Started playing around with editing the video/music to work together, like at 0:14-0:16 time freezes and the gun fires on the beat, Dash and the bad guy's punches at 2:31, Genos's kick at 5:58, the teacher at 8:20, etc. Neat detail or not noticeable? Lemme know!
5:58 was the only one I sort-of noticed, the rest I can see when I go back and look for them but they were too subtle for me to notice on the first watch (but that's not necessarily a bad thing, I think it still adds to the quality even if subconciously).
theyre cool going back to watch but like the other guy said just a little too subtle to notice on a normal watch. The first one I almost thought was a muted sound affect even so if you can raise the sound of the track just enough you can tell its an instrument in the song, maybe that would help? because the kick was really well done and i felt it was almost my fault for not seeing it
It’s awesome the kick at 5:58 made me smile while watching the first time. It’s hard to get feedback on things like this as when it’s well designed and flows, it captures an audience without them noticing. Really good video underrated. Only critique would be the clips used in the background while giving commentary were sometimes not really relevant.
So Kamen Rider Kabuto What you described at the end is Kamen Rider Kabuto. Like his Speed and Reaction is just as Fast but he has to save it for last so he is consistent power wise not to mention his enemies are just as fast as he is so they're at an even playing field.
"We've never had a speeder have to build up speed like a car" There's a whole series of video games built around building up momentum and keeping it staring a blue hedgehog.
Sonic imo is one of the best examples of a speedster done right since it rarely ever feels like contrived bullshit when Eggman manages to genuinely challenge him due to all the tech he's able to create that's on par with Sonic's speed.
In all fairness, modern sonic has been shown multiple times to be able to go from a complete standstill to faster than sound or to faster than light, it's a shame but, sonic these days doesn't embody that concept anymore, he's more like the speedster from eternals, we are consistently shown just how fast he is and we even get to live it, but at no point does he just make everything slow mo around him (which is good) so we can still have tension in the story with Eggman and all that, if they ever do the slow-mo thing it's pretty much over for the remaining narrative stakes of the Sonic franchise
You mean by Darksied’s parademons? You are out of your mind those two are completely different like not even close.Those Darksied minions are fast and durable enough to exchange blows with Wonderwoman and Shazam. While Flash dude that can outrun omega beams and redirect bullets with his fingers is getting jumbed by a human who just has an ability to cloning himself. That’s like the flash losing a fight to street protesters
i’m running a superhero ttrpg right now, and one of the characters in it is a speedster who operates according to SUPERHOT rules, as in her perception of time is only slow when she’s not moving. it feels like a great balance where she can go back and forth between being a perpetual speedster at lower speeds and simply fast at higher speeds, so there’s always a trade off.
YES! I'm so glad you spoke about this through the lens of *perceived* speed and *perceived* power differences. Way too often I hear people appealing to source materials that tell you "the enemy was just faster / predicted the speedster's movements / etc" instead of showing it. It's important that the audience feels like the defeat of the speedster is fair as they're watching the scene play out, rather than having them try to rationalize it after the fact.
Tbh I think a villain revealing out of nowhere that they can perceive that fast too works fine Tho it’s the kind of thing you should literally only do once with one character at the literal MOST impactful moment it can happen at And while you wouldn’t have to show signs of them perceiving at a speedsters level beforehand You should mentally have it in your mind as a writer that they could. So that nothing they did beforehand contradicts that Otherwise it falls back into that question of “if they did X at Y, why didn’t they see or do anything about W before
@@theradionicrevival8068 Oh yeah, that's true. An impactful reveal that has significance for the future of the story could definitely be a good place for it.
The source material tells you far more than that. This is why the source material is important because it answers all these questions in depth. Imagine a super hero movie with multiple heroes and villians that explained everyone power in depth right before they used it. That would be a 6 hour movie then you would complain about that. They literally show you that he has the ability, he didn't use it prior in the movie because there wasn't a speedster. Then when there was a speedster he used the power and that was the movie showing you that he has the ability. Lol js this seems pretty straight forward
@@QuickPickWithTheGeek If the audience feels that a movie fight was unsatisfying/unfair, i don't think it's right to imply their feelings are wrong, by waving them off with "well the source material answers it all". The movie will still feel painfully unsatisfying to them regardless of whether or not the comics do (if comics are indeed the source mat.) Unless you think that everyone should read the og comics before watching the movie, which is quite a silly expectation to have. And, yes, as you said, the movie has to make certain sacrifices for the material to fit the format. Why not also make sacrifices and changes beyond just the runtime, and more to the characters themselves to make their interactions feel more fair to the expectations the movie sets? Changes like: -Nerfing the speedster or changing the nature of their power -Leaving the speedster out of the movie entirely -Actually thinking about how to set up a fight in a way in which the speedster could struggle or lose against a not-so-speedster, like restricting their movements in a narrow hallway, breaking the ground to throw them off balance, poisoning the air, fighting underwater or in the air, using force-fields, etc. -Extending the fight and using more VFX to show wide-spread destruction from each impact from the opponent. That's quite a simple, flashy form of "show, don't tell" to make the audience feel like the speedster's struggle is fair. I mean, if every punch from the villain kicks up dust everywhere and creates a visible shock wave, i don't think people would be very disappointed to see him getting the upper hand in a fight. That's, of course, ignoring that a lot of superhero media are long movie franchises and TV shows. So they absolutely have more than enough time to properly establish everyone's strengths and weaknesses before any big showdowns.
@ I never discounted any one’s feelings. What you just did is acted as if I attacked someone because I simply disagreed. (Must be a democrat) I attacked his logic not his feelings. Second the source materials MATTER whether people like it or not because these movies are not pandering to the casual fans. They are targeting hardcore fans, people who know the source material. This doesn’t mean the casual fan can’t enjoy the movies, but again even what you just asked for would extend the runtime. And if the movie studio nerf the speedsters powers for the casual fan to be able to understand. Then you get far more complaints from the targeted community because we know the source material, and are confused about why the flash can’t do something on screen that he does regularly in the comics. Again you are saying that you didn’t know this character had this power because the movie didn’t show you he could do this, but the movie is literally showing you he can do this through him doing it lol. These movies have source material that explains all to ask a movie to explain very detail of a super hero or villains powers is so extra. But you are entitled to your opinion because this is an opinion based topic there is no right or wrong answer here. But rather you like it or not the source material matter because then we don’t get silly questions that have answers that you just won’t accept because the movie didn’t break it down for you
What we also never see is speedsters with regular stamina. We always see scenes of speedsters running around the city or the world without getting tired (wich is usually part of their power) but having someone who can run really fast but just the same stretches as a regualr person would be a way to make them somewhat more down to earth and them tiring out from running would be a way to get them for an opponent
If someone with human stamina traveled at super speed for any length of time they would just die from exhaustion not unlike the story of the very first marathon runner.
There was a video on TH-cam about the flash and how a bunch of the other heroes talk about how much better it must be to travel around the earth easily or instantly read books. And Flash replies saying he has to run all of that, to him he’s just running at a normal pace, when he’s reading those books he has to read them over the course of hours or days for him.
@@shadowcat5591yes. The movement relative to him, is slow. Relative for everyone else, it is fast. Imagine, having to jog the distance across the atlantic ocean. Everyone else is super impressed, having no idea how boring it was for you.
The video never talks about the secondary powers that speedsters MUST HAVE for their speed powers to exist. You can't run at super speed unless you want water droplets and insects to become bullets. So they need super durability. Their super speed would destroy the world around them. Forget nerfing speedsters, the environmental effects are the #1 neglected by writers. How do they not create Mach speed booms around them all the time? This is why Flash's super speed is literally just "speed magic", bypassing all these limitations.
The Flash in particular is powered by the speed force which has been stated for decades to be an extra dimensional power source that can bend the laws of physics as it pleases (basically speed magic but at least there is an actual explanation unlike most other op speedsters). this still isn't an excuse for the dogwater writing the Flash is usually subjected to like having him show up and yap instead of instantly K.O'ing his enemies.
And yet he needs massive amounts of calories and can't get drunk because he processes alcohol too fast, even when moving at normal humans speed. That has always bothered me. Those aren't even proper weaknesses, they're just pointless annoyances. What, is the Speed Force just messing with him? Make up your minds, do you want his powers to work realistically or not?
I actually covered that in a previous video of mine talking about Megamind and Metroman! Maybe I should have brought it up again but I didn't wanna be repetitive 😅
New speedster idea one without durability his max speed it lightspeed but can't use it without hurting himself so hes only about as fast as a Olympic athlete
@ Though, kinda the point of superheroes is that they do amazing, blatantly unrealistic things that are impossible in real life. You know, they're power fantasies, which is why realistic downsides to their powers are typically handwaved or ignored. It might be interesting as a deconstruction but otherwise it's the sort of thing that simply takes the fun out of it. That said, I do like the idea of a speedster who risks damaging their body if they really go all out and push themselves too hard, only more in a DBZ kaioken type of way.
7:24 I will defend this by saying that by the time Quicksilver noticed the bullet, it had already been shot through the glass he was standing on. So if he suddenly tries to avoid it, the glass is already broken so his foot would just pass through it. And since we’re shown that he doesn’t have impressive durability the fall was likely far enough to at the very least rattle him.
If he can move as fast as a bullet, air would be as thick as water, meaning he should be able to swim through the air. Not wanting to give your speedster the power of flight is possibly valid, though.
He's also only a bit fast. He's clearly shown to be outrun by a bullet in one of the clips in the video, lol. Honestly, the clips convinced me that the depiction of MCU Quicksilver was a pretty balanced speedster. He has super fast reflexes but he's only so fast, as shown by people shoot at him a lot.
@@annodomini2012 In the other hand, if air gave him the resistance required to be able to swim, he would not be able to move that fast without causing a sonic boom constantly so his super power (and flash) would also need to eliminate such air movement, making swimming in air impossible ;) Possibly by allowing the power to make the air closest to him move at his reference frame and move around him, also allowing him to breathe, or actually move things without breaking them, the people moved just do not get the heightened perception to notice.
Personally I had no problem with the fall, just the fact that all hawkeye did was put his foot on quicksilvers leg lol I'd imagine once quicksilver recovers from the shock he could easily slip out with superspeed, and imo it wouldn't feel out of place for hawkeye to have prepared some sort of trap or snare to use instead of just standing there.
Superspeed would be so much weirder physically. Think what would happen if you'd move someone's arm to the side faster than a bullet. 0:49 Their arms would likely just disintegrate or explode where you'd touch them.
Yes, exactly. At such speeds, to speedster who is at such speed moving the same as in normal time speed, every organic being would feel like wet sand. His hands would just go through. No resistance. Just clean through. Did a 2 minute google research/calculations and his punch would actually be about 27 kilonewstons of force, taking in that he's at mach 10 (which is slow related to how fast they actually are) with average arm weight of 8 kilos. Regular human delivers 700 newtons of force when punching and that is taking into account whole body attempt to swing a punch. Here I just calculated the mass of arm at the speed. Speedsters are just impossible to balance. They are practically gods.
Well yeah, I guess if you are moving faster than a bullet, but at the same speed Idk, I don't think so. Bullets are specially designed to penetrate and transfer energy, speed alone won't be enough, fairly certain plastic bullets or rubber bullets don't have the same effect. End note: I don't think that just touching someone while moving faster than a bullet will kill them.
@@sermerlin1 Exactly. Also, they themselves and their pants would have to consist of super strong, super stiff materials, in order not to disintegrate, light on fire and/or flop around themselves.
@@Geuelthefool Take a look at some slow motion water jet cutting, hydraulic injection or ballistics footage of unusual objects. I'm sure somewhere on TH-cam, someone fired a baseball or something similar at a piece of ballistics gel at ungodly speeds.
@GijsdeRue yep... like they'd have to be running naked actually when I started thinking deeply about it. Clothes they wear would instantly disintegrate... But we can say they themselves and their organs survive because their body is super strong due to the power itself... I mean the more I think about it it's like the more impossible I realize they are to match anyone against them.
Such an underrated channel it’s appalling to see you with less than 100k subscribers minimum. These film analysis videos have inspired me to write characters again. Your insight and perspective is really helpful!
true, and an even cooler way to think about it is that we're moving fast but our perception of time can only seemingly keep up with how fast we're moving due to the distance of what we're able to see. like i can make the sudden decision to move out of the way of something i can see happening a good distance away from me. tho im sure if that "something" was obviously happening right in my face it'd be a lot different. i feel like that phenomenon should be able to be taken into account even more with these conversations of speedsters.
bro this vid is literally just from the channel Bay Talks, he just covered everything he said with the same clips too, ur better off checking Bay Talks, the original source
*Massive spoilers for Jojo part 6* Pucci from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is probably the best execution of a perpetual speedster that I've ever seen. Near the end of the series, he gains the ability to move in sped up time. We see that his perception is as fast as he is, and this makes him incredibly dangerous - in fact, the first thing he does with this speed is kill the majority of the heroes fighting him. He's only defeated when the last hero manages to lure him into a small room, which he then floods with pure oxygen. This starts poisoning them both, but since Pucci is moving and breathing much faster, he's paralyzed almost instantly, while the hero stays conscious long enough to finish him off. I've never seen a more logical method used to defeat a speedster.
using speed (or sometime it even works on time manipulation) agaisnt speedsters is something that could be used more and with tech savy antagosints some kind of toxins or disease that takes some time to show up but then quickly overpowers its victim could take out speedster in minutes if not seconds depending on how much faster they operate
Not only that, but the Dolphin Escape scene also shows Pucci getting tired after constantly speeding around. Jolyne even mentions it when Pucci couldn't keep up with a dolphin with his increasing speed, which was a nice touch.
Manga does this so much more effectively than the anime just wanna say. Genuinely felt fear from how untouchable he was depicted, real blink and you’ll miss him stuff, whereas the anime has him going round and round the characters so they can get their dialogue out…and it ends up looking somewhat silly and cheap. It hurts but I think I gotta say it.
Another weakness that speedsters could(should) have is stamina. The difficulty in sprinting, for example, is maintaining that high speed for more than a brief burst is because of the strain and energy loss; that and a lack of handling is part of why the cheetah isn't an apex predator. The most I've seen is the Flash having to eat much more than usual to keep his energy up, but I can't recall the last time a speedster's stamina was used as a consistent limiter to maintain dramatic tension.
Wally West in young justice is constantly eating throughout season 1 when he was transporting the heart of princess he exerted himself stopping it from being stolen and he ended up ER.
One Piece did it kinda but it's not been brought up much. Not so much with a "speedster" but with a powered up state Luffy used. When in Gear Second he increases the blood flow around his rubbery body to get to his muscles much faster by using his legs like a pump. This allowed him to close the speed gap with an opponent who was able to move much faster than him naturally. He eventually won the fight but collapsed absolutely exhausted and he wasn't able to move at all until he got fed again, because he burned so many calories fighting with a higher body temperature and speed for so long. Unfortunately this drawback to Gear Second was never really brought up again even though I think it's such a cool aspect of the ability. Most power ups in anime come from characters tapping into some hidden energy/ki/chi to buff themselves but Luffy was basically forcing his body to perform above it's normal capabilities in an unconventional way that was effective but obviously risky if done for too long. I think Taskmaster in Marvel comics has done a similar thing before where his adaptive muscle memory allowed him to copy the movements of an Olympic sprinter at superspeed when he fast forwarded the video. However since he naturally shouldn't be able to push himself that hard he was absolutely physically drained from doing it.
