The joys of Hollywood Physics
While appraising and criticizing the effect Hollywood is having on the understanding of science, you can perhaps forgive movies of the fantasy genre such as Superman, X-men and the Spiderman series whose very essence is deeply rooted in the presence of super powers. One would expect that the appeal of super powers is the existence of a license to enjoy watching some of the fundamental laws of science being bent, broken and occasionally mutilated.
Yet I find it a little more difficult to appreciate flawed physics when it appears in movies that put on a more serious front. The usual surfeit of bad movie physics invariably includes cars bursting into flames the moment they come into contact with just about any object. There always has to be the indefatigable good guy jumping 20 or more feet and landing with a mere bruise and standing up to catch up with a Ferrari that happens to drive by (on foot!) as is frequently portrayed in the James Bond movies.
Furthermore, it is certainly worth mentioning one of the most overused mistakes in action flicks - the flashing bullet! Filmmakers frequently represent impacting bullets with bright flashes of light to enhance an already scientifically mutilated scene. Regular bullets, especially those from handguns that are made of lead alloys, simply do not create flashes of light when they strike an object. This can be logically explained by the fact that most of the bullet’s kinetic energy is lost by the time it hits and even more is lost during the deforming of the bullet and the object. Besides that, energy is even lost due to shock waves transmitted into the object. All of these are sure signs that bullets from the gun of a Hollywood star do not quite adhere to laws governing this planet.This flaw is something that quite surprisingly even the Bourne series has incorporated. Yet, the latest in the series, The Bourne Ultimatum, is one of my favorite movies for the sheer realism and smart action that we were treated to for two whole hours. One particular scene that comes to my mind is when Jason Bourne is forced to drive his car off a high parking lot onto the ground some forty feet below. The car tumbles down at terrifying speed towards the tarmac and on impact heavily dents the car while not producing absurdly wild flames. Not surprisingly, the director admits that this effect was created not by CGI but by actually carrying out the entire stunt as we witnessed in the movie.Nevertheless, due to the current trend of movies, this scene would have appeared quite differently in another movie such as Live Free or Die Hard. Flames would have erupted the moment the car made contact with the ground and perhaps these flames would rise in a towering crescendo engulfing a helicopter floating above. Of course, this helicopter would then fly for about a mile, wildly out of control, and then slam into another structure, duly producing the single most intimidating blaze which is then miraculously doused at the end of the film. Pure drama, nothing more.
The antics in Live Free or Die Hard come nowhere near the legendary science shattering epic, Speed (1994). This movie has perhaps the single most absurd scene of all time that defies the very basic law of physics and served as an unforgivable snub of poor Isaac Newton. It involves a bus and a missing fifty-foot section on an overpass bridge.The bus, travelling on an empty freeway seems for a moment to be doing everything that a regular bus would do. However, as luck may have had it, no one realizes that the overpass they were approaching was missing a fifty foot section until it was too late. Keanu Reeves then instructs Sandra Bullock to speed up in order to jump the gap. Excited physicists all over the world must have licked their lips in anticipation of the impending demonstration of projectile motion which depends entirely on the take-off angle. However, a cursory look at the front of the bus would tell you that the take-off angle was ...zero! So, the only way for the bus to get to the other side if it existed in a realm that resembled anything close to reality was for it to fly straight across a fifty foot gap!
However, the butchering of Newtonian physics does not stop there. During the jump, the back of the bus dips way below the level of the take-off point while it was about halfway across the gap. Logically, it would seem that since it was below the landing point at the other end of the gap, the bus would have collided square in the middle with the unfinished bridge.
But, of course, who needs physics in Hollywood. The bus makes it to the other end, with some vague camera work solving the collision problem and
we all get to enjoy a cheesy, happy ending. Yet, even movies that defy hard logic are entertaining in a funny way and I cannot deny the hours of entertainment that they provide when there is little else to do. However, it does little to enhance a better understanding of the world as we know it. If you are ever in a situation where you need to make a 50 foot leap travelling in a bus at 70 miles an hour, it would not be a bad idea to remember that you probably won’t make it, whatever Keanu Reeves may have to say about it.
