Goofy Movie Gun Lines?

[SgtLumpy]

Is there already such a thread? Discussing silly/impossible things that movie cops and gun users say that make you go "I guess they don't have a single guy on that set that knows anything about guns"

If there's already such a thread, please direct me there. Otherwise, is this the appropriate section to post such silliness in?


Sgt Lumpy

[RBid]

In an episode of Justified, a bad guy said, "...it's full of hollow points. When they go in, they bounce around until your insides are mush." (not verbatim, that's the gist of it).

I'm going to go eat dinner. I'm sure this thread is going to explode over the next few days. There are TONS of terrible Hollywood lines to quote. I think there were at least 2-3 in "One for the Money". Somebody on the writing staff for that movie was apparently convinced that "hydro shocks" are the most devastating and cutting edge round on the market.

[SgtLumpy]

Watched Clint Eastwood "Magnum Force" last night. That's the one where the dirty cops, 4 motor officers, form a vigilante squad and murder various crime figures around the city.

Dirty cop (David Soul) does a traffic stop on crime boss, and shoots the guy six times with a 6" 357 Mag. Later, when the detectives are discussing it - "This guy apparently enjoyed it. He emptied a full magazine into him"


Then somewhere else in the movie (this one is not a line but a visual) same dirty cop screws a silencer onto the end of same magnum revolver. Resulting in that familiar "fwwwwt fwwwwt" sound when he kills his mark.


Sgt Lumpy

[Webleymkv]

Best (worst?) I can think of is in the Jim Carrey flick The Mask when the detective mentions that the landlady unloaded a few rounds of "twenty ought buckshot" at a prowler. By my calculation, that means that each pellet should be roughly the size of a billiard ball

[1911Alaska]

Every movie and game (cod) where they call a magazine a clip. Biggest pet peeve of mine lol

[bumnote]

In the first Bond movie "Dr. No" when Bond turns in his Beretta M1934 for the Walther PPK, because the Beretta has "no stopping power" and the "PPK 7.65mm with a delivery like a brick through a plate-glass window."

The Walther is a 32...the Beretta was a 380...

[Bluestarlizzard]

Most of the obvious stupid doesn't bother me so much. I'm used to it, and hey, it's the movies. It's not just guns, either.
Horse movies are horribly off, too. Hildago was supposed to be a lean mustang capable of long distance endurance races, yet the movie starred a very fat quarter horse. And War Admiral (from Seabiscuit) was not 18 hands high. He was a thourghbred, not a draft horse for pete's sake!

The annoying ones are when they are this close > < to getting it right and then FAIL at the last minute. Oh, wow! Bad guy took the magizine! But the cop is smart! She knows there's one in the chamber! Haha! She mentions that it's not like the movies and shoots the round in the chamber! Wait! How did her slide lock back without an empty mag? :facepalm:

[MLeake]

"It's an .88 Magnum; it shoots through schools."

- Danny Vermin, Johnny Dangerously

[Paul B.]

"The Walther is a 32...the Beretta was a 380..."

OOPS! The Beretta was a .25, not a .380.

THat PPK may hit like a brick though a glass window but I once ad one, shot a jack rabbit with it three times. Good solid chest hit and after each shot Mr. Bunny just kept on eating grass. After sot #3, he hopped a couple foeet did a little circle and gave up the ghost. That's when I decided a PPK in .32 ACP was not the best choice for a carry piece. Kind of sorry I sold it off though. It was WW2 issue with all kinds of Nazi proof marks.
Paul B.

[UncleEd]

Don't knock "Johnny Dangerously" unless you know for sure that an .88 Magnum won't shoot through schools. I'm looking for an .88 Magnum myself as the .50 from Smith just ain't doin' it for me.

Regarding comments about "Magnum Force," did it bother anyone that a forensic guy at a shooting scene knew right away that it was a Magnum and later looking at a bullet that it was a Magnum slug? And how many cartridges were in that submachine gun's stick (oops, fellas, I mean clip) that took out the pool party? Must have been a hundred!!!!!

