# Poorly conceived movie and/or SF inventions/technology **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 25, 2006, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorly-conceived-movie-and-or-sf-inventions-technology/377916 "2006-10-25T23:45:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![H3Knuckles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ba8739/32.png) [@H3Knuckles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/H3Knuckles)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2006, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorly-conceived-movie-and-or-sf-inventions-technology/377916/81 "2006-10-27T05:08:06Z")
[QUOTE=brewha] The one thing about Star Wars that makes no sense to me. There is a wookie who’s name is Chewbacca. How do we know this? I always assumed that Chewie said to Han, " Hi, my name is Chewbacca." But, he has no way of pronouncing his own name. His real name would have to be something more like Ahhewweahhhhgrrr. Did Han just name him like a pet? [/QUOTE] Not that I want to appear as some Lucas apologist, but again, this is kind of easy. Humans can’t properly speak the Wookies’ language, but are able to learn how to understand it; similarly, Wookies can’t speak Basic (english in SW), but they can understand it. Perhaps, Chewbacca and other Wookie names are a Basic-speakers rendering of Wookie-language names into something they can pronounce? Maybe I just have a good imagination, but I can easily sound out in my head what “Chewie” approximatting Chewbacca would sound like. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2006, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorly-conceived-movie-and-or-sf-inventions-technology/377916/82 "2006-10-27T05:25:09Z")
[QUOTE=Askance] Name a single occasion in any SW film where the armour was of any use whatsoever, aside from allowing the enemy to disguise themselves. A disproporionate number of construction site accidents are from things dropped onto you. From directly above the hard hat actually covers quite a large portion of the target area. [/QUOTE] I bet it can cover up all sorts of embarassing rashes that are gained as a result of weekend liberty in Coruscant’s red light districts. I’d imagine the Storm Trooper armor is 95% for PR purposes. A mass of perfectly identical soldiers can be a lot more intimidating than a variety of them mixed together, just because it makes them seem slightly less human (which can of course, work to both make it harder to muster a fight against them, and easier to kill them without remose, so double-edged sword, I guess). In the EU, Storm Trooper armor also provides protection against airborne agents (ie: germ or chemical warfare or just smoke from nearby fires) and limited protection against the vacuum of space, which gives it’s wearer that much more protection than the stuff the rebel forces have been seen wearing. That said the overall training quality of Storm Troopers compared to their Clone Trooper precursors seems to be absolutely terrible. [QUOTE=H3Knuckles] Why do soldiers in the field today wear bullet-proof gear? Most armed forces use armor-piercing bullets by default, so most of the time it’s only going to slightly reduce the momentum of the bullet as it enters the body. Nevertheless, as long as it doesn’t restrict momentum or prohibit the wearer in some other manner, the fact that it does work sometimes makes it worth it. [/QUOTE] Well, I’d imagine it protects against a lot of stuff that can harm a soldier that doesn’t consist of rifle rounds. Shrapnel from explosions, ricocheting bullets, bullets from small-calibre weapons (like handguns), etc. During Vietnam, some soldiers wore a “Flak Jacket”, which provided virtually no protection whatsoever from bullets, but could provide some defense against the various fast-moving debris that gets sent flying around in a firefight. Just a random sidebar. ---
**Author:** ![Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Throatwarbler_Mangrove)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2006, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorly-conceived-movie-and-or-sf-inventions-technology/377916/83 "2006-10-27T05:28:52Z")
> [@](#): > > Why do soldiers in the field today wear bullet-proof gear? Most armed forces use armor-piercing bullets by default, so most of the time it’s only going to slightly reduce the momentum of the bullet as it enters the body. Nevertheless, as long as it doesn’t restrict momentum or prohibit the wearer in some other manner, the fact that it does work sometimes makes it worth it. Tis isn’t true. To make a projectile good at piercing armour you have to make it sharp and hard. The problem then is that such a projectile would be less effective against an unarmoured target since it would pass right through a human body making a small puncture without causing a great deal of damage. I don’t want to go too far off topic but suffice to say that on the modern battlefield body armour and helmets DO work, and have not only saved many lives but have allowed soldiers who have been shot squarely in the chest to simply get back up, catch their breath, and resume fighting. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2006, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorly-conceived-movie-and-or-sf-inventions-technology/377916/84 "2006-10-27T08:15:11Z")
