Weapons of Hollywood

I finally found out the name of the documentary. It's Hollywood et le Pentagone:Les liaisons dangereuses. It's worth watching if you're interested in this topic.

Quite often weapons and equipment are loaned from the Army under their supervision, but sometimes it proved to hard to convince the army to loan an experimental weapon such as a XM29 modular assault weapon so the gunsmiths had to create their own based on a G36.

One of the more famous guns in the movies must be the Aliens M41A assault rifle, it was actually based on a Thompson machinegun and the grenade launcher was actually a Remington 870, the gun's pistol grip was that of the SPAS-12 shotgun, that's a clear example of Hollywood ingenuity however, I believe that the XM29 was actually based on the M41 from the Aliens movies (or atleast the concept) since the concept is quite similiar. (but I could be wrong)

Most weapons used are real weapons, either using blank cardridges or converted to blank firing, this is the main reason we see 9mm's in movies since the availability in blanks is much higher, however in low budget movies Airsoft guns are often used and the muzzle flash and slide moving is simply added in, another use is for props, but more frequently resin or metal models are used instead.

Originally posted by ShatteredSkies
Hey! Battlefield 2 is a GREAT GAME!

It really is though.

Anyways, I thought that Tears of the Sun was pretty accurately represented in terms of weaponry, I didn't see many faulters. Same goes to Black Hawk Down.

Movies that I did see problems with, Independence Day, Stealth, Rambo.

Shattered OUT...

My apologies for going way back on the post, but Independance Day actually didn't have DoD support from what I've heard. You see the USAF was originally going to provide a ton of support, but then they saw Area 51 in the script and that was the end of that.

Now a bit more on to the topic my favorite example of DoD support is Stargate SG-1. From what I've read a lot of the extras are actual USAF personnel and they've even had a general do a cameo role. And it's all fine with me since Stargate SG-1 (I didn't get into Atlantis that much) is one of my favorite shows of all time.

[edit on 12/31/2006 by cyberdude78]

I know cyberdude, I did say I saw many problems with movies like Independence Day.

There were many things out of check with that.

Shattered OUT...

Oh, my mistake. I thought that you meant that it had military assitance but was still terrible. Kind of embarressing on my part.

Originally posted by fritz
Yup! I saw that and would you credit it, I owned a 93R and should know better!

But originally, everybody claimed at the time, it was a Spectre on full auto doing what H & K MP5's do best!

I'm sorry, I have a little trouble understanding you here; do we agree or disagree that 1. Robocop's gun was a modified Beretta 93R and 2. Beretta 93R do have a single round / 3 round-burst selector?

You once owned a 93R? Wow, lucky you. The only thing remotely comparable I have ever fired was a modified select fire Glock 17. That gave the words "Rock n' Roll" a whole new meaning. 33 Rounds in approx. 1.5 seconds... that was one hell of an expensive evening

I want to bring up Red Dawn.

I always thought that for 80's teenage hero movie they really put some effort into making the Soviet weapons look real.

The Soviet tanks vs the Abrams
The Soviet helicopters looked like the first series of Hinds. They even made it look like it was carrying Sagger anti tank missles.
The Yak-38 (although land based? interesting?)
I think I even remember seeing a ZSU-23-4 Shilka firing at a Huey.
They had BMP or BTR look a likes as well.


I'm not saying they did it perfect, I just thought they made a pretty fair effort at it compared to other 80's movies (Top Gun and Mig-28's / F-5's) etc.

Originally posted by Swordbeast

Originally posted by fritz
Yup! I saw that and would you credit it, I owned a 93R and should know better!

But originally, everybody claimed at the time, it was a Spectre on full auto doing what H & K MP5's do best!

I'm sorry, I have a little trouble understanding you here; do we agree or disagree that 1. Robocop's gun was a modified Beretta 93R and 2. Beretta 93R do have a single round / 3 round-burst selector?

You once owned a 93R? Wow, lucky you. The only thing remotely comparable I have ever fired was a modified select fire Glock 17. That gave the words "Rock n' Roll" a whole new meaning. 33 Rounds in approx. 1.5 seconds... that was one hell of an expensive evening

Not the best pistol in the world by any stretch of the imagination but i suppose if you're a poor white guy from the 'burbs, the 93R is all you can hope to own.

Me? I prefer the H & K MP5K. Why? Because I grew up and traded my 93R and [ii] H & K invented rock and roll for handguns and nobody, but nobody, comes close to matching their supreme accuracy. Period!

[edit on 4-1-2007 by fritz]