Ant-Man and the Wasp / YMMV

Alternative Character Interpretation: Audiences are only told about the conflict between Elihas Starr and Hank Pym through conflicting perspectives — the whole truth is unclear. Did Elihas truly steal Hank's tech, making Hank right to fire and discredit him? Or was Bill correct that Elihas was simply a radical who dared disagree, and Hank's actions were disproportionate to his crime? Considering Starr is the villain Egghead in the comics, it seems to lean more towards Hank's perspective, but Hank has been shown to be self-righteous, hard-hearted, and condescending in the past.
- For that matter, did Bill truly support Elihas's side of the story on principle, or because he resented Hank so much he was biased against him?
Awesome Music:
- Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock's hip-hop classic "It Takes Two" plays in the second trailer, and fits the theme of the movie perfectly.
- It Ain't Over Till the Wasp Lady Stings has a Mission Impossible-like vibe.
- "Anthropodie" does a masterful job of turning the exciting main Ant-Man theme into something tense and unsettling, especially given its placement in the movie.
Character Rerailment: While the first Ant-Man had a rosier portrayal of Hank Pym than usual, this movie makes it clear that he was a jerk or at least at times difficult person to be around before he became a father. As Bill Foster and Ghost can both attest to, although there is a bit of Unreliable Expositor at play.
Continuity Lockout: Along with the first movie, it's better to have watched Captain America: Civil War to understand why Scott is in house arrest... and Avengers: Infinity War to get the credits scene. (the Brazilian dubber for Wasp was downright confused by it, only understanding during the cast screening for Avengers: Endgame - and just because another person explained it to her!)
Crack Pairing: Some fans have started shipping Ava/Ghost with Janet van Dyne, thanks to their intense emotional chemistry in the scene where Janet fixes Ava's disease by gently touching her face, speaking softly to her, looking deep into her eyes and holding her close while Ava looks like she's about to cry. It helps that Michelle Pfeiffer looks fantastic for her age.
Crosses the Line Twice:
- In The Stinger, after Hope, Hank, and Janet are shown to be among those disintegrated by Thanos's Badass Fingersnap, the screen shows "Ant-Man and The Wasp will return"... before putting a question mark at the end.
- And in between the above, there are several shots of Scott's house, completely still and lifeless while an emergency broadcast plays on the television... and the giant ant is still playing Scott's drums.
- When Scott tries to hitch a ride on an ant on the climax, it's a little dark but still funny when said ant gets immediately eaten by a seagull. It goes from "morbid but funny" to hilarious when he summons half a dozen more... and every single one of them also gets eaten by a seagull.
Crossover Ship:
- Ghost/Bucky Barnes is a fairly popular shipping, most likely because they're both redeemed Anti-Villains.
- Some other fans have started shipping her with Tracer, since they have the same affliction.
Epileptic Trees:
- Post-Infinity War, people expected that The Stinger or even the main action will feature a Sudden Downer Ending in which one or more characters dies thanks to Thanos' finger snap. Or worse — Scott and Hope finally come around to their feelings for each other, only for just one of them to disappear. They were right, and the truth is even worse: the entire Pym family disappears while Scott is trapped in the Quantum Realm.
- Before the movie came out, fans speculated that Ghost's Age Lift, Race Lift and Gender Flip from being a old white man to a young biracial woman wasn't just cosmetic but actually integrated into the story, where similar to the titular Ant-Man and the Wasp, Ghost is a Legacy Character who carries on the mantle of the original. This turned out not to be the case, as Ghost is shown to gain her powers through a freak accident, and her father was just a regular scientist. There is, however, a level of Mythology Gag at play here, since said scientist is an established Marvel villain from the comics (albeit one with no relation to Ghost).
- Cassie's line about wanting to fight crime just like her dad, combined with a number of other factors but most of all being her returning in Avengers: Endgame complete with a new teenage actress, has added to the fan theory that she will grow up to become Stature or Stinger. Speculation goes even further by Feige outright stating that Cassie Lang was put to "plant seeds" for the future like they always do. And then her original actress Abby Ryder-Fortson outright stated in an interview that this is the most likely arc. And the ending scene really did allude to the idea of Cassie growing up to be a superhero like her father.
