Hello guys happy new year, thanks for reading this article and joining me when I dive into my own dream of my ideal DCCU. I previously posted two parts on this site, and you can read them here:
Part 1 Background and Wonder Woman
Part 2 Green Lantern
In this article, I would talk about my dream the Flash movie, which would be his introductory movie as there was no live action the Flash movie before.
I kind of drove myself into a dead end, as I found it difficult to write a Flash movie which is in line with the tone of the other dream movies I wrote. I made Wonder Woman went through a process of learning how to live with men, I made Hal Jordan condemn his friend and mentor Sinestro to exile after the two went through a long journey, but what can I do with the Flash? The only remotely dark thing I know about the character is the Flashpoint event and his death; whether it is Barry Allen or Wally West from the Justice League (Unlimited) cartoons, the character always seemed to have no worries and no burden. I'll try to bear this in mind when I write my movie. Perhaps I can adapt the tone in The Amazing Spider-Man and the trailer of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which is serious and dark, yet still with a sense of humor.
The Flash's movie 1/ The Flash's introductory movie
The problem with making a Flash movie is that there are not many villains in Flash's rogues gallery to choose from. There are Rag Doll and the Shade from the golden age, which I don't think would do, as Barry Allen, the Flash I would use in this movie, is from the silver age. There are the Rogues, which works better as a group, meaning it is not desirable to use them in the first movie as introducing them would take away screen time from Barry Allen. There are the Reverse Flashes, which I don't think should be used in the introductory movie because of the "nemesis" feel, though they are more “personal” villains among the other ones. Then there is Gorilla Grodd, and ... yeah I don't think introducing Gorilla City in Flash's introductory movie is remotely good. After much deliberation, I think using Captain Boomerang as the villain would be the best, so that the movie can be more focused, and I can put in some hints of more Rogues, both to hint at sequels and and to satisfy fans. The other rogues are either too far-fetched for an introduction movie (e.g. Weather Wizard, Abra Kadabra, Pied Piper) or had a comic book character with a similar gimmick appeared in older superhero movies (e.g. Captain Cold/ Mr Freeze, Trickster/ Joker, Weather Wizard/ Thor).
The movie opens with Barry Allen waking up in a hospital, surrounded by doctors and nurses, saying that Barry is really lucky to survive being struck by lightning and to heal with a really fast rate.
Barry then checked himself out of the hospital as there is a lot of work to be done. A group of models just fought a group of monsters in a national park (yes I think I should change the place where the final battle of the Wonder Woman movie takes place, as suggested by RedHood13, thank you), and a lot of residue, trashed buildings, broken armor and other pieces of left-over had to be collected and researched on, as instructed by the state government. Barry started behaving strangely as he moves faster than normal, and his colleagues thought it strange as Barry was a lay back kind of person, and he had never worked that fast.
After packing evidence back to the police station, Barry left his working place to a diner, and he ordered a lot of food. Realizing he is acting strangely with his fast movement and reflexes, he visited his old friend, and a known survivor of a similar accident, being doused with chemicals and hit by lightning at the same time, old Dr. Jay Garrick (who is not the first Flash in the DCCU).
After seeing what Barry Allen can do, Jay tells Barry that he himself can do the exact same things, and then demonstrated it in front of Barry inside his laboratory, being much more faster than Barry’s current state. As Barry tries to be as fast as Jay, Barry’s trousers and jacket started to wear away and burn due to friction, and Jay immediately stops Barry. Jay then explains that he made his own clothes and lab coat with friction-resistant material in order to solve the friction problem; he also seldom moves with superspeed as doing so burns large amounts of energy, and it makes him hungry easily. During this conversation we can add in a scene where Barry starts talking too fast and then abruptly slows down as he realizes that, as fan-service, if it is deemed necessary.
Barry Allen then asks Jay Garrick what had he done with his ability, and Jay responded by saying he used his superspeed to aid himself in his studies, and he got his doctoral degree because he can do almost everything with superspeed, including doing revision and researches. Jay also recounts a few instances of him grabbing pedestrians off the streets when vehicles are about to hit them, and his latest rescue happened during the Kryptonian invasion where he pulled a number of people away from falling debris (insert an explanation of why Jay was in Metropolis, academical conferences or something else, I don’t care).
