Special Effects and Cinematic Physics: Creating the Impossible on Screen
The sandworm burst from the desert floor, and I literally forgot to breathe. I was watching Dune: Part Two in IMAX, completely absorbed as this impossibly massive creature erupted through waves of sand, dwarfing everything in its path. My brain knew sandworms aren't real. But in that moment? It felt like I was watching nature documentary footage from another planet. Walking out of the theater, I couldn't shake the question: how did they make something that doesn't exist look so undeniably real ? Turns out, the answer is physics. Lots and lots of physics. Motion: Teaching Fake Things to Move Real Here's something that blew my mind: CGI characters follow the same physics laws we study in class. Newton's F=ma doesn't just apply to real objects - animators program it into digital ones too. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes won the Outstanding Visual Effects award at the 2025 VES Awards, and watching those apes, you'd swear they were real animals. That believa...
