Marvel Studios talked a big game during the buildup to Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania by claiming that not only was it the biggest, boldest, and brashest adventure yet for the title hero, but it had the potential to be the cinematic universe’s very own Star Wars.
Admittedly, that did turn out to be the case, but the end product had a lot more in common than J.J. Abrams’ The Rise of Skywalker than any of the actual, y’know, good ones. Much like Episode IX before it, Quantumania has been roundly trashed by critics, picked apart by old and new fans alike, while under-performing at the box office to a record-breaking extent within the context of the MCU.
Putting on a brave face and completely ignoring the threequel’s reputation as one of the long-running superhero saga’s worst entries by any measurable metric, visual effects supervisor Jesse James Chisholm spoke to IndieWire and doubled down on those comparisons to a galaxy far, far away, even if it didn’t come about as part of a grand master plan.
“I don’t think we went in consciously making a Star Wars movie. We all grew up on those films and it’s so steeped in our lexicon that it just becomes a part of our thinking. Yes, we have a restaurant scene with characters, so you can say that’s our cantina. It’s tough because we didn’t purposely go out doing that and comparing to Star Wars.”
While some folks will undoubtedly compare Quantumania to The Last Jedi if they’re of the opinion Rian Johnson tarnished the good name of Star Wars forever, The Rise of Skywalker is a much more fitting and apt descriptor when both heavily-hyped trilogy-closers arrived in a blaze of expectation and publicity, only to disappoint even the most forgiving of supporters.