But a typical superhero origin film is so formula. I want to do something different. Which a movie that starts with Barry Allen as an established Flash dying and Wally West taking up the mantle would be.
So...it's a Wally West origin, just not a
Flash origin? They need to tell us WHY we should care about The Flash before delving into his legacy. (Barry trilogy first to establish who The Flash is and get us to care about him, then they could do a Wally series later on down the line using the original trilogy as the background/foundation for it)
I am biased toward Wally West but I feel like I have a point. I would also have a retired, old Jay Garrick. He would mentor Wally after Barry dies just as I would say he did with Barry.
This is terrible. You have Jay Garrick being Mr Miyagi....he was never that to The Flash and is pretty much irrelevant to the whole scarlet speedster thing.
The Garrick Flash wouldn't have went public, only a myth. Barry loved the myth as a kid and that's why he called himself the Flash only to see Garrick at his doorstep after debuting. Remember, Barry called himself the Flash because he read comics about Garrick's Flash. So it's a play on that!!!
Barry became a superhero because he liked comic books. He was the original Kick-Ass of his day. Having it so Garrick ACTUALLY exists in the same realm Barry does and has been The Flash before is really hokey. They need to keep it to ONE Flash for the first movie.
My villain for this would be a mix of the Hunter Zoloman Reverse Flash and "The Rival" Reverse Flash. It would be more Zoloman though, including the name. The Zoloman childhood background would be in place for one. Two, he hates Barry Allen because Barry didn't save his wifes life while he also ended up in a wheelchair. Zoloman snaps, gains speed force powers through the water fumes like Garrick, and discovers that Barry is The Flash. Zoloman kills Barry and then poses as The Flash in order to destroy the image of The Flash by killing any bad guy he comes across as well as any law enforcement that tries to stop him. The character is a complete psychopath. The only weakness he has is due to the water fume method. It will be the worst way to gain speed force powers because it makes a person faster than other methods do. But it takes a toll on your body. Sometimes it makes a person the king of all speed, then it burns out here and there. It also causes heart issues over time. That's why Garrick doesn't have speed anymore.
Too much for one movie, especially when your main character is Wally West. This is all plot and villains and supporting characters and exposition.
And lastly, I would want Joaquin Phoenix in this role.
I like the idea of him as The Reverse Flash, but not for the first movie.
One last thing. I'd open the film with a Wally voice over talking about Flash facts and praising his uncle Barry. As the voice over goes on, you see both Wally running around Barry's lab while going back and forth with Barry as the Flash to see how great he was. Later, it is revealed that Barry brought Wally to his lab and set things up to purposefully give Wally powers in the same manner he received so that if/ when something happened to him The Flash could live on. Wally never uses his powers openly out of respect for Barry, who asked that of him to keep Wally of the radar because he couldn't afford something happening to Wally.
No offense, but I think that's stupid. Why are we offing one Flash just to get another...Flash? All this buildup about characters we don't care about so Kid Flash can be The Flash...too many coincidences, too many "happy accidents".
The only way you buy "The Flash" is if it's a ONE TIME accident that happened
ONCE. More random lab accidents = superspeed, the hokier the movie becomes. No to Wally West, and no to Jay Garrick, and no to Hunter. You can only suspend so much disbelief.
As you can see, I've taken the Nolan approach of taking liberties from source material. And as we know, that just happened to work.
Terrible. What works for Batman will not work with other characters. They need to inject some new life into the creative pool and get away from Goyer and Nolan. Goyer's Flash script from years ago was terrible....with the Turtle man killing Barry Allen trying to steal his super speed (!!!) while trying to rescue a young Wally. In addition to many Goyerisms, I hope that film never sees the light of day.
They need to deliver a timeless classic, "lightning in a bottle" type film like the Donner Superman or even the first Iron Man, with a lot of heart and excitement and awe, along with some, yes, romance thrown in. (things Man of Steel was lacking) They need a good story.
The Flash can be the Spider-Man (or Iron Man) of the DCU, consider:
- both are scientists
- both got their powers from lab accidents (The Flash has the distinction of being the only major DC hero to have received his powers from an accident)
- both are down to earth heroes
- both created their own suits/identities and mechanical devices to go with them (Spider-Man's web shooters, Barry Allen's costume ring and police scanner in his ear piece)
- both have a colorful Rogues Gallery
- both have had their love interest killed by their arch-nemesis at some point in their careers
- both have colorful costumes that are about perfect in their designs, two of the best designed suits in comics
The ironic thing is, the new Dreamworks animated film Turbo, in which a snail gets superspeed (voiced by Ryan Reynolds no less, who almost played The Flash years back) has a very basic formula for what a Flash film could be; slow guy becomes fast. Every time I see a clip from that I think "they just made The Flash movie" in a way. That's what The Flash needs to be, it needs to capture that excitement and the right level of fun. Not saying it should be a kids movie, but snail = Barry Allen (slow, always late, always wanted to be fast), and then it gets superspeed. There's more than enough of a movie in that and I feel like it could be really exciting and something we've never seen before. Not this convulted "well I'm The Flash, but there's a guy before me who was The Flash but got his powers a different way, then there's a guy after me who got his powers the same way I did but he's a kid, oh, and there's an evil guy with super speed powers who also got his from an accident running around in our own time period..." when the movie could just stop and explore "I have super speed. Isn't that awesome?" for a while. Think of the possibilities!
Don't get me wrong, seeing Jay Garrick and Reverse Flash and all them would be cool, and I'll be there opening day regardless, if they made it about Johnny Quick I would go and watch that, but there needs to be some rules for the basic reality: There is one Flash here (Barry...until the end of the trilogy when he will somehow pass his powers on to Wally (think TDKR, but I had this idea first
) for a potential following trilogy someday down the line a la Star Wars or even a tv series which could use the original trilogy as the background, but that's just one option, Barry doesn't HAVE to die or do any of that), there is an "old Flash" with a helmet, but he is from an alternate timeline/reality (Jay Garrick), and this/he won't be discovered until future films where Barry/The Flash will discover his vibrational/dimension travelling abilities (by accident). There is an evil Flash (Reverse Flash/Thawne), but he is from the future, and he hates The Flash, even though he is inspired by him. The time traveling thing plays into the dimension/reality travel and the past/future and speed nature of The Flash; this is so much better than just having an "accident" in the present that
somehow creates
another speedster with the SAME powers as The Flash, but this guy happens to be evil (or good for that matter). How many times have we seen that done? Good guy has powers, bad guy miraculously ends up with same powers as good guy and they fight. Little creativity here would be nice instead of a movie where the good guy and the bad guy have their powers the same way/the same powers for once.
No to Goyer. No to Kid Flash/Wally West. No to Reverse Flash existing in the present. No to "old Flash" Jay Garrick living in the same timeline/present. Hell no to hard water molecules granting superspeed (takes away from the random "accident" aspect of The Flash - and it's LIGHTNING that does it, that at least makes sense on an emotional level for some reason).
We can be creative. We can do an awesome origin movie, nay, the BEST to date. Needs to be a love letter to the old Flash comics/the silver age of comics (both Marvel and DC) and capture the excitement and wonder of those stories (how they read to people back then). It all lies in The Flash, IMHO.
t: Build a universe with Barry Allen, the foundation, and the sky is the limit from there, IMO.
