Superman is flying into theaters on July 11, and moviegoers around the world are gearing up to watch the latest chapter in the iconic superhero’s never-ending battle for truth, justice, and a better tomorrow.
The character, his powers, and his history are well known to audiences but, despite what DC Studios would want you to believe, Bryant University Biological and Biomedical Sciences Professor Brian Blais, Ph.D., says Superman's greatest weakness isn’t Kryptonite. It’s physics.
“One of my personal interests is movies and, as a scientist, I notice that some of them don't capture the science behind the action as well as others,” explains Blais, who teaches courses in physics, robotics, and artificial intelligence, and has his physics students analyze movie scenes for accuracy as part of their coursework.
While some blockbusters, like Interstellar and The Martian, largely line up with science, others, such as Armageddon and the Star Wars series, are less devoted to scientific accuracy. Superhero films are especially notorious for falling victim to inaccuracies.
“My issue isn't with the superhero and their various powers — those are storytelling devices,” he says. “The problem happens when the hero interacts with real-world stuff: people, cars, buildings. That should follow the laws of physics.”
Blais recalls a scene from 2013’s Superman film Man of Steel in which the movie’s villain throws a U-Haul truck at a helicopter, obliterating its tail rotor. As the chopper spirals out of control, a man falls from the aircraft and Superman immediately launches into the air and catches him before he hits the ground.
But while the Metropolis Marvel’s heroics defy death, the scene also defies science.
“If this were you, and Superman came in to catch you like that and take you from one point to another point, you’re going to break every one of your bones,” Blais says.
To bypass this problem, he suggests Superman would need to slow the person down over time, rather than instantly, to disperse the momentum.
“He would have to come down, match the person’s speed, and — if he’s only a few feet from the ground — continue going down by barreling into the ground,” says Blais.
Another common issue, Blais points out, is that Superman is often extremely small compared to the things he tries to save. The problem with that is that the incredible force he expends is concentrated in a small area. For instance, say Superman was trying to stop a plane; in reality, he would punch right through it.
Superman isn’t alone when it comes to big screen inaccuracies. Other superheroes like Batman and Spider-Man have also found themselves in situations where the science doesn’t always line up with their efforts to save the day.
For example, in Batman Begins, corrupt cop Arnold Flass is walking down an alley when Batman’s BatCable snatches him by the ankle and whips him up to the roof of a building where the Dark Knight is waiting for him. While, in the movie Flass dangles from the line fully intact, the laws of physics dictate that the sudden movement should break his ankle bones, Blais states.
Similarly, in Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man stops an out-of-control train in its track with his webs by sticking them to nearby buildings and holding on to the other end while he braces his body against the front of the train. When the train finally slows to a stop and he lets go of the webs, the webs simply fall to the ground.
Blais notes that this scene does not follow the principle known as Conservation of Energy.
“Say you take a bungee. If you stretch it out, you're putting energy into it,” he explains.
Realistically, if Spider-Man let go, that energy wouldn’t disappear; it would send the webs snapping backward with the entire energy of a moving train.
“If the scene followed science, the webs probably would have barreled backward through the buildings,” Blais says.
As new superhero movies like Superman, Supergirl, and Fantastic Four: First Steps make it into theaters, Blais hopes that audiences will look beyond the action and think more deeply about what’s playing out in front of them.
“Hopefully, moviegoers will start thinking about movies a little differently, and that encourages people to make movies with more attention to detail,” Blais says.
