The Laws of Physics in an Animated Universe - Megamind

                                                The Laws of Physics in an Animated Universe

             

            Thanks to skilled animators, 3D computer programs, and the collective works of the various teams at Dreamworks we have the movie Megamind.  Physics in the world of Megamind do exist and function almost like they would in reality but are bent for entertainment value.  The fictional Earth that Megamind takes place in still follows all the natural laws of physics.  If it didn't, the animation wouldn't look real and would pull the audience out of the film and story making it a long unenjoyable film.  If the Paths of Action (including arcs and parabolic trajectories), Action (gravity and velocity), and Inertia (impacts) don't look right then they won't feel right. 

            Megamind  is about two gifted aliens who crash landed on Earth.  Our hero is an antihero named Megamind.  When he started school he realized that he never really fit in.  Unable to do anything right he decided he was going to be the greatest super villain in history.  His rival?  Metro Man.  An amazing hero who has the power of flight, invulnerability, super strength, the ability to shoot lasers from his eyes, and really good hair.  How does Megamind fight his rival?  Unsuccessfully.  Megamind (with his super intellect)  loses every battle but never gives up no matter how bad he loses.  After their most recent battle, Megamind sits in prison plotting his escape and revenge on the day that Metro City (the imaginary city where the film is set) is celebrating and immortalizing Metro Man's heroics.  After Megamind escapes prison, he starts his new battle by kidnapping the reporter Roxanne Ritchie and taking her to a secret location, tricking Metro Man into going to another location and unexpectedly killing him.  Shortly after his victory, Megamind grows bored of not having a rival and not getting his butt kicked, so he dreams up a new scheme, create another hero just like Metro Man by bestowing a normal human being with Metro Man's DNA which gets recovered from Metro Man's cape.  Unfortunately Roxanne's Camera Man Hal, who has a small chip on his shoulder, gets zapped. In disguise Megamind trains him to use his power.  After getting turned down by his dream girl (Roxanne Ritchie) Hal decides being good sucks and that life is cooler when you can just take what you want.  With no one else able to stop Hal as he terrorizes Metro City, and Megamind is forced to step up and stop him.

            The opening of Megamind introduces us to parabolic arcs and paths of action and informs us that when a super hero or villain is involved, additional outside forces are not required to force an object (such as Megaminds and Metro Man's baby pods) to deviate from its intended path of action.  Megamind and Metro Man as babies are hurled from their home planets.  This scene sets the stage of Megamind as the underdog to Metro Man.  As their flying through space Megaminds pod hits an asteroid, and bounces into another, and this continues like a game a pinball.  Instead of being crushed by the asteroids, Megamind's pod bounces off and is mildly damaged.  But this doesn't feel off as the angles of the bounces show in a smoke trail behind them, and you can see that their sharp angles much like if you threw a ball into a corner and watched it bounce off the faces of the wall that form the corner.  Where things get weird is when Megamind and Metro Man are plummeting to earth in their pods.  In the next scene, they falling parallel (with nothing but Earth's gravity affecting them) to each other as they approach the Earth's surface making way to a luxurious mansion.  But suddenly as if it has a control system (which these don't appear to since their passengers are babies) Metro Man's pod moves perpendicularly slamming into Megaminds pod knocking it off current path of action, and then fixes its course taking on Megamind's pods original path of action, hitting the mansions courtyard and losing all its energy after two very small bounces and slides to a perfect stop under the Christmas tree.  Meanwhile Megamind's pod seems to take almost a full ninety degree turn and bounce into the city prison.  Discarding the scene with the asteroids for comedic effect, we know that an object in motion  will stay in motion unless a larger force acts on it.  This means that it would not be possible for Metro Man's pod to move perpendicularly and hit Megamind's pod unless that was its original path of action in the first place or was forced into that path of action by another larger force.  After hitting Megamind's pod, Metro Man's pod wouldn't continue to change direction and steer itself to take on Megamind's original path and go into the mansion.  As for Megamind's pod, in order to make that ninety degree turn, it would take an object moving faster and coming from that path of action to force such a drastic turn.  As Megamind's pod bounces through Metro City, it leaves a smoke trail behind it, as we follow the smoke trail, we can indeed tell that the arcs are parabolic as well.  However later in the film we can tell then when the normal humans interact with an object, they still follow standard paths of action.  One such scene would be during the opening ceremony for Metro Man's museum, Metro Man juggles babies, and the Mayor tosses Metro Man a microphone, all of which follow normal arcs and paths of action and feel right.  But shortly after Megamind reveals that he's kidnapped Roxanne Ritchie and Metro Man springs into action but is tricked into going to the wrong place.  Megamind blasts him with a death ray powered by the sun and we see Metro Man's skeleton fly into the air at a steep angle that would make for a very high arc, but in the next scene its trajectory has changed and is flying at Megamind with a very shallow arc that doesn't match the original path that it was shot into the air at. 

