I watched the pilot and thought it was pretty rubbish. There was so much wrong with the show that I found it difficult to accept. First, the writing...the dialogue is awful, there's no other word for it. "The lightning bolt chose you" and other such drivel made listening to people talk painful. Second, the casting. Apart from the grizzled, black detective (who I think is probably the only good casting in the show) is terrible. The entire cast are like 17 years old and we're supposed to accept that they're physics Phds, forensics experts and what not? I can't, I simply can't buy it.
Then there's the little things. WhyTF does Allen sound like he has a jet turbine strapped to him when he moves fast? He looks like a man and the story is he runs fast, yet there's the sound of a frikkin jet when he runs. Then the 12 year old science kid who just so happens to have a perfectly fitting suit ready to go? Come on! Then, the whole story with his mother's murder seems terribly contrived and unnecessary. It doesn't really make him that much more interesting. Not every hero needs a contrived origin story.
I think it is a good idea badly done. The 90s show could have been a better template but by trying to make it something different whilst keeping particular elements of the source material and altering others resulted in a poor pilot. The casting and terrible script are the worst offenders but they aren't the only issues.
ritchards said:
I love the casting of John Wesley Shipp as the father. Someone had their eye on the ball that day...
Absolutely agree. I loved him in the 90s series and think he's a great actor. It's great to see him back on the screen.
tdylan said:
Perhaps you can answer a question of mine: I'm not a DC reader, so my familiarity with Flash doesn't go beyond "he moves fast," and what I've seen in Justice League on cartoon network. But something that always bothered me about him and other "speed" characters is the physics of moving that quickly. For example, in the trailer I saw him dash to catch someone flying through the air that was hit by a car. Cool. Except in my mind I'm thinking "how does the person survive the impact of being hit by someone (something) moving as quickly as Flash was?"
It's physics. For example, there is that sequence in Days of Future Past where Quicksilver is moving faster than the shots fired by some prison guards, and "messing with them." Again, cool. But what makes bullets "bullets" is that they are projectiles moving as super fast speeds, and force is "mass x acceleration." So shouldn't the act of moving faster than speeding bullets mean that the impact of your mass on the environment is having the effect of bullets striking those surfaces? So Flash's feet hitting the ground should wear the hell out of his shoes immediately, and him "catching" someone as their flying thru the air should amount to him and all his mass hitting them with the force of an equally sized bullet, yes? How do they explain it away?
I've seen speed characters darting around, and causing car alarms to go off, and debris to fly into the air, and even the ground behind them to catch fire, but never heard and explanation as to why they don't obliterate the person that they "catch" in midair on impact.
I agree here too. Superman catching Lois Lane [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCLi3_-iXHk] in the first film is one of the most often cited implausible/impossible scenarios. At the rate she was falling, the speed she would be travelling at when two arms of steel intercepted her would have killed her. Batman in The Dark Knight "catches" Rachel [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XkYQvxNJ-0] after the Joker throws her from a rooftop. They land on a car (which gets totalled) but themselves aren't putty for some reason.
What I have to say follows another point below...
Falterfire said:
It's called suspension of disbelief. "This guy runs faster than the sound barrier" is the premise. Nothing about that is even the slightest bit realistic. It makes no sense, either in terms of energy output for the human body, the forces of acceleration, or the effects he has on nearby things. It's pretty key to the premise that he is able to move insanely fast while frequently ignoring the inconvenient problems of said speed.
Disbelief can only be suspended so far. In drama, stories happen in a mundane world and there's not so much need to stretch an audiences willingness to suspend their disbelief. Fantasy and Sci Fi make up the two genres where rules can be bent significantly (horror with often supernatural elements come under fantasy for the purpose of discussion).
With fantasy, practically anything can go as long as a world is internally consistent and logical. Be it magic, supernatural forces, a divinity or other mystical entity we accept that these things are not mundane and don't conform to our rules or laws. Sci Fi however *does* need to conform. The Flash, and any other comic books set in modern day Earth (or an analogous version thereof) are sci fi. The conform to our rules and laws in most things but for the superheroes which are fantastic. Fantastic heroes in the mundane world is their hook. But being set in the mundane world means that established facts should be observed.
One of the cardinal rules of *good* sci fi is that things must conform with science fact (unless there's an explanation for why it doesn't). Fantastic elements can be used where science doesn't yet know (for example, FTL, the ansible, laser pistols, transporters, etc). As long as it doesn't contradict science fact, science fiction can and should go nuts with the rest. I can accept Superman flying because Krypton/Yellow Sun/Different Physiology. But I cannot accept Captain America in this scene [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1g-B8BJzwc#t=146]. I can accept his shield being indestructible, but cannot accept that he and it could withstand that blow from Thor because I understand how physics works. When something like that happens, which is completely impossible, it shatters willing disbelief. Even with an indestructible shield, in that scene Cap should have been sent hurtling backwards or squished downwards into the ground leaving a red, gloopy mess.
In the 90s Flash, the lightning bolt supercharged Barry Allen's metabolism such that he was superfast. He healed fast, moved fast, reacted and thought fast and realistically needed copious amounts of food to fuel himself. I can roll with this as it is within the realms of science fact (a person's metabolism and its effect on bodily processes is quite understood) but with a cool fantastic element.
Suspension of disbelief is all well and good but having implausible, illogical or downright impossible things occur will shatter it. Having a man sound like a jet turbine is one of those ways. A good writer will make escapes daring and dramatic within the realms of believability, given what the audience knows of the world in which the story takes place.
