The Flash - July 2022

[KitbashOfficer]

sooooooo. Nobody here is seeing blue beetle huh? No interest in figures, no thread , no nothing. I mean come on guys. Sheesh. The most popular speedster on the planet bombed hard at the box office and not even Batman could save it. It got crushed by Barbie and sad depressed bomb guy. They need a win. So come on everybody let’s ask Howard to give us that blue beetle preorder!

If black Adam got a figure then so can this guy!



No?

Ok I’ll see myself out.

I'd get a BB figure, but I know how HT is: Episode IV A No Hope

 

[ironwez20]

I'd get a BB figure, but I know how HT is: Episode IV A No Hope

Yup this is the truth

 

[Captain Clown]

Yeah, I’m sure that’s what they’ll say. But the point is, he cut the whole 2023 slate off at the knees by announcing that they were rebooting everything in 2025. I know in the case of Blue Beetle, Gunn tried to mitigate the disaster by saying something to the affect of Blue Beetle the character is going to be the same version in the new DCU, even though his movie isn’t part of the continuity. But I think that’s just more confusing to general audiences.

He said the same thing about Shazam before Shazam 2’s release, and that bombed. He said roughly the same thing about The Flash, that it leads into the reboot, and that bombed / was a complete lie. And now he said it about Blue Beetle, and it bombed.

Watch this space for Aquaman 2’s release when he hypes it as being “part of the DCU” right before it underperforms/bombs. It makes you wonder how Superman Legacy will fare, eh?

 

[Khev]

I think I like this movie more than ZSJL.

 

[Khev]

Things I loved about this movie (big spoilers for anyone who still might care):

1. Actually surprised me when WW showed up after spoiling her arrival in BvS.
2. Gave me Batman going out in a blaze of glory that TDKR failed to deliver.
3. Two Barry's that absolutely 100% felt like two separate people interacting with one another to the degree that I'm not sure my brain has *still* fully accepted that it was the same actor playing both roles and that they were never in the same room together.
4. Kara - what an absolutely sympathetic and tragic character. The movie made me really hate those Russian *******s that kept her locked up and witnessing her being doomed to try and take on Zod and his Kryptonian warriors after having only a few hours to master her sun enhanced senses was almost painful. My inner "white knight" was totally on young Barry's side to just keep trying to reverse time until he found a way to save her (and Keaton.)
5. Keaton - He was just awesome on all levels. I thought that MoS was such a huge missed opportunity the year after Avengers to not have Bale show up in "the Bat" during the finale and once again this film corrected that oversight, but even more spectacularly so by giving Keaton his third movie send-off that the Schumacher films denied us.
6. Batfleck speeding around on his bike fighting bad guys was awesome.
7. Flash running effects looked cool.
8. Very bittersweet that young Barry's whole world was doomed to fall to Zod and there was nothing they could do to prevent it. Especially after all the little moments with side characters like his college roommates to major characters like Keaton and Kara. Once again it all comes down to those Russian a-holes keeping Kara imprisoned so that she couldn't hone her powers the way Cavill did. I even go back and forth as to whether I like such a bummer in the story at all but can't deny that it truly made me care about and root for these characters and made them all feel like true underdogs despite their crazy abilities and powers.

Maybe this was all just "first viewing" excitement as a result of low expectations but I'm already looking forward to watching it again and I'll see how it holds up.

 

[Khev]

Keaton doing his best to stick the big Kryptonian with bombs the same way he did to the bald clown guy in Returns was also cool.

 

[jye4ever]

Things I loved about this movie (big spoilers for anyone who still might care):

1. Actually surprised me when WW showed up after spoiling her arrival in BvS.
2. Gave me Batman going out in a blaze of glory that TDKR failed to deliver.
3. Two Barry's that absolutely 100% felt like two separate people interacting with one another to the degree that I'm not sure my brain has *still* fully accepted that it was the same actor playing both roles and that they were never in the same room together.
4. Kara - what an absolutely sympathetic and tragic character. The movie made me really hate those Russian *******s that kept her locked up and witnessing her being doomed to try and take on Zod and his Kryptonian warriors after having only a few hours to master her sun enhanced senses was almost painful. My inner "white knight" was totally on young Barry's side to just keep trying to reverse time until he found a way to save her (and Keaton.)
5. Keaton - He was just awesome on all levels. I thought that MoS was such a huge missed opportunity the year after Avengers to not have Bale show up in "the Bat" during the finale and once again this film corrected that oversight, but even more spectacularly so by giving Keaton his third movie send-off that the Schumacher films denied us.
6. Batfleck speeding around on his bike fighting bad guys was awesome.
7. Flash running effects looked cool.
8. Very bittersweet that young Barry's whole world was doomed to fall to Zod and there was nothing they could do to prevent it. Especially after all the little moments with side characters like his college roommates to major characters like Keaton and Kara. Once again it all comes down to those Russian a-holes keeping Kara imprisoned so that she couldn't hone her powers the way Cavill did. I even go back and forth as to whether I like such a bummer in the story at all but can't deny that it truly made me care about and root for these characters and made them all feel like true underdogs despite their crazy abilities and powers.

