The Emperor's New Groove is a film that stands out in the Disney animated feature film collection because of the bold shift in slapstick comedy that resembles more closely to the style of older animations like Looney Toons. Some background trivia of The Emperor's New Groove was that it was originally directed by
Roger Allens and called Kingdom of the
Sun. The story resembled closely to the Prince
and the Pauper allegory and was meant to be a serious musical. However,
Allens was unable to meet Disney's deadline and the project was handed over to
Mark Dindal. With this kind of decision made by Disney, The Emperor's New Groove potentially could have been in development
limbo because of the complete overhaul of the story. The story changed to a
comedy, but we still are able to care about the characters. The audience sees
the transformation of a self-centered prince named Kuzco warming up to the kind
villager named Pacha. They have crazy adventures and thwart the plots of Yzma and Kronk. Dindal ditched what Allens had mostly created and went
with a zany and comedic story more in style of Looney Toons physics. The reoccurring gags of characters floating in space before a deep
fall are just one of the few examples of Dindal's broken, but believable
physics in the animation realm. Walt Disney’s Feature Animation The Emperor’s New Groove exists in a
realistic world but is also contrasted with comedic qualities of improbable
path of actions, squash and stretch, and exaggerated forces that break the laws
of physics.
One of the key elements of cartoony physics in
Dindal’s film are the improbable path of actions and broken gravity. When Kuzco is being carried
and the chair tips way past the edges of the stairs without ever falling, this
implicates the center of balance is ignored in order to get the exaggerated
path winding up the stairs. The servant and Kuzco would have fallen off the
steps to an immediate death at that height.
As a contrast, the audience is anchored back
into the physical world soon after the stairs scene. Ignoring the fact of a
ship somehow ending up inside the palace, Kuzco swings the champagne bottle
initiate the ceremonial ship launching. The bottle slows into arc and at the
apex would smash the hardest at that point.
A common theme in jumps is the character being
suspended in the air. Kronk follows the cracker Kuzco throws and starts with a
parabolic arc in the jump. However, when Kronk reaches the apex, the timing is
exaggerated to hold Kronk’s pose at the apex and he falls straight down. This
was an intentional path of action that the animator’s chose because a realistic
fall would be painful and not sell this scene as well. When the audience sees
the intentionally incorrect path of action, we don’t feel so bad when Kronk
hits the ground.
An example of broken gravity is when the chef throws items into the suitcase. The
spacing feels uniform because the way the items fall into the suitcase make it
light and not following the laws of gravity. This type of uniform animation was
shown to emphasize the large amount of items thrown into a tiny suitcase. The
way the items land neatly make it more whimsical instead of an angry action.
During Kronk's stealth mode scene, he breaks the law of gravity and an unrealistic path of action. Kronk would most likely have a mixture of
rolling and bouncing down the stairs, however he is given a ridiculous fall so
he always bounces up and lands on his face or bottom on every step. The fall was planned that
way by the animators because of the slapstick humor, it’s a “clean looking”
fall that doesn’t make the viewers feel bad for laughing at Kronk.
Kuzco and Pacha are stuck at a cliff edge and used
teamwork by locking arms and pushing against each other back to back was believable
realism until Kuzco’s mouth is full of bats and the bats burst out and that
force. It builds up to the point where the bats flight was able to defy gravity by carrying both a
llama and a human to the right, up, and backwards back to their original
starting point on the cliff. That type of backwards and circular arc is
outlandish but necessary. The animators chose to have the scene done like this
because even though all of Kuzco and Pacha’s hard work were literally rewound;
they learned more about each other during that dangerous situation.
