Alien Covenant. The reviews are kinda average but I really liked it overall, felt like a real quality piece. However this isn’t a review page for cool films that tacticool guys will enjoy.
It would be interesting to know what their prop department were going for with the weaponry selection. Covenant is set a fair while before Alien/s but would they be using 556 rifles in 90+ years? Rather doubtful. Either way, we see a lot of ARs (maybe 416s), Steyr AUGs (Thales F90s if you want to get technical) and funnily enough, Kel Tec KSGs. The KSG is kind of funny to me in that the reviews are generally bad, much like many Kel Tec guns, but because of the way it looks it ends up in loads of films. I’d say the UTAS-12 makes 10x more sense for a sci-fi shotgun when you need something that can actually fire blank rounds; alternatively the Fostech Origin-12, the Six12, DP-12, AA12. Hell if you could get one the Jackhammer would be awesome as an on-screen shotgun.
That aside, the thing I find even more sort of amusing is how the general perception of ‘futuristic’ firearms hasn’t changed in decades, if anything we seem to be going backwards.
In Starship Troopers they dressed up Mini-14s, in Aliens it was dressed up Thompsons, that Tom Cruise sci-fi movie was a really obvious ACR/Masada in a body kit (and a Magpul sling to match). In this film it’s literally just ARs and AUGs with 1913 rails, some M-LOK *looking* rails, green laser/light attachments on both side rail positions, as well as normal, unmodified ACOGs. There were a few pistols that seemed literally like bog standard modern fare, nice modern fare, but not 2104 tech.
Watching a Tested video with Adam Savage talking to the film’s Armourer; seems extremely knowledgeable in general and especially so about history… not who I’d have hired for a film set way in the future. The guns used aren’t even up to the minute in 2017 let alone the year when the events are meant to take place. He wanted to go back a step technology wise from the Pulse Rifles which makes sense and would be tricky since the pulse is actually a pre-WW2 SMG, but he went way too far back really.
The problem persists of course, if you’re a ‘gun person’ basically most films will be spoilt for you your entire life and this is the burden we bear. I still really enjoyed the latest Alien overall though.
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