Sci fi and fantasy guns
 

Ok, since when do we allow pages or the BFG? I mean, it's ok for guns that were dressed up to look futuristic, but the BFG getting it's own page and when I tried to delete the alien weapon on District 9, some guy tells me that it's allowed as long as it's part of the plot. What kind of crap is that? I know we got grenades, mines and RPGs, but those are real life weapons, not alien sci fi guns.

The BFG is an exception because it's been in a movie where it at least resembled a real gun, is mentioned in two other movies, because I can off-hand name at least one real weapon that namechecks it [Magnum Research's BFR, I don't think anyone honestly believes the 'F' stands for 'finest,' least of all them], and name eighteen videogames that either feature it as-is, namecheck it or copy the mechanics to some extent. It's one of the most well-known and noteworthy fictional guns in existence, far more so than, say, Eraser's railgun which has also only ever been a prop.

Besides, since when is 'since at least December last year.'

I think the reasoning behind including the 'mysterious alien weapon' in District 9 is that like the non-guns in Alien Resurrection, it looks like it might be built on top of something real [according to eBay, it's called an Arc Gun and isn't real: "the prop is made from cc60 urethane and high density foam HDR 400, with a mild steel internal armature"]. I don't think 'plays a role in the plot' is really enough, IIRC the version I heard was 'if it could potentially be confused with a real gun, it should be included.' Grounds for getting its own page are a little tighter, but if any fictional weapon qualifies the BFG should.

It actually makes sense to add fictional guns that look real, just so you can confirm they are real looking fictional weapons.

As for adding alien weaponry, it isn't 100% necessary, but we've added more irrelevant things in the past.

Alright, fine I'll give props to the BFG. But this means that any movie with a fictional gun that isn't built around a real gun is ok to put on the site with stats and everything, like some idiot can come to the site and say, "The BFG is real?"

Can you should me a picture of a gun that looks like the BFG in real life?

Just because the BFG has been made legendary status by gamers, doesn't mean it deserves a place on a website that IDs firearms in movies.

Otherwise, I'd start putting the Staff and alien weapons on the Stargate page. Why? Cause they use them all the time.

http://www.imfdb.org/images/6/61/Doom_BFG.jpg

That could certainly be mistaken for a real gun with a big silly front end added to it, probably some kind of bullpup; it's a similar justification to the Eraser Railgun, which has its own page despite being all-prop. I don't think there's any prospect of anyone thinking the Stargate staffs are built on top of a real laser-shooting staff, and they haven't been in anything but the Stargate series; both the Eraser EM-1 and BFG have been copied dozens of times.

My attitude has been that if the page has mostly real guns (or sci-fi weapons based on real guns), and someone wants to include a few of the sort of real-looking weapons and then state that they aren't actually real, for the sake of educating our readers, then I'm fine with that. The only thing I don't like is when someone creates a page full of sci-fi weapons that obviously aren't based on any real guns (the best example of this is the "Alien Resurrection" page). This would include the alien/staff weapons from "Stargate: SG1", too, though I guess I wouldn't care too much if you wanted to include those under a separate entry since the page already has plenty of real guns documented.

As for the BFG, it may not be a real gun, but since it appeared in the 2005 "Doom" movie, we should probably mention that it was a prop and not built on a real (or "practical") gun. I don't terribly favor it getting its own page, but I'm not sure I see much harm in it, either.

I asked my classmates who don't know guns and are pretty liberal if the BFG in the movie Doom look like a real gun...no, none of them thinks it does. Why? Cause it looks like a toy.

The BFG gets a mention, but not it's own fucking page.

So does the XM8. Ask them about that.

I had. They say that the XM8 looks like it'll melt if I leave it in the sun for too long. But yeah, compared to the BFG, the XM8 at least IS a real gun, not just something we see in video games

Yeah, but the Pluto Nash pistol looks like a toy too [as does the Fifth Element Zorg ZF-1, which apparently has an AKS-74U inside it somewhere], so it's hard to judge just on that basis. It might be I'm a little defensive of that page since I rewrote it [it used to look like this], but I think if we're going to include all-prop guns like the Eraser EM-1 on the basis of potential for confusion, it's justifiable. Plus most people have no idea how the BFG actually works in the games, so it's even educational! :D

I wrote that info about the Zorg ZF-1 after reading a magazine interview with Simon Atherton, who was the armorer on "The Fifth Element". He mentioned in the interview that the ZF-1 was fitted with an AKS-74U for the scenes where Gary Oldman fired the machine gun component. You can actually see the conical flash hider of the Krinkov in this picture (just below the yellow rocket):

http://www.imfdb.org/images/9/9e/Zorg-1.jpg

As for the "Pluto Nash" pistol, I believe I read somewhere that it was based on a Para Ordnance 1911 variant, though don't quote me on that as I can't confirm it.

