Have Lasers Fallen By The Way Side In Popular Sci-Fi?

[Havok]

I've been watching all the new Doctor Who episodes.

I have noticed that all the way to the end of time, humans use projectile weapons. The classic characters like the Daleks use lasers, as I am assuming they did in the older runs of the show, but that is pretty much it. There are a lot of blasts of power, energy, electricity, etc., but not the classic pew pew lasers

Most of the recent/new sci-fi I can remember off the top of my head seems to have forsaken the fun of lasers for the "realism" of guns.

Am I on point with this observation?

[Stark]

Pyro is cheaper.

Ps in the old show Dalek 'lasers' were invisible and thus HARD SCI FI. Also cheap. :v

[Captain Seafort]

Ps in the old show Dalek 'lasers' were invisible and thus HARD SCI FI. Also cheap. :v

Not always - they were shown as blue pulses in Remembrance.

[Stark]

Yeah thanks professor gee whiz glad you're here. For like 20 years they clicked their prongs menacingly at people who died because of the devilish beat or the disco lights. Amusingly this looked better than the horrid effects in the 80s.

Of course now full skeleto-vision is so cheap it can be easily added to old eps; I should post a video of Daleks skeletonising UNIT guys in Day OTD later. It's pretty funny how simply replacing the jarringly bad effects can make a show look much better. Even if you can see the pixels.

[Captain Seafort]

Yeah thanks professor gee whiz glad you're here.

Happy to be of service. Anything else you need a hand with I'd be delighted to help out to the best of my abilities.

Of course now full skeleto-vision is so cheap it can be easily added to old eps

Again, the skeletal effect originated in Remembrance, albeit much more fleeting than the more recent series and better for it IMO.

[Stark]

Even replacing the horrible effects won't save that serial.

Hav, modern scifi is possibly driven by increased militarism in general and the specific highlighting of gritteh dirt desert war in particular. You could have tacticool sopmod special forces laser guns, but it wouldn't reinforce the 'go army' attitude the way Michael Bay does with firecrackers. Scifi isn't about spectacle anymore, but it might be about reassuring us we can use M4s to defeat UNNAMED enemies in the desert. :v

[Havok]

Hmmm the idea that people want to feel adequate in the face of the unknown is interesting.

Actually... staying on the Who kick, there was the episode that had the Sontarians (sp?), where at first GUNS WERE USELESS!!! then GUNS WORK!!! Interesting.

[Stark]

Yeah, cause of PLOT DEVICE. That's pretty much 80% of new Doctor Who. Establish BAD GUY as INVINCIBLE, have him defeat THE MILITARY very EASILY, then REVEAL a SECRET WEAKNESS known only to THE DOCTOR whereby he wins after letting all the people he DOESN'T LIKE DIE FIGHTING FOR THEIR OWN DEFENCE.

Then he SNEERS at THE MILITARY.

Because he is a FUCKWIT.

But I watched Three Kings the other day, and if you paint the Iraqis green the combat is the same as most modern scifi. Coincidence? :V

[Eternal_Freedom]

Hmmm the idea that people want to feel adequate in the face of the unknown is interesting.

Actually... staying on the Who kick, there was the episode that had the Sontarians (sp?), where at first GUNS WERE USELESS!!! then GUNS WORK!!! Interesting.

The Sontarans had some freaky forcefield thing that made the copper casings of the bullets expand. So, UNIT starts using rounds that dont have copper in them. Nothing to do with the Doctor at all

[Havok]

No, but it is a PLOT DEVICE that does exactly as Stark says.

That said, this isn't a discussion about Doctor Who.

[Stark]

There's definately a changing fashion of how gunplay is shown in films or tv; just look at Get Smart and all the 'shoot tiny revolver from hip, kill in one shot' stuff from the 50s and 60s, to the 'random pew pew' stuff in the 70s and 80s, and the modern GLUE ON LOTS OF LASER SIGHTS stuff from the 90s to now. If you were pretentious you could say that this is about fears; fear of hidden threats and communists, fear of the USSR and huge battles, fear of super-advanced elite special forces teams killing terrorists.