Dang, superb video. Concise, descriptive, presents a bunch of great ideas and examples. The concept of having to "rev up" is actually a superb nuance to this sort of power that could keep things fresh very well. I love that you brought up One Punch Man - I feel like anime has loads of examples of this "perception of power" (both well done and poorly done) and how it can enrich or hollow out a narrative. The discussion of perpetual speedsters also reminded me of AI, actually. In sci-fi, intelligent AIs are often written like this, having hours to think for every second of real time. Their limitations are instead in how quickly or slowly their machinery/physical bodies can react. A superb example of this is Murderbot from the Murderbot Diaries. It IS faster than a human, cognitively and physically, but is still slow enough that it can often see danger coming and just not be able to do anything about it.
as far as i’m aware the flash in comics is actually a perpetual speedster that slows down perception to not go crazy, causing lapses in attention that cause them to make mistakes and be defeatable to the rogues. maybe they could toy with this idea too
Quicksilver vs Apocalypse example is really interesting because they did similar thing with Justice League Snyder cut I remember in Snyder Cut when they tried to stop Superman and during the slow mo, Superman keep staring at the Flash and it's really great moment the difference is that we're aware how fast Superman could go
I'd say that we have seen this adaptive ability from Apocalypse, when he is learning from the tv it looks the same, so it would be like he is learning to deal with Quicksilver's speed and can eventually catch his foot, I'm not saying it is well and clearly shown, but I understood it that way, we have seen this adaptive ability, but to learn info, not to fight
@@lyh3815Solid point honestly. As you said it's not really good enough since it takes a bit of thinking to connect those dots, but they could've expanded on it to make it clearer just how quickly he can take in information.
@@yfrit_gg Agreed, have him observe someone firing a gun in some unrelated happening he just observes and he focuses on the bullet and his perception speeds up to follow it, and we know he has the ability to perceive at speed, but he lacks the ability to move fast, but we then in the end game finds out he can use his faster perception and mind to use the telekinesis to deal with quicksilver.
There's this one "Simply Fast" type speedster from a weird manga(forgot the name) that left quite the impression on me. His powers is just super speed, but regular durability. So even running into tiny debris or tripping and falling at superspeed would turn him into paste. This also makes it that he can't punch or kick without turning his limbs into slushies. So how does he attack? By bringing around a rock or brick and letting it go while in superspeed, acting like a catapult. It's simple, and makes his character incredibly fragile yet also dangerous.
@phyzeek900 It's from a manga, and iirc the character didn't last long, probably only a chapter. But it was one of the times where it made sense about Speedsters and that made me think "huh, having these vulnerabilities makes sense for Speedsters" and also made me scrutinize other speedsters.
Much appreciated take on Speedsters. You highlighted a number of different situations/issues that always bothered me with speedsters, especially once we've been shown that speedsters are experiencing time in slow-motion (at least part of the time), only to... get hit by a punch thrown at normal speeds, or shot by a bullet after they've been able to poke them around without issue previously. In addition to your suggestion of speedsters needing to 'ramp up' to achieve top speeds, there are other ideas that could potentially work. Worm - a web novel - contains a speedster that is able to exert less force on the world the faster he goes, which physics-ally doesn't make much sense, but is an interesting way of ensuring a speedster isn't the most powerful being (because honestly, they should be in any/every genre they appear in).
Your closing idea for a character who has to ramp up to their top speed is honestly fantastic. Genuinely, it fixes a lot of problems and gives you everything cool a speedster can do without making them completely unbeatable.
One of the later Dune books (maybe Dune: Chapterhouse?) had something like this, where the character (Basher? I dunno, read it years ago) kinda ramped up. Unfortunately that also included his metabolism, and so while he was able to get years of work done repairing the ship that was damaged, he also LIVED those years, so when he came out of his hyperspeed, his white-haired, wizened body just dropped dead. But still a cool idea.
I think one of the best depictions of super-speed was in The Matrix Reloaded. When Neo is flying through the city to catch Trinity, he's literally dragging all the cars and debris along in his wake. When he slows, all that debris continues in a massive bow wave that would have so much destructive force. If that principle was kept for speedsters it would make their use of powers much more deadly and a higher consideration. No stopping instantly or you take out a city block, no running full speed past people or you catch them in your wave and drag them with you. I'd like to see more speedsters done like this.
Flash in the comics could pull people along in his wake or slipstream, at least he used to in the Silver Age. Very useful for him to transport the bad guys to jail. I suppose someone finally wised up and figured if his aura keep air friction from affecting him, then how is he generating a wake and how fast would he have to be going to suck someone behind him and why isn’t he sucking in everything behind him?
Another cool weakness for a speedster is having them be as powerful as comic Flash, but the more they use their superspeed, the more their body burns away due to friction and the amount of energy they use. While they can have a fast regenerative system, this makes their powerset a double-edged sword that could kill them if they use it too much.
Right. In the comics when Flash approaches light speed his body begins to deteriorate and he becomes pure energy as physical objects cannot exist in the state due to the forces exerted upon it's body.
And yet Wally beat the speed of light in a race when he raced against an alien who could instantly transport across the universe. Wally won the race. Meaning he was going way beyond lightspeed.
This is kind of tangential but in one my fave web serials at the minute, the protagonist has to run for days to get to safety from a natural disaster, and takes a stim that helps him ignore the pain. By the end, his feet are torn to shreds, he can barely function, a living zombie pushing through his will to survive and save someone. Its a genuinely harrowing sequence. That's kind of how I'd imagine that.
8:40 *if we never know how. Also I just wanna say good on u for including the immortals speedster. She’s genuinely been the best live action one I’ve ever seen.
One thing I wish movies with speedsters focused more on is the holes in their ability to use superspeed, because personally I think Quicksilver's death in Avengers: Age of Ultron makes perfect sense, it just isn't shown well enough. He's shown noticing a bullet once earlier in the movie, but that's only because it happens to go right in front of him. If it had been behind him, he might not have noticed it at all, because even though his perception being quicker means he'll notice more things it doesn't mean he'll notice EVERYTHING. In the heat of a battle, can you imagine trying to pinpoint exactly where every single tiny little bullet is as you're rushing through the battlefield, trying to avoid them all? It would be downright impossible. Now, when considering his death scene, we see that Hawkeye and the kid he's protecting are about to be shot, literally moments away. Imagine Quicksilver rushing towards them, seeing all those bullets raining down upon them, instants away from them. He COULD try to be careful and avoid every single one, but then Hawkeye and the kid would surely die. So he opts to just speed through it, knowing he'll get hit, there was no way to avoid it. That's probably why he wasn't surprised at all by the fact he was riddled with holes, he accepted it and fell to the ground. I wish they'd shown something like this from his perspective when he's making this decision, I think it would've made people understand how it could've happened and made his sacrifice more emotional.
The faster you're moving, the greater the "effective density" of the particle field that you're moving through. At 400ish meter/second air feels like concrete and you're churning up a whole lot of it.
Eh. Bullets aren't like, HUGE, but they're not even as small as a fly, and I notice flies and junk all the time. The human eye is PHENOMENAL at picking out motion, even incredibly subtle motion. Bullets are ALSO only especially lethal because they impart kinetic energy which causes internal damage (even imparting enough to break the skin and lodge in our flesh suits/punch out the other side, depending, which causes assorted leaks of things that are meant to stay inside.) A speedster should be able to spot these bullets and move around them, as we see Quicksilver do in the one scene where he nudges them out of the way because he's moving so fast the bullets have comparatively VERY little kinetic energy, and thus next to no ability to harm him. Compare it to a car crash for a moment, if you will. If two cars are in a head-on collision it's often more damaging than if one car was parked, as their respective forward momentum imparts all that kinetic energy on the other car, and vice versa. That IS a good point to bring up... but what's happening here is more like the car Quicksilver is running into is parked.
@@michaelmarsh1723 if you're moving SO fast that a speeding bullet looks like it's just hanging in the air, then your field of view would narrow in front of you and colors would blue shift. Pushing the air out of your way would feel like swimming in liquid concrete and you don't actually have any traction with the ground when you're running at Mach III
@@DoubleYouDotTrump I hadn't considered moving super-quick and being unable to see because of the travel time of light and such. Props to you for bringing that up! I will say though that the speed of a bullet is NOWHERE near the speed of light, there's a lot of room in the middle there. I'm not sure how much faster you'd have to be moving than the bullet, but I assume it's in the neighborhood of moving magnitudes of speed faster? Light moves at 983,571,056 feet/second through a vacuum, not sure how that changes in-atmosphere. Bullets are usually sub-5,000 feet/second of velocity at the muzzle, slowing down the further they travel. We'll simplify and assume max velocity. I *feel* like you can be moving at sub-light speed and still be moving significantly faster than the bullets, thus making them look 'motionless' to your perspective?
I think the best route to take when making a speedster is to make them fast, but not "light speed" or whatever. A character can be a speedster simply by being faster than most characters in their world. This is why characters like Dash work well. He's (just guessing) moving at 200+ mph, which is still ridiculously fast, but not so fast that it's unreasonable to see them being stumped or defeated by someone.
In the movie, Dash says "you couldn't even see it on the tape". That means he ran to the desk, placed the object, and ran back to his seat in less time than it took the camera to record one frame. We don't know the camera's frame rate of course, but if we assume 30 fps for a crappy CCTV installed in a public school, then he accomplished this in less than 1/30th of a second. Suppose it's 15 feet from his seat to the desk, so the round trip is 30 feet. 30 feet per 1/30 second = 900 feet per second, which about 600 mph. That's a lot of estimation and guessing, of course, but bear in mind he had to accelerate to the desk, decelerate at the desk, place the object, accelerate to his seat, and decelerate at his seat. So even if we lowball the numbers, what's really impressive here is his ability to generate huge amounts of force, as well as his perfect control (he didn't disturb any objects he didn't intend to interact with, to the point that it was nearly impossible to tell he had moved at all).
The superhero webserial Worm has a few characters with super speed, but they all have some weakness that makes their powers more interesting. The faster Velocity goes, the less mass he has and the less he can influence the world, so he could be punching you ten times per second but his punches would have the strenght of a toddler. Battery needs to charge her super speed before using it, and to do this she has to stay still and concentrate. Chuckles has super strenght on his torso and arms, and super speed on his legs and head, and he can never turn It off, which ended up making him go completely crazy from having the world move so slow around him. Legend's main power is shooting lasers, but he can also fly incredibly fast, which he does by "partially turning his body into light" has he accelerates. This means he can't turn on his super speed at full power instantly, making It so he can mostly just use It to travel. Also the faster he goes the less conscious he is, which helps him travel long distances without getting bored or crashing into things, but also keeps Im from trying to reach his full speed because he is scared of what might happen.
Worm is fantastic in this regard, because it actually gives proper thought to 'what is required to stop this power from being completely broken' and gives good answers.
@mnmnrt I don't know about 'better', as Worm is a fantastic story, but Megamind has a fully broken speedster, and it turns out that the reason he doesn't win every fight in a microsecond is because he's just putting on a show and enjoying himself.
@@mnmnrt I mean, the thing is that if Worm explored that It wouldnt be able to explore all the deep themes It does, and would instead have to focus on that speedster and their lives, so It would be a fundamentally different story. Yeah, It could be better, but It could also be worse, the thing that really matters is who writes it and how. Even if Wildbow could write a good story about a really powerful speedster(Which he probably could since this man is good at writting almost anything), that just isn't the story he wanted to tell
Thank you SO MUCH for this take. I have honestly gotten burned out on people saying that speedsters just _can't_ be interesting because of specific flawed examples. I think that, in the same way that a character's powers can become unwieldy in a story if the writer isn't creative, writing off an entire subset of superpowers as inherently "bad" or "uninteresting" shows just as much of a lack in creativity. Some writing is flawed; that doesn't mean that those topics should never be written about.
I think A-Train would count as "simply fast" because he doesn't seem to perceive time slower, which is why the first season is based around him accidentally hitting a pedestrian that steps into the street... something that he would have ages to react to if his perception of time was in line with his speed.
He doesn't hit her just because he can't react to her being there, otherwise he'd be hitting cars all over the place. He's souped up on a fresh dose of Compound V and is losing his mind.
A-Train was well balanced in general, because he simply wasn't too powerful. Kimiko wrecks his leg effortlessly, showing that he's not in the higher tiers of supe durability. His heart problems in seasons 2-3 would have balanced him if he'd been OP. As it was, they were good for his character arc
@@elqueatiendeboludos1616 where was that ever revealed? enlighten me because i genuinely don't remember that ever being said. in the scene itself of him running into Robin he even stops and looks around like he has no clue what just happened and keeps saying "I can't stop, i can't stop" implying he has somewhere he needs to be thats much more important than dealing with the person he just accidentally obliterated. Even him being forgiven by Hughie wouldn't make sense if he did it on purpose. Part of the whole reason Hughie had his vendetta with A-Train is because not only did he run into Robin but he was also clearly not taking it seriously. If it was indeed intentional then all the writing surrounding the situation just makes no sense now, nor does A-Train's redemption arc hold any real weight anymore.
I dream of a day where we get a movie with a lightspeed speedster, and have him written as a horror movie villain, where we *never* see the world from his eyes, and always from others, so one second you're chilling with your bros, and the next you're in prison
Could drag physics into it too. You're sitting in a park in a populated city. Everyone's minding their own business, when suddenly a wave of sound rushes down mainstream and a funnel of debris fling from the ruptured sound barrier a few miles away. Everyone starts panicking and heading towards their vehicles when the entity rushes right through the park, followed by a ripple of force pressure flinging everything aside as they zip past with an ungodly amount of noise following. The speedster casually running around the city would constantly break the sound barrier and tear through the land like they're a tornado moving faster than the speed of sound.
Not a villain or a movie. But flash is way faster than light and there are plenty of stories from the perspective of villains trying to fight him (even the very scenario you mentioned happened in one comic where villains were talking about which city is the worst to try and do villainy in)
I never read it, but I remember hearing about a story of the Flash when he decided he wanted to stop all evil and wrong doing throughout the planet, so he was constantly running around faster than light, stopping accidents and crimes before they could even happen. He was basically omnipotent and omnipresent, but it meant invading everyone's privacy and having him watch every person on the planet 24/7.
Great vid, I've only thought about this topic in the context of Metro-Man, but it's so interesting learning how prevalently overpowered it is when used in other things.
Another plausible implementation weakness is the same as what the fastest lifeform on earth has. There is a desert beetle that jumps so fast (like 200 mph iirc) that it actually can’t see anything. It has to pause between each jump so it can reassess where it needs to go.
