Introduction
In the animated Feature Film
Zootopia, the modern society of anthropomorphic animals, showed physics to be
unnatural and manipulated when convenient, the product is a fun
world to watch. I will cover the critical analysis of animation and special
effects this fun world portrayed. Outside of physics, I really appreciated the
film for its morals and message. It related to the real world we find ourselves
in, the animals in Zootopia are split into two groups: prey and predators. The prey
makes up the majority of the populous, while the predators are in the minority.
The assistant mayor (a sheep) creates a scandal in which the predators are poisoned
to go savage and revert to their former ways of living before the modern
society began. A wide-eyed bunny named Judy found herself to be the one to revel
this new event by doing her job as a police officer and protecting the animals,
but she was also the one who reunited the city with the help of her friend Nick
who is a fox. The plot is so great that I had to watch the movie a second time
to pick up on the animations. In which, this world is defiant to physics in the
subtlest ways by: braking the laws of gravity, exaggerating the paths of action
and exaggerating inertia.
Body Paragraphs
1. Laws of Gravity Broken
The film starts with Judy in a
school play which is themed on the history of the animal instinct and the future
anthropomorphic animals have to look forward to. Because she is a bunny she was
discouraged by people when she said she wanted to be a police officer. After
the play she had a run in with the bully Gideon a fox, while he was picking on a
few prey animals. She stood her ground against him and in doing so things
became physical and he pushed her to the ground (Fig 1). Now regarding physics, gravity
is broken as Gideon pushes Judy, and she goes up before she goes in the
direction of the push (4:52). Her body is small, but on the push her feet come
all the way up to where her head was, Gideon was much taller than her, so the
angle he pushed should have directed even more extremely toward the ground. My
Second example of gravity being broken is when Judy and Nick are running away
from Manches the Jaguar after he is poisoned with the Night howler flower to go
savage, they ran from him and crossed a bridge (52:00). As Manches entered the
bridge the two smaller creatures where launched into the air as if the jaguar
was a 1000 times their size, Manches mass simply is not capable of the height
Judy and Nick reached unless gravity is not 9.8m/s (in which it is not consistent
throughout the movie). The third example gravity is broken is when the weasel that
steals the night howlers from the store clerk, is running from Judy and he
finds himself on the top of a train going through the little animal town. He
finds himself having to change his shape to fit through the mouse tunnel forms
that are attaching buildings over the train tracks. This indifference to
physics adds humor, and with him staying in pace with his X-directional
movement, his Y-direction is granted unlimited hang time where the rule of 4th
down at half is not followed (30:06).
Fig 1: Judy being pushed by Gideon
2. Exaggerated Paths of Action
Here I will address the exaggerated
paths of action some of our characters find themselves in. My first example,
Nick and Judy are talking, Nick points away and when Judy looks and looks
back to Nick, Nick has moved a whole block within 4 seconds (Fig 2), as it snaps
back to Nick, he is casually strolling around the corner (23:56). The second time
I found an exaggerated path of action is, as our two heroes are running away
from the savage Manches and they find themselves doing some extreme rope
swinging. Nick flies up in the air after dismounting from Judy’s hand and given
his extended rotation radius he should have more momentum to go higher than
Judy. We should see she Judy follow with a smaller but identical parabolic
movement, but instead we see Judy then climax higher and later then Nick
(55:15). Thirdly, once again we revisit the weasel that stole the Night
howlers, in the chase he is approaching the little animal town, which is fenced
off. The projectile motion the weasel’s bag makes is inaccurate, he is running
full speed far away from the fence and he tosses the bag in the air with a high
velocity in the X-direction, the bag lands directly on the other side of the
fence with hardly any change in ∆X (29:06).
Fig 2: Nick disappearing a full block in less than 4 seconds.
3. Inertia exaggerations
My final group of example of this
film being indifferent to the laws of physics will be the exaggerations of
Inertia. In my first example the neighbors next door to Judy are two bucks from
the savanna, they both have a harsh but sweet side to them. In this example
they are being terrible unapologetic neighbors, who as they argue on the other
side of the wall, their voices are being animated by two picture frames in Judy’s
room (Fig 3). When they talk, their assigned
picture frame moves to their words (27:50). Given the law of inertia, this
is possible give the sound waves are big enough. However, I have never seen the
pictures on my wall move to the voice of my neighbors. The second example of
Inertia being exaggerated is as Judy is training to be a police officer, she is
up against a rhino in a boxing match. Let’s say a bunny rabbit weighs 5 lbs, and
a rhino’s arm weighs 150lbs (these are not exact figures, just numbers to prove
a concept). Judy jumps off the boxing ring rope to fly into the fist of the
Rhino, she is much smaller than, the rhino's fist moves with more speed than
Judy entered the engagement with (7:08). Consequently, the rhino is knocked out
with his own fist, the kinetic energy through the series of events exponentially
grew in which breaks the laws of inertia. Thirdly, Nick and Judy break the
rules of inertia by taking their runaway train filled with evidence to inform
the public and bring to justice the scandal at hand. Nick and Judy jump off the
train going full speed and they stop where they land, as the train goes into
the wall (127:40). In which we know an object in motion stays in motion until
acted upon, in which we did not see them catch friction as they slowed to a
stop after impact.
Fig 3: The pictures are moving with the voices of the neighbors
Conclusion
To conclude, Zootopia is indifferent to physical
laws as they intentionally broke them throughout the film whenever more flare
was wanted. If I wasn't paying attention I would not notice the laws broken in
physics, because it gives the film more life, and adds comedy in which I am so
focused on being entertained. Given this assignment I was able to base my
observations on modern science in theoretical analysis and principles of experimental
observations. In the subtlest ways this world of clothed animals is defiant to
physics by braking the laws of gravity, exaggerating the paths of action and exaggerating
inertia. In all the examples I mentioned above we can agree, sometimes breaking
the rules makes things a little more fun, I would have hated to see Nick and
Judy break all their bones when they made their exit from the train. The film
would have made an ending there or else threaten to break the rules of biology,
or more practically cut to a black screen that says “1 years later and 6
surgeries each they are back” to pick up the tragedy that should have happened if
the laws of physics were not then broken. However, this was not a film on
reality, it was a film that wants you to assimilate with people who are
different from you, and with that I am alright with the broken physics.
***The outline has been revised given Chris' Comments
