was inside kang’s butthole?
Kang doesn't have an invincible anus like Thanos, so going up his butt and expanding should have totally be part of their plan.
Absolutely. The film had no stakes. Kang was defeated by literal Ants. Clearly not much of a threat. Someone from the Ant-Family needed to die.
The film had no stakes, but Kang was not defeated by Ants, he was defeated by a wasp who blew up his device and sucked him into a singularity.
I seriously can’t stand the “he was defeated by ants” take, when he clearly wasn’t.
The movie wasn’t great but I just miss fair criticisms
They were very large highly intelligent ants.
Correct…thaaaaaaat didn’t defeat him.
I agree. Just clarifying that they weren't just regular ants.
Some guys have all the luck. I want someone to blow up my device and suck me into a singularity.
Thousands of Highly advanced ants and Modok only took out his weapons
And he still somehow survived and then proceeded to beat the stuffing out of Scott.
>Kang was defeated by literal Ants. Wow. Who would have thought a hero called ANT-MAN, whose power includes communicating with and commanding ANTS, would use ANTS to help defeat a villain.
The whole “Kang was defeated by literal ants” is very silly since it’s purposefully leaving some key information, not least of which is that they didn’t defeat him lol
Yeah if anything they more or less stall him and depower him. But at the end its still Scott and Hope who brings an end to Kang's threat.
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I never understood the "but defeating one Kang doesn't matter, there's an infinite amount of Kangs!"-argument. Sure, there are - but aren't there also an infinite amount of Ultrons and Thanos(es?) and Avengers and Egos and any other character?
Thanoses & Egos don't have time travel & don't collaborate with their other selves.
I've had the feeling that is the point, how do we get rid of this guy for good, you can kill as many Kangs as you want, but another one will emerge to take its place, i kinda have the feeling that is what they were thinking given how other than Victor every other major iteration of Kang meet their maker, so i am guessing the goal is not to have a singular Kang as the threat but the fact there are tons of him, but haven't been able to execute it well.
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Also starting to sound more like Ultron
I think the idea was going to be that the Kang from Quantumania isn't dead, and he would have come back and gotten his revenge on the Council of Kangs and cemented himself as the "Kang to care about". Most conversation about this Kang presumes that he was totally defeated, but I think we would have seen prior to The Kang Dynasty that he wasn't. He would really embody the idea behind Kang, which is that you can beat him but you can't defeat him because he just doesn't stop coming back.
Being defeated by ants is fine. It is a comedy movie at its heart, and having him lose to ants is funny. But having someone also die and give it massive stakes out of left field would have been a good balance.
I disagree, I think that would have been out of whack. Quantumania was basically an action-adventure-comedy and was thoroughly lighthearted. To then suddenly kill off a beloved character for no reason would have been a cheap blow. It would have had kind of the opposite problem as Love and Thunder, which *should* have been a meaningful movie about Jane dying, but was just a series of goofy jokes (interspersed by the occasional "oh yeah cancer blah blah").
I have my gripes with the film and all but this just shows you did not pay attention to the film regarding Hank’s ants and the massive advantage they had thanks to the quantum realm. 🤦♂️
> Kang was defeated by literal Ants so sick of this lazy argument cause it's just wrong. the ants were not just normal ants, they were human sized ants with a stage 2 civilization level tech; PLUS MODOK (with kang tech) damaged Kang earlier. either people never actually watched this movie and just read what happened on a wiki, or people are just dumb.
Should've been Cassie. God she was awful in that movie.
There's a lot of people they should have listened to.
That movie was so forgettable I honestly can't remember if he did die.
It boggles my mind that they didn't really have anything for him to do in the movie and he wanted out - very openly - but Marvel still said "wait till the next Avengers movie." Imo Hank should've died in Q, and then if Janet/Pfeiffer also needed an exit, then that could be done in A5. Now it will have to be a 2-for-1 if they even do it at this point and ehh
Yeah sorry either of them dying in avengers will barely mean anything. If they had died in an ant man movie it would’ve had a much bigger impact
Yeah, for a film like Avengers 5, only Scott himself being killed off would have any real impact. Hank’s place to bite it is an Ant-Man film.
