Term Paper - The Laws of Physics in an Animation Universe

The Laws of Physics in an Animation Universe

Space Jam is a 1996 American family live-action/animated sports comedy film starring Michael Jordan and featuring the Looney Tunes. The film was produced by Ivan Reitman, and directed by Joe Pytka.

This film shows an alternate story of Michael Jordan’s return to the game of basketball after his retirement and his horrible career as a professional baseball player. Animated characters from Moron Mountain try to kidnap him and use him as a tourist attraction and the characters from Loony Tunes try to help him stop them. The film shows both the real world, and the Loony Tune Land. Characters from both sides merge into the opposite worlds at certain points in the movie, and the animators help the viewers get an idea of what it would be like if it actually happened.

As you may imagine, the film has many unrealistic situations that isn't possible in the real world with the Laws of Physics. But animators do a somewhat good job on making it believable in the world of animations.

One scene included one of the Monstars jumping in the air for a dunk. During the unrealistic and impossible path of action to the hoop, the Monstar noticed that the hoop was boobie trapped. Once he was about 2 feet away from the basket, he paused in the air and looked at the camera before it all exploding in his face. This does give the film a more believable animated effect, but in reality this would never happen. An object cannot possible pause in the air. This scene is similar to Wild-E-Coyote in The Road Runner where the coyote runs off the cliff and doesn’t fall until he stops in the air and looks down. Again it's not realistic, but believable.

During the scene when the Monstars first encounter Jordan, one grabs him and compresses him into a ball. As he is passed around like a real basketball, he appears to have the same capabilities as a basketball. They dribble him and bounce him around the gym, and even dunk him in the hoop. Jordan also appears to squash and stretch as he is bounces on the ground like a ball. This really reinforces the fact that he is in Loony Tune Land, where the laws of physics differ from reality. No human can be compressed into a ball without an incredible amount of pressure witch is impossible to survive. No human can bounce like and inflated ball, but in this fictional animated world this is all so very possible.

In the popular finishing dunk scene, Jordan appears to glide toward the hoop. Animators give him this aerodynamic lift to reinforce Jordan’s nickname “Air Jordan.” He’s well known for his leaping ability and hang-time, so the animators purposely exaggerated his ability to glide through the air. He soared to the basket as if he had wings. It took him 5 seconds (according to the game clock) to take off from his launch spot, to the finishing dunk, which is also impossible in reality. Humans cannot jump and stay in the air for more than 5 seconds with their own natural leaping ability.

Jordan’s path of action in the dunk scene should have been a parabolic arc. In the scene you see Jordan stepping on the Monstar to elevate up into the air. First of all, there is no possible way a human can jump from half court and make a dunk 47 feet away. Secondly, no human can jump high enough to have his or her shoulders above the backboard, which is 13 feet tall. Jordan weighs roughly 216 pounds and should have realistically landed closer to his launch point. During his slow motion jump, some scenes show the effect of him rising in a straight up motion instead of a forward motion thus not following a parabolic arc. This could be due to the fact that the camera angle was a close-up on his upper body and animators needed to have viewers believe he is getting really high in the air, but while criticizing and critiquing the film, this scene stands out. There is no clear apex of the jump and he appears to travel almost completely horizontally on parts of his flight. The path of Jordan’s jump was way too far away for a human to make naturally with the force of gravity against them.

About midway through the jump, two Monstars collide with Jordan in the air. These large muscular animated objects obvious outweigh Jordan, but in the film, their force was not enough to stop Jordan. Realistically, these large forces would have stopped Jordan from reaching the basket, and even pulled him back in the direction of the Monstars’ path, (the opposite direction). The collision should have realistically looked like a football tackle.  For a seconds, Jordan does seem to slow in and drop down as they grab him, but miraculously his gains back his speed and momentum back and he is back on the same path as if they weren’t holding on to him adding much more downward force. It’s unnatural for this situation to have little to no effect on the path to the basket. The producers stressed on the fact that Jordan was in Looney Tunes Land and “anything is possible.” 

Toward the end of Jordan’s path to the dunk, the unthinkable happened. Jordan stretched his arm to an unbelievable length to reach the basketball hoop. As his body reached above the 3 point line (23 feet from the basket), his arm was able to stretch up to 20 feet. He threw the basketball through the net from above with the game clock winding down dunking the ball. No human arm can possibly do this in the real world, but again this is Loony Tune Land and all the laws of physics can be bent because it is a fictional world.

Jordan makes the dunk and ends up winning for his team. He saved his life and returns to the world he lives in as a free man. He thanks his team and makes the Monstars give their stolen powers back to the actual professional basketball players they took it from.

Overall, this film is very interesting to watch. Given the fact that it was created in 1996, animators didn’t have the technology they have today, but the story’s scenes were somewhat believable in the aspect of animation. The fact that the film varied from the real world and Loony Tune Land makes it interesting to watch. As stated earlier, the Laws of Physics were somewhat ignored for the world of animation, but it keeps viewers engaged, interested, and entertained. If the Laws of Physics were actually followed, the film wouldn’t be interesting or popular. It wasn’t until the middle of the dunk scene when Bugs Bunny told Jordan that anything is possible in the land of Loony Tunes. The fact that they even put that conversation in the film script shows that the producers wanted the viewers to know that what Jordan was about to do is not at all possible in the real world. This film was a great way to show how a human would interact with Looney Tunes if it were possible.