Second Term Paper Outline

Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction?

I. Introduction


In nearly all forms of visual media, be it television, movies, or video games, the underlying mission in each is primarily to entertain. In order to do so, many times real world physics must be bent to create something that is truly unique. But while doing so, the sense of belief is always at risk of losing its audiences. As technology continues to evolve, filmmakers and game makers are getting better and better at blurring the line between science fact and cinematic fiction. One of the physical laws in particular that are nearly almost always broken is the law of inertia



II. Body


- "Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs"
- Scene where Flint is flying behind his food invention and it pulls him into a standing stop sign.
-Machine and Flint are flying at extremely high speeds, (and also taking very tight turns
- At these types of speeds, with the mass of the machine compared to Flint's mass, he would not have capacity to hold on to the cable and thus should have flown straight in the machines original direction in a straight line, rather than following the rockets curves as it bounced in different directions.
- Finally, he comes to a complete stop as he hits the stop sign
- At this speed, providing flint was strong enough to hold on, the stop sign should have been bent over and completely rolled over considering flints weight compared to the mass of the stop sign. In real life, he would not have come to a complete stop as he hit the stop sign.

- "Devil May Cry 4"
-Cut scene where main character Nero fights rival Dante
-During fight, Dante lunges (unrealistically at a very high acceleration rate) at Nero sword first, Nero stops him in his tracks by blocking the tip of his sword with his Devil Arm.
- While this makes for a very entertaining moment, this obviously breaks many real world rules.
- While we do not exactly know the material that his arm is made of, theoretically Dante's sword should have at the very least pierced through his arm and possibly the rest of his body at the speed he was traveling.
-While it would have been a little more believable with a little bit of recoil from Nero, instead he was stopped completely on a dime.

-"Forza 3"
-Moving to a game that's considered more "simulation", Forza 3 is a car racing simulation that praises itself on realistic physics.
- While this holds true in most of its cases, there are inconsistencies when it comes to funneling players into its experience.
- Obviously a player is not allowed to go past the track and leave the race, as it would mean developers would have to create a world hundreds of times bigger than what they need o make.
- As this rule exists, areas outside of race tracks are blocked by "invisible walls", which are depicted as simple metal or stone walls around the race track.
- At the speeds that you can go (in this clips example, just over 250 mph), hitting a wall would mean completely totaling your car and flipping over and through the barricades. In this example, the car instead spins out and gets knocked around and also interestingly does not tumble over on its side.
- This is one of the few rare cases that this game shows its inconsistencies with the real world physics.



III. Conclusion


-Although filmmakers and game makers may not always follow real world physics, they have to bend reality in ways to create something fresh and exiting. Even in things that claim to simulate real life, flaws can still be found. While these physics aren't necessarily accurate, they always create a fantasy reality that entertains us from the mundane every day world we see in real life.