Today, it’s been 36 years since you left us. I would never thank you for everything you did for me, even if you were not there. I feel for you an indefinable and eternal love. You will be forever in my heart. I love you so much, my Angel.
Let’s estimate how heavy is the rock that Aziraphale is lifting in the garden of eden’ scene. Based on the footage we have, I will approximate its shape to a trapezoidal base prism (more specifically, its base is a trapezoid rectangle).
To discover the base measurements, I will use this scene (because is the one where he is closer to the stone, minimizing camera effects) and Mr. Sheen height (1,78m) to do some pixel measurements.
Some math later and using the fact that two edges of the rock accompanies the junction of the larger stones I managed to get the height and smaller base of the rock, but I still needed the other side and the bigger base.
Forthis, I measured the angle shown. With these informations and trigonometry, I concluded these are the base’s measurements. Now, for its depth (this one was hard and probably the source of possible errors), we need some considerations.
Based on other scenes from the wall, we can safely say that this stone does not represent its thickness. However, we can see the inside of the wall, which is made of three to five layers of pre cut blocks.
I am assuming, now, that Aziraphale’s stone has the depth equivalent of the first outside layer that we see, since antique stone constructions don’t use mortar and the piece could fairly “break” in that spot.
Thanks to our adorable Eve, we have a scene to make some pixel measurement using her hand as reference (an average woman hand has a length of 17,27cm) and I concluded that the stone’s length is 28cm.
Using the right volume formula, the result is V=0,03087m^3.
Now, we need to estimate its density. According to some proposed locations, the garden of eden is in southern Mesopotamia (now Iraq). Based on the book “Ancient Mesopotamian Materials and Industries: The Archaeological Evidence”-Peter Roger Stuart Moorey, the primary construction stones of this region is limestone and gypsum.
The density of limestone (the most probable one) is 2711kg/m^3, which results in a weight of 83,69kg for our little angel to lift.
To sum up, Aziraphale is lifting approximately 83,69kg (184,5 pounds) without using any knee technique and without even looking discomfortable. Maybe the buff angel we see in the storyboards is not so off, after all.
Yup. While Aziraphale dropped the buffness in order to be more cuddly he kept the strength :).
storyboard:
(btw. for completely unrelated reasons I googled how much David Tennant weighs. It’s 80 kg :) - less than the rock)
Select additional comments:
(For scientific purposes - the remainder of the comments conveyed that
math skills are highly attractive,
Aziraphale being strong is highly attractive,
this fandom would like more fanfiction that features Crowley just getting picked up and carried away by the Angel in question, among other things)
@kayasurinreply: More importantly - that’s not a struggle. He’s moving normally. He’s not straining. He’s putting about the same amount of effort I do into a ten pound weight. Which means he can lift heavier stuff.
@jabberwockypie reply: This math is very impressive but I counter: Why would an embodied angel need to be buff to lift a heavy thing?
Crowley can drive a car that’s on fire because he Believes hard enough that he can.
I suggest that they just sort of take things like “how bodies work” as suggestions. He can lift it because he needs to, and because there’s no reason he feels he shouldn’t be able to. (And at certain points, angels are described as being thousands of meters tall. Presumably they’re a lot more *condensed* in a human-ish body, but why *shouldn’t* he be able to lift it? Theoretically wings that size shouldn’t allow for a human-sized being to fly, either, but they do, which suggests that there’s more to it than the simple capabilities of bones and muscles.)
After all, for all the food and wine they drink, I suspect they don’t use the bathroom either. (Would you poop or pee if you had the option to just kind of will it away into energy? ESPECIALLY if you had existed for thousands of years before the advent of indoor plumbing?)
@lynatireply: Well, book Crowley did have to get up in the middle of his decades-long nap to use the lavatory, but he may have just been too sleep muddled to remember that he didn’t *have* to.
Both the book and the show do make it clear that they aren’t limited by their physical corporations when they don’t want to be, but what is less clear is how limited they are when they aren’t actively ignores the laws of matter and physics and whatnot. Do they have physical limits that they have to be actively putting- and I know it’s a loaded phrase these days- an effort into in order to bypass, or are their bodies merely human-shaped suggestions?
Both canons mention discorporation, and how inconvenient it is, so it sounds that if they suffer massive damage to their physical selves they can’t just snap their remaining fingers and put that damage instantly to rights.
Honestly, I love the fact that we don’t have a single answer to what interpretation is “right,” because it gives us a much broader variety of narrative direction in fic whenever that question becomes a plot point.
Aziraphale getting beheaded by guillotine means his body was kaput, and he’s just stuck in heaven until he’s assigned a new one? …Yeah, sure, why not?
Aziraphale getting beheaded means he’s going to have to work quite a miracle to get his body working again, and making sure nobody notices him while he’s trying to get it done, how inconvenient; and what kind of words is heaven going to have with him over that? …Yeah, sure, why not?
Aziraphale getting beheaded means nothing as far as the physical side of his corporation is concerned because he can just re-arrange his matter around at will, BUT in his mind he’ll always KNOW that the discorporation happened, and the thought will just itch at him in the same way a stain miracle’d out of a jacket would. Oh, and his wonderful outfit would be well-past saving for the same reason; what an awful thought! …Yeah, sure, why not?
