By Ben Wan
Why DOES Ezra Miller’s Flash run like that? How did he get his powers differently compared to the comics? Why is his lightning blue instead of yellow? We answer all these questions in our first ever dive into The Flash/Barry Allen. We cover the general history of the character before we tackle the Snyderverse version and his timeline before we saw him in Zack Snyder’s Justice League. 0:04 Matt Herring GoFund Me Bumper Please donate what you can to our friend and fan of the podcast Matt Herring, who is battling Stage 4 colon cancer. Click here for Matt Herring's GoFundMe 1:45 “Flash’s Intervention for Superman & Batman” with Andrew Bush as Flash/Barry Allen, Zachary Jackson Brown as Superman, and Ben Wan as Batman A sequel sketch to our opening sketch to “What’s the Best Justice League Origin?” where Superman and Batman come in to intervene with Flash’s pot smoking, only to start smoking it themselves. Check out the sketch that takes place in that continuity here:
6:34 Opening 8:53 How Did You Become A Flash Fan? 17:04 History of The Flash- Jay Garrick/The Golden Age Flash, The Significance of Gardner Fox, & Flash Facts Once again, we reference the episode “What’s the Best Justice League Origin” where we discussed Gardner Fox’s contribution to the formation of the League. Also in general- we refer to the 2017 theatrical cut of Justice League as “Joss-tice League” like others online, since a majority of the footage in that film was shot by Joss Whedon, not the original director, Zack Snyder. 20:30 The Introduction & Origin of Barry Allen 24:04 Iris West 25:35 Wally West/Kid Flash 27:07 When The Flash First Time Traveled We talked about the construction of the Cosmic Treadmill in the Snyderverse in our Justice League 2 & 3 episode here:
30:17 The Death and Return of Barry Allen 31:31 Barry Allen’s Backstory With His Parents & The Ethan Van Sciver Credit Controversy While people criticized Zack Snyder for adding controversial comics figure Ethan Van Sciver under “Special Thanks” for his cut of Justice League, Van Sciver WAS the artist on The Flash Rebirth that introduced the idea that Henry Allen was arrested for his wife Nora’s murder, alongside Geoff Johns as the writer. Geoff Johns was also included in the “Special Thanks” section for writing comics that the film took inspiration from, despite Ray Fisher’s accusations against him and Johns’s reported role behind-the-scenes in rewriting the Justice League script for the Whedon cut. Also none of the critics pointed out that Van Sciver was previously thanked in the 2017 Joss Whedon cut. For evidence, here’s the credit comparison between the Joss Whedon cut:
And the Snyder cut:
41:57 The First Barry Allen on Film Was...Leonardo DiCaprio??
Corrections Department: Catch Me If You Can is set in the 1960s, not the 1970s-1980s. 43:24 The History of the Flash in Live Action We discussed how Danny Elfman actually has two different themes for The Flash. Here is his 1990s Flash Theme:
And Danny Elfman’s Flash Theme in Joss-tice League:
We discussed The Flash/Barry Allen (to have been played by Adam Brody) being the heart of Justice League Mortal in our coverage of Justice League Mortal in 2017:
49:05 Break: No More Whoppers Promo, “Anatoli Asks the Indeed Wizard for a Hand” sketch, and Cryptid Campfire Bumper This is a promo for another podcast in the Greenlit Podcast Network, No More Whoppers, which you can find here. The Patreon sketch “Anatoli Asks the Indeed Wizard for A Hand” is from our Patreon episode covering the Rogues Gallery of the Ben Affleck Batman. Anatoli is the KGBeast from the comics (who cut off his own hand in the Ten Nights of the Beast storyline) and is the same character as the henchman for Lex Luthor played by Callan Mulvey in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. The Indeed Wizard is an original character created and played by Andrew and revealed in previous sketches. You can get merchandise of The Indeed Wizard, done by Wolfie, at our stores at the links below. Anatoli says that the “Vision guy” warned him about this, which is a reference to the sketch where the Indeed Wizard gave Vision (from WandaVision) a tour. He also references Magneto (who’s said to have the bucket on his head) and Pete-O, another original character from Andrew from our Magneto and Pete-O sketches. Andrew also plays the voice of Aquaman, with his love for defecating planted in this sketch from Justice League: Snyder Vs. Whedon:
Cryptid Campfire did the bumper at the end of the break. We did crossover episodes, with ours on “Is the Joker supernatural?” You can find their podcast here.