[PREDATOR490]

Guns are simpler, you can do the drama of running out of ammo, pulling bullets out of people and the obvious explanations of how they work.
Lasers, you have actors reacting to things they cant see and limited understanding of how they work to the point you have phasers bouncing off crates while vaporising walls elsewhere as plot demands.

A more optimistic view would be Sci-Fi shows getting to grips with the idea that you dont fix what isnt broken.
If guns will work and achieve what you want... no point in making random bullshit to do the exact same thing.

The more realistic view - Guns are cheap, CGI and laser props are more effort.

[Havok]

A: Actors can see bullets that aren't being fired by prop guns? Try again.
B: The physics of guns are just as lost on "Hollywood" as any theoretical laser gun. Try again.
C: Real guns, which aren't actually used anyway, cost between $150-700. I imagine the plastic non firing guns would indeed be cheaper, however, they routinely use the guns that fire blanks which means they are the far more expensive versions that have inner workings. Far more expensive than plastic laser gun props that don't work. So, try again.
D: It also seems you are missing the point of "science fiction".

You can also have lasers with power cells, wounds from lasers etc., etc.

[avatarxprime]

Umm, Toclafane anyone? They certainly had lasers and went pew-pew. Then again, they were built by the Master and he loves being different.

[Ultonius]

I suppose that you could put laser pointers in your laser props, to give the actors a point of reference to react to, and then add the proper laser effect in post-production. Additionally, assuming realistic laser effects, the same squibs used to simulate bullet strikes on objects could probably be used for laser strikes, and the same is probably true for the compressed gas packs and blood balloons used to simulate bullet wounds.

[Zixinus]

I think it may have to do with perception of DAH FUTAHR and mindset of how guns are displayed/thought of.

For starters, back in the 60's/70's, films had a different mindset when it came to gunplay and stuff. I am sure that there are exceptions (I am not a film buff) but thinking back to Star Wars, the lasers were fun to see and spectacular. I recall that there were GAGS with Hon Solo and Chewbacca with the gunplay. There was effort to make it fun rather than serious, as people almost never die by laser wounds today and there is no bad association, but be toys.

Now, the keyword is "gritty". Real or realistic guns are "gritter", making gunfights seem more realistic. In Stargate, I recall the scene with the rebel Gua'uld, where the humans essentially show that the silly Gua'ulds should stop with their silly toys and get REAL guns.

I'm sure someone more familiar with the history of US gun culture can point out relevant stuff and changes in popular perception of guns.

The other thing was that "oldish" sci-fi had the view of a future where everything would be super-charged and awesome. Think of Star Trek's phasers. Sure, they were impractical as guns (which can sort-of be explained in-universe as difference in cultural perception and out-of-universe as a deliberate action to remove the assosiation, but I'm only guessing with that part). They weren't just killing-tools: they could universally stun people and there were several scenes where they were used as tools.

There was an expectation of how the future would be, including how everything should be "futuristic". That obviously extended towards guns, as well as everything from toilets to TV and whatnot.

Nowadays, there is pessimism rather than optimism. You can easily get away with showing regular guns. Fancy lasers and whatnot are a "done thing". I'm guessing directors want to distinguish themselves as different from the old directors if the issue comes up.

As for props and whatnot: keep in mind that guns are brought as props for other shows. So a sci-fi show doesn't have to buy new props, just use ones the studio/whatnot can use what is already available. And to buy a futuristic plastic-thingy, that's a custom request and may actually be more expensive as it has to be custom-made.

[Alkaloid]

I think with a lot of modern TV as well, it's not really set in the future. Stargate was modern day, NBSG wasn't our earth but tech wise wasn't that far ahead of us except for space flight, Doctor Who jumps around and is entirely willing to go ray gun, see Daleks or the snippet we see of the 'Battle of Zarathustra' was all ray gunny, but most of what we see of UNIT is more or less modern day. There's no real way to justify everyone and his dog having a laser handgun because they just don't exist yet. Eureka probably had lasers, but I don't remember because it got shit so I stopped caring.

