Movie Physics - Twisting Laws to Suit Scenes
Movies are fantasies, and most films bend reality in order to
tell a good story. Because animation is a more malleable medium than live
action, most of the films that bend the laws of physics involve animation. In
fantasy films, one of the laws that is most often bent is the Law of
Acceleration. The law of acceleration explains that “objects always change
their velocity in the direction of the unbalanced force”. In addition to that,
there are multiple other things that fall under this law. In the interest of
heightening the story, filmmakers will often break this law, especially if
there is an element of fantasy to the story. The films Alice in Wonderland, Aladdin, and Sherlock Holmes illustrate how often filmmakers violate the law of
acceleration.
Tim Burton’s adaptation of Alice in Wonderland takes
place in the fantastical realm of Wonderland, where animals talk and humans
grow and shrink with the swallow of a potion. Because of this, it makes sense
that the laws of physics would be broken often throughout the film. Although
this film begins in the real world of Victorian England, the law breaking
starts the second that Alice gets transported into Wonderland:
An object (or person)
does not fall down; it's pulled down by a force, and according to part of the
law of acceleration, “when a force pulls in the direction that an object is
already moving, the object slows out.” This doesn’t apply to this scene,
however. If this was a realistic movie, Alice would not only fall at a constant
rate, but she would also probably die from the fall. Instead, the filmmakers
use the speed of the fall to showcase the confusion and chaos that Alice is
falling through. There are times where Alice seems to slow down, almost as if
she can control how much force is exerted on her. For instance, about halfway
down the rabbit hole, Alice runs into a piano, and she recoils back from it. If
this was done realistically, the way she shifts her weight back should have
affected the direction (and maybe a bit of the speed) she falls. Instead, the
encounter with the piano only illustrates the fear Alice is experiencing as she
falls.
Although violating the
law of acceleration often happens in comedic or action scenes, violations can
also occur in a scene that doesn’t involve either of those things. Aladdin (1992) has plenty of scenes that
break the laws of physics, but the most interesting example of this happening
occurs during a scene that is somewhat unexpected. During the A Whole New World sequence, the audience
is focused on the story but actually, the law of acceleration is violated
during this scene:
Although speed and acceleration are different,
they are in some ways intertwined. If
something needs to get up to a certain speed, it’s the acceleration of it that
accomplishes this. If an acceleration is slow, a fast speed can be
accomplished, it will just take longer than something with a faster of
acceleration. Aladdin’s “A Whole New
World” sequence takes place over the course of three minutes, during which
Aladdin, Jasmine, and Carpet travel from the Middle East to the Imperial City. Although
Carpet starts off by accelerating faster, this isn’t done to get up to a
logical speed for the journey; it’s only done to illustrate the thrill and romance
of the scene (the rapid acceleration also matches the tempo of the music). These
two locations are more than three thousand miles apart, yet Aladdin and Jasmine
seem to be going no faster than someone who is driving down a freeway. In order
for Carpet to have realistically traveled to where the scene ends up, he would
have had to accelerate at a much faster rate to a much faster speed, which
hardly illustrates the romance of the scene.
Sherlock
Holmes (2009) may not be set in Wonderland or Agrabah, yet
because it’s a Sherlock Holmes story, there is still an element of fantasy to
it, and as such has the ability to violate natural laws in a way that the
audience accepts. The law of acceleration is violated in a very basic way in
this scene because it addresses the fact that objects always change their
velocity in the direction of the applied force:
One of the most interesting parts of this scene is
the way that the dry docked boat’s chain reacts to being released, and how it
affects the boat. Although the dry docked boat is held in place by thick wooden
posts in addition to the chain, the posts become ineffective after only four
are knocked down, and once the chain is released, it’s almost as if the posts
are not there. Additionally, the chain reacts in a way that doesn’t match up
with the weight that it has; this is done to enhance the drama of the scene,
but it is still unrealistic. Instead of the length of chain pulling the spool straight
forward, the chain flings the spool around the dry dock as if there is another
force affecting the movement of the spool. The speed of the chain is affected
by the filmmakers desire to heighten the drama, because although the boat
slowly sinks into the Thames, yet the speed of the chain is so great that it
endangers Holmes and Watson in a way that could not have possibly happened in
reality.
“It
is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to
twist facts to suit theories rather than theories to suit facts.” This quote
from Sherlock Holmes illustrates what happens when the laws of reality are
changed in movies. Filmmakers are notorious for “twisting facts (in this case,
the laws of physics) to suit theories (scenes of film)”. Although the
filmmakers may have done illogical things in their movies, they do make sense
in the reality of the film and are often used to enhance the story or scene. In
each scene described, the laws are broken to raise the stakes: Alice travels to
Wonderland, Aladdin and Jasmine fall in love, and the mystery that Sherlock
Holmes faces deepens. We as an audience accepts a less-than-realistic- take on
the physical world if the world is somewhat magical, whether it takes places in
Wonderland, Agrabah, or Holmesian England.
