Physics is how everything
in our universe moves and interacts, and it is often bent or changed in films to
fit the cinematography. Scott Pilgrim Vs.
The World not only bends the laws of physics, but breaks them completely. There
are people performing physical acts not possible for the human body, people are
making things out of thin air, and one character even travels around Toronto by
using a shortcut through another character’s brain. Clearly the laws of physics
are fundamentally different in the Scott Pilgrim Universe; namely the limits and
potential of the human body, generation of energy and mass from thin air, and
overall everything has less inertia.
Scott Pilgrim is partly homage to beat-‘em-up
video games, so naturally it involves crazy physics defying fights which are a delight
to watch. Part of why they are so amusing is that the stunts are well beyond
the limits of the human body and are clearly exaggerated. When Scott fights the
third evil ex, Todd, he takes a lot of damage that a human would not be able to
take. He is flung high enough in the air to be off screen for twenty seconds,
and survives the fall by landing on a pile of trash bags. Not only does he
survive, but he does not seem to have any visible injuries or broken bones. In
the same fight he is flung through a total of five brick walls, three of them
at one time even. Again Scott shows signs of being hurt for a few seconds, but
shakes it off. This could mean the human body is constructed of different
materials that could absorb the forces put on it. The skin could be made of
some cut-proof material such as Kevlar. Bones and other internal organs would
have to be much more elastic, possibly made of rubber. The forces acting on the
body would be very large as well, which brings us to the aggressor, Todd. Todd
has telepathic and telekinetic powers attributed to him being vegan. While the
science behind being able to control affect objects with the mind is indeed
questionable, it is what Todd attributes his ability to that shows that humans
are fundamentally different. He simplifies it down to the popular myth that we
only use ten percent of our brains, and that vegans’ heads are clearer because
of their diet and can use one hundred percent of their brain power. This has
been scientifically disproven, and while the myth is still perpetuated today,
it is very clear that this is a different universe. Todd is not just making it
up either, as shown by the basic knowledge of the other characters in the
scene. They know of vegans having super powers. So this is not something that
is entirely exceptional and is common knowledge. The limits of the human body in
this film are both physically and mentally higher.
Another
factor that may contribute to these events is that in the film’s physics,
inertia, as well as air resistance, has a much smaller effect on mass. This
would mean it would be much easier to change a moving object’s direction as
well as making it easier for the characters to perform such amazing feats as
they do in the film. In Scott’s fight with the second evil ex Lucas Lee, Lee
throws Scott across a large film set and up a few stories. This could easily be
explained by him having super powers, but he is a normal person like Scott, who
has similar strength, although he is considerably scrawnier than Lee. This
would mean the rest energy of mass is significantly lower than it normally is.
It takes much less energy to move objects. This would also partially explain
how he defeats Lee. Lee dies by doing a grind on his skateboard down a rail and
reaching a top speed of 309 k/h (192 m/h). This speed is close to the top speed
a human can attain while falling, and he’s doing it while grinding down an
incline. Gravity does not seem to be greater in the rest of the movie, in fact
it would seem to be less, but he accelerates to near top speed in a matter of
seconds. This would mean it takes less
force to act upon his mass than normal. Of course in order for this to happen,
friction and air resistance would have to be nearly negligible. His speed was
not slowing down at all; in fact he was still accelerating before crashing,
which means there was no air resistance at all to counteract the force of
gravity. Had there been any, it would have counteracted gravity very fast due
to less inertia and Lee would not have reached terminal velocity and Scott
wouldn’t have defeated him.
Throughout
the movie characters are breaking the law of the conservation of mass and
energy. Characters create masses and energy out of thin air in almost every
fight. Most notably is the amp vs. amp band battle with the Katayanagi twins. Both
bands summon large physical monsters with their music to do battle. These
creatures seemed to be formed by the sound waves coming from the amplifiers and
electricity. Even more fantastical is the swords used in the final battle. Both
Scott and Gideon use swords they pull out of their bodies, though Gideon’s
seems more like an energy sword. There is no apparent loss of mass in either of
them when they perform this. While converting energy to matter is theoretically
possible, it would take a great amount of energy to do so. Einstein’s famous mass-energy
equivalence formula, E=mc2, shows that mass is equivalent to a significantly
larger quantity of energy. This principle seems to be flipped in the film. Characters
are either creating mass out of small amounts of energy, or are simply just
creating mass from nothing.
It
is quite evident that Scott Pilgrim Vs.
The World takes place in some alternate reality from ours. In any other
film the ridiculous fight physics and mass creation would break the suspension
of disbelief, but in this film it works. The aesthetic is like that of a video game
and comic book, which it is what it’s based off. Clearly it was meant as a
tribute and somewhat of a parody of classic videogames, so the physics are even
more exaggerated. Everything in this movie is exaggerated: the script, the
characters, the story, and the animation; I love it for that. The physics in Scott Pilgrim really enhances the world
and the characters that live in it.
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