Real guns, which aren't actually used anyway, cost between $150-700. I imagine the plastic non firing guns would indeed be cheaper, however, they routinely use the guns that fire blanks which means they are the far more expensive versions that have inner workings. Far more expensive than plastic laser gun props that don't work. So, try again.

Stargate only ever had about a dozen working guns on the show, everything else was a rubber prop. That's why whenever they go anywhere with another SG team tagging along the other SG team are never carrying the same sort of gun. Its a pretty good way to cut costs for a show that size because then you really only need to buy blanks every week after the initial expense, not spend thousands on CGI for every single gunfight. I agree with all your other points, except maybe D, because the point of science fiction isn't lasers.

[Sephirius]

I think with a lot of modern TV as well, it's not really set in the future. Stargate was modern day, NBSG wasn't our earth but tech wise wasn't that far ahead of us except for space flight, Doctor Who jumps around and is entirely willing to go ray gun, see Daleks or the snippet we see of the 'Battle of Zarathustra' was all ray gunny, but most of what we see of UNIT is more or less modern day. There's no real way to justify everyone and his dog having a laser handgun because they just don't exist yet. Eureka probably had lasers, but I don't remember because it got shit so I stopped caring.

I always thought that the humans carrying AK-47s and M-76s in 'Utopia' was a bit of an in-joke actually, even at the end of the universe, AKs still work. If you're dealing with a slow heat/energy death of the universe, you want to avoid using any sort of high-powered rayguns as it's just a waste. An AK will kill someone just as dead.

[NecronLord]

The Sontarans had some freaky forcefield thing that made the copper casings of the bullets expand. So, UNIT starts using rounds that dont have copper in them. Nothing to do with the Doctor at all

And then the Doctor saves them from world-destroying orbital bombardment "It seems we must refer to basic Sontaran strategem one, we must ravage this planet! Prepare weapons, wipe them out, every last stinking human beast!" They won - a little bit - without his help. Just enough to make the Sontarans pull out another way of killing all humans.

[inviz345]

what about the spitfires from Doctor who who shoot lasers.

[Eternal_Freedom]

The Sontarans had some freaky forcefield thing that made the copper casings of the bullets expand. So, UNIT starts using rounds that dont have copper in them. Nothing to do with the Doctor at all

And then the Doctor saves them from world-destroying orbital bombardment "It seems we must refer to basic Sontaran strategem one, we must ravage this planet! Prepare weapons, wipe them out, every last stinking human beast!" They won - a little bit - without his help. Just enough to make the Sontarans pull out another way of killing all humans.

All true...but at least UNIT were shown with some basic competence.

[Batman]

what about the spitfires from Doctor who who shoot lasers.

I think this is mostly about infantry weapons, really. Barring the Tau'ri using missiles and railguns (and even they switched once they got the technology) SGverse ship-to-ship weapons were virtually exclusively glowy presumably supposed to be some kind of energy or particle weapon lasers.

[inviz345]

well river song had energy gun that she killed the silence .

[edaw1982]

Even Terminator Salvation didn't bring out the energy weapons. That was part of the fun of watching the future flashbacks of Kyle Reese, with the strobe-like plasma (particle?) weapons, but instead we get skynet's forces using mostly ballistics.

Which, I suppose makes an economical sense, why make energy weapons when ballistics kill meat-bags just as well.
Still, it was unfortunate.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Even Terminator Salvation didn't bring out the energy weapons. That was part of the fun of watching the future flashbacks of Kyle Reese, with the strobe-like plasma (particle?) weapons, but instead we get skynet's forces using mostly ballistics.

Which, I suppose makes an economical sense, why make energy weapons when ballistics kill meat-bags just as well.
Still, it was unfortunate.

In fairness, Salvation was set in what, 2019 or so? the flashbacks from T1 and T2 were mostly 2029. It's possible that the laser fun guns simply havent appeared yet.