The Flash has confronted scrutiny for over a 12 months resulting from a wide range of authorized incidents involving star Ezra Miller. The actor was arrested twice in Hawaii on harassment and assault fees, pled responsible to trespassing after being charged with housebreaking, and has been accused of grooming a minor, amongst different incidents. The minor in query, now an grownup, disputes the grooming allegation. In August 2022, Miller introduced they have been looking for therapy for “advanced psychological well being points.” Later, in January, The Flash studio Warner Bros. introduced that they have been standing behind the actor. You’ll be able to learn extra in regards to the points surrounding Miller right here.
DC’s try to repeat Marvel’s field workplace domination with a shared universe of its personal has been off the rails for for much longer than it was on them–if certainly it ever really was on them–and The Flash has lengthy been speculated as a strategy to soft-reboot the general franchise utilizing time journey. And even after seeing the film you is perhaps tempted to assume that is what occurred right here.
However you would be incorrect. In all probability.
Warning: This text comprises all the largest spoilers from The Flash.
The essential rundown of The Flash goes like this: After heroically rescuing a dozen infants that had fallen out of a hospital window, Barry Allen ranges up and may now run so quick that he goes again in time. So he runs again to his personal childhood and prevents his mother from dying, after which tries to return to the current. However he cannot fairly appear to get there–and then a darkish determine knocks him out of the Velocity Pressure and again into actuality.
He is previously, across the time of the occasions of Man of Metal. Basic Zod reveals up in search of a lacking Kryptonian–Kara, aka Supergirl, on this universe–and in any other case there are no superheroes who may have any likelihood of standing as much as Zod and his minions. No Marvel Lady, no Aquaman, no Cyborg. And no Flash, since this youthful Barry was going to go on a date with Iris West as a substitute of being within the place the place he will get his powers. However Outdated Barry fixes that.
So within the battle towards Zod and the opposite Kryptonians, we’ve got two Flashes (one in every of whom is model new), a Supergirl who’s been in Russian jail for a very long time, and a Batman who’s a long time older than the one Barry used to know.
The great guys do not win this one. Zod kills Supergirl, Batman crashes the Batwing and blows up, and Youthful Barry decides to check out time touring. However nothing he does works. Supergirl at all times dies, and Zod at all times kills everybody on Earth. Youthful Barry tries for a really very long time, though–long sufficient that every one of actuality in each universe is beginning to break down, as we see demonstrated by goofy CGI orbs, stuffed with previous Batmen and Superpeople, crashing into one another within the Velocity Pressure.
Our essential Barry pleads with Different Barry to cease, however he will not pay attention. Finally, nonetheless, one other model of that Alt-Barry, from earlier in his limitless cycle of failing to cease Zod, pops into the Velocity Pressure, hears these pleas, and takes out his older self. This kills all variations of Barry from this non-Justice League universe, and permits Zod to extinguish your complete human race in that universe. And with nobody left to attempt to save, Barry is free to attempt to return to his outdated timeline.
It initially looks as if possibly he succeeded, however the cracks present fairly shortly: His dad, in jail for allegedly killing Barry’s mother, wins his enchantment primarily based on proof that did not exist within the outdated timeline. After which when Barry tries to have a chat together with his outdated pal Bruce Wayne, he discovers he undoubtedly nonetheless is not house. As a result of on this universe, George Clooney is Batman.
The post-credits scene provides us one further main nugget of data: Aquaman exists right here, and he is precisely the identical because the Aquaman we already knew.
This can be a actually open-ended story, and so it is not potential to say with any certainty what all this implies proper now. However it appears fairly clear what it does not imply: that we have landed within the everlasting new house of the DC movieverse. Whereas it is conceivable that Clooney, who performed the half in Batman & Robin, would don the cape once more for a job the dimensions of those Keaton and Affleck had in The Flash, there’s virtually no likelihood he is truly this franchise’s Batman of the longer term. Whereas plans can change, DC co-boss James Gunn mentioned a pair months again that they need any person for his or her subsequent Batman who hasn’t played the part before, and Clooney is unquestionably not that.
Then again, Clooney could be a fairly good identify to rebuild the franchise round. And whereas he is actually mocked Batman & Robin–which is, arms down, the worst Batman film, loads of instances over the previous three decades–that does not preclude him from making an attempt it once more with a wholly totally different set of creatives.
Realistically, although, if Clooney have been again as the brand new Batman to interchange Ben Affleck within the DC movieverse, we’d in all probability find out about it from real-world information sources.
So what is the deal right here? For now: nothing in any respect. The Flash doesn’t replicate any form of change in the established order of the DC franchise past the introduction of the multiverse. That is not a small factor, however it does not truly, you realize, change the state of actuality past this movie. Ben Affleck’s Batman wasn’t written out of existence, for example–the universe Barry got here from remains to be there, and not using a Flash.
So what we truly find yourself with the Clooney bit, actually, is a sequel tease that provides The Flash the air of a reboot of Sliders, with Barry having to hop from dimension to dimension in hopes that his subsequent bounce takes him again house. It is an amazing thought for a film, frankly, and one that would have large ramifications for the way forward for the DC Prolonged Universe.
That is form of the punchline with The Flash: It does not by itself change something in regards to the higher DC franchise past offering a framework that can enable future films to dramatically change the established order if the studio desires them to. It isn’t like Marvel’s Loki, the place the introduction of the multiverse was itself an inciting incident for the higher story of Kang the Conqueror. The Flash, against this, is merely setting issues up in order that the new-look DC Studios can begin no matter new large plot it desires in a while. It opens the doorways to many potential new paths, however it’s ready for any person else to determine which one we’ll take.
Within the meantime, they do not need you to sweat all these items an excessive amount of, which is what the Aquaman cameo within the post-credits scene is about. Within the scene, Barry tells Arthur about how although he is met all these totally different Batmen, each Aquaman is precisely the identical. Simply so you realize that when Aquaman and the Misplaced Kingdom comes out later this 12 months, you need not fear about which universe it is happening in–it’s the identical both means!
Not sweating all that is in all probability the most effective thought for all of us, because it’s too early for brand new DC Studios heads James Gunn and Peter Safran to have gotten their general plans underway in full in a means that we will see–every DC film popping out this 12 months was in manufacturing earlier than these two took over. So we’ll have some time to attend earlier than we get any thought of what is actually happening within the DC Universe. Probably till we see the rumored Batman film that can reportedly be below the care of The Flash director Andy Muschietti.
The comedian e-book story on which that movie might be primarily based, The Courageous and the Daring, introduces Bruce Wayne’s son, Damian, as Robin and inheritor to the position of Batman. If Clooney goes to stay round as Bruce past this cameo, this can be a believable one-movie story for him that would depart us with Damian Wayne as DC’s essential franchise Batman. And in that sense, this Batman movie may function a direct sequel to The Flash, and it might even be the franchise reset that we thought The Flash was going to be.
However there are too many items in movement, and we do not know sufficient about any of them but.
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