Outline for the First Term Paper

1.      Introduction

a.       Movies are awesome, mostly because they have a lot of cool stunts.

b.      But to be awesome they usually have to break a lot of rules of physics to pull it off.

c.       Spider-Man is a fun example to look at and each cinematic version has some “problem scenes” to address.

2.      Spider-Man (2002) and the bridge scene

a.       Spidey sling-shot launching himself towards the bridge and smoothly swinging through it with no problem

b.      He shouldn’t be able to make that first web contact so smoothly without any dramatic change in force

c.       They got around it with how fast he was moving and the motion blur

d.      He should have been flung clear out of the bridge and would have to last-second correct with a web-shot back into it followed by some more swings to get his momentum under control.

3.      Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) and Gwen’s death

a.       Spidey tries to save Gwen with a web-grab while they are in mid-fall. Spidey stops his fall by grabbing a beam while simultaneously stopping Gwen’s fall with his other hand’s web-shot. She dies from the force of her head hitting the floor from the sudden stop even when she’s suspended above it.

b.      Could Gwen’s death have been prevented if Spidey caught her with a web-shot sooner in the air? Eeeehhhhhhh probably not…

c.       Even if he did manage to catch her a few feet more above the ground, the sudden stop still could have been enough to still break her neck from the sudden stop in the air due to whiplash.

d.      The only way to prevent it would have been to either aim for a different part of her that wouldn’t affect her head so violently (like her arm…which would have been dislocated, but she’d still be alive), or more ideally caught her with his own hands and THEN used webbing to stop their fall or slowing their fall more gradually.

4.      Spider-Man Homecoming (2017) and stopping the elevator

a.       Spidey stops an elevator filled with his classmates from falling to their demise. He stops it by shooting a web to the ceiling of the shaft and pulling against it from inside the elevator with his feet against the elevator’s ceiling.

b.      The abrupt stop doesn’t seem to affect the other occupants too much, just stumbling.

c.       The speed of the elevator should have been enough to at least force them onto the ground instead of standing up on foot.

d.      It would have been excusable if they were holding onto any railing or something to brace themselves.

5.      Conclusion

a.       Inertia is a crucial element when it comes to depicting Spider-Man’s impressive feats of skill, so it can be tricky to try and walk the tightrope between amazement and believability.

b.      Most of these issues could be solved with either minimal or super specific tweaks, but ultimately telling a story and causing more wow is what inspires these scenes to go the way they do.

c.       Despite these gaps in logic, these films are still fun and that is the whole point of watching them, to be amazed.