when it comes to unraveling the
mysteries of film no mission is
impossible
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hello Internet welcome to film theory
now you guys all know how much I love
movies from video games right sometimes
anyway
this one's a little bit different since
today we're talking about hitman which
is much more Bourne Identity and much
less Super Mario the movie in case you
haven't seen it yet the non-spoiler
premise of a hitman agent 47 is that a
top-secret organization has been
modifying human DNA to splice together
the best genes and greed superhumans
they train their little genetic
creations from birth to become the
ultimate killing machines and that's
about all I can talk about without
stepping into spoiler territory so hey
avert your eyes and go to the movies
then come back and watch this because
this episode is really really good or
better yet click on the film Theory
playlist wrack me up some retention time
you go see the movie come back and then
watch this video we all win but mostly
me because that's sweet sweet retention
time seriously you're gonna want to
watch this one okay you back picking
popcorn kernels out of your teeth wiping
artificial butter substitute off your
fingers but still getting your keys all
greasy good on we go so agent 47 is cool
and all but for me the most interesting
character with the least interesting
name is John Smith who has this bizarre
knack for staying alive despite being
shot repeatedly in a typical spy movie
you have your villains sure but they're
just regular guys when you finally shoot
them which granted does take about six
scenes and too expensive car chases they
do tend to you know die in hitman though
the problem is that when the hero shoot
the bad guy John Smith they have to keep
shooting him like this guy seriously
cannot die hey you're dead oh no just
kidding you're still here oh okay you're
back again discount bullets are the
worst there's literally one line in the
movie that actually explains how he's
pulling this off yes
subdermal body armor pretty crazy huh
that's it that's all we get in terms of
exposition subdermal armor as in he has
a bulletproof shield that sits under his
skin yeah okay nice try why doesn't John
Smith just say resurrection stone that
would have been just as plausible right
wrong believe it or not the technology
to create bulletproof skin actually
exists basically what we're talking
about here is a bulletproof vest but
instead of wearing it under your clothes
you wear it under your skin okay what do
we know that's bulletproof obviously old
Zachary Q isn't installing steel plates
under his skin so we need a few other
ideas let's start with the most famous
bullet stopper Kevlar it's weird isn't
it that whenever someone's like oh yes
the shield was fortified with Kevlar
everyone's always like ah yeah so of
course Kevlar how droll as if any of us
actually know what Kevlar is I mean we
all pretend like we're super familiar
with it because it shows up in every
episode of Burn Notice
but until doing the research for this
episode I for one had no idea that it's
actually just for really strong plastic
not like this plastic or that plastic
but like the Superman of plastic in fact
it would be stronger than the Old Man of
Steel since it's five times stronger
than steel by weights more importantly
than just strength though we need to
take a look at its tensile strength
tensile strength is a measure of
materials resistance to tearing or
basically tells you how much force it
takes to break through its units of
tensile strength our mega pascals MPAs
so the mpa of a piece of armor tells you
the force you need to put on it to break
through it Kevlar has an unbelievably
high tensile strength of about three
thousand seven hundred fifty mega
Pascal's compared with steel which is
about 650 making it a super appealing
option for bulletproof vests and helmets
but not so much for putting under skin
even though Kevlar is light it's nowhere
near that light and perhaps more
importantly it's still nowhere near as
flexible as human skin in the movie we
see John Smith ducking rolling jumping
and jivin in other
words his movement isn't limited by
whatever he's got under there and by
there I mean his under skin armor and
not his fruit of the looms in other
words our armor needs to be extremely
flexible it takes at least 20 layers of
Kevlar to stop a bullet and these layers
aren't like your normal fabrics they're
plastic
so no downy softness here and while it's
a lot lighter than steel it's still too
heavy we see old John Smith running and
jumping at top speed it's true he's
genetically engineered to be strong but
it would be a big burden to be slowed
down by armor with Kevlar vests weighing
in at 8 to 10 pounds Johnny would have a
hard time keeping up with agent 47 but
if you thought Kevlar was the cutting
edge ah someone hasn't been reading
their American Chemical Society
publications lately no that one's just
me huh okay fine let me catch you up on
what you've been missing there are a few
new players in the miracle substance
game lately one of which is nano
cellulose nano cellulose is like the
high-tech material for hippies made from
all natural organic nano sized particles
that actually come from wood algae or
even bacteria and are basically purified
all the way down to the molecular level
then pressed together to form a crystal
structure that's eight times stronger
than steel more flexible than plastic
and when thin is even see-through
there's also a lot of really cool
applications for nano cellulose from
display screens for phones bendable
organic batteries and you guessed it
bulletproof armor the tensile strength
of nano cellulose is reported to be
different things based on the
preparation but by weight it's
comparable to Kevlar and because it's
not plastic but instead an organic
material it's more flexible and could
theoretically be implanted under our
skin one of the less intuitive things
that we can gather from the movie is
that the armor John Smith is using has
to be biologically safe this may be
sci-fi but at a fundamental level John
Smith still has human DNA which means
his body is susceptible to the same
things we are and the human body
generally doesn't have a whole bunch of
unidentifiable of junks than
around it this own natural armor would
