Firearm Inaccuracies In Media
- Thread starter cokehayes45
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wiscoaster
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This is so funny, since becoming a newbie shooter several years ago I can't help watching a gunfight in a movie any more without counting shots. Argh!!!!
BlueHeelerFl
Member
How about when the hero takes a gun from a downed enemy but never takes any extra magazines
Howland937
Member
In "The Shooter", when the distressed damsel picked up what appeared to be a nickel plated Beretta that belonged to the senator from Montana and shot the wounded bad guy. 4 rounds IIRC, and it's empty. Who's carrying a double stack semi auto with 4 rounds?
A big part of the problem is that many people (seems like most) get their "knowledge" about firearms FROM movies and TV shows. They accept what they see as accurate without question. And that makes it so much easier for the "news" media to spin their own BS and be believed.
ETA:
On the main topic: Movies are so often so inaccurate, I find myself mildly excited whenever I see them do something RIGHT.
I HAVE noticed that trigger finger discipline seems to be better in more recent productions.
packetloss
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I think the most blaring inaccuracy is they never seem to have any recoil.
The Elliot Ness hold, I call it.
CapnMac
Member
Dang switch stuck in semi-full-automatic, shudda got an AK-57 (10x better than a 47)!
CapnMac
Member
The sad part may be that screenwriters are supposed to "write what they know."
From this, we can all tell that, like Jon Snow, "they know nothing.".
Which is also why they are so bad at everything Military.
From this, we can all tell that, like Jon Snow, "they know nothing.".
Which is also why they are so bad at everything Military.
Shanghai McCoy
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I remember that part but I just chalked it up to a lazy prop guy or bad editing.
Another part of that movie that has me wondering though is when he's making his pipe bombs using 4350 smokeless powder..?
DukeConnor
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I remember my father watching gunsmoke and cringing every time someone dropped a colt saa (or what version) on a hard floor.
DukeConnor
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I always thought if i lived in the old west i would be in the glass or saloon mirror business.
Ivy Mike
Member
and moreover, it's a movie. Generally, these things get made up and fudged to fit a story. The muzzle flash you see in movies and TV comes from blanks loaded with powder you'd never want to use in a real firearm propelling a real bullet. Blanks are generally loaded with extra powder so that it doesn't all burn up in the muzzle.You need that flash and bang and smoke.
But if you ever get a chance to stand on a working set, you'll generally find a hired expert whose job it is to wrangle the guns, make sure they work, load them, unload them, secure them, etc. This person is usually a "gun guy" who understands their craft quite well. There is a good chance they're coming in with some professional firearms experience, many times as an armorer of some type.
Movies and TV shows don't really care about perfect realism. The gun is a prop just like a coffee cup, a cigar, a laptop, etc.
Slightly off-topic, if you're former military and were an armorer, you could actually have a lucrative career in Hollywood if you wanted to build a resume and sell yourself.
source: 20 years as a stagehand with a fair bit of live production experience.
.308 Norma
Member
Yep, my own dad taught me to always keep an empty chamber under the hammer of any revolver I was carrying. And the fact is, my wife and I gave Dad a Ruger Blackhawk 32H&R Magnum for Christmas in 1984 - 10 or 12 years after Ruger came up with their “transfer bar” system.
But it didn’t matter to Dad. As far as I know, he kept an empty chamber under the hammer of that little Blackhawk for the rest of his life, transfer bar or not.
I have that gun now. I never use it, but if I ever did, unlike my other revolvers, I’d keep an empty chamber under the hammer in remembrance.
Trunk Monkey
member
So in all seriousness, if I understand my history that glass had to be imported from the East and it cost an awful lot of money.
If you busted out one of my windows and started shooting at somebody you'd be paying for the window. Assuming you survived the gunfight.
There was a vampire comedy movie in the 80s called Once Bitten it starred Jim Carrey and Lauren Hutton. So there was a scene where the vampires were chasing Jim Carrey through a mansion and they came to a closed door and one of the vampires punched a hole in it.