Peregrine falcons cam reach speeds near 300mph, and strike with the talons in a punching motion to catch things off gayrd, but have funnel vision when they do it. It's crazy to think living things can move that fast.
SAME, my only complaint is when he's running through the jungle and approaching the ocean. He closes his eyes while running, and opens his eyes again after seeing he can run on water. Then proceeds to SPEED UP even faster than he was running lol. Like just blast off full speed, but I understand he couldn't go as fast as he could because of needing to dodge obstacles
@Ten_Thousand_Locusts before he couldn't run full speed while running in the jungle. When he gets to the water, there were far less obstacles in the way
@maizjsj I was upset because he was worried about the water, and then sped up faster than he was already running when he saw he could run on the water. Like just go faster to try to run on the water to begin with I guess. Just a small gripe lol
I thought that movie was an absolute waste of potential and just not very entertaining. However, I 100% think Makkari's action scenes have better reflected how to do a speedster well than any other, than any Flash or Quicksilver. It's not just the visuals, it's the sound design as well.
In an anime named Charlotte there’s a speedster who has no extended super power other than super speed, no speedster reaction or durability. Because of this he has to plan where he wants to go BEFORE moving at high speeds to try to guarantee a safe landing spot as he can’t just turn or perceive things at a slower rate mid burst. Makes him a very down to earth guy, shoutout Jojiro
is it the guy with the glasses that handes over something to the MC later down the road? If so, I'm pretty sure the MC clarified that his ability wasn't super speed, it's just short distance teleportation
@ It’s ironically the opposite. Jujiro is capable of charging up speed to move very fast in one burst, but he can’t control it. Hence why he always moves in a straight line and has to plot out his path. It looks like teleportation but he explains to the MC that’s why he’s always hurt when he uses his ability, because he crashes into shit being unable to slow down
This reminds me of how on the flash tv show they would say hes the fastest but he cant even stop something as slow then losses his speed its craziness when the flash should always be fast regardless 😂
CW flash is so inconsistent, at one episode in season 3 they show him experiencing time in slow-motion 1:52 as he waits for 6 pm to go to date with iris, and that scene makes him a perpatual speedster but other times he suddenly just forgets that he's a speedster and can do things faster than others
There's an episode where Barry can move so fast he made a nuclear explosion stand still, while he ran all over the city talking to everybody he knew (using a new power where he could make anybody he's touching move as fast as him) to try to figure out how to stop that explosion before it destroyed the city. The idea that anyone who wasn't a speedster could beat him became really really ludicrous after that episode and it was already really ludicrous before then.
@ The Speed Force is essentially this thing that gives Speedsters whatever powers and level of power that is needed to make the plot continue. Rather than writing the plots around the powers, they write the powers around the plots, hence just giving Barry whatever powers he needs to solve the current problem and then they usually go away.
I think Worm has some of the coolest speedster ideas. Battery needs to charge(basically take 10 seconds or so to focus her power), but once charged she gets to use the charge to be faster(the world moves slower), super strength, and some weakish electrical powers. Velocity on the other hand can move much, much faster, but the faster he moves the harder it is to change the world around him(so things feel heavier/harder to move, punching people is like punching solid metal, etc), leaving his power mostly useful for scouting, running away, and distracting people(because they can't touch him).
@@cristianpereyra6912 Because it has a very wide variety of powers that are nerfed in interesting ways (That could be easily applicable to film / animation in that they are balanced and have the chance for 'cool' moments) that the video doesn't cover, basically. Fan fictions are also extremely prevalent with further expansion of ideas. Using Velocity as a further example (and I'll admit this is mostly from fanfic info since I haven't read the actual serial in a very long time), a major issue he has to deal with is that as a consequence of how he is less able to act on the world, the weight of his clothing is a severe handicap: He also has to physically run, in superspeed / dilated time, to each location. Including in winter. In a spandex costume designed to be as light as possible as anything heavier affects his top speed massively. It gets cold.
I think it should be noted that The Flash would fall into the category of perpetual speedster. The comics touch on the topic a bit, but Barry Allen does view the world in slow motion at all times, and is actually where the concept originally came from. The visuals shown in the Flash media where time suddenly slows to a crawl is just letting the audience view the world through the lens of the speedster, whereas they are typically being viewed from an outside perspective
Your solution is not only elegant but gives everybody what they want. It also allows for a character to react fast without shorting out their brain (as it realistically would to have high brain function at all times) and would allow for character growth by way of the speedsters "rev up" time getting shorter through training. Great video essay by the way!
I personally love the slowly speeding up like you would accelerate in a car, the speed is gradually attained rather than instantaneous. I really like that!
Xmen quicksilver is literally THE GOAT. Hope a person that's gonna make a movie about a speedster watches this cause gosh the flash ain't it. That Idea is actually top tier, I had similar one too during my speedster phase.
Many speedsters rarely explain the source of their immense energy. At least the Flash attributes it to the Speed Force, though he still needs to consume massive calories to fuel his accelerated metabolism. However, if his metabolism is sped up, wouldn’t that cause his body to age faster due to his biological processes running at an increased rate? A good way to nerf super-speed characters is to impose a cost. For instance, Quicksilver might not always "freeze time" because maintaining such hyperfocus could exhaust him. Processing vast amounts of information in such a short time would likely overwhelm and strain his brain.
@@andrewboyer7544 The hand wavey element is fine, it's needed to hand wave all the physics implications with going these kinds of speeds. Any fast speedster benefits from just hand waving all of that as it's just not worth trying to come up with individually plausible explanations. Flash's problem is that neither him nor the speed force have a consistent weakness. Speed makes him a Superman level character, without a strong enough weakness. If he needs the speed force to avoid resistances and to facilitate his reflexes, then that needs to be a small pool of energy. He's still fast when that energy runs out, but now he cant percieve fast enough and has to deal with friction. So, he needs to adapt his tactics when he runs out. If a villian can prolong a battle then they'll be fighting a flash with different tactics by the end. A limited pool also means he can't be everywhere without constantly showing up to battles already on empty, so villian teams and large scale events become a weakness. The writers just let him get out of hand with power creep, without developing a compelling weakness.
@WACC_Warlord so any time he loses it doesn't make sense, but it's because the levels of speed he has just shouldn't be written. You can't give a big enough weakness. This video is right, best thing you can do is make them not so fast. Quicksilver in the comics is about as fast as makes any sense from a writing standpoint. Super speed is just too broken and the speed force just makes it worse by justifying light speed as an option.
Couldn't find it mentioned in the comments, and I know it wasn't super popular, but Top Bull Sparx aka Unstoppable, from Undead Unluck, has the ramping speed effect that you mention at the end of the video. He starts running normally and every time he attempts to stop, his speed doubles, the only way for him to stop, at least in the first 3/4ths of the series, is for him to break a bone. He also can not change direction once he starts, only moving forward. Towards the end of the series, his stop condition changes and his top speed surpasses lightspeed, but his directional limitation never alters.
I have a Super Speed character who's entire power is that the more he focuses the faster his perception is and thus his body reacts with it basically making his powers entirely tied to his perception of time and motion but also focus.
Top/Unstoppable from Undead Unluck is kinda like this. His ability makes him accelerate every time he acts with the intention of stopping. His speed is near instantaneous at short distances and he can build it up over time. He uses this to do a kind of infinite mass punch type move a little later on in the story. It only stops working when some sort of change happens to the state of his body, and he’s not extremely durable or anything while he’s using it.
Agents of Shield (a show with fun parts which regardless I don't recommend) had a delightful speedster coined as Yo-Yo Rodriguez. She could move so fast that you couldn't even see her move unless you were looking directly at her, but could only travel for an amount of time equal to one of her heartbeats before snapping back to her original position, so she could only move a few meters in a back-and-forth yo-yo motion. Very cool premise, very cool limitation, very cool execution. Yo-Yo Rogriguez was so powerful that she was conveniently never in the same room as any villain in the entire series, so she rarely got to do anything despite being a main character.
Was hoping to see you break down Superman watching Flash in The Justice League... the scene where they are all fighting Superman. For no reason other than I LOVE that scene xD - good video
8:34 to be fair, the shots from that GAU-8 Avenger(the minigun) are 2.5 times faster than the shots from a 9mm handgun, and the GAU-8 Avgenger fires 65 shots per second.
I’m glad you mention this because nobody talks about that, people see a speedster dodge a bullet of a handgun and put a number on it and then apply that number to any scene with bullets in it regardless of if it came from a high powered rifle or Machine gun. When in scenes like that there the speed feat would need to be several times faster.
@@JoeBobTalks just like how the movies can’t assume the audience knows about the comics, they can’t assume the audience knows about guns. It’s a flaw in the writing to put it on audiences to figure out why he was able to get shot in that situation
The problem is not the bullet or the guns. It's his positioning. Why did he go back _retracing his steps_ to the left after carrying Hawkeye and the civilian to the right (cover)? There's no reason.
@@ultimaxkom8728 he pushed the car infront of them. He didn't push them behind the car. So he was behind the car/out of cover. Still stupid though and now even make less sense because that means the gun was shooting like 2 feet to their left and they weren't going to get shot in the first place.
I also wanna say, you can have moments that show a speedster having inconsistent moments of equivalent reactions make sense. A speedster like Dash from incredibles in incredible stressful situations push his limits including his reactions. Adrenaline already does this to normal people. In fact it would actually help explain how he even survived the situation of tbeing chased by those hover pilots. Its not like prior to this we seen the kid use his powers to such a prolonged situation
Also one of my Ideas: What about a Speedster-Thinker? He can slow his perception time down, but his body is just as fast as anyone else. Would look like super instinct but the character just perceives quick or can think of a whole plan on the spot. He can be defeated by a more experienced enemy, feint attacks and the inner monologues can also be entertaining.
This is what Zinc Feruchemists do in mistborn. They can store mental speed (purposefully think slowly for a period of time) than cash in that stored energy later for a burst of mental speed
100 % man, it's the biggest thing that actually bug the crap out of me whenever watching a movie or TV show with a Speedster in it. You have articulated this point of view spectacularly, well done,great video.
One fun take on it is Velocity from Worm. Where the faster he goes the less he can interact with the world around him, to the point at his top speed he can't even knock over a paper cup. So when fighting he has to balance going fast enough to outmaneuver his opponent with going slow enough that his attacks have a meaningful effect.
Also legend, who can go at (he thinks) the speed of light, but only after a long ramp up, and he becomes less conscious the faster he goes. So he's usually just fast, if he has to go around the world he can, but it's not ridiculous. Also chuckles, who is a perpetual speedster, for whom physics applies, and it drove him insane.
no surprise that show is dumb..they show flash can send person who can control lightning to metahuman prison before he can react ..yet another time they show he struggle against guy with ice guy that show beam that slower that bullet .or he just lost a person when they just get few seconds head start .
Absolutely love the idea of acceleration becoming a factor! Especially as it could lead up to an interesting subversion in the usual superpower match-off. They could fight an enemy that starts at max speed but gets slower the longer the fight goes on, making it an underdog fight as well as matching superpowers.
This poses a problem unless they remain traveling in a constant direction. As soon as they change direction, i.e. running around an opponent, they're by definition accelerating.
What you mentioned at the end about instantly hitting top speed is the third and even more common secondary power of super speed; super acceleration. That, and alongside it's other overlooked cousin, super velocity, show the biggest blindspot in balancing super speed: it isn't super speed, it's super kinematics, a series of several qualities governing movement to the extreme
I really like the way Drew Hayes did it in a series called Super Powereds. One of the main characters is a speedster and one of her limitations (same with all standard speedsters in that world) is that they can think and react at super speed, but: 1, "like anyone else, it's hard to throw a punch while sprinting at full speed" and 2, "she has mid-level top speed but greater than average acceleration," meaning they do still have to accelerate. The exception is the close combat teacher from year 2 onward, who can turn into living electricity and move appropriately fast.
I think the Sonic movies have an interesting way of going about this In the first movie, Eggman gets one of Sonic's quills and uses it to power his ship. Because it was established that these quills give off energy, and that Eggman is a genius inventor, it feels believable that the playing field would get more even from this As for 2 and 3, they bring in characters who are similar to Sonic, which is even more believable that they'd be matched in power.
One thing I did earlier today was some math on super speed, a lot of speedsters you see have slowed perception of time that bullets aren’t moving, can liquify people with their punches. If a bullet is barely moving to them, their fists are moving so much faster, a flick at that speed will break bones.
But that would inflict that same force onto their fists. I would think their preferred form of attack would be a super throw. Not very accurate but very powerful.
@@SneedFeederif they can move that fast consistently their skin/bones/tendons are much more durable then steel so it’s pretty accurate that they have super strength or their body would tear apart just from running super fast
I also tackled this idea for one of my characters as a hobbyist creator. My solution was to flip a sub-trope into a main-trope. Usually a speedster gets wind powers as an extension of their super speed. Flash and Quicksilver's tornado spins come to mind. Also the shockwave attack you've shown. For my character it's the other way around. Inspired by the sports and racing games I played (and cartoon speedsters), I made my character a skater that manipulates wind, gaining boost using mini-tornadoes, air pockets, shockwaves, and so on, alongside racing techniques. Imagine a person creating their very own boostpads or drafting by moving away the air on front themselves. They can also dash, double jump, and glide with their wind to slow down their landing. Oh and there's also standard wind attacks like razor wind. Still questionable physics, but what this does presentation-wise is that it shows the character actually "participate" in physics. They need to actively build up and slow down. Especially for situations demanding quick reactions and decision-making. Sure they can also use this for flight, but that’s not in the cards.
An interesting case of Super Speed in fiction is from a relatively popular web serial called Worm. In it, a minor character named Velocity can alter the physics affecting his body such that he gains super speed (kinda like the speed force but with more consistent rules). The catch is that he gets weaker physically as he gets faster. So, when at full speed, his punches are weaker than those of a small child and are described as 'more like small gusts of wind' iirc. He also can't carry stuff when running because of it. So no rescuing hostages before the enemy realises or the like. If he wants to knock somebody out, he has to slow down, which means his reflexes slow down too, making him beatable. So he has to be more careful than most speedsters. Velocity is pretty minor as a character, but I thought his power was interesting to mention here.
Personally a fan of slowing them down to reasonable speeds - still superhuman but slow enough that someone with faster than normal response time could potentially react. Maybe keep the really insane speed as something they can't do all the time, say have it be very straining or dangerous to pull off. Additionally, there could be some limitation on how long the speedster can maintain their top speed, or other weaknesses inherent to the power. One idea I had is that the speedster can't breathe properly while running and generates a lot of heat via accelerated aerobic combustion, burning through the oxygen they do take in. Thus, they'd pass out from either suffocation or heat stroke if they move too much. (Seriously, if the Flash heals wounds in seconds and needs far more calories than a normal person, his cells should be generating massive amounts of heat pretty much all the time.) See also: Anime-style "flash steps" where the super speed mostly happens in quick dashes. By the way, I personally don't much like it when super powers are always "on." That's mostly my personal preference and I'm not sure if it would make the stories more interesting, but I'd really like to see more superheroes who can actually turn their powers on and off whenever they want, even stuff like strength or durability.
