The specifics of the Quantum Realm in the Marvel Cinematic Universe are largely a mystery, despite the microscopic dimension playing a key role in the franchise's biggest movie yet. How exactly does it 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 in the Quantum Realm and felt every second of it?
Let's discuss everything we know about the Quantum Realm and, hopefully, find an answer.
Quantumania Offers Clarity on the Quantum Realm, but There Is Still a Lot to Uncover
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 feels like five hours. He figures that time works differently in that world, 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 there 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 President Kevin Feige was asked this question, he chalked it up to "sci-fi weirdness." Speaking to SlashFilm, he 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. The subsequent release of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania only served to further change the Quantum Realm by establishing entire empires within it and explaining that it exists entirely outside of time and space.
Though it still hasn't been explained fully why the discrepancy occurred, it could relate to the points at which the Quantum Realm is entered and exited. 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.