Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction?

     Psychological Priming is a survival technic humans use daily, its a way of setting our mind to the exposure of one stimulus so that we can better respond to other stimulus. Hollywood has played on this survival technic, when we walk into the theater, we are not priming for accurate physical principals, we are primed to be entertained. Even if you were a hero and a writer reproduced your story, you will be made a legend from the making of that movie, because reality is harsh and boring, super powers are more fun (and highly inaccurate). However, an important component of being an educated adult is the ability to differentiate fact from fiction, even if you like to indulge fiction. I will be exposing violations in Newton's Third Law of Motion from Django Unchained, The Simpsons, and Monty Python's the Holy Grail. Showing that for every action there is an equal and opposite re-action, the equal and opposite re-action will be my focus. Seeing how some of our favorite effects revolve around what should be a relatively small force being distorted and ignored to apply an astronomical force to make a hero.

    For my first example, I will use my favorite writer/director Quentin Jerome Tarantino, the universe that he writes in is so thoughtful and relative. As he offers countless movies where every reaction is not properly represented by the original action, I have decided to focus on Django Unchained (2012). In the movie a German bounty hunter helps a freed slave rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner. In the first clip Dr. Schultz is blown away (0:46) by the force of the double-barrel 12 gauge shot gun. Where this force is the same on the shoulder of the shooter as it is in Dr. Schultz chest. What we should expect is the consistency of the watermelons in FPS Russians YouTube video (below), FPS has a lot of other effects due to the chemicals he introduced inside of the melons to create a fire. Also, we can pay attention to the back fence and compare it to the book shelf explosion. The book shelf implied that the shotgun was a "sawed off shotgun" given that the spread of the bullets incorporated such a large area in such close quarters. This actually takes force away from what should have happened to poor Dr. Schultz, with less accelerated mass hitting him, he probably should have just fallen onto his face rather then being lunched backwards. Instead Quentin made Dr. Schultz looking like an acetylene barrel. However, fallowing this second shot, all other shots were fairly accurate given the rounds of the guns.

     For my second example, lets take a completely different type of entertainment that distorts Newton's Third Law. Lets look at an episode of The Simpsons created by James Brooks, Matt Groening and Sam Simon. In this episode they do a spoof on Lord of the Rings which involves a major fight scene where a castle is to be raided by the American Shipping Service because Bart unlawfully got free boxes from them, and they want them back. As soon as I started looking through the episode, it is riddled with incorrect outcomes given the recipes to each scene. I am avoiding all other inaccuracies and focusing on (3:39) Bart put a square brick in a round cardboard tube. Clearly the fit is not air tight, if the pressure was enough to blow the brick the strength of the cardboard would not be enough. The brick lands and hits a American Shipping Serviceman in the chest and he is forced to the ground given the impact. From that we have to make two assumptions to enjoy the show. First, that Bart can blow a brick with a breadth of air. Second, that Bart's one breadth of air can knock a man over with an exponential force. These two assumptions clearly break the 3rd law, because a 160lb man can not be blown over by a boy, where a man's lung capacity is 6 Liters, so Bart might have 2.5 L given his ration to Homer. The effect of a grown man (6 liters of air) blowing on a candle can be shown by Jack Black in the video below, at a much farther distance Bart's effect would be even less then that of Jack Black's.

    My third and final example comes from the classic Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) written by Graham Chapman. If you have ever seen the movie you will know that, its such a ridiculous movie, although I find it extremely hilarious. As the king of the Brits goes around asking for direction to find the Holy Grail, he comes across a castle filled with Frenchmen in England. When asked why the Frenchmen are in Britain, the Brits are quickly told to mind their own business and that is where the Brits are unwelcomed. As the Frenchmen provokes them, he ends up throwing a Cow over the wall. Not just from the height of the wall but it is launched hundreds of feet in the air. Other cows and farm yard animals are thrown from the walls of the castle, one lands on one of the knights and the knight gets up and runs away. If the forces from the cow coming off the wall was applied to a human they would be smashed. In other words the man should be just as dead as the cow at the end of the scene given that Newton's Third Law stands correct. Actually, he should be more smashed then the cow given their masses.

