The Croods is a 3-D full length animated movie produced by Dreamworks Animation (2013) and directed by Kirk De Micco and Chris Sanders. This story is set in a fictional prehistoric Pliocene era called "The Croodaceous." It tells the story of the world's first modern family as they take on lifetime adventures. When their cave was destroyed, they are forced to travel to a new place where they can settle in peacefully again. The Croods is family of six with Eep (main character), Grug (father), Ugga (mother), Sandy (little sister), Thunk (brother), and Gran (grandma). During travelling, Guy will join them as a new member. Grug is a father who will do anything to keep his family safe, because he believes that curiosity is dangerous. Eep is a girl who is at the stage of discovery and wants to explore the world outside of her family's shelter. She is always against her father's overprotective attitude. When Guy appears, Eep knows for sure that there is a completely different world beyond her family’s cave. The movie is known for its beautiful 3D animation and stunning scenery shots. The movies also introduces many unique creatures and plants that make the environment in The Croods stands out to audiences. Furthermore, being an animated movie itself, The Croods cannot stay away from bending several scientific hypotheses. From scene to scene, audiences will notice an squash and stretch., physical laws of gravity, and exaggeration in action or reaction. By breaking apart these aspect, The Croods offers a highly entertaining movie for audience of all ages.
The Croods takes advantage of extreme usage of squash and stretch. During the scene where Grug and Guy got stuck in sticky mud and had to find a way out. They decide to make a puppet to attract a gigantic tiger near them. After successfully getting its attention, the tiger runs over and pulls the puppet. Grug and Guy held on tight on the puppet as it is pulled out by the tiger. In one frame, their rib cages are stretched out to the point it looks like play dough or stretchy plastic.Then there was another scene where a creature runs over a trap by accident. Eep and Guy trys to hunt down a gigantic chicken for the family. They struggled and then caused the chicken to become angry. The chicken chased them down; however, it runs over a trap without notice. When the rope is tightened, it pulls the chicken backward with a strong force. In that frame, audience can see the neck of the chicken is stretching out before snapping back to it’s body.
Another example of using squash and stretch in this movie was when Grug falls to the ground. When his body contacted with the ground, his body is squashed before returning to normal shape and volume. It happened once again in the scene where Grug throws Thunk to the other side of the cliff, Thunk's body is squashed as it hit the ground. Last but not least is the scene where Grug and Guy are falling off the clip. Their bodies are stretched out. Their necks are stretching out before snapping back to their bodies.There are plenty of scenes and examples of the wide variety of situations that uses squash and stretch to add more volume and texture to the visual enjoyment of the story.
The laws of gravity are also broken in “The Croods”. For example, When Eep is climbing up the cliff to see what was making that strange sound at the beginning of the movie. She does a backflip to reach the branches. Which is impossible if the gravity of this animated universe was following the gravity of Earth. Her foot’s contact point would not stay there as she flipped over to reach the branches.
Another example was when Eep chased Guy, she faces a cliff about 20ft away. Giving the average weight of a young woman is around 110lbs. The gravity force alone is around 450.8 N (46 kg*9.8m/s2=450.8 N) She climbs to the top only in a few seconds. This created the illusion of no gravity. However, by breaking the laws of gravity, the movie's pace can become faster which help to deliver the right feeling of a fast chase or even help to convey the urgency of the scene’s mood. Otherwise, the pace will slow down and face a huge risk of becoming boring with stiffness.To further enforce the Gravity in the universe of “The Croods” is strange. All the objects become lighter than it should be. Eep can effortlessly lifts Guy with one hand. When objects are thrown or tossed, they tend to travel in improbable arcs. The rock when Thunk throws away feels or visually seems light. It actually bounced back and hits Grug. Another example is when a creature runs over a trap. It is pulled back; however, it travels straight up high and falls back down in the area near where it takes off. Last but not least, close to the end of the movie, another clear example of breaking laws of gravity is when Grug throws everyone to the other side of the clip. With a simple swing of his arm, he is be able to throw everyone with ease. His motion does not suggest any strong contraction between his muscles, but the force he is able to make is enough to throw everyone without considering air resistance and gravity force.
Lastly the exaggeration in action or reaction is top notch in the movie and also another aspect that create visually appealing work but contradicts the laws of physics. When a force interacts with another force, an equal and opposite force is applied back. However, this fundamental aspect is breaking apart in this movie. A first clear example is the hunting of The Croods. The family found an egg, so they decide to steal it. The process involves a lot of chasing in high speed. Only in theory, human can run as fast as forty mph if they do not need to take account of air resistance and certain amount of force the limbs can take when striking the ground. This is not a problem to the Croods family, for all of them have super speed. In this scene, everyone seems to run really fast and they are hardly breaking any sweat. This means Gran, an old woman, is still be able to run as fast as youngsters.
Another example of the exaggeration in action or reaction is when Grug and his family have to jump down from the clip to the forest underneath. Usually, a fall of 170 feet would take around 4 seconds. It takes roughly 13 second for Grug and his family to land from the falling. Therefore, the height of their falling should be around 552.5 feet ((13 sec * 170 ft)/4sec). Considering it takes about 156 frames to land we can determine that the speed of falling should be 156 mph (552.5 ft / 156fps ~ 4fps). This speed is enough to kill entire Croods family.The same applies to a scene where Grug tries to show he has great ideas too to show that he can be better than Guy, but they backfire. He rolls a huge rock to the opposite side of the seesaw causing him to eject upwards in the sky where he gets hit by thunder, falls back down to have the rock roll back and collapse on top of him. All of which can kill Grug.
In Conclusion, by breaking the Laws of physics, the movies becomes more excited. If “The Croods” were based strictly on the rules, the movie will become stiff and uncreative. Also, by bending these rules, it makes the storyline possible. The physic in the movie is focused on delivering the humor. It may have failed in realistic aspects, but it has been successful in helping the movie become more appealing to audiences of all ages. Creativity, entertainment, and the wow factor makes a movie worth watching even if it defies the laws of Physics.
