Ant-Man & the Wasp deleted scenes add new depth to the film, even hinting that the Quantum Realm could be a far more exciting plane of reality than viewers believed. In one deleted scene, Janet Van Dyne guides Hank Pym across the Quantum Realm - and reveals that entire civilizations dwell within it.

The Quantum Realm is one of the most fascinating aspects of Ant-Man & the Wasp, and early versions of the script involved the heroes spending a lot more time exploring it. The Art of Ant-Man & the Wasp revealed that Marvel originally planned to fill this dimension with otherworldly creatures, with concept artists Ian Joyner and Rodney Fuentebella devising a wide range of monstrous beings. Wasp's costume was intended to hint at how she'd survived in the Quantum Realm for decades; some versions even implied that she'd encountered entire civilizations that lived there. Until now, though, it had generally been believed most of those concepts were abandoned during pre-production.

Related: Ant-Man & The Wasp Was (Barely) A Box Office Success

USA Today has released the first batch of deleted scenes for Ant-Man & the Wasp ahead of its digital and home release. Significantly, they include a scene in which Janet Van Dyne takes Hank Pym on a brief jaunt through the Quantum Realm, and confirms the existence of alien races who live within the Quantum Realm.

The first of these scenes explains how Sonny Burch realized the potential of the Pym Particles. The second, however, is far more exciting. "There's so much we didn't know about this place, Henry," Janet tells her husband. "Worlds upon worlds, entire civilizations; far more than we ever theorized." The Quantum Realm is loosely inspired by the Microverse, a subatomic reality in the comics that is indeed populated by countless races. It's been switched up a little, though, in order to roughly align with quantum mechanics. Kevin Feige has suggested that there are "various levels" to the Quantum Realm; the deeper you go, the more the laws of time and space break down, and presumably the more exotic the inhabitants.

The Quantum Realm is expected to be key to the future of the MCU. Ant-Man & the Wasp confirmed that this dimension has mysterious "time vortexes," and it's generally believed that the fluid nature of time inside the Quantum Realm will be the key to time travel. The popular theory is that the Avengers will use the Quantum Realm to travel through time in Avengers 4, as part of a desperate attempt to change history and prevent Thanos from destroying half the life in the universe. If this theory is true, perhaps we could yet catch a glimpse of these "civilizations" after all.

More: Avengers 4 Theory: It's Not Time Travel, It's Memories

Source: USA Today

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