Movie Clip - Titan A.E.

Mission Impossible III: No Physics Required

So, in my eyes, "Mission Impossible III" seemed like a hot mess. Some of the scenes where extremely cringe worthy, there were plot holes the size of the grand canyon, and Tom Cruise seemed to be the only half decent actor in my opinion.

However, the main gripe I have with this movie is much nerdier than that. Some of the physics in this movie are appalling. Some are normal Hollywood cliches, some are downright crazy stunts, and some are just downright illogical at best. I'm very interested in being able to determine whether or not these scenes really were accurate. Even though we know that, because they are action movie scenes, some of them are inherently incorrect. None the less, listing out the information that's given to use would definitely shed some light on whether or not some of these scenes are even physically possible in the real world.

Shanghai Fulcrum 

The first scene I want to touch on, screams for physicists to analyze. There is a scene where Tom Cruise begins to draw on a window to try and find the best way to steal the "Rabbit's Foot" from a secure building in China. To do this, he devises a plan in which he will use centrifugal force to slingshot himself from one building to the next and then base jump down all the way to the ground. It's interesting to ponder whether or not this is even but, to find out for sure we need to know a few things first. First, some stuff is given to us in the prior scene. One of the team members blatantly states the heights of each of the buildings. The one he is looking to land on being 162 meters in height and the building he is jumping from being 226 meters in height. She also notes that the distance between the buildings is 47.55 meters across. So already we can define certain things.

Building 1 = B1 = 226 Meters

Building 1 = B2 = 162 Meters

Distance Between = d = 47.55 Meters

Along with this, there are some other things we can assume given the situation itself. Cruise jumps off the building from a running start. So from that, we can assume the following 

Initial X Velocity = Vxi = 9m/s

We can assume this based on the fact that the maximum human running speed is 28mph (12m/s) so to be fair that Cruise is not Usain Bolt we can settle for a little bit slower. 

We would also need to know a couple of other things. For instance, gravity's acceleration. Centrifugal force and motion in the X and Y direction. And, the time it took for him to complete this jump. In the movie, there was a 5 second long slo-mo shot among a 23 second screen time in which he jumped, fell, and then swung on the fulcrum from one building to another. So, for the sake of ease of calculations and pretty numbers, we can assume that the whole ordeal from jumping to landing on the other building took about 20 seconds. We can also assume that,  right after Tom Cruise jumps from the building, there is some point where his vertical velocity is absolute 0. So, we can assume that to be our initial Y velocity.

time = t = 20s 

g = -9.8m/s^2
Initial Y Velocity = Vyi = 0m/s

Other things like his weight come into play as well. We can assume that based on the average weight of a human man. Which, in North America, is 80.7kg

So, to recap, we know the following info.

Building 1 = B1 = 226 Meters

Building 1 = B2 = 162 Meters

Distance Between = d = 47.55 Meters

Initial X Velocity = Vxi = 9m/s

time = t = 20s 

g = -9.8m/s^2

Using the information listed above, we can almost derive whether this feat is actually physically possible to survive. My main concern is, would Tom Cruise die from the amount of force he experiences in one of two instances. The first being when the cable jerks him around and starts sending him flying towards the other building. And, the second being when he falls from his cable to the glass roof of the other building. Whether or not he would survive this fall is questionable in my eyes. 

Knock your shoes off

The next one I want to touch in is a classic movie cliche. During the final epic fight scene of the movie, the main baddy gets his shoes knocked off upon colliding head first with a moving car. The very idea of something having enough force to knock the shoes off of someone has been toyed with for ages and I, for one, don't think it's possible. However, if I want to find out for sure if it was possible, let's lay out all the information we have already or may need.

Force applied to baddy = Fb

Direction/angle of force applied = ϴ

Force needed to knock off shoes = Fs

Angle needed to knock off shoes = ϴs (probably around 45 degrees)

To find this info, we probably need a few more things as listed below. 

Mass/weight of baddy = Mb = 220lbs = 100kg

Mass of car = Mc = 32000kg (the car in question was  dump truck)

Velocity of Car = Vc = 30mph = 13m/s

Using this information, we can find out whether or not it would be possible to really knock the shoes off the bad guy (upon the first guess though, the answer is no, it would not knock his shoes off).

Because Explosion

The final thing I want to touch on isn't exactly a scene, but a recurring theme throughout the movie. Almost every time Cruise sets a little tiny device down in the hallway of a building, the building itself seems to implode with the force of a thousand suns. Obviously, that's an exaggeration, but you get my point. These tiny little explosive devices are causing massive explosions that would put genuine missiles to shame. One that sticks out to me is the beginning of the movie right as Cruise and the girl he is rescuing lands on the top of the escape truck. A giant explosion rings out that shakes the whole building and knocks out multiple sets of windows with an explosion radius that looks like it exceeds 10 meters in diameter. All of this from an explosive device with the same rough volume of a can of soda. So, let's write down what we can probably derive from this scene, and see if an explosive device of that kind can even produce such an explosion. 

Height of Device = 4 inches = 10.16 cm

Radius of Device = 2 inches = 2 inches = 5.08cm

Internal Volume of Explosive Device = Vd = 823.7 cm^3

Radius of Explosion = 10m (estimated based off when the object was thrown)

Ok, so I will readily admit that I am not at the level of knowledge to know if that's all we need to find out whether or not that small device could actually cause that explosive force. But I imagine that, given that information, we may be able to find out how much force would have been required to do that kind of damage. Then, use that information to find out if there is a material or substance that can even exert that amount of force while coming out of a metal canister.