Endgame - Righting A Wrong: Scott Lang

The character of Scott Lang has always been kind of a comic relief. Even in the movies that he is the protagonist, the plot is often centered around Hope or Hank Pym. The first Ant-Man movie was really entertaining, and you could feel the base that Edgar Wright had lain down before he left Marvel. And the fact that Paul Rudd was playing him only makes it better. His second appearance was in Civil War, where once again, he was there to fight someone else's battle and to be the funny quippy guy for a few minutes - but that was done well and one couldn't complain as it wasn't his movie at all.

He was conspicuously absent from Infinity War, but that was explained away with a quick line that he opted for house arrest, for breaking the Sokovia Accords in Berlin, and was so occupied. And then came Ant-Man and the Wasp. You can try to convince me that it developed Hope's character, or set up the quantum realm, or even introduced Janet Van Dyne, but to me, the movie is nothing more than a light hearted filler to ease the tension from Infinity War and to make the wait for Endgame more bearable. The three main characters - Scott Lang, Hank Pym and Hope Van Dyne - weren't given any more character growth than in the first movie. The quantum realm and the distortion of time had already been introduced in the first movie, and Janet only appeared in the final scene of Endgame. There was nothing in the sequel that had any impact in the newest Avengers movie, except the mid-credits scene (I’m sure they could’ve found another way to convey that information). In Endgame, Scott is the character that gets the plot going, and is the one who introduces the idea of time travel, but is largely ignored for the rest of the movie. Of course, he pops up in some comedy scenes that seem a little out of place, even with the lighter tone that the movie chose. In these scenes, his character seems to forget (like many others) that they are trying to bring back half of the universe, which includes many of his loved ones.

However, the very first thing I would want to change in Endgame is how Scott escaped the quantum realm due to a coincidence. Is that what Doctor Strange saw, a rat accidentally stepping on some buttons? We saw in the first Ant-Man that Scott can use his regulator to break out of the quantum realm, and I don’t think anyone would remove a feature from their suit that saved their life once. So, when he finds that he has been in the quantum realm for far longer than decided, he uses his regulator to grow himself, and the sequence would continue as it does in the current version of the movie.

The second thing I want to change may come across as an odd choice – Scott discovers that Cassie Lang disappeared in the snap. As the movie is now, Scott comes out of the quantum realm, finds out about the snap, and sees that Hope disappeared. She is then shown to be his primary motivation in bringing everyone back. However, his daughter is still alive and is shown briefly for one scene and never even mentioned again till the very end, after the battle. In my opinion, his daughter too should have disappeared – this, I think would be a more powerful motivator for Scott, considering how his solo movies are basically about how he would do anything for his daughter. This would also make for a more powerful scene when he approaches Tony about perfecting time travel – he would be appealing to a father as a father (instead of naming Hope, who Tony doesn’t even know). And this appeal in his daughter’s name would strike Tony more effectively, showing us the reason why he decided to work on time travel when he clearly said he wouldn’t.

These two changes, I believe would set up a more serious Scott Lang who won’t hopefully be part of too many scenes that are present only to make the movie funnier, and who would have a more engaging quest.