If Red Rush really does perceive time in constant slow motion, that not only means he's somehow able to still understand people speaking really slowly but also he's able to speak slowly himself at the perfect speed and consistency that makes him appear to speak normal to other people. That life is unlivable and would require superhuman patience to even be possible.
The whole "someone with faster than normal response time" reminds me of a fight in the otherwise-forgettable Wolverine movie. Sabertooth is fighting a guy who can literally teleport, which to a person who isn't a speedster is essentially the same as fighting a speedster, and getting beat up as expected. However, he just reaches out to an empty space and then _grabs the dude by his spine_ the next time he teleports in. Before killing him he says, "You're predictable." It doesn't really matter if someone is faster than you up to a point, if you know what they're going to do before they do it, and act with perfect timing.
@@Yonkage-ik5qb Something like that ironically doesn't work nearly as well against a true speedster. Because teleportation is literally instant, they'd have no time to react to a well-placed counter, while a speedster with enhanced perception could see the counter as you try to set it up in slow motion, and just _not be there._ The only true ways to counter an attentive speedster is to either find a way to match their perception, completely blindside them, or my personal favorite, _leave nowhere to dodge._
@@griffinfaulkner3514 Well yes, if they're the type of speedster that moves at FTL sure they can dodge absolutely anything. But I meant more like cases where they're only like a few hundred MPH fast. In which case it can fall under the umbrella of a "blindside" if you can predict their movements to a degree.
@@MWLE.EDITZ.. For me, the worst thing they do to speedsters is that they have to attack. This doesn't make much sense to me, because this is a character that should be more defensive and act from a distance and not be touched. He could at least throw something at her, save his friends from her powers. The best example of this is red rush, from invincible. At the beginning of the fight with the omnimen he was acting defensively, the omnimen couldn't do anything, but suddenly he started attacking even though he couldn't do much damage and that's how it ended.
Awesome video! My only problem with ramping up, is that unless you make it really evident to the audience, it will still look the same. Technically, the Flash was getting faster with every season, but visually I couldn't tell the difference.
I've been thinking about how to balance speedsters for a long time , and I eventually came up with an idea I quite liked. Using super speed is incredibly taxing, it's akin to or perhaps directly requires holding your breath. The faster you go the more intense and painful it becomes, and you need to catch your breath at regular speed occasionally-This would give reason to the speedsters suddenly stopping, as they actually wouldn't enjoy being at super speed. Plus, getting the wind knocked out of you by being beat up would actually disable super speed, you have to catch a breath to escape. I always figured if I do it this way, I can give that hero the most absolute BS nonsense super speed scene... For their death scene. They reach a point where they have to do something akin to the quicksilver scene, so they keep pushing their super speed faster and faster, until they realise they've pushed too hard, and they'll never get to go back. This singular second for the rest of the cast is their last stand, and they have to save everyone before they run out of breath. I think that would be a fantastic scene, personally.
There was a book character with something similar to that, basically he gave himself “super speed” but it was more akin to him just slowing down time, but his heart (he had a robot heart) couldn’t handle the speed, so he had to switch his body into a clone so he wouldn’t die
The bit in Invincible where Omni-Man fights the Guardians of the Globe plays it really well -- thanks for including that clip. Omni-Man is *really fast* but not nearly as fast as Red Rush. So he has to bait an attack that he's already prepared for...
I just want to point it out that Omniman is fast as red rush. Its just that their speeds are juat so close too each other that red rush can play defensivly at the start of their fight.
Also Apocalypses adaptation powers we're explained ın the movie before ıf ı remember correctly so it makes sende that he lost. They could make adaptation more clear like a sound effect similer to mahoraga but it still makes sense
Omniman beat Red Rush by observing his movement pattern and anticipating him. Omniman didn’t need to be as fast as Red Rush because Omniman’s successful prediction of Red Rush’s movement allowed Omniman to make his move before Red Rush.
What are y’all talking about? Faster than Red Rush?? This is a just a lie. Even if his acceleration was much slower that wouldn’t help him in a fight against him regardless. So it’s no point.
Idk why but I keep forgetting that is also superspeed. It definitely is the coolest one that I've seen in animation. And it's also really balanced. It's powerful, but David's body couldn't handle it being use over and over again in a short timespan.
Great video! One thing to note assuming the perpetual speedster brain just processes stuff super fast all the time but has average intelligence they not only would be extremely bored by having a conversation with someone but would actually have trouble holding one at all because they would barely be able to remember the start of their sentence let alone what the other person said a minute ago, hell I would even go as far to say that they would not be able to understand simple speech at all! Even slowing down an audio to 1/10 of the speed makes it almost impossible to understand I imagine red rush at least hears stuff at 1/1000 of the speed. Red Rush should not be able to communicate be it talking or listening unless it's written in some form or another, and he would severe memory issues even recalling what happened yesterday. So he could not form any type of meaningful relationships, could potentially be very knowledgeable but would have to be constantly re learning (that's how it would seem to us)by reading book or with a very fast internet stuff.
kinda sucks that the only real solution anyone has come up with for having speedsters on screen is just not give anything that makes them cool to have on screen. the idea you bring up at the end could work but I think it would be quite difficult to convey to the audience. on top of that, anytime you need them at high speeds for a cool moment or story beat, you'd probably also need some way to show them work up to it. could get old real fast, but if you don't there's virtually no difference with speedsters as they're portrayed already.
I think the best solution is to have a speedster get progressively faster throughout a movie, starting out similar to dash, but by the end they just can’t be beat
Not really, Sonic is a great example. Along media, Sonic has to keep running, the more he runs the faster he is. That's why the best way to play Sonic games is to never stop moving.
@@fenrir639 they mostly just zoom off in an email instant But sonic is just One day he gains momentum The other he is already fast but can activate a faster mode And then he just zooms at the speed of light with no buildup
I like that idea about building up speed. I have another suggestion that can lend itself pretty well for internal conflict having an impact on the external conflict. Have the speedster ability be directly proportional to their ability to just focus on the moment. Achieving "time-stoping speed" only by being able to become entirely devoid of thought. The activation of their power would therefore require a little bit of time because they need to start focusing, letting go of more and more thought, and taking in more and more external stimuli to react to. If they meditate long enough, they reach a state in which they can just move at lightspeed and stop time, and therefore accomplish the task they focused on. This of course would make it so they can't really do the little funny things quicksilver in X-Men is doing. But it would allow for a flexible rule on how fast the character can go, and also how fast they are able to focus on what they need to achieve. It will depend on their state of mind, and therefore stuff can distract them, situations in their life can hinder their abilities.
Remember that scene when Omniman crushed Red Rush's head? In real time speed it would look like: Omniman making a quick clap, like he's trying to kill a mosquito, in one fluid motion. What we saw was the slowed down version.
I think quick silvers is acceptable because he isn't show to be really faster than a bullet, he is hit by one by a officer in sokovia But in general is very inconsistent in the movie
Some other ways to limit it. I love the ramp idea. It has so much potential. For the activated ability with super speed perception: 1. Have it require a cooldown. You could represent this with some kind of SFX. After they go back to regular speed, it takes some time for their powers to charge back up. During this time their powers are either diminished / require more concentration, or can't be used at all. That gives their opponents an opportunity to get them off guard and keep them down. This is my favourite. 2. Have it wear them out, so they can be worn down and eventually fall out of super speed 3. Have some kind of artefact of the speed power - the lightning from speedforce for example - get harder and harder to deal with so they have to come out of it to re-set. You could have all of these, or combine them in fun ways: - A speedster who can instantly ramp up their perception speed but it gets harder to keep it ramped and starts causing a chronic headache as they use it. Add to that a movement speed that also needs to ramp - so they can instantly to perceiving bullets moving fairly slowly, but they start out sluggish. As their build speed their ability to perceive that speed gets harder and harder. This headache and fatigue could last days after they've used it, giving the writers a way to have them be an absolute ace in the hole when they're well rested and haven't been using their powers, but have them slow and distracted if they're generally exhausted or have been using their powers a lot. - A speedster who needs to charge up at regular speed to use their power. The longer they charge, the faster / longer they can go for. So if they get surprised they can instantly jump to moderate speed, but only for a moment to deal with whatever surprised them - bullets are still a problem. From then on their opponent just needs to stop them charging. This one is great because if they get a moment reprieve they can go full power for a second to deal with some mooks, before having to come back out to re-charge and deal with the next problem. Once the pressure is off they can charge up for a few minutes and go god mode for a bit, dodging bullets and casually dealing with threats that were extremely serious a moment ago. Charging and holding the charge takes a lot of concentration though - and maybe creates noise and light making it useless if trying to hide - so if they're being beaten up or have to stay focused on the world around them it limits / negates their charging potential. This one is a bit more cartoony but it is easier to represent and stay somewhat consistent. Another option for all types is to have physics largely apply. If you poke someone at high speed, it'll break your finger. This one is probably better for a darker and or more serious tone.
It really doesn't. The fights SUCK ASS. Characters never use the powers they are established as having, the writer has them get beat up and then win in the end anyways via dumb deus ex machina. Take Star Platinum. It is supposed to be super fast and super strong and super accurate. But stands which aren't super strong or super fast or super accurate are still shown beating it with normal straight attacks which shouldn't be possible because Star Platinum is faster, stronger and more accurate.
I had always thought there was some sort of skill required to use a Stand well, which is why an inexperienced Jotaro would have a hard time winning, even with a buster stand
Started playing around with editing the video/music to work together, like at 0:14-0:16 time freezes and the gun fires on the beat, Dash and the bad guy's punches at 2:31, Genos's kick at 5:58, the teacher at 8:20, etc. Neat detail or not noticeable? Lemme know!
i think it's neat! just when you do it maybe make sure the bass can be heard like the kick at 5:58. btw I LOVE YOUR VIDEOS
5:58 was the only one I sort-of noticed, the rest I can see when I go back and look for them but they were too subtle for me to notice on the first watch (but that's not necessarily a bad thing, I think it still adds to the quality even if subconciously).
theyre cool going back to watch but like the other guy said just a little too subtle to notice on a normal watch. The first one I almost thought was a muted sound affect even so if you can raise the sound of the track just enough you can tell its an instrument in the song, maybe that would help? because the kick was really well done and i felt it was almost my fault for not seeing it
It’s awesome the kick at 5:58 made me smile while watching the first time. It’s hard to get feedback on things like this as when it’s well designed and flows, it captures an audience without them noticing. Really good video underrated. Only critique would be the clips used in the background while giving commentary were sometimes not really relevant.
So Kamen Rider Kabuto
What you described at the end is Kamen Rider Kabuto.
Like his Speed and Reaction is just as Fast but he has to save it for last so he is consistent power wise not to mention his enemies are just as fast as he is so they're at an even playing field.
Cue Flash saying, "There's nowhere to run!" Then getting beat up by people he should logically beat without issue.
Don't stop to talk
Don't stop to talk
Don't stop to talk
Don't stop to talk
Don't stop to talk
Don't stop to talk
Don't stop to talk
I understood that reference
I will never be able to read that sentence again without the Smash Bros theme starting to play in my head.
Legendary video
Madvocate!!
"We've never had a speeder have to build up speed like a car" There's a whole series of video games built around building up momentum and keeping it staring a blue hedgehog.
Sonic imo is one of the best examples of a speedster done right since it rarely ever feels like contrived bullshit when Eggman manages to genuinely challenge him due to all the tech he's able to create that's on par with Sonic's speed.
cinema
They have pretty much abandoned momentum based gameplay in modern Sonic
In all fairness, modern sonic has been shown multiple times to be able to go from a complete standstill to faster than sound or to faster than light, it's a shame but, sonic these days doesn't embody that concept anymore, he's more like the speedster from eternals, we are consistently shown just how fast he is and we even get to live it, but at no point does he just make everything slow mo around him (which is good) so we can still have tension in the story with Eggman and all that, if they ever do the slow-mo thing it's pretty much over for the remaining narrative stakes of the Sonic franchise
Boost formula:
Barry getting jumped is unbelievably funny 😭😭
Shoutout to Bays Talks who talks about this, check them out
Absolutely wild as hell. Like how tf did they even touch you
like that one scene in the justice league where green lantern got jumped
You mean by Darksied’s parademons? You are out of your mind those two are completely different like not even close.Those Darksied minions are fast and durable enough to exchange blows with Wonderwoman and Shazam. While Flash dude that can outrun omega beams and redirect bullets with his fingers is getting jumbed by a human who just has an ability to cloning himself. That’s like the flash losing a fight to street protesters
“Whoever you are, give yourselves up.”
*TAKE HIS LUNCH MONEY!*
i’m running a superhero ttrpg right now, and one of the characters in it is a speedster who operates according to SUPERHOT rules, as in her perception of time is only slow when she’s not moving. it feels like a great balance where she can go back and forth between being a perpetual speedster at lower speeds and simply fast at higher speeds, so there’s always a trade off.
Oooh what system are you running it in?
wait i never even thought of SUPERHOT when thinking about speedsters in my writing.. this is so cool!
@@alyx1a
It's basically the Shelock Holmes pit fighting scene, as a constant superpower.
Funny thing, what if they sleep? Does time go super slow because of their power or is it able to go normally by being turned off?
@@Jouvelinir
Seems like they would get the full rest in a short amount of "real time", since the mental aspects speed up when moving slowly.
YES! I'm so glad you spoke about this through the lens of *perceived* speed and *perceived* power differences. Way too often I hear people appealing to source materials that tell you "the enemy was just faster / predicted the speedster's movements / etc" instead of showing it. It's important that the audience feels like the defeat of the speedster is fair as they're watching the scene play out, rather than having them try to rationalize it after the fact.
Tbh I think a villain revealing out of nowhere that they can perceive that fast too works fine
Tho it’s the kind of thing you should literally only do once with one character at the literal MOST impactful moment it can happen at
And while you wouldn’t have to show signs of them perceiving at a speedsters level beforehand
You should mentally have it in your mind as a writer that they could. So that nothing they did beforehand contradicts that
Otherwise it falls back into that question of “if they did X at Y, why didn’t they see or do anything about W before
@@theradionicrevival8068 Oh yeah, that's true. An impactful reveal that has significance for the future of the story could definitely be a good place for it.
The source material tells you far more than that. This is why the source material is important because it answers all these questions in depth. Imagine a super hero movie with multiple heroes and villians that explained everyone power in depth right before they used it. That would be a 6 hour movie then you would complain about that. They literally show you that he has the ability, he didn't use it prior in the movie because there wasn't a speedster. Then when there was a speedster he used the power and that was the movie showing you that he has the ability. Lol js this seems pretty straight forward
@@QuickPickWithTheGeek If the audience feels that a movie fight was unsatisfying/unfair, i don't think it's right to imply their feelings are wrong, by waving them off with "well the source material answers it all". The movie will still feel painfully unsatisfying to them regardless of whether or not the comics do (if comics are indeed the source mat.) Unless you think that everyone should read the og comics before watching the movie, which is quite a silly expectation to have.