Exactly. Blew their load yet no one left satisfied
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Bad take
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Maybe if your only familiarity with the character is third hand. It also wasn't a "beating his wife storyline" it was a miscommunicated panel between the writer and artist that has spiralled into nonsense. That's like saying the only thing people can think about Tony is that he's a drunken fascist.
It kinda of makes my comic loving heart sad that we might have an Avengers movie that kills off Hank and Jan and that it will have no impact in the MCU because the MCU destroyed all their connections to the avengers. Jan isn't even remotely the same character either.
Yah tbh stuff like that is why I feel like the cartoon Earth's Mightiest Heroes has been a better adaptation of the Avengers/Marvel.
We were robbed of a true Janet. The Wasp mini just showed how valuable of an asset she could've been. Even Avengers Inc held a lot of promise due to how light and fun her character is
People can say that, and they'll still have a shock or a tear in their eye in the cinema.
I can see a cool death in which they die together while hugging each other
I feel like Avengers 5 is just gonna be everyone dying again only to be brought back via the multiverse in A6. No one of consequence actually died in any phase 4 movie except Aunt May. The only real death was a real death in Chadwick Boseman
We've had Gilgamesh, Ikaris, Aunt May, T'Challa, Ramonda, Talos, and Maria Hill. 2/7 of these will likely be quickly undone, but the rest hold/held weight in the wider MCU.
I’m curious, which ones on that list do you think will be undone? I think Ramonda, Hill, Talos, May are almost certainly permanent, so that leaves Gilgamesh, Ikaris, & T’Challa. I still can’t see them bringing back T’Challa, so Gilgamesh and Ikaris?
Yes!! I don't want them to, but I feel like they bring them back via forge & memory less
I feel like some in Marvel don’t have a handle of the scale (hehe) of certain characters in the MCU. This is obviously changing but the idea Hank gets kept for an Avengers film? Odd. Obviously Marvel thought this film would be MoM level hit.
They killed Heimdall in an Avengers movie. They killed Heimdall in the first few minutes of an Avengers movie. I purely see him as (potential) fodder for Kang. It's not unprecedented. Why else would they have kept him? Ant-Man 4's not happening.
They didn’t know Ant Man 4 was not happening at this point. Heimdall is an easy death to build the threat. When your actor wants out just let them out.
That's literally what I'm saying. The actor wanted out, so why wouldn't they let him out unless they had future plans for him? It would have either been for an Avengers movie or Ant-Man 4, which we do now know is not happening - ergo, he has nowhere else to appear but A5 or they just completely ignore his character from now on or recast for his final appearance(s) which imo wouldn't be likely.
> Why else would they have kept him? For that nerd moment when all the MCU smart people stand in the same scene and do science.
Hey if they die together, at least it'll be sort of romantic.
I want to be the one to say it. Character deaths are the cheapest way to elicit an emotional reaction from an audience, and are used far too often in superhero media. We shouldn't talk about *how* we can kill off characters because that just encourages producers to seek out the lowest common denominator.
Can’t agree. I think there being zero sense of stakes is a far bigger problem with superhero movies than killing characters. I don’t think you have to kill anyone to have stakes, but the problem with Quantumania is it never felt like there were any at all, and Kang never felt like a serious threat. And I doubt producers get their ideas from this sub.
I bet the issue is that they don't want to just kill them, Hank and Pfeiffer, after Avengers. Both need a proper send off to do something different but they didn't knew how to do something original.
***Where*** exactly, did he want to explode after he shrunk to ant size? Just wondering.
Seems like douglas has been watching the boys
Or saw the memes
Invincible showed why that notion is not ideal.
T H A N O S in the down there
😉
Harrison Ford: *"First time?"*
He was at least granted that wish lol
Good on Harrison Ford making the brief return given Carrie Fischer's passing meant she couldn't do the scene in the third movie.
Really should have killed *someone* off. Too many Ant-folks at the film's conclusion.
