Ant-Man and the Wasp Spoiler Thread

oh my god its been decades

4x Guardians is tracking bad with pre sales and if the tread continues with Marvels that's a bad sign.

Pre-sales are probably effected by the poor reception of recent entries. But if the reviews are good and especially if audience word of mouth is good, its a little too quick to take that as indicative of what actual box office performance will be like for Guardians 3.

Honestly, I think so many people going to see Love and Thunder made everyone aware how much of a mixed bag the MCU is at the moment. Everyone is rightfully holding onto their wallets until they could be assured above quality experiences.

Keeping in mind that opening weekend sales are a referendum on hype, pre-sales tracking puts the film on target for an estimated $130m opening. A bit of a drop from Guardians 2's $147m opening, but not unexpected.

Guardians 2 was a film that promised the tantalizing answer to the mystery of Peter's lineage set up in the first film, as well as offering to reckon with the conflict between Nebula and Gamora which directly connected to the Infinity Saga's villain Thanos.

Guardians 3 promises to introduce Adam Warlock, a character that nobody outside of diehard comic book fans knows, as a follow-up to the least interesting part of Guardians 2. That's. About it as far as "huge upcoming moments in franchise history for you to look forward to" are concerned.

It's not unexpected that the hype train surrounding Guardians 3 wouldn't quite match up to the one surrounding Guardians 2. For all intents and purposes, the lingering plot threads were already wrapped up in 2, and 3 is basically starting over fresh with something new.

(And hype trains are subject to change. Opening weekend estimates aren't serious numbers.)

Edited by TobiasDrake on Apr 28th 2023 at 6:19:43 AM

Plus Adam Warlock is just so uninteresting and boring in the comics.

I know a LOT of people who went into Infinity Gauntlet and War expecting a big heroes vs Thanos storyline and hated that Adam Warlock got all the glory and screen time while the heroes people came here to see were cannon fodder.

Great. Now I'm thinking about a Marvel superhero saying "You're tearing me apart, Lisa!" XD

Kang: YOU"RE TEARING ME APART RAVONNA! Oh hai Scott.

That's probably why they're not marketing the movie as "the Adam Warlock show". All of the trailers so far are focusing on Rocket's origin, Quill and Gamora reuniting, and this being the Guardians' last ride. Big emphasis on that last one, because that's clearly the selling point.

Well Adam at least gives us Magus. Maybe one of the most infamous cosmic supervillains around. So uh I'll take it.

Can they make a better design though?

His current design isn't that bad looking.

At least from what it stArted as. The afro

He started as an evil palette costume swap of Adam but he tends to lag behind Adam’s costume changes

So, I finally got around to watching Quantumania and... uh...

Yeah, this one was kind of a mess.

I really like the first two Ant-Man films, so this was a big disappointment for me. I think a lot has been said about the shift in tone and scale for this one. The film felt like it was simultaneously Denser and Wackier and Darker and Edgier, with the comedy being more broad yet the threat of Kang being far more deadly.

I feel there was a lot that could've been done here, but they never seemed to capitalize on some interesting ideas. There's conflict set up early on about Cassie butting heads with the law trying to follow in Scott's footsteps, but Scott is now a beloved celebrity and he doesn't want to risk losing everything again like he did before. That's a rich vein for an entire story, but it's brought up in like one scene where Cassie wants to help the rebellion and Scott doesn't. It mostly gets lost in the shuffle of things.

Poor Hope doesn't get to do much in the film. Even though she's in the action scenes a lot, character-wise she has less to do than in the first Ant-Man film. I do appreciate them giving Janet a larger role, but that seems to disappear as the film nears the third act. The first two acts spend so much time talking about her fighting with the resistance, her relationship with Kang, and her time in the Quantum Realm and... it doesn't really add up to much when the climax rolls around.

I'm not sure what to make of MODOK, but I felt his Heel–Face Turn was very rushed. Why does Cassie suddenly give him a pep-talk about how he can change when earlier in the film she still seemed to have bad memories about the time Cross tried to kill her as a child? I think a few scenes of her looking sympathetically at him as Kang's knocking him around might've helped a bit, but it's so sudden the way it's presented. His death straddles the line between being played for laughs and for legit sympathy, and it doesn't really hit either for me personally.

And of course there's Kang. Which... well, y'know why I'm a bit hesitant to really go into much detail given everything about his actor. I dunno how I'd feel if I watched this when it first came out, but I think Kang could've been a lot better in this. It was a wasted opportunity not to have Kang offer some sort of time-related deal for Scott or Cassie regarding the time they were spent apart during the Blip. His earlier scenes with Janet show he was willing to make that kind of deal with her, and the film bookends with Scott talking about how many of Cassie's birthdays he missed while he was trapped in the Quantum Realm. Strip away the talk about his variants and the Multiverse War, and I hesitate to see much that separates him from any other Galactic Conquerer.

Honestly, I don't mind an Ant-Man film set in the Quantum Realm and being more of an adventure story. It could've been a fun film in style of a '50s or '60s sci-fi movie. But I think having to set up Kang led to that part overshadowing the rest of the movie, much to its detriment. Given how this film turned out, I'm very concerned about how The Kang Dynasty will play out, especially since it has the same writer onboard.

Edited by chasemaddigan on May 27th 2023 at 11:29:04 AM

I think the writer's not on The Kang Dynasty anymore so there's that anymore.

I agree with a lot of what you said aside from Kang offering Scott and Cassie a time travel incentive. He offers that to Janet because she's his friend and saved his life and helped rebuilt the core. He has no such reason for a soft spot towards Scott and Cassie so they get the hard sell of The Conqueror, Kang is not a nice person after all.

Coincidentally I reached this on Disney+ yesterday as I do with a lot of Marvel movies with a family member. It is actually one of those films I enjoyed more on a second watch already knowing it's flaws and foibles.

Still, yes the lack of any real resolution of Scott and Cassie's relationship still irked. They go from arguing about heroics to Cassie being threatened and Scott will do anything for her and they reaffirm their love repeatedly but that was never in question even when they were arguing so... eh?

And the ending where they tease Scott and Hope being stranded only for Cassie to instantly open up a new portal despite having no idea if it was safe to do so. As with the first time I remember that people with suits should be able to get in and out of the Quantum Realm with that. (sorta maybe, since they used a ship in the second one but then Janet didn't have a suit) so it feels like Scott's plan until his helmet was smashed, should have been destroy the portal device, strand Kang by going home.

Then again ending the movie by stranding Kang would have made the whole film rather moot so I can see why they gave them the victory.

I find it borderline false advertising that trailers implied the major plot point is Scott and Kang were striking a deal to give him time he missed with Cassie. That sounds like a great premise that follows Endgame but also feels natural. Those marketers cooked up a better conflict to be honest.

Yeah, I know what it's like when the marketing promises a better plot point than what's in the actual product.

Trailers Always Lie also Trailers Always Spoil which is why I avoid them for thing I'm going to watch anyway like Marvel things.