Explosions that don’t hurt the main or supporting characters is a
phenomenon I like to refer to as “plot device armor”. Hollywood is infamous for
abusing this type of writing style to protect the characters from any real danger. For that reason,
I excluded video games and cartoons because they generally don’t rely so much
on realism as long as the story is told in whatever stylization is desirable.
Take for example in a video game like Borderlands 2; if high jumps don’t even
hurt when the character lands, then the rule of grenades ignoring friendly fire
is tied to how the game should be played and the gage on fairness. However,
when it comes to films there are expectations of certain level of realism. Idealistically,
the realism shown may seem plausible at first, but in reality we are tricked by
Hollywood fakery because it’s mainstream to favor more towards entertainment
than realism. Explosions not behaving like real explosions or ignoring Newton’s
third law is a common entertainment value in film making. Newton’s third law is
also known as the conservation of momentum. It states that the first body will
exert force on a second body of the equally same and in the opposite direction.
The type of explosion that we’re looking for are detonations that create shock waves because of
on the high rate of combustion. The characters that are presented in the films Sin City, Hot Fuzz, and Captain
America: The Winter Soldier are examples where they are selectively impervious
to explosions and defying Newton’s Third law.
Miho's reaction to a grenade (1:31)
Sin City (2005)
is movie riddled with cinematic fiction because the physics are purposefully done
in a broken manner. The type of entertainment Sin City was going for was some
realism, but with their own set of laws that obviously do not obey laws like
the conservation of momentum. A grenades sets off close
to Miho’s proximity and sends her flying off gracefully because she apparently can't be damaged by explosions. Not even a singe is left on her for some realism.
In reality, the projection that the grenade sends her flying wouldn’t be as
theatrical but a more violent reaction to the action. The given radius of the
grenade would likely do more than just an effect of “rocket boosting.” To
better understand what is going on with Miho’s impervious reaction to the explosion;
we must determine what type of explosion it is. The grenade is spherical and
most likely the common type called fragmentation. The shards are meant to be damaging
after the detonation. For a character like Miho, she’s unphased by the shard
and detonation damage. Based on Newton’s third law, Miho will feel the
momentum of the high pressure in the detonation and will react by being sent in
the opposite direction. The way Miho is sent flying is choreographed to make
Miho look resilient, but in reality she would feel the shards, pressure, and
heat produced that realistically ruin her steady composure.
At the end of the Hot
Fuzz, when the naval mine is set off in the police station evidence room
and yet it only kills the one person in the vicinity because Tom Weaver was
evil. The mighty plot armor again saves the day or else the movie would be a
tragedy and not a comedy. The type of explosion conveyed in this movie is
definitely to hype up the entertainment value because the thought of rusty, old
naval mine finally going off would be a big payoff. A typical naval mine’s
explosive energy is 500 pounds in the form of a detonation. Similar to the
grenade, part of the damage done to humans is from fragmentation. The other damage
are the shock waves produced are lethal amounts pressure. The main character Nicholas
Angel is only about 5 feet from the explosion and easily survives because the
movie wasn’t written to be realistic. The fact that only Tom Weaver dies means
everyone else was too important to die. When writers selectively choose deaths,
they need to understand the consequences of how infuriating that can be to the
audience. If the context and tone of the movie is not obvious enough, then the audience
will question why everyone is not dead. For an explosion that destructive,
bodies shouldn’t even be intact due to fragmentation. Therefore, the movie’s
tone is meant to be a less serious and realistic movie and more for humor.
The Falcon's reaction to an aircraft explosion (1:15)
The
type of explosion depicted in Captain America: The Winter Soldier should
have the most realism because the tone of the movie is less stylized or
humorous than Sin City or Hot Fuzz. A scene that the audience
may have not immediately doubted is when the Falcon is dodging a barrage of
tracer turrets and a bullet happens to hit an aircraft and exploding near the
Falcon. A common type of explosion used in cinemas are vehicles explode due to
the gas tank hit by bullets. While gas indeed is flammable, the vehicle
exploding is less plausible because it is highly unlikely the gas tank has
large quantities of pressurized oxygen to produce the correct chemical reaction to
induce the explosion. A slight, but rare chance of explosion is when the
bullets used are tracer ammunition. The bullets can be seen visibly even during
the day because they are ignited with flammable powder. However, there still
needs to be the right conditions to make this explosion happen, the right
distance of the rounds being fired to create the right friction and the
gasoline tank to still have some sort of pressurized air within. Due to movie
magic, the explosion happened because of the right type of conditions happened
to have been there. The Falcon was sent flying into the opposite direction
because of the first source will exert force equally onto him. However, he
appears suspiciously unscathed from the explosion and is more in pain by the
landing of the fall. In reality, the fire or shrapnel would have seriously
wounded the Falcon, especially since he has less armor covering him overall and
doesn’t possess superhuman defense. While inspecting the stills, there does not
appear to be any visible damage of the explosion on the Falcon, making the
danger appear less of a threat and more of a distraction.
The illusion of indestructible good guys
can be an uplifting but also misleading type of quality in character
development. However, because Hollywood is filled with copious amounts of
ridiculous explosions that the viewers are usually accustomed to the fact that
explosions can selectively hurt people and to amp up the fun factor. An understanding
of the physics of explosions and adding a sense of real danger is an important factor
for not only the film makers but the audience as well. The diligence of
acknowledging the movie’s tone and intentions and even just a basic
understanding how the world works can either make or break a movie.
