The Flash's Alternate Reality Pop Culture Is The Ultimate 'What If?'

Warning: this article contains spoilers for "The Flash."

Just a handful of years ago, the idea of a multiverse in mainstream pop culture was a novel concept. Now? It's downright dominating popular cinema. Heck, "Everything Everywhere All At Once" won Best Picture. To that end, "The Flash" has finally hit theaters after a long journey through development hell at Warner Bros. The movie brings with it a big cinematic vision of the DC multiverse, which naturally means having a lot of fun with alternate versions of familiar characters. But director Andy Muschietti also decided to have some fun with alternate reality takes on popular culture as we know it in the real world.

The film sees Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) learning that he can run fast enough to travel back in time. Using this knowledge, he tries to prevent his mom's death, but that action has massive consequences and changes everything he knew about the world. Yes, that means Michael Keaton is Batman instead of Ben Affleck, but the implications extend far beyond who is occupying Wayne Manor.

One of the biggest examples of the timeline breaking messing with pop culture arises when "Back to the Future" comes up. It's revealed that in the new, broken timeline, Eric Stoltz actually played Marty McFly in the timeless '80s classic instead of Michael J. Fox. This leads to some truly great jokes, including a tattoo named "Marty McThigh" that depicts Stoltz as Marty, Not Fox. As the famous story goes, Stoltz filmed for weeks on the film as Marty before being fired, paving the way for Fox to replace him, ultimately giving him the role of a lifetime. But not in this universe!

"Back to the Future," as it exists, is widely considered to be one of the greatest films ever made. So it's not as though any of us would like to upset the applecart and replace Michael J. Fox with Eric Stoltz. But many of us have wondered what that film would look like, and it would be amazing to see it. And, according to this alternate reality within the DC Universe, Stoltz did a damn fine job. Muschietti didn't leave it at one pop culture alteration though, as this was just the tip of the iceberg.

Even though he missed out on Marty McFly in "The Flash" universe, nobody should cry for Fox. He ended up starring in "Footloose" instead of Kevin Bacon. That's actually pretty fun to picture and it could totally work. But what happened to Kevin Bacon, you might ask? Well, he did just fine for himself, having starred in "Top Gun" instead of Tom Cruise. If everything else went unchanged, that means Bacon would be cashing a fat check for "Top Gun: Maverick" right about now.

And things even extend beyond the screen. For one, "Downton Abbey" didn't seem to make it to the airwaves in this universe, but there is a popular restaurant called Downton Abbey's. Does it exist near Applebee's? No, because Applebee's in this universe is called Bananabee's! The dominoes fall as the butterfly effect continues to do its thing.

One imagines multiple viewings of the movie will reward further those who are interested in what else Barry might have changed in regard to pop culture. We can't visit this world, but damned if it doesn't sound as fascinating as watching "Terminator 2" with Sylvester Stallone in "Last Action Hero."

"The Flash" is in theaters now.