And, yes, as you said, the movie has to make certain sacrifices for the material to fit the format. Why not also make sacrifices and changes beyond just the runtime, and more to the characters themselves to make their interactions feel more fair to the expectations the movie sets?
Changes like:
-Nerfing the speedster or changing the nature of their power
-Leaving the speedster out of the movie entirely
-Actually thinking about how to set up a fight in a way in which the speedster could struggle or lose against a not-so-speedster, like restricting their movements in a narrow hallway, breaking the ground to throw them off balance, poisoning the air, fighting underwater or in the air, using force-fields, etc.
-Extending the fight and using more VFX to show wide-spread destruction from each impact from the opponent. That's quite a simple, flashy form of "show, don't tell" to make the audience feel like the speedster's struggle is fair. I mean, if every punch from the villain kicks up dust everywhere and creates a visible shock wave, i don't think people would be very disappointed to see him getting the upper hand in a fight.
That's, of course, ignoring that a lot of superhero media are long movie franchises and TV shows. So they absolutely have more than enough time to properly establish everyone's strengths and weaknesses before any big showdowns.
@ I never discounted any one’s feelings. What you just did is acted as if I attacked someone because I simply disagreed. (Must be a democrat) I attacked his logic not his feelings. Second the source materials MATTER whether people like it or not because these movies are not pandering to the casual fans. They are targeting hardcore fans, people who know the source material. This doesn’t mean the casual fan can’t enjoy the movies, but again even what you just asked for would extend the runtime. And if the movie studio nerf the speedsters powers for the casual fan to be able to understand. Then you get far more complaints from the targeted community because we know the source material, and are confused about why the flash can’t do something on screen that he does regularly in the comics. Again you are saying that you didn’t know this character had this power because the movie didn’t show you he could do this, but the movie is literally showing you he can do this through him doing it lol. These movies have source material that explains all to ask a movie to explain very detail of a super hero or villains powers is so extra. But you are entitled to your opinion because this is an opinion based topic there is no right or wrong answer here. But rather you like it or not the source material matter because then we don’t get silly questions that have answers that you just won’t accept because the movie didn’t break it down for you
What we also never see is speedsters with regular stamina. We always see scenes of speedsters running around the city or the world without getting tired (wich is usually part of their power) but having someone who can run really fast but just the same stretches as a regualr person would be a way to make them somewhat more down to earth and them tiring out from running would be a way to get them for an opponent
If someone with human stamina traveled at super speed for any length of time they would just die from exhaustion not unlike the story of the very first marathon runner.
There was a video on TH-cam about the flash and how a bunch of the other heroes talk about how much better it must be to travel around the earth easily or instantly read books. And Flash replies saying he has to run all of that, to him he’s just running at a normal pace, when he’s reading those books he has to read them over the course of hours or days for him.
@@shadowcat5591yes. The movement relative to him, is slow.
Relative for everyone else, it is fast.
Imagine, having to jog the distance across the atlantic ocean.
Everyone else is super impressed, having no idea how boring it was for you.
@@Dagrizzb Yea, that’s what I was saying
@@shadowcat5591 I believe you're thinking of the SolidJJ video "Super Speed is the worst Super Power".
The video never talks about the secondary powers that speedsters MUST HAVE for their speed powers to exist. You can't run at super speed unless you want water droplets and insects to become bullets. So they need super durability. Their super speed would destroy the world around them. Forget nerfing speedsters, the environmental effects are the #1 neglected by writers. How do they not create Mach speed booms around them all the time? This is why Flash's super speed is literally just "speed magic", bypassing all these limitations.
The Flash in particular is powered by the speed force which has been stated for decades to be an extra dimensional power source that can bend the laws of physics as it pleases (basically speed magic but at least there is an actual explanation unlike most other op speedsters). this still isn't an excuse for the dogwater writing the Flash is usually subjected to like having him show up and yap instead of instantly K.O'ing his enemies.
And yet he needs massive amounts of calories and can't get drunk because he processes alcohol too fast, even when moving at normal humans speed. That has always bothered me. Those aren't even proper weaknesses, they're just pointless annoyances. What, is the Speed Force just messing with him? Make up your minds, do you want his powers to work realistically or not?
I actually covered that in a previous video of mine talking about Megamind and Metroman! Maybe I should have brought it up again but I didn't wanna be repetitive 😅
New speedster idea one without durability his max speed it lightspeed but can't use it without hurting himself so hes only about as fast as a Olympic athlete
@ Though, kinda the point of superheroes is that they do amazing, blatantly unrealistic things that are impossible in real life. You know, they're power fantasies, which is why realistic downsides to their powers are typically handwaved or ignored. It might be interesting as a deconstruction but otherwise it's the sort of thing that simply takes the fun out of it.
That said, I do like the idea of a speedster who risks damaging their body if they really go all out and push themselves too hard, only more in a DBZ kaioken type of way.
7:24 I will defend this by saying that by the time Quicksilver noticed the bullet, it had already been shot through the glass he was standing on. So if he suddenly tries to avoid it, the glass is already broken so his foot would just pass through it. And since we’re shown that he doesn’t have impressive durability the fall was likely far enough to at the very least rattle him.
If he can move as fast as a bullet, air would be as thick as water, meaning he should be able to swim through the air. Not wanting to give your speedster the power of flight is possibly valid, though.
He's also only a bit fast. He's clearly shown to be outrun by a bullet in one of the clips in the video, lol. Honestly, the clips convinced me that the depiction of MCU Quicksilver was a pretty balanced speedster. He has super fast reflexes but he's only so fast, as shown by people shoot at him a lot.
@@annodomini2012 In the other hand, if air gave him the resistance required to be able to swim, he would not be able to move that fast without causing a sonic boom constantly so his super power (and flash) would also need to eliminate such air movement, making swimming in air impossible ;)
Possibly by allowing the power to make the air closest to him move at his reference frame and move around him, also allowing him to breathe, or actually move things without breaking them, the people moved just do not get the heightened perception to notice.
@@arsarma1808 He's stated to near the speed of light though 😹
Personally I had no problem with the fall, just the fact that all hawkeye did was put his foot on quicksilvers leg lol
I'd imagine once quicksilver recovers from the shock he could easily slip out with superspeed, and imo it wouldn't feel out of place for hawkeye to have prepared some sort of trap or snare to use instead of just standing there.
Superspeed would be so much weirder physically. Think what would happen if you'd move someone's arm to the side faster than a bullet. 0:49 Their arms would likely just disintegrate or explode where you'd touch them.
Yes, exactly. At such speeds, to speedster who is at such speed moving the same as in normal time speed, every organic being would feel like wet sand. His hands would just go through. No resistance. Just clean through. Did a 2 minute google research/calculations and his punch would actually be about 27 kilonewstons of force, taking in that he's at mach 10 (which is slow related to how fast they actually are) with average arm weight of 8 kilos. Regular human delivers 700 newtons of force when punching and that is taking into account whole body attempt to swing a punch. Here I just calculated the mass of arm at the speed.
Speedsters are just impossible to balance. They are practically gods.
Well yeah, I guess if you are moving faster than a bullet, but at the same speed Idk, I don't think so. Bullets are specially designed to penetrate and transfer energy, speed alone won't be enough, fairly certain plastic bullets or rubber bullets don't have the same effect.
End note: I don't think that just touching someone while moving faster than a bullet will kill them.
@@sermerlin1 Exactly. Also, they themselves and their pants would have to consist of super strong, super stiff materials, in order not to disintegrate, light on fire and/or flop around themselves.
@@Geuelthefool Take a look at some slow motion water jet cutting, hydraulic injection or ballistics footage of unusual objects. I'm sure somewhere on TH-cam, someone fired a baseball or something similar at a piece of ballistics gel at ungodly speeds.
@GijsdeRue yep... like they'd have to be running naked actually when I started thinking deeply about it. Clothes they wear would instantly disintegrate...
But we can say they themselves and their organs survive because their body is super strong due to the power itself...
I mean the more I think about it it's like the more impossible I realize they are to match anyone against them.
Such an underrated channel it’s appalling to see you with less than 100k subscribers minimum. These film analysis videos have inspired me to write characters again. Your insight and perspective is really helpful!
3:16 I love how the simply fast category is basically driving a car, you go fast but its almost like its not you moving fast its just your body
true, and an even cooler way to think about it is that we're moving fast but our perception of time can only seemingly keep up with how fast we're moving due to the distance of what we're able to see. like i can make the sudden decision to move out of the way of something i can see happening a good distance away from me. tho im sure if that "something" was obviously happening right in my face it'd be a lot different. i feel like that phenomenon should be able to be taken into account even more with these conversations of speedsters.
@@RegReg02 My brain hurts trying to comprehend these comments. Good on you guys, y’all are way smarter than I am 😅
bro this vid is literally just from the channel Bay Talks, he just covered everything he said with the same clips too, ur better off checking Bay Talks, the original source
@@XxHarambexXi think it might be the way they’re explaining it
*Massive spoilers for Jojo part 6*
Pucci from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is probably the best execution of a perpetual speedster that I've ever seen. Near the end of the series, he gains the ability to move in sped up time. We see that his perception is as fast as he is, and this makes him incredibly dangerous - in fact, the first thing he does with this speed is kill the majority of the heroes fighting him. He's only defeated when the last hero manages to lure him into a small room, which he then floods with pure oxygen. This starts poisoning them both, but since Pucci is moving and breathing much faster, he's paralyzed almost instantly, while the hero stays conscious long enough to finish him off. I've never seen a more logical method used to defeat a speedster.
using speed (or sometime it even works on time manipulation) agaisnt speedsters is something that could be used more and with tech savy antagosints some kind of toxins or disease that takes some time to show up but then quickly overpowers its victim could take out speedster in minutes if not seconds depending on how much faster they operate
Not only that, but the Dolphin Escape scene also shows Pucci getting tired after constantly speeding around. Jolyne even mentions it when Pucci couldn't keep up with a dolphin with his increasing speed, which was a nice touch.
Manga does this so much more effectively than the anime just wanna say.
Genuinely felt fear from how untouchable he was depicted, real blink and you’ll miss him stuff, whereas the anime has him going round and round the characters so they can get their dialogue out…and it ends up looking somewhat silly and cheap. It hurts but I think I gotta say it.
@@OfLanceTheLonginus
I was gonna say. It seemed like he was also a victim of bad speedster writing in the anime.
A perpetual speedster would instantly die (from our perspective) of old age.
Another weakness that speedsters could(should) have is stamina. The difficulty in sprinting, for example, is maintaining that high speed for more than a brief burst is because of the strain and energy loss; that and a lack of handling is part of why the cheetah isn't an apex predator. The most I've seen is the Flash having to eat much more than usual to keep his energy up, but I can't recall the last time a speedster's stamina was used as a consistent limiter to maintain dramatic tension.
Wally West in young justice is constantly eating throughout season 1 when he was transporting the heart of princess he exerted himself stopping it from being stolen and he ended up ER.
One Piece did it kinda but it's not been brought up much. Not so much with a "speedster" but with a powered up state Luffy used.
When in Gear Second he increases the blood flow around his rubbery body to get to his muscles much faster by using his legs like a pump. This allowed him to close the speed gap with an opponent who was able to move much faster than him naturally. He eventually won the fight but collapsed absolutely exhausted and he wasn't able to move at all until he got fed again, because he burned so many calories fighting with a higher body temperature and speed for so long.
Unfortunately this drawback to Gear Second was never really brought up again even though I think it's such a cool aspect of the ability. Most power ups in anime come from characters tapping into some hidden energy/ki/chi to buff themselves but Luffy was basically forcing his body to perform above it's normal capabilities in an unconventional way that was effective but obviously risky if done for too long.
I think Taskmaster in Marvel comics has done a similar thing before where his adaptive muscle memory allowed him to copy the movements of an Olympic sprinter at superspeed when he fast forwarded the video. However since he naturally shouldn't be able to push himself that hard he was absolutely physically drained from doing it.
Age of Ultron QS actually gets tired
A train from The Boys. Run too much and die from heart attack
As mentioned. They specifically show QS in AoU getting winded after running.
Imo, one of the best versions of a speedster. Better than Dofp.
thank you for this vid! I always knew the speedster situation was really weird but couldnt really put it into words, this vid describes it perfectly
Dang, superb video. Concise, descriptive, presents a bunch of great ideas and examples. The concept of having to "rev up" is actually a superb nuance to this sort of power that could keep things fresh very well.
I love that you brought up One Punch Man - I feel like anime has loads of examples of this "perception of power" (both well done and poorly done) and how it can enrich or hollow out a narrative.
The discussion of perpetual speedsters also reminded me of AI, actually. In sci-fi, intelligent AIs are often written like this, having hours to think for every second of real time. Their limitations are instead in how quickly or slowly their machinery/physical bodies can react. A superb example of this is Murderbot from the Murderbot Diaries. It IS faster than a human, cognitively and physically, but is still slow enough that it can often see danger coming and just not be able to do anything about it.
as far as i’m aware the flash in comics is actually a perpetual speedster that slows down perception to not go crazy, causing lapses in attention that cause them to make mistakes and be defeatable to the rogues. maybe they could toy with this idea too
Or make his calorie consumption a more persistent threat.
@@GeorgeDCowley idk its just not that compelling. “Oh no im too hungy…” *dies*
Rogues?
@ His general roster of enemies.
@ More like "I'm burning out, do I get a drink, or pressure Snart?"
Quicksilver vs Apocalypse example is really interesting because they did similar thing with Justice League Snyder cut
I remember in Snyder Cut when they tried to stop Superman and during the slow mo, Superman keep staring at the Flash and it's really great moment
the difference is that we're aware how fast Superman could go
I'm pretty sure that was in the regular cut as well
I mean yeah but I don’t think we were shown supe’s reaction speed prior to that moment.
I'd say that we have seen this adaptive ability from Apocalypse, when he is learning from the tv it looks the same, so it would be like he is learning to deal with Quicksilver's speed and can eventually catch his foot, I'm not saying it is well and clearly shown, but I understood it that way, we have seen this adaptive ability, but to learn info, not to fight
@@lyh3815Solid point honestly. As you said it's not really good enough since it takes a bit of thinking to connect those dots, but they could've expanded on it to make it clearer just how quickly he can take in information.
@@yfrit_gg Agreed, have him observe someone firing a gun in some unrelated happening he just observes and he focuses on the bullet and his perception speeds up to follow it, and we know he has the ability to perceive at speed, but he lacks the ability to move fast, but we then in the end game finds out he can use his faster perception and mind to use the telekinesis to deal with quicksilver.
There's this one "Simply Fast" type speedster from a weird manga(forgot the name) that left quite the impression on me.
His powers is just super speed, but regular durability. So even running into tiny debris or tripping and falling at superspeed would turn him into paste. This also makes it that he can't punch or kick without turning his limbs into slushies.
So how does he attack?
