*Rock music* Ladies and gentleman, what you have witnessed-
*Rock music fades* -here today is a flash mob of flashing Flashes flashing Truly the comedic stylings of this show have hit a new low *intro plays* Hello internet! Welcome to Film theory! The smartest, but definitely not the fastest of shows on YouTube Unless you measure speed by the time it takes to make you cringe in which case call me Usain Bolt! Hey, you remember last year when Justice League came out? No? No one? Well that's not that surprising because this thing earned less than Man of Steel! which means that most of you watching probably didn't go out and see it Don't worry, you didn't miss all that much Here, I'm gonna catch you up on the best bits. Uh, by the way, spoiler alert? I am the Flash The Flash The Flash You're the best, Flash! Flash! Ahhh! Yeah, basically The Flash stole the whole movie Aquaman whined, Wonder Woman was the victim of oddly sexist jokes And Batman just refused to act You ever heard of Superman? He died fighting next to me Oh yeah, and I guess Cyborg was there too but even in writing that recap, I completely forgot that he was even a part of the team, so...you know Nope! The Flash was the only useful one My special skills include the viola, web design, fluent in sign language Not only was he a well realized character but he was also the only character to demonstrate truly useful powers in the movie's big fight scenes The situation is so bad, that Batman, overwhelmed by feeling outclassed by the actual superheroes with actual super powers attempts to commit suicide as a part of the final battle I'm not even exaggerating when I say that! Every one else has to be like "No Batman, you are useful to this team" "Y-y-you're great! Y-you add so much...uh...so much...leadership to the team Even though your decision to revive Superman almost gets us all killed" Oh yeah, Superman gets himself reborn in record time midway through the movie which is treated as this big reveal Tada (In a Peter Griffin voice) Except, you know, you can't reveal stuff that's already on the box art He even gets himself some really neat CGI lips in the process And then zombie Supes turns on the crew *punch* Because, you know, because DC wanted another crack at the whole superhero v. superhero concept because it went so well last time And then he flies off to a corn field to sulk because the movie needed a reason to ensure that the grossly overpowered character didn't save the day until the final battle Fast forward to the ending, Stephanwolf is defeated, Batman choses the Justice League HQ there's a Death Stroke Easter egg, Superman destroys all life on the planet earth, and end credits Like I said, you didn't miss all that much Ho-oh, I'm sorry Were you wondering about that whole "Superman destroying all life on the planet Earth" bit? Yeah...well... You don't actually see it happen on screen but it is definitely an unintended consequence of Superman's actions throughout this movie Based on what we see during the easter-egg ending of Justice League I can prove for a scientific fact that Superman would decimate the Earth that he had sworn, died, and was reborn to protect To understand how that works, though, our story begins with the Flash So, Barry Allen was a scientist who one night gets struck by lightning Next thing you know, he can move at incredible speeds As you do That freak accident gives Barry the ability to tap into what's known as the Speed Force An extra-dimensional source of energy that allows him to not only move fast but fundamentally alter the way physics works around his body In short, the Speed Force allows Barry to move at light speeds No, no, no. Light speed is too slow. We're gonna have to go right to... ...ludicrous speed! [Collective gasps] Ludicrous speeds, which, honestly, is probably a more accurate descriptor Without having to worry about all the messy consequences that physics demands would come with moving quickly And let me assure you Those consequences are definitely messy You see, when you swim, the water in front of you has to move out of your way And this is true for any fluid that you're moving through Water, certainly, but it can also be things like pudding if you pull a Guava Juice and fill your bathtub with random liquids for those sweet, sweet, Youtube kids' views But, more than anything else, the fluid we deal with day to day is air When we normally run through air we pass through the air molecules pretty darn easily because their velocity is so much higher than our own The molecules just move out of the way But when you start running at ludicrous speeds the particles are forced together They get trapped in front of you becoming, in essence, a molecular traffic jam because they can't get out of the way of each other And as you can imagine not only is weird stuff happening in front of you but you're also leaving a path of chaos in your wake as well As the Flash builds up these molecules in front of him he's creating a mini vacuum behind himself A low density area left in his wake And as a result, air molecules rush in to fill that space like the Red Sea post Noah But is this collection of air molecules really that big of a deal? Well, just how much damage all this would cause would depend on the Flash's speed Now, in the comics the Flash has been shown to travel any speed he needs to and he's been able to reach those ludicrous speeds I keep mentioning As just one example in JLA number 48, a series covering the adventures of the Justice League, a nuclear warhead is launched towards North Korea, threatening to kill over half a million people To save all those lives, the Flash, Wally West at this point, rushes in and rescues each and every one of those 500 thousand people carrying them all 35 miles away But, here's the catch: he rescues them after the bomb has already detonated So he's rescuing 500 thousand people in what the comics says is 0.00001 microseconds That means he ran 35 miles there and 35 miles back at least 250 thousand times since he could be carrying two people at a time in 0.00000000001 seconds Doing the math, that translates to him moving 9 trillion times the speed of light but since that's an absurd number and since I'm specifically interested in Justice League, let's just stick to how the Flash behaves in the DCEU If I'm being thorough, and I kind of gotta be for anything involving comics, otherwise I get inundated with really angry emails, I should technically mention that we've seen the Flash move faster than the speed of light Back in Batman v. Superman, Flash appeared to Bruce Wayne, telling him to look into Lois Well, some people have written this off as just a part of Batman's nightmare, that would actually make no sense. At this point in the movie, Bruce has no idea that Superman is Clark Kent, has never seen the Flash before, and would only have known Lois Lane as a reporter So this is the Flash reaching out to Bruce by running faster than time itself! But