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Greatest Beams In Movie History
_Laban_ writes "Vue Weekly has summarized the greatest beams in movie history. From the article: 'They slice us, they disintegrate us, they roast us alive, they level our greatest monuments and pinpoint our deepest fears.'"
Zzzzzzap!
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
Slow news day?
What? No mention of the C-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannhauser gate?
The owls are not what they seem
But Tron was somewhat beamy. And would've been very hardcore slashdot material for the time in....what '82...me forget
...Jim Beam?
Yeah, I'll be quiet now...
Sampizcat
Logan's Run has one of the first (if not the first) use of the laser special effects that went on to be used in Star Wars. Other bonuses include Michael York's terrible acting and Jenny Agutter with a minimum of clothing. Apparently a remake is in the works...
Probably had more beams in his stories than all of Hollywood put together.
Ah, Space opera. Link for the unenlightened.
"Yes...that"
char *mySig;
Not a movie (unfortunately), but the Shadow slice-n-dice beam has got to be up there in terms of efficient chopping ability.
Zzzzzzap!
They used a zapper because the laser didn't quite phase her??
Thank you, I'll be here all week.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
...but couldn't the space be saved for something a lil more meaningful?
Your right! By posting this story they now won't have space for the article on the **AA saying "Screw it you can have all the songs/movies you want for free!"
chown -R us
What? No sharks with frickin laser beams?
_______
2B1ASK1
The most fearful one is the sunbeam. It makes people turn browner. It's why I hide in my mom's basement under the cool glow of flourescent tubes and LCD monitors all day long, to avoid the terrible sun beams...
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Not only can it vaporize druglords and pop corn, but it can point the way to a campus party. Now /that's/ utility!
Probably the same movie that set the precedent of there being sound in space.
Could this open some eyes and increase interest in alternative (Linux, Mac) offerings?
John Holmes Gold
Peter North Silver
Why isn't Buzz Lightyear's blinking red LED (with SOUND!) on the list?
Let the commencement BEGINULATE!
How about video games?
The Freespace 2 slicer beams were the coolest sounding beams I've ever seen.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Dalek scary 'turns the whole world negative' for the over 25s and 'turns people into x-rays' for the current kiddy-winks. Plus it's the only beam with a catch-phrase...
Justin.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
Oh yeah, so the Mako Gun from Final Fantasy VII just didn't cut it? I'm insulted.
I kid you not. Flesh Gordon featured the sex ray from the planet Porno. I have to admit i saw that movie and, well, it sucks.
What about those Care Bear Beams?
"Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain."
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C'mon, people, how can you forget Cyclops from the X-men and his eye beams. And of course, there what disaster film wouldn't be complete with the similarly named, but completely different I-Beams collapsing at just the right time for dramatic purposes?
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
What, no wave motion gun or reflex cannon? What about that "don't point that thing at my side of the galaxy" canon they used in the first Tenchi Muyo movie (the name escapes me at the moment)? This list needs to be longer.
http://www.balorn.net/
?
Okay, so that's a fair bunch of beams from movies, but what about from computer games?
I think I'll have to say that my personal favourite would have to be the beam weapons from FreeSpace II.
It was something grand with piloting your little fighter craft in a dense nebula and all of a sudden have a massive beam cut through just beside you, and then seeing a cruiser come out of the mist just as it's preparing to fire again... The knowing that if you'd been just slightly further in that direction you wouldn't even have had time to blink before you were reduced to space dust... That game had really nice atmosphere (pardon the pun)!
and the Dark Beams that came from the strage rotating evil lighthouse in the middle of hell? I think those were pretty noteworthy. although on a relative level of importance/interest this thread sucks
Don't take it personally, I 'm like this all the time.
"Energize the demolition beam. I don't know. Apathetic bloody planet."
Glad to see EE Doc Smith mentioned - restores my faith in /.
From what I can tell (haven't seen it) the Japanese movie is basically a Star Wars clone with names lifted from Galactic Patrol.
The Buck Rogers newspaper strips deserve a mention, as does Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon. Not cinematically, however.
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
Can't forget the games!