            Moving on in Megamind we find Megamind training Hal in how be a hero.  In these scenes, gravity exists but is uniform in how it affects objects.  But we also know that the acceleration of an object is parallel to the force needed to accelerate an object.  In a scene set up like a classic 8 bit Donkey Kong stage, Minion (Megamind's right hand henchman) stands atop the stage hurling objects at Hal, ranging from cars to barrels on fire.  This is significant because the car weighs more than the barrels but actually accelerates at the same rate as the barrels. It may be possible that Minion, having a super powerful robotic body that looks like a gorilla, is throwing these objects in such a way that it equalizes the acceleration (after all he can lift a car).  Or there just isn't enough room on each ramp for the car to reach a speed faster than the barrels as it falls and changes direction. 

            What makes this more significant is in the following scenes, Hal introduces himself to Roxanne in disguise as Metro Cities new hero Titan. Hal figures that since he's Metro Man's replacement that Roxanne will instantly fall for him, but then decides he should take her for a flight and save her a few times.  During this scene, Hal flies high into the air, and drops her, rushes down and catches her, and throws her around like a rag doll, and even throws her over a building.  According to the law listed in the previous paragraph it would take as much force as she weighs to throw her, and even more to throw her any real distance, or even over a building.  But Hal is now a super hero with super strength so no problem there. But when he catches her, he just catches her, absorbing all the inertia generated from her falling.  This is best demonstrated in the scene where Hal throws Roxanne over a tall building.  As he throws her, she picks up speed and slows at the top of the arc over the building and picks up speed as she falls.  Before Roxanne hits the ground, Hal comes bursting through the building and catches her in a chair.  Hal experiences some drag when he catches her but keeps flying in the same direction unaffected by her falling velocity and weight.  Once again when super heroes are involved, certain physics don't apply.

            A little further into the film we see Megamind walking around town in his giant robot that he is going to use to fight Hal.  With each step the impact from the robot's foot is so great that it causes the cement under it to break.  As Megamind shows off his giant robot he swings around on top of city hall and leaps off and lands on the ground, and doesn't break the cement at his point of impact.  When Titan doesn't show up Megamind angrily makes his way to Hal's apartment, jumps off a raised freeway and when he lands, breaks the cement at the point of impact.  What this tells me is that gravity exists, speedy object decelerates as it reaches the apex, and accelerates as it falls.  However the inertia generated by the falling objects and the energy released in the impacts is completely subjective to the character or what the character is feeling when it's related to a super hero or villain. But it is possible to tell that Inertia, weight and mass exist in the film from a scene in which Megamind blows up the Metro Man museum.  We see pieces of it hit the ground, and depending on the size, they either break the ground or bounce off it upon landing.   

            When Metro Man flies around and lands, he lands like a feather, and can even make himself land on water and walk on it as if it were solid.  When Hal lands and takes off he does so with more energy and velocity.  We never see Metro Man break the sound barrier, smash the ground or generate so much energy when he takes off that he breaks his surroundings.  Hal smashes the ground when he lands, creating small craters, and breaks buildings when he takes off from on top of them.  Both characters have equal strength and power, and even though they can do the same things, the amount of energy released when they do the same thing is different.  If this weren't the case then it would be safe to assume that super Hal has more mass then Metro Man.

            Physics in Megamind exist almost as they would in reality.  We know that objects when not acted on by a super hero or villain do follow proper paths of actions, objects are affected by gravity,  and velocity is created as objects fall, but it depends on what super force is acting on the object.  the one thing that seems to not exist in the film is mass.  In the final fight between Megamind and Hal, it starts with Hal breaking off the top half of Metro Tower, which is the tallest building in Metro City.  Hal has tied Roxanne Ritchie to the spire on top of the tower and as its falling, Megamind has enough time to save Roxanne and fly under and away from the tower.  After Megamind makes his escape with Roxanne, the tower isn't even halfway to the ground giving Hal enough time to fly under it and catch it and lift it back up and throw it.  The other problem is that as Hal throws the tower, the path action, weight and mass of the tower wouldn't allow the tower to hit the ground and continue to slide forward on a path to impale Megamind. 

            So in conclusion, physics in the world of Megamind do exist and function almost like they would in reality but are bent for entertainment value.  If they weren't bent in some scenes then the film might become boring as due to a lack of entertainment.  So the real question should be when is it ok to bend the rules and when do you need to abide by them?  When is too much and when does it become unbelievable?  As long as the paths of action, action and gravity stay consistent then I think the audience won't even notice where they get bent and the film will remain believable and entertaining.  And in my opinion that is where the mastery and the craft of the animators lies and is what keeps a film like Megamind entertaining.

Final Word Count: 2,122