Outline of First Term Paper

Physics in "Men in Black"

I. Introduction – Aliens and humans living on earth.

• a. Aliens do not abide by the same laws of physics on earth.
• b. In times of necessity, humans possess super human abilities
• c. For the most part, laws of physics are abided by on earth for humans and objects.
• d. Thesis statement: With aliens living on earth the Men in Black do a great job of keeping them a secret, especially when aliens tend to have abilities that are not human. At times, the Men in Black need to show their own super human strength, but for the most part the laws of gravity clearly show that the movie takes place of earth.

II. Aliens breaking the rules

• a. Criminal alien that jumps off a bridge with no evidence of squash and stretch, jumps up onto a building and climbs a wall where gravity should clearly be taking part.
• b. Jeebs, the pawn shop alien, who gets shot in the head only to have it grow back
• c. Edgar, the bug alien, has super strength and pushes his spaceship out of a hole
• i. A flaw in this ability is when he can’t open a metal container
• d. Edgar who is 5x the size of a human has squeezed himself into human skin

III. Humans have super abilities in important times

• a. Jay manages to have super speed when running up at least 6 stories in about 30 sec. to catch an alien on the roof.
• b. Kay catches an incredibly fast bouncing intergalactic ball in his hand with no repercussions.
• c. Kay gets eaten by Edgar and is in his stomach for close to 4 min.(movie time) and explodes out, alive and conscious.

IV. Laws of physics are abided by for humans and objects

• a. Jay flies backwards from the kickback of his gun
• i. One time when he flies back, he should have broken the flimsy wood wall
• b. The MIB car gets turbo boosted in a tunnel and they end up driving on the roof
• i. Once out of the tunnel physics is questioned when they pass a toll booth and throw a coin in the basket and make it at high speeds.
• c. Baseball has a nice parabolic arc
• i. It hits a baseball players head with hardly any force, which is questioned.
• d. The spaceship is shot down and falls in zigzagging motion
• i. When it lands the debris should be hitting the MIB, but they remain intact, which is questioned.

V. Conclusion

• a. “Men in Black” is clearly a fictional movie that relies on the rules of physics to be bent in order to make the movie exciting and keep audiences captivated.
• b. Aliens having super human abilities and humans, who at times possess out-of-this-world abilities, are part of the excitement and help keep the imagination alive, but for the most part, in order to captivate your audience, there is a need for more realism than fiction and “Men and Black” does a great job at encapsulating this.