Barry Allen then asks Jay what does Jay think Barry should do with his abilities. Jay asks Barry, “you idolizes me, don’t you, Barry?” Barry admits that after briefly being embarrassed, and Jay says, “don’t do that, I am just a professor in a university, using my special abilities to help a few people when I can. When I was in Metropolis, I saw how that guy they call the Man of Steel defended us from his kin. That’s what I should have done. I am old, and what have I done with my abilities over my life? I secured myself a steady job and I saved only a few people, and it is till I see that Man of Steel that I realize I have wasted my life here. Don’t repeat my mistake, help other people when you can, be more pro-active than me.”
I know this is cheesy and the dialogue scene is kind of grinding, but what I am trying to do is to give Barry a motivation for being a superhero, the motivation being Jay Garrick’s advice and his life as a counter-example. Also, I have nothing against Jay Garrick, and I chose to make him not a superhero not because I hate the character, I just want to have a wise fatherly figure that can give personal advice.
Barry is confused and he feels Jay’s advice is a little bit too much as he does not expect this kind of advice, and he leaves Jay’s office after Jay promises that he would make friction-proof clothes for Barry. Barry then goes home, and on the way he passed an elderly woman carrying heavy bags of groceries or whatever without helping her, and then he feels guilty about it, runs back to the elderly woman with superspeed and help her carry her bags. He then returns home, feeling happy because he helped someone, and still pondering on Jay’s notion of proactively helping people.
The next day at his office, Barry and his colleagues is sent to a bank which was robbed last night. Barry and his colleagues quickly noticed that the security system were damaged by blunt instruments or had their wiring cut, the guards were all knocked out, and there is a lack of blunt instruments suitable to be used as weapons. The bank manager tells the police scientist team that it is impossible that the guards got taken out by a blunt weapon. The manager claims that his night-shift employees never let their guard down, and no one can get close enough to take them down without the guards stopping the intruder. While Barry’s colleagues dismiss the manager’s claims as boasting, Barry retrieves the security camera recordings from the bank’s security system, and he sees that the manager’s claims are true. This makes Barry wonder what happened in the bank, how the wires were cut, how the cameras and alarms were destroyed and how the guards got knocked out.
A colleague of Barry (can be Patty Spivot) reported to the scientific team leader that she found traces of titanium/ other rare elements on places where the security system got destroyed, and on the wounds of the security guards. The team cannot make any sense of the presence of such element, and they are allowed to go home as they have nothing more to do. Barry walks past a sports equipment store where he saw a titanium boomerang, and a promotion video of boomerangs, and he gets how the burglary was done.
Barry tries to contact his colleagues on his hunch, but he cannot reach his boss, Patty Spivot or others. Thinking the burglar would rob another bank with such skills, Barry decided to look out for other banks by patrolling the banks at night. Hearing noise in a bank, Barry tries to get into the bank. However, seeing that the front doors are locked, Barry is frustrated at the situation and is confused of how the intruder got into the bank. After calling the police, he stands outside the bank trying to think of a way to get in the bank and stop the thief. Feeling cold, Barry shivered and rubs his hands to warm himself, and discovers his power of vibrating through solid objects when his hands phased into the wall. The police arrives just as Barry pulled his hands out of the wall. The police can hear the noise inside the bank, and they broke into the bank to catch the thief. This is when we first see Captain Boomerang, or Digger Harkness as he would call himself before he openly proclaims himself as a supervillain and uses a code-name. The Digger Harkness we see here would be dressed in a darker and more practical costume (he is robbing a bank, remember?), with some hints of Owen’s costume, and he would be masked, so the police and Barry does not recognize him. Digger Harkness escapes, using his boomerangs to knock out a few policemen and using several special boomerangs to set fire in the bank, distracting the policemen and escaping. Barry tries to chase Digger, but his clothes begin to wear away, forcing him to stop running. Barry then walks home, feeling angry of himself because he failed to stop a crime, and feeling confused because the Barry he knew, the Barry before the accident, would not feel as he is feeling now. Barry begins to form the desire of doing more than what his job can do, and he wants to help stop crime. Having made of his mind, Barry calls Jay on the phone, having to make an “embarrassing request”.
We then cuts to another night, we see Barry leaving his office, chewing on a sandwich. We see him walking past bulletin boards with update information about the burglaries and WANTED notices of the masked boomerang-throwing burglar, and we see him slipping into an alley way. We would hear someone off camera making a joke that “the freak in Gotham who throws things has came here” with another guy off camera when Barry walks past the notice.
