The Laws of Physics in "The
Emperor's New Groove"
"The
Emperor's New Groove" is an animated comedy which broke away from its
formulaic animated precursors that constituted the Disney Renaissance. Whereas
the previous films adhered to the strict guideline of a few songs, cute cuddly
characters and strong romances, "The Emperor's New Groove" throws all
of that and even quite a few of the laws of physics out the window. All of this
is, however, allows the film to be the unique comedy more in tune with the
Looney Tunes cartoons than a traditional Disney picture. The gravity, improbable paths of action and squash
and stretch in the film all help complement the tone and style of the film
which to this day is one of the more experimental Disney movies the company has
produced.
The
film's use of gravity or lack of it accentuates the over the top comedic tone. The
denouement of the film offers a good example of this. After Yzma's kind-hearted
henchman tries to end her devilish schemes, Yzma pulls a lever which opens a
trap door right under Kronk. In the tradition of Wile E. Coyote in the Looney
Tunes cartoons, instead of realistically falling down the trap door almost
immediately after it has opened, Kronk is suspended in the air for a moment to
ruminate on how he probably should have seen the trap coming. Only after his
regretful words does he fall down to his then apparent demise.
A
more subtle example of the unique gravity in the film occurs when Yzma and
Kronk are in the secret lab. After Yzma rambles about her overly complicated
plan to kill Kuzco, she holds a vial and tells Kronk to "feel the
power". As Kronk is handed the vial full of powerful potion, he treats it
as a stationary object and lets go of it for a while but the potion remains in
the air unmoving, even though gravity should have plummeted the potion onto the
ground and shattered it into a thousand pieces. Kronk quickly takes hold of the
potion again so it may be easy for the first time viewer to miss it, but the
lack of gravity working on the potion reinforces the idea that perhaps there is
some truly powerful stuff in the potion and also that Kronk is a goofball.
Gravity, however, is not always ignored or extremely altered to make way for
humor. There are some instances in the film that adheres to the laws of
gravity, usually the law or inertia. Near the beginning of the
film when Kuzco learns that he has turned into a llama and rolls around until
he hits a stone gate, he stops moving due to the unbalanced force of the gate. Another
example is when Kuzco and Pacha are fighting under the broken bridge. After
exchanging several blows, they both slam onto the sides of the mountains and slightly
bounce off of it believably.
The
four main characters in the film are amazingly agile and durable as they
catapult, slam and roll their way to the end of the movie. Their paths of
actions, however, similar to their amazing athletic feats, are sometimes
impossible. A particular example that comes to mind is when Kuzco and Pacha are
trying to get up between two mountains after the bridge connecting the two has
broken down. As the two buddies make their way up to tug on the remaining rope
that was part of the bridge, Kuzco gets his head stuck in a cave full of bats
while Pacha finds that tugging the rope that was stuck to the tree only releases
scorpions down his back. In a state of panic, Pacha begins slamming his back
onto the side of the mountain, awakening the bats in the cave that Kuzco's head
was stuck in. As the bats fly into Kuzco's mouth and out of the cave, the
emperor is able to tag along with the bats as they fly upward to the top of one
of the mountains. In reality, the bats would not have been able to catapult
Kuzco and Pacha on an upward arc allowing them to rebound off of the side of
the mountain and onto the edge. No matter how many bats there could have been,
there would not have been enough momentum to bring the two of them up onto the
top of the mountain. In reality, it would have allowed Kuzco to be carried by
the bats for a few moments before falling back to the relatively same place.
Yzma
herself experiences an improbable path of action when she goes through a life
threatening obstacle course set up by Pacha's kids. At the end of the obstacle,
Yzma is launched off of a wagon after it hits a rock. She soon replaces a
piñata that a group of kids were supposed to batter and the path of action
immediately stops as she bumps the real piñata out of the way. The rope that
she is latched onto when she replaces the piñata also does not realistically
swing back and forth like a pendulum upon impact from Yzma. It remains a
straight line as Yzma abruptly stops moving and becomes vulnerable to the kids'
weapons. The sudden stop adds to the comedy and surprise as the audience sees
what has happened to Yzma's body after the brutal obstacle course the kids have
put her through. When these characters complete their improbable paths of
action, they also usually squash and stretch in hilarious yet extreme ways that
would not be able to be accomplished by real animals.
A
final example of a ridiculous path of action happens when Pacha shoves a vial
down Kuzco's throat, hoping that its "something with wings". Sure
enough Kuzco is turned into a bird, but a very small one, similar in mass to
perhaps a parrot. Since most birds can only carry half of its own weight, the
fact that Kuzco is able to carry Pacha for at least three seconds as a bird
makes the path of action impossible. Just like the Yzma piñata example, after
flying for about three seconds, the arc stops and both Kuzco and Pacha abruptly
plummet down. Once again, not only does the path of action not work, the arc
doesn't finish either.
The
squash and stretch in "The Emperor's New Groove" is also very similar
to the ones used in the Looney Tunes cartoons which will usually neglect the
anatomy and skeleton of the characters in order to emphasize the impact of the
force. During the end battle when Pacha and Yzma fight for the potion that will
change Kuzco back to a human, there is a moment when Yzma jumps up in the air
and performs an elbow drop on Pacha. As she lands, Pacha squashes to such a
degree in which it seems that his entire body is made of only water. No
skeletal structure or muscles could have realistically fit into the character
at that moment. Audience members do not notice this due it being only a split
second, but it exaggerates the impact that Yzma's elbow has on Pacha's body, as
unrealistic as it may be.
Using
Yzma as an example again, after she launches back up from the trampoline and
gets a hold of the vial, she chuckles for a few seconds at her good luck before
smacking into the ceiling outside the palace. Her entire cat body squashes to
such an extreme position that it seems as if all her anatomy and skeleton is
missing. Only her volume remains the same which makes it believable but
unrealistic. This adds to the idea that the impact was very extreme and also
reminds the viewer that the character was in a cartoon so that there would be a
lack of blood gushing out of Yzma or body parts stuck to the ceiling.
"The
Emperor's New Groove" is a hilarious film and while during many of its
action scenes the laws of physics are broken left and right, the film does adhere
to the laws of gravity in its more intimate and low key scenes. When dramatic action
takes place, the comedy often follows right alongside it, resulting in
exaggerated squashing and stretching coupled with a few insanely impossible
paths of action. Gravity and sometimes the lack of it accentuates the action
scenes to enforce the outlandish humor.
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