By bringing around a rock or brick and letting it go while in superspeed, acting like a catapult.
It's simple, and makes his character incredibly fragile yet also dangerous.
I need to watch this anime
@phyzeek900 It's from a manga, and iirc the character didn't last long, probably only a chapter.
But it was one of the times where it made sense about Speedsters and that made me think "huh, having these vulnerabilities makes sense for Speedsters" and also made me scrutinize other speedsters.
I love that idea, it sounds so much more creative than the magic slop that all these movies make up
How fast is he usually said to go? I like this idea a lot but air friction is unfortunately a huge factor
Asked about it...
Its
Just in ch 5
Videos like this is why I love youtube. Great job and analysis on this video.🔥🔥🔥🔥
Much appreciated take on Speedsters. You highlighted a number of different situations/issues that always bothered me with speedsters, especially once we've been shown that speedsters are experiencing time in slow-motion (at least part of the time), only to... get hit by a punch thrown at normal speeds, or shot by a bullet after they've been able to poke them around without issue previously.
In addition to your suggestion of speedsters needing to 'ramp up' to achieve top speeds, there are other ideas that could potentially work. Worm - a web novel - contains a speedster that is able to exert less force on the world the faster he goes, which physics-ally doesn't make much sense, but is an interesting way of ensuring a speedster isn't the most powerful being (because honestly, they should be in any/every genre they appear in).
I love Bays Talks about speedsters!! Shoutout to that channel
Your closing idea for a character who has to ramp up to their top speed is honestly fantastic. Genuinely, it fixes a lot of problems and gives you everything cool a speedster can do without making them completely unbeatable.
One of the later Dune books (maybe Dune: Chapterhouse?) had something like this, where the character (Basher? I dunno, read it years ago) kinda ramped up. Unfortunately that also included his metabolism, and so while he was able to get years of work done repairing the ship that was damaged, he also LIVED those years, so when he came out of his hyperspeed, his white-haired, wizened body just dropped dead. But still a cool idea.
I think one of the best depictions of super-speed was in The Matrix Reloaded. When Neo is flying through the city to catch Trinity, he's literally dragging all the cars and debris along in his wake. When he slows, all that debris continues in a massive bow wave that would have so much destructive force. If that principle was kept for speedsters it would make their use of powers much more deadly and a higher consideration. No stopping instantly or you take out a city block, no running full speed past people or you catch them in your wave and drag them with you. I'd like to see more speedsters done like this.
Hahaha speedster's ability is property damage, love it.
Flash in the comics could pull people along in his wake or slipstream, at least he used to in the Silver Age. Very useful for him to transport the bad guys to jail. I suppose someone finally wised up and figured if his aura keep air friction from affecting him, then how is he generating a wake and how fast would he have to be going to suck someone behind him and why isn’t he sucking in everything behind him?
The part in Invincible where Nolan is in that other dimension and destroys an entire civilization just by flying through stuff was pretty good too.
The flash literally does this. Watch the CW Flash's Intro Theme and see him blasting cars on the road as he runs past them.
@@DoubleYouDotTrumpI believe he was causing the air to catch on fire due to friction, right?
Another cool weakness for a speedster is having them be as powerful as comic Flash, but the more they use their superspeed, the more their body burns away due to friction and the amount of energy they use. While they can have a fast regenerative system, this makes their powerset a double-edged sword that could kill them if they use it too much.
Right. In the comics when Flash approaches light speed his body begins to deteriorate and he becomes pure energy as physical objects cannot exist in the state due to the forces exerted upon it's body.
And yet Wally beat the speed of light in a race when he raced against an alien who could instantly transport across the universe. Wally won the race. Meaning he was going way beyond lightspeed.
TBF, most super speedsters tend to be immune to friction to some extent, hence why they don't burst into flames
This is kind of tangential but in one my fave web serials at the minute, the protagonist has to run for days to get to safety from a natural disaster, and takes a stim that helps him ignore the pain. By the end, his feet are torn to shreds, he can barely function, a living zombie pushing through his will to survive and save someone. Its a genuinely harrowing sequence. That's kind of how I'd imagine that.
90's TV Flash had to wear his suit due to wind burn. Don't ask about the uncovered mouth and chin.
great breakdown of the powers, and it's obvious that you have a passion here. loved it
8:40 *if we never know how. Also I just wanna say good on u for including the immortals speedster. She’s genuinely been the best live action one I’ve ever seen.
* eternals not immortals 😑
One thing I wish movies with speedsters focused more on is the holes in their ability to use superspeed, because personally I think Quicksilver's death in Avengers: Age of Ultron makes perfect sense, it just isn't shown well enough. He's shown noticing a bullet once earlier in the movie, but that's only because it happens to go right in front of him. If it had been behind him, he might not have noticed it at all, because even though his perception being quicker means he'll notice more things it doesn't mean he'll notice EVERYTHING. In the heat of a battle, can you imagine trying to pinpoint exactly where every single tiny little bullet is as you're rushing through the battlefield, trying to avoid them all? It would be downright impossible.
Now, when considering his death scene, we see that Hawkeye and the kid he's protecting are about to be shot, literally moments away. Imagine Quicksilver rushing towards them, seeing all those bullets raining down upon them, instants away from them. He COULD try to be careful and avoid every single one, but then Hawkeye and the kid would surely die. So he opts to just speed through it, knowing he'll get hit, there was no way to avoid it. That's probably why he wasn't surprised at all by the fact he was riddled with holes, he accepted it and fell to the ground.
I wish they'd shown something like this from his perspective when he's making this decision, I think it would've made people understand how it could've happened and made his sacrifice more emotional.
holy shit! that would have been an amazing scene
way too smart and touching for a marvel movie LMAO
The faster you're moving, the greater the "effective density" of the particle field that you're moving through.
At 400ish meter/second air feels like concrete and you're churning up a whole lot of it.
Eh. Bullets aren't like, HUGE, but they're not even as small as a fly, and I notice flies and junk all the time. The human eye is PHENOMENAL at picking out motion, even incredibly subtle motion. Bullets are ALSO only especially lethal because they impart kinetic energy which causes internal damage (even imparting enough to break the skin and lodge in our flesh suits/punch out the other side, depending, which causes assorted leaks of things that are meant to stay inside.)
A speedster should be able to spot these bullets and move around them, as we see Quicksilver do in the one scene where he nudges them out of the way because he's moving so fast the bullets have comparatively VERY little kinetic energy, and thus next to no ability to harm him. Compare it to a car crash for a moment, if you will. If two cars are in a head-on collision it's often more damaging than if one car was parked, as their respective forward momentum imparts all that kinetic energy on the other car, and vice versa. That IS a good point to bring up... but what's happening here is more like the car Quicksilver is running into is parked.
@@michaelmarsh1723 if you're moving SO fast that a speeding bullet looks like it's just hanging in the air, then your field of view would narrow in front of you and colors would blue shift. Pushing the air out of your way would feel like swimming in liquid concrete and you don't actually have any traction with the ground when you're running at Mach III
@@DoubleYouDotTrump I hadn't considered moving super-quick and being unable to see because of the travel time of light and such. Props to you for bringing that up!
I will say though that the speed of a bullet is NOWHERE near the speed of light, there's a lot of room in the middle there. I'm not sure how much faster you'd have to be moving than the bullet, but I assume it's in the neighborhood of moving magnitudes of speed faster?
Light moves at 983,571,056 feet/second through a vacuum, not sure how that changes in-atmosphere. Bullets are usually sub-5,000 feet/second of velocity at the muzzle, slowing down the further they travel. We'll simplify and assume max velocity. I *feel* like you can be moving at sub-light speed and still be moving significantly faster than the bullets, thus making them look 'motionless' to your perspective?
I think the best route to take when making a speedster is to make them fast, but not "light speed" or whatever. A character can be a speedster simply by being faster than most characters in their world. This is why characters like Dash work well. He's (just guessing) moving at 200+ mph, which is still ridiculously fast, but not so fast that it's unreasonable to see them being stumped or defeated by someone.
In the movie, Dash says "you couldn't even see it on the tape". That means he ran to the desk, placed the object, and ran back to his seat in less time than it took the camera to record one frame.
We don't know the camera's frame rate of course, but if we assume 30 fps for a crappy CCTV installed in a public school, then he accomplished this in less than 1/30th of a second. Suppose it's 15 feet from his seat to the desk, so the round trip is 30 feet. 30 feet per 1/30 second = 900 feet per second, which about 600 mph.
That's a lot of estimation and guessing, of course, but bear in mind he had to accelerate to the desk, decelerate at the desk, place the object, accelerate to his seat, and decelerate at his seat. So even if we lowball the numbers, what's really impressive here is his ability to generate huge amounts of force, as well as his perfect control (he didn't disturb any objects he didn't intend to interact with, to the point that it was nearly impossible to tell he had moved at all).
@@mnmnrt Except if you watch the movie, you clearly can see it on the tape.
@@fishworshipper ".... There!"
@@fishworshipper Hardly.
@@fishworshipper "clearly" it lasts for like a singular frame, if that even
The superhero webserial Worm has a few characters with super speed, but they all have some weakness that makes their powers more interesting.
The faster Velocity goes, the less mass he has and the less he can influence the world, so he could be punching you ten times per second but his punches would have the strenght of a toddler.
Battery needs to charge her super speed before using it, and to do this she has to stay still and concentrate.
Chuckles has super strenght on his torso and arms, and super speed on his legs and head, and he can never turn It off, which ended up making him go completely crazy from having the world move so slow around him.
Legend's main power is shooting lasers, but he can also fly incredibly fast, which he does by "partially turning his body into light" has he accelerates. This means he can't turn on his super speed at full power instantly, making It so he can mostly just use It to travel. Also the faster he goes the less conscious he is, which helps him travel long distances without getting bored or crashing into things, but also keeps Im from trying to reach his full speed because he is scared of what might happen.
Worm is fantastic in this regard, because it actually gives proper thought to 'what is required to stop this power from being completely broken' and gives good answers.
Of course, a better story would simply explore what happens if a speedster was fully broken.
@mnmnrt I don't know about 'better', as Worm is a fantastic story, but Megamind has a fully broken speedster, and it turns out that the reason he doesn't win every fight in a microsecond is because he's just putting on a show and enjoying himself.
@@mnmnrt I mean, the thing is that if Worm explored that It wouldnt be able to explore all the deep themes It does, and would instead have to focus on that speedster and their lives, so It would be a fundamentally different story. Yeah, It could be better, but It could also be worse, the thing that really matters is who writes it and how. Even if Wildbow could write a good story about a really powerful speedster(Which he probably could since this man is good at writting almost anything), that just isn't the story he wanted to tell
Of course it would. You can explore as many themes as you want.
Love how even when the flash is running through the city he can still talk to everyone at star labs 😂
Thank you SO MUCH for this take. I have honestly gotten burned out on people saying that speedsters just _can't_ be interesting because of specific flawed examples. I think that, in the same way that a character's powers can become unwieldy in a story if the writer isn't creative, writing off an entire subset of superpowers as inherently "bad" or "uninteresting" shows just as much of a lack in creativity. Some writing is flawed; that doesn't mean that those topics should never be written about.
I think A-Train would count as "simply fast" because he doesn't seem to perceive time slower, which is why the first season is based around him accidentally hitting a pedestrian that steps into the street... something that he would have ages to react to if his perception of time was in line with his speed.
He doesn't hit her just because he can't react to her being there, otherwise he'd be hitting cars all over the place. He's souped up on a fresh dose of Compound V and is losing his mind.
A-Train was well balanced in general, because he simply wasn't too powerful.
Kimiko wrecks his leg effortlessly, showing that he's not in the higher tiers of supe durability.
His heart problems in seasons 2-3 would have balanced him if he'd been OP. As it was, they were good for his character arc
A-train has fast perception though. That's how he dodged light blasts. But it does seem like he has to turn on his powers
You can literally see him in slow-mo against Star, also it's revealed that it wasn't an accident killing Robin. He intended to kill her.
@@elqueatiendeboludos1616 where was that ever revealed? enlighten me because i genuinely don't remember that ever being said. in the scene itself of him running into Robin he even stops and looks around like he has no clue what just happened and keeps saying "I can't stop, i can't stop" implying he has somewhere he needs to be thats much more important than dealing with the person he just accidentally obliterated. Even him being forgiven by Hughie wouldn't make sense if he did it on purpose. Part of the whole reason Hughie had his vendetta with A-Train is because not only did he run into Robin but he was also clearly not taking it seriously. If it was indeed intentional then all the writing surrounding the situation just makes no sense now, nor does A-Train's redemption arc hold any real weight anymore.
An idea I had about speedsters is that if they are moving at such insane speeds, they would need something to attach them to the ground.
Or Barry has the weakness of needing a insane amount of calories, otherwise he’d pass out
@@Derp-rz1nn But seriously. If a character can run on a wall, gravity affects them slower, therefore they would have a ton of trouble trying to move.
@@bobboland8505 depends on the kind of speedster, DC speedsters have the speed force, which basically fixes any physics issues when they run so fast
@@Derp-rz1nn Yeah magic does fix that.
Yep. Have fun literally flying off the planet every time you go past mach 30 .
I dream of a day where we get a movie with a lightspeed speedster, and have him written as a horror movie villain, where we *never* see the world from his eyes, and always from others, so one second you're chilling with your bros, and the next you're in prison
Could drag physics into it too.
You're sitting in a park in a populated city. Everyone's minding their own business, when suddenly a wave of sound rushes down mainstream and a funnel of debris fling from the ruptured sound barrier a few miles away. Everyone starts panicking and heading towards their vehicles when the entity rushes right through the park, followed by a ripple of force pressure flinging everything aside as they zip past with an ungodly amount of noise following.
The speedster casually running around the city would constantly break the sound barrier and tear through the land like they're a tornado moving faster than the speed of sound.
@@williamfalls didn't invincible have a scene like this?
but with light speed it was likr a trail of atomic bombs left in their wake
Not a villain or a movie.
But flash is way faster than light and there are plenty of stories from the perspective of villains trying to fight him (even the very scenario you mentioned happened in one comic where villains were talking about which city is the worst to try and do villainy in)
I never read it, but I remember hearing about a story of the Flash when he decided he wanted to stop all evil and wrong doing throughout the planet, so he was constantly running around faster than light, stopping accidents and crimes before they could even happen. He was basically omnipotent and omnipresent, but it meant invading everyone's privacy and having him watch every person on the planet 24/7.
@sbcguitarist he wasn't omnipotent.
Omnipotent means all powerful. And flash is far from that
Great vid, I've only thought about this topic in the context of Metro-Man, but it's so interesting learning how prevalently overpowered it is when used in other things.
Another plausible implementation weakness is the same as what the fastest lifeform on earth has. There is a desert beetle that jumps so fast (like 200 mph iirc) that it actually can’t see anything. It has to pause between each jump so it can reassess where it needs to go.
Peregrine falcons cam reach speeds near 300mph, and strike with the talons in a punching motion to catch things off gayrd, but have funnel vision when they do it. It's crazy to think living things can move that fast.
