The Flash's Golden Age Speedster Wasn't All CGI (But He Isn't Who You May Think)

By this point, everyone's heard of the nightmare-inducing CGI cameos in "The Flash," reviving some of DC's most iconic characters. We saw Christopher Reeve, Adam West, and Nicolas Cage, among others. But one particular cameo, the Golden Age speedster, was shrouded in mystery. No one could figure out exactly who this Jay Garrick lookalike was. Some thought it was Teddy Sears from The CW's "The Flash," but the actor shot down those rumors. Others thought it could be an entirely CGI rendition of the Golden Age speedster, and that's not very far off from the truth.

During his appearance on the podcast "The Rough Cut," Jason Ballantine, one of the editors for "The Flash," finally put the investigation to bed. He revealed the production used his likeness to bring Jay Garrick to life. While talking about the movie's Chrono Bowl scenes, Ballantine said director Andy Muschietti wanted to emphasize Jay Garrick during the multiverse montage, regardless of how the production made that happen.

"He wanted that as one of the characters and quite large on screen," Ballantine reminisced. "And then DJ, our visual effects supervisor, said, 'Well, if we're going to have a digital character that large on screen, then it would be better to have a real face just to help with the look of the shot.' And so I stuck my hand up, my arm nearly flew off my shoulder, to volunteer to have an opportunity to have my face stuck on the original Flash."

The visual effects in "The Flash" result in plenty of characters looking like they originated in a video game instead of feature-length films. It's one of the reasons why it took Jason Ballantine's comments for fans to figure out who the mysterious Jay Garrick was. However, according to Andy Muschietti, those VFX were intentional, as it depicts the world as Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) sees it through the Speed Force.

"The idea, of course, is ... we are in the perspective of the Flash," the director told io9. "Everything is distorted in terms of lights and textures. We enter this 'waterworld' which is basically being in Barry's POV. It was part of the design, so if it looks a little weird to you, that was intended."

Muschietti's reasoning, particularly regarding the movie's Chrono Bowl scenes, is an interesting perspective to view "The Flash." Like it or not, the director is standing by the decision to make the visual effects look strange, as audiences experience how Barry allegedly sees things when tapping into the Speed Force. While that's a unique concept to explore, unfortunately for "The Flash," it doesn't do most of the cameos justice. The final product makes appearances like Henry Cavill's Superman arguably look a bit too weird. Muschietti also wanted to emphasize Jay Garrick in the multiverse scenes, which was a good choice since he's the first Flash. However, his VFX decision made the character unrecognizable, adding another strange story to the Scarlet Speedster's solo feature.