The Laws of Physics in an Animated Universe: Chicken Little

The Physics of the animal world stand on two legs: Chicken Little

Chicken Little was produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation in 2005. The story focuses on a courage chicken – Chicken Little in a small town of Oakey Oaks and an event of misunderstanding aliens’ invasion. At first no one believes in Chicken Little that “the sky is falling” and aliens invade. After aliens appear to be an invasion, Chicken Little, his friends and his father solve the misunderstanding. This movie is rated for family because the content is about trust between father and son plus some amusing scene which are not following physical law. The path of action in some scenes is not based on realistic. An object moves as if there is another force enforces on it, but there is none. In addition, the law of physic in the movie is not unique, it is contradict each other. In this essay, I will analyze the laws of physic and provide examples from different scenes.

The path of action in the animated film is not follow the first law of motion – inertia is any object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless a force is applied to it. At the beginning of the movie, a giant water metal ball is rolling consistent on the round without slowing down although it appears many forces act again the rolling object. It digs up the road while rolling, it hits street obstacle, and it even breaking a brick wall, but not slowing down at all. In reality, it should stops within the time rolling and hitting the wall because the friction of the dug up road should be able to slow it down significantly. The animators want to emphasize the ball is extremely heavy which destroy everything on its’ way. At the first look, it looks like the heavy ball pushes up the road in front of it. However, audience will be able to realize the rolling motion is not follow the law of physic if the scene is longer because in reality a perfect round ball cannot dig up the road ahead of it before it even touches. The heavy ball is only able to crush the ground below it if the rolling momentum is large enough. 

Another example of the movie that does not follow the right path of action is in the dodge ball scene. The direction of the balls changes significantly after the bound without any force act upon them. First the balls fly horizontal, hit the wall and change the angle, then hit the celling with a direction straight down. If a movement follows the physic law, the force act on the ball should be opposite direction when it hit the flat wall, so the ball should bound back at horizontal direction (It could be a bit off because the angle may not be 90 degree). However, in the scene the balls change about 45 degree after the first bound and second bound at the celling. It could happen only if the ball spinning which it is not in the movie.

 

The law of physic is not consistent on the film. On the staring scene, the rolling ball at first crush any object on it way, but later it rolls up and bend a big sturdy, which will be break in the real world, as a slop for it to fly up. In the beginning scene as well, when the giant ball fall off the tower it bounds just little and rolls. This one looks the most realistic in the first scene because metal ball isn’t elastic to bound back high. On the other hand, after get off the slop created by the big tree, the ball bounds at least four times to a complete stop although the height when it gets off the tree is much lower than the water tower. Moreover, when it bound on several cars, it appear to be lower and lower, but at the last stop it bound higher and crush the statute (picture below). When making this scene, animators only focus on the funny part to attract audience, but did not consider careful about law of physic to make it be realistic.

 

We will discuss net force act on an object in this paragraph. In the scene that Chicken Little misses the school bus and runs to school. While rushing to school and crossing a street, he steps on chewing gum. The force of glue chewing gum sticks to him, and he is unable to take it off by his strength. He put a candy into his mouth to create glue which he sticks it on a running car in order to use car force helps him out of the gum. In the animation, it’s successful, but in real life he will die or lose his arm. There is no need to discuss about glue created by candy and water can carry a small body. It is not possible. Even if the glue is able to carry Chicken Little because he’s so light, his arm will be broken with his body due to a large force by looking at how high he reach after getting rid of the gum. A force come from moving car act on no-motion is big enough to injury Chicken Little. The force get hit in front of the car are equal to be dragged from behind the car. In realistic, this is the end of the story for Chicken Little.
 

Here is another type of glue chemical combination between chicken’s comb and water. Chicken Little use water in his mouth wet his comb. Then use his comb to stick with a round roof to help him climb up to the top while carrying the little alien kid. I never try it on real chicken’s comb to see if it can stick or not, but I still believe it is not true. Although the chicken comb might be sticky, it won’t be able to sustain the weight of Chicken Little. In addition to support my hypothesis, Chicken Little carries extra weight while climbing up.

Weak structure carries a much heavier object. Fish builds a tower by paper – outside wall only, and has no supporting frame. Then Fish somehow at the top of the tower which 3 times higher than him and playing King Kong star on top of the paper tower. He shifts it to one side, and jumps. His action applies a force on tower paper which can’t sustain that much force. This scene is totally unrealistic. Only the weight of Fish’s helmet is heavy enough to crush the paper tower. Thus, there is no way that the tower can sustain the weight of Fish.
 

There are other scenes contradict others is when Chicken Little use bottle soda as a rocket. For this analysis, let’s agree on the force of full bottle of soda is strong enough to carry Chicken Little more than 10 feet height in the first time he uses it. This paragraph talks about gravity in the animation. The first time he uses the soda to break into school. He lands before the bottle because he has more mass than the empty bottle. This scene seems real because the empty bottle may have reached its terminal velocity. This time, it follows real world physic. However, the second time he uses a bottle of soda to reach the school bell in order to warn the village about aliens. Only half of soda is used, but it is able to bring him much higher than the first time. It is definitely opposite with the law of physic – the bigger force, the longer distance. In second time using half of the rocket soda, he should not able to reach that height because the height level cannot even get close to the first one. Instead following the physic laws, the animator let the Chicken Little flies about three times higher with half of the force. It doesn’t look real, but it creates a feeling for audience that the main character is much better this time in order to save his friends and warn the villagers. Thus, his determination gives him more power, the power even transfer to the bottle of soda.
 

The ending of the movie is a star chicken floats in midair with two soda rocket for a while then fly off. According to inertia if he floats midair and no force is applied on him he should to remain floating. Because it is the ending so I am not criticize it. Overall, the movie violates a lot of laws of physic. It even contradicts itself. This movie is not about supper natural, but there are some scenes that require the object or character to have supper strong structure. However, because of these unrealistic, audiences feel relief from the stress of the real world, so they can easily relax and enjoy the movie. The context of the movie is really good. The trust between father and son should be strong to have a happy family.