Wouldn't be too surprising. It seems to me that the sound effects guys (Foley artists, I think, in filmspeak) use a pret
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11of10 — 18 years ago(March 06, 2008 04:13 AM)
must make a comment on this thread actually, some sort of energy beam, used as a weapon would be an incredible waste of energy especially in the atmosphere and besides shotguns make people bleed LASER might cauterize the wound
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Bart_Decaux — 18 years ago(March 19, 2008 05:28 PM)
Interesting idea- that a laser might cauterize the wound. To my knowledge, no living thing has been hit yet by a laser capable of drilling a hole through them since most lasers in use today are pretty weak. If I'm wrong and that has indeed happened, can somebody shed some light on what happens? Genuine curiosity-led question, BTW.
I am led to understand that CO2 lasers are the current badasses of the optical cutting world, being capable of slicing and dicing thick metal plate with ease. Whilst I assume that being involved in an unplanned human/CO2 laser interface situation might result in lost body parts and a whole world of excruciating pain, I am genuinely interested in the question of whether having something like a hand sliced off by laser causes less physical damage than, say, a circular saw?
I mean, I'm led to believe that the cleaner a cut is, the better- a cut from a scalpel or razor blade may be deep, but apparently it's better for the body to cope with than a cut from a jagged-edged thing, because it doesn't tear up the tissues quite so badly. Also, so I hear, it's much less painful too, 'cause it isn't mauling nerves quite so much- it's so subtle that, in some cases, people who are stabbed by very sharp knives don't even know it until some time later; sometimes only when they start to lose too much blood and feel woozy.
So I would think that a laser- especially one which can trace cut-lines on a piece of steel that are intensely focussed within a tiny fraction of a millimetre- would make a very, very clean cut on body tissue.
But is much heat radiated out from a laser and if it were hot enough to sever tissue could it also be hot enough to cauterize it?
Just a thought, like. -
marsodyssey2010 — 18 years ago(March 28, 2008 12:39 PM)
I'm willing to be that somebody has tried these things on animals and that at there has been one or two human related accidents.
Lasers are used all the time in medicine. Though mostly not for slicing. The use them to trim very small amount of people's retina to correct certain eye problems and they use them to burst the dark masses that cause birth marks. There are loads of applications.
I don't think that they use them for cutting due to the nerve damage that they could cause. If it's hot enough to cauterize then it's hot enough to damage the surrounding tissue and the blistering that it causes might also be an infection risk. Of course I'm not a doctor and I might be completely wrong on this.
English Language Anime: Dub it, don't pervert it. -
Bart_Decaux — 17 years ago(April 11, 2008 04:59 PM)
I think we need either a laser expert or a medical expert on this. Or preferably, a medic who uses lasers.
Then again, maybe megabuck-earning plastic surgeons don't regurlarly trawl the Outland pages of the IMDB, having better, possibly Nip/Tuck like shenanigans to be involved with. Still, surely there are some physicists or at least laser-hobbyists (those that actually make their own lasers from scratch, not the kit-buyers- I know they exist; I've seen the websites) who can shed some light on this?
Enquiring minds want to know -
marsodyssey2010 — 17 years ago(April 12, 2008 12:31 AM)
How about this, traditional methods are more cost effective when it comes to straight forward cutting. Lasers only come into their own for specialist roles such as eye surgery where incredibly fine movements and burns are needed or where you want to go through one material and into another based on things such as heat absorbency..
English Language Anime: Dub it, don't pervert it. -
dhenderson-2 — 17 years ago(February 03, 2009 05:38 AM)
I recall an SF writer - might have been Harry Harrison - speculating that high-powered laser rifles would have to be used in a sweeping way, rather than a single shot way. If used against a single target, you'd want to really incapacitate him, not just punch a clean, tiny hole through him, so the beam would have to be swept side to side or up /down to maximise tissue damage and the onset of death.
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marsodyssey2010 — 17 years ago(February 03, 2009 11:47 AM)
A better method would be a pulse laser, rather than one concentrated burst in a tiny area, you'd have multiple bursts each slightly off center in a different direction. So you'd get a concentrated burst of hits over an area maybe an inch across in a split second. It would be the equivalent of using a high caliber low speed bullet rather than low caliber high speed bullet (Like an AK-47 compared to an M-16)
English Language Anime: Dub it, don't pervert it. -
smartbomb — 17 years ago(April 12, 2008 02:00 PM)
There are a lot of good comments in favour of shotguns. But I think tazers might be more plausible. Even if the damage from a shotgun can be limited, I still think it would be considered way too dangerous to have projectile weapons on any outer-space structure.
It might've been more realistic to show law enforcement using tazers through most of the movie, but criminals (and maybe some cops) smuggle firearms. I could see Connery pulling out a trusty old shotgun he likes to keep for special occasions for the final showdown.
Overall I think the movie holds up really well. -
Bart_Decaux — 17 years ago(June 23, 2008 05:43 PM)
It does. You can nitpick almost anything.