... biu bui biu biu booom ... biu biu
biu biu biu
Oh yeah, that's the stuff.
ILM
BEAM ME UP, HOLLYWOOD!
By DARREN ZENKO
We count off the greatest beams, lasers, death rays and photon streams in movie history
They slice us, they disintegrate us, they roast us alive, they level our greatest monuments and pinpoint our deepest fears. But they also transport us, link us, serve us, protect us and illuminate the path to fortune and glory. They are beams, the glowing lances of focused radiation that have lit up our movie screens"and our imaginations"since some unknown caveman accidentally scratched a birchbark negative and became prehistory's first FX guy. Here at the dawn of 2005's summer blockbuster season, it's as good a time as any to look back and salute the Great Beams of Film!
The list is not exhaustive; hopefully the reader will find its many glaring omissions inspirational.
Death Star beam, Star Wars
Set aside the standard suspense-creation of a countdown list"that shit's for Cosmo and David Letterman. We all know who wins this contest, so let's get this bad boy outta the way quick. Which bad boy? The bad Death Star beam boy, of course. A full-on, no-nonsense, kill-everybody-now planet-smasher, it's as if millions of lasers cried out in terror and were suddenly awesome. Also, the gunnery crew had those cool helmets with the underbite blast shields.
Martian heat ray, War of the Worlds (1953)
Yeah, it was just sparks. But you know what? Sparks are hot. And when those red-hot sparks are streaming out of a gooseneck hose mounted on a sinister floating (walking, actually, on invisible "legs" of force) organic blob of a War Machine, you know some Earthling real estate's going to get seriously messed up. The Martians also mounted disintegrator guns on their space tanks, but it was their all-consuming heat rays that produced the shock and awe that has informed 52 years of cinematic beamery.
Scanning beam, Tron
It makes no sense, but it sure is awesome: a beam that sends real-world stuff (like people) into the internal world of computers. The greatest thing about the Tron scanning beam is its quickness, its precision; it had kids all over the world staring hard at objects, fantasizing the beam by waggling their fingers quickly back and forth in front of their eyes and going zk-zk-zk-zk-zk-zk. It wasn't just entering the computer world that fascinated them, it was also the scanning itself... they dreamed that in addition to Karateka, Lode Runner, Bruce Lee and The Print Shop they could add orange, hamster and Dad's Playboy mags to their box of pirated 5.25" floppies.
Proton streams, Ghostbusters
They're produced by unlicensed nuclear accelerators, they're untested and they're not to be crossed; the ghost-snaring proton streams are perfectly realized on film with a wild, unpredictable, snaking blast of barely-controlled pure energy. Look at those dudes! They can barely hold on to their projector nozzles. These are truly the weapons of a gang of irresponsible genius science-cowboys with nothing left to lose but their immortal souls. Brilliant.
Pure love, The Fifth Element
Earth, air, fire, water and... ether? Phlogiston? Sorry, Mr. 18th-Century Alchemical Theorist; no matter what Georg Stahl says, the fifth element is love, sweet love. How else to explain that a stumbling admission of affection from Bruce Willis could make a despairing Milla Jovovich barf a spectacular stream of concentrated good stuff into orbit, saving Earth from the mumbling menace of Evil Planet?
Radioactive breath, Godzilla et al.
Some debate on including this one, but come on! A coherent high-velocity flow of energized radioactive gas is a beam in anybody's book. The King of Monsters wasn't shy about using it, either; many a parcel of not-quite-so-high-priced Japanese real estate was reduced to a glowing pile of forever-uninhabitable rubble and slag by a casual whiff of Godzilla's nuclear breath. Many square metres of opposing giant monsters' hides got the same treatment. The best part of Godzilla's breath
There is a scene early in the HHGTTG movie where Arthur Dent is enjoying a nice cup of tea; he leans back to contemplate the immenent destruction of his house and the camera tilts upwards to show a simply lovely faux-Elizabethen wooden beam on the ceiling. I'd say it was early B&Q, probably from their "homely cottage" period. Magnificent: ripe, woody and with that nice fake crackulature effect. Sadly this scene was cut from the theatrical release, but we can hope its restored in the DVD with full commentary from cast members and local archeologists.
