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The Flash, which is currently enjoying its theatrical run, has introduced an interesting new aspect to time travel and the multiverse. Time travel is a concept that movies have been covering for decades, and every so often, a new variation gets added to it. There are a few types of time travel that we’ve seen in films, but The Flash’s version is different from most of them.
The new movie uses what we already know about time travel and adds a new multiversal layer to the concept. Time travel and the multiverse are, in fact, the key elements of the film. Thus, it’s important to take a closer look at them in order to understand how time travel works in the latest DC movie.
The Flash time travel explained
Most movies follow three models of time travel, but The Flash introduces a fourth model. When Barry spoke to Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne about time travel, the latter explained “The Spaghetti theory.” According to him, changing one event in the past doesn’t just create a branched reality from that point in time. Making changes to time causes the present, the future, and even the past to change.
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For instance, when Barry went back in time to prevent his mother from dying, he created a Fulcrum. He didn’t just change the future, but the ripples of the butterfly effect were sent across the past as well. So, he changed the entire history and retroactively created a new timeline in the multiverse. He did the same when he tried to get his father exonerated.
In the second scenario, he let his mom die, but he moved all the cans of tomatoes to the top shelf. That made his father look up, and his face was caught in the camera, which verified his alibi, and he was proven innocent. Barry thought that this minor change won’t be problematic as it will allow his father to be released from prison without affecting the timeline.
Yet, once again, Barry created an entirely new timeline in the multiverse with a changed history. By shifting those cans of tomatoes to the top shelf, he caused the replacement of Ben Affleck’s Batman with George Clooney.
So, The Flash’s multiverse runs like spaghetti. Some timelines run parallel up to a certain extent and converge at certain points in time, while others are completely divergent and carry entirely different stories.
How The Flash builds on Avengers: Endgame’s time travel theory
Avengers: Endgame and The Flash’s time travel are largely similar, but have one major difference. Simply explained, changing the past in Endgame would only create a new branched timeline with a new future. Meanwhile, the history before the alteration would remain intact. Hence a "branch timeline" emerges from the same timeline.
However, if you change the past in The Flash, then along with a new future, an entirely new history will also be created before that alteration in time. Hence, a fulcrum will come into effect, causing a brand new timeline to be added to the Multiverse.
Time travel in other movies
The first time travel model that most movies use is the simple “this always happened” model. It featured in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, where the events of the past are caused by time travel from the future.
Harry went back to the past to change certain events that ultimately led to the circumstances in the present-day. The technical term for this is the Ontological paradox model that Barry talked about in The Flash as well. In it, time is tied in a loop.
The second model is where changing the past causes changes to the future, but does not create a new timeline. This was sort of followed in Back to the Future, where Marty McFly went to the past. His actions in the past era of the timeline almost caused his future self to be wiped out of existence.
It is the “Grandfather Paradox” where, if you go back in time and kill someone’s younger versions or their parents, then their future versions would cease to exist. Even the Terminator franchise used this model. In it, the changes in the timeline caused by altering the events of the past are variable.
The timeline alteration could be minor or major depending on what you have changed in the past, but rest assured, this won’t create a new timeline.
Meanwhile, the third model is the "Branch Theory." It was majorly used by Avengers: Endgame, where the Hulk explained that changing the past does not change the future. Instead, a new branched timeline gets created and added to the multiverse. But The Flash took a dig at this while introducing the aforementioned fourth time travel theory.
