Introduction:
Thesis: Gravity, in terms of cinematic story telling, is a tether to relate the described world to our world, but it is far from a constant set of rules that characters and objects are restricted by.
- Gravity is altered or ignored when it comes to three main groups: the personal gravity centers of individual characters, in objects, and even in buildings and large structures.
- This phenomenon is not restricted to animation, live action, movie, or television show.
Examples of defying personal centers of gravity:
a) Pirates of the Caribbean (Jack catching his balance on the wooden beam) 20:08
- This one is subtle, but even without factoring in that he's swinging upwards and into a narrow beam while handcuffed, an attempt to recreate the range of how much Jack leans forward and back, even while flat footed on the floor, minimally requires an immense amount of control and counteraction with a lot of flailing arms. Without these actions Jack's center of gravity is far too outside of
b) The Matrix (Neo bending backwards to dodge bullets)
Who doesn't remember the iconic, impossible move? He was re-writing gravity along with time when he did this move.
c) Mulan (Chien Po carrying the soldiers/a horse) 58:45
- one character picks up his entire squadron, who are holding a rope tied to a horse bearing two more (by the way, dangling off a cliff), and without any change in posture to accommodate the change in center of gravity walks calmly backwards far enough to get the horse back on the cliff. Either he's got a body mass equal to the mountain itself or gravity isn't pulling him over like it should.
Objects defying gravity:
- Warehouse 13 (Pete and Mika suffering from reverse gravity and being thrown to a ceiling) 24:30
- Ok, not technically objects, but as two large-ish masses it's applicable to look at them as large flour sacks... which with a simple flip of a switch suddenly collapse into the ceiling as if they were just dropped onto it. It's also worth noting that while H.G. Wells appears unaffected due to wearing magnetic boots (which somehow also control her hair), the rest of the objects in the room remain in place, as if the room's gravity is normal. So either Wells was obsessed with nails and glue, or gravity is being REALLY weird in that specific location of the house.
- Captain America (Bomb Planes)
- first flying and clearly being seen at 1:41:11, we are lead to believe that the "planes" are actually gigantic nuclear bombs meant to take out America's largest cities, yet also be fully capeable of flight and supporting three grown men in battle armor (and the Hydra armor more resembles old fashioned deep-sea diving equipment), with only one large propeller on the back to keep them going, and two stubby wings to stabilize them.
- This might keep them moving forward while falling, but not doing twists, turns, and gaining altitude as they do in the movie.
Structures defying gravity:
- Up (The house being lifted and flying away supported only by balloons), Pretty much the entire movie.
- Proven by Mythbusters to be all but impossible (Episode 5 of season 2 "Ping Pong Escape"), since they needed so many large helium weather balloons to lift a 4 year old child they could barely even gather and control the required number.
- Avengers (heli-platform carrier rising out of the ocean) 33:32
- Technically an object, but included due to scale
- Lord of the Rings; Return of the King (Sauron's tower suddenly and inexplicably being pulled down and into the ground) 2:45:36
- 2 explanations. Either gravity suddenly and inexplicably intensified to the point that the building could not withstand it and crumbled, or that the structure was initially unsupportable and held together by Sauron's magic, which vanished with the ring, thus leaving the tower to topple. Neither of these explanations conform to our understanding of gravity.
Conclusion:
- Although many aspects of physics are regularly bent or altered in cinema and television, gravity is almost certainly the most common. The force and its effects on body, object, and structure is distorted in almost any nameable science fiction or action movie. Most of the time it tends to be subtle, more or less linked into our real world understanding of the force in order to make a connection to our reality that often masks dramatic and intense law-breaking.
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