UV Arc

The Movie: Blade: Trinity (2004)

The Weapon: A bow, which fires a concentrated beam of UV light between two points. Can literally cut vamps in half like butter.

Why It’s Awesomely Stupid: If it’s a concentrated beam of UV light that’s hotter than the surface of the sun, then why isn’t everyone standing nearby nursing serious third-degree sunburn, scorched retinas and flaming clothes?

The idea that you could even wield this thing in a combat situation without seriously maiming yourself is nonsense – you’d have no fingers by the time you unfolded it.

If you were out hunting vamps, possessing no super-strength or enhanced abilities of any kind, then you’d most likely want a weapon that meant you could stay well away from them, not something you can only use in close combat.

If it were safe for the user, then having one of these contraptions around the kitchen sure would make chopping vegetables for that stir-fry a breeze, but unless your night out may need to result in decapitation, it has limited application.

Projectiles are the way forward. And a good old trusty wooden steak, should things get close and personal, has less chance of lopping off an arm or two in a struggle.

Lawgiver

The Movie: Judge Dredd (1995)

The Weapon: Judge’s sidearm, DNA-locked to the owner they couldn’t be fired by anyone else. Each bullet is DNA encoded when fired, and comes with a variety of ballistics, from grenade rounds, heat seeking rounds and armour piercing rounds to rubber bullets, the Lawgiver has a range of three-miles.

Why It’s Awesomely Stupid: It takes a special kind of stupid to make this device seem perfectly plausible, and as we all know, the Judge Dredd movie was indeed a special kind of stupid.

In fact, with all the exposition heavy monolgues about Genus projects and all that jazz, the Lawgiver didn’t really trouble us cranially, until we looked at it out of context.

The DNA encoding thing is a great idea. But the DNA lock? What if the situation calls for you to shoot someone, but the owner of the gun is incapacitated. Seems like a bit too much security.

As for the range of ballistics available, surely filling a small caliber weapon with grenade rounds is excessive, as is boasting that the thing is accurate to three miles.

If there was any plausibility involved here, it went out of the window when it claimed you could hit something so far away without having to adjust for wind-speed, temperature or curvature of the earth. Silly.

Next: Death Spheres, Heat-Seeking Bullet