  Abby Ryder-Fortson: I think in this movie she really shows that she's really interested in becoming a superhero. In the last movie, she doesn't really wrap her head around it, so in this movie, she really wants to fight with her dad.
- The original Ant-Man made brief mention of how time and space have no meaning in the Quantum Realm. When production photos of the set of Avengers: Endgame were released, showing Scott in his latest Ant-Man suit and Steve Rogers in his The Avengers-era duds, fans speculated that the Quantum Realm would be key to Time Travel and a possible solution to the Snap. When Janet casually throws away a line in The Stinger about "time vortexes", this speculation gained considerable ground. The fans turned out being right once the movie was released.
- Janet's line about her newfound powers having been gained through "evolution" has led to the theory that this was Marvel planting seeds for the X-Men to join the MCU, with Janet being the first legitimate Mutant shown onscreen. While the exact timeline isn't quite clear, the movie was filmed from August to November of 2017 while Disney announced their plans to buy Fox that same month, and it became official in December. Whether they knew the plan back then is unsure, but if it is, it's believed to have been a very sneaky way of including foreshadowing through a line just vague enough not to be tied specifically to the X-Men. It should also be noted that Ultimate Marvel Janet is, in fact, a mutant.
- Some suspect that a Thunderbolts movie is being set up here, due to Ghost surviving the ending, while her comics counterpart is a well-known member, and she ultimately sets out for redemption just like the theme of the comic. In fact, Hannah John-Kamen has said she would love to reprise Ghost for Thunderbolts in the future. In 2022 not only was a Thunderbolts-movie confirmed to be in pre-production, the concept art released at the San Diego Comic Con involved Ghost as part of the team.
Even Better Sequel: For the first time since Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic have given an MCU movie series' second installment higher scores than the first (82% and 64 for Ant-Man, 88% and 70 for Ant-Man and the Wasp).
Evil Is Cool:
- A lot of fans took quickly to Ghost from what little was seen of her in the trailers. When the movie came out, she didn't squander her potential, being a highly competent, badass, and sympathetic Dark Action Girl who ends up getting away with it in the end when Janet stabilizes her powers and lets her escape.
- Sonny Burch is a disreputable, ruthless and slimy arms dealer, but he positively oozes style. It's quite possibly Walton Goggins' suavest performance ever.
Fanfic Fuel:
- Janet van Dyne’s 30 years wandering the Quantum Realm are ripe for speculation.
- Hope comments that the airport fight for Civil War would have gone much differently had she been there. Cue the Alternate Universe Fics describing timelines where she had.
Fan Nickname: Due to Ghost wearing a hood, mask, being ghost-themed, and riding a bike, a portion of the fanbase calls her Kamen Rider Ghost. Bonus points for the actress' surname.
Harsher in Hindsight:
- The scene in the trailer where the giant ant can be seen playing Scott's drums is initially nothing more than a brief source of mildly amused laughter. This scene isn't nearly as funny in the film proper, where it's revealed that said ant is doing this during the effects of the Snap, with half of all life in the universe dead. Considering that the people who control said ant are dusted or trapped in the Quantum Realm, it's just going to mindlessly follow Scott's routine until it dies.
- After his sentence is over, Scott snarkily asks Jimmy Woo how is the world outside now, pretending like since he has been trapped in his house, he doesn't know how things are. In The Stinger, he gets trapped in the quantum realm and remains trapped there for five years and by the time he gets out he genuinely has no idea what the hell is going on in the outside world.
- Kurt likens Ghost to "Baba Yaga" when he hears about Ghost's ability to phase through walls, and his freakout at her appearing in the midst of Sonny's interrogation of Luis is played for laughs. In episode five of What If...?, Kurt is spooked when he and the other survivors of a zombie apocalypse arrive at Camp Lehigh because he senses the presence of "Baba Yaga", and is shortly afterwards attacked and eaten by a zombified Wanda Maximoff.
