Does being firearms knowledgeable take enjoyment out of things?

2011ERIC said:

I definitely find myself critiquing the weapons and how they are used in movies. When I see sparks from bullets, I’m done lol. Sometimes I wish I didn’t notice things so that I could enjoy movies more though.

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Shoot some steel jacketed rounds. The cheap russian/chinese 9mm blows sparks all over when it hits something hard.

It's called "Suspension of Disbelief". Enjoy the entailment.

rskent said:

Does being firearms knowledgeable take enjoyment out of things?


Not at all.

However, me pausing the show to “explain” to the wifey drives her nuts.

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I stopped that too. Thats skating on thin ice doing jumps through fire rings with a keg of black powder on your back.

Speedo66 said:

It's not just firearms, it's anything you're knowledgeable about, be it guns, law, medicine, etc.
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This. I would use cars/mechanics as an example.

My dad was really into computers when I was a kid and he brought a Commodore 64, and an Atari home for us to mess with as soon as he could scrape up the money.

So video games were a thing in my life going back over 30 years and I remember Pong, Frogger, Battle Zone and a bunch of other games that basically amounted to moving a square around a monitor or tv screen.

Now a days video games are immersive worlds with big money involved in the voice acting, story development, and effects that are unbelievable compared to days past. I don't have a ton of time to play them as I'd rather be outside, but where some folks watch an hour of tv before bed, I play a game because I can influence the outcome in truely well put together games, the character development can be well done, and they can be quite cinematic. The Mass Effect games come to mind. Crappy games have one outcome, and I'm not a fan of first person shooters for that reason.

Innacurate portrayals of guns do annoy me a bit. Sci fI or fantasy games, not so much. You've already accepted a hokie story so just role with it. However, historical inaccuracies and poorly thought out incompatibilities do tick me off a bit. But you know, it's a game, so who cares. I'm a lot more concerned about inaccuracies in the media and political field today than in entertainment.

I haven't had tv since 2007 and I don't really miss it. The marketing and nonsense of that form of mass media does nothing positive in my mind. I do miss the Discovery and History Channels, and PBS stations though. What I do have is a ton of DVDs and blue-rays. I love movies and well done series that have a long ongoing story. Watching season one of Game of Thrones compared to season seven is kind of funny.

Firearms innacuracies in movies and tv can get a little annoying, but I find the portrayal of physics defying bullet impacts far more irritating. I find the portrayal of fully automatic rifles having zero muzzle climb particularly annoying. Someone unloads a 30 round magazine and the gun just stays on target? I gotta get me one of those.

It's all just entertainment so if you're getting that wound up on the details, you probably arent enjoying the story. As others have said, you have to have a strong willful suspension of disbelief to enjoy character acting of any kind.

My most recent one was in the Novel "The Drawing of the Three" in the Dark Tower series. A gun someone is carrying is described as a "Ruger 44 Automatic". I'm pretty sure Ruger never produced an autoloading 44mag pistol, and if they had it would probably put the Desert Eagle to shame, given Ruger's rep for over building guns. So I just assume King meant to say a 45 auto. King also has a part where the main character Roland is looking for rounds for his revolvers and he acquires 45 Winchester rounds. Umm, 45 Winchester isn't a revolver round, and certainly wouldn't belong in some old SA revolvers. How about 45 Colt mister King?

I have always played military style first person shooters. I'm 65 and still find them thoroughly enjoyable.

Being firearm knowledgeable, IMO, doesn't matter in the least. After all, a movie is just that. A movie. Same with the video games. It's a game!

Real firearms are a whole 'nother smoke!

Nah just makes it more amusing especially when it makes the point that it’s just a game for entertainment

I get a double whammy, I'm an auto mechanic and a gun nut. I can hardly keep from laughing out loud when the good guy does a massive burnout with his K-car then chases down the bad guy's Mustang GT, all the while firing out the window and hitting the other car with every shot.....

I may have dated myself the K-car thing.

montanaoffroader said:

I get a double whammy, I'm an auto mechanic and a gun nut. I can hardly keep from laughing out loud when the good guy does a massive burnout with his K-car then chases down the bad guy's Mustang GT, all the while firing out the window and hitting the other car with every shot.....

I may have dated myself the K-car thing.

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If you actually owned a K car you probably had to "date" yourself...

I'll chime in with those that mentioned ridiculous use of firearms in movies lessens the movie experience. The one that gets a pass though is Starship Troopers. I can watch the shooting scenes in that movie over and over again.

I also have fewer friends following arguments about gun control. But I guess no real loss there. So I'll backpedal on that one as fewer annoying people in my life is actually a GOOD thing.

Me, too; if they don't get the guns and other stuff I know about right, what about the things I don't know about?
Expectations are low.

BigSteve57 said:

The one that gets a pass though is Starship Troopers. I can watch the shooting scenes in that movie over and over again.

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Mere mention of that movie is enough to make me spit on the floor in disgust.

Jim Watson said:

Mere mention of that movie is enough to make me spit on the floor in disgust

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I second that.......