Maybe this was all just "first viewing" excitement as a result of low expectations but I'm already looking forward to watching it again and I'll see how it holds up.

I have only watched it once and while I certainly didn’t hate the movie I couldn’t get pass Keaton not being 89 Batman.

If they were going to go that direction then they should’ve just stuck to the comics and made it Thomas Wayne and still use Keaton, no?

Not gonna lie I really do want to watch it again.

 

[Khev]

I have only watched it once and while I certainly didn’t hate the movie I couldn’t get pass Keaton not being 89 Batman.

What made him not 89 Batman? And just for fun maybe explain it to me like I'm five and that I potentially missed something super obvious that everybody else was privy to, lol.

 

[jye4ever]

What made him not 89 Batman? And just for fun maybe explain it to me like I'm five and that I potentially missed something super obvious that everybody else was privy to, lol.

What made him not 89 Batman? And just for fun maybe explain it to me like I'm five and that I potentially missed something super obvious that everybody else was privy to, lol.

In Flashpoint it is young Bruce that dies in the alley and his father becomes a very violent Batman.

Don’t ask what happens to the mother lol

Ahh good ole comic books.

 

[Khev]

In Flashpoint it is young Bruce that dies in the alley and his father becomes a very violent Batman.

Don’t ask what happens to the mother lol

Ahh good ole comic books.

I thought you said you couldn't get past Keaton not being 1989 Batman like he wasn't the same character from the Burton films.

 

[jye4ever]

I thought you said you couldn't get past Keaton not being 1989 Batman like he wasn't the same character from the Burton films.

He definitely wasn’t so if they were not going to make him the same as 89 I wish they had gone with Thomas Wayne instead.

The Keaton they gave us was this weird alternate version.

 

[Khev]

He definitely wasn’t

How wasn't he though??

I mean it was Keaton, he had a suit, car, and plane that were all similar aesthetics to Burton, they played his music, he repeated memorable lines from 1989, what about him didn't match up that couldn't be explained by 30 years passing.

 

[Wor-Gar]

Keaton also had the same kitchen.

But anyway, I finally got to see this on its HBO run. What a mess. I won't bother to review it. More nostalgia-reaming. More 'multiverse' idiocy. Now even Batman is saying movies have it all wrong and time-travel is spaghetti. I think spaghetti sums up this multiverse concept pretty well.

I will point out this one thing that jumped out at me -- there's like 6 long shots to "reveal" the batwing descending, complete with huge drawn-out score and 3x dolly-in shots of surprised faces (because one is not enough). You know, when the batwing was first introduced, it got no fanfare -- it just leaped onto the screen, already flying, already in action. That's the way to do it. But movies have to be 2.5 hours now minimum, so... repeat dolly-ins as much as possible.

 

[jye4ever]

How wasn't he though??

I mean it was Keaton, he had a suit, car, and plane that were all similar aesthetics to Burton, they played his music, he repeated memorable lines from 1989, what about him didn't match up that couldn't be explained by 30 years passing.

I could be wrong lol

I thought when Flash created the new alternate timeline to save his mom from dying that it created the 89 Batman but in the DCEU Gotham.

 

[Khev]

I could be wrong lol

I thought when Flash created the new alternate timeline to save his mom from dying that it created the 89 Batman but in the DCEU Gotham.

Oh okay now I see where you're coming from. I guess that's a valid enough way to interpret it.

I took it as Barry going into a parallel universe where Burton Gotham and DCEU Metropolis co-existed and since the Burton films never showed us Metropolis it could have been that way in 1989 all along. Young Barry finding the bag with the laughing noise indicated to me that Keaton still fought Nicholson Joker and not Leto or any other DCEU villains.

 

[Jroug]

I watched Flash today with low expectations. Was pretty impressed until the third act when it all went to hell. It's like they turned off the CGI QC (maybe they did, because they were tinkering after Gunn came on board).

There's a 3-part DC doc on MAX too, which us hilarious unto itself, as it is mostly recently canned talking heads saying how great the (now retired) DCCU is.

I doubt anyone at DC expects anything of Aquabro 2 since it's coming out on Xmas, but you can't blame them for making a sequel to their only film that hit a billion.

