Favorite Fictional Firearms

I love guns and I love sci-fi, so naturally I love sci-fi guns.  I’ve decided to limit this list to weapons that I’m sure I can count as such, so no lasers, etc.  Here are a few honorable mentions, though.

                -Weapons based on ambiguous technology

                -Weapons from works I’m not that familiar with

                -Plausibly customized real-world guns

                -Megatron: though he’s modeled after a Walther P.38, he’s definitely a laser

 21. Holy Shotgun

Constantine

A beautifully ornate shotgun that fires twelve shells smelted out of gold relics as ammunition against demons.

 20. Zorg ZF-1

The Fifth Element

Fictional prop gun built around an AKS-74U.  With its impractical array of assorted weapons (including a horribly unsafe button for a self-destruct), it’s more funny than cool.  The replay feature is particularly absurd.  You want bullets that kill in one hit, not follow the first impact.  If you didn’t take someone down in the first shot, it means you didn’t hit they guy in the right place, so this feature is counterproductive.    Still, it would be nice to have seen more of this gun in action in the movie.  Also has a 3,000 round magazine.

 19. The Samaritan

Hellboy

It looks like an overweight Webley and fires four oversized cartridges.  I guess I just have a weakness for firearms made from holy relics like melted church bells and wood from crosses.  Amusingly, Hellboy has some special rounds made from holy water, garlic and white oak shavings.  He calls it “The woiks.”  

 18. Lawgiver

Dredd

A multi-purpose gun built around a real-life Glock 17.  It can fire full auto, armor-piercing, heat-seeking incendiary rounds, hi-ex, stun and silencer.  All in one surprisingly compact package.  Absurdly, the silencer mode involves the barrel getting longer.  The Lawgiver from the 1995 version gets an honorable mention with its “double whammy.”

 17. G.I. Joe Guns

G.I. Joe

In a unique twist on this trope, the guns in G.I. Joe seem to be actual firearms.  Characters often refer to rounds as ammunition, and occasionally you can see them eject casings.  But they fire laser beams and make laser sound effects: blue for Cobra and red for G.I. Joe.   It doesn’t make sense, but it’s an endearing trait of a nostalgic cartoon.

 16. Bagpipe Gun

The World Is Not Enough

A combination of two of my favorite things, plus a flamethrower.

 15. Cerberus

Gungrave

Big, cool and intimidating.  I like how the cross design is worked into the structure, and the magazine placement is neat.

 14. Carrington Institute Laptop Gun

Perfect Dark

It’s a neat-looking futuristic gun that can be disguised as a laptop.  Even though it’s a firearm, it makes an interesting laser sound effect when used.  It has a generous 50-round magazine and is a useful weapon in the game. 

 13. Moses Brothers Self Defense Engine Frontier  Model B (Mal’s Gun)

Firefly

An attractive blend of futurism and old-fashioned style, this gun uses a Gauss-effect with a normal hammer-fired operation to fire its rounds.  Built from a Taurus Model 85.

 12. Chesluk Industries Cyclone

Perfect Dark

With its distinctive appearance, sound effect and blue muzzle flash, the Cyclone is a great addition to the game’s arsenal.  It has a 50-round magazine and it’s a solid weapon, but I imagine the bulbous shape would be awkward in real life.  I don’t know how those Secret Service agents hide those things under their form-fitting suits.  Another interesting property is that it electronically feeds rounds into an internal magazine from a futuristic clip.

 11. Type 51 Carbine

HALO 2

A recoil-operated firearm, this is the only alien weapon I know of that has an action close enough to a traditional firearm to include on this list.  Accurate and effective, but it automatically ejects its magazine right into the user’s face! 

 10. M41A Pulse Rifle

Aliens

A classic.  A distinctive gun that carries 99 rounds of 10x24mm caseless armor-piercing rounds and comes with a nifty pump-action grenade launcher.  Built from a Tommy gun and a Franchi SPAS-12 Shotgun.

 8. Shredder

Turok 2: Seeds of Evil

A futuristic shotgun whose rounds bounce off walls and cause horrifyingly gory wounds.  Lots of fun.

 7. Cleric Gun

Equilibrium

A prop built from a rapid-fire Beretta.  A great-looking gun that comes with some cool tricks like retractable spikes on its butt and weighted magazines.  The Librian symbol- shaped muzzle flashes are a nice addition, too.

 6. Chesluk Industries MagSec-4

Perfect Dark

It’s horribly inaccurate (despite having a scope for some reason) and no more powerful than the Falcon 2, but it’s effective and fun at close range.  In single-player mode it’s wasted on a board that emphasizes long-range shooting, but you can have lots of fun with it in Multiplayer.  It makes oneof the best sounds ever and looks awesome.  Most people compare it to the Beretta Auto9, but I think it’s a distinctive gun.

 5. Misriah Armory M6D

HALO: Combat Evolved

This unassuming pistol’s scope and accuracy made it the most surprisingly all-round effective weapon in the game.

4. M1L1 Rotary Pulse Assault Rifle

Deep Rising

I love the idea Gatling rifles and this is the best example I know of.  Built from a Calico submachine gun, this fictional Chinese weapon holds a physically impossible 1,000 rounds of 5.56 rounds.

