While I’m getting all sentimental about things, might as well highlight one of my favorite set pieces. The Flash season 1 had so many good action set pieces, with just plain smart direction and B-movie thinking on how to maximize everything. Fun Fact: their fight is about half of one Batman v Superman.
Now part of the smart decision making came from it being the first season of The Flash so each episode had a good reason to give Barry a test to show and grow his speedster ability. Which is a sensibility that has been lost in later seasons. I’m SO GLAD Glen Winter is coming back to direct some DCWverse this year. One of the things that used to distinguish Film from Television was the cameras, more specifically the aspect ratios. That doesn't hold true for nowadays. Currently I think it is easier to distinguish the two by how they treat narrative space. Television lots of standing sets that will be reused an ammortized overtime, they have to be meaningful. Film you can explore space more, go bigger as it were. The Flash vs Arrow fight threads the needle in that it moves through space but is also seditary in how it goes through 4 clear sections and maximizes the use of that space. This titular fight takes place in essentially a back alley.
This set piece tells a story, even without the Team Greek Chorus: Experience and Planning vs Verve and Raw Power. (which was nicely established in the first or second act of the episode) Head on there’s no way Ollie could stop Barry, but he isn’t trying to stop him only slow him down. At the same time the action highlights the tenuous edge (if that is even the right word) Experience and Planning have over raw power.
This is just plain good visual storytelling.