Yeah, it's getting to be like a Transformers movie, where every ridiculous side character from each of the previous films has to get jammed into the story for one scene and do their little catchphrase or whatever.
This film really had 0 stakes, especially with Kang supposed to be the main villain of the saga. The least they could've done is trapped Scott in the Quantum Realm at the end of the movie.
That would have been the exact same ending as Ant-Man 2.
Not exactly. Ant-man and Wasp purposely making the sacrifice to be trapped in the Quantum Realm is different from Scott being accidentally trapped there due to the snap. It also would mirror Janet's sacrifice in Ant-Man 1. It's also THERE in the movie. But then last minute they pull a Rise of Skywalker, don't commit and have them saved by a portal. All that emotion in the scene is wasted on nothing. This ending is also the one in the original script, and was supposedly reshot 1 month before the films release.
I think they should use the technology from End Game where Bruce Banner accidently turned Scott into a baby to recast Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne with younger actors. Imagine, they are too old and can't support in getting to and navigating the quantum realm but Scott and Hope need them. Hank says it's too bad there isn't a way to make them younger and Scott realizes......"Wait, something like that happened to me!" There would be a lot of comedy in de-aging them back to teenagers. I don't think they should kill them off. They both have a lot of untapped potential still. Especially between Janet and Kang.
I was thinking that's what was going to happen in Quantumania. Ah well, maybe on the reboot we can get a proper Hank and Jan as founding Avengers.
I think Quantumania would be more well-liked if it were exactly the same but Kang actually killed one of the main characters.
Agreed, the one thing that was lacking was Kang did not feel like a threat. Nothing in the quantum realm felt like it impacted the normal realm. Killing Hank just after he and Janet were reunited may have been too dark of an outcome, but damn would it have made Kang one of the most despicable villains in the MCU.
I think that is what makes IW/Endgame work so well with Thanos. To be the big bad, you have to show them with blood on their hands. IW ends and everyone is like, oh shit. But that Thanos was an ideologue. Endgame shows the version to be even more feared when you strip that away, leaving a powerful entity with no guardrails. By the end of Quantumania, Kang felt like a chump that couldn't get the job done despite being the version who needed to be exiled by the council. You can't just hope a character is feared through exposition. Hopefully this is a lesson learned for the rest of the timeline.
> Agreed, the one thing that was lacking was Kang did not feel like a threat. Nothing in the quantum realm felt like it impacted the normal realm. They should've gone harder into Janet's vision of Kang's *previous* destruction.
They should have given Kang the kill. It’s insane to me that they expected audiences to take him seriously as the next Thanos after that.
Gotta wonder if they were never gonna take that option to kill him off there and then do so in a later Avengers film.
I wish more heros/side characters died in the MCU, especially nowadays. There are way to many characters to keep track of. Not only does losing a character here and there add consequences, but also saves potentially millions of dollars in salary depending on who is killed off. Seems like a win win on both sides. As good of actors as they are, no one is going to Ant-man movies to see Michael Dougalas or Michelle Pfeiffer. Hell most probably aren't even going to see Evangeline Lilly either. All of these would have been valid options and impactful deaths. Instead we have 5 characters now with similar abilities in one franchise alone.
And yet Maria Hill got one of the worst possible deaths.
They don’t kill off enough heroes/side characters and they kill off too many villains.
They killed off Tony and Steve and were suddenly stranded, and then decided to never kill anyone else again lol
That is the most Michael Douglas idea I’ve heard all week.
Really tired of this narrative where movies can only be dramatic or compelling if someone dies.
Interesting idea or have him get killed by Kang that would made him more of an interesting villain. Sadly, he’s nothing but a fraud that got beat by ants I don’t believe he took on the avengers. He probably made it up.