     To conclude, we are primed to be entertained when we start a movie or a TV show, and with that we are ready to accept the fiction that comes along with it. Heroes aren't enough for a story line, what we want to see are legends and the writer will make legends, no matter how inaccurate super powers are. Nonetheless, an important element of being a well-educated adult is the ability to differentiate fact from fiction. I was able to show the violations in Newton's Third Law of Motion from Django Unchained, The Simpsons, and Monty Python's the Holy Grail. Showing that for every action there is an equal and opposite re-action that is broken. Quite simply if real life was accurately reproduced by the media, no one would feel the need to partake in the entertainment industry, because it wouldn't be any different from the monotonous agenda many people live. Entertainment needs to break the intuitive laws our universe gives. Breaking these laws gives us a false sense of freedom, in which we all love to dream.

Outline for the Second Term Paper

Introduction

Thesis: I will be exposing violations in Newton's Third Law of Motion from Django Unchained, the Simpsons, and Monty Python the Holy Grail. Showing that for every action there is an equal and opposite re-action, the equal and opposite re-action will be my focus.

Body Paragraphs

1. Django Unchained: Double-barrel 12 gauge shotgun on Dr. Schultz

• In the first clip Dr. Schultz is blown away (0:46) the force of the double-barrel 12 gauge shot gun is the same on the shoulder of the shooter as it is in Dr. Schultz chest.
• What we should expect is the consistency of the watermelons in FPS Russians youtube video plus a lot of other effects given a change in chemistry.
• the back fence did not go up like the book shelf explosion.
• instead of Dr. Schultz looking like an acetylene barrel.
• all other shots were fairly accurate given the rounds of the guns.

2. Simpsons Lord of the Rings spoof

• avoiding all other inaccuracies and focusing on (3:39) in the clip shows Bart putting a square brick in a round cardboard tube. Clearly the fit is not air tight.
• the brick land and hits a American Shipping Serviceman in the chest and is forced to the ground.
• we have to make 2 assumptions to enjoy the show
• 1. Bart can blow a brick with a breadth of air.
• 2. Bart's breadth of air can knock a man over.
• These clearly break the 3rd law, because a 160lb man can not be blown over by a boy (where a mans lung capacity is 6 Liters, so Bart might have 2.5 given his ration to Homer).
• the effect of a grown man (6 liters of air) blowing on a candle can be shown by Jack Black in the next video, the effect Bart would have at a much farther distance would be even less.

3. Monty Python and the Holy Grail

• As the king of the Brits goes around asking for direction on the Holy Grail, he comes across a castle filled with Frenchmen in England.
• As the Frenchmen provokes them, he ends up throwing a Cow over the wall.
• There are cows and other farm yard animals thrown from the walls of the castle, one lands on one of the knights and the knight gets up and runs away.
• if the forces from the cow coming off the wall was applied to a human they would be smashed.
• the man would be just as dead as the cow.

Conclusion

• Physical laws are intentionally broken throughout the film whenever more dramatization is wanted.
• the Third law states for every action there is an equal and opposite re-action, the equal and opposite re-action while these three examples show the Director alters this law for effect.

Reverse Video Reference

A whole day went into this, in a freezing cold pool in santa cruz, the movements and camera work was studied carefully and many takes were... taken. But these are the best and well, they are hilarious so don't doc me points. I am not a professional Choreographer, nor is my friend a professional Cinematographer... have mercy.  

Clip A

Clip B

Clip C

Clip D

Stop Motion Animation of falling

Well first of all, I couldn't think of anything to do, so I found a superman lego and then thought of ideas. He is supposed to fly right? so it would be funny if he couldn't fly nor swim. So he is having nightmares about drowning, he sets out to face his fears. He drowns. As you can see form the pictures I added, my hands were in a lot of shots in which I didn't use or I cropped my hands out of them. Superman's projectile motion off the cliff was that as a humans, very little x-axis velocity lead to a very small change in X at the bottom. I will not treat his cape as a tracking suit skydivers use to catch lift, because squirrel suits are awesome, capes are for losers. I then just raise my hand out of the frame and dropped him, letting you believe he jumped on his own. I started the frames as he was close to his jumping point.

The Laws of Physics in an Animation Universe: Zootopia

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 4^th 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