Film Theory: How to KILL DEADPOOL!

You know those parents who took their young kids to see Deadpool and then got really offended by how mature the movie was? Could the opening of Deadpool 2 simply be him delivering a PSA about the movie rating system to all the parents who don't know better? Ha ha ha! That would be incredible! Hello Internet! Welcome to

film

theory

! The show that will cover an entire episode of Deadpool without mentioning chimichangas even once. Oh wait. Does that count? Shit, but can I get serious here for a moment. This year Bill and Melinda Gates... Yes, those Gates approached me.

Yes, that's me, making a video about superpowers! It's pretty impressive, right? You see, every year the Gateses write a letter outlining their stance on key global issues. This year's card is titled "Two Superpowers We Wish We Had." In the letter, they challenged the reader to imagine what their superpower would be forever. The goal of the letter is to expand awareness and engage each of us to help bring about positive and lasting change in the world. It's an incredibly noble cause and I'm honestly honored to be included as part of the campaign. It's funny, but when I think about what I can do to try to make a positive change in the world, I honestly think of these channels.

Because yes, as silly and silly as it may be to analyze the real-world physics of Ant Man's suit or the lethality of Bullet Bill, I like to think it's giving you a little education along the way. Maybe brightening your day. And so no, it's not curing cancer or anything, but I'll never be the type to do that. Instead, I'd like to think these videos make at least some of their worlds a little happier. And teach some of you at least something new every week. Or who knows, maybe you're living in a dream world. Anyway, cheesy stuff aside.

As I was thinking about what superpower I would like, I immediately thought: I want to be DEADPOOL! (Sound of relief) "I'm really excited right now." Hey! Not quite that way. I want your healing factor. In the world of the comics, it is a fairly common ability that does exactly what it sounds like, enhancing a person's ability to quickly recover from injuries. There are tons of different variations of the healing factor ability in the comics. But probably the two most iconic are those of Wolverine and of course... those of Deadpool. And this relationship is no coincidence. Deadpool got his healing factor from a serum derived from Wolverine.

What, they just have needles full of this lying around? Go to the old Walgreens, get a flu shot, and follow up with a healing factor hunter? Excellent! Sign me up! "Ughh, God, you're hard to look at" Uh-oh, is that what's wrong? Hmmm, well, most of my channels are voiceover anyway. Their regenerative ability gives them incredibly strong resistance to chemicals and toxins, which is great for protecting against vats of acid and not so great for getting drunk. It also stimulates the immune system, leaving it fairly well protected against most diseases. It even gives them resistance to Telepathic Control.

So no one gets into Deapool's head and orders him to dress like a girl, he just does it on her behalf. The factor is so fast that it prevents the body's cells from aging, stopping aging almost completely. In short, Deapool and Wolverine are basically immortal. Which begs the question. How do you

kill

them? How do you

kill

those who cannot be killed? If I am going to inject healing factor, what should I pay attention to? Well, after doing the research, it seems that most sources have overlooked the major weakness of the factor. The fatal flaw that makes it easy to kill these two characters.

Well, "most" sources have overlooked it anyway and you'll be surprised which one is the most accurate. First, let me make it clear that I know both characters have died before. But honestly, it's usually the result of fairly cheap means. So I discard all things that disable or counteract the healing factor. That, frankly, is a cop-out from the writers who painted themselves into a corner by creating characters that were too powerful. In my analysis today, we are taking out these guys in a perfectly natural way that doesn't require any magical anti-healing. Also, we're not pulling out a Dragon-Ball Z and talking about disintegrating every last cell.

Too easy of an explanation and, frankly, too difficult to execute. I mean, in Uncanny X-men Annual #11, Wolverine actually regrows his entire body from a single drop of blood. That's pretty impressive. I'd like to see that in the next X-men movie. But seriously, that's assuming you can disintegrate it that quickly. Which in itself is a challenge. I mean, in Venom #9, Wolverine can heal himself after a nuclear bomb destroys a village. A nuclear bomb! And if you think he just got lucky, think again. It happens another time in Ultimate Wolverine Vs. Helmet. Lightning may not strike twice, but nuclear warheads apparently do.

