[MAJOR SPOILERS]
What’s important to say at the outset is this is not a review. What I’m going to outline is what I would have changed if I, as a script doctor, had been given the Quantumania script to work on.
I’d also point out that this isn’t based on the script itself but on the finished film. And I’m sure in the production process there were changes from Jeff Loveness’s original script, as is always the case in the transfer from page to screen.
I’m also operating from the comfortable position of not having to deal with:
- The pressure of coming up with an original story.
- A story that fits into the jigsaw of movies and TV series that is the MCU.
- A story that also has the difficult job of setting up Phase 5 of the MCU.
- I also don’t have to take on multiple rounds of notes and revisions from studio execs and producers.
- Nor discuss changes on set with the director and the actors.
And, lastly, this is in no way a criticism of Jeff Loveness or his script – he got his script made and that’s what we, as writers, all hope for. He’s a great screenwriter and I was a big fan of his work on Rick & Morty.
So with that all in mind…
Let’s leave aside the teaser section with Janet van Dyne and Kang – that works fine as foreshadowing our story.
SET UP
Montage of Scott Lang/Ant-Man with voice-over that transitions into him giving a book reading. He states what this section is supposed to tell us: ‘Sure I’ll be an Avenger but I’m focused on being a Dad.’ This, and the scene after with Cassie released from jail, is to set up a well-worn trope: Father and daughter estranged, uncommunicative, at loggerheads are thrown together to confront an obstacle and by doing so re-forge their relationship. In fact, Loveness said that his models for the Scott/Cassie relationship were similar ones in, Father of the Bride, Hook and Jumanji. The problem is that when it comes to Scott and Cassie this conflict, which will drive the story and the inner journeys of both characters, is not strong enough. Indeed, actually looking at those three movies Jeff cited, the father/daughter dynamic is more cute than tense – which I think Quatumania could’ve done with.
I would have also amped up two important things that would’ve driven Scott’s actions during the film. Firstly, as a previously absent father – spending five years in the Quantum Realm (QR) – he is, naturally, in his attempts as being a good Dad, over-protective to the point of smothering – this would help maintain the fracture in their relationship as he continues to treat Cassie as a little girl. Secondly, he is fearful of missing any more time with her – and we all know that teenagers/college-age kids love nothing more than a parent wanting to spend every minute with them… Both of these elements will become particularly important in Scott and Cassie’s later interactions with the film’s antagonist, Kang.
But, as the bedrock of the film, let’s start by changing the foundation of the Scott/Cassie relationship we see in those first few scenes.
- I’d move the argument between Cassie and Scott – which acts as the basis of their conflict – out of the car after she’s bailed from jail. Setting the argument in the car has a number of problems. The major one being there’s no room for the characters to move around and express their emotions in different ways. Think if, after a tense monosyllabic drive home, their argument takes place at home. Cassie can now, for example, move to a window to look out, giving the impression she wants to get away. Scott can weigh things in his hand to show frustration and the ‘weight’ of responsibility of being a father. But most importantly they can face off, come together, blow apart, threaten to leave, slump in chairs. An argument isn’t just words. The car setting makes this even worse by putting Cassie in the back seat, so that Scott has to look in the mirror or crane his head round to confront her.
- Hope being in car also hamstrings the argument. She acts as a placating honest broker between father and daughter. And, as a consequence, much of the argument is light, wry and brings up what should be massive issues between Scott and Cassie before skipping past them. Again, think of this argument playing out at home. Hope is brought to the room by raised voices. She tries to calm things, but now this in its own way could be used to inject tension into her relationship with Scott and her relationship with Cassie. Hank and Janet – instead of bantering their way through the next scene where they eat lunch – can also be dragged into the argument. Each addition raises the stakes and the tension.