[QUOTE=msmith537] How about cryo-freezing prisoners (Demolishion Man, Minority Report)? What the fuck? So from the perspective of the prisoner, they go to sleep and wake up 50 years later with no skills and not knowing anyone in a completely new world? For what purpose? [/quite] In Demolition Man, they were subconciously reprogrammed during that time. > [@](#): > > Laser/force field prison cells. What the hell is wrong with regular metal bar cells that can’t be deflected or lose power? Yep, inexcusably stupid. Just one of those things that writers use to say “GEE WHIZ remember we’re in the FUTURE!”, as if being on an interstellar space ship isn’t enough. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2006, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorly-conceived-movie-and-or-sf-inventions-technology/377916/85 "2006-10-27T08:19:19Z")
Shields in Star Trek pretty much suck, IMHO. You can fire phasers through them, but can’t get a transporter beam through 'em. Somebody dies in the Trekverse and no one thinks to go to the transporter console, pull up the data from the last time that person was beamed some place and bring 'em back that way. When a ship get’s phasers locked on it, alarm bells don’t start going off all over the place. Ships apparently have no way of replicating or storing a spare warp core onboard, so that if they have to eject one, they’re able to get back home. The drive system warps space, but they never worry about shifting a planet out of it’s orbit and sending it crashing towards a star or another planet. The starships also seem to be built by the same Acme Corporation that supplied one Wile E. Coyote with his equipment. In the _Star Wars_ universe, no one seems to have heard of the terms “network security” and “wifi.” Droids roll up to commports, stick a dealie in, and they’re surfing the net in no time. Kind of funny that they can jump through hyperspace, fire high energy weapons, but none of them can plunk down in a local Ureelbucks and surf the web without plugging into a commport (and they don’t seem to have laptop PCs either). In _Batman Begins_ the Scarecrow’s chemical needs to be vaporized in order to work, and this is accomplished by using a massive device, which means that apparently no one in Gotham bathes. in the _Mission Impossible_ movies they rely on the person they’re trying disguise themselves as to read a set phrase in order to synthasize the voice. What’s to stop them from repeating the phrase in a Donald Duck voice? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2006, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorly-conceived-movie-and-or-sf-inventions-technology/377916/86 "2006-10-27T08:49:00Z")
[QUOTE=Lightray] Both the lazgun _and_ the shield are taken out – and it’s an effect comparable to an atomic explosion, since they’re apparently prohibited by the same pact that outlaws atomics. [/QUOTE] Easily overcome by mounting the laser on a small remote-controlled drone. Anyway, how does the effect propagate back along a beam of light? What if I fire the beam in (say)half-second bursts from one light-second away? - there wouldn’t even be a continuous beam connecting the gun and the shield. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2006, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorly-conceived-movie-and-or-sf-inventions-technology/377916/87 "2006-10-27T09:11:32Z")
[QUOTE=whiterabbit] They do have inertial dampeners. I guess they just aren’t quite good enough or something. Of course, it’s much more dramatic having the crew being thrown around, isn’t it? Really, that explains so much about Trek tech it isn’t funny. [/QUOTE] I’ve thought that the best weapon for the Trek Universe was a computer virus that hacked the ship’s artificial gravity system. Smack everyone inside from ceiling to floor 50 times and then all you need to do is beam over a cleaning crew to hose the place down and you’ve got yourself a ship. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2006, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorly-conceived-movie-and-or-sf-inventions-technology/377916/88 "2006-10-27T09:27:11Z")
