Avengers: Infinity War Movie Analysis

Avengers: Infinity War is another classic superhero movie that involves action scenes made more epic by violating the laws of physics. That being said, it took some time to find scenes that involved spotty physics. Here are a few that caught my eye. 

Scene One - Cull Obsidian's Hammer Throw
In the battle scene between Black Order and the Avengers in New York City, Cull Obsidian's hammer seems to be resistent to Newtons first law when it is in contact with a concrete wall, but abides by it when interacting with the ground. Newtons first law states that a body will remain at rest or move in a straight line at a constant speed unless acted upon by a net outside force. 



1:38-1:42

Notice how the hammer travels straight through the building without slowing down whatsoever. Comparing this to newtons first law, it seems that the hammer is resistent to any outside forces. Now look at this scene where the hammer is slowed down dramatically by the ground.


1:55-2:00

The hammer is now subject to forces slowing it down. Being that concrete is surely more difficult to travel through than grass, it doesn't make sense for the hammer to be able to travel through an entire building but not through the soft ground. 

Scene Two - Thor's Arrival in Wakanda
The ground in this movie seems to have superpowers aswell. 


2:53-3:00

As Thor arrives to join the battle in Wakanda via powerful explosion, it appears that the ground is immune to the force of the explosion. An explosion creates force vectors that radiate in all directions perpendicular to the surface of the explosion. You can see these force vectors at work when the creatures around the explosion accelerate away from the explosion as a result of the net force that acts on them. This represents Newtons second law.


This reads that the net force on an object is equal to the mass of the object multiplied by acceleration of that object. The ground, however, appears to not be affected whatsoever by these force vectors. The particles of dirt underneath the explosion should be accelerating away from the explosion, creating a crater, but the particles remain still. This is a violation of the second law.

Scene Three - Dr. Strange Levitating


Any scene where Dr. Strange is levitating is violating Newton's first and second law of motion. In the scenes where Dr. Strange is levitating, gravity is pulling him down but he exerts no force that keeps him upwards. Therefore, there is a constant net force that pulls Dr. strange downwards but he does not accelerate in that direction.

Overall Movie Rating: PGP-13

Comments

  1. Prof. Chris FragileOctober 8, 2019 at 4:44 PM

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  2. Prof. Chris FragileOctober 8, 2019 at 4:46 PM

    The fun of analyzing a movie like this is to be able to pick out those violations you miss when you're just watching for fun. If you want a couple other good examples, look at Colin's blog.

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