- Also, tonally, the scene in the car is far too light to set-up that sense of father/daughter difficulties. Arguments within families, between long-standing colleagues, between friends rely on cruelty. They gain their heat from saying out loud the things that have always remained unsaid. And there’s a lot that can be dragged in:
- Scott telling Cassie not to make the same mistakes as he did in regards to criminality
- She throws that back in his face, saying, it was his choice – and it was his choice to leave her for five years
- Scott didn’t intend to get stranded in the QR
- Here Hope and Hank can get brought in – Cassie blames them as well for getting her Dad involved in Ant-Man and her subsequently losing him
- Janet can warn against the dangers of the QR
- Cassie tells her Dad he wasn’t there for her because he chased glory with the Avengers even when he was back – this being the most important because it strikes at the heart of what Scott is trying to achieve: be a good Dad
INCITING INCIDENT / OPPORTUNITY
This argument can then culminate in Cassie admitting she got involved with the QR alongside Hank to get closer to her Dad, but he was too busy to even notice – perhaps to write his cheesy autobiography. Then we can roll on to Janet’s warnings and their eventual entry into the QR. But by raising the stakes of Cassie and Scott’s relationship, they have to expend a lot more work trying to fix things, getting it wrong, which ultimately gives the characters a lot more to do in the QR.
NEW SITUATION
This neatly moves us on to the characters arriving in the QR at the end of Act One. The characters – particularly the Protagonist – has to work out the new world they find themselves in. Scott/Ant-Man is supposed to be our Protagonist. But does he act like one? I come back to not setting up the conflict with Cassie enough in the Set-Up. When they’re thrown together in the QR they deal with some obstacles/hazards associated with the QR. But neither Scott nor Cassie nor their lack of relationship drive the action or the narrative. They immediately work together rather than, because of their fractured relationship, working against each other and arguing about the best way forward – which would bring far more tension. Instead it just feels like they come across things and move on.
Then they meet residents of the QR. Sure, some of the characters are interesting – translation blobs, telepaths, warriors – but Scott and Cassie don’t have to work particularly hard to earn their trust. Because of this the QR dwellers express their personalities largely in punch-lines. We don’t get to know them through their struggles, their hopes and fears.
Think of a similar chunk of story in Return of the Jedi. The rebels arrive on Endor and are captured by the Ewoks. Because of lack of communication it seems, unbelievably, that they’re in real danger from the cuddly teddies. That is until Luke uses the force to float C-3PO and Han, Chewbacca and the rest are released. A bond is forged between the Ewoks and Rebels and we find out about the terror inflicted by the Empire on the moon. But, by using the force Luke has potentially made Vader aware of him being on Endor. Luke, our Protagonist, by his actions has forwarded the narrative. Scott, by being inactive, has not.
Instead exposition takes up a lot of the slack of filling in the detail. Jentorra delivers the whole: the Conqueror is bad and you have brought his attention on us by arriving speech. Why couldn’t Kang’s destruction be seen by Scott and Cassie rather than Jentorra just telling them? (see later for when I suggest a journey for Scott, Cassie and the rebels.) Here I would’ve put in a ‘campfire scene’ – where these new characters talk about how their lives have been destroyed, the people they’ve lost – perhaps even seeing Kang’s destruction from their POV.
PROGRESS
Scott and Cassie now have a handle on the world, so now they should start to head towards getting out of the QR and back home. BUT another difficulty is the fact that this is Ant-Man & The Wasp. Any tension in Scott and Cassie’s story is inevitably diluted by trying to tell a parallel story – that of Hope as co-protagonist – in the same environment. If it were me, I would’ve tried hard to either keep at least Hank and Hope in the real world battling to get the others out, or send them some sort of aid. But, for the sake of the plot, Janet has to return to the QR to confront Kang.
My suggestion would’ve been to have them realise there was only enough power or Pym particles or whatever to send one of them into the QR to help Scott and Cassie. Janet refuses – she can’t go back. Hank asks, Why? Janet won’t say. So Hope offers to go. But Janet wants to protect her own daughter – as Scott failed to do! – and in changing her mind she must reveal what happened during her 30 years in the QR with Kang.