- Janet van Dyne warning her husband about how she's a different person than she was before becomes significantly more horrifying after What If...? shows an alternate reality where Janet ends up being transformed into a zombie after contracting a virus in the Quantum Realm, and subsequently goes on to infect the entire Earth along with her husband and the rest of the Avengers.
- The government lockdowns in response to COVID-19 now makes the montage of Scott doing productive and/or silly things to entertain himself while under house arrest much less quaint, given most countries left their populace having to do the same thing until lockdowns were lifted.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- An accidental Actor Allusion with Laurence Fishburne; Bill Foster worked on Project G.O.L.I.A.T.H. and is based on the comics' Foster, a.k.a. Goliath. In Event Horizon, Fishburne's character in the past had served on a ship called "Goliath".
- In the same year that Laurence Fishburne jumped ship from the DCEU to the MCU, Randall Park (Jimmy Woo) would later star in the DCEU's Aquaman. Then a year later, it was announced that David Dastmalchian (Kurt) would play the villainous Polka-Dot Man in James Gunn's Suicide Squad sequel.
- The first trailer featured Hank shrinking a building and carrying it with him. Later that day, an episode of The Flash (2014) featured a bad guy with the ability to shrink things, and the first thing he does is, yep, shrink a building.
- Hank Pym's reaction to finding out that Scott sent his suit through the mail almost seems like unintentional foreshadowing for Hank's minor role in Avengers: Endgame, where Captain America under the guise of a postman dupes an alternate version of Hank from the 1970's into leaving his lab in order to steal some of his Pym Particles to get back to the prime timeline.
- Early in the film "Come On, Get Happy" by The Partridge Family is the song that plays as the background music for Scott's house arrest scene, enforced by Jimmy Woo on behalf of the FBI. Fast-forward to the release of WandaVision, where the third episode's intro parodies that exact song and intro it's part of, and also features Jimmy Woo in a prominent role.
- Jimmy Woo's inability to master Scott's card trick here becomes this as he finally figures it out by the time he next appears in WandaVision.
- When Scott's regulator malfunctions and leaves him the size of a four year old, Hope teases him, saying, "If only Cap could see you now." Fast-forward to Avengers: Endgame, where Cap, Natasha and Professor Hulk send Scott through the portable Quantum Tunnel in Luis's van to test their time travel theory, and get to see him as a child, as an old man, and as a baby.
  Steve: It’s a baby.
  Hulk: It’s Scott!
  Steve: As a baby!
  Hulk: He'll grow!
- Scott lampshades the naming conventions of the technology, saying "Do you just put the word "quantum" in front of everything?" His next film...
Ho Yay:
- When Janet temporarily takes control of Scott's body, she holds her husband's hand. After Scott regains control, he is still holding Hank's hand and questions about it. Despite the awkward situation, Hank doesn't even let go until Scott does.
- Jimmy Woo and Scott get rather buddy-buddy despite Jimmy constantly trying to catch Scott sneaking off to do superheroing. At the end of the film, Woo tries to give Scott a subtle warning that he'll catch him the next time he breaks the law. Scott pretends to not get it, causing Woo to try and explain what he meant. Scott doesn't let up and asks Woo if he was trying to invite him to dinner later, which Woo initially deflects... before asking if he would be interested.
I Knew It!:
- Fans thought that they spotted Janet Van Dyne as the Wasp in the Quantum Realm sequence of the original Ant-Man movie. This film explicitly confirms that yes, she's still there.
- On a darker note, it was predicted that Wasp would've been snapped out of existence by Thanos for a number of reasons, such as the rumors that Wasp would play a minor role in Avengers 4 compared to Ant-Man, and she was absent in the leaked concept art. They were right.
