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Second Term Paper

SCIENCE FACT OR CINEMATIC FICTION

Physics Law Violated in Animation Features

To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is one of the three laws of motion stated by the physics genius Isaac Newton. This law, commonly known as action and reaction principle or Newton’s Third Law of Motion, can constantly be verified in almost our every everyday life activities and scenarios. Sometimes it is very obvious as in car crashes or other high energy collisions, but sometimes it is very subtle as in walking, jumping or carrying grocery bags. Nevertheless, the law of action and reaction is almost always evident in our day to day activities. The only place you would see this law broken is in the fictional world created for our entertainment and amusement in television and movies. It is not that the filmmakers are unaware of the action and reaction principle, but they rather choose to exaggerate, alter or sometimes eliminate this principle for particular scenes to make that scene more interesting or more fitting in their self-created fictional world. In other words, they are not simply ignoring the science fact for those particular scenes, but they are rather creating a cinematic fiction for purpose of entertainment or to match those scenes with the fictional world they created for the story.

Animation feature from Pixar Studio’s “The Incredibles” could be considered one of the finest examples where Newton’s Third Law of action and reaction is broken in several scenes for the purposes mentioned. The filmmakers have created a world where superheroes exist in abundance, so there is a lot of action involved. But they had to alter the principle of reaction in relation to the action delivered by superheroes or their counter super villains in order to avoid any unnecessary weakness that could be attributed to the super heroes and villains in accordance with the action and reaction principle, which can easily distract the viewers. Some scientific facts are broken to illustrate a super power attributed with the given superhero but some scientific facts can’t be controlled by the superheroes no matter which superpower is attributed with the superhero. I am specifically speaking of the main character Mr. Incredible. There are many scenes involving Mr. Incredible where he just seems to absorb any reaction that has to come after his extraordinary actions, which is fairly impossible no matter how strong and indestructible he is. Few examples from the movie: while saving a cat for an old lady, he pulls out a big tree from the ground with his bare hands but there is no reaction on Mr. Incredible himself considering the amount of force it takes to pull a tree from the ground, and then during his first confrontation with the big four legged artificial intelligence droid, he punches the droid with intensive force that sends the droid flying off miles away, but there is no apparent reaction on Mr. Incredible. But the scenes that stands out the most among all the scenes in violation of Newton’s Third Law of action and principle is when Mr. Incredible learns is trying to penetrate the “lava wall” with sliding doors. He finds and lifts up a big, solid, and way too heavy ancient statue made out of earth ware in order to use it as leverage to open the sliding doors in the “lava wall.” Considering the Newton’s third law of action and reaction principle the force applied to lift the earth ware over his head will exert the same amount of force back onto Mr. Incredible by the lifted object. Since the amount of force required to lift and carry the heavy earth ware is massive, the earth ware will exert same massive amount of force on Mr. Incredible who is walking on a floor. So if the filmmakers decided to follow the scientific facts the ground will break due to the massive reaction force applied in return by the heavy object and Mr. Incredible would be crushed into the ground. But that would have made Mr. Incredible’s biggest superpower, strength, his biggest weakness, which defeats the purpose of the superpowers and superheroes. To avoid this conflict, since superheroes were the main purpose of this animated feature, filmmakers decided to use cinematic fiction instead of Newton’s Third Law of action and reaction principle. To accomplish this they created a fictional world where superheroes actions are exempted from the scientific facts such as action and reaction principle to eliminate any possible weakness that could be attributed to the heroes and also to avoid possible threats being posed by those scientific facts to a potentially exciting and entertaining scene that could be delivered by the superheroes.

Not only action movies are the one breaking these laws, some movies break these laws in rather minor and subtle actions. A perfect example to deliver a contrast to “The Incredibles” is the stop-motion fantasy movie called “Coraline.” In this movie, two fictional worlds are presented to the viewers, a world close to reality where Coraline deals with very realistic parents, neighbours, a friend and his cat. Physics laws are very much intact in this real world. And then there is the fantasy world that could be accessed only through a small door in the living room. This world is specifically created for Coraline and her needs. Since it is a fantasy world, scientific facts are constantly ignored. But there is one occasion in the real world of Coraline where the physics laws are openly broken. I am referring to scene when Coraline meets Mr. Bobinsky. He seems to ignore many scientific facts in his small appearance. He defies gravity, law of inertia and many more. When Coraline has descended from the stairs and is just about to leave Mr. Bobinsky jumps off the staircase and lands over Coraline’s head but doesn’t crouch on landing. According to action reaction principle, jumping is done by pushing downward on the ground by crouching, which is the action. This action causes the ground to push upward on you and releases you in the air, which is the reaction. The second part of a jump is landing, where landing on the ground is the action and the reaction comes in form a crouch to break the fall. Mr. Bobinsky seems to ignore this important action and reaction principle involved in jumping. The filmmakers made an exception for Mr. Bobisky to make him an exceptional character in the real world of Coraline, since he is the only one who can see jumping mice from the fantasy world in the real world, and delivers a message to Coraline from the fantasy world. And also if Mr. Bobinsky followed the scientific facts he probably would’ve hit Coraline’s head from the crouching.