Look, the problem of 'How to Kill Them' is so serious that not even Professor Charles Xavier knows about it. In his Xavier Protocols, which are basically his to-do list when a powerful mutant becomes a threat to the world, he makes a note to himself that goes like this: "Decapitation," and you'd think this was a guy who "I'd know right? I mean say what you want about his continuous screams of agony in the animated series. (Screams in pain) The guy's smart. A world leader in mutant abilities. And yet, for some super healers like Wolvie and DP. Decapitation has also been debunked.

Man, if you can't decapitate them and a bomb can't disintegrate them fast enough. Uh, I don't know! , what a weirdly specific cosmic event I just described there. But uhh, yeah, actually that'll do it. A multi-universal Earth crash is the exact reason Deadpool is currently dead in the comics. But again, I'm just a simple man. with totally average cosmic alteration powers, and I need something that doesn't need to scale so quickly. Put those nuclear warheads away... Put them away. Nooo. Good. Good. Because the weakness of the healing factor is much simpler than all this. Wolverine, and especially Deadpool, are vulnerable to every viewer watching right now and it all has to do with the brain.

Or more specifically, memories. Because, sure these guys can regenerate their entire body from a single drop of blood, but one thing the factor can't regenerate is memory. Let me explain. The first thing to understand about memory formation and why they cannot be regenerated is that memories are not stored. They are not physical things. Neurons, brain cells. They are physical things and the healing factor is made to restore or replace damaged cells. But neurons are not the same as memories and that is the problem here. Memories are signs. A short-term memory, say the last Diet Coke you drank, is a pattern of signals in your mind. #NotSponsored. #JustAnAddict So, you drink a Diet Coke and the feeling you get activates a signal in specific neurons in your prefrontal cortex.

The area that stores short-term memory. That signal begins as an electrical potential created by ions entering and leaving cells at one end of the neuron. That electrical signal then triggers a chemical signal. Which is a physical transfer of ions from one neuron to another. The physical transfer of ions causes the electrical signals in the next neuron to change. This is how the electrical and chemical signal is transmitted through many neurons. In short, it is a chain reaction. So how do these signals create memories? Well, each of your memories has a specific chain reaction of signals through a specific set of neurons.

The Diet Coke cue started the first time you opened a Diet Coke and felt its cool, crisp, refreshing burn slide down your throat. When you took that first sip, some of your taste neurons sent a signal to some of your other taste neurons in a specific pattern while you thought, "Mhmm." "This is bubbly and habit-forming." The pattern of neurons that activate when remembering the consumption of Diet Coke is different from the pattern of remembering to drink orange juice or the pattern of tasting chocolate. It is specifically your Diet Coke pattern and gives you a specific memory of Diet Coke.

I swear this is not sponsored. I just have one problem. Now, let me be clear. All electrical signals that occur between two individual neurons are basically the same throughout the brain. What makes something a memory is the specific set of neurons that fire in association with a particular activity. The brain has one hundred million neurons. So if a few of them intervene in each memory. The brain has the theoretical potential to store a nearly infinite number of memories based on how many combinations of neurons there are and how many unique patterns of signals can be created.

In this way, the brain is an incredible storage system. And how are these things stored? Well, when you experience something once, some of your neurons start a signal pattern. When you remember that experience, your brain is actually recreating that same signal pattern again. When you've only experienced something once, you can only vaguely recreate that pattern when you think about it or it fades away pretty quickly. If you want to improve your memory of that experience, you must reinforce it. To do that, you have to experience it again. Then you drink a second Diet Coke. Then another and soon you have an emotional dependency. #win Every time you repeat the activity, you activate the same signal pattern over and over again and your brain begins to store that pattern in an area of ​​long-term memory, the hippocampus.

The neurons get a little closer to each other, and when that happens, the signal gets stronger because the chemicals don't have to travel as far. The signals also become stronger and more frequent. Then, over time, those memories become ingrained because the signal patterns have been used so much. So why can't Wolverine or Deadpool just regenerate memories? Frankly, it's because there is nothing to regenerate. According to what we have described, memory is not part of the neuron, it is a pattern of signals between neurons. It's a complicated concept so let me explain it this way. When you learn physics, you learn about electric currents, which is a movement of electrons.

