Thursday, March 20, 2014

Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction?




           Movies have become very popular in the movie industry they have become one of the highest grossing films. Directors use physics to make their films look real, however in some of the movies physics goes beyond as they break the rules of physics and become something believable, but at the same time it is an exaggeration of what a real human would do in real life.  This is true for fantasy stories, comics, and animated films as well as action like:  Falling, flying, punches, breaking walls, jumping and many more actions that directors used in the movies. I will write my paper and analyzed the exaggeration of physic that is applied in the movies such as Transformers 3, Van Helsing, and the Incredible Hulk.


In the Transformers movie the first thing that is wrong is when the spaceship falls in the noon and explodes. dust flies in the air and there is huge fire from the spaceship when it crashes. However, that scene defies the third rule of Newton. “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” In space as in the moon there is no air or sound that can create a fire or explosion. The gravity is so strong that everything just falls, and in this scene even the dust is shown as if there is air or oxygen. An explosion needs oxygen in order to have a combustion like in that scene. In addition, it is not possible to transport an object or matter through space, in the movie the director used a laser ray to open a door to earth. Another example, Tom falls in prime’s hand from a very decent height and nothing happened to him. From that fall anybody would have died from hitting a heavy metal like prime’s hand. The speed that the transformer moves is unreal because they are made of heavy metal. The heavy object would have to start slow and gain speed as it goes faster. The other scene in this film is when the soldiers jump from a high rise building and use a special suit that spreads under their arms like wins and allow them to fly, this action violates the rule of Newton again because a fall like that would not allow a person fly, but just free fall with out able to control it. In the scene they manage to fly around the falling building without a risk of getting hurt. There are many more scenes that defy the rule of physic in this movie.






            Van helsing was another movie that defies physics in many ways. For instance, the werewolf hops like he has not weight at all. An animal about that size would have weighed a lot and would have not moved as fast as he did in the movie. Another scene is when Anna has to slide down using a rope in order to cross a broken bridge in the same scene she was like half way down the rope and catches a knife in mid air with one hand while the other holding a rope swung across then falls and bounces many times with out getting hurt or at least getting a scratch. A fall from that distance would have done serious damage or even kill a person. A real human would have not bounced but just crashed to the ground. Another scene where they defy the rule of physics is when Aleena flies and does many turns in the air with a speed that makes her looks very blurry, in addition, her wings disappears like magic and turn into a silk cloth. There is a scene where Aleena hits Anna and she doesn’t even get any momentum; she just easy turn and hits her and Anna falls far away and as she falls she slows down carefully and falls. This defies the rules of Newton as falling objects gain speed when falling. The other scene that violates the rules of physics is the fight scene between the wolf and the Dracula, they both hit and fall hard on objects with out breaking any bones, this and many scenes definitely defy physics in many ways.





The Incredible Hulk is a movie based on the comic book and one of the movies that became a hit. However, this movie defies physics in many ways. Firstoff, when Bruce converts into the hulk, he breaks walls like paper as he escapes. This breaks the third rule of Newton: “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” The exaggerated action would hurt anybody who even punches the wall and would even make them bleed in real life. Another action of The Incredible Hulk is the scene where he jumps, it looks fine when he gains momentum; he runs and as he runs he starts jumping which is fine considering his weight, however the jumping is way to exaggerated because he jumps so far away as if he was rubber. Another violation to the rules of Newton is an explosion where the Hulk flies out from the explosion, he does not get hurt, only suffer a minor wound, which seals or heals instantly. Moreover, another scene also showed that the Hulk gets mad and lifts a military tank like lifting a table. Which is really cool visually, but cannot be applied in real life and after that Hulk grabs the military tank, swings it and throws it far away. Then he proceeds and bends one of the tanks to prevent it from firing. In addition, there is this scene where hulk grabs a missile, bites the top of the missile and spits it back at the helicopter. These scenes totally defy the rules of physics. Yet another scene is when The Hulk grabs a rocket and it starts taking him into space and he falls from that distance but tills lives.






Many of the films that are made these days defy the rules of physics in order to make the movie interesting. Some of the physics are apply, but some others are exaggerated just to make it more interesting. The audience on the other hand, enjoys watching movies like this because even though people cannot do that in real life. It is fun to see and it is entertaining to watch the exaggeration of physics. In the movies that I analyzed; Transformers 3 dark of the Moon, Van Helsing, and The Incredible Hulk are movies that are impressing to watch, and as CGI movies continue to take control in the film industry directors will continue to violate the laws of physics.


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