The specifics of the Quantum Realm in the Marvel Cinematic Universe remain a mystery, despite it playing a key role in the franchise's biggest movie yet. How does it exactly work? What are the rules? And more importantly, why did Ant-Man only experience a time-lapse of five hours despite spending five years there while Janet Van Dyne spent 30 years and felt every second of it?
Let's discuss everything we know about the Quantum Realm, and hopefully, find an answer to these questions.
The MCU's Quantum Realm, first introduced in Ant-Man, is a mysterious place within the space-time continuum. As such, it works beyond the known laws of physics. The sequel, Ant-Man and The Wasp, explores the Quantum Realm a bit more when Janet Van Dyne is rescued from it. Of course, when Scott Lang decides to go on a field trip to collect Quantum Particles for Ghost, Thanos snaps his fingers and inadvertently traps Scott for five years.
Lang escapes five years later, but to him, it only felt like 5 hours. He figures that time works differently in that world, and then goes on to help the Avengers find the stones and beat Thanos. He hadn't even aged a day, which was a bit confusing considering that Janet Van Dyne had a very different experience. When Janet went sub-atomic and entered the Quantum Realm in 1987, she stayed gone for 30 years. Upon her return, it looked like she had aged 30 years. This would imply that even within the Quantum Realm, time doesn't work the same for everybody.
When Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige was asked this question, he chalked it to "sci-fi weirdness." Speaking to Slash Film, he had said:
Time and physics and space work very differently down there. But that was part of a, that was a big question during the development process. And as usual, you’re the first one to pick on it a little bit, which is… should she have aged or not? And we felt that new Quantum Realm, we could justify either one. But that ultimately you wanna have an emotional reunion with Michael Douglas, an emotional reunion with Evangeline Lily and our first instinct had always been specifically now Michelle Pfeiffer from that first movie. It felt like it should be somebody who’s the right age. As opposed to Michael Douglas with somebody who has not aged. Or Evangeline Lily connecting with somebody who’s not aged. That just adds another layer of sort of sci-fi weirdness.
While Feige's response indicates that some liberties were taken for the purpose of creativity, there might still be some scientific explanation for this. When Scott Lang entered the Quantum Realm for the first time in Ant-Man, what he saw was vastly different from the Quantum Realm he went to in Ant-Man and The Wasp. It could be that there are levels to the Quantum Realm. Perhaps the deeper you go, the more things change, much like in the case of approaching a Black Hole. Time slows down as one nears the event horizon.
Perhaps, Scott Lang went deeper into the Quantum Realm, or maybe he found himself in another dimension where time moves considerably slower. Maybe Janet Van Dyne explored and had adventures in different quarters of the Quantum Realm, allowing her to age naturally.
The MCU is not in the habit of leaving us with unanswered questions. So perhaps the next installment of Ant-Man will explore this reality and give an answer that sits a little better with the fantasy scientific community. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is currently slated to release in 2022.
0 Comments