Transcript
Did you catch what was strange about how Elfaba flies in the first Wicked movie? This is not a normal witch's broom. Not that it looks like one. Let's use physics to understand something incredible about how the magic actually works, which is tied to the soul of what makes this show and movie so amazing. Yes, I just use physics and magic in the same sentence. Like a true nerd. Warning, there will be spoilers. Let's dive in. On the surface, the movie would have us believe that Elfaba casts a spell from the grimmery that causes the broom to fly, which she can then ride in a class. classic witchy fashion. But during this epic defying gravity scene, she manages to strike poses such as this, which looks super cool and dramatic. But if we put our science hats on... Cynthia Revo is 5'1. Let's assume 110 pounds or 50 kilograms. But don't quote me on that. The distance from her arm to the broom is roughly 19 inches, or 48 centimeters. Now let's do some very rough calculations. If the magic is in the broom, i.e. it's flying and she's just riding or holding onto it, then all the force fighting gravity is coming from 8. it, producing some crazy torque on her wrist and shoulder. 50 kilograms times 9.81 meters per second squared for gravity times the length of the lever arm equals 235.44 Newton meters. And she'd have to counteract this with the weakest type of wrist motion, what us nerds call radial deviation. This study measured a bunch of healthy females and found that the maximum force they could exert in this direction was roughly 1.3 Newton meters. Some simple division tells us that this would make Alphaba a whopping 181 times the strength of a normal human female. She's built different. Maybe only when she's angry. But there's another option, which ties into the soul of what makes this movie so amazing. And it doesn't involve a harness. We're sticking in-movie with this one. Defying gravity isn't just a song. It's the theme of the entire movie, carefully woven throughout. From her first scene, being born, Elfaba lifts everything in her birthing room up in the air, aside from herself. All emotion and power, but no control. As a young girl, we see her made fun of by her peers, until again she explodes with emotion, lifting everything around her. see that her deepest desire is just to fit in. So she learns to fear her power and suppress it by suppressing her emotions, which is exactly how she deals with the fear and scorn of her peers, by pretending she doesn't care. But there are cracks, which Galinda begins to notice when they finally start to connect, giving us what was for me the most emotional scene of the whole movie. I cried. She doesn't give a twink when anyone thinks. Something is not the same. Of course she does. She just pretends not to. to teach her to control her powers by levitating a coin, which she completely fails at until she lets her emotions free. Absolutely remarkable. But Elphaba's problem is that she can't fight for herself. She fights for Nessa, for Dr. Dilliman, but she lets everyone walk all over her, and she thinks she deserves it, until she gets pushed into realizing that she is just like those animals that she's trying to protect, being hated for being different, and that by putting herself in that same group, she allows herself to start fighting for herself. And value, And what does all this have to do with magic and the grimroar and the broom? Everything! The grimery takes her raw power and gives it focus. The first spell she casts is sort of referenced as a levitation spell, but when cast, it's much more than that. It alters a monkey, and all the monkeys, to be no longer bound by gravity. But then come two separate breaking points. First, the wizard and Meta Marble try to rope Elfabah into their plans for controlling all of Oz by turning them against the animals. of tomorrow. And we get to see her character growth by her turning her back on her lifelong dream of joining with the wizard, and being de-greenified, and more than that, of being accepted by the citizens of Oz, of becoming one of them, no longer hated, but still bound as they are by gravity. But she says no, and instead embraces her differentialism, rejecting the wizard and siding with the animals. She runs away and first tries to fly using a mechanical external tool, the wizard's balloon. But that's still. the wizard way of doing things, and it fails. Then when all is almost lost, she turns back to her magic. Using the grimery, she again casts the levitation spell, this time focused on herself. Hopefully not expecting wings, but I don't think she really knows exactly what to expect. She just wants to be free. At first, it doesn't seem to work. But then, the broom. It comes to her. It hints that it can let her fly. She's on the cusp of realization, enough to grab it, to trust it, to trust it, to turn to Turn full superhero mode and take a leap of faith through a glass window that somehow doesn't cut her? Magic. And she falls and falls. But the broom doesn't save her. She who has been put down her whole life, held back, made to blame herself for her own mother's death and her sister's crippling. Made to fear her own magic. As she's falling, she has a moment with her past self. And the Stormfather gives her more time. Time to realize that she doesn't need the wizard. She doesn't need the surface-level praise that Galinda's had her whole life. What she needs is to accept herself, her beliefs, and the magic that has always been a part of her. Something has changed within me. And so she reaches out and the broom comes to her, not to act as another flying machine and lift her up from below, but to become a talisman, a symbol of her own magic. And when she holds it, she doesn't need to ride it, because the power is hers. She is no longer bound by gravity and nobody in all of us. No wizard that there is or was is ever. And if you like this science-y distillation of what made a movie great, you might like this one of the Buzz Lightyer movie centered around a complete science fail. And let me know what I should cover next.
Additional notes
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. Who already has tickets for #2?? #wicked #wickedmovie #TikTokHeroVillainContest #science #scienceismagic
References
- Radial deviation force study mentioned in transcript; study title, DOI/PMID, and source link not listed in workbook.