Midterm assignment

 I will add pictures later. :D

The Princess Bride is a fantasy film about a young girl named Buttercup, her engagement to Prince Humperdinck and eventual kidnapping. Her childhood love, Westley, rescues her from her kidnappers and later the prince who is determined to marry her for his own gains. It breaks several of the laws of physics, usually for comedic effect. It pokes fun at fairy tale conventions, and doesn't take itself too seriously. And similarly, it pokes fun at physics, which is bent if it furthers the plot or the comedy.
Unequal action and reaction forces occur fairly persistently throughout the film. The most egregious example of this is when Buttercup jumps out of the window several stories up and lands in Fezzik’s arms without knocking him to the ground. Not only that, but there is an intangible amount of squash. When falling, air resistance is working in her favor for the first part as her dress and hair are flying up, meaning the air is pushing up on her.  In the second shot, however, the wind is blowing her dress and hair downward for some reason, which means that air is traveling the opposite way, which would end up pushing her down, especially since her orientation in space has stayed the same as the shot is looking up at her towards the night sky.
Another example of unequal action and reaction forces occurs later on in the film when Fezzik, the giant is able to punch down a door, even though the mass and force of his fist are lesser than Inigo's entire body crashing against the door. Inigo, a normal man, runs and throws his whole weight against the door several times and it doesn’t budge, yet when Fezzik punches the door once, fairly slowly, it is knocked down. This might be able to be explained if Fezzik's punch was going at a faster rater, but this is inconsistent with a scene earlier in the movie. During Fezzik’s fight with Wesley, his slowness is emphazised and wesley’s agility is highlighted. This makes sense as a larger mass is more affected by inertia. It takes a larger force to act upon a larger mass. So in the case of the door, It's Inigo's greater speed and larger mass losing out to Fezzik's smaller mass (fist), and slower speed.
However, amongst all this unequal balance in action and reaction forces, there are occasions where the forces actually are equal, and follow proper physics. In the beginning, the Inigo, Fezzik, and Vizzini's ship is trying to outrun a mysterious ship on the horizon. Vizzini is incredulous at the fact that someone would be able to keep pace with them. However, the ship following them is going significantly faster than they are, and Inigo makes the comment, "Is he using the same wind we are using?" In fact, both ships have similar size sails, meaning they are receiving the same pushing force. However, when the ships dock and the audience finally is able to compare the sizes of the two ships, it is apparent that the ship following them is smaller, explaining its speed. Both had the same force, yet one had a smaller mass, and it requires a greater force for to move a greater mass the same distance and speed as a lesser mass.
In all of these situations, physics is used to increase the comedic value of the scene, whether it was accurate physics or not. In the first example, jumping out of the window is the denouement of the film, and as it ends on a light note, bending the physics keeps the same lighthearted tone.  In the second one, even though Inigo should have  been able to knock the door down himself, by preventing him, it allowed his character to build up emotion into a wild frenetic state that the audience can laugh at, and then Fezzik's punch brings a release for the audience as that energy is then directed towards Inigo's goal. The final example plays against the expectations of the characters, giving the audience a laugh at Vizzini's ineptitude, showing that the main goal of the film is to create an enjoyable story for the audience, and the physics is kept accurate or bent in order to accommodate that story.
Another rule of physics that is consistently ignored is that one's center of gravity must shift to accommodate carrying an increased weight in order to keep it over one's base of support.  One instance of this is when Westley is paralyzed and can't support his own weight, Fezzik is carrying him with one hand as they try to overtake the castle. While this is meant to showcase Fezzik's strength, he lifts Westley straight up from the shoulder, which would shift his center of gravity too far out of his base of support. Two ways to explain this would be if Fezzik was extremely massive in order to compensate for the ability to hold the weight of an adult male, or if he was using Westley's body to extend his base of support.
He can't be extremely massive because earlier in the film Fezzik was wrestling Westley, and he would have crushed Westley if he had been massive enough to lift Westley without being off balance. So this option does not work. The second option is that he is using Westley's body to extend his base of support. While Fezzik is dragging Westley across the floor, and Westley's skeletal structure could support some of its own weight because of its rigidity, using Westley to extend his base of support would mean he would almost use Westley as a human cane. Fezzik's carrying motions are a clean drag, however, not the staggered pattern of lift and lean (and he would still have to shift his weight to lift anyway). So this second option does not work either. However, by doing this, the ridiculousness of their situation of trying to overtake a castle with only three men, one of whom is incapacitated is furthered.
Another time this rule has been broken is during the battle of wits with Westley and Vizzini. Vizzini has been poisoned, and he is sitting up, leaning slightly forward, when he freezes and falls over sideways. Since he was leaning forward slightly, he should have fallen over forwards, as the motion would have carried him over the base of support at his hips. This was done for comedic effect, as every other time a character falls, they fall in the same direction they are leaning. Westley falls along a forward and backward axis depending on which way his head falls, leading the rest of his body into a fall. Inigo follows suit when he is inebriated. Wherever his head falls, the rest of his body leans in that direction. Vizzini is the only exception to the rule, and this is especially funny because he constantly boasts of his mental acuity, and to see the great know-it-all, Vizzini fall over the wrong way because he just lost the battle of wits makes the scene even more comedic.
So as has been explained, The Princess Bride's main goal is to provide an entertaining, funny story, and if the physics have to be broken (or even kept intact) along the way to do it, then so be it. Through unequal action/reaction forces, the scenes acquire the right kind of emotional tone, whether it be light-hearted fun or a way to build up the tension in a scene. Having an off center of gravity highlights the ridiculousness of two major scenes, keeping with the fun tone of the film.