Informed Wrongness: Hank and Hope are furious that the FBI and Ghost found out where they are because Scott told Luis where the lab was so he could come to them, and essentially tell him to Get Out!. The film also frames Scott's decision to bail on them to get home before the FBI finds out he was gone as wrong, and he feels guilty about it. However, Hank and Hope were the ones who kidnapped Scott and convinced him to help them despite his repeated protests about being away from home, and as Scott points out to them, he has to help his friends save their business because it's really hard for ex-cons for find work. No one points out to the two that whatever the problems Scott inadvertently causes for them, they're the ones that got him involved in the first place.
Magnificent Bastard: Ghost, real name Ava Starr, is a former S.H.I.E.L.D. operative who used the phasing abilities she got as a young child on multiple missions with success. With help from Dr. Bill Foster, Ava seeks to get a hold of Dr. Hank Pym's Quantum technology in order to extract the matter needed to reverse her painful condition and save her life. On multiple occasions, Ghost tracks down the heroes and gets the shrunken lab from them while hindering their attempts to get it back, eventually expanding it again in the middle of a busy street. She also utilizes her impressive fighting skills against both Ant-Man/Scott Lang and the Wasp/Hope van Dyne when the occasion calls for it as well. Nearly succeeding in getting the energy while knowing full well that it could destroy Janet van Dyne who's trapped in the Quantum Realm, Ghost has a change of heart after a returned Janet uses her abilities to temporarily normalize her again and gives them the chance to get Ava more energy while being happy that Foster remains by her side.
Memetic Mutation
- Spinning off from a similar meme from Infinity War, "Ant-Man and the Wasp Spoilers Without Context", which usually includes magic card tricks, "World's Greatest Grandma" trophies, Lombard Street and syringes.
- Regarding Scott's close-up magic as legitimate magic on the level, or greater than, the likes of Doctor Strange and the Scarlet Witch.
Obvious Judas: Bill Foster is played by a very prominent actor, doesn't try to hide his disdain for Pym, and initially appears merely to provide some minor, low-key help in tracking the suit. His alliance with Ghost isn't too surprising.
Retroactive Recognition:
- Fans of CollegeHumor's "If Google Was A Guy" series will recognize Brian Huskey (Google) as the teacher who asks Mini-Scott for his hall pass. Randall Park (Agent Woo) also had a cameo as "Bing" in episode two.
- Agent Woo's partner is played by Benjamin Byron Davis, who was previously well known for his portrayal of Dutch Van der Linde in Red Dead Redemption, and would reprise his role in the sequel a few months after the movie's release.
Salvaged Story:
- Hope's absence in Captain America: Civil War^note is explained by Scott not having enough time to ask her to join him in assisting Cap, what with "them" (likely Clint and Wanda) showing up very suddenly at his door.
- Hope also starts out the movie already broken up with Scott, after many complaints about their hooking up at the end of the first movie coming out of nowhere and clearly only happening because that's the rule about the male and female leads in an action movie. More effort is also put into establishing some kind of attraction between them.
Ships That Pass in the Night: Although there's no indication that either of them even knows the other one exists, some fans have started shipping Janet Van Dyne with Adrian Toomes, if no reason other than for the obvious joke.
Shocking Moments:
- Hank Pym shrinking a building down and pulling it away like a suitcase.
- Hank, Janet and Hope getting dusted by Thanos' snap at the mid-credits scene. Even more shocking since they just spent years trying to get Janet back from the Quantum Realm, just for their effort to get undone in the last minutes of the movie.
Special Effect Failure: The scene where Hope interacts with the constantly size-changing Scott and most of Scott's scenes while he's child-sized are a lot shakier than the rest of the film. You can easily tell that it's a set with a lot of forced perspective as well.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: After the climactic Rescue Arc throughout the film and the newfound powers she reveals once she's rescued, quite a number of fans are disappointed that Janet just becomes a casualty to Thanos's Badass Fingersnap from Avengers: Infinity War.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
- At one point, Ava plans to take Scott's daughter hostage to get Scott to bring the building with the Quantum Tunnel to them. Bill is adamant that she cannot do such a thing and that he will stop helping her if she tries. She grudgingly drops it. One might expect that this would come up again later in the movie, but it never is even mentioned again. It does serve to show that Bill has lines he won't cross and how desperate Ava is, but it might hang awkwardly over the rest of the movie for viewers who might expect it to become relevant again. Then again, a payoff might've felt too reminiscent of Cassie becoming a hostage in the previous movie.