Flashback to Kang. This is somewhat of a wasted opportunity as it’s largely one-dimensional: Janet and Kang work together to get to their respective homes. But there’s no sense of their growing friendship, affection, admiration. Nor, on Janet’s part, a growing sense that Kang is not all he appears. Instead there is a sudden reveal as Janet telepathically connects with Kang’s ship. I know we’re pressed for time, but a slower burn where Janet becomes more and more suspicious of who Kang presents himself as through him losing his temper or misspeaking would’ve been far more satisfying.
In the actual film we move from Scott and Cassie to Hope, Hank and Janet. And the whole dynamic relies on Janet being mysterious about the QR and keeping secrets. She is asked multiple times by Hank and Hope and deflects and obfuscates far longer than is realistic – in fact, she absurdly only refers to Kang as, ‘He,’ and ‘Him,’ which stretches credulity and audience patience. Instead of building tension, it just makes her annoying.
So, in my version, Janet is alone trying to find Scott and Cassie. She meets up with her old resistance allies. But they are wary of her and she’s wary of them. She’s been gone – in terms of the QR – a long time. They offer to help but ultimately betray her to save themselves and the ones they love from Kang. In the finished film this is the, in my opinion, wasted Bill Murray cameo. The problem with it is that by him arriving in a top of the range spaceship, wearing luxury clothes, we know already he’s sold out – rather than Janet discovering it for herself. It dilutes the tension again.
Let’s say then that Bill as Krylar is going to betray Janet – as he does in the film. But he’s only doing so to protect his own people. At the last minute he changes his mind, confesses to Janet, and urges her to escape. But Janet, knowing the retribution Kang will inflict on Krylar and his people, sacrifices herself by handing herself in to the Conqueror.
This would also dovetail with Scott and Cassie’s main aim to escape the QR. Instead of striking out alone they join the rebels led by Jentorra and travel with them for a while – giving an opportunity to deepen those characters further. And, all along this journey, Scott’s overprotectiveness and lack of trust in Cassie keeps widening the gap between them. Setting up the point where he must let her be her own person – that being the only way they can be reconciled and, more importantly, the only way Kang can be defeated.
POINT OF NO RETURN
This is where I think the mid-point of the story is – where the Protagonist, Scott, commits fully to his goal. Because this is probably where he should face the choice: go home or stay fight with the rebels against Kang. So, I’d have put in a possible escape route for him and Cassie, but at the last minute Krylar – who they’ve met on their journey – tells them Janet is there but has been captured by Kang.
COMPLICATIONS & HIGHER STAKES
Just a note on M.O.D.O.K/Darren Cross at this point – Loveness said he is his favourite character because they put, ‘a little extra’ on him. It really shows. Darren’s character has a proper arc. He goes from revenge-driven henchman to helping save the day as his conscience catches up with him – he’s redeemed (which they undercut, needlessly in my opinion.)
Also, as Scott and Cassie have accompanied the rebels to attack Kang but come up against Darren, we see them fail in their attempt to overthrow him. This then heightens the tension around the rebels second attempt later.
I think it’s time to talk about Kang as our antagonist. He is very much in the mould of: ‘I am the only being able to bring order to the chaos.’ He also talks about Time a lot, particularly when he’s monologuing – seeing the end of the universe, going back and forth through time and the multiverse. But despite this he doesn’t at any point use his stated knowledge of Time in any way to influence the plot or drive the story.
This becomes particularly evident when Scott and Cassie are captured. In the finished film this is the mid-point – where Kang dangles the promise of home in front of Scott in return for Scott ‘stealing’ the MacGuffin – in the shape of Kang’s multiversal power core. Now, Kang supposedly knows everything about Scott – he states: ‘We’ve both lost a lot of time.’ He’s identified Scott’s weakness: his fear at losing more time, particularly with Cassie. But instead of that being used, when Scott refuses his deal, he resorts to a boring threat to kill Cassie. The reason this isn’t a satisfying Point of no Return is that this isn’t an existential question for Scott, about the hero he believes himself to be – the choice between escape and helping the downtrodden – there’s no soul-searching for him to do, no conflict within him about what is the best thing for the rebels, him and, most importantly, for Cassie. That’s why I would move that big decision back before this.
