The Sword and Laser discussion

I'll spare you the puns: Ant-man is big fun! (Okay, one pun.)

Plenty of terrific action and -- unlike some recent trailers -- they saved some of the best gags for the movie. There was a lot of laughter from the crowd I saw it with. It's more of an outright comedy than even Guardians of the Galaxy.

Didn't hurt they had one of my favorite characters do a cameo, either.

There are some things I would have explored, but the film is already packed full of stuff, and it leaves plenty of material for follow-up films.

There is a cool mid-credits scene and a sort of throwaway stinger at the end that hints at big doings in the MCU. But what those big haps might be won't be clear until next year.

I really enjoyed it!

Y'all are making me want to see it even though my feelings have been pretty negative to date.

I'm having a hard time getting over the excision of Hank Pym from the Ultron storyline in Avengers. Now Hank Pym is washed up and recruiting the NEXT Ant-Man? I want me some Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne, thankyouverymuch.

Im going tomorrow. Have been looking forward to it, every one of my friends went friday and saturday and loved it, also told me to make sure I sat through all of credits as there are 2 after credit scenes...

I always want to scream at the dummies who leave before the marvel after credit scenes play :)

John (Taloni) wrote: "Y'all are making me want to see it even though my feelings have been pretty negative to date.

I'm having a hard time getting over the excision of Hank Pym from the Ultron storyline in Avengers. No..."


I'm not much of a Marval historian or reader, but my understanding is that when they had Hank slap his wife, that did something that none of the death's of characters had ever been able to achieve, it stuck, and kept him off the board as a true good guy. If they had used him as a hero in the movies (something I haven't seen yet, so maybe they redeemed him there) I think they would have gotten a ton of backlash from groups they would prefer not to get backlash from.

John (Taloni) wrote: "Y'all are making me want to see it even though my feelings have been pretty negative to date.

I'm having a hard time getting over the excision of Hank Pym from the Ultron storyline in Avengers. Now Hank Pym is washed up and recruiting the NEXT Ant-Man? I want me some Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne, thankyouverymuch. "

I view the movies as a different universe. I hate Pym in the comics because he's just a plot device and nothing more. Whenever they need someone to really screw up or whip up some new doohickey, Hank's your man. So he's become a polymath who is good at everything except being a decent guy.

The movie Pym is a badass with principles. He is hardcore, haunted and, at the end of the day, right. I love how he's one step ahead of everyone.

The opening scene is like a Marvel One-Shot that is supremely satisfying.

George RR Martin mentioned it in his interview with S&L interview on YouTube. {Veronica faints} Ant Man was his favorite superhero. I hope they show it at his theatre.

Saw it today it was great and everything makes sense in context regarding Pym and the MCU.

2 after credit scenes second one at the very end is a lead in to Civil War and kinda surprised me a bit.

I have't seen the film yet, but I found this to be a very good, smart review:

http://sfcrowsnest.org.uk/ant-man-fil...

Spot on. It's nice that the immediate stakes aren't life and death for a change. The End Of The World is out there as the end result of of everything going on, but it feels more like an existential, abstract problem compared to the threat in front of them in a tale of redemption.

I just finished watching Ant-man. I thought it was a great, lighthearted popcorn story. It's a movie that isn't a BIG story in the Marvel universe and doesn't take itself too seriously and knows it. A lot of the treatment reminds me a little of Guardians of the Galaxy. Great story. I know I had a lot of fun watching it and I hope that there will be more of this. ^_^

Being a one-time Marvel shareholder (now a Disney shareholder since they bought Marvel some time back), I had my fingers crossed for this one. While the second Avengers flick has earned a ton of money, my overall impression is that Age of Ultron, while good, might have fallen just a bit short of expectations. That being the case, I was hoping that with Ant Man we might get another Guardians of the Galaxy coming out of left field.

Saw Ant Man with the wife last Saturday, and while it's no GotG, I thought it was solid. My impression is that Disney is trying to give audiences more facets with their superhero flicks. Ant Man came across as the superhero/heist movie, which makes sense considering the hero. True, it didn't outearn the opening weekend receipts of the first Captain America or Thor, but it got within spitting distance, and might (due to its humor) show some legs in the weeks to come.

Folks who haven't seen it yet should hang around afterwards, btw, since this one includes not just one, but two stingers; one about midway through the initial credits and the second at the end (as I understand it, I missed that one, so I'm giving advance warning).

Also, keep an eye out during the atomic universe sequence. Lots of speculation out there on the identity of the shadowy figure who appears in that scene.

Damn, I missed the second one as well. And I didn't see the shadowy figure. Good movie, though.

Y'all have convinced me to see it this weekend. My wife and myself will see it Saturday. Say, that's just in time for Sunday meetup in Irvine.

As I expected. GRRM went out to see Ant-Man and here is his thoughts.
http://grrm.livejournal.com/435595.html

I saw it last night as well. I thought it was very good, but not as great as say GOTG. I enjoyed it, I liked the humor, and that it was a different aspect of the universe. The teasers at the end were nice, but nothing that wasn't expected. I did like the role the stepfather took, it would have been easy to paint him quite differently, and they didn't.

I'm disappointed (well, no, not really, but it would've been super cool) that in the subatomic realm we didn't run into Force Commander, Biotron, et al. as a teaser for the Micronauts movie we all want.

^ I'll be *tik* looking to see if it could be Bug. Marvel owns that character.

John (Taloni) wrote: "^ I'll be *tik* looking to see if it could be Bug. Marvel owns that character."

That's right -- he was in the Abnett version of Guardians of the Galaxy. Fingers crossed ...

Yeah, Bug is the only Marvel character, so there will never be a Micronauts movie.

Well, I suppose I shouldn't say "never", because Feige did manage to wrangle Spider-man back into the fold, but highly unlikely since they have so many other characters to mine. I would watch the wheels off a Black Widow/Spider-woman road trip movie, for instance.

Trike wrote: "Yeah, Bug is the only Marvel character, so there will never be a Micronauts movie.

Well, I suppose I shouldn't say "never", because Feige did manage to wrangle Spider-man back into the fold, but h..."

Yeah, and given that it was a licensed comic from an obscure line of 1970s toys, I realize there's zero chance. But that won't stop me from dreaming.

Back to the movie at hand, I did really like it, by and large, although they seemed really inconsistent in whether his mass was changing when he shrank. And it'd be really nice to see Judy Greer get more screen time as something other than the mom in one of these blockbuster-type movies.

Can you imagine Ant-man hitting Hulk with one of those red disks? Cue the hilarity.

Trike wrote: "Can you imagine Ant-man hitting Hulk with one of those red disks? Cue the hilarity."

As it happens, I have vague memories of a 1970s-ish Hulk comic where he did end up in some kind of subatomic universe.

I wonder how much of the rights Marvel holds to the Spaceknights, Dire Wraiths, etc.? They couldn't do a Rom movie, obviously, but I think most of the backstory was actually a Marvel creation?

Joseph wrote: "Trike wrote: "Can you imagine Ant-man hitting Hulk with one of those red disks? Cue the hilarity."

As it happens, I have vague memories of a 1970s-ish Hulk comic where he did end up in some kind o..."

Yeah, that's where Hulk met Jarella. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarella
I did not realize Harlan Ellison wrote a Hulk comic.