Today I was watching one of the Matrix movies and it something struck me. In a world filled with intelligent machines, machine guns, and armed hovercraft Morpheus decides to try to kill the bad guy with a samuri sword! It got me to thinking about weapons often appear in popular culture.
For Example
Samuri Swords by martial arts masters
Ak47s by terrorists and bad guy soldiers
single action revolvers by cowboys
UZIs by modern gangsters
Has anyone else noticed the same weapons showing up over and over? Do the artists try to tell us anything about the characters by their choice of weapons? Are there any others you’d ad to the list?
The stereotypical weapon of the frumpy housewife used to be a rolling pin. In today’s fast-food world, I suspect that a lot of people don’t know what a rolling pin is.
I was re-reading the first issue of the comic book Transmetropolitan yesterday, when I noticed that when the protagonist storms the offices of the newspaper he’s trying to get a job at, the pistol he’s waving around the editor’s office is Han Solo’s blaster from Star Wars.
Then there’s the tiny little holdout derringer that no-good cheating cardsharks and pimps use. Any character who uses a derringer might as well have a sign painted on them, “I’m scum!”
The thing about the AK47 is that it is a very popular weapon and is, in fact, the most popular assault rifle in the world. It’s still in production today after half a century.
Close enough.
Actually most of the weapons in the Star Wars saga were simply dressed up real world weapons (or replicas thereof). It is easier to go to the prop shop and modify weapons already in the inventory than it is to make them from scratch (cheaper too).
No, it was definitly Han’s gun. Transmet was a sci-fi comic, so whatever Spider was waving around was pretty clearly meant to be a ray gun of some sort. It wasn’t until the next issue that he got his signature bowel disruptor.
The gold colored Desert Eagle is total movie gun porn. It’s big, easy to film, has that odd triangular slide and a bore the diameter of your pointer finger. Really real bad guys love this particular hand cannon
Seems to me that we see more Beretta 92s and Glocks in movies than is warranted. What happened to the Sig-Sauers, the S&Ws, the HKs, or the Rugers? (although Jake in Jericho and Antonio Banderas’ character in “Desperado” rolled with Ruger P-90s)
Specifically, good guys carry Beretta 92s, while Glocks are usually a bad-guy gun.
I’d say that the lever-action carbine was as much a staple of Westerns as the Colt Peacemaker ever was.
AKs are pretty believable for terrorists as are MP5s for cops, but UZIs and MACs are kind of POS guns in my book, especially the mini and micro UZI. I bet they have been used in the movies way more than in real life. (Although you can see a Secret Service guy pulling an UZI after Reagan is shot. I have no idea what he planned to do with it)
Anybody ever use a Walther on screen besides in the hands of 007? Bond has actually used three by my count: PPK, WA-2000, and P99.
The P99 is a pretty popular movie/TV gun. Aside from 007, it can be seen in:
Underworld
The Transporter 2
A History of Violence
X-Men 2
Matrix Reloaded
Bourne Supremacy
Alias
24
CSI: LV (technically a SW99, but Walther makes the frame)
Shooter
The Man
Various Anime (NOIR and Kiddy Grade One)
Alpha Dog