- In the previous film, Darren Cross was revealed to be selling the Pym Particles to HYDRA, and towards the end of the film, HYDRA's agents had gotten away with a container of them, leaving it obviously as a Sequel Hook. In the sequel, the Sequel Hook is never once mentioned despite being a major part of the first film's plot. The film itself also skirts around HYDRA's existence by having Bill Foster mention S.H.I.E.L.D. being responsible for Ghost being the way she is, but considering what orders she was given, it seemed like an opportunity to use HYDRA as the real Big Bad of the movie to remind moviegoers of their existence.
Unexpected Character:
- The inclusion of Jimmy Woo has caught quite a few fans by surprise, as he has very few connections to Ant-Man or the Wasp in the comics.
- Ghost is an older male Iron Man villain, who isn't even well-known, and his nemesis's actor was explicitly done with solo movies, which made the idea of Ghost appearing the MCU even more unlikely, and he has never tangled with Ant-Man in the comics. Naturally, Ghost is used as the main villain combatant for this movie, albeit re-imagined as a younger female villain.
- Sonny Burch is a Corrupt Corporate Executive who has menaced Tony Stark, but not any version of Ant-Man. He was also pretty recent at the time (only debuting in 2003) and is even more obscure than Ghost (not even warranting his own Wikipedia page).
- Try Unexpected Actor. Many people were shocked when Laurence Fishburne was announced to play Bill Foster; no-one expected him to be appear in a Marvel film while still playing Perry White, an important Superman character in a different setting. While smaller actors crossing between various cinematic superhero settings has happened before^note, Fishburne is, by a long shot, the most high-profile example of an actor crossing superhero franchises while still being committed to the other one.
The Un-Twist: Janet Van Dyne sends a vision to Scott earlier in the film and later takes control of his body without his permission. When Hank meets her, she spouts some ominous lines about surviving that long in the Quantum realm, and not only adapting, but evolving as well. The stage seems to be set for some kind of Came Back Wrong, or even being an impostor (especially if you've seen Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Hive storyline), but nope, it's actually Janet, she's perfectly fine, and she heals Ava with only a tiny modicum of effort.
Visual Effects of Awesome:
- The MCU's amazing de-aging effects are brought back for flashbacks featuring Michael Douglas and Michelle Pfeiffer. And, like in previous outings, the actors look uncannily like themselves from 30 years ago.
- The Quantum Realm looks as exotic as ever.
WTH, Costuming Department?:
- While the first official photo of the Wasp's new costume was generally well received, there was some criticism over the lack of yellow or gold on the body. Later photos of the suit did show it has quite a bit of gold, suggesting the original picture merely suffered from poor lighting.
- People have noticed that the Wasp's suit has a very phallic outline on it.
The Woobie: Ghost qualifies; as a child her parents were killed in a freak accident caused by an experiment gone wrong. That same experiment gone wrong gave her the power to become intangible, except it also caused her constant pain and, by the time of the film, she was days away from fading out of existence entirely. She clearly doesn't want to hurt people, but is so desperate to avoid death or a Fate Worse than Death that she thinks she has to. It's hard to not feel bad for her when her adoptive father pleads for her to not take actions that would cross the Moral Event Horizon, but she goes through with them anyway because she truly thinks there's no other option. It also really helps that Hannah John-Kamen's big expressive eyes and beautiful yet gaunt face make one want to hug her even more. She finally catches a break at the end, not only surviving but also being forgiven by the heroes.

YMMV / Ant-Man and the Wasp

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