Megneto could certainly manipulate the edge of the coin to make it sharper, no?
He could, but there’s no indication that he does. We also see close ups of the coin as it slowly floats throught the air, punches into Shaw’s skull, and then emerges on the other side, and drops to the ground in slow motion, and the edge looks like a normal coin edge.
Exactly. The point of the scene was that, since Shaw’s mutant powers rendered him essentially invulnerable to traditional physical attacks, Magneto killed him by using as little kinetic energy as possible.
And, when I first saw the film, I didn’t think about the things which have been brought up in this thread, all of which boil down to “serious plot hole if you think about it.”
If Magneto has positioned a metal plate behind Shaw’s head that would keep it in place while the coin penetrates, but that’s not what’s shown in the movie.
So, Shaw’s power works on the same principles as Dune’s shields? I don’t think that’s actually established in the movie, but it works well enough as a fanwank.
My understanding has always been that he can absorb energy (including kinetic energy), and then redirect that energy to augment his own body (making him stronger, tougher, faster, etc.)
Is his absorption of energy conscious or automatic? If it’s conscious, then Xavier’s mental control could prevent him from using it just as he’s preventing him from moving his muscles.
Unclear, though his entry on the Marvel Wiki says nothing about him having to choose to use it.
Of COURSE he could move a coin fast or slow, anywhere he wants to. Shoving something metallic slowly through someone’s head would be so basic, it could become Magneto’s signature move.
Keeping in mind:
And, brilliantly:
Yes, that’s my understanding as well. But he should still be able to absorb the kinetic energy of a slowly moving coin and redirect it, unless his powers work the same way the shields do in Dune and don’t react to objects moving below a certain speed.
Now that you suggest it, it seems to me like they would pretty have to be. Otherwise, he couldn’t see or hear, right? He’d just aborb the incoming light energy and kinetic energy of sound waves. That scene makes a lot more sense if Shaw’s powers require active, conscious control, and Xavier is also stopping him from using them.
Yes, but how is he not just pushing Shaw over?
It doesn’t require momentum, he is exerting force on it the entire time.
Yes, we all get that, and it’s been discussed upthread. The issue is, could slowly pushing a coin edge first against someone’s forehead with an arbitrary amount of force driving it forward actually push the coin through the skull, as in the scene, or would it just push the whole head backward without penetrating?
It seems to me like it would almost certainly be the latter, and without something bracing Shaw’s head, the coin would never penetrate. Maybe, as suggested upthread, Shaw’s superhumanly strong neck muscles locked into place by Xavier’s telepathy provide enough resistance. But then, to sustain that stress, it seems like his muscles and bones would have to be superhumanly tough, and a coin shouldn’t be able to slice through, or at least not that easily.
It’s times like this that I really miss Mythbusters. It seems like a question custom made for a pig carcass and a custom-modified hydraulic rig.
Fucking magnets - how do they work?
Even then, it should just tip him over backwards. There’s still nothing holding him to the floor other than normal gravity.
Sure, other than comic book phyics where super-strength somehow includes super-inertia.
Wouldn’t most WWIi era coins be softer than bone? Discounting steel pennies and such.
The coin in that scene certainly looked like a silver thaler or something like. That would bend and squish on or under the skin, I would think.
It’s apparently a 5 Reichsmark coin, which would have been made of silver. I think you’re right that the coin would deform before it could be pushed through bone, although I suppose Magneto could be using his powers to force it to keep its shape.
Y’all are forgetting the Rule of Cool…
My questions when I first saw it were:
Does Shaw deserve to die? Does he rate a slow, helpless death?
Is younger Magneto a badass?
And, can Michael Fassbender do enough angst and anger that he could convince me that he needs to kill the bad guy?
That’s all I need.
I don’t think anyone’s “forgetting” that. But the OP asked a specific question about the real-world plausiblity of the scene, and we’re discussing it (along with other tangents, as is our wont around here).