Another animated feature involving exciting and adrenaline filled action scenes is the third installment in “Ice Age” franchise called “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.” But here the scientific facts are hanged with an entirely different approach as compared to “The Incredibles.” In this movie more serious characters, such as Manny, Diego, Mommy T-Rex and Rudy, are mostly the ones following the scientific facts. While other goofy characters filled with high energy, such as Eddie, Crack, Sid and baby dinosaurs, are the ones constantly ignoring the scientific facts. One new character that seems to be the most energy packed character is Buck and he seems to be the one breaking most scientific facts in this animated feature. One scene that stands out the most is when he is telling the story of his encounter with Rudy. In his story he gets swallowed by Rudy but manages to crawl out of its throat into its mouth. He then grabs “the thing that hangs in the back of the mouth” and starts swinging back and forth to build momentum. When he releases “the thing” he flies into Rudy’s teeth, breaks one of the teeth due to the speed of his flight, and finally flies out of Rudy’s mouth. In this case, the filmmakers didn’t completely ignored Newton’s Third Law of action and reaction principle but rather exaggerated the reaction from the swinging action. If they had followed the principle, Buck would hardly reach Rudy’s teeth, let alone breaking one of its teeth. Considering the high number of swings, even if he managed to reach the teeth, it is highly unlikely that he would have enough force to break Rudy’s tooth. Let’s consider he had enough force to break the tooth, the reaction force would be massive enough to hurt the weasel badly or even kill him. In addition to all these reason’s to exaggerate the reaction force, the biggest reason was either the whole story being told by Buck was make believe, since the character seems to be mentally unstable, or it was meant to show an epic escape by a death defying character.

We all see action and reaction principle being obeyed by everybody and everything in our daily lives. What would happen if this principle is either manipulated or broken? We see that happening in the fictional worlds created for television and movies. Not only action and reaction principle but every other scientific fact could be seen being violated in all kinds of movies and television. Yes, it happens because of human curiosity, but it mainly happens because the violation of certain scientific facts result in eye-popping, adrenaline filled, action packed, or dramatic scenes. And sometimes scientific facts are replaced by cinematic fiction because it is better suited for the fictional world created for the specific story. The bottom line is, the real world is boring because of these principles, but when reality is bent and these principles are hanged the result is ultimate entertainment.

Second Term Paper Outline

Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction


Chosen Physics Fact:

Newton's Third Law, Action and Reaction Principle.

Definition: To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

A force exerted by one object on second object is the action.

A force exerted by second object back on the first object that is causing the action.

Chosen Movies:

1) The Incredibles.

2) Coraline.

3) Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.

Three Chosen Scenes from the movies:

The Incredibles:

Throughout the movie there are various scenes in which it seems like Mr. Incredible absorbs all the reaction. Two scenes that stand out are as follows:

When Mr. Incredible encounters the four-legged droid, he punches the droid so hard that the droid flys off at least a mile away but there is absolutely no reaction on Mr. Incredible.

Also while trying to penetrate the lava wall Mr. Incredible is carrying a rather heavy artifact, which seems so heavy that it must be exerting a reaction force big enough to put a hole in the floor.

Coraline:

Physics laws are very much intact in the movie as long as they are showing the real world. In the other world laws are broken constantly.

But one occasion where physics laws are openly broke in the real world of Coraline is the scene when Coraline meets Mr.Bobinsky. One example is when Mr. B jumps off the stairs and lands above Coraline's head he doesn't seem to crouch enough necessary to break the fall. One the important action reaction principles involved in a jump.

Ice Age 3:

Man y laws of Physics broken in this movie but the one that stands out the most is the one when the one eyed weasel is swinging back and forth inside the dinosaur's mouth. When he let's go of the thing he swings too far away and way too much force to break the dinosaur's tooth. So the reaction of the swing was exaggerated beyond t he realistic facts.

Character Animation

First, I started with simple thumbnails to come up with a suitable idea for this project. Once I finalized my idea, I further developed it in more thumbnails, figuring out the actions of characters and also the composition of the shots. After finishing all the planning for the animation I began with setting up the scenes in various places where I planned to shot my animation. Then I grabbed my camera and started shooting pictures of each and every pose. After I was done with all the shots I ended up with more 700 shots for the entire animation. I was shocked myself. I ended up selecting around 400-500 shots that I decided to use in the animation. I took those pictures into Photoshop to edit myself out of those pictures and other utensils I used to animate the characters. Took me more than I anticipated. When I was finally done with Photoshop I took all the required pictures to Windows Movie Maker and started putting together the animation. I started with tweeking the timing of every motion and when I was happy with the overall timing, I started polishing my animation. And finally I added text for title and credits and then I was done. I hope it turned out fine.

Mid Semeter Survey

This is to certify that I completed the anonymous mid-semester survey for Art/Physics 123 and am requesting the five points of extra credit.

As a student at San Jose State, I understand the university's Academic Integrity Policy (http://info.sjsu.edu/web-dbgen/narr/catalog/rec-2083.html).