[QUOTE=Sublight] I’ve thought that the best weapon for the Trek Universe was a computer virus that hacked the ship’s artificial gravity system. Smack everyone inside from ceiling to floor 50 times and then all you need to do is beam over a cleaning crew to hose the place down and you’ve got yourself a ship. [/QUOTE] Given that the security code as used in STII is pretty simple, it’s a wonder someone hasn’t done that already. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2006, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorly-conceived-movie-and-or-sf-inventions-technology/377916/89 "2006-10-27T13:10:43Z")
> [@Askance](#): > > Name a single occasion in any SW film where the armour was of any use whatsoever, aside from allowing the enemy to disguise themselves. In _Star Wars,_ it kept that one trooper from getting a nasty bump on his head when he smacked his helmet into the doorjam on the way through. ---
**Author:** ![Lightray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightray/32/391_2.png) [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2006, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorly-conceived-movie-and-or-sf-inventions-technology/377916/90 "2006-10-27T13:31:07Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout] Easily overcome by mounting the laser on a small remote-controlled drone. Anyway, how does the effect propagate back along a beam of light? What if I fire the beam in (say)half-second bursts from one light-second away? - there wouldn’t even be a continuous beam connecting the gun and the shield. [/QUOTE] Lazguns are not _lasers_. Herbert was very careful to avoid that sci-fi bugaboo. We’re not really sure _what_ they shoot, other than it interreacts disasterously with the Holtzmann effect of the shields. Which we _also_ don’t know the physics for. My theory is that lazguns are just another way to project the “shield effect.” [QUOTE=Ethilrist] In _Star Wars,_ it kept that one trooper from getting a nasty bump on his head when he smacked his helmet into the doorjam on the way through. [/QUOTE] Which is exactly why we have to wear a hardhat where I work. My brains are regularly prevented from becoming more scrambled when I’m thinking about something else and stand up where there’s no room to stand up. It’s sort of an Engineer’s disease preventative measure. Also: Are we really sure that Stormtroopers shot in their armor are dead? I mean, they fall down, get scorch marks on their armor, and don’t move again while the camera’s on them – but who’s to say they’re not just knocked out, ready to be sent back in the next scene as cannon-fodder that can’t hit the broad side of a barn with their guns? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2006, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorly-conceived-movie-and-or-sf-inventions-technology/377916/91 "2006-10-27T13:48:37Z")
[QUOTE=Lightray] Lazguns are not _lasers_. Herbert was very careful to avoid that sci-fi bugaboo. We’re not really sure _what_ they shoot, other than it interreacts disasterously with the Holtzmann effect of the shields. Which we _also_ don’t know the physics for. [/quote] Well, OK, but **MrDibble** quoted something on the last page about the disaster that happens when coherent light impinges on a shield. That sure sounds like a laser to me (and the name ‘lazgun’ doesn’t exactly help), but I’m not a fan, so I’ll probably just wind my neck in now. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2006, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorly-conceived-movie-and-or-sf-inventions-technology/377916/92 "2006-10-27T13:48:58Z")
[QUOTE=dotchan] But maybe that’s an intentional part of the design: you don’t expect that cute teenaged schoolgirl to be a killer robot. 😃 [/QUOTE] That may be the point: See “Second Variety” by Philip K. Dick. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2006, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorly-conceived-movie-and-or-sf-inventions-technology/377916/93 "2006-10-27T13:49:06Z")
[QUOTE=Lightray] who’s to say they’re not just knocked out, ready to be sent back in the next scene as cannon-fodder that can’t hit the broad side of a barn with their guns? [/QUOTE] Oh, come now. Only Imperial Stormtroopers are this accurate. Plus, it actually seems to help if you _don’t_ wear the armor–Leia got shot in the arm and it didn’t kill her. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2006, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorly-conceived-movie-and-or-sf-inventions-technology/377916/94 "2006-10-27T13:51:30Z")
[QUOTE=dotchan] But maybe that’s an intentional part of the design: you don’t expect that cute teenaged schoolgirl to be a killer robot. 😃 [/QUOTE] Glory: “Hey! Did everybody but me know the Slayer was a robot?” ---
