In the world of movies,
there is a certain limit one must follow the laws of physics for the audience
to believe in the world the filmmakers are creating. However, there are plenty
of movies where these laws of physics must be broken. Whether filmmakers do
this due to ignorance of science or for good reason to advance the story
depends. In the examples below, the law of action and reaction is discussed and
judged on whether or not the breaking of the law is justified. In these films,
the laws of action and reaction is sometimes broken through poor knowledge, and
other times it is broken through good intentions of carrying a good story. The
three films I have chosen are Cloud Atlas, Hook, and Kill Bill.
The first film I chose
was Cloud Atlas, one of my favorite movies. One can describe the movie as the
journey of several souls throughout the history of Earth, and it journeys
through many different eras and has a multitude of characters. It is often
harped on for its complicated plot, so I assumed the audiences would not pay
too much attention to the laws of physics. I was somewhat correct in this
assumption. While this film takes place throughout many fantastical worlds, the
laws of physics are actually followed closely well for the majority of the
film. Many laws are followed well, such as with the laws of balance while the
future Neo-Korean characters, Hae-Joo and Sonmi, are running across a small
beam over a harrowing sky-rise. However, they disregarded the law of action and
reaction in a later scene, and it is debatable if this was done for the story
or out of ignorance.
In the same timeline
mentioned before, there is a fight scene that takes place between one of the
male leads, Hae-Joo Chang, and the Neo-Seoul police. In this fight scene, there
are several instances when the law of action and reaction is broken. These
several instances noted are the inaccuracy of recoil of a gun. This is seen in
the scene where Hae-Joo saves Sonmi from the police. He is disguised as a
simple truck driver, but then pulls out his trusty futuristic energy type of
gun. Hae-Joo fires this gun and the police officers go flying in the air,
hitting the walls. This scene is also somewhat odd for several reasons. Firstly,
in that the police officers fly away at a relatively slow speed. Secondly,
Hae-Joo aims the gun at one officer, but the second one standing behind Hae-Joo also goes flying away. Not only is there a
flaw with the speed at which the police officer is shot away and how the second
one is also blown away, but Hae-Joo shows no effects of a recoil as well. If
the gun Hae-Joo was firing was strong enough to blow away a human being, the
speed would have to be incredibly strong. Secondly, if the gun was that
powerful, Hae-Joo would have to suffer significant recoil as well. Maybe the
future designed guns that have no recoil and can make people fly away without
firing at them… however, it is still distracting from the audience. This scene
was a instance where I believe the filmmakers disobeyed the law of action and
reaction, but I do not believe it helped further the story in a significant
enough of way for them to do so.
The next movie I will
evaluate is Hook, Steven Spielberg’s children fantasy movie about a grown up
Peter Pan. It is a children's fantasy movie, so it is understandable the
filmmakers would break the laws in order to fulfill a child's dream. They break
numerous laws, the most obvious being the law of gravity with Peter Pan and a
number of other character’s ability to fly. Disregarding those laws, the
filmmakers also decided to break the law of action and reaction. The instance
in particular where the law of action/reaction is broken is when Jack is
playing baseball in Neverland, where Captain Hook is hosting the game. Jack
hits an unbelievably far home run. For a ten year old boy with little muscle
mass, he would not be able to put such energy into hitting a baseball so far
that it goes hundreds of feet into the air.
However, this is one of
the instances where the breaking of the law of action and reaction is
justified. It is the moment when Jack finally feels validated by a father
figure, and the story would not have been able to progress without this feat of
incredible strength. The filmmakers clearly knew they were doing the
impossible, but they had to do it in order to fulfill the needs of the story.
The final movie I chose
to analyze was Kill Bill by Quentin Tarantino. Honestly, I could have chosen
any of Tarantino’s recent films, in most of his films, the blood spray is
wildly inaccurate and this is a rather good example of breaking the law of
action and reaction. However, Kill Bill had a slightly more intricate way in
which they broke the law of action and reaction than the typical gun spraying
blood all over the place. There is still blood involved in this example, as
expected.
In the one of the many
climaxing battle scenes in the movie, the Bride has to fight O-Ren's 88 army. There
are countless instances where the law of action and reaction is broken. However,
this example in particular is a twist from the norm. In this instance, the
Bride is fighting the schoolgirl assassin Gogo. Gogo wields a large metal
spiked ball. The Bride is finally able to defeat her when she kicks the spiked
ball, has it bounce against a wooden beam, and then bounces back to hit Gogo's
head. Firstly, there would not be enough energy to propel this metal ball enough
times that it is able to make a significant damage to Gogo. Secondly, this
energy would also not be significant enough that force makes Gogo break the
table she is standing on in recoil. While the Bride is strong, she does not have enough energy to propel a large
metal ball, have it bounce back at a high speed, and have the table get
destroyed in the recoil. However, I believe the filmmakers were well aware of
the inaccuracy of this stunt. It made for an exciting action scene and had all
the speed and blood that the story and feel of the movie needed.
In conclusion, in all of
these movies, the law of action and reaction is broken and bent in unbelievable
ways. However, the audience does not mind it so much. It is all to the benefit
of the story and creating an immersive world the law is broken. That is good
reason enough in a fantastical world of cinema.
Listed below are the
Youtube links for the two of the scenes mentioned:
Cloud Atlas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1r3i4SSbMA
(begins at 0:07)
Kill Bill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9iIKn1Bl6c
(begins at 2:00)