53:33 Ezra Miller’s Casting As mentioned, Ezra Miller confirmed in a 2018 interview about being cool with all the pronouns. The Martian Manhunter of the 1997 Justice League pilot, as referenced by Andrew:
Ezra Miller’s Costume Test as Barry Allen in the Black Freighter Shirt:
The Wally West New 52 insignia for comparison:
58:09 Why DOES The Flash Run Like That? We referenced our crossover episode with the Overly Critical Hyper Analytical Movie Club Podcast where Matty criticized Ezra Miller’s running.
Ezra Miller Interview on preparing for the role of the Flash: In the few years leading up to Justice League, I trained in different capacities. I practiced martial arts for two years, and even trained for a while in the Wudang mountains in China. To better understand The Flash’s movements, I worked with several dancers and choreographers, including gifted mages like Zack Winokur and Bobbi Jean Smith. Closer to the time of pre-production, I also started to work with [cast trainer] Mark Twight and his incredible team, who led me through this fascinating reflex training to bring in additional elements of awareness to the character’s physicality. The entire League trained REALLY hard constantly throughout the shoot. I was also fascinated with the idea of filling in the gaps of the Flash comics I was reading, which have this classic iconography of the conditioning of the character’s body, and I deconstructed and reconstructed those pieces and created a fluid language of how The Flash gets from one point to another. I took an interest in ballet and found a lot that was useful in the form of petit allegro – ‘little fast’ – quick, lively and small jumps. I spent a lot of time watching the RIP videos that a talented group of dancers in California make to honor the friends they’ve lost. The dancers in those videos do insane work with perceptual distortion of time and motion, and I was really moved and informed by their stuff. I was also inspired by crows, cheetahs, mongooses and other fast-moving and intelligent creatures, as well as by rushing water and, of course, lightning. Comparison between Ezra Miller and a martial artist in the Wudang mountains:
Other possible monks that Ezra Miller was emulating: The Monks who would do 1,000 days of long distance running. A Reddit user on DC Cinematic also described: “Ezra Miller's movements are inspired by Chinese Martial Arts such as Northern Shaolin form #2 Leng Lou (aka Lightning Bending: ATLA), Wudang Qinggong and Tibetan Lung-gom-pa, "Marathon Monks" who were known to run for days on end, so fast they appeared to be flying.“ 1:07:46 Barry Allen’s Backstory: His Age & His Jewish Heritage In the Comics Central City Population in the movie matches with the comics, as pointed out by the Zack v Comics Twitter account: https://twitter.com/zack_know/status/1375070927776591887
Barry’s Birthdate in Joss-tice League, as provided by DC Extended Universe Wiki. Barry Allen’s Jewish heritage in Christmas with The Flash and Green Lantern in 1989 1:11:10 Why Jeffrey Dean Morgan's Thomas Wayne Can’t Be the DCEU Flashpoint Batman We identified that Thomas Wayne died in 1981 in our episode “The Secret Origins of Ben Affleck’s Batman.”
The Flashpoint Paradox version of Flash delivering the Thomas Wayne letter to Batman:
1:13:09 If Barry’s Not in the Crime Lab, How Did He Become The Flash?- Ben’s Theory 1:18:27 The Flash Suit/Insignia, Why The Flash’s Lightning is Blue, & Defending a Batman V Superman Criticism Zack Snyder on how the blue lightning is more of a visual highlight. 1:26:25 Flash’s Suicide Squad Cameo David Ayer on Zack Snyder directing Flash’s cameo 1:28:31 Iris West- The Flying Hot Dogs Easter Egg & How She Discovered Flash’s Secret In the Comics
1:34:45 Who Was The First Flash to Have a High Metabolism? 1:36:02 The Flash’s Time Travel 1:37:06 The Flash and Superman's Race 1:37:52 How Ezra Miller’s Barry Gets “The Flash” Name from…The Grant Gustin Flash?!
1:38:58 The DCEU Flash-MCU Spider-Man Comparison & Speculating on The Muschietti Flash Film 1:48:00 Closing: Fan Comments and Social Media Promotion As teased at the end of this episode, our $5 tier Patreon members got an extra episode covering the cinematic influences on Zack Snyder, with Ben pointing out that the line “The future has taken root in the present” (when Superman is resurrected) is a direct quote from 1981’s Excalibur:
From this poster to the line "The future has taken root in the present," Ben dives into two of Zack Snyder's favorite films- Seven Samurai and Excalibur- and what influences they had on the director for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League!
Check out the episode and join our $5 tier here.
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