3. Violet’s Katana Guns

Ultraviolet

Though highly impractical in real life, the katana guns contribute to one of my favorite stylized gunfights in any movie.

 2. dataDyne SuperDragon

Perfect Dark

The best gun in the game, it’s a solid assault rifle tha tcan instantly be turned into an automatic grenade launcher and back again.  The launcher has a rather high rate of fire and bouncing grenade rounds.  The ultimate multiplayer gun.  

 1. RC-P90

GoldenEye 64

A representation of a real gun so inaccurate that it might as well be a fictional gun.  Thanks to a programming error, it has an 80-round magazine as a opposed to a 50-round mag.  It also infamously ejects rounds to the side instead of from the bottom like in real life.  It also has one of the best sound effects for any video game gun: an intimidating scream of rage in the form of a gun report.  In real life, it just sounds like a normal machine gun.

Great Character Designs Wasted on Awful Characters.

It’s frustrating when you see this awesome-looking character turn out to be totally lame.  Here’s my list of great designs wasted on bad characters.  I generally do not include characters that are just in bad movies, but rather the characters who I think are disappointing themselves.

 

18. Squat

The Terrible Thunderlizards

I wouldn't say Squat is a lame character, but I love his cute, bottom-heavy looks so much to see it wasted on a buffoonish gag character.  Besides, I generally find well-developed, witty protagonists more amusing anyway.

 17. G3 Spike

My Little Pony

I really don’t know much about this character outside his being a little annoyingly pompous, but this is what G4 Spike should look like.

16. Meg Griffin/Toot Braunstein

Family Guy/Drawn Together

They’re both in one item for the same reason.  I think they look cuter than most characters (I like a little chub), but they’re framed as hideous beasts by the shows’ hack writers for being ever so slightly overweight.  They’re also not written as actual people, demonstrating how bad these two shows are.

 15. Prince Nuada

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Nuada looks the way the elves should’ve looked in Lord of the Rings, but he’s one of those increasingly evident Bland “Understandable” Villains: villains that have no charisma or charm but have a half-hearted attempt at a tragic backstory/understandable motivation.  Nuada’s understandable frustration toward his kind being ousted from the world is outweighed by his genocidal goals.  Even his motivation is discredited in one scene which outs him as a cynical hypocrite.  He unleashes a plant elemental on a city, forcing Hellboy to destroy it, and then shamelessly guilts him by telling him that it was the last of its species.  Hellboy didn’t know that but you did when you used it as a weapon, asshole.  Bland acting and lack of good dialogue from this character also don’t help.

 14. Anakin Skywalker

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

I like Anakin’s costume and his metal hair in Episode III.  It’s a little dark and fits the character perfectly.  I may be in the minority, but I also admire Hayden Christensen’s performance.  However, this is one of the worst-written movie characters ever.  His fall from grace is meaningless because he was already a whiny, unlikable murderer and because it was a direct result of his own bottomless stupidity.

 13. Selene

Underworld

Kate Beckinsale is beautiful, and even more so when she’s wearing a fancy Gothic leather outfit with a trenchcoat and nice hair.  I’ve already talked at length about this character, but she is thoroughly unlikable.  She spends 600 years committing werewolf genocide based on dubious evidence, and her “redemption” is meaningless.  She stops not because what she was doing something wrong, but because she was lied to about the death of her family.  As if revenge is a justification for genocide.  As a result, she never feels never feels any remorse, making her one of the worst heel-face turns I’ve ever seen.

 12. Pearl Krabbs

Spongebob Squarepants

They literally gave the best design in the show to the worst character.

 11. Minerva Mink

Animaniacs

She always tops the sexy furry lists, but she is one shallow bitch.  I think I'll make my own sexy furry list that prioritizes personality.

10. Lord Voldemort
Harry Potter
Despite the rather narmful descriptions of what his voice sounds like in the book, Tom Marvolo Riddle is a great-looking villain made more intimidating by the ingenious casting of Ralph Fiennes in the movies.  However, it's no secret that Voldemort is one of the dumbest villains in the history of fiction.  He allows pride and bigotry to cloud his judgement, and he's too much of a dick to inspire any loyalty in his men (case in point: his treatment of Wormtail).

 9. Kroenen

Hellboy

 Now I don’t know that much about the source material, but in this movie Kroenen’s not much more than a generic mute henchman.  I know that the filmmakers conceived a backstory for him, but that doesn’t matter much when it doesn’t translate into an interesting character onscreen.  He does wear the coolest Nazi costume I’ve seen in a long time, though.

 8. The Witch King of Angmar

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

While the Witch King and Co. had a great, intimidating presence in Fellowship, the leader of the Nazgul doesn’t do or say anything interesting despite wearing some awesome armor.  He has a great speech in the book, but it wasn’t kept in the movie.  His battle strategy is nothing more than telling his lieutenant to attack Minas Tirith directly.   

7. William Corvinus

Underworld: Evolution

William Corvinus is what the "Lycans" should have looked like in the first movie.  Too bad the only werewolf with a good design isn’t even a character.