since that's just a theory I have, let's look for something a bit more concrete Luckily, Justice League gives me exactly what I need While Flash is trying to outmaneuver a newly resurrected Superman, a dramatic moment reveals that Superman is keeping his gaze looked on the Flash as he moves This tells us one very important detail: that the Flash is not moving faster than the speed of light in this scene. In fact, at this moment, Flash is moving slow enough that Superman, from a few feet away mind you, can keep a visual locked on him Y'see, sight works when the eye takes in light that's been reflected off of another object. As a result, what you're seeing is always slightly behind what's actually there as it takes time for the light to travel between the object and your eye, and then for your brain to process that image So, if you were to move faster than the speed of light, well, weird things would happen because relativity as we know it would start to break down, but one thing other people certainly wouldn't be able to do is accurately track your movement Superman may be super, but even he can't speed up the rate at which light is travelling And also, yeah, he may be tracking Flash using some other method, but it seems like it's clearly meant to be that Superman sees the Flash So even though it's very possible that Barry Allen is able to travel faster than the speed of light, it's very possible that Superman is tracking the Flash's movements using some other method, for our purposes today, let's just assume that Barry is travelling slightly slower than the speed of light, allowing Superman to see him in this scene Don't worry, it doesn't change the end results all that much The speed of light is 671,000,000 mph so let's put Barry slightly below that at 670,000,000 mph Here's the problem: at speeds that high, Barry would be walking around with a fusion bomb going off on his chest, no joke! Humans right now have a hard time achieving fusion because of a little wrinkle called the Coulomb Barrier For fusion to happen, particles have to get really, really close together, about 10^-15m close in order for the strong nuclear force that exists in atoms to fuse the particles together However, there's a problem with that Just like magnets, two protons that are pushed together repel each other due to their mutual positive charge This is the Coulomb Barrier Now, the Barrier can be overcome by travelling really, really, really fast, speeds that, under most normal circumstances, are nearly impossible for humans to achieve I'm talking 44,738,725 mph levels of fast But superheroes don't operate under normal circumstances Like I said, Barry is travelling at 670,000,000 mph on a conservative estimate That's nearly 15 times faster than what's needed to overcome Coulomb's barrier And so fusion reactions would be happening over and over again in that dense cloud of molecules that's building up in front of him and each of those reactions would correspond to a temperature of around 5,000,000,000°F And that's not all! According to work done at the University of California, San Diego, these sorts of temperatures and energies would turn little bits of air molecules into plasma! Left alone, those small particles of plasma would explode to the size of football fields in 0.1 milliseconds! So, as he ran, Barry would lighting off thousands of high-energy fusion reactions and giant plasma explosions whenever he went close to light speed! Which is why, in Justice League and the comics, it's so lucky that he has access to the Speed Force, which renders all of this a moot point Remember, the Speed Force warps the physics of the air around him so he doesn't overheat and cause a plasma streak and that would be the end except for one man Superman At the end of the movie, Flash and Supes go in for a race Superman! Stop! You're gonna kill us all! Y'see, despite his ability to move incredibly fast, Superman doesn't have access to the Speed Force He's not what the DC Universe refers to as a "speedster" Superman travels fast because of his strength and his muscles, not because he has access to some extra-dimensional power Sure, in the movies and comics, Superman has moved fast, often multiple times faster than the speed of light, but he has never once, in all the research that I did, tap into that special Force and that becomes a serious problem because Superman is about to race Barry Allen around the world and at least TRY to keep up and thanks to this moment from Man of Steel, we know based on the fire surrounding his body that Superman actively collides with the atmosphere and burns on re-entering at really fast speeds Unlike Barry, though, there is no magical field extending a millimeter away from his skin that can magic away this problem With no Speed Force to control the air molecules around him, all of the awful things I said about Barry absolutely apply to Superman He's gonna ignite the air wherever he goes and in a race of this magnitude, that definitely means fusion-level reactions and plasma eruptions across the globe happening in less than the blink of an eye When Superman reaches even half of light speed, he's already generating an incredible 9.8x10^19 joules of energy That is roughly 40 times more powerful than the strongest hydrogen bomb ever detonated That is going to devastate the planet below him wherever he goes, completing the job that Zod and Steppenwolf couldn't do on their own Earth's greatest threat was its greatest hero all along Maybe Batman v. Superman was right: "He has the power to wipe out the entire human race, and if we believe there is even a 1% chance that he is our enemy, we have to take it as an absolute certainty" Ugh, I just feel dirty even SAYING that But hey, that's just a theory! A FILM THEORY! Aaaannndddd before we end today's episode, a special announcement Theorist merch is on sale now but supplies are SUPER limited, so if you wanna look cool and nerdy, and rock some bright green socks, well then, click the link in the description below! Or, the i card in the upper right hand corner of the screen We've already run out of 3 items, so make sure you're clicking that link now, to grab your T-shirt before they're gone forever! And, as a special bonus to anyone who places an order, you get a complimentary limited edition Game Theory pin AND, and in true Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory spirit, a chance at winning a golden coin
Matt Patt I don't think you took into account Superman bioelectrical field that he imitates that protects him and his clothes and which he does have control over it was not something that was addressed and the movies and pre-crisis he uses the punch to reality but it is a power that he has had so was that not act as a sudo speed force
What song is that intro from?
I felt it wasn’t that believable imo.
"Like the Red Sea post-Noah."
Huh, never heard the part of the story where the red sea was parted by a giant boat, but it makes sense.