Action scenes in
movies are the part people remember the most. They use the drama and
the uncertainty to keep the audience eyes glued onto the screen. The
hero is usually in trouble or something happens to create a strong
sense of tension which causes an action to occur. These high tension
action scenes are usually put in chase scenes or drawn out fights.
These great moments of films are always exhilarating, but ignoring
scientific facts is rather lazy on the film makers end. There are
ways to create tense action scenes without making an interrupted jump
trajectory seem unrealistic, because the audience wants to be
immersed in films. Even though animated scenes can get away with
breaking rules of reality, there are always moments that break our
suspense of disbelief. There are certain scenes in these movies that
run into these issues: Batman: Under the Red Hood, James
Bond: Quantom of Solace, and Iron Man 2. Because actions
shots are more emotional and use tension to sell a scene, there are a
lot of mistakes in action sequences in terms of inertia.
Batman: Under
the Red Hood is the first film to be critiqued in terms of
improper physics. Batman: Under the Red Hood is an animated
Batman film dealing with the aftermath of the death of the 2nd
Robin, Jason Todd, and how the lingering guilt affects Batman.
However, an unknown figure with a red mask named the Red Hood
threatens Batman by taking control of the criminal element. Red
Hood's techniques gives Batman pause as it seems too reminiscent of
someone close. In the first chase of the movie, Batman chases the
Red Hood and almost catches him by shooting the grappling hook at his
leg and try to snag him from his jump. At the split second it hooks
onto Red Hood's legs, he snaps it free with a quick knife swing and
continues his jump away to freedom and shakes off his tracks. This
moment alone breaks the rules of inertia. While he is moving during
his jump, the inertia of his jump should be affected in someway by
the force of the grappling hook. The hook is the opposing force and
that small split second alone should be enough to ruin his jump
trajectory towards freedom. The raw force of the jump have to be so
powerful to overpower the split second snag of the rope on his leg
for it to not affect his jump arc. Had proper physics were to be
applied to the same jump, the Red Hood would be in a bit of a pickle
now that his jump away from the Batman is ruined. One could argue
that it's animated and that these characters are super heroes, but
most of the cast of the Batman series are essentially just human.
The second film in
the discussion will be the film James Bond: Quantom of Solace.
If there is anything the James Bond films have in common over the
years is that: there's is several chase scenes, an over-zealous
villain who almost kills Bond but their pride gets in the way, and
being a lady's man. In this particular film, Bond is fighting this
villain and it lands them into an under construction area with
scaffolding. During the fight, the two swing across the ropes mid
chase and they both slam into the ceiling and fall. The villain
lands safely on one of the scaffolding, while Bond tumbles and his
leg gets caught on the rope and breaks his fall. In the tense moment
of the two reaching for their gun, Bond grabs his gun first and
shoots the villain while being upside down from the rope. The
problem with this scene is that from such a high fall, his terminal
velocity should have dictated a much different outcome. With the
speed of his terminal velocity and his weight, his ankle cannot
support the weight of a fully grown man and prevent him from slamming
his body onto the ground below. The reason why some people live
falls is because there is something to decrease their speed before
the impact. Air bags in cars create a delayed reaction so that the
possible injury in car accidents are reduced. A rope cannot create a
sense of a delayed action just because his body gets a little caught
up in it. The reality of this scene would be that not only his ankle
would break because of his terminal velocity, but also he face plants
onto the ground.
The final film that
will be analyzed will be Iron Man 2 and the scene when Iron Man and
Warmachine crashes through the building and land on the ground. In
this scene, Warmachine's armor is remotely controlled and the two
friends are forced to fight. As they fight in the air, the two
tackle and crash lands on the ground from a high height. The problem
with the scene is that the two gets up like nothing happened and the
scene continues on. The armor may be strong enough to survive the
impact of the landing, but the human body is still in motion and the
abrupt stop from such a high height is sufficient enough to instantly
kill them. This is a continued concept from the James Bond paragraph
because of the concept of inertia is in play. From such a high
height, the fall must be cushioned so that the vulnerable human body
inside the armor can prevent damage. Just like swerving inside a
car, the human body will keep going. Unless the armor has some
gravity technology to act as a way to shield the body from any harm
during falls, it's likely that the frail human body can't handle the
impact of the fall. So the high speed of the rocket boots of the
armor plus their weight with the armor on should easily create a
lethal situation where the two won't easily stand up.
We get caught up in
the action of the scene to not notice these things in action scenes,
but there is always a way for directors to make a scene more
believable. There is always that fine line to be struck between
breaking the rules and making the scene more realistic in movies. In
the end, these scenes worked for the most part and people were sold
despite the errors in physics. Whether or not the laws are broken,
the directors should know concepts and know how to break them. As
long as the suspense of disbelief isn't broken completely, people
will buy that a hook won't mess up a jump, a rope can break someone's
fall, and a robotic suit can protect someone from a high fall.
Action movies tries to blur reality by pushing tension in a shot,
science and reality says otherwise however.
