Does Ant-Man Work as the Final Chapter of Phase 2?

[The_Manhunter]

Or would it have worked better as the start of Phase 3? Thoughts? Personally I think it makes more sense to start Phase 3 with it than to end Phase 2 with it.

 

[Well_Luck]

I feel it's more like a link between Phase 2 and 3, so it's kinda hard for me to answer you. Phase 2.5 maybe? No, I guess.

 

[shhh]

It did neither feel like ending Phase 2 nor starting Phase 3. Though I guess Civil War would just be the better movie to start off Phase 3 than Ant-Man, not that Ant-Man is a sub-par movie because it's really awesome but because Civil War is just much of a bigger movie (no pun intended) in terms of everything that it even includes Ant-Man himself.

 

[Broseph44]

Yes it works. This needed its own thread?

 

[AgentGojiraRgr]

I think it could've worked as the start of Phase 3, heck, maybe even Phase 2

 

[R_Hythlodeus]

It would help if the Phases had some kind of theme

 

[Dark Raven]

It feels more like Phase 1 in some ways, apart from the obvious connections to recent or future films.

 

[SwiftFox]

I think it's a good ender to Phase 2. As much as I loved Ultron, it was a bit darker than the previous films and gave you a lot to chew on.

Ant-Man is like a palate cleanser between phases and I loved it.

 

[LucDisfilm19]

I felt it was an amazing end to Phase Two.

 

[third3ye]

Felt more like an in-betweener rather than a MCU phase climax.

 

[Godzillasaurus]

Well considering how it feels more solitary than the rest of the MCU, I would say that it doesn't really feel like a true "end" to anything until it gets intertwined with the other films

 

[Dark Raven]

It also feels more like the 2nd or 3rd film or middle film in a phase rather than the end or beginning.

 

[Mike Murdock]

I think it was a perfect epilogue to Age of Ultron while hinting at Civil War to come, so I think making it the end of Phase Two works.

That being said, Phases were something invented so the public wouldn't just think "Iron Man, Iron Man sequel" but think of the connected universe as a whole. Given that, they've somewhat outlived their usefulness. Phase two doesn't really have much of a connected theme - the Infinity Stones may be the closest - so it's hard to say whether Ant-Man was more part of this phase or not.

 

[R_Hythlodeus]

I think it was a perfect epilogue to Age of Ultron while hinting at Civil War to come, so I think making it the end of Phase Two works.

That being said, Phases were something invented so the public wouldn't just think "Iron Man, Iron Man sequel" but think of the connected universe as a whole. Given that, they've somewhat outlived their usefulness. Phase two doesn't really have much of a connected theme - the Infinity Stones may be the closest - so it's hard to say whether Ant-Man was more part of this phase or not.

you know, now that I think about it, betrayal and trust might have been the theme. it plays a big part in all of the PII movies

 

[Macho Mantis]

Or would it have worked better as the start of Phase 3? Thoughts? Personally I think it makes more sense to start Phase 3 with it than to end Phase 2 with it.

Agreed.

 

[Spiderine]

I always thought Antman should have started phase 3. AOU felt like the end of phase 2.

 

[Mike Murdock]

I like that it didn't necessarily end with an Avengers movie. I used epilogue as an example. Often in big comic book arcs, there's the big climactic issue, but they throw in one final more low-key issue to close things out. Civil War makes sense to start Phase Three just because it's a much bigger movie.

 

[Tymminator]

I guess I can see it as both an Epilogue to Phase 2, but also a Prelude to Phase 3.

 

[metaphysician]

I feels like an end of Phase 2 movie, because you can't really have stuff like "Scott asking why they don't just call the Avengers" at an earlier point. Its a movie that takes place very solidly in a post Outbreak superhuman world, where small scale weirdness can simply *happen*, without being connected to greater affairs.

 

[Gaztacular]

First post on the board. Seeing Ant-Man this morning and this thread right now prompted me to register.

I agree that this movie was the right end to Phase 2. Without Age of Ultron and everything before that having already happened, I think this movie would be missing two big things.

First there would be no reason for Scott to go along with Pym's absolute distrust of Tony Stark. If all you know of Iron Man is how he fights terrorists and saves people from robots and aliens that's ridiculous. But if you know about Ultron and blowing small cities out of the sky it makes a little more sense.

Secondly, without the Phase 2 movies, there's no just running into one of the Avengers. Iron Man 3 has Tony at home in California. Dark World has Thor questing across the other 8 realms. Winter Solider has Cap and Widow working regular SHIELD jobs. Those movies turned things upside down and gave everybody a reason to put the band back together for AoU: Stamp out HYDRA for good and get Loki's scepter safely off of Earth. It isn't until the final minutes of AoU that Scott having to infiltrate an Avengers facility and fight an active Avenger stationed there becomes a thing.

So that's why Ant-Man belongs at the end of Phase 2. Ant-Man also needs to come before the Phase 3 films to set up the weird-o quantum realm, so that Dr. Strange or possible Adam Warlock in Guardians 2 won't look completely insane.

 

[SuperSanchez]

Ant-Man was great because it didn't try to be big, it wasn't affected too much by Age of Ultron which was good. It was good because as the director said himself, you didn't need to watch and Marvel movies to understand the story. Personally I think it should've been part of Phase 3 so that Age of Ultron could end Phase 2 with a bang, but nonetheless still an amazing movie 8/10!

 

[Web-Head]

I always thought Antman should have started phase 3. AOU felt like the end of phase 2.

Yeah, this is what I was going to say. I don't really think about phases anymore though.

 

[Life]

Yes. It shows how some people view the Avengers and how it will effect Civil War.

 

[Avenger]

Honestly I feel like the MCU has gotten to the point where it's just one continuous storyline that can't or shouldn't really be broken into distinct phases. It worked for the first batch of movies because there was a specific theme to them--the origins of these heroes and the story of how they came together. Since then the movies have simply progressed the metaplot and timeline with no real underlying theme to tie them together as a 'phase.' For me, the phase stuff is now more of a marketing gimmick than anything of substance.

 

[DaddlerTheDalek]

I see this movie as the epilogue of Phase 2.