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The Flash


Greywind

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The way I see it, a new continuity is formed the moment a time traveler enters the time stream at some point in the past. Eobard existed (disguised as Wells) as an entity with his own mass and consciousness and ability to exist independent of his birth origin from the continuity he came from. Eddie killing himself should have had no impact on Evil Wells at all. That connection was effectively broken the moment Eobard created his new continuity upon emerging back into the E1 timestream 15 years ago. But the writers wanted to eat their cake and have it too. They wanted to cash in on everyone's love of time travel mechanics from beloved movies such as Back to the Future, even though they don't hold up to any sort of rigorous intellectual scrutiny.

Emphasis added. How does one apply rigorous intellectual scrutiny to time travel? We have accepted the impossible when we accept that time travel occurs at all. BTW, people travelling faster than the speed of sound under their own power, talking gorillas, cold guns, controlling the weather, etc. do not hold up any better under rigorous intellectual scrutiny.

 

This is why I knew I would dislike The Flash on some level no matter how good everything else was. Time travel is guaranteed to make no sense whatsoever, and guaranteed to be the weak link in the plotting of the show. It ruined Heroes, and it is an albatross around the neck of The Flash too. I realize that time travel is a traditional element of the character, but that doesn't make it any more palatable, especially given how poorly it is always handled.

 

Which character? I'd say time travel is an essential element of Reverse Flash/Thawne (Abra Kadabra is another Flash character reliant on it). Had they chosen to do so, the Flash show could have written out those characters and still worked fine, although the megaplot in Season 1 would have had to be changed.

 

I'd venture to say that a vast majority of the superhuman stuff in a typical comic book universe won't hold up to any sort of rigorous intellectual scrutiny.

Yup.

 

And freefall being used as an equalizer? That only works in a world where physics aren't violated in comic-booky ways on a regular basis. Somehow the Flash can generate enough friction to run up the funnel of an energy vortex and over the surface of water. I'm sure speed gods like Zoom and Flash could maintain full speed on air too.

Again, when we accept one impossibility, it becomes necessary to accept further possibilities or impossibilities in respect of the first. We can't apply the scientific method to superspeed because neither your nor the writer's hypothesis is capable of being tested.

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“If the Universe came to an end every time there was some uncertainty about what had happened in it, it would never have got beyond the first picosecond. And many of course don't. It's like a human body, you see. A few cuts and bruises here and there don't hurt it. Not even major surgery if it's done properly. Paradoxes are just the scar tissue. Time and space heal themselves up around them and people simply remember a version of events which makes as much sense as they require it to make.” 

Douglas Adams

 

"Even if it turns out that time travel is impossible, it is important that we understand why it is impossible."

Stephen Hawking

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Again, when we accept one impossibility, it becomes necessary to accept further possibilities or impossibilities in respect of the first. We can't apply the scientific method to superspeed because neither your nor the writer's hypothesis is capable of being tested.

This is mostly just a copout. The same copout that says just because a fantasy world has magic, there need be no internal logic to the world or magic itself. Which is utter nonsense. You are right, we can't analyse superspeed scientifically. However, the show wants to allow Barry to take advantage of a real physical phenomenon (terminal velocity) while simultaneously ignoring any real physical phenomenon that gets in the way of the plot or action scene. As a viewer, I don't allow writers to get that lazy without criticism.

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I think it has more to do with your discussion about time travel that does about terminal velocity. How do you left it only terminal velocity then I think the criticism you garnered for that post would be significantly less or non-existent. But rather your insistence upon understanding hoe time travel work and of criticizing others for the way they estimate it could work is what garnered you that post.

 

Soar.

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Article On The Flash Movie At Movieweb

 

So apparently the DC Movie-verse and the TV-verse will be separate from one another.  C'est Intéressant.

 

Now I'm kind of disappointed that Brandon Routh was cast as Ray Palmer.  I always wanted him to get another shot as Superman, and now there's the possibility of a non-Cavil Superman, a non-Gadot Wonder Woman, and a non-Affleck Batman.  I hope the TV-verse follows through with that possibility.

 

Not too crazy about this Ezra Miller fellow--to my mind he looks a little too emo for Barry Allen.  But I'm not all that familiar with the guy--perhaps someone who knows his work better can comment more effectively on his talent.

 

There it is for anyone who's interested.

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We've known this for quite some time, I believe.

 

And it's not very surprising. Studios don't like "diluting" their movie franchises by putting their key characters in tv shows. You get the occasional guest appearance (Highlander, Agents of SHIELD), but Warner Brothers and DC have made it clear, time and time again, that they do not want their tv and movie franchises to share actors, much less an entire universe.

 

Marvel will continue to be alone in taking all the chances and enjoying all the benefits of having a shared universe across multiple entertainment formats.

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Mostly its difficult because movie actors tend to be bigger names and get paid a lot more, so your budget blows up if you have movie guys in your TV show.  it can be done - lately a ton of movie actors have started doing TV, I suspect because they figured out finally that a smaller paycheck every week beats one big paycheck every year.  But there are also scheduling problems, because it takes months to film a movie and months to film a TV season and fitting that all in is not easy.  Especially given how much time off actors like to have.

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We've known this for quite some time, I believe.

 

And it's not very surprising. Studios don't like "diluting" their movie franchises by putting their key characters in tv shows. You get the occasional guest appearance (Highlander, Agents of SHIELD), but Warner Brothers and DC have made it clear, time and time again, that they do not want their tv and movie franchises to share actors, much less an entire universe.

 

Marvel will continue to be alone in taking all the chances and enjoying all the benefits of having a shared universe across multiple entertainment formats.

 

Highlander was originally supposed to be a continuation of Connor. Lambert's filming for The Gathering was 3 days. The show's budget couldn't afford another appearance, which is why Duncan never found Connor in Prodigal Son when he was running from Martin Hyde.

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The most recent episode was good. I really enjoyed watching Grodd coming back into the fray. And the ending was perfect. I really want to know more about E-2. All the bits they have dropped so far make it seem really great. I wonder if maybe the little bits they drop here and there are ways of prepping the audience and / or testing the waters with the audience to see what will fly. I would enjoy seeing more of an E-2 brought up. Maybe Flash could settle things with Garrik and Zoom there. But in doing so gets trapped for a few episodes. Just enough to help get the feel for the place and then come back. I think that would be great for seeing if I really want to see a show set in 'that' kind of world.

 

All in all, a good episode with lots of interesting bits. The Cisco side story especially was good. Dat kiss, yo!

 

Soar.

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I love the fact that they added Grodd to the show. However, I don't like that they neutralized his most devastating weapon (his Mind Control) and now anyone that slips in Cisco's earbuds is immune. What we're left with is just a superstrength villain. Yawn. Of course, he's about to go all Planet of the Apes on us over in E-2, which will inevitably spill over into Earth Prime, but I still hate the fact that Cisco basically made his gadget pool roll earlier in the season and now one of Grodd's most important powers is rendered pointless (pun intended).

 

And did anyone else feel kinda bad for Grodd? I mean, they really did a great job of making him a sympathetic villain, despite his penchant for squishing innocent normals who interfered with his plans. Watching him get sucked into the breach, with the pain of Caitlin's betrayal on his face, strangely tugged on my heart strings.

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