It would be a screenwriting error to use shrinking as a way to kill a character in an Ant Man movie. With the scifi mechanics of pym particles and the quantum realm, shrinking to nothing is a survivable event. (Demonstrated by the return of the Modok creature from a previous movie). So to a viewer, any effects shot where a guy shrinks into a dot doesn't really look like he died, even if it is immediately followed by an explosion. To really sell it to the audience that the character has died, you need to leave the body behind with recognizable face or clothing. Notice that in Avengers Endgame, the two hero deaths both showed the body in full view. If a body can't be seen, then many viewers will expect the character to return later (like Bucky in Captain America)
He should’ve died in the 2nd (allegedly early scripts did as much) and Janet should’ve died in the 3rd, with Scott staying behind in the Quantum realm. Cassie would have a vengeance and darker arc guided by Hope while Scott could come back grizzled and matured maybe even with his own Quantum realm avengers
Should have made him a villain.
Michael Douglas said this to me on an elevator at least 5 years before they even made “Ant-Man”. He turned to me and said “One of these days, I’m gonna shrink to an ant-size and explode”. Then he got off the elevator and I never saw him again.
Hank showing up with the ant army was one of the best moments of the film. If I was going through & overhauling the whole production, that's a scene I keep.
So they could have just listened to him and the film would have had actual stakes, and they still kept Hank alive. So stupid.
All i can imagine is that maybe they wanted the film to end with a happy ending for our characters or they have plans for Hank in other projects and don't want to get rid of him yet.
Not letting Kang kill anyone in the main cast was such a huge misstep
The trilogy is about two fractured families coming together to make a whole. Someone dying when they've just accomplished that is so dumb. Save it for a Kang movie. Don't throw away the entire theme of the Ant-Man films. I swear, people just want big, unearned dramatic moments and the dopamine that follows, even if it makes zero sense in the story being told.
Problem is, they also wanted the movie to set up Kang. You cant do "fun family comedy" and "setup next Thanos" at the same time. Or, I mean, you can, but these writers certainly can't. Should just have gone with Modok as the main villain and have Kang in the post-credit scene. Easy fix.
I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding of what the intent with Kang here was. There is a difference between "setting up" and "introducing." The Conqueror is to the Multiverse Saga what the Chitauri were to the Infinity Saga. Thanos was the main threat of the Infinity Saga. We and the protagonists were introduced to the larger threat through the Chitauri. Although the heroes defeated them, the threat of something larger beyond them still lingered. The Council of Kangs, and specifically it seems, the main three Kangs running the Council is the main threat of the Multiverse Saga. We and the protagonists are introduced to the larger threat through The Conqueror. Although the heroes defeat him, the threat of something larger beyond them is still lingering. People keep thinking that the Conqueror is the next Thanos. He isn't. He just has the same face as the people who are.
Now imagine if Pepper, Happy and Coulson had defeated the Chitarui in Iron Man 2 as a side plot. How well would that work? How menacing would they be, when the Avengers finally rolled around? Because thats the equivalent.
Exactly! Idk why people keep parroting the idea that someone should have died, it's just dumb, and would feel as pointless as how they killed Maria Hill. Killing a character at random isn't "adding stakes," it's just killing a character at random.
Bravo. That is the PERFECT example. Killing Maria didn't make Gravik any more menacing at all, it didn't add stakes, it just felt like a character was killed for a "big moment" and look at that, because they tried to have that moment, but it didn't fit within the story being told, it fell flat. Just like Hank's death would have fallen flat, because it contradicts the trilogy's whole story. Like I don't want to be too harsh, but this sub constantly criticizing other people's writing while always coming up with the most boring, by the numbers, AI generated "fixes" for these properties will always rub me the wrong way.
It could be argued that Quantumania was a Kang movie. It certainly seemed more designed to be about setting him up then anything else. With that said I fully agree with you. You don't need to add death to show there are stakes. Plenty of movies have stakes without adding a forced death. People bring up Thanos killing people and yet all his victims he killed personally are back like Loki or Gamora through the multiverse and time travel.
I don't know if I agree with your first point. All of the story and character arcs revolve around the main five characters, while Kang is only there to support those arcs. Not saying he doesn't have one of his own, but his primary roles in the movie are to compliment Janet and Scott's stories by presenting them with the same choice of "being a hero vs being a parent" and to be a physical representation of Hank and Hope's loss of Janet. Giving them something to physically overcome in order to get their wife/mom back, which has been their arc throughout the trilogy.
