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