As for the BFG, it would be great if we had a source confirming one way or the other what it was. The person who wrote that it was just a prop didn't cite any sources. Perhaps the BFG really does have a real gun component in it somewhere.

Well personally I would love to see pages like Guyver:_Bio-Booster_Armor go bye bye. Unlike the BFG the fictitional weapons will never appear anyplace else and there is really no confusion over the reality of the weapon.

But that page does help any curious viewers to know the weapon is fictional, and not real.

And 12 Gauge Magnum? Couldn't they just grow a brain and say 12 Gauge 3 1/2" Magnums?

I say leave the goddamm BFG page. It's educational about the Guns in the Doom Movie and the games. It also says how the Big Fucking Gun got into popular culture. I say leave it.

I say nuke the BFG page.
Also 2/3 of it's film "appearances" are it being mentioned, that hardly qualifies as actually appearing in the film.
11 out of 18 of it's videogame "appearances" arent even the BFG but just some powerful weapon.

NUKE IT!!!!!!!!!!

Calm down. It's as valid as any other fictional weapon page.

I believe the guidelines for fictional weaponry is that they actually have to plausibly be mistaken for a real gun, no-one is going to mistake the BFG for a real weapon.

We've been through this already. The movie's resin BFG prop could concievably have had a real gun under it, which means it merits an article. The Pluto Nash pistol looks distinctly more fake and is still a real gun, as does the Zorg ZF-1 pod weapon system shown above on this very page.

I contest that as it was quite obvious that the shooting of the BFG was CG but whatever.

Either way the BFG article has alot of crap that I think needs to be cleaned out.

Yeah, but the shooting of the Barrett in Jurassic Park III was also CG, so that doesn't mean a lot. And I don't think it needs cleaning out at all; certainly there's a lot of information there about weapons based on the mechanics of the BFG, but that's basically similar to having guns based on the mechanisms of other guns on the same page, as per our various pages of knock-offs and derivative firearms. It's fine how it is.

I think you are forgetting that the Barrett in Jurassic park was an actual gun.

Yes, but my point is the weapon shooting being a special effect has nothing to do with whether the prop itself is or is built on a real gun or not. Terminator 2 shows SPAS-15s and a Vickers gun firing energy bolts and Calico M960s turned into over-under plasma guns. Star Wars had Sterlings and a Mauser C96 firing laser beams. An obviously fake discharge doesn't prove the weapon itself is similarly fake.

All the weapons you just listed are real weapons with only slight modifications to them.

Now you're just being pedantic.

I'm with you on this Vangelis. The BFG article has quite a bit of work added to it, and it confirms to curious users whether or not a real weapon was the build up around the gun or not.

Even if a gun is wrapped in plastic/resin/etc., it doesn't mean it will fire a blank. Noise ordinance or other factors could lead to the gun not using blanks. Like it's been said, the BFG hasn't been confirmed to not be built around a real firearm, so simply guessing isn't acceptable. Plus, it seems easier to build up a weapon around a real gun than to start from scratch.

And while AdAstra does have a minor point (in JP3 they just added a CG muzzle flash, in Doom it was CG super flash and melted set pieces), we can't simply assume. You all know what happens we you assume.

With T2 though, the guns actually did fire blanks, but the flash was turned blue and laser bolts were added in post-production. In some cases, same with Star Wars (you can see Han Solo's DL-44 cycling sometimes).

So my thing is that there is no point in putting the BFG or any sci fi gun if it isn't build around a real live weapon. And giving it its own page, no matter how detail is more or less one big trivia and would confuse the hell out of new users.

But it tells them that it isn't a real weapon, which helps decrease confusion. Even though it isn't a real world gun, any user suspecting it is can see the page and discover it isn't. Also, we put it in a fictional category and put quotations in the titles to show it is fictional. We basically made the fictional pages idiot proof, so I don't know who it would confuse.

In my opinion pages that have scifi/fantasy guns like the BFG are just magnets for 12 year olds.

