Shotguns!
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Outland
rons0606 — 20 years ago(March 21, 2006 07:19 PM)
I love this movie,i think it was one of connerys best.That said what is up with these movies set in the distant future,and there still using shotguns.they have achieved intergalactic space travel but they haven't developed any energy weapons both leathal and non leathal.Ghost of mars is another example.Don't you think at least the hitmen would have used something different then what the marshall used. thats my 2 cents
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carter627 — 20 years ago(March 28, 2006 01:33 PM)
Nope. Consider the fact that firearms have remained relatively unchanged for over 500 years. They're cheap, easy to produce, and reliable. Look at all the advances in science and culture that have been made in that time. The gun has certainly been improved upon, but it's essentially the same today as it was back in the 1500's.
If you look on the web, you can find hand-held energy weapons for sale today. They're cumbersome, expensive and perform far below what can be achieved with a regular firearm. The advantage of an energy weapon is distance and targeting accuracy, neither of which is necessary (or necessarily attainable) with a handgun or spread-weapon like a shotgun. Will energy weapons continue to improve? Sure. But we're still a long way off from Han Solo's blaster pistol. I believe that traditional weapons will still be around in the next couple of centuries.
That being said, I actually prefer to see traditional weapons in sci-fi "near-future" movies. Especially around the time this film was made, with all the hype from Star Wars. Just watch the final battle in Moonraker (which bought into the SW craze hook, line and sinker) and tell me which you prefer. Personally, I like the shotgun, and I think in terms of accuracy, this is the way to go. -
marsodyssey2010 — 19 years ago(August 09, 2006 03:36 AM)
"you can find hand-held energy weapons for sale today. They're cumbersome, expensive and perform far below what can be achieved with a regular firearm."
Really, would you care to provide us a link. And I don't mean to any of those ultrasonic anti-rape alarms either. They don't count as an energy weapon.
English Language Anime: Dub it, don't pervert it. -
athomas1 — 19 years ago(August 17, 2006 09:02 PM)
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/lights/5a47/
It won't slice off your hand, but could surely do permanent retina damage. -
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charlenelv — 19 years ago(December 22, 2006 07:03 PM)
I guess it's kind of like folks still smoking cigarettes. At almost $5 a pack now, I wonder how much they would cost on Io. I'm always comforted by the fact that even in far distant future, people still enjoy smoking!
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Etherdave — 15 years ago(August 20, 2010 12:58 AM)
The french fries would probably cost more, by virtue of weight and space. It's comforting to think that in the future, man's greatest enemy will still be tobacco.
Getting back to the shotguns: simple, easy to make, reliable. Yep. -
Chalcosoma — 15 years ago(August 31, 2010 07:52 PM)
Essentially the same? Flintlock weapons and modern automatics?? The materials and mechanisms are way different and so is the ammo. The only thing they have in common is that they are portable and shoot projectiles using explosives. It's like saying that a 70's pocket calculator is essentially the same as a modern computer and fireworks the same as an intercontinental missile :p.
Also, you forget that technological advancement occurs with an increasing pace (law of accelerating returns). Not only does technology advance exponentially, but the exponential advance itself, increases exponentially as well.
About current laser weapons being cumbersome: take a look at computers from the 50's. They were darn cumbersome too - and slooow. Now I ask you, how long did it take to make them into the fast and portable machines of today? Centuries? Nope, mere decades.
Another advantage of energy weapons could be the possibility of continuous beams. That could definitely come in handy. And why not a diverging beam? That would be comparable to a shotgun. Also, bullets take more time to travel through air and would be harder to fire accurately on high gravity planets. I'd say energy weapons could constitute a technological paradigm shift in firearms still within this century, unless something better is invented.All that we see or seem. Is it but a dream within a dream?
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scotbpens — 16 years ago(December 05, 2009 11:32 PM)
the movie takes place on jupiter's moon. space travel in the movie could go well beyond our galaxy.we could only guess.
Our own Milky Way galaxy is 100,000 light-years across and contains billions of stars. Even traveling at warp factor 6, as in
Star Trek
, it would take almost a week to travel from Earth to the nearest star, Proxima (Alpha) Centauri, which is only 4 light-years from our solar system.
Forget intergalactic travel. Our own galaxy is plenty big enough.
All the universe . . . or nothingness. Which shall it be, Passworthy? Which shall it be? -
marsodyssey2010 — 19 years ago(August 09, 2006 03:42 AM)
I don't know about the tech of the future, but I do know that the post production costs of adding a single laser blast effect in those days were astronomical.
For example in V, which was made several years later, the laser blast effects were said to cost about $1000 per shot in post production. Which was the 'real' reason that most of the resistance characters continued using M-16s instead of just stealing the aliens guns.
Still, lots of futuristic films still have conventional guns in the. All 4 Aliens films used conventional weapons, rigt down to pump action shotguns, as with the new British series of Dr. Who. They show them using bull-pup rifles with caseless bullet 1000s of years in the future when they have matter transporters etc.
English Language Anime: Dub it, don't pervert it.