Incidentally, I just bought the MAD magazine with their parody of it and I love it. They refer to the "High Noon" thing even then and I love the parody, but I still have great love for the film.
The thing that everyone seems to miss in Outland is just how good the film is overall. If you ignore the similarity between it and High Noon and just concentrate on the screenplay, dialogue, sets and general film-making apparatus, it's a blindingly well-made film. -
jmac-20 — 17 years ago(July 14, 2008 10:07 PM)
I've heard of lasers being improperly used in circumcision (and in this case I'm not talking about David Reimer, if anyone wants to get really specific) that have cut off the body part in question, rather than just the 'tip'. Sorry for the less than G rated example, but the tech probably exists to do far more when actually intentional.
Having said that, I like the idea of shotguns. Although I would bet the farm that the reason was budget for the special fx (as has been mentioned) - one might also consider the budget in that 'universe'. Law enforcement today in most parts of the world isn't the highest funded institution around. Better in some places than others, but you get my drift.
If, hypothetically, the rest of the people on IO weren't (or at least shouldn't have been) armed, then shotguns would be a very useful, acceptable option, for all of the aforementioned reasons (and they can be fired in a vacuum, and ironically might have a different spread pattern, though I wouldn't like to bank on whether it would be wider or narrower) and especially so because they wouldn't cost a fortune to arm, maintain and use.
Atmospherically (as in the dramatic type, not the scientific type) I think they add to it well. It's a combination of western, sci fi and police procedural (to a slightly lesser extent).
I'm not sure precisely what the armies of the world will be using in another 40 years, but I think it's highly unlikely that things like the ak-47 and m-16 - both of which were produced decades before this film - will be completely relegated to collectors/antiques. The colt 1911 is coming up on it's 100 yeqar anniversary, and it's still a big favourite with gun enthusiasts for it's rugged and reliable design. Sure it's been tweaked considerably over the years, but you get my drift.
John McKenzie -
syfymoviebuff — 17 years ago(November 03, 2008 05:07 PM)
Stop being paranoid.
Girl_Power
http://www.wecansolveit.org/ -
bigsexy8track — 17 years ago(November 22, 2008 10:35 AM)
I just stumbled across this film on HDNet and I thought I'd see what other people thought of it. I'm glad I did, because this is literally one of the best threads I've ever seen on IMDb. Very interesting and intelligent stuff. Good work, people.
I once dated a blind girl - you really had to hand it to her. -
pcventures — 17 years ago(November 24, 2008 01:43 PM)
How odd I was just thinking about this very topic recently.
I think that generally, shotuns are ideal - less chance of overpenetration than a pistol or rifle.
They're versatile - slug and beanbag type rounds are easily used in most modern shotguns, as well as traditional "batches" of round shot.
As to the idea of energy weapons - the biggest problem with them is energy density - how do you store enough energy for a comparable number of man-stopping or man-killing shots?
I'm not even talking about the ability to permanently blind or seriously burn someone's skin - wounds like that are considered cruel and technically are not "man-stopping."
I think that's a long way off - current rechargeable technology would be hard-pressed to store the juice for one shot with the power of a .45 ACP round, let alone the equivalent of six or more.
The only downside issue I could see with using shotguns or other firarms in space, would be if rounds miss - there would be small metal particulates circulating around a closed air-recycling system.
Look at a film like Aliens - which seems to take place at least 75 years ahead of Outland. Although Hicks and Vazquez had personal weaponry that were clearly from our era (OK, Gorman's pistol was an HK VP70, but that at least looked futuristic official Marine issue), the official infantry weapons and squad automatic weapons still used the basic principle a solid projectile driven by a chemical reaction, albeit in a caseless package. -
TheSouthernDandy — 17 years ago(November 28, 2008 03:06 PM)
Why change what works? We have technology that would allow me to replace all the doors in my house to sensor activated electronic doors, which, undeniably, are much more modern and technologically advanced than the mechanical latch mechanism that I'm using now. But that would be a lot of work just to change something that already works fine, incredibly expensive and what would happen if the power were to go out? Basically it would be just a massive violation of the K.I.S.S. principle. Likewise with a laser weapon, what could it do that a shotgun couldn't do just as well in that situation and what happens when the power goes out? I could load a shotgun, not use it for years and still be pretty confident it will work when I need it. Would people be dieing because they'd forgotten to charge up their laser weapons? Do they have to carry spare battery packs in case of protracted laser battles and remember to keep all of them charged? I think that you'd definitely want the simplest, most rugged, self contained and proven design in such a remote environment.
Also, it seems to me that he could have used a rifle or handgun, as long as he was using frangible bullets in it. -
stagebandman — 17 years ago(March 05, 2009 01:01 AM)
Think of it this way: did you go to work in your flying car today? How's that jet-pack working these days? We may communicate with advanced technology, but we still kill people the same way.
If we all liked the same movie, there'd only be one movie!