Also IMO anyone who mistakes this>
http://www.imfdb.org/images/a/a7/BFG2704.png
or this
http://www.imfdb.org/images/e/eb/Bfg_9000.png
or this
http://www.imfdb.org/images/4/4e/447...g9000doom3.jpg
or this
http://www.imfdb.org/images/a/a0/Bfg3_g.png


For a real gun Isn't exactly the sharpest tack in the box.

Literally every weapon there fits the whole profile/imfdb policy that if it is an alien ray gun/laser/scifi gun than it is not eligible to be on IMFDB.

Exactly, I like to think we're all mature people and it's best not to include things like the BFG here no matter how "educational" it seems

At least the movie version deserves mention. And the revolver.

I agree that the movie version does need mention.

I think however that the Doom movie gun page needs to be restricted to ONLY the Doom movie gun and not any of the videogames.

But really, it should be no more than that, I think.

Just make a trivia mention on the Doom movie page itself. A lot of people do that in other pages.

So we are Nuking that godforsaken BFG page :D?

I sure hope so

No, we're not. Go find a page that actually needs some work doing to it rather than complaining when someone puts a lot of work into something that doesn't appeal to you personally. If MPM won't delete Einhander on the basis the contributor put in a lot of effort, there is no basis whatsoever for doing anything to the BFG page.

I'm the one who wouldn't delete Einhander because I'm too fucking nice. It probably should be removed.

But the BFG page is no big deal, I think this is getting blown too far out of proportion.

How about we search the site for pages that can be prioritized as 100% uneccessary with little to no effort instead. Tim put plenty of effort into building the BFG page, so let him have it.

Yeah nuke Einhander as well.

Just because someone put alot of work into a page does not negate the fact that it does not belong on this site.

Honestly though pages like the BFG in my opinion are the types of heaping piles of crap that need to be prioritized in their elimination from this site more than any other page.

Sure. Much worse than, say, an article about an anime series dedicated to showing panty shots of underage girls while simultaneously insulting the memory of more or less every major ace fighter pilot of the Second World War. The one in the last two M1919 shots is supposed to be twelve, for Christ's sake.

Ask yourself, though: what is someone going to want to see when they click on a link to a page about the BFG? Answer: more information about the BFG. It happens there is a lot more information about it than could sensibly be contained in a movie article, and of the things I'd imagine most people would be interested in is comparison of the original to the prop; the BFG is unique in that there are six previous versions, which all work differently. While it's closer to one of Gunmaster's trivia articles than a regular gun article, documenting the incarnations leading up to the one seen in the movie provides context for the prop version; if I get around to getting a couple of extra screencaps of the movie version actually firing, it can also be used to explain one of the errors in the movie depiction [that either Doom BFG would have killed Reaper even if he dodged as depicted].

Really, expanding on influence, history and construction is the best thing to do on fictional weapon pages, since very few of them appear directly in any other movies [let alone have animations lifted verbatim from one game to another one in an entirely seperate series made by another company, as per the Half-Life: Opposing Force Displacer using the BFG explosion animation]. Since this one started out in a videogame it's rather backwards compared to most, but certainly it's within the scope of good article construction to show the various things that the movie prop is supposed to be another version of, and describe how they work compared to it.

I should also add that the first BFG was apparently also a prop, though I haven't been able to find a picture of it; Doom's weapons were digitised from photographs of the chief animator, Kevin Cloud, holding them. The pistol and shotgun were toys they got from their local Toys 'R' Us, the chainsaw was real [it belonged to Creative Director Tom Hall's girlfriend], and the rest mock-ups. This is the real Doom chainsaw, in fact.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4..._DgizU-L-2.jpg

John Romero says they kept it in a bowl because it leaked oil.

Also, MPM did say Einhander should stay, I thought I remembered that right. From my talk page:

I'm fairly sure if the Eraser EM-1 passes the 'might be confused' inclusion test, the movie BFG does too, and there appears to be some consensus that this could be considered the case for the BFG prop. The rest is trivia related to it; it's neither inaccurate nor misleading, and is therefore at worst harmless fluff, not the kind of thing worthy of crusading against.

That right there negates the BFG on IMFDB, even the film version.
They fired off balls of green plasma, no-one in their right mind would think that is real!!!
Stuff like that is akin to Alien Death-ray guns.

The Eraser EM-1 fired off aluminum bullets or something along those lines according to what i've read so some people could conceivably think it was a real gun.