Geez, not even the shower scene? lol

Nope I love seeing one guy take out 20 With a Glock and make the whole building explode with the last shot. Entertainment is entertainment

I haven't played a video game in years, but it does bother me in movies and tv shows.

My brother raved about the series "Longmire" so I decided to give it a try.
In an early episode a guy was murdered and it was determined that the weapon was a .45-70 Gov.
So they then determine that since it was a .45-70, they were looking for an antique single shot buffalo rifle and very few people owned them.
As if no modern .45-70s were being produced.

I turned it off and haven't watched it since.

I should probably not let it bother me that much, but I can't help it. Maybe one day I'll give it another try.

And of course as soon as a show gets political about gun control, I immediately stop watching.
Best example of this was the Kiefer Sutherland show, Designated Survivor. It was great, until he started pushing "common sense" gun control. I was done.

460Shooter said:

I second that.......

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What was so bad about the combat scenes in Starship Troopers? Granted, lots of shooting from the hip, but the Bugs were so big and the ranges so close that aiming wasn't really necessary.

As a space shoot-em-up, it was pretty good, IMO.

The book is much better though, with the combat being secondary to the central themes of why we fight, enfranchisement, and social theory and strata. Highly recommend it.

montanaoffroader said:

I get a double whammy, I'm an auto mechanic and a gun nut. I can hardly keep from laughing out loud when the good guy does a massive burnout with his K-car then chases down the bad guy's Mustang GT, all the while firing out the window and hitting the other car with every shot.....

I may have dated myself the K-car thing.

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I don't know, some turbo-Ks are perfectly capable of running down an 80's smog motor Mustang, lol.

It was more the poor acting and some of the lines I couldn't take. Bad acting will ruin a movie for me far faster than any firearm inaccuracy.

I have heard that the book was quite a bit better.

460Shooter said:

It was more the poor acting and some of the lines I couldn't take. Bad acting will ruin a movie for me far faster than any firearm inaccuracy.

I have heard that the book was quite a bit better.

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"Hammer's Slammer's" by David Drake is another excellent military SF novel, though its really just an allegory for the author's experiences with an armored BN in Vietnam.....with ray guns and space tanks, lol.

Its probably too brutally honest to ever make into a movie though.

Spielberg and Scorsese usually get it right as does Eastwood when he is directing. I usually just roll my eyes and say nothing when I see minor flaws but I feel the need to say something when it's a glaring mistake.
One scene that sticks in my craw is from the western Unforgiven directed by Eastwood. The scene where English Bob (Richard Harris) and his "biographer" walk out of the barber shop and is confronted by the sheriff (Gene Hackman) and his deputies. All the deputies either work the lever action on their rifles or draw the hammer back on their SA revolvers. Hmmm knowingly going into a possible gunfight without being primed and ready is a pretty dumb idea but not really a glaring error.
About a minute later English Bob's biographer reaches into his leather bag for a book and all the deputies, thinking he may be going for a pistol, again cycle the action on their firearms. Done for dramatic effect to be sure but just, to me, really unnecessary. I love the movie but just hate that scene. There are other movies that have their share of firearm miscues but for some reason today that one stands out.

It takes a lot for me to be turned off by details like these, but it does happen every once in awhile. Most egregious was a History Channel WWI piece that had Germans using Commonwealth SMLEs, and they were quite often shown in flipped frames so the rifles appeared to be left-handed. They also had Americans with the same rifles.

That show was so bad I couldnt watch anymore. Dunkirk is another.

But the scene of the English Bob's biographer peeing his pants is pretty cool.

Sovblocgunfan said:

It takes a lot for me to be turned off by details like these, but it does happen every once in awhile. Most egregious was a History Channel WWI piece that had Germans using Commonwealth SMLEs, and they were quite often shown in flipped frames so the rifles appeared to be left-handed. They also had Americans with the same rifles.

That show was so bad I couldnt watch anymore. Dunkirk is another.

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Man, don't get me started on Dunkirk! A few good shots of SMLE's but in most of the wide-angle shots the troops are obviously carrying rubber dummy rifles.

And who knew a Spitfire could glide about for an hour with only a couple hundred feet of altitude? And then make a perfect wheels-down landing on sand! Amazing!


I will say, I just watched "Wonder Woman" and the weapons were surprisingly period-correct even if they never seemed to run out of ammo.

The original "Mummy" had some very well thought out and accurate weaponry as well.

NIGHTLORD40K said:

What was so bad about the combat scenes in Starship Troopers? Granted, lots of shooting from the hip, but the Bugs were so big and the ranges so close that aiming wasn't really necessary.

As a space shoot-em-up, it was pretty good, IMO.

The book is much better though, with the combat being secondary to the central themes of why we fight, enfranchisement, and social theory and strata. Highly recommend it.

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LOL. It's just a ridiculous movie. I can't get spun up one way or another over it. I was recalling the scene where the bugs overran the fort. I actually forgot about the shower scene. Oh well...the book was better.