Things you're tired of seeing in movies

[Riceball]

I've always looked at the Stormtrooper Armor thing as being more about providing protection from:

- environmental elements.
- Lower powered blaster fire.
- Glancing shots.

Think about it this way. Would a modern helmet stop a head-on impact from a modern assault rifle round fired from under less than 200m? I don't know for certain, but I'd guess it probably wouldn't. That's not to say it wouldn't protect in the event of a glancing blow, or that a lower-powered pistol round wouldn't bounce off.

So, the stormtrooper armor is probably great at stopping civilian-grade weaponry, and can handle glancing shots from military-grade weaponry. It might even be capable of stopping earlier military grade weaponry, but the Rebels developed better munitions to fight them, and blackmarketeers can get that kind of weapon out to other figures like Han.

For comparison, modern military (and even some civilian) body armor can stop full powered rifle rounds up to at least 7.62x39, modern ballistic helmets can defeat pistol rounds head on and supposedly rifle rounds too. Modern body armor, with ceramic or steel inserts can also stop edged weapons and the kevlar alone may or may not defeat stone tipped weapons. Your modern ballistic helmet would definitely protect from rocks coming from a sling as well as 3' teddy bears trying to bash your skull in with one in their hands.

Compare to Stormtrooper armor which has been shown to protect you from . . . nothing, it has never been shown to protect the wearer from any weapon shown in the Star Wars universe, including primitive stone weapons. I will grant that it does seem to offer some protection against hard vacuum based on the scene in ANH where we see some TKs standing outside of one of the Death Star's hangars. So that basically makes their armor a hard & shiny spacesuit.

 

[Solo4114]

That may be all it was ever really intended to be: a hard and shiny spacesuit.

But yeah, the armor does seem pretty pointless.



Sure looks cool, though!

 

[p51]

So, the stormtrooper armor is probably great at stopping civilian-grade weaponry...

You mean like rocks tied to string and hurled by Ewoks?
http://whatculture.com/film/10-dumbest-star-wars-movie-moments.php/3

 

[dascoyne]

I think most SW fans just shrugged that off. But having served in the Army, yeah, the concept of a suit of armor that doesn't protect against, well, anything is very silly indeed.

This SW fan didn't. Ewoks pelting Imperial Stormtroopers with sticks and stones is just another thing that made ROTJ a stinking pile of dung. I watched ROTJ in 1983 for the first time and the very last time.

 

[AJTaliesen]

not sure if this has been mentioned yet.


http://www.superfunnyimages.com/why-stormtroopers-always-miss/

 

[LrdSatyr8]

Here's something that really drives me batty in just about every action movie. You are introduced to the hero... he proves he's a dead shot... making single shots at impossible targets look like child's play. For example... Lethal Weapon... Riggs was such a good shot that not only did he thread the needle of 5 shots thru one hole, but he put a smiley face on the target. Later on... as the hero goes up against the bad guy he can't land one single shot on him from easy positions at closer ranges. I mean comon... you can shoot the wings off a fly from 100 yards but you can't clip the badguy's shoulder peaking out behind a oil barrel from 50 feet away? You end up shooting full clips of rounds and never land one shot of course until the end and then it's after he's shot you several times in vital areas and you live to tell the tale.

 

[glunark]

It would be a short action movie if the bad guy gets shot in the first reel.

 

[dascoyne]

Here's something that really drives me batty in just about every action movie. You are introduced to the hero... he proves he's a dead shot... making single shots at impossible targets look like child's play. For example... Lethal Weapon... Riggs was such a good shot that not only did he thread the needle of 5 shots thru one hole, but he put a smiley face on the target. Later on... as the hero goes up against the bad guy he can't land one single shot on him from easy positions at closer ranges. I mean comon... you can shoot the wings off a fly from 100 yards but you can't clip the badguy's shoulder peaking out behind a oil barrel from 50 feet away? You end up shooting full clips of rounds and never land one shot of course until the end and then it's after he's shot you several times in vital areas and you live to tell the tale.

There's a vast difference between marksmanship at the range and in the field. The fact is you're under stress behind cover (or moving) shooting at a target that's also moving and shooting back. That's why folks like SWAT don't train exclusively at the range.

Range proficiency doesn't mean squat. I'm pretty decent at the range and can present my weapon from concealment and place two rounds in a torso at 7-15 yards pretty consistently and quickly. But I don't do this for a living and, if you dump me in a situation where I'm engaged with another shooter I'm not going to be nearly as effective.

