Dang Nguyen
Physics of Animation
Professor Alejandro Garcia
October 9, 2012
Unstable Law of Physics in Nacho Libre
Nacho Libre, written and directed by Jared Hess is an action-comedy film (based on the real story of Fray Tormenta, a real life Mexican priest turned Luchador for twenty three years to support the orphanage children he directed) that takes place in a small town of Mexico. It tells the story of a monk, Nacho, who was berated by those around him and eventually donned a mask to follow his dream of becoming a Luchador. His other purpose of becoming a wrestler was to impress sister Encanacion who became the tutors for the children of the Monastery and to tell the Friars that he is more than just a cook. Also, he wants to earn money so the children that he feeds can have better meals daily. Being a comedy movie, in order to enhance the humor of the film, the laws of physics in the movie were twisted using some CGI effects. Some of the exaggerations of physics that were made so obvious in the movie defied the laws of Action and Reaction, Inertia, The Odd Rules, and Path of Action.
The laws of action and reaction (A Newton’s law of physics stating that for every action, there is an equal amount of reaction) were twisted heavily in all of the fight scenes of the movie. For example, at the beginning when Nacho had to grab the orphanage’s chips for the children. He was attacked and robbed by Esqueleto during the process. Instead of giving away his chips, Nacho fought back but Esqueleto lifted him from his Friar’s rope and threw him off his motorcycle. It didn’t seem convincing that Esqueleto can lift Nacho through that position with that amount of strength. Esqueleto, who weigh around 110 pounds were applying a small amount of force (action) to lift Nacho who seems to be around 200 pounds over his own motorcycle (reaction). In reality, it would have taken a lot of muscle strength and a further standing position to lift something that is 200 pounds.
Likewise, when Esqueleto was fighting with Nacho as a teammate against the monkey wrestler, Esqueleto applied a small amount of force (action) to pull himself over the rope (reaction) after Nacho who was submitted by the monkey tagged him in the ring. The amount of applied strength that Esqueleto used to lift himself over the ring should not have allowed him to fly that high in the air over the rope. Esqueleto should have pushed himself further back while pulling really hard on the rope then maybe it would be possible to jump that far into the ring. Similarly, when the monkey opponents entered the ring, they also used a small amount of action that allowed them to jump with huge reaction up in the air and into the ring.
Then, during the all out free for all competition of many wrestlers to choose to see who can go against King Ramses, the huge black masked Luchador, Silencio, spinned Esqueleto and El Chino by grabbing onto their heads didn’t seem as convincing. Silencio spinning of the other two should have been faster to actually lift the other two wrestlers feet above the ground.
A lot of the small amount of action that lead to huge reaction were very consistent throughout the movie and especially in the ring. However, when it was outside of the ring, such as the part where Nacho wanted to climb over the vine wall in order to enter King Ramses party, he couldn’t do it, but if he can lift himself up a rope in the ring, why can’t he lift himself up over the wall? To further my point, there was a scene in which Nacho climbed a huge mountain to reach the eagle’s egg. If he can climb a mountain, for sure he can climb a wall. The law of action and reaction is not consistent. All of the characters in the ring seem to have acquired super power.
Another law, created by Newton,the law of inertia (a law stated that an object moves with constant, uniform motion until acted on by an unbalanced force) was also incorrect in the movie. In the example of the fight with the monkey wrestlers. One of the monkeys was jumping up on Nacho’s back while Nacho was close to the corner of the ring. Then, the monkey jumped to the corner of the ring, and jump back to Nacho with a neck twist submissive move using his feet. In this scene, the jumping of the monkey was a uniform motion. However, the unbalanced force was the landing part. The monkey did not kneel down or follow through with his action when he landed on Nacho’s back or the rope, instead, he simply touched the parts and bounce around weightlessly. It is like how we hold a toy and make it jump around as kid. Even real monkeys aren’t able to do that. However, one part of the path of action that was used correctly was the part when Nacho rode his motorcycle over a small cliff. Nacho, or the stuntman that did the scene did fly with the motorcycle as he landed. It was actually one of the scenes that didn’t use CGI effects.
Besides from Newton’s law, there are other rule of physics that isn’t consistent during the movie. One of them is the is the odd rules (a rule in physics in which stated that anything that follows a path consistently by the force of gravity pulling it down or other forces that applied to it will follow the distance of 1,3,5 frames). At the beginning of Nacho’s training to become a Luchador, there was a scene where he tried to stop a bull. When Nacho entered the ranch and taunted the bull by wearing a red cape, the bull ran towards him and hooked him right up in the air. As Nacho was sent flying, there were no hang time or hanging on the apex of the fall. Then, when he fell down, he landed on the ground hastily. In reality, there was suppose to be hang time of Nacho in the air and he should be falling down moving slowly and then faster as he land closer to the ground.
Finally, the path of action (A law stated that an object would follow a parabolic arc whenever the object is sent forward.) was not realistically executed in the movie. For example, in the fight with the monkeys. When Esqueleto lift up one of the monkeys and threw him outside the ring, the monkey didn’t follow the consistent path of action that every object follow through an arc. Instead, the monkey flew in a straight path and landed onto the audience that were watching outside the ring. In reality, in order to make the monkey fly that far out to the ring, Esqueleto have to throw the monkey up higher in the air or threw him with more force.
Another example similar to this theory is the last fight between Nacho and Ramses where Nacho performs the Eagle Dive. In this scene, Ramses was running from Nacho’s final move outside the ring. Nacho lifted himself up in the ring’s corner rope, held his hand above his head and then fly towards Ramses like an eagle grabbing its prey. Nacho didn’t spend a lot of force to jump all the way up, instead, he flew towards Ramses through a straight line passing all the audiences around the ring like an eagle. In reality, if the move is possible, Nacho was supposed to either pushed himself really hard or jump really far with kangaroo muscular legs to be able to fly that far. Also, he would have to fly super fast rather than spending about one minute in the air.
Overall, Nacho Libre defied many law of physics throughout the movie. In order to enhance the action and the comedy, the law of action and reaction were twisted so many times. There weren’t that many convincing action to create the huge reaction. It felt as if every wrestlers in the movie have super strength. Then, the odd rules and the law of inertia further the unrealistic physical realm of the film. It made the characters in the movie landed after a huge jump without following through and using the the 1,3,5 frames to make a consistent path of falling. Also, the same can be said to the path of actions that were used in the film such as when Esqueleto threw the monkey wrestler outside the ring or when Nacho did his eagle dive move. However, through all the faulty, fake physics realm in the ring, there was one scene such as the motorcycle flying off a cliff that seems to be the most realistic of all scenes. Therefore, I can conclude that the only time the creator make movie unrealistic was in the wring. Overall, it was a fun movie to watch because the physics were fake.
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