And I’d also get rid of Kang’s boring threat of just killing Cassie and incorporate his supposed mastery of Time. Instead of threatening to kill Cassie he begins to age her. Slowly, imperceptibly she ages in front of her father, while Kang tells him the seconds, minutes, hours and days Scott is losing while he makes his decision. When Scott agrees to the deal and hesitates on the point of going in to steal the power core, Kang ages Cassie even more – but makes the promise that he can reverse it when Scott delivers the core.
This, I believe, is where the structure of Quantumania starts to break. Because from this point onwards the film turns into an extended climax where all our characters gather to take on Kang.
Scott should be overcoming multiple obstacles in his attempt to get home and reconcile with Cassie. I’d have Kang age Cassie to Scott’s age, keep her prisoner and transport Scott to the other side the QR. This gives him the opportunity to need help to establish his goals. So he would try to recruit people to help. He goes to Jentorra and the rebels but after their defeat they say they won’t help – but he manages to persuade them. He goes back to Krylar to help send a message up to Hank and Hope but it doesn’t work – but through effort it does.
MAJOR SETBACK
Scott thinks all is lost. For me this has to be about losing more time with Cassie. My suggestion would be that Kang’s promise to de-age Cassie again was a lie. Kang has promised Cassie that he can reverse it but only if she comes with him into the multiverse. Despite Janet’s arguments at this point that Kang can’t be trusted, Cassie reluctantly agrees to go with Kang and Scott believes her lost forever.
FINAL PUSH
From here we have Scott regather himself and push towards the climactic battle with Kang. I’d bring Hank and Hope down into the QR here. Hank can give Scott hope that he can find a way to reverse Cassie’s aging. Janet escapes and gives Scott a vital piece of information to defeat Kang – his weakness, which again should have something to do with Time. Hope and Janet, who we’ve set-up with a similarly difficult relationship because of the latter’s 30 year absence also reconcile. Hope inspires Jentorra and the rebels that they can defeat Kang – perhaps by using Hank’s super-intelligent ants.
CLIMAX
The same battle can rage between Kang’s forces and the rebels, Hope and Hank + his ants. Kang is about to leave with Cassie when Scott and Janet confront him. Kang tries to age Cassie to death but Janet sacrifices herself as she still believes that she’s part responsible for his rise in the QR. Janet dies. Scott uses Time against Kang – using the unique abilities of Ant-Man – and Kang is defeated. (Sorry everyone, don’t know exactly what this would entail as far more thought on Kang’s abilities to control Time would have to be written in and match up with something specific to Ant-Man – I’m sure given enough time I could come up with something!) BUT, and this is a big but, Cassie remains older.
AFTERMATH
So, the rebels win. Scott, Hank, Hope and Cassie return to their world. A middle-aged Cassie is able to better understand her father’s fears of losing time and their relationship is fixed. But Hank finds out that Cassie is aging faster than normal. This gives Scott/Ant-Man a more urgent goal to pursue – rather than what happens, which is he goes back to his mundane life – he won’t stop until he finds a way of getting Cassie back to being college age. To that end he’ll ask for help from the other Avengers, which will bring them into conflict with the Council of Kangs – who we see in mid-credits.
Well, that’s how I’d have changed Quantumania if I’d been asked as a script consultant/doctor. I think upping the ante between Scott and Cassie would’ve made for richer inner journeys for both. By boosting Kang’s control of Time it really could’ve been a more interesting film – and would’ve dovetailed more neatly with Loki and Mobius M. Mobius and much of the narrative of that series. And, I think would’ve set up Phase 5 of the MCU as being a far different prospect to the fight against Thanos.
And, if you’re still yearning for more of a takedown of Quantumania, head over to The Editing Room, where there’s a good deal of snark about some of the film’s shortcomings: https://www.the-editing-room.com/ant-man-and-the-wasp-quantumania.html
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Images: Allstar/Marvel Studios/Jay Maidment
