11 Wildly Inaccurate Movie Science Tropes

Sci-fi directors love a little bit of pew pew pew action. How better to show that your battle is taking place in The Future than with a couple of handily colour-coded lasers? Blue for the goodies, red for the baddies, aim them at the weak underbelly of a spaceship and make it go BOOM (which in itself is a whole other can of worms).

Those space-faring soldiers are missing a bit of a trick though, seeing as their laser weapons fire the slowest beams of light known to man. Light travels at 299 792 458 m/s, which would allow an essentially instantaneous hit as soon as you pull the trigger - a pretty big advantage in battle, you would think.

Instead, space gunners would rather fire a helpfully bright and slow light-bolt that can be easily dodged by the target. This makes as much sense as picking up a bullet and throwing it, rather than firing it out of a gun.

Also, at the risk of repeating the sentiments of many other angry moviegoers: Light. Is. Invisible. You can't see lasers until they reflect off something.

So, instead of using silent, deadly, invisible, undodgable weapons, the scientists of the future seem to have put their time and effort into developing one that lights up like a Christmas tree and gives their target fair warning of its imminent arrival.