And Lauren Hutton who was the head vampire went ballistic on the guy because she had to replace every door he broke and told him to try the damn door knob first.
MikeG
Member
Related to this is the portrayal of military rifles with flash suppressors, but the prop department loads them so they have a 3 foot diameter, star shaped muzzle flash coming out the slots in the flash suppressor.
Deus Machina
Member
I'll let a bit slide just for the sake of suspension of disbelief. Little prop things, like occasionally noticing a blank adapter welded into a barrel, or in Hot Fuzz when Nick Frost loads a shotgun with shells that already have a really good primer hit in them.
What's even worse than Hollywood is foreign movies, especially non-English and non-Asian ones; with high-budget productions, English-speaking directors usually have some competition from Hollywood so have a consultant, and Asian productions often do decent research. Wish I could recall the movie or even find the clip, but I do distinctly remember a friend sharing a scene from a Bollywood film in which the hero was firing his weapon, they slowed down for the Action Shot, and zoomed in on it ejecting... complete loaded cartridges. I'm not even entirely sure they were the correct ones.
What's even worse than Hollywood is foreign movies, especially non-English and non-Asian ones; with high-budget productions, English-speaking directors usually have some competition from Hollywood so have a consultant, and Asian productions often do decent research. Wish I could recall the movie or even find the clip, but I do distinctly remember a friend sharing a scene from a Bollywood film in which the hero was firing his weapon, they slowed down for the Action Shot, and zoomed in on it ejecting... complete loaded cartridges. I'm not even entirely sure they were the correct ones.
BlueHeelerFl
Member
In the Matrix Keanu Reeves is firing a Scorpion, and full sized rifle casings are falling to the floor
theotherwaldo
Member
I can accept that.
The Matrix is a dreamscape... .
Deus Machina
Member
I think this Bollywood one was along the same lines. Firing an Uzi, but loaded 5.56 was flying out, or .38 or something else equally ridiculous.
Made me think the guy was in the wrong line of work. Could be shooting at the bad guys and selling ammo on the side.
Jim Watson
Member
Must be a lot. News reports breathlessly describe somebody as having a FULLY LOADED GUN as though it were something unusual.
Yet they still have enough power to throw the person it hits off their feet and into a wall...
I've mentioned before, there is actually a guide book provided to writers and producers on how to portray guns in movies, and it is totally filled with BS. I wish I had kept my copy.
As for them using blanks, that's probably still the case for stage plays, but for film they've been moving toward using CG for many years now. Even the lowest-budget movies (I made one a couple years ago for $4000) do this - it's easier and safer, and you can also guarantee you'll "catch" the muzzle flash. That was already the case for several productions when I was working in Hollywood in the 90's, I suspect it's a lot more prevalent today.
Not sure about this one - maybe wandering off-topic a bit:
I was watching a Turkish program where the main character was in a public park (in Istanbul) with a bb-gun (pistol) shooting balloons floating in the water. People all around, kids playing, nobody seemed to care. I can't picture that happening in the US without someone panicking - just wondering if anyone knows if that's normal in Turkey?
I was watching a Turkish program where the main character was in a public park (in Istanbul) with a bb-gun (pistol) shooting balloons floating in the water. People all around, kids playing, nobody seemed to care. I can't picture that happening in the US without someone panicking - just wondering if anyone knows if that's normal in Turkey?
Carl N. Brown
Member
Filmed gun fight scenes showing reloading (changing magazine with an auto or swapping an empty revolver for a loaded backup of the same model) end up on the cutting room floor to speed up the action. Editors are all about action not accuracy.
Except in the movie THE WAY OF THE GUN. There are folks who have a higher opinion of that movie because it shows reloading in the gunfight sequences and it actually makes the action sequences more intense.
Except in the movie THE WAY OF THE GUN. There are folks who have a higher opinion of that movie because it shows reloading in the gunfight sequences and it actually makes the action sequences more intense.
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