 

[p51]

There's a vast difference between marksmanship at the range and in the field. The fact is you're under stress behind cover (or moving) shooting at a target that's also moving and shooting back. That's why folks like SWAT don't train exclusively at the range.

Range proficiency doesn't mean squat. I'm pretty decent at the range and can present my weapon from concealment and place two rounds in a torso at 7-15 yards pretty consistently and quickly. But I don't do this for a living and, if you dump me in a situation where I'm engaged with another shooter I'm not going to be nearly as effective.

Good point. People watch movies like that and think it's oh so easy. There's countless stories of cops and seasoned combat soldiers who freeze up and go "Elmer Fudd" by shooting around someone and never hitting them. I loved that scene from Pulp Fiction where the guy misses Travolta and Jackson just like that and it gets discussed. That was very well done.

 

[Treadwell]

Years ago, when police car dashcams were fairly new, there was footage of a suspect who got out of the opposide side of his car and he and the cop started shooting at each other. They other guy ran off and the cop kept firing. They started like 4 feet from each other. Nobody hit anyone else.

The cop later speculated the guy was wearing body armor. Nice try, officer, YOU JUST MISSED, that's all. :lol

 

[p51]

I've done CQB training with MILES gear and once emptied an entire magazine at someone just a few feet away and no beeps were heard. Vice versa, too. One guy, I couldn't see how I could have missed him and thought he's covered up the receptors. They checked with the 'god gun' and his vest and helmet band was working just fine.
And we weren't even shooting live ammo at each other.

 

[p51]

How about this...
Someone is getting ready to rob a blank, conduct an assassination or something like that and moments before the shooting is gonna start, they're still loading magazines?
Does anyone really buy that someone wouldn't have done that a long time before then?

 

[LrdSatyr8]

How about this...
Someone is getting ready to rob a blank, conduct an assassination or something like that and moments before the shooting is gonna start, they're still loading magazines?
Does anyone really buy that someone wouldn't have done that a long time before then?

Of course... and you know it always happens to be where the hero does his banking or walks past everyday.

 

[NormanF]

Of course... and you know it always happens to be where the hero does his banking or walks past everyday.

I should post this in the "Florida Man" thread too. http://www.bostonnewstime.com/regio...ed-largo-bank-robber-until-police-arrive.html

 

[dascoyne]

Any fight scene ending with a flying reverse roundhouse kick knockout.

 

[Reelo]

Any fight scene NOT ending with a flying reverse roundhouse kick knockout.

Fixed.

 

[George]

Gender battles.For the sake of enhancing personal and/or collective Egos

 

[jarroth]

Years ago, when police car dashcams were fairly new, there was footage of a suspect who got out of the opposide side of his car and he and the cop started shooting at each other. They other guy ran off and the cop kept firing. They started like 4 feet from each other. Nobody hit anyone else.

The cop later speculated the guy was wearing body armor. Nice try, officer, YOU JUST MISSED, that's all. :lol

hit someone from that close that weares body armor and he wont be walking much further: it hurst like hell!

 

[SofaKing01]

Any fight scene ending with a flying reverse roundhouse kick knockout.

But if its in SUPER SLOW motion its ok, right?

 

[Riceball]

Here's one that I see all the time, whenever there's some giant monster or alien spaceship they also attack it from close range (practically point blank with some of the weapons being used) and almost always with relatively small weapons too. A good example of this was ID4, instead of attacking the big saucer ships from miles away they attack them from only a few hundred yards or so, putting the attacking fighters at risk of anything the ship has to throw at them. To make matters worse, they're attacking a ship the size of several city blocks with only air to air missiles, missiles that have fairly small warheads of only a few pounds or so and take out planes more with fragmentation than pure explosive power. What they should have been doing is launching Tomahawks and any other cruise missiles we have as well using every last B-1, B-2, & B-52 in our inventory and start carpet bombing the hell out of them from above while the fighters provide cover against the alien's fighters.

Against giant monsters they always do the same thing too, see Godzilla, lets hit with our Sidewinders and AMRAAMs from only a few hundred yards away so we can get swatted out of they sky him or blasted by his atomic breath all the while doing nothing more than annoying him. Why not launch these missiles from miles away, which they're perfectly capable of and something the size of Godzilla or a Pacific Rim kaiju is going to give both a nice heat signature as well as radar signature for the missiles to lock on to. You'll probably still only end up barely stinging the monster but at least you're not losing planes and pilots in the process. Once you learn that's not working you start gliding JDAMs from as far and as high as you can manage, I'd bet that most kaijus (Godzilla included) would feel the effects of multiple 500 - 1,000 lbs bombs hitting it.