You can think of memories the same way. In physics you can measure an electric current, you can turn it on and off, etc. But it's not something physical that you can hold in your hand. Current runs through the wires and generates electricity. But just because you make a wire doesn't mean there will automatically be a current running through it. In humans, it is theoretically possible to reconstruct neurons. They look a lot like the cables that run throughout the brain. But just having the neurons there doesn't mean that the correct electrical pattern will pass through them. Memories only arise when specific neurons in your brain have already experienced something.

New cells do not come equipped with memories. When you regenerate an arm, a leg, or a baby's creepy little hand, those are new body parts and their function doesn't require you to have experienced anything before. But newly regenerated neurons are like baby neurons. They are new, they are a blank slate! Which is great because they are intact, but bad because only neurons with experiences have memories. The new neurons have to start from scratch, even if they are all in the right place. Simply put, our two super healers can regrow brain cells, sure, but not the brain's electrical patterns.

And as a result they are a blank shell, a shell. A being without memories. Think about it! Sure, they may look like Wolverine and Deadpool, but they won't act like them. Without those neural connections, they lose the elite fighting training and arrogant personalities that make them them. It's something that, in my research, literally no one has addressed. Well, almost no one, and that's the biggest irony of all. In the movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine, yes, we're talking about that one. A

film

, yes, that is on practically all lists of the worst superhero films of all time. The villainous Striker shoots Wolverine several times in the head with adamantium bullets.

Piercing his skull and destroying his brain. His line of him while he does this? "His brain may heal, but his memory will not grow back." And of course, this is exactly what happens. His brain is destroyed and his memories disappear. Wolverine has amnesia. And remember, this is the movie so bad it didn't put a mouth on Deadpool. Deadpool, the Merc with a mouth! You had a job, guys! One! Then they chose to make him look like Baraka from Mortal Kombat. Why? Why not? It's such a bad movie that they mistakenly think thatWolves are the same as Wolverines!

They can't get it right, but somehow they're the only ones who can get the science right. I-I-I don't even know what to say! And here's the thing: Deadpool is even more vulnerable than Wolverine in this scene. Logan's skeleton is covered in adamantium. A fictional metal that is basically the hardest material ever created. Bullets made from that material were necessary to pierce his skull and damage his brain. Which, again, is a huge oversight based on canon lore about adamantium... whatever! This movie sucks! However, Deadpool doesn't have that advantage. Despite his incredible healing abilities, he still has a normal human skeleton.

A single well-placed bullet, hitting the frontal cortex or hippocampus, would destroy huge percentages of his memory. Of course, his healing abilities would activate and his head would repair itself. But he wouldn't have any of Wade Wilson's memories. Or any memory. He would be completely empty. How to clean a hard drive. Destroy the brain and Wade Wilson as we know him will be no more. Kind of like a zombie. I think Deadpool would appreciate that kind of reference. In the end, I guess this shows that good science often doesn't result in good movies. But hey! That's just a

theory

!

A cinematographic theory! And short! And before you go, big thanks once again to Bill and Melinda Gates for reaching out to me to pontificate a little about superheroes. Now that I'm wrapping up this video, I recommend taking the next five minutes to read their annual letter by clicking the link in the description. If we're talking about real-life superheroes, then the Gateses are two people who definitely fall into that category. Use your global influence to inspire others to make a positive difference in the world around them. So read the letter and get inspired to leave your mark on the world.

Although you may not be the person who cures cancer or brings electricity to Central Africa. Oddly specific reference, I know, but it's in the letter. Remember that being a hero doesn't require something big. You can be someone else's hero by just saying or doing something small for someone else. So go ahead and tell your parents that you love them today. Tell a coworker you appreciate them. Take some time to get to know the quiet child who sits alone at lunchtime. The world will be a better place thanks to one person at a time. And finally, enough of the sadness, but let me know in the comments if you could have a superpower, which one would you like?

If you say fly, I don't blame you. It's in my top three, along with the healing factor and, I don't know, uh... the power of musical theater! They'll call me...Show Tunes Lad! Or something. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go. Crispy high five? High five!