[Hosty79]

The movie "That's My Boy", an active duty marine says he's gonna pull his service revolver and empty the clip into someone.

[shuler13]

Walking dead:


Rick tells the deputy to make sure round is in the chamber and safety off ...it's a glock

[44 AMP]

The PPK does hit like a brick through a plate glass window, when you throw it through a plate glass window!

Don't blame the movie for that line, its right from the book. Ian Fleming didn't know much about guns. Or holsters either, for that matter. The Berns Martin holster that Bond wears must have been custom made for Her Majesty's Secret Service, because at the time Berns Martin didn't catalogue a single holster for an auto pistol. (or so I've read )

There are tons of great gun lines in different movies, some funny, some dramatic, and some so badly inaccurate they make me wince.

Sound effects aren't any better. EVERY empty gun I've seen in the movies in recent decades signifies it is empty by going "click, click, click...

Doesn't matter what the gun is, doesn't matter if the slide is locked back, or not, doesn't matter if the gun is even physically capable of going "click" just once, they all go "click, click, click" when empty, usually followed by the shooter throwing the pistol at bad guy/monster/ superhero/ etc...

And why does Superman stand there getting shot, but ducks when the gun is thrown at him? (old tv series)

[Technosavant]

Wasn't it also Magnum Force where Dirty Harry admits he loads his .44 with light special loads? All that after bragging about how powerful it is in previous flicks, too.

[UncleEd]

Regarding Dirty Harry's "light special load," the screenwriter John Milius had it as a slightly reduced .44 Magnum load but in the director rewrites that Milius had nothing to do with, it became "light special" as in .44 Special.

Milius viewed the Model 29 as a hunting gun and to master even relatively quick shots needed a lot of training.

Also, Milius said the original script he wrote had the Smith as a 4-inch, same as the one he owned as well as Jeff Cooper of Gunsite, but finding any kind of Model 29 wasn't easy. So a 6.5 inch Magnum was used. Milius said that Eastwood didn't carry it except in the scenes where he was to draw it since having it concealed, especially in the 6.5 version, was more problematic. Milius said only a tall lanky guy like Eastwood could get away with the illusion.

However, that said, I remember reading of a couple Chicago detectives who did "go Dirty Harry" and carried the .44 with barrels longer than 4-inch. One of the guys who did never could hit hardly anything with a .38 so he wanted an edge. His partner said he was just more dangerous to everyone all around with the .44. And Chicago patrolmen were actually authorized under Supt. Orlando Wilson to carry the .41 Magnum Model 58. I believe the San Francisco police also had the .41 as an option. But the story of the .41 is more a story of the ammo manufacturers failing the police in providing enough "special" .41 loads rather than hunting loads. Also, I seem to recall that the San Antonio police and the Georgia state police for a while had Model 25s in .45 Colt for a while.

[Garycw]

Just heard this one in " Hero Wanted" movie with Cuba gooding. Cops interviewing janitor about a murder and not seeing or hearing anything. He replied... Ever since bush let the assault riffle ban expire,.. Boom boom boom all over the place ..lol
I guess all the criminal bad guys were glad to see it expire.

[BigTex308]

Originally Posted by 44 AMP

The PPK does hit like a brick through a plate glass window, when you throw it through a plate glass window!

Don't blame the movie for that line, its right from the book. Ian Fleming didn't know much about guns. Or holsters either, for that matter. The Berns Martin holster that Bond wears must have been custom made for Her Majesty's Secret Service, because at the time Berns Martin didn't catalogue a single holster for an auto pistol. (or so I've read )

There are tons of great gun lines in different movies, some funny, some dramatic, and some so badly inaccurate they make me wince.

Sound effects aren't any better. EVERY empty gun I've seen in the movies in recent decades signifies it is empty by going "click, click, click...

Doesn't matter what the gun is, doesn't matter if the slide is locked back, or not, doesn't matter if the gun is even physically capable of going "click" just once, they all go "click, click, click" when empty, usually followed by the shooter throwing the pistol at bad guy/monster/ superhero/ etc...