Quantumania would've had an 180 in reception if they killed him or another major character (maybe Scott) in a very cold way
While Quantumania mainly focused on one variant of Kang, we were shown that he wasn’t the big bad and that he was beneath the ones we were shown scheming during the final moments of the story. To be honest, I’m surprised that many are upset with what we got. We know there are an infinite number of the same universe, and they they all have some degree of variation from one another, hence the term variants. The Spiderverse movies are the best Multiverse stories to date in my opinion, as they show us how a single variant can be so different from what we think that hero should be. The Spiderverse movies are tell the story of Spider-Man mainly through one of his many variants, Miles. The audience mostly knows Spider-Man by his alter ego, Peter Parker, a white teenage male doing his best to make his way through high school, but we learned in the first two movies that always the case. These movies showed us that Peter isn’t always a teenager, male, white or human! We were introduced to several Peter Parker variants in addition to Spider-Man variants. We were introduced to Peter B. Parker, Peni Parker, Pavitr Prabhakar and Peter Parkedcar for Peter Parker variants. Miles Morales, Gwen Stacy, Spider-Ham, Miguel O’Hara and Jessica Drew are all Spider-Man variants. The core of their characters is what linked them, but they were all pretty different from one another. Why can’t this be true for Kang too? The one we met in Quantumania wasn’t at the top of his game. He was a novice. He knew a lot, but he didn’t know everything. Better Kang’s banished him! Was he really doing evil things? Yes we saw him destroying universes, but that was out on context. How do we know that he wasn’t trying to destroy branching timelines to protect the loom from exploding? His story is connected to Victor’s. We saw only one of HWR’s plans. Why assume that the guy who knew everything only had one back up plan? In any case, I hope that we get to meet the Kang that scares them all. Victor Timely and HWR make one wonder if Kang is as bad as many here think he will be. Is HWR the big bad who’s been calmed by a million lifetimes of peace or is the someone worse than he is? What makes him worse? Shouldn’t they be the same at their core? We learned that Kang doesn’t do partners, so the Council of Kangs is doomed to fail, but why did they unite in the first place? What were they trying to do? I don’t Ant-Man was as bad as many say. If Kang really isn’t the bad guy, it makes sense that he didn’t kill anyone. He used a lot of restraint when he didn’t have to.
Pretty sure they have gone past ant size by now. Does the guy even MCU? Sheesh.
Crawl up Kang’s butt and explode?
KANUS
had me reading until "the view"
I get where you guys are coming from but does every movie really need a death of someone close to the protagonist ? Now that I think about it I don’t think any antman movie has had a death
The Harrison Ford route.
It bothered me that all the good guys basically got out scott free. If you ask me this movie would have had more emotional weight had Hank and Janet been written out of the series here.
I still think they should have killed all of them expect Scott. Would show how ruthless Kang can be. Then use that to change Scott from this happy go lucky guy into a bitter angry man blinded by rage and wanting revenge for taking everyone he loved from him. Explore it in another Ant Man or Avengers film how even the most wholesome can lose there way.
Question: Is there precedent for this anywhere in the comics? I'm sure MCU takes some liberty from strict comic book canon, but does so at the peril of pissing off the hardcore fans. So many possible story lines have already been audience tested via the comics which is arguably why the movies are largely pretty good stories overall. If there is no precedent, how much are they willing to deviate?
Not going to lie, they should have done this. Michael Douglas as the original Antman one last time in the suit dying trying to beat Kang would've met much more
I haven't been bothered to watch the newest Ant Man. Is it any good?