Sailing over the event horizon
I was sure this was going to be an idiotic howstuffworks.com BS article.
Instead it is refreshing film trivia.
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"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tanhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to die."
- Roy Batty, Blade Runner
Great speech to go out on. Most spectacular beams in movies and they're not even shown. Sometimes what you don't see is the most compelling of all.
Sailing over the event horizon
Let's hear it for the 2x4.
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Okay, technically not a movie, but B5 had some really nice effects for a low-budget TV show.
I loved how the human's PPG (Phased Plasma Gun) pistols on the show would make the air distort around the shots creating a lens effect, presumably from the heat. This was most noticable in the earlier seasons, the effect became less in later seasons, probobly because of the rendering time required.
Also, the Shadow vessel's beam absolutely *looked* evil, just as much the ships themselves. The beam is a purplish, sickening color with streaks, it looks like chaos personified. Whoever designed the ships in the series really got it right, unlike many sci fi movies with gereric ships.
blakespot
-- Heisenberg may have slept here.
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President Skroob: "I'll be down immediately."
Cmdr. Zircon: "Shall I have Snotty beam you down?
President Skroob: "I don't know about that beaming stuff. Is it safe?"
Cmdr. Zircon: "Oh, yes. Snotty beamed me twice last night. It was wonderful."
President Skroob: "Alright, I'll take a shot at it. What the Hell, it works on Star Trek."
One of the most disturbingly funny movies ever made.
Ranks right on up there with the Rocky Horror Picture Show for sheer... ummmm.... merry perversion?
Why can't I mod "-1 Idiot"?
Actually, the joke was a reference to the penultimate episode of the new 'Doctor Who' series (*), so it was neither particularly unoriginal, nor out of context.
I'll refrain from explaining how, in the light of this, your post makes you look like a major-league ****- that much is blindingly apparent anyway. I'll also refrain from making the obvious joke because (a) I hate that show and (b) It really *wouldn't* be funny this time.
(*) Not particularly spoilerish: The penultimate episode of the series (effectively the first of a two part story) featured a futuristic version of 'The Weakest Link' with a killer 'Anne Droid' robot (har har). Rather too silly (and unimaginative) for my tastes, but the final episode was better.
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How could they leave out the world's most powerful popcorn popper in Real Genius?
"See, Dad, it's coherent light."
"It talks?!?"
And I just finished watching the end of farscapes peacekeeper wars... like 5 seconds ago.
I think John's wormhole gun takes the cake.
Bah. I would rather command one of the Vorlon planet killers (B5, s. 4). Its sad that the article only lists crappy mainstream movies.
And what about the Wave Motion Gun? Sure, technically it isn't a movie beam, but its got to be the greatest beam ever, or at least the most influential. Virtually every anime since Space Battleship Yamato has featured a Wave Motion Gun knockoff. Besides, you just can't beat that blister effect...
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
I personnally liked the Alan Parson's Project "lazer" beam based on the moon built by Dr. Evil. FIRE THE LAZER!!!!
You're messin' with my Zen Thing, man.....
"Do you understand the mechanism?" "Yes, Doctor Morbius, a simple blaster".
The big point defense beams that outlined the Monster From the Doc's Id.
Hey, even the force-field fence that initially revealed it...
Intelligence reports that the Deathstar beam required 8000 Sol-years of energy to make Alderaan light and flakey. Those agency types don't understand physics. You can't pack that much energy into a beam, not even a beam that interacts with vacua states and causes empty space to radiate in visible light. I suspect it was a GASER beam: gravitino anomaly by special effects rework. IMHO the beam tributaries give this away.
They completely forgot the popcorn popping (and tree/billboard destroying) laser from Real Genius! :)
Kent, have you been touching yourself?
Yes, I mean NO!
Personally, I think the Independence Day beam was probably the most impressive in terms of the special effects of the explosion. Especially on the tall buildings, exploding several floors at at time as the beam penetrates down the building. Those were just amazing special effects.
Sure, the Death Star beam blows up a planet, and it was definitely an impressive beam, especially those shots inside the Death Star with the guys standing next to the beams.
