Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction?

Second Term Paper

Unrealistic Physics in the movie Hancock

From the beginning until the end of the movie Hancock, several principals of physics are violated, starting as early as the opening action sequence. The movie is about a seemingly human man (and later we discover a woman, too), with above-average abilities, including super strength, the ability to jump into flight, the power to deflect bullets, and apparent immortality. Even if the man, Hancock, played by Will Smith, were incredibly strong, the feats he accomplishes in the film would still be unreasonable by the measures of physics. Specifically, in the opening scene, three identifiable physics principles are violated: first when Hancock jumps off the ground in order to fly, then when he stops a car using the friction of his feet against the asphalt, and finally when he swings a car around while suspended in mid-air.

The first violation of physics in the film is clearly when Hancock jumps up and takes off into flight, practically causing an explosion on the ground as he does so. With not a lot of force exerted (only the force of his own body pushing against the ground), he is able to accomplish a huge takeoff. Hancock squats down, but very quickly, not allowing for much time to rebound and gain momentum. It takes a mere instant for Hancock to go from a stationary state of no acceleration, to full speed flight. It would take a great amount of energy and force to make this possible. Even cars, which are propelled by an engine, take a number of seconds to speed up; yet, Hancock seems to skip the acceleration phase and reach his maximum speed immediately. In terms of animation, there is no slowing in or out when Hancock takes off or lands. He also leaves behind a great deal of destruction on the ground during take off and landing. This can be attributed to the force Hancock exerts on the ground as he takes off. He relies on the reactionary force of the ground to help push him off. However, the extent of the damage is far too exaggerated. There are large pieces of gravel that fly up at least thirty feet into the air, and the area of the destructed area is much too large to be attributed to Hancock’s feet.

The second time the film shows unrealistic physics is when Hancock is in a moving car with a group of criminals, and He pushes his feet through the floor of the car, using the friction of his feet against the ground to stop the car. His feet dig into the road, leaving the cement upturned and broken underneath the car. It stops in roughly ten car lengths. There are a few problems with the realism of this scenario. First, the driver of the vehicle still has his foot on the acceleration, so Hancock would need to not only stop a moving object with simple friction, but that object is simultaneously being set in motion by the force of an engine. Second, the force he needs to exert on the ground must be reciprocated back onto him. As he is sitting inside the car, the only force he has is his own weight, which would not be enough unless he had something to push off from, but it shows in the film that he does not use any other force. Last, Hancock’s body is moving at the same speed of the car, so even if he were able to exert a substantial amount of downward or “normal” force on the ground, his feet are still travelling in a forward motion. In addition, the car stops in such short a distance, almost shorter than if the driver had slammed on the brakes. All of this combined makes this action very unrealistic.

A third and hugely obvious violation of physics in the film concerns the principle of gravity in relation to Hancock’s ability for flight. Aside from the fact that it is not possible for a person to fly without any propulsion device or extended surface area parallel to the ground to create air resistance, Hancock’s flight is chaotic and is impossible both within Earth’s atmosphere as well as out in space. After stopping the criminal’s car using friction and his own feet, Hancock springs the car up into the air with him as he flew or hovered over the city of Los Angeles. Keeping hold of the car with hands, he swings the car around, drops it, grabs hold of it again, then lets go and kicks it down onto a building. The way he is able to exert forces while in mid-flight shows that something is fundamentally wrong with the equation. He has nothing to push against to perform the movements he does in he air. If every force must have an equal and opposite force, then he is exerting a lot of force onto empty air under the unrealistic assumption that the air’s mass will sustain the force and push back. Although Hancock is able to violate gravity, he does not act as though gravity does not exist. If he were immune to the effects of gravity, he would not be able to change speed, direction, or exert force the way he does while in the air. In addition, his pattern of flight is chaotic, not streamline or aerodynamic. In other words, nothing about unaided human flight is possible or realistic in any sort of physics related way.

There is a part, also early on in the film, when Hancock stood on the tracks of an oncoming train, and was hit. Part of this was incorrect, but another part was shown correctly. The part that was incorrect is the actual impact, in which Hancock immediately stops a train moving at full speed. He is able to stop the motion of the first car of the train in an instant and with no impact to himself. For Hancock not to have a visual reactionary force, he would have to have a greater mass and opposing force than the train. However the scene is done well because of the reaction of all the cars of the train that are connected. They have impact one after the other, and crumple up on each other, falling off track. The law of inertia states that an object in motion (the train) will stay in motion until acted upon by an equal or greater force. The force of Hancock hitting the train does not affect the entire train all at once – it affects only the first car, while the following cars remain in motion until they hit the stopped car in front of it. It is a chain reaction that moves from one car of the train to the next, as it was shown in the film. For that, which was shown correctly, I give the makers of the movie credit.

In conclusion, the physics in this movie were completely unrealistic and obviously so. However, I do think it was a great film, despite what I heard about it from other people. The emotional impact it had really drew me in, and I thought all the main characters had something special to offer. The physics portrayed in the computer generated images, however, were unrealistic because they violated the laws of gravity, action-reaction principle, and demonstrated an imbalance of forces, all in the opening scene. But because I enjoyed the movie so much, I forgave the bad physics. Any movie about a hero that doesn’t violate physics would be an amazing feat, because if they follow all physics correctly, then technically we all could be superheroes, and we wouldn’t marvel over them in the movies.

Reason for deviating significantly from my original outline is because the first outline wasn't very good for this paper, and you suggested I look for another film. I watched a lot of films (well a lot for me.. I don't tend to watch a lot of movies) and unfortunately I wasn't able to find a really good one before this paper's deadline, which is why it is late. But before writing this paper, I made another outline, which I just kept elaborating on until it kind of became this paper.