P90 demo in Stargate
 

One of my favorite scenes for a while in Stargate was the demo in an episode when compared to the energy staff weapons the Jaffa use. It always gives me a chuckle that a so called advanced race of people would use advanced technology in a weapon design that is very archaic. On a tech standpoint, the energy weapon has almost unlimited ammo, it goes through the standard bulletproof vests Marines wear like nothing, but it is extremely inaccurate because the weapon comes out of a staff and there is no real way to aim the weapon. If such a tech was designed on a rifle with iron sights, then it would work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUWG8p5Frs4

Thats the point, if they used rifles then they wouldn't look as tribal.

I liked that scene even though the P90 shouldn't be able to saw a log in half.

And the P90's effective range is not 5 times that log either.

Well, the weapon would not be fired accurately, but the rounds could still inflict casualties.

Well, if they need long range weapons it just gets built into script, like "hey we have a g36k for some reason although its usually a p90."

Or, "Hey, we've got M16s, SAWs, sniper rifles, MP5s, and shotguns, but we just loving plugging how awesome the P90 is"

I'd bet that they were really expensive for the armorer to obtain, and he purchased a bunch in anticipation of them being the next big thing. And when that didn't pan out, along came Stargate and he milked it for all it was worth.

No, tey wanted something that looked futuristic and cool, the p90 wasnt as mainstream as it is now when they started showing it.

If I recall, haven't movie armorers had a lot of trouble getting blanks for P90s? There's a story going around about how "Stargate:SG1" had to cut back on P90 use around the time of the Iraq War because the company that made the 5.7mm blanks was also a U.S. government contractor and had to shift to manufacturing 5.56x45mm (live) for the war. I can't verify this, but it's what I've read on the 'Net.