**Author:** ![Max\_the\_Immortal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Max\_the\_Immortal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_the_Immortal)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2006, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorly-conceived-movie-and-or-sf-inventions-technology/377916/95 "2006-10-27T14:58:58Z")
I’ll second pretty much every hand-held weapon in sci-fi. The Star Trek phaser pistol (and rifle) is a major pet peeve of mine. They’re supposed to be able to disintegrate people, but I’ve seen that happen once (and I don’t think it was even a starfleet phaser). They usually just knock somebody over, or (in the case of the monster of the week) just slow them down (if that). And yet they somehow have the nerve to dismiss bullet-firing guns as primitive and ineffective :smack: . Bugs me to no end. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2006, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorly-conceived-movie-and-or-sf-inventions-technology/377916/96 "2006-10-27T15:19:37Z")
All right! Yet another chance to mention the only piece of movie technology I really give a damn about, [F.P.1](http://imdb.com/title/tt0023996/). Anyone for a humungous concrete aircraft carrier with no engines that must be towed everywhere by ocean-going tugs and that can be scuttled by a single saboteur in a matter of hours? Thought not. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![clnilsen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecccb3/32.png) [@clnilsen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clnilsen)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2006, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorly-conceived-movie-and-or-sf-inventions-technology/377916/97 "2006-10-27T15:39:49Z")
[QUOTE=Lightray] Both the lazgun _and_ the shield are taken out – and it’s an effect comparable to an atomic explosion, since they’re apparently prohibited by the same pact that outlaws atomics. So it’s basically a good way to take out _your_ army along with _their_ army. Given how surprised the Saudarkar were when Paul used atomics to blow up the Shield Wall – a tactical obstacle, not an enemy unit – I’m thinking that military tactics in the Dune imperium were relatively primitive. I mean, who would think “There’s no _way_ he can get through our ginormous Shield Wall to attack us, when all he has are atom bombs that he can’t use on people!” [/QUOTE] In the Duniverse, there was an EXTREME aversion to the use of atomics. All the great houses had them, but the understandng was that if ANYONE used them no matter how noble the issue, the rest of the Laandsraad would collectively punk that house out of existance. So the reason they never expected the use was that they never saw Paul as able to overthow the Emporer, which would have been the only way out of that conundrum. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2006, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorly-conceived-movie-and-or-sf-inventions-technology/377916/98 "2006-10-27T15:54:07Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] Shields in Star Trek pretty much suck, IMHO. You can fire phasers through them, but can’t get a transporter beam through 'em. [/QUOTE] Other way around, actually. Phasers don’t seem to be able to get through them, but sometimes transporters can, but only if you can synch up perfectly to the sheild’s refresh rate, for lack of a better term for it. For whatever reason, it seems to be impossible to determine a ship’s sheilds’ refresh rate from outside the ship (both times I can remember someone shooting torpedos or transporting through active sheilds, they had inside info on the sheild’s refresh rate). For a while, the Dominion had weapons that could fire through sheilds, but they described that as a different kind of weapon than phasers. In any case, Starfleet made a fix for that, and kept it a secret until they started their war with the Dominion. > [@](#): > > Somebody dies in the Trekverse and no one thinks to go to the transporter console, pull up the data from the last time that person was beamed some place and bring 'em back that way. Doesn’t work that way. Transporter buffers are strictly short-term storage, apparently because the buffer data is prone to rapid degredation. Scotty and another man stored themselves in a transporter buffer for some rather long time, but that involved lots of screwing around with how the buffer worked, and still only worked to successfully store Scotty. On DS9, they WERE able to store the buffer data for Sisko and his command staff, but that was on accident, and involved the fortuitous existence of a very large holosuite computer system connected to the same computer network (which presumably isn’t normally the case on Starfleet vessels). > [@](#): > > When a ship get’s phasers locked on it, alarm bells don’t start going off all over the place. Quite the contrary, alarms DO go off. They just happen to sound exactly like Michael Dorn saying “Captain, they’ved locked onto us!” > [@](#): > > Ships apparently have no way of replicating or storing a spare