Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction?

Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction?

As a child, I watched many movies and cartoons, but I was not aware of physics or had no clue that there was some sort of science implemented in the films I watched. But taking a Physics of Animation class, it has helped me understand physics a little bit more. The only way humans can defy the laws of physics is through CGI (Computer generated Imagery) or 2D/3D animation. By creating a world with false physics, movie directors and animators have enabled us, the audience, to experience something believable and entertaining. In this term paper, I will be discussing and examining how movies and animations violate the physics in jumps and force. The movies I chose to examine are Fast and Furious 6, The Avengers, and Bleach: Fade to Black.

The Fast and Furious franchise was released in 2001. The film is centered on illegal street racing and heists from the point of view of a group of best friends. The creators made sure to exaggerate some of the physics in the movie to give the audience more of an excitement. One example, in Fast and Furious 6 Dom and Letty are on the opposite side of a bridge. Letty is held captive in a marine tank. As she is being held captive the leader of the heist decides to run over cars and shoot them down with his tank. Letty is then forced to stand outside of the tank to lure Dom to the other side of the bridge. One of Dom’s team members made it to the other side of the bridge and decides to crash his car in front of the tank in order for them to stop the rampage. The tank flips over and Letty is then thrown across the bridge. Dom sees what happens and he decides to try and save Letty. In order for Dom to get to the other side, he maneuvers to the front hood of his car and crashes it on the railings. The force of the impact causes Dom to fly through the air and catch Letty in the process. Somehow Dom and Letty land on top of a moving car to break his fall. According to the First law of motion, it affects humans in a moving vehicle because, no matter how fast the car is moving, we will be moving that fast. So, if Dom is traveling at 70 miles per hour and the car crashes, Dom will also be moving at 70 miles per hour and continue to slide until he crashes into something else much heavier than Letty. Realistically, it would be near impossible for Dom to travel that far and high and be able to land on top of a moving car to break his fall. In the beginning of the crash, Dom’s knees are slightly bent to create a greater jump force. The arc of the jump and distance is greatly exaggerated in the film. Dom is quite a muscular guy so he would have to weigh about 200lbs. We can see that Dom’s push height is roughly about 10 feet, because he is standing on top of a car, and estimated the distance to be about 60-70 feet.  So Dom’s jump magnitude would be seven times. Another scene that slightly defies physics is the clothesline scene where Dom lifts a very muscular person and the Rock jumps and clotheslines the person. Wrestlers have quite a bit of mass due to their muscles. In the film Dom, the Rock, and the muscular guy are roughly six foot high. Dom violently lifts the muscular guy so the total height is about 12 feet high. Ideally a six foot person can actually jump a little higher than a basketball hoop which is about 10feet high. Because the Rock is wearing tactical gear and weighs about 230 lbs the Rock’s vertical jump is reduced greatly. In these scenes, there are several hang times. This allows the audience to convey the action in the scene as if it were true.

In the live action super hero film The Avengers, the Hulk is the alter ego of Bruce Banner, an emotional physicist who physically transforms into a massive green giant monster that is well known for being incredibly strong and defies gravity by jumping extremely far. During a battle scene, the Hulk jumps towards an enemy that is on a 400ft building and smashes him to bits. Let’s examine the Hulks mass compared to a normal human. Let’s assume that a normal human has a mass of 70kg or 150lbs. Because the Hulk is Bruce Banner they should have the same amount of mass, but the Hulk has a mass of about 290kg or 640lbs of pure muscle. Also, in the comic book the Hulk is approximately 9 feet high but in the film he is roughly 7 feet high. I estimated that the building in New York is about 400 feet high. A regular person would have to jump about 57 times his height with four times his regular body weight. Realistically, a person weighing over 600lbs would not have the capability to run or jump as high as the Hulk because our bones can only take a certain amount of weight before breaking. According to Stan Lee, the Hulk has an average force of 4.08 x 10 (to the fifth) Newton’s. That is roughly how hard the Hulk has to push on the ground in order to jump. If the Hulk has a large amount of force, would he break the concrete as he leaves the ground? First, I have to calculate the Hulks feet size in length and radius which is about 17 inches in length and 6 inch in diameter.  So the Hulk’s feet would cover roughly 0.14 m(Squared). So, (4.08 x 10x10x10x10x10x10 Newtons)/(0.14 m2) = 2.9 x 10x10x10x10x10x10x10 N/m2 = 2.9 MPa (Mega Pascals). According to “The Engineering ToolBox”, concrete has a compressive strength of 10 MPa. Ideally, a person that weighs 640lbs with a great amount of force, he should still be able to crack the concrete.

Another example of defying the law of physics is in 2D animation. Bleach is a Japanese animated film in which the characters can fly, levitate, and even teleport to different locations within a radius. In Bleach: Fade to Black, Shunsui Kyoraku is fighting a demon, towards the middle of the battle he jumps and then levitates in the air and then quickly moves towards the demon. He moves so quickly that he teleports behind the demon and attacks him. First, in order for a human being to levitate he would have to exert enough force vertically upwards and equal to the gravitational force. Second, any small displacement of the levitation object, or human, a returning force should be exerted to stabilize the human or object. This can be achieved by magnetic or aerodynamic forces. The male characters in the animation seem to have an average weight of 150lbs so in order for them to levitate and they would have to exert enough push force to be able to levitate which is physically impossible for any human being to do. Another battle scene is when Soi Fon is fighting a demon. She jumps and does an aerial tornado attack. In order for Soi Fon to levitate and create a tornado she would have to exert a large amount of push force from the ground and then create another large amount of force to generate a miniature tornado from her arms. The amount of force and energy it takes to create a tornado is unthinkable but it only takes about 4500 pounds of force to break a human bone. That would mean Soi Fon’s bone would have a large amount of density that can withstand a large amount of force to create a tornado.

Many of the films we watch today don’t rely on real physics, but instead “fake” physics because we only watch movies for entertainment. In the Fast and Furious 6, when Dom flies through the air to catch Letty. The physics was obviously broken and very laughable in the audience. The Director tried to make the physics as normal as possible, as if it would happen in real life. In a way, it portrays his character as a caring man that he is willing to do anything to save the love of his life even if that includes flying across a bridge and landing on a moving car. In the Avengers, the Hulk is a massive monster that is incredibly strong and can jump 57 times his height. The Director wanted the viewers to understand that the law of physics doesn’t have to follow the real world because as long as the audiences are entertained, science doesn’t have to be correct. As for Bleach, 2D animation has no limitations. It is merely for entertainment. Even though the law of physics is broken in this film, the Directors have found a way to make the film believable enough for people to enjoy. To conclude, physics in film can be done in many ways to achieve a believable world for viewers to enjoy. When it comes to real life films, Directors have to know how far to push the law of physics because if they push it too far it won’t be believable for the audience to enjoy.