And why does Superman stand there getting shot, but ducks when the gun is thrown at him? (old tv series)

I love the click click click sound on a 1911 with the slide locked back. Makes me laugh.




Ike

[Bluestarlizzard]

Hollyweird does a lot with sound anyway.

Notice that all guns have a really bass boom when shot? Even .22 BOOM. They almost never leave the sound of gunshots unedited.

Overdone sound effects make me laugh.

(and Glocks with safeties arn't just movies, and for some reason, it annoys me more in the books I read)

[Dr Big Bird PhD]

Just heard this one in " Hero Wanted" movie with Cuba gooding. Cops interviewing janitor about a murder and not seeing or hearing anything. He replied... Ever since bush let the assault riffle ban expire,.. Boom boom boom all over the place ..lol
I guess all the criminal bad guys were glad to see it expire.

This makes me so mad I want to throw my computer

[BigD_in_FL]

Don't forget Bruce Willis (Die Hard series) talking about the new ceramic Glock, or Mel Gibson (Lethal Weapon series) and the cop killer bullets..............

[44 AMP]

Notice that all guns have a really bass boom when shot? Even .22 BOOM. They almost never leave the sound of gunshots unedited.

Actually, if I understand it right, they do leave the sound of gunshots unedited. That's because they don't use them at all. They can't. At least not with analog tape. I don't know about digital tech, but with film/video tape, the sound of a gunshot maxes out the media (pegs the meters), and comes across as a loud pop, no matter the caliber. .22s are smaller pops, but they are all pops, sounding nothing like a real gunshot.

The gunshot sound effects are just that, sound effects, intended to make us think of the actual sound of the shot. They "sound like" a gunshot on film, but aren't actual gunshots.

(and Glocks with safeties arn't just movies, and for some reason, it annoys me more in the books I read)

I saw some Glock safeties for sale at the gunshow last weekend! Apparently its a little widgit that you stick in behind the trigger, and push out with your finger when you need to shoot. Amazing!

[Frasier]

"Listen up you primitive screw-heads! You see this? This is my BOOMSTICK!"
Bruce Cambell in Army of Darkness waving his double barrel shotgun around, then does a sales pitch on it.
"Shop smart; shop S-mart, you got that???!!!"

[ljnowell]

I saw some Glock safeties for sale at the gunshow last weekend! Apparently its a little widgit that you stick in behind the trigger, and push out with your finger when you need to shoot. Amazing!

There is a manually operated external thumb safety available for glocks, made by cominolli.

http://cominolli.com/product_info.php?products_id=29

[dakota.potts]

" Actually, if I understand it right, they do leave the sound of gunshots unedited. That's because they don't use them at all. They can't. At least not with analog tape. I don't know about digital tech, but with film/video tape, the sound of a gunshot maxes out the media (pegs the meters), and comes across as a loud pop, no matter the caliber. .22s are smaller pops, but they are all pops, sounding nothing like a real gunshot. "

I do sound effects at an amateur level for video games.

Very often they do use sounds from real guns. Take for instance, Battlefield 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYXqXm_LLHg

This video compares two big video games, Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3. I find Battlefield (the 1st and every alternating video) to sound much more like what I hear at the range. Modern Warfare gun sounds are incredibly dull and bassy. I guess that's what happens when you fire so many guns without hearing protection though You lose the high end of your hearing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc8WQsIxhro here's a great (fairly short) video from the sound designer of Battlefield 3. He talks about why they exaggerate sounds and their process. There's footage of them in the middle of a military "war game" with tanks, blank rounds, jets, the whole shebang and then getting source audio from there to analyze it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkxuPX5l7zM

I'm sure there are some big name films that use terrible sound effects but we (sound designers) are not all like that!

EDIT: My original point is that today with our microphones with high SPL tolerances, compressors/limiters, and control over input signal, you'd be surprised what you can record with a $100 mic and a computer.

[teeroux]

Mel Gibson (Lethal Weapon series) and the cop killer bullets..............

The worst wasn't the quote but when a Mac 10 fired a full auto burst of cop killer bullets through the front bucket on a backhoe.