I don't know. Maybe a tie for me. I definitely think the Independence Day beam should have been second mentioned. Certainly before the Crotch Laser in Goldfinger. Come on...
Iron Giant had some cool beams... and other weapons of mass destruction! Coolest "transformer" ever!
And it was originally rendered on amigas! the ultimate requirement for a decent evil beam
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You're telling me that line actually works? I only tried the 'my hands are getting frostbitten, let me put them someplace warm' line. I have three fingers left.
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The rail or e/m gun (whatever it was called) in the Schwarzenegger flick Eraser used electromagnetism beams/rays to accelerate projectiles at incredible speed. Check out http://www.powerlabs.org/emguns.htm
http://efil.blogspot.com/
but back to the Death Star... Did it make Alderaan light and flakey on the outside, crisp and chewy on the inside?
RETURN without GOSUB in line 1050
Is that the prototype for the charge-beam weapons used so often that appear even in Freespace 2? Did it cause an explosion upon impact (like most anime weapons) or did it pierce/slice the target (Freespace 2 beam cannons, most "lasers")?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Even one of them Vorlon Star Dreadnaughts would be nice.
The tractor beam was not even mentioned. Another failure in this, well maybe not a failure since it was never seen in action....The shark head mounted frickin laser beams. Those are a couple of my favorite beams.
I know, I know - he said MOVIES... But I always liked the beam the sunflowers on Ringworld produced... Nothing like clean solar power, eh?
The soviets are attacking us from hyperspace!
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Hey, they forgot Gort's tank-melting eye-beam in "The Day The Earth Stood Still."
I understand that English is a living language, but I object to changes arising merely from repeated errors.
The article doesn't mention the beam from the orbital Ion Cannon(which belonged to GDI but was hacked) of the original Command&Conquer computer game's brotherhood of NOD ending movie which destroys alternatively the White House, The Eifeltower, The Statue of Liberty or the Brandenburger Gate, according to the choice of the player!
They PRECEEDED the somewhat similar beam attacks from above from Indepence Day.
Come on, I know the first Resident Evil movie wasn't all that good on the whole, but the laser sequence when the soldiers were in the passage to the Red Queen's chamber was the best part! Who could forget the memorable quotes that were uttered there, such as "It's coming back!" and "You're going into shock.. Stay with me.. Stay awake!!"? Or where the team leader is sliced into tiny pieces by the laser when he would have survived if he'd just taken a step back. A classic movie? No, but a great laser sequence, you betcha!
Another funny spoof of the famous goldfinger scene was made in "Amore all'italiana" (not much on it found in IMDB).
With the memorable quote, from the bad guy: "and now you're going to see how agent 007 becomes two agents 003 and a half".
Now those were funny movies. No series is complete without a giant death beam somewhere.
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Anonymous Coward wrote:
:-)
Speaking of animation, let's not forget Marvin the Martian's disintegration ray on Bugs Bunny.
Unfortunately, he didn't leave his name.
Tag lost or not installed.
now beam down my pants!
I grew up with the transporter on the original series being the 'beam'.
It was the shit. With it, you could instantaneously deploy up to seven redshits on the planet's surface from orbit. You could span parallel universes is you happened to try to use it during an ion storm.
The best use of course being to transport all the fuzzy vermin infesting your ship over to the enemy's ship. I bet they hated that.
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
Nice Film Beams: The ones emitted by the counter-revolutionary airborne drones in the original The Terminator
Nice Game Beams: Tempest (which can be heard at one point during the It's A Good Life segment in Twilight Zone: The Movie, hey?)
Nice High Beams: Sandra Bullock in Speed
The fission powered Orgazmorater (which later runs out of batteries... huh?) from the movie, predicably titled Orgazmo should have got a mention.
"Give us McNeal or we will lay waste to your cities with our anti-monument laser."
This should have been a poll
One of the biggest "holy crap" moments I've ever had in a movie is the end of Nausicaa where the God Soldier fires its beam at the approaching herd of Ohmu and it is like a line of nuclear explosions on the horizon.
I read the internet for the articles.
Macross Cannon.
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What?? Nothing from Pla 9 from Outer Spaace! Disgusting. I can't be having with this slashdot thing anymore...