Then we see he and Jay Garrick talking in the alleyway. Jay hands Barry something right out of camera, and Barry looks at it, and say, “what’s up with the lightning bolt Jay?”
“I think it looks nice, coz I don’t like the idea of a plain red full body suit.”
“ I mean the two on the hood, Jay.” (We still cannot see the suit)
“Oh, I think it makes you look like that vigilante from Gotham. Don’t you guys in the police force like him? He has made police’s lives much more simpler in Gotham, or so I've heard.” (these would be the only two Batman references in the movie, I want to set up him as being mysterious and ambiguous, but mostly positive in the public’s eye)
“Come on Jay, these additions look stupid and unnecessary.”
“Well I can make you another one if you like, but I believe time is of the essence right?”
“All right Jay.”
We see only a blur of red as we hear “All right Jay”, and then the camera follows the red blur as Barry rushes off to patrol the banks. Then everything in the world, like the pedestrians, the trees rustling and the rain slows down, to slowly reveal Barry Allen in the Flash costume running in normal speed. And the costume looks cool and marvelous (it is a must).
Barry quickly hears another bank being broke into, and he vibrates through the bank’s wall to get into the bank (fan service moment again). He then sees a few guards knocked out, and he walks carefully along a corridor to the main hall. Before he enters the hall, he hears a voice saying, “sorry about your phone, mate.” Followed by another “ouch” and a “thud”, we hear the voice say, “lucky for me, if I am a second late, this-son-of-a-bitch/ he (depends on the movie’s rating) would have called the police.”
At this point we see a blur of red and hear Barry saying, “do you feel lucky?” (unintentional Dirty Harry reference, it does not have to mean anything). The camera follows Barry into the hall, and the camera stops. We see a blur of red charging into the dark costumed villain, who quickly threw three boomerangs at the blur of red and jumped sideways to avoid the blur of red. We then see Barry catches two boomerang and throw it aside, but a third hit him and sent him flying across the hall to a wall.
Digger Harkness then walks towards the dazed Barry, looking confused (not that I blame him). He asks, “what are you doing? You are not the guards or the owner. Why do you care about me robbing this bank?” Barry responds by saying, “because I am a police, and this is what I should do!” Then we can cue some more action, we can add in a few more variety of boomerang types, and some more superspeed action, something like running up walls or snatching unconscious security guards away from harm; just keep some of his powers like making whirlwinds for the sequel, and don’t use all of the powers here.
Digger Harkness eventually gains the upper hand, injuring Barry on several places, such as his chest or his thighs, details not important. As Digger raises a sharp boomerang to kill Barry for the troubles he caused, Barry goes through a similar stage of Superman under the World Engine, Barry feels like he cannot run because of the wounds and the pain, and he musters all his energy to dodge the killing blow, and taking the chance of a stunned Digger, Barry finally knocks Digger out, and then limps to call the police, and waling away before the police arrives.
The next day, when he wakes up, Barry is surprised that his wounds are already healed. Going to work, he heard someone say, “did you hear what that Digger guy say? ‘It’s a flash! A man who moves as fast as a flash!’ do you really buy that nonsense/ shit? (again, depends on the movie’s rating)” This guy would be the same guy who made the “the freak in Gotham who throws things has came here” joke. Barry then packs the equipment needed for evidence collection in the bank with his colleagues as he mutters, “the Flash, it's a good name, it can go with the lightning bolts.” And the movie ends.
I want this movie to be an analysis of why an everyday man like Barry Allen would want to be a superhero, therefore, as you can see, there are extensive screen-time used to show Barry Allen's growth; which in turn, I admit, reduces the villain's screen time, but don't worry, his character and motivations would be covered in sequels.
So this is how I imagine the Flash should be set up for the Justice League movie, there would most certainly be sequels to the Flash, which I would cover later. Yeah I know this movie may seem less interesting than what I previously posted, the tone may be too light for the tone I intend to set for the DCU movies; and should it be made into a movie, I am pretty sure its revenue would be less than the other movie’s. But it is not to worry, as the next movie, the last movie before Justice League, will feature someone who is vengeance, who is the night, whose name had made the most money for the DC division in WB in the past, BATMAN!
Please read the other parts as I continue to describe my dream DCCU that would only happen in an alternate reality.