Throughout the
animation there are plentiful examples of squash and stretch that break the
realism of how the actual material behaves. This type of animation is a key
ingredient to visual comedic entertainment because rather than using a
rotoscope method of realism, the animation is able to set a tone with squash
and stretch. A good example of consistency in squash and stretch is Kuzco. Kuzco was the once proud emperor turned into the llama creates a whole new side to Kuzco. Kuzco is fragile and vulnerable and learns how useless he is on his own because of his full dependency on others. To emphasize Kuzco's incompetence as a comedy element is to make him rubbery. The first time we see Kuzco squash and stretch is when he is completely unaware that he became
a llama; to get the goofy chaos is making Kuzco’s limbs become rubber like and
flail madly because his world turned upside down so quickly.
Kuzco’s body is in the bag, but squashes thinly
and making the whole action of falling down the stairs more comedic. His bounce
resembles a bouncy ball rather than a llama. The clean fall down the stairs
makes Kuzco’s descent almost harmless and getting enough bounce to land neatly
and unnoticeablely into Pacha’s cart was the intention.
Two examples of Kuzco’s rubber like qualities
are apparent during when Kuzco and Pacha fell from a broken bridge and are
hanging onto vines. Kuzco stretches like rubber because Pacha slams into him
with his whole body weight. The other
instance is when Kuzco underestimates Pacha’s strength and weight and
get squashed during their trust building exercise where they have to scale up a
cliff together. This shows Kuzco’s unwillingness to try Pacha’s method and has
given up hope.
Cartoon
characters tend to have exaggerated strength or are affected by forces that
would not blend so well in a realistic setting. Since this film is done in the
real world with many good examples of realism like parabolic arcs, conveyance
in weight, inertia, and etc. that not having the wacky physics would
drastically change the tone of the genre.
The stairs scene was mentioned
earlier, but to also note the sheer amount of power the servant has is astounding.
Kuzco is on his portable throne chair while his meek servant manages to carry
portable chair and his body weight while running up the winding stairs. Kuzco
roughly weighs about 100 pounds, the chair is about 10 pounds, while the
servant would probably be 90 pounds. Not only is the servant lifting more than his
own body weight, but does this while running up steep steps. This type of
superhuman abilities are used for Kuzco’s gains because of his selfish and lazy
nature.
The dog balloon the squirrel pops created an
explosion of air rather than a realistic pop where the dispersed air would not
reach Kuzco at that distance. The exaggerated pose and secondary action of Kuzco’s hair
and ears are given the effects that resembles a windy day. Also, the panthers are untouched by the wind, which makes it even more exaggerated in a strange self contained blast of air. The amount of pressure
exerted on Kuzco would be impossible to contain in a balloon that size; it
would explode before it could be tied into a knot. The director’s choice to create
tension with a balloon animal makes Kuzco’s worries almost trivial, but the
explosive wind that pours out makes it even funnier.
Yzma is shown carrying a large mallet hammer with
both hands to crush Kuzco statue busts. There are repeated instances where Yzma
struggles carrying the hammer and get it up into the swing position. This type
of animation is realistic and tells the viewers how weak Yzma is physically. However,
an interesting contrast is Yzma’s difference in strength is when she imagines
herself with a giant hammer (that is probably the same one from the statue
scene). Yzma holds the
hammer up with ease and only needs one hand. The writer’s choice of showing
us the emotional visuals that represent her internal struggles is shown with
realistic weight of the hammer. As a contrast, the cartooniness of the revenge
thirsty scene where Yzma represents herself powerfully when smashing flea version Kuzco. The mix of realism and
cartoony sells the idea that Yzma isn’t the most competent villain and has a
hard time of coming up with ideas.
Reality
Fantasy
The Emperor’s New Groove contains realism such
as qualities of weight, secondary action, parabolic arcs, and many more. There
are many instances where these realistic laws are broken in order to convey the
comedy. The fictional physics works because it was done intentionally and are
tried and true techniques that animators have used in the past. Dindal’s approach
to story telling sets The Emperor’s New Groove apart from many other Disney
films because of the daring approach to referencing slapstick comedy from older
animations. Dindal was able to create a realistic world that contained its own laws
of physics that are still humorous to this day.
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