The Laws of Physics in an Animation Universe

    

  “The Incrediredibles” was a huge animated hit released in 2003. The animation reached new heights and surprised everyone with the advancements in animation (graphics and CGI effects) for its time. The movie takes place in present day in a suburban city on planet earth. The main characters are a family of super heroes called the incredibles’, consisting of Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl, Dash, Violet, and Jack Jack. A combination of breaking all laws of physics to accommodate to the incredible family’s super powers and maintaining the laws of physics to everyone else in the world around them adds to the effectiveness of the reality and of the movie. The super heroes are perceived as super heroes because of all the physics laws that are broken in the picture.

     This picture contains a variety of different super heroes with a vast range of powers. The different powers each character has add to the physical laws in the film to be portrayed as believable and applicable to each individual. Some of the powers the characters have are unexplainable, or do not have a law that can compete against it because of the fact that they are super heroes; this allows for the movie to rid itself of limitations. For example Violet, the daughter and oldest sibling, can make herself turn invisible and can create force fields powerful enough to repel bullets out of thin air. The baby, Jack Jack, can morph into different objects and become different elements and materials. Mr. Incredible’s best friend Fro-zone materializes ice out of moisture in the air, and water. Some of the more simple ones to explain and understand would be Elastigirl’s, Mr. Incredible’s, and Dash’s super powers. Elastigirl, Mr. Incredible wife, can stretch to infinite lengths and deflate to make herself as flat as paper. The middle sibling, Dash can run as faster than a speeding bullet and the speed of light. Mr. Incredible, the main lead and father, has the super power of supernatural human strength. He is able to lift anything that is more than several times his own body weight. The villain Syndrome is someone who pops up from Mr.Incredible's past. He does not have super powers he was born with so he invented his own. Syndrome can freeze people and move them around (like a laser pointer) and fly with his rocket boots. Even though syndrome is practically an average human being it is still rather difficult to depict how he can freeze people with the pointer and move them.

     There are several different examples where the laws of physics were broken in the real world, but were dismissed because of the fact that the main characters were super heroes so things played out correctly; however there were times that even though they were super heroes it did not.  

     One example of the laws that didn’t work is when Mr. Incredible gets so aggrivated with his boss he throws him through several walls, causing him to smack into the last wall and be sent to the hospital and receive a full body cast. In that situation his boss should have either died as he hit the last wall, or broke through last wall as well causing him to shatter the window, of the sky rise building and fall out of it plummeting to his death.

     A second instance where the laws were not applicable was when Mr. Incredible is playing catch with dash near the beginning of the movie. Mr. Incredible and his son Dash are throwing the football in the park and Mr. Incredible passes the ball to dash. Mr. Incredible fully extends his arm for the pass, implying that he is doing so with full force. If Mr. Incredible was throwing the football with all his might the ball should have either went much further, he would have had to extend his arm less to imply that he was only putting in the half effort, or Dash would have had to have been running much faster than he was and he would be waiting for the ball to fall directly into the palms of his hands.

   A third example would be when the incredible family is traveling from the secluded volcano island to go back to the city and save the people from Syndrome (the main villain) and the machine he invented. Their method of transportation is suspending a RV in the air using propellers Elastigirl wraps her arms around and stretches her body to hold onto. During this sequence because of the aero dynamic lift law the RV should have been tilted up the entire time; through landing and while flying. In the scene the RV is at a 90 degree angle and completely horizontal.

     Another example would be the fact that considering Dash can run at the speed of light, which is clearly faster than a speeding bullet from a gun, he would not have to be worried about getting shot. In the middle of a movie there is a part where Dash has to run away from the henchmen of syndrome while they shoot at him in hover crafts. The vehicles the henchmen are in are definitely not faster than a bullet; therefore they should not be able to keep up to him or the bullets that they shoot.

     There are several physics laws that would be broken if performed by regular people, however, considering they are challenged by supers the audience lets it slide or finds it even more believable that the supers have powers because of that fact.  

     An instance where this situation occurs would be when Mr. Incredible is trying to escape from the island and is snooping around the main building to find a way out. Mr. Incredible picks up an Easter Island statue and does not have to bend his back much, taking into account that the statue is at least five times his size. An average human being, according to the central gravity law with heavy objects, would have had to lean back a significant amount to keep the central gravity above his own feet. Since Mr. Incredible has super human strength he can get away with the object being light to him, therefore not having to bend his body to shift the central gravity.

     An alternate example would be when Mr. Incredible saves a ton of people on a subway. Mr. Incredible notices that the track is disconnected and if the subway goes over it will fall and smash into the ground, taking all its passengers along with it. In order to prevent this from occurring he uses the Action Reaction Principle. The principle states that for every action force there is an equal force in the opposite direction.  Mr. Incredible uses the ground of the track and his arms to exert force on the object (the subway), while the object is simultaneously exerting an opposing force back. This results in Mr. Incredible stopping the train from going over the edge.  

   

    

      One last law that can be applied is Odd rule and forces. This law stated that the force remains constant; its support by (water) ground balances the weight, leaving only friction force. This would be applied in two separate occurrences with Dash. The first one is where the plane crashes and in order to get to land Elastagirl stretches herself to form a boat and Dash treads his feet in the water at rapid speeds to act a motor boat. The second one would be when Dash is running so fast to dodge bullets and creating so much friction that he can actually run on top of the water in the ocean.

     There are a numerous laws that are defied throughout the entire film. The fact that the movie takes place in the real world, yet its physics laws are altered to adapt to the main characters, which happen to be super heroes, really takes it to the next level. There are a few times throughout the film where the super heroes try to hide their identities however their powers make it rather challenging. If the movie was filled with superheroes and there was not a comparison of the ordinary human, the superheroes would not be super because no one would be. Each of the different abilities the characters had helped them survive and work together as a team well. There were several situations where if the character was not there or they did not have the ability the others would have died. All of these factors aided in moving the plot along nicely. The entire message of the story/ plot promotes being an individual and utilizing what makes up each person. Syndrome tries to enforce there being no supers so that way no one is special and everyone is the same however this would take away the point of having an identity and everything else that comes along with each person being their own person. The plot fed off of being able to bend the laws of physics for the supers and it benefited greatly from that.