Thorgrimm said:
Sua, good article. But I think saying that a laser was added and used in BR may be a bit of a stretch.
To me, the lower barrel of the pistol, the pic in your article, looks to be a heavy barrel on the order of one possibly used in a shotgun. Maybe the idea was that when a normal round was not powerful enough to take down your enemy a shotgun blast would do the trick.
shotgun? nah, that was never even mentioned.
besides, if you look at the replica you'll see that the upper and lower barrels dont show any real difference in dimensions. so you saying the lower barrel is heavy/thick for a shotgun shell looks pretty farfetched. especially since the revolver cylinder obviously feeds the lower barrel & not the upper one.
this aint no LeMat revolver, Thor.
Thorgrimm said:
As for Leon's forehead it looks more like a bullet fragmentation exit wound than a laser burn hole.
i'm no expert, but doesnt look that way to me.
the exitwound of a ".38 Magnum", which we can only assume is more powerful than a real .357 Magnum would most likely leave a different wound pattern.
Thorgrimm said:
And truth be told I think you may be forgetting a point about energy weapons, their tendency to flash boil body fluids. So I think if it had been a laser it would have turned Leon's head into an expanding sphere of brains and bone, the blood having been flash boiled.
did you use the same explanation to prove that there were no laser pistols in Star Wars?
this argument could be used against any and probably all movies with lasers in them.
this is sci-fi, not science.
but your explanation doesn't keep in mind the 'lasers pew pew pew' sound heard in the Director's Cut (and i assume in the original cut as well, but i can't check that)? why would there be laser soundeffects if it just shoots a normal conventional bullet? and why would the pistol be full of LED lights if it was simply meant to shoot conventional ammo (there are at least 7 LEDs on the original that i can count)?
nah, for now i'm quite sure my explanation is far more plausible. 2 barrels: 1 laser & 1 ".38 Magnum" (.44 Spl in the prop). 2 feeding mechanisms: cylinder for .38 Magnum & Steyr magazine trap for the laser battery. 2 triggers: 1 laser & 1 conventional.
the only question that remains in that theory is if he was meant to use the conventional ammo in the movie and they eventually decided to go with lasersounds instead in post-production or that it was simply intended the way it is now.