I'm so happy you showed Dash Parr. He's by far my favorite speedster ever.
SAME, my only complaint is when he's running through the jungle and approaching the ocean. He closes his eyes while running, and opens his eyes again after seeing he can run on water. Then proceeds to SPEED UP even faster than he was running lol. Like just blast off full speed, but I understand he couldn't go as fast as he could because of needing to dodge obstacles
Okay so why does it bother you when you literally explain why he couldn't "blast off full speed" in the very next sentence?
@Ten_Thousand_Locusts before he couldn't run full speed while running in the jungle. When he gets to the water, there were far less obstacles in the way
@@elijahhollamon704 he knows that he's just wondering why it bothers you if you can tell why it's a grounded approach 😭
@maizjsj I was upset because he was worried about the water, and then sped up faster than he was already running when he saw he could run on the water. Like just go faster to try to run on the water to begin with I guess. Just a small gripe lol
Makkari is the best live action speedster that I've seen, HANDS DOWN. Such cool uses of power, awesome characterization, stunning visuals.
I thought that movie was an absolute waste of potential and just not very entertaining. However, I 100% think Makkari's action scenes have better reflected how to do a speedster well than any other, than any Flash or Quicksilver. It's not just the visuals, it's the sound design as well.
Mmhhh... I think I'll give it a try just for that.
In an anime named Charlotte there’s a speedster who has no extended super power other than super speed, no speedster reaction or durability. Because of this he has to plan where he wants to go BEFORE moving at high speeds to try to guarantee a safe landing spot as he can’t just turn or perceive things at a slower rate mid burst. Makes him a very down to earth guy, shoutout Jojiro
he is more like a jet, but with just a regular human body
is it the guy with the glasses that handes over something to the MC later down the road? If so, I'm pretty sure the MC clarified that his ability wasn't super speed, it's just short distance teleportation
@ It’s ironically the opposite. Jujiro is capable of charging up speed to move very fast in one burst, but he can’t control it. Hence why he always moves in a straight line and has to plot out his path. It looks like teleportation but he explains to the MC that’s why he’s always hurt when he uses his ability, because he crashes into shit being unable to slow down
This reminds me of how on the flash tv show they would say hes the fastest but he cant even stop something as slow then losses his speed its craziness when the flash should always be fast regardless 😂
Honestly, I belief freezing time, invisibility, mind control, untraceable DNA, and x ray vision are really good contenders.
CW flash is so inconsistent, at one episode in season 3 they show him experiencing time in slow-motion 1:52 as he waits for 6 pm to go to date with iris, and that scene makes him a perpatual speedster but other times he suddenly just forgets that he's a speedster and can do things faster than others
No? That just means he was using his speed lol
@@Microwaved_Water1 Why would you intentionally make 6 hours feel longer?
There's an episode where Barry can move so fast he made a nuclear explosion stand still, while he ran all over the city talking to everybody he knew (using a new power where he could make anybody he's touching move as fast as him) to try to figure out how to stop that explosion before it destroyed the city. The idea that anyone who wasn't a speedster could beat him became really really ludicrous after that episode and it was already really ludicrous before then.
@@immortalfriezaLet’s not forget that apparently he wasn’t even at his top speed since he used super speed in flash time
@ The Speed Force is essentially this thing that gives Speedsters whatever powers and level of power that is needed to make the plot continue. Rather than writing the plots around the powers, they write the powers around the plots, hence just giving Barry whatever powers he needs to solve the current problem and then they usually go away.
I think Worm has some of the coolest speedster ideas.
Battery needs to charge(basically take 10 seconds or so to focus her power), but once charged she gets to use the charge to be faster(the world moves slower), super strength, and some weakish electrical powers.
Velocity on the other hand can move much, much faster, but the faster he moves the harder it is to change the world around him(so things feel heavier/harder to move, punching people is like punching solid metal, etc), leaving his power mostly useful for scouting, running away, and distracting people(because they can't touch him).
why are there so many worm comments (by so many I mean 2)
@@cristianpereyra6912 Because it has a very wide variety of powers that are nerfed in interesting ways (That could be easily applicable to film / animation in that they are balanced and have the chance for 'cool' moments) that the video doesn't cover, basically. Fan fictions are also extremely prevalent with further expansion of ideas.
Using Velocity as a further example (and I'll admit this is mostly from fanfic info since I haven't read the actual serial in a very long time), a major issue he has to deal with is that as a consequence of how he is less able to act on the world, the weight of his clothing is a severe handicap: He also has to physically run, in superspeed / dilated time, to each location. Including in winter. In a spandex costume designed to be as light as possible as anything heavier affects his top speed massively. It gets cold.
@@shawnrose6957 yeah but worm is very niche that's my point, I'm surprised to find so many references to it out in the wild
I think it should be noted that The Flash would fall into the category of perpetual speedster. The comics touch on the topic a bit, but Barry Allen does view the world in slow motion at all times, and is actually where the concept originally came from. The visuals shown in the Flash media where time suddenly slows to a crawl is just letting the audience view the world through the lens of the speedster, whereas they are typically being viewed from an outside perspective
Well it's about time someone pointed this out... in yet another video on the exact same subject.
Your solution is not only elegant but gives everybody what they want. It also allows for a character to react fast without shorting out their brain (as it realistically would to have high brain function at all times) and would allow for character growth by way of the speedsters "rev up" time getting shorter through training. Great video essay by the way!
I personally love the slowly speeding up like you would accelerate in a car, the speed is gradually attained rather than instantaneous. I really like that!
Xmen quicksilver is literally THE GOAT. Hope a person that's gonna make a movie about a speedster watches this cause gosh the flash ain't it. That Idea is actually top tier, I had similar one too during my speedster phase.
The flash is it, of course.
Many speedsters rarely explain the source of their immense energy. At least the Flash attributes it to the Speed Force, though he still needs to consume massive calories to fuel his accelerated metabolism. However, if his metabolism is sped up, wouldn’t that cause his body to age faster due to his biological processes running at an increased rate?
A good way to nerf super-speed characters is to impose a cost. For instance, Quicksilver might not always "freeze time" because maintaining such hyperfocus could exhaust him. Processing vast amounts of information in such a short time would likely overwhelm and strain his brain.
Problem is the speedforce is the most hand wavey bs thing in fiction. It just does whatever is needed at the moment at any given time.
@@andrewboyer7544
The hand wavey element is fine, it's needed to hand wave all the physics implications with going these kinds of speeds. Any fast speedster benefits from just hand waving all of that as it's just not worth trying to come up with individually plausible explanations.
Flash's problem is that neither him nor the speed force have a consistent weakness. Speed makes him a Superman level character, without a strong enough weakness. If he needs the speed force to avoid resistances and to facilitate his reflexes, then that needs to be a small pool of energy. He's still fast when that energy runs out, but now he cant percieve fast enough and has to deal with friction. So, he needs to adapt his tactics when he runs out. If a villian can prolong a battle then they'll be fighting a flash with different tactics by the end. A limited pool also means he can't be everywhere without constantly showing up to battles already on empty, so villian teams and large scale events become a weakness.
The writers just let him get out of hand with power creep, without developing a compelling weakness.
@WACC_Warlord so any time he loses it doesn't make sense, but it's because the levels of speed he has just shouldn't be written. You can't give a big enough weakness.
This video is right, best thing you can do is make them not so fast. Quicksilver in the comics is about as fast as makes any sense from a writing standpoint. Super speed is just too broken and the speed force just makes it worse by justifying light speed as an option.
But he isn't processing any more information. He's seeing the same thing we do, just slower.
he actually ages slower, because his fast metabolism can deal better with free radicals
Amazing ideas man! Love this ❤
Couldn't find it mentioned in the comments, and I know it wasn't super popular, but Top Bull Sparx aka Unstoppable, from Undead Unluck, has the ramping speed effect that you mention at the end of the video. He starts running normally and every time he attempts to stop, his speed doubles, the only way for him to stop, at least in the first 3/4ths of the series, is for him to break a bone. He also can not change direction once he starts, only moving forward. Towards the end of the series, his stop condition changes and his top speed surpasses lightspeed, but his directional limitation never alters.
9:50 undeadxunluck's unstoppable is probably the current best example
That's what I thought when I watched this vid lol
I have a Super Speed character who's entire power is that the more he focuses the faster his perception is and thus his body reacts with it basically making his powers entirely tied to his perception of time and motion but also focus.
So any distraction and he resets back to normal :)
@davidmartensson273 that or if anything blocks his senses he is SoL
cringe.
@@mnmnrt why?
Top/Unstoppable from Undead Unluck is kinda like this. His ability makes him accelerate every time he acts with the intention of stopping. His speed is near instantaneous at short distances and he can build it up over time. He uses this to do a kind of infinite mass punch type move a little later on in the story. It only stops working when some sort of change happens to the state of his body, and he’s not extremely durable or anything while he’s using it.
Agents of Shield (a show with fun parts which regardless I don't recommend) had a delightful speedster coined as Yo-Yo Rodriguez. She could move so fast that you couldn't even see her move unless you were looking directly at her, but could only travel for an amount of time equal to one of her heartbeats before snapping back to her original position, so she could only move a few meters in a back-and-forth yo-yo motion.
Very cool premise, very cool limitation, very cool execution.
Yo-Yo Rogriguez was so powerful that she was conveniently never in the same room as any villain in the entire series, so she rarely got to do anything despite being a main character.
Was hoping to see you break down Superman watching Flash in The Justice League... the scene where they are all fighting Superman. For no reason other than I LOVE that scene xD - good video
Thanks
Wow! First ever donation on this channel, much thanks, I really appreciate that!
8:34 to be fair, the shots from that GAU-8 Avenger(the minigun) are 2.5 times faster than the shots from a 9mm handgun, and the GAU-8 Avgenger fires 65 shots per second.
I’m glad you mention this because nobody talks about that, people see a speedster dodge a bullet of a handgun and put a number on it and then apply that number to any scene with bullets in it regardless of if it came from a high powered rifle or Machine gun. When in scenes like that there the speed feat would need to be several times faster.
@@JoeBobTalks just like how the movies can’t assume the audience knows about the comics, they can’t assume the audience knows about guns. It’s a flaw in the writing to put it on audiences to figure out why he was able to get shot in that situation
Yeah, so they'd be moving at 2.5 mm per second instead of 1 mm per second from his perspective.
The problem is not the bullet or the guns. It's his positioning. Why did he go back _retracing his steps_ to the left after carrying Hawkeye and the civilian to the right (cover)? There's no reason.
@@ultimaxkom8728 he pushed the car infront of them. He didn't push them behind the car. So he was behind the car/out of cover. Still stupid though and now even make less sense because that means the gun was shooting like 2 feet to their left and they weren't going to get shot in the first place.
I also wanna say, you can have moments that show a speedster having inconsistent moments of equivalent reactions make sense.
A speedster like Dash from incredibles in incredible stressful situations push his limits including his reactions. Adrenaline already does this to normal people.
In fact it would actually help explain how he even survived the situation of tbeing chased by those hover pilots. Its not like prior to this we seen the kid use his powers to such a prolonged situation
Also one of my Ideas:
What about a Speedster-Thinker? He can slow his perception time down, but his body is just as fast as anyone else. Would look like super instinct but the character just perceives quick or can think of a whole plan on the spot.
He can be defeated by a more experienced enemy, feint attacks and the inner monologues can also be entertaining.
So Like in Sherlock Holmes fighting (Robert Downey Jr.?)
@@TheUncomfortable Uh, good example! I liked that Scene!
This is what Zinc Feruchemists do in mistborn. They can store mental speed (purposefully think slowly for a period of time) than cash in that stored energy later for a burst of mental speed
Like, Spidey Sense?
@ No
That ramp up idea is cool, I'd definitely like to see that.
100 % man, it's the biggest thing that actually bug the crap out of me whenever watching a movie or TV show with a Speedster in it. You have articulated this point of view spectacularly, well done,great video.
One fun take on it is Velocity from Worm. Where the faster he goes the less he can interact with the world around him, to the point at his top speed he can't even knock over a paper cup. So when fighting he has to balance going fast enough to outmaneuver his opponent with going slow enough that his attacks have a meaningful effect.
Worm mentioned!🗣🗣🗣
Also legend, who can go at (he thinks) the speed of light, but only after a long ramp up, and he becomes less conscious the faster he goes.
So he's usually just fast, if he has to go around the world he can, but it's not ridiculous.
Also chuckles, who is a perpetual speedster, for whom physics applies, and it drove him insane.
WORM MENTIONED
Fastest man alive punches bad guy in REGULAR SPEED.
Honestly man, the script writers for The Flash deserve a promotion...
The Flash tv series? You are buggin.
Madvocate Approves Of This Message.
@@yasuke8687 sarcasm. hope that helps 👍
no surprise that show is dumb..they show flash can send person who can control lightning to metahuman prison before he can react ..yet another time they show he struggle against guy with ice guy that show beam that slower that bullet .or he just lost a person when they just get few seconds head start .
“There’s nowhere to run!”
Absolutely love the idea of acceleration becoming a factor! Especially as it could lead up to an interesting subversion in the usual superpower match-off. They could fight an enemy that starts at max speed but gets slower the longer the fight goes on, making it an underdog fight as well as matching superpowers.
This poses a problem unless they remain traveling in a constant direction. As soon as they change direction, i.e. running around an opponent, they're by definition accelerating.
Good job!keep up the good work,you will be big 100%
What you mentioned at the end about instantly hitting top speed is the third and even more common secondary power of super speed; super acceleration. That, and alongside it's other overlooked cousin, super velocity, show the biggest blindspot in balancing super speed: it isn't super speed, it's super kinematics, a series of several qualities governing movement to the extreme
I really like the way Drew Hayes did it in a series called Super Powereds. One of the main characters is a speedster and one of her limitations (same with all standard speedsters in that world) is that they can think and react at super speed, but: 1, "like anyone else, it's hard to throw a punch while sprinting at full speed" and 2, "she has mid-level top speed but greater than average acceleration," meaning they do still have to accelerate. The exception is the close combat teacher from year 2 onward, who can turn into living electricity and move appropriately fast.
I think the Sonic movies have an interesting way of going about this
In the first movie, Eggman gets one of Sonic's quills and uses it to power his ship. Because it was established that these quills give off energy, and that Eggman is a genius inventor, it feels believable that the playing field would get more even from this
As for 2 and 3, they bring in characters who are similar to Sonic, which is even more believable that they'd be matched in power.
One thing I did earlier today was some math on super speed, a lot of speedsters you see have slowed perception of time that bullets aren’t moving, can liquify people with their punches. If a bullet is barely moving to them, their fists are moving so much faster, a flick at that speed will break bones.
But that would inflict that same force onto their fists. I would think their preferred form of attack would be a super throw. Not very accurate but very powerful.
@@SneedFeederif they can move that fast consistently their skin/bones/tendons are much more durable then steel so it’s pretty accurate that they have super strength or their body would tear apart just from running super fast
@@SneedFeeder Not the same force, a similar force. But as Geng said it’s usually assumed speedsters have enhanced durability, healing, strength.
