TERM PAPER: Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction?

Anything in media can have a high impact on us, especially the things we see on movies, TV, and even video games. With the latest technology and rendering software, anything can be believable, especially special effects which give its aid to represent things that defy the laws of physics. However, with how convincing it looks, we don’t even bother looking at the fact that it could possibly wrong when there are many things that are wrong with the scene we are watching when watching one of those said movies. One of most broken rules is Newton’s third law of motion, also known as the action/reaction principle, is the physics principle in which to every action, there will be an equal and opposite reaction.

One movie that has seemed to earn it’s place in film history is Dark Knight of the Batman Trilogy. In one of the scenes, Rachel is confronting the Joker who has just crashed a party for Harvey Dent. Things escalate and when Batman comes to her rescue, Joker drops her after Batman tells him to let her go while she is being held over the ledge. As she is dropping, Batman lunges off the ledge and dives to save her. While falling, he is able to get a hold of her and turn their position so that he takes the brunt of the fall when they land on a car. According to the laws of physics, that shouldn’t have happened and the force of that fall should have killed him due to the change of acceleration. Another example that defies the laws of physics is double jumping. It is not at all possible in any sort of circumstance in which you can defy gravity while already defying gravity. In the video game, Super Smash Bros. all characters have an ability to jump twice in the air. The only circumstance in which that can happen is if there was a second propulsion that provides them that second jump however, in the game, that second propulsion is air. The action pushing off the ground which reacts into jumping and without something other type of propulsion, the reaction of the second jump to the action of pushing off the air is not possible. The final example is from Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. There is a scene when Todd Ingram punches the highlights out of Knives Chau's hair. That is not physically possible in any way. The action of the punch should be that she gets hit by it and reaction is that she is thrown back by the punch, not have her highlights punched off her hair.