warp core onboard, so that if they have to eject one, they’re able to get back home. The drive system warps space, but they never worry about shifting a planet out of it’s orbit and sending it crashing towards a star or another planet. The starships also seem to be built by the same Acme Corporation that supplied one Wile E. Coyote with his equipment. The fact that they haven’t yet figured out how to replicate Antimatter really isn’t high on my list of technical concerns about the show. Also, the warp core isn’t going to shift a planet out of it’s orbit if a ship pases it, because when the ship passes it, the planet (AND it’s orbit) get warped too, being returned to it’s proper place relative to everything else. I really can’t comment on the Acme Corporation comment until I figure out what it’s referring to. > [@](#): > > In the _Star Wars_ universe, no one seems to have heard of the terms “network security” and “wifi.” Droids roll up to commports, stick a dealie in, and they’re surfing the net in no time. Kind of funny that they can jump through hyperspace, fire high energy weapons, but none of them can plunk down in a local Ureelbucks and surf the web without plugging into a commport (and they don’t seem to have laptop PCs either). Yeah, network security is a problem on Star Wars. Do they even _have_ a Net to surf though? ---
**Author:** ![brewha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@brewha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brewha)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2006, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorly-conceived-movie-and-or-sf-inventions-technology/377916/99 "2006-10-27T15:57:01Z")
[QUOTE=H3Knuckles] Not that I want to appear as some Lucas apologist, but again, this is kind of easy. Humans can’t properly speak the Wookies’ language, but are able to learn how to understand it; similarly, Wookies can’t speak Basic (english in SW), but they can understand it. Perhaps, Chewbacca and other Wookie names are a Basic-speakers rendering of Wookie-language names into something they can pronounce? Maybe I just have a good imagination, but I can easily sound out in my head what “Chewie” approximatting Chewbacca would sound like. [/QUOTE] I can buy that Han was approximating the wookie version of Chewie name in basic, but if that’s the case, he did a poor job. I don’t recall ever hearing a wookie start a “word” with a hard “ch” sound. IIRC, all their words seem to start with vowels. So, if Han were to call him Ewebacca, I would buy that as good guess. Man, I really feel like a geek. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2006, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorly-conceived-movie-and-or-sf-inventions-technology/377916/100 "2006-10-27T16:15:17Z")
[QUOTE=clnilsen] In the Duniverse, there was an EXTREME aversion to the use of atomics. All the great houses had them, but the understandng was that if ANYONE used them no matter how noble the issue, the rest of the Laandsraad would collectively punk that house out of existance. So the reason they never expected the use was that they never saw Paul as able to overthow the Emporer, which would have been the only way out of that conundrum. [/QUOTE] Right, it was one of those ‘it’s not a war crime if we win’ kind of things. The fact that he didn’t blow up humans only made it barely enough of a grey area for everyone to pretend it was OK after the fact when Paul basically controlled the empire. The shield/lasgun thing, though, two thoughts. First, there’s the whole concept of why not use spring-timer operated lasguns? Since after, all, I think Duncan does almost the same thing by setting up a large unmanned shield in the middle of a bunch of Harkonnens using lasguns; he then runs away before one of the random beams flying around hits it and blows up a whole bunch of bad guys. (For that matter, why were the Harkonnens using lasguns? Didn’t the Atriedes troopers have shields? I don’t recall any storms knocking out shields during the invasion. And then again, if the Harkonnens brought lasguns and cannons because they knew that shields would get knocked out, why do they then trust shields when they returned with the Emperor?) But second, if the Fremen don’t use shields because they know that a sandstorm will knock them out eventually and/or attract a worm (OK, plausible), why don’ t they fight with lasguns/rifles/crossbows/grenade launchers? Or, at least use shields when they’re raiding the Harkonnen cities (outside of worm territory)? OK, maybe I didn’t have enough to do the last time I re-read Dune, but still valid points. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorly-conceived-movie-and-or-sf-inventions-technology/377916.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poorly-conceived-movie-and-or-sf-inventions-technology/377916.md?page=6)