Aziraphale being able to lift that much weight because he can do whatever he wants via miracles or whatnot gives us one story; Aziraphale being able to lift that much weight because his corporation *naturally* has the ability to do that, no ignoring reality required, gives us a different set of Crowley’s kinks options to work with!
@rangeredactedreply: While I totally agree with the idea that they can do these feats because they believe they can, and reality shapes around that, first poster did some impressive math and research there! (which is so cool)
@artemis-argetlamreply: I do actually agree with the idea that things works just because they believe they will, it is their way of influencing the universe and Crowley strongly demonstrates that with driving, talking to plants, even giving personality to the bentley.
I just thought that would be cool to calculate the weight that Aziraphale is “ignoring” by simply not questioning his capacities to lift it.
Day 9: Pinoko from Black Jack for my Tezuka Osamu Tribute. Tezuka might = Astro Boy for most people, but for me Black Jack comics were my first into Tezuka’s worlds and first ever boy crush Over 700 manga series, in his short life of 60 years, amazing stories covering every genre you could think of… is just incredible. Fav Tezuka stories/characters? @inktober @jakeparker #legend ✨
If the rumours are true, Spectre will mark Daniel Craig’s last adventure as Bond, so bets are already on to discover who will take his place.
One of the favourites is Tom Hardy, but the 37-year-old insists it’s all hearsay, “myths circulated by people who don’t know what’s going on.
“I think a question like that is certain death for anybody who would be interested in playing that part. So I don’t know whether to say yes or no to it…
“I wouldn’t say no,” he adds after a slight pause. “There’s been no serious conversation.”
He thinks his description as a ‘Hollywood hard man’ is “nonsense”.
“Do you know what I think? If you play the bass in the band, you play the bass in the band, but I can drum too,” he offers, in an East End accent that belies his roots in leafy south-west London, where he grew up the only child of artistic, literary parents.
He can also lip-sync, as proven in the viral videos of him miming along to the likes of Whitney Houston and 50 Cent.
“Yeah, I’m pretty good at that,” Hardy agrees, grinning. “I’m a bit of a Dubsmash man,” he adds, referring to the popular app.
Hardy insists there was no persuasion needed to play both twins. “Absolutely none. I wanted it. It was just a question of how I was going to get it.”
There has been talk he was more interested in portraying Ronnie, the psychotic, openly gay brother who was eventually certified insane, and spent most of his life at Broadmoor Hospital before dying of a heart attack in 1995.
“If I had to choose between the two, then yeah, there was a moment in the conversation where Brian wanted me to play Reg, ‘cause Reg was his lead. And me being me, well, it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t go for the other one immediately. But Ron is the firework in many ways.”
Helgeland has revealed that Hardy in “Ron mode” was a lot easier to deal with than when he was on set as Reggie.
“I was a bit less confident in playing Reggie [who was released from prison on compassionate grounds six weeks before cancer claimed his life in 2000],” the actor admits. “I find straight leads really quite complicated, because they don’t do anything. Things happen to them and they respond to the environment. It’s quite ‘plod, plod, plod’ and kinda boring.
"It’s very easy to play Ronnie because there’s an unpredictability to him, so my brain can start to respond in a dramatic environment to that type of mechanism,” he continues.
With the film’s tight budget and schedule, cramming 100 locations into the seven-week shoot, Hardy would generally start the day as whichever brother had more screen time. This would often be Reggie, and when those scenes were done, he would disappear into make-up and wardrobe for an hour, adopt the wig, teeth, and plumped up the nose, and reappear as Ron.
“There was no CGI, we didn’t have the budget for it, so it was back to old-school tricks, split screen and talking to a tennis ball or Jacob [Tomuri, Hardy’s stunt double]. At the same time, you’ve got the rest of the cast who’ve got to deal with the fact we’ve got a split dynamic in the room, so it was kind of mathematical in a strange way.”
In preparing for any performance, Hardy explains: “It’s always a question of research and whether you’ve done your homework.”
He talked to “various members of that world in private meetings”, studied photos, and watched the small amount of footage of the Krays that exists. “But you can’t really take a lot from that because they were on show, and you can’t tell whether that’s their true voice or mannerisms.”
Now with the film in the can, he reflects on the experience with “a healthy indifference”.
“It was a thesis I worked on for a little bit, and that’s where I leave it, at the end of the day,” says Hardy.
“I’m healthily indifferent to anything really, so I can invest in the next thing that comes along.”
I don’t know who else could have pulled it off, really. I started out by saying, I’m going to cast Reggie. I knew I had to get Reggie first, regardless. And that’s a less attractive part, in a way, especially for somebody like Tom, who’s a movie star who’s always trying to hide that he’s a movie star by playing character parts.
But nobody’s really seen this movie star Tom Hardy. The really pure, great-looking, groomed - he can stand there like James Bond a lot of the time. Having Ron to play made it okay for him to go straight movie star on Reg, which I’m excited about - I’m really excited for people to see that version of Tom. Because they’ve seen him play Ron [before], in a way, you know?
- Director Brian Helgeland on Tom playing both Kray twins. I love his take on Tom being a movie star, it’s so true! And I’m glad he ‘tricked’ Tom into playing it ‘straight’. Tom should know, it can be as difficult playing someone ‘normal’ and giving such a character life and credibility, as playing someone a little (or a lot) deranged.