 6. The Shark

Help! I’m a Fish

I just love the look of this shark from this surprisingly good animated film.  Unfortunately, he’s nothing more than a dim-witted henchman with a stereotypical cockney accent.  Shame, because this is probably the best cartoon shark design I’ve ever seen. 

 5. Two-Face

The Dark Knight

Even though I love this movie, they truly dropped the ball on this character.  Two-Face is supposed to be split between two opposing sides of his personality.  That’s the whole point of his character.  He flips a coin because he honestly can’t make a decision without it.  In this movie there’s no conflict; he flips a coin because he’s just cynical and thinks things might as well be up to chance.  That’s more like Anton Chigurh than Two-Face.  I like the gritty design, though: burned-off face, as opposed to mutated, but still looks accurate. 

 4. Bane

The Dark Knight Rises

I love this design of Bane.  It dispenses with the silly luchador look for something that is distinctive and menacing while still being reminiscent of the original character.  I don’t even mind how the venom was replaced with anesthetic gas.  I was excited about a Bane that was going to have more in common with the comics’ version because all the animated adaptations made him into a henchman of average intelligence at best.  Instead, it turned out that he was just executing a plan given to him by the Big Bad.  It’s disappointing when your expectations of a character are used against you for the sake of a twist.  That voice didn’t help either.  It’s hard to take a villain seriously when it sounds like he’s constantly doing an impression of Pops from The Regular Show.  Oddly enough, I still think he would have been a good villain if he wasn’t supposed to be based on something. 

 3. The Penguin

Batman Returns

I like the idea that the Penguin is a physical freak since it would provide him with good motivation.  I also love his suits (when he’s not running around in his underwear, that is).  But the Penguin is supposed to be an affluent and intelligent villain, not a crazed animal person.

 2. Nelly the Dragon

Quack Pack – “The Leader of the Quack”

In case you haven’t noticed, I love the bottom heavy cartoon dragon design.  Too bad it’s wasted on this character.  Nelly is shallow, dim, self-centered and easily manipulated.  Though not genuinely malicious, she wouldn’t hesitate to murder innocent people if one were to offer her some bauble.  Despite not truly learning any lesson, she ends up becoming the queen when Donald offers her the crown to save his skin in a gift-giving competition between him and the villain.  Daisy, despite her experience with the character, makes the baffling assertion that she thinks she’ll be a great queen.  What are you basing that on Daisy?!  I don’t exactly have high hopes for that kingdom, not that I wouldn’t take her over our current president, mind you.  

 1. Alucard

Hellsing

He’s a bland, sadistic, smug and unlikable Gary Stu, but that it’s hard to argue with that pimp suit.  It's funny that when I did some research to find out what the appeal of the character, it's just that he's a sadist...which isn't a good character trait?

Least Favorite Movies of the 50's and 60's

<< Black & White Era   1970’s>>

Favorite Movies of the 50’s and 60’s

7. The War of the Worlds

1953

D: Byron Haskin

**********

When I was a kid I loved this movie just because of the beautiful and distinctive designs of the alien ships.  Last time I saw it I just thought it was cheesy.

 

6. From Russia with Love

1963

D: Terence Young

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I know this is a classic Bond movie that introduced some of the iconic elements from the franchise, but I found it boring.  I seem to have this problem with most 60’s action movies.  Despite assertions to the contrary, they generally have terrible pacing.  I’m not one of those people who automatically assumes that slow pacing is bad, but action movies that lack cerebral or dramatic tone should move fast.  Also, action scenes back then were extremely underwhelming, and this movie is no exception.  I will point out that the novel focuses more on character development, which the movie sorely lacks.

5. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

1969

D: Peter R. Hunt

**********

While this was an early attempt to add character to the protagonist, it fails due to some cheese as well as a weak performance from George Lazenby.  I still think he’s a better Bond than Roger Moore, though.  Pretty good theme song.

4. The Ten Commandments

1956

D: Cecil B. DeMille

**********

Another movie I used to love as a kid.  The movie has amazing special effects, but the stilted dialogue and wooden acting make this like the 50’s equivalent of a Star Wars prequel.

 

3. El Cid

1961

D: Anthony Mann

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I only heard of this movie because it’s apparently one of my mother’s favorite films.  Unfortunately, I found it poorly paced and dull.  I was heartbroken when I reached the end of the disc and realized I had to flip it around and sit through more movie.  I don’t want to pull a Hayden Christensen on Sophia Loren because this is the only role I’ve seen her in, but she is terrible in this movie.

2. Thunderball

1965

D: Terence Young

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It’s Raw Footage: The Movie.  Extremely dull, even though it starts out strong and has a good theme.

1. Shane

1953

D: George Stevens

**********

One of the most boring and anticlimactic film I have ever sat through.  The hero just hangs out with some annoying kid for most of the movie, which builds up to an incredibly disappointing gunfight in the end.  Jack Palance has his moments as Jack Wilson, but this villain is even more overhyped and overrated than Boba Fett. 

<< Black & White Era   1970’s>>

Favorite Movies of the 50’s and 60’s