seem to make a good candidate except for
the fact that it's a bit too natural in
the sense that it could actually react
with your body cellulose is a material
found in plants if you remember from 5th
grade biology it makes up plant cell
walls it's in a ton of our foods and
people eat it all the time because even
though we humans can't digest it it
makes us feel full the way it does that
though is by reacting with what's
already in our bodies water cellulose is
extremely porous and it attracts water
molecules that stick to it on every side
nano cellulose exposed to water blows up
to hundreds of times its volume that's
why eating things with cellulose make
you feel fool because literally it's
bloating you with water if you were to
put nano cellulose under the skin the
water that's in your body would be
absorbed and stretch you out like a
human balloon oh my gosh does this nano
cellulose make me look fat even though
the armor itself would be relatively
light the water that cooled around it
would add pounds and give your whole
body a bloated pillowy texture and
definitely not the svelte Johnny Smith
we've come to know and love but wait
we're not done there is in fact a
miracle substance that will allow us are
perfect
Under Armour or I guess under skin armor
grass mean like it's compadre nano
cellulose it's a carbon-based sheet but
unlike nano cellulose there's nothing
else in it while other materials are a
mix of carbon oxygen and a few other
elements graphene is unique because it's
made completely out of locked carbon
crystals that can exist as thin as one
molecule and can be stacked in layers to
form a crystal lattice if that concept
doesn't sound familiar it should in
principle it's the same structure that's
used to build a diamond the hardest
substance in the world if you were to
wear under skin graphene armor you'd
literally be wearing diamond armor under
your skin if you're talking ten style
strength compare kevlar 3000 mega
Pascal's to graphene's 130 thousand and
not only that compare the weight of
Kevlar or steel to graphene
we're a single layer of graphene
covering an entire football field would
weigh less than a gram an entire
football field less than a gram and if
you're worried about fitting it under
your skin don't
since graphene is truly only one
molecule thick you would need to stack
three million layers of this stuff to
get one millimeter in height which is
mind-blowing ly thin but begs the
question how thick does this stuff need
to be to fulfill the bullet-stopping
part of our bullet-proof skin theory
well it turns out that tests are already
being run on graphene using micro
bullets literally micro pellets shot at
thin layers of graphene to test its
stopping power in experiments at Rice
University with micro bullets being shot
at 3 kilometers per second 3 times
faster than an ak-47 bullets a 100
nanometer thick layer of graphene
stopped the bullets 100 nanometers the
way it's stopping these micro bullets
was by stretching and spreading the
impact force out over a wide radius
which caused the graphene to bend a lot
sure but not to break yes it's only been
tested on a micro scale testing it
against steel shows that even in very
thin layers it works ten times better
than steel armor with a tiny fraction of
the weight and practically unlimited
flexibility which makes it sound like
the perfect fit to our John Smith
mystery but then what about the human
body we talked about the piloti and
convenience of nano cellulose but is
graphene any better actually yes
otherwise this episode would have a
really unsatisfying conclusion because
graphene is made of in theory a
perfectly uniform carbon structure it's
almost totally nonreactive
if any of you remember high school
chemistry it's never really the carbon
atoms that are doing anything exciting
it's always the oxygens or the chlorines
that are getting all the action they're
like the swinging singles of the atomic
world carbon is like the married friend
that doesn't come to the bar with the
gang on Friday nights anymore because
once it's in a molecule it's just happy
to hang out this means that graphene
isn't gonna be reacting with water and
it's not gonna dissolve it's just gonna
stay there until you need it to help
avoid death
12th time this weekend seriously John
Smith consider your actions so all in
all when Johnny Smith is wearing his
graphene Armour it's just sitting in an
ultra-thin ultra flexible sheet of
diamond like hardness right under his
skin made completely of carbon reacting
with nothing except the bullets he's
taking a few times an hour
so graphene has a ton of superlatives
you know what else it's the best at
conductivity graphene has been
classified as the most conductive
material in the world meaning that while
it would protect the wearer from bullets
better than any other substance it's not
the kind of thing you'd want to be
wearing in a thunderstorm but still not
a bad trade-off for being indestructible
so in the end what started off is one of
the most improbable villains in an
action movie John Smith's subdermal
titanium body armor turns out to be an
awesome example of cutting-edge and
completely plausible tech wait did they
just say subdermal titanium armor after
all this and he's not even wearing the
stuff ah well in the end I suppose it
was just a theory a film theory and cuts
welcome back to the super amazing
Cartman where I'm curious if you had the
chance to implant yourself with
subdermal super skin like graphene would
you do it like it's a cool idea in
theory I get it but seriously what are
you doing in your life that you would
need something like that it's not like
you're getting mugged every time you're
headed to the corner store for a gallon
of milk or if you are and I'm sorry for
that joke and I would also recommend
trying to move please move from your
current residential area anyway I was
just curious what you would do yes or no
click on one to cast your vote and get
sent to the channel page where you can
watch all the other nifty videos we've
been making lately did you know movies
and frame-by-frame have had some stellar
uploads lately so i'd go and check out
those series if you haven't yet now if
you'll excuse me I've got a bow tie to
tie I don't care how smart you are those
things are tough
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