Bring on Superman!

 

[Khev]

Okay I really wanted to watch this movie again so I did, lol.

I've come to two conclusions:

1. Yeah I really like it.

2. Man despite all the comedic bits it's actually super grim.

I think what might make the story feel a little muddy is how seemingly prominent the "Back to the Future" correlation is when that's just DCEU Barry's wrong assumptions and misunderstanding about what's going on from pretty much beginning to end since he refuses to listen to either Batman.

Keaton totally spells out that while you can indeed time travel you only stay in your original universe as long as you don't change anything. As soon as Barry "saved" his mom he really just hopped into another universe where she never died in the first place (and assumedly would have grabbed the extra can of tomatoes on her own had DCEU Barry not put them in her cart). That's why when young Barry died only "Dark Flash" disappeared and not DCEU Barry. DCEU Barry wasn't an older version of that young Barry because that young Barry was a parallel being in a totally separate universe.

In other words in the Burtonverse where Keaton lived Zod would have shown up and since Kal-El was dead and Kara was imprisoned nobody would have stopped him and he gets to destroy the earth. Talk about one hell of a morbid finale to Batman 89 and Returns! In that universe Barry never gets powers either and it's a total cakewalk for Zod.

But what I'm guessing happened (and this is where anyone gets to make their own assumptions because this bit isn't specifically stated) is that DCEU Barry would have eventually traveled forward in the timeline of the "mom's alive" Burtonverse until what he thought was *his* present (which it wasn't) until realizing what Zod was doing and would have stopped to fight him. He'd still have the problem that the other Barry doesn't have powers so he theoretically could have still enlisted Batman's aid (and Kara's) to do the same lightning trick but on the *other* Barry. Anyone following this? Probably not but I'll keep going anyway, lol.

So then we still end up with two powered up Flashes, one Kara and one Batman all fighting Zod and still losing. So the two Barry's try to reverse time (like they did in the movie) and young Barry enters "Doctor Strange exploring the 14 million possibilities" mode. But maybe around possibility 1 or 2 million he realizes that the fight goes much better if HE gets his powers on September 29th and so punches the DCEU Barry into that particular day in order to explore that specific probability which allows him to get closer and closer to winning in the final battle (which lines up with Dark Flash's dialogue in the film.)

And each time he gets a little closer to victory but only if he has the second Barry to help him out. But each and every time the DCEU Barry gives up to go back to the universe where his mom dies because he thinks it's a lost cause. But Burtonverse Barry does NOT believe it's a lost cause, and is simply fighting through each of the infinite probabilities in real time, until his old self ends up eventually going insane and tries to straight up kill DCEU Barry which leads to his own death instead.

DCEU Barry thinks that if he goes back to where his mom forgot the tomatoes that he'll be "fixing" the timeline but again (as Keaton pointed out) there was nothing to fix in the other timeline because you can't fix anything that happened in the past. He just went to that moment where the timelines intersected and moved the tomatoes so that he'd move back into his original universe...until he once again ignored Batman's advice and moved the tomatoes again to save his father and therefore entered a brand new universe all over again, this time the Schumacherverse where Clooney was Batman.

So TL;DR:

Barry didn't time travel he changed the timeline which put him in a different universe (Burtonverse) that was defenseless against Zod. He tried to help save that Earth, didn't think it was possible (though who knows if he was right since he gave up trying to help the other Barry after just a single "redo" effort) then changed the timeline again to enter a third universe (Schumacherverse) where there's assumedly yet another duplicate Barry that he just didn't run into before the credits rolled.

Crazy, fun, epic, and totally sad (for the poor Burtonverse) and yet strangely internally consistent if you take Keaton's explanation as the truth.

 

[Wor-Gar]

So Barry accomplished nothing in two and a half hours?

 

[Khev]

So Barry accomplished nothing in two and a half hours?

Keaton seemed happy that Barry brought him out of retirement even if it was only to go out in a blaze of glory.

Kara got to die in the sun among friends instead of alone in a dark prison.

Okay those are two pretty hollow accomplishments but they're something, I told you this movie was grim, lol.

Otherwise his main accomplishments were probably getting to reunite with his mom (ever so briefly) and see his dad freed even if neither technically took place in his own universe.

 

[Wor-Gar]

I can see why it did so poorly. Defeated by Indy. Defeated by Tom. Defeated by Oppenheimer. Defeated by Barbie. Batman, Flash and Superman... and ALL of them... defeated.

The Summer of 2023 is legendary. You may not see it now... but one day, looking back, you will understand what happened this year.

[not you singular; you plural]