Yet I find it a little more difficult to appreciate flawed physics when it appears in movies that put on a more serious front. The usual surfeit of bad movie physics invariably includes cars bursting into flames the moment they come into contact with just about any object. There always has to be the indefatigable good guy jumping 20 or more feet and landing with a mere bruise and standing up to catch up with a Ferrari that happens to drive by (on foot!) as is frequently portrayed in the James Bond movies.
Furthermore, it is certainly worth mentioning one of the most overused mistakes in action flicks - the flashing bullet! Filmmakers frequently represent impacting bullets with bright flashes of light to enhance an already scientifically mutilated scene. Regular bullets, especially those from handguns that are made of lead alloys, simply do not create flashes of light when they strike an object. This can be logically explained by the fact that most of the bullet’s kinetic energy is lost by the time it hits and even more is lost during the deforming of the bullet and the object. Besides that, energy is even lost due to shock waves transmitted into the object. All of these are sure signs that bullets from the gun of a Hollywood star do not quite adhere to laws governing this planet.This flaw is something that quite surprisingly even the Bourne series has incorporated. Yet, the latest in the series, The Bourne Ultimatum, is one of my favorite movies for the sheer realism and smart action that we were treated to for two whole hours. One particular scene that comes to my mind is when Jason Bourne is forced to drive his car off a high parking lot onto the ground some forty feet below. The car tumbles down at terrifying speed towards the tarmac and on impact heavily dents the car while not producing absurdly wild flames. Not surprisingly, the director admits that this effect was created not by CGI but by actually carrying out the entire stunt as we witnessed in the movie.Nevertheless, due to the current trend of movies, this scene would have appeared quite differently in another movie such as Live Free or Die Hard. Flames would have erupted the moment the car made contact with the ground and perhaps these flames would rise in a towering crescendo engulfing a helicopter floating above. Of course, this helicopter would then fly for about a mile, wildly out of control, and then slam into another structure, duly producing the single most intimidating blaze which is then miraculously doused at the end of the film. Pure drama, nothing more.
The antics in Live Free or Die Hard come nowhere near the legendary science shattering epic, Speed (1994). This movie has perhaps the single most absurd scene of all time that defies the very basic law of physics and served as an unforgivable snub of poor Isaac Newton. It involves a bus and a missing fifty-foot section on an overpass bridge.The bus, travelling on an empty freeway seems for a moment to be doing everything that a regular bus would do. However, as luck may have had it, no one realizes that the overpass they were approaching was missing a fifty foot section until it was too late. Keanu Reeves then instructs Sandra Bullock to speed up in order to jump the gap. Excited physicists all over the world must have licked their lips in anticipation of the impending demonstration of projectile motion which depends entirely on the take-off angle. However, a cursory look at the front of the bus would tell you that the take-off angle was ...zero! So, the only way for the bus to get to the other side if it existed in a realm that resembled anything close to reality was for it to fly straight across a fifty foot gap!
However, the butchering of Newtonian physics does not stop there. During the jump, the back of the bus dips way below the level of the take-off point while it was about halfway across the gap. Logically, it would seem that since it was below the landing point at the other end of the gap, the bus would have collided square in the middle with the unfinished bridge.
But, of course, who needs physics in Hollywood. The bus makes it to the other end, with some vague camera work solving the collision problem and
we all get to enjoy a cheesy, happy ending. Yet, even movies that defy hard logic are entertaining in a funny way and I cannot deny the hours of entertainment that they provide when there is little else to do. However, it does little to enhance a better understanding of the world as we know it. If you are ever in a situation where you need to make a 50 foot leap travelling in a bus at 70 miles an hour, it would not be a bad idea to remember that you probably won’t make it, whatever Keanu Reeves may have to say about it.
posted by Jose Parakkat at
9:41 AM
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