Warning: This article contains spoilers for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania has left fans feeling a little misled after the trailer seemed to promise some rather high stakes only for the film to not really deliver on that promise. The ending in particular seems to negate all the build-up that both the trailer and the rest of the film worked hard on, so here are some alternative endings that could have fixed this.
Hope and Scott remain stuck in the Quantum Realm
This would have been a great sacrifice on behalf of both Ant-Man and the Wasp, to willingly trap themselves in the Quantum realm, away from their home and loved ones to stop Kang from ever escaping, but it is negated when, with just a flick of a switch, Cassie can pull them back. It completely lowered the stakes and gave us a happy ending, which is not what fans necessarily wanted from Quantumania. It would have been much more impactful if the two remained stuck there and set Cassie off on her own journey without them.
This was actually the ending that many believe was originally written before it was swapped out for what we got, and we have to wonder why?
Hope dies
Though it would be a little tragic to kill off one of the first powered female MCU stars, it really does feel like someone should have perished in this film; that’s what fans were expecting at least. Kang the Conqueror is considered to be a huge threat, he has destroyed entire timelines and killed without mercy, and yet we never see him do so to any of the characters we care about. The closest we get is when he kills the lamp head guy, whom we didn’t really care about that much in the first place.
In order to back up what has been said about Kang, it feels as if a key character should have died and with Hope coming back to save Scott at the last minute, it could easily have been her. This would leave Scott to deal with the death of his love and result in a darker and more wounded Ant-Man than we have seen so far, one whose mission could be to destroy all the Kangs.
Janet sacrifices herself
Quantumania felt way more like Janet van Dyne’s film than either of the titular characters. Her character was much more central to the overall story and it was her relationship with Kang that was interesting to unpack. She had been carrying so much guilt around with her at having unleashed Kang on the Quantum Realm, the result of which was mass casualties and the decimation of entire cities, that her making the final sacrifice would have been fitting.
It also would have been tragic given that Hope and her father had only recently been reunited with her after such a long time to have her then ripped away from them once more.
Kang escapes
One thing no one really expected was for Kang the Conqueror to be, well, conquered. Sure, we didn’t see the light leave his eyes, but he lost and we are left unsure if that variant will return in the future. Jonathan Majors’ has the great pleasure of getting to play different versions of the same character, and though we will be seeing more of him, his portrayal of Kang the Conqueror will be missed.
His escape would have meant that the events of the film actually had consequences that the characters were actually aware of. Scott, Hope, Cassie, Hank, and Janet, would have known what they had unleashed on the world and the tone at the end would have changed drastically as they realized that they had failed. This would have hit Cassie particularly hard given that it was her fault they got sucked into the Quantum realm and could have further motivated her character going forward.
Scott actually reaches out to an Avenger
At the end of the film, Scott starts to muse over what Kang told him, that there was something horrific coming on the horizon that only he could prevent. This thought starts to worm into his brain and he begins to panic over whether or not they did the right thing, before quickly pushing it aside in order to move on and enjoy the life he has.
What could have been more interesting is if he actually reached out to another Avenger with his concerns. It would have been poignant if he reached out to the newest iteration of Captain America, given that it was Sam Wilson who contacted him at the very end of the first Ant-Man film.
Kate Bishop crashes Cassie’s birthday dinner
We know a Young Avengers project is on the way and that Cassie will most likely be one of them, so it would have been good to see her somehow interact with another of these characters that we have already met in the MCU, such as Kate Bishop. If they are going to head in the direction of setting up the Young Avengers, it would make more sense to have them interacting sooner rather than later, especially since the actors are going to continue aging and won’t be “young” for much longer, Katheryn Newton is already a 26 years old playing an 18-year-old.
M.O.D.O.K doesn’t die
Many gripes have been had over M.O.D.O.K.’s appearance in Quantumania, over the change in his origin story, to how he was CGI’d, but one of the biggest ones is that the comic-book supervillain has been killed off in his very first film. His change of heart that saw him revolt against Kang could have instead served as a way to include him in the Thunderbolts film which is in dire need of some diversity given that it currently only consists of super-soldiers.
Judy Greer makes an appearance
It may not have changed the story necessarily but seeing Judy Greer at the end of the film would have been an added bonus for many fans. We don’t know what happened to her since Ant-Man and the Wasp as she didn’t show up in Endgame either. Fans believe that the film’s low reviews stem from the Greer Curse, a phenomenon that seems to occur when the actress is removed from a project. Regardless, having her there could have only helped the film rather than hurt it.
We don’t know exactly where Marvel Studios will go from this point, whether we will see the Conqueror again or what plans the Council has for Earth-616 and its heroes. All we know is that the ending left audiences feeling underwhelmed, even if we know there are going to be consequences for what happened in the Quantum Realm, as shown in the mid-credits scene which introduced us to the “Council of Kangs.” Obviously, the execs and writers at Marvel will have a plan for these characters going forward that we are unaware of, but as it stands, the film’s ending just felt too neatly wrapped up compared to what fans were hoping for.