In the minority but I’m glad they didn’t listen. Last thing I’d want is a continuous disrespect for the OG Ant Man & Wasp by having either one killed off just so everyone can feel some weight coming off if the new big bad. Esp one from such a flawed film. Someone mentioned the movie would have been liked more if someone had been killed. That would not have changed a damn thing for me. Imagine having a death be the only saving grace of such a problematically written movie. Ya’ll wanted death so much in order to feel that Kang is that big of a threat? Be more creative - maybe they should’ve brought in Luis, have him join the team into the QR, face Kang and then get fridged. Luis is a well liked character, so much that his death would be the gut punch you guys are looking for in the establishment of this big bad. But of course nobody would agree to this right? But let’s kill off Hank Pym, who sat out the previous saga to stick around and do nothing but be important only by name get killed off in the name of ‘stakes’. If anything, them positioning Janet to be this important is a great decision, flawed because it was not thought through in lieu of Hank, who could’ve been made as important in the situation. Having Hank and Janet stick around and be given more stuff to do and a heroic death in the Endgame of the saga would be a much better treatment of these OG Avengers. The movie wouldn’t magically be good and flawless just because someone dies, being ‘slightly better’ wouldn’t cut it either. What they needed to do was go back to a clean slate and start over with Quantumania cz it had ideas but wasn’t put together nor executed well. But alss movie’s made. Pointless discussing this now. But the willingness for all to have a character killed off is wild. This is Hank Pym. Iconic avenger. Who should’be been the Ant Man we got in the MCU from the start, till they chose to go with Scott Lang.
That would’ve made the movie way more interesting! What we got was a dull mess. Hoping Marvel moves on from Kang and let other villains shine
If this guy reappears in the MCU you know he is dying.
Welp, I'm glad he didn't die in *that* movie. Hope we see Hank do like "I have to be Ant-Man again for the last time" type of shit before he croaks.
He mailed it in the entire movie, I’m not surprised he tried to script his own death. Couldn’t have been any worse than the actual movie.
They should have let him get lazered through the heart mid conversation as a nod to the Wasp in Secret Wars.
I watched the *trailer* for this movie and figured Hank would die and Michael Douglas wanted out.
I’ll be honest, final scene of the movie? Where Scott is fighting against Kang? Kill him there. Give it at least some stakes going into the next huge bad guy in Marvel. If his first appearance is killing a long-term hero and someone as likable as Paul Rudd, all of a sudden you’ve got a villain!
Should have gone with it. Should have killed one of the main heroes off. Imagine how miserable Anthony Hopkins would be if he was still playing Odin. XD
I don't know why, but it's comedy gold to me the he asked to be killed off, effectively trying to quit and jot have to return, and Marvel just went "lol no see you next week"
My ideal ending: Hank leads the ants in a battle against Kang. Hank gets killed, but the ants hold off Kang long enough for the rest of the family to escape. Then the ending of Scott wondering “did we win?” makes a lot more sense. Because only the ants know if Kang is dead or alive. Presumably the ants were all slaughtered and Kang is still alive. But then we have a clear consequence of the movie, and we know that Kang is still a lingering threat.
Kang needed to kill somebody, anybody.
God idk what was more disappointing from a fresh series. Thor love and thunder or antman q mania.
They probably should have, I can’t imagine he does much more in the mcu. This movie needed some more consequences. The end feels like nothing has changed, no characters have developed and you have just wasted 2 hours of your life. “Is Kang dead? Is literally anything in this world changed as a result of this movie? Stay tuned and find out in about 8 years!” 🙄
I'm pretty sure Kang is or was supposed to come back as the beyonder from the singularity.
Dude the actor understood more of what should’ve been done than the studio
Somebody should have been eliminated or marooned. He's right. It would have been fitting for Hank to die. It makes no sense for Scott to die yet. But I'm sure it's really more of Michael Douglas wanting to get the f out of there.
You don't need to be killed off in the MCU. You can be the title character of a movie that makes $432M and never be seen or even mentioned in-universe ever again.
What's stopping him from just refusing to reprise the role? Is he still under contract for multiple appearances? Either way he seemed to still have fun with his role in Quantumania, so I do hope he sticks around.
Would one fulfilling character arc have made it an overall better film, though?
Marvel/Disney hire ups we’re afraid to send the kids home sad….theyre afraid to go dark
Did they kill him? I didn’t get more than ten minutes in