I also tackled this idea for one of my characters as a hobbyist creator. My solution was to flip a sub-trope into a main-trope. Usually a speedster gets wind powers as an extension of their super speed. Flash and Quicksilver's tornado spins come to mind. Also the shockwave attack you've shown. For my character it's the other way around.
Inspired by the sports and racing games I played (and cartoon speedsters), I made my character a skater that manipulates wind, gaining boost using mini-tornadoes, air pockets, shockwaves, and so on, alongside racing techniques. Imagine a person creating their very own boostpads or drafting by moving away the air on front themselves. They can also dash, double jump, and glide with their wind to slow down their landing. Oh and there's also standard wind attacks like razor wind.
Still questionable physics, but what this does presentation-wise is that it shows the character actually "participate" in physics. They need to actively build up and slow down. Especially for situations demanding quick reactions and decision-making.
Sure they can also use this for flight, but that’s not in the cards.
6:20 My right ear liked that
That was pretty rough.
I only had my left in so i was wondering why it went silent 😭
An interesting case of Super Speed in fiction is from a relatively popular web serial called Worm. In it, a minor character named Velocity can alter the physics affecting his body such that he gains super speed (kinda like the speed force but with more consistent rules).
The catch is that he gets weaker physically as he gets faster. So, when at full speed, his punches are weaker than those of a small child and are described as 'more like small gusts of wind' iirc. He also can't carry stuff when running because of it. So no rescuing hostages before the enemy realises or the like.
If he wants to knock somebody out, he has to slow down, which means his reflexes slow down too, making him beatable. So he has to be more careful than most speedsters.
Velocity is pretty minor as a character, but I thought his power was interesting to mention here.
Personally a fan of slowing them down to reasonable speeds - still superhuman but slow enough that someone with faster than normal response time could potentially react. Maybe keep the really insane speed as something they can't do all the time, say have it be very straining or dangerous to pull off.
Additionally, there could be some limitation on how long the speedster can maintain their top speed, or other weaknesses inherent to the power. One idea I had is that the speedster can't breathe properly while running and generates a lot of heat via accelerated aerobic combustion, burning through the oxygen they do take in. Thus, they'd pass out from either suffocation or heat stroke if they move too much. (Seriously, if the Flash heals wounds in seconds and needs far more calories than a normal person, his cells should be generating massive amounts of heat pretty much all the time.) See also: Anime-style "flash steps" where the super speed mostly happens in quick dashes.
By the way, I personally don't much like it when super powers are always "on." That's mostly my personal preference and I'm not sure if it would make the stories more interesting, but I'd really like to see more superheroes who can actually turn their powers on and off whenever they want, even stuff like strength or durability.
If Red Rush really does perceive time in constant slow motion, that not only means he's somehow able to still understand people speaking really slowly but also he's able to speak slowly himself at the perfect speed and consistency that makes him appear to speak normal to other people. That life is unlivable and would require superhuman patience to even be possible.
If you like the idea of fast-but-perceivable speedsters, Young Justice has one in the main cast who tops out just under the speed of sound.
The whole "someone with faster than normal response time" reminds me of a fight in the otherwise-forgettable Wolverine movie. Sabertooth is fighting a guy who can literally teleport, which to a person who isn't a speedster is essentially the same as fighting a speedster, and getting beat up as expected. However, he just reaches out to an empty space and then _grabs the dude by his spine_ the next time he teleports in. Before killing him he says, "You're predictable."
It doesn't really matter if someone is faster than you up to a point, if you know what they're going to do before they do it, and act with perfect timing.
@@Yonkage-ik5qb Something like that ironically doesn't work nearly as well against a true speedster. Because teleportation is literally instant, they'd have no time to react to a well-placed counter, while a speedster with enhanced perception could see the counter as you try to set it up in slow motion, and just _not be there._ The only true ways to counter an attentive speedster is to either find a way to match their perception, completely blindside them, or my personal favorite, _leave nowhere to dodge._
@@griffinfaulkner3514 Well yes, if they're the type of speedster that moves at FTL sure they can dodge absolutely anything. But I meant more like cases where they're only like a few hundred MPH fast. In which case it can fall under the umbrella of a "blindside" if you can predict their movements to a degree.
0:58 its so dumb xD also why would he run towards her xD
He's trying to stop her how else would he reach her without moving towards her??
@@MWLE.EDITZ.. For me, the worst thing they do to speedsters is that they have to attack. This doesn't make much sense to me, because this is a character that should be more defensive and act from a distance and not be touched. He could at least throw something at her, save his friends from her powers.
The best example of this is red rush, from invincible. At the beginning of the fight with the omnimen he was acting defensively, the omnimen couldn't do anything, but suddenly he started attacking even though he couldn't do much damage and that's how it ended.
why wouldn't he?
@ just look up
Because that's how he always has dealt with anything. But if he had to do it a second time he would probably throw shit instead.
Awesome video! My only problem with ramping up, is that unless you make it really evident to the audience, it will still look the same. Technically, the Flash was getting faster with every season, but visually I couldn't tell the difference.
This was a really good video, good work
Disney has a problem with getting rid of characters they can’t write quicksilver, Hulk, the warriors three and most of the Asgardians
This my theory on why they used scott instead of hank for antman
I've been thinking about how to balance speedsters for a long time , and I eventually came up with an idea I quite liked. Using super speed is incredibly taxing, it's akin to or perhaps directly requires holding your breath. The faster you go the more intense and painful it becomes, and you need to catch your breath at regular speed occasionally-This would give reason to the speedsters suddenly stopping, as they actually wouldn't enjoy being at super speed. Plus, getting the wind knocked out of you by being beat up would actually disable super speed, you have to catch a breath to escape.
I always figured if I do it this way, I can give that hero the most absolute BS nonsense super speed scene... For their death scene. They reach a point where they have to do something akin to the quicksilver scene, so they keep pushing their super speed faster and faster, until they realise they've pushed too hard, and they'll never get to go back. This singular second for the rest of the cast is their last stand, and they have to save everyone before they run out of breath.
I think that would be a fantastic scene, personally.
There was a book character with something similar to that, basically he gave himself “super speed” but it was more akin to him just slowing down time, but his heart (he had a robot heart) couldn’t handle the speed, so he had to switch his body into a clone so he wouldn’t die
Flash vs Lex and Brainiac is a great example of that, if it weren’t a kids show he definitely was gonna die and vanish forever
Makkari and Dash are the best portrayed speedsters on the big screen.
Awesome editing ! Love that into
The bit in Invincible where Omni-Man fights the Guardians of the Globe plays it really well -- thanks for including that clip. Omni-Man is *really fast* but not nearly as fast as Red Rush. So he has to bait an attack that he's already prepared for...
I just want to point it out that Omniman is fast as red rush. Its just that their speeds are juat so close too each other that red rush can play defensivly at the start of their fight.
Also Apocalypses adaptation powers we're explained ın the movie before ıf ı remember correctly so it makes sende that he lost. They could make adaptation more clear like a sound effect similer to mahoraga but it still makes sense
No Omniman is technically faster but has lower acceleration and is a type 3 speedster while Red Rush is type 1 and has way more acceleration.
Omniman beat Red Rush by observing his movement pattern and anticipating him. Omniman didn’t need to be as fast as Red Rush because Omniman’s successful prediction of Red Rush’s movement allowed Omniman to make his move before Red Rush.
Omniman is much, much faster, but needs time to speed up
What are y’all talking about? Faster than Red Rush?? This is a just a lie. Even if his acceleration was much slower that wouldn’t help him in a fight against him regardless. So it’s no point.
I think Edgerunners pulled off Speedsters pretty well, I love every moment the Sandevistan was fired off
Idk why but I keep forgetting that is also superspeed. It definitely is the coolest one that I've seen in animation. And it's also really balanced. It's powerful, but David's body couldn't handle it being use over and over again in a short timespan.
and i also love how david only really loses to someone who also has a sandevistan, which is also wayyy more OP than he was
Kamen Rider Kabuto gave a great solution to this ages ago. Clock up!
Great video! One thing to note assuming the perpetual speedster brain just processes stuff super fast all the time but has average intelligence they not only would be extremely bored by having a conversation with someone but would actually have trouble holding one at all because they would barely be able to remember the start of their sentence let alone what the other person said a minute ago, hell I would even go as far to say that they would not be able to understand simple speech at all! Even slowing down an audio to 1/10 of the speed makes it almost impossible to understand I imagine red rush at least hears stuff at 1/1000 of the speed.
Red Rush should not be able to communicate be it talking or listening unless it's written in some form or another, and he would severe memory issues even recalling what happened yesterday.
So he could not form any type of meaningful relationships, could potentially be very knowledgeable but would have to be constantly re learning (that's how it would seem to us)by reading book or with a very fast internet stuff.
FINALLY MY DOZENS OF HOURS OF REWATCHING THE FLASHS’ MADVOCATE VIDEOS COMES INTO PLAY
7:10 You don't have to. Madvocate has about 12 hours worth
Is he even going to drop season 5 anytime soon?
@whosbad685 Unclear. Season 4 was 3 hours. I don't think he wants to subject himself to season 5 until at least spring
@@buddermonger2000such a bummer it’s been 3 years I think 😭
@@whosbad685 season 4 was done only a bit over a year ago
@@buddermonger2000nvm i forgot lol. Then yes he probably will drop it in spring
kinda sucks that the only real solution anyone has come up with for having speedsters on screen is just not give anything that makes them cool to have on screen. the idea you bring up at the end could work but I think it would be quite difficult to convey to the audience. on top of that, anytime you need them at high speeds for a cool moment or story beat, you'd probably also need some way to show them work up to it. could get old real fast, but if you don't there's virtually no difference with speedsters as they're portrayed already.
I think the best solution is to have a speedster get progressively faster throughout a movie, starting out similar to dash, but by the end they just can’t be beat
Main issue is most speedsters are in worlds with other powers. A short self contained story just about a speedster would do really well I think
Not really, Sonic is a great example. Along media, Sonic has to keep running, the more he runs the faster he is. That's why the best way to play Sonic games is to never stop moving.
Not even one frame of Sonic the Hedgehog, I feel cheated.
Because that guy is a walking contradiction of how he achieves speed 😭😭😭😭
@squarethinkingdude tbf, aren't all the speedsters like that?
@@fenrir639 they mostly just zoom off in an email instant
But sonic is just
One day he gains momentum
The other he is already fast but can activate a faster mode
And then he just zooms at the speed of light with no buildup
Great idea and analysis. I always hated perpetual/situational speedsters for this reason-too OP
I like that idea about building up speed. I have another suggestion that can lend itself pretty well for internal conflict having an impact on the external conflict.
Have the speedster ability be directly proportional to their ability to just focus on the moment. Achieving "time-stoping speed" only by being able to become entirely devoid of thought.
The activation of their power would therefore require a little bit of time because they need to start focusing, letting go of more and more thought, and taking in more and more external stimuli to react to. If they meditate long enough, they reach a state in which they can just move at lightspeed and stop time, and therefore accomplish the task they focused on. This of course would make it so they can't really do the little funny things quicksilver in X-Men is doing.
But it would allow for a flexible rule on how fast the character can go, and also how fast they are able to focus on what they need to achieve. It will depend on their state of mind, and therefore stuff can distract them, situations in their life can hinder their abilities.
7:41
🗣️ "There's no way to run"
Isn't it "There's nowhere to run!"?
@tadadoterson6147
I think you are right
Remember that scene when Omniman crushed Red Rush's head? In real time speed it would look like: Omniman making a quick clap, like he's trying to kill a mosquito, in one fluid motion.
What we saw was the slowed down version.
We know because of the slowly falling broken glasses.
I think quick silvers is acceptable because he isn't show to be really faster than a bullet, he is hit by one by a officer in sokovia
But in general is very inconsistent in the movie
Imagine you’re asleep and your super speed/perception activated automatically from some unknown danger lol
Some other ways to limit it.
I love the ramp idea. It has so much potential.
For the activated ability with super speed perception:
1. Have it require a cooldown. You could represent this with some kind of SFX. After they go back to regular speed, it takes some time for their powers to charge back up. During this time their powers are either diminished / require more concentration, or can't be used at all. That gives their opponents an opportunity to get them off guard and keep them down. This is my favourite.
2. Have it wear them out, so they can be worn down and eventually fall out of super speed
3. Have some kind of artefact of the speed power - the lightning from speedforce for example - get harder and harder to deal with so they have to come out of it to re-set.
You could have all of these, or combine them in fun ways:
- A speedster who can instantly ramp up their perception speed but it gets harder to keep it ramped and starts causing a chronic headache as they use it. Add to that a movement speed that also needs to ramp - so they can instantly to perceiving bullets moving fairly slowly, but they start out sluggish. As their build speed their ability to perceive that speed gets harder and harder. This headache and fatigue could last days after they've used it, giving the writers a way to have them be an absolute ace in the hole when they're well rested and haven't been using their powers, but have them slow and distracted if they're generally exhausted or have been using their powers a lot.
- A speedster who needs to charge up at regular speed to use their power. The longer they charge, the faster / longer they can go for. So if they get surprised they can instantly jump to moderate speed, but only for a moment to deal with whatever surprised them - bullets are still a problem. From then on their opponent just needs to stop them charging. This one is great because if they get a moment reprieve they can go full power for a second to deal with some mooks, before having to come back out to re-charge and deal with the next problem. Once the pressure is off they can charge up for a few minutes and go god mode for a bit, dodging bullets and casually dealing with threats that were extremely serious a moment ago. Charging and holding the charge takes a lot of concentration though - and maybe creates noise and light making it useless if trying to hide - so if they're being beaten up or have to stay focused on the world around them it limits / negates their charging potential. This one is a bit more cartoony but it is easier to represent and stay somewhat consistent.
Another option for all types is to have physics largely apply. If you poke someone at high speed, it'll break your finger. This one is probably better for a darker and or more serious tone.
5:20
I know i shouldn't shoe horn it in, but this is EXACTLY why i think JoJos has the best "superpowered" fights ever
It really doesn't. The fights SUCK ASS. Characters never use the powers they are established as having, the writer has them get beat up and then win in the end anyways via dumb deus ex machina. Take Star Platinum. It is supposed to be super fast and super strong and super accurate. But stands which aren't super strong or super fast or super accurate are still shown beating it with normal straight attacks which shouldn't be possible because Star Platinum is faster, stronger and more accurate.
I had always thought there was some sort of skill required to use a Stand well, which is why an inexperienced Jotaro would have a hard time winning, even with a buster stand
I still can't get over how perfect of a casting the x-men films got Quicksilver Evan Peter's did a great job
Song that starts at 1:38 ?
I think its LEMMiNO - Firecracker th-cam.com/video/ulfoU2MziOc/w-d-xo.html
Thought you didn't actually fix the problem with "super all the time speedsters", but then you came back with a good fix at the end. Nice.
This is really interesting, I’ve actually never thought to much into speedsters like this