New mod option wanted: -1 DrunkenRambling
I'd think the slashdot crowd would be pounding on the table at the exclusion of the laser beam that can execute people from a satellite as seen in Real Genius.
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The best ray in Doctor Who is the defabricator and it's devestating effects
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frigging sharks with frigging laserbeams on their heads?
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups. -- 0 1 My two bits
a satellite laser from Akira?
Say what? Did he seriously think he could just slip that one in there without people noticing how obsessed he is with that movie and how he's part of the cult following and has an anime tattoo on his shoulder?
Robot based death ray? Sweetness.
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... he met with the people who owned it, and they didn't take him at all seriously. So he took the Flash Gordon trailers -- the diagonal titles that talk about the universe at that point [he means the opening story synopsis that seems to recede from the viewer as it scrolls up] -- and sort of combined it with a Stanley Kubrick '2001' world and created his own 'Flash Gordon.' " Lucas says the characters of "Star Wars" are not originals but "tributes."
Here it is, straight from Lucas' first Hollywood boss and fellow USC graduate, Francis Ford Coppola: "George wanted to do Flash Gordon
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
That would be Bad.
But what about Dr. Device from Enders game? The Beam that destroyed worlds?
RTFA again for the best results.
Fricken Laser; shark mounted.
-Mike
Schrödinger's cat is not amused—maybe.
The Dimensional Fortress's main gun was a beam to behold. At full power, the beam's diameter was a quater of a mile, with a range out to at least lunar orbit (couple hundred thousand miles) and it disintigrated everything it touched.
There was a badass beam in that one, where the decomposing giant warrior releases his atomic blast on the Ohmu. Its was so must more violent than what I was expecting, it really took me by surprise. A beam for the record books!
Mother of all beams; Dr. Strangelove style.
Anyone that thinks that the [adjective] beam from [TV series] was superior clearly has [disgusting substance] for brains.
The [adjective] coolness of my choice is [superlative].
But I suppose the [adjective] beam from [book title] was really the winner. If they'd only made that into a [visual medium], it would *so* beat all the other choices.
Argue with that.
At the end of Robotech, 3rd generation I think, there is a big beam, it wipes out half enemy ships in seconds.
At the end of Final Fantasy there was also a big beam or not?
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The 6 beams which support the Dark Tower (in the writings of Stephen King) are the best. I know this since if they were to snap all creation would collapse into darkness.
Everything serves the beam.
"We deal in lead" - Roland of Gilead, Gunslinger
"We deal in lead" - Roland of Gilead
Was that Superman IV where we suddenly discover that all these years, Clark Kent has had the ability to project a beam from his eyes which restores a damaged object to its rightful state? I seem to remember him looking at the rubble of the Great Wall and causing it to reassemble. Then the Communists spit on him and called him "Yankee lap dog."
The beams in TFA all have the ability to destroy, but Superman has a beam that heals. And is totally preposterous. (unlike the ones in TFA?)
WARNING: DO NOT LET DR. MARIO TOUCH YOUR GENITALS. HE IS NOT A REAL DOCTOR.
Ok, the death star beam definitely was cool. No questions there. But what about lightsabers? How come they don't make the list. Those are probably the coolest things that appear in pretty much every star wars movie.
Well, games and movies would be very dull if you could only hear sounds that conduct through the hull.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Except for one major problem: The Cube featured not laser beam one. The scene you describe was a razor-sharp screen of cyclone fence.
Help us build a better map!
Why the hell did it bother with the varying laser patterns (that the trespassers nimbly avoided), only to switch to the checkerboard deathlaser? Why not just do the checkerboard first and get it over with? yeah, I know... it takes away the suspense, but I always thought that bit was kinda funny.
Though I thought of a few extras:
the planet killing beam that The Lexx has - and it looks cool too. And most males cannot forget the beam that alters Zev Bellringer.
The Wave Motion Gun from Star Blazers.
The Bat Signal.
I see your schwartz is as big as mine. Well not really a beam, but good none-the-less.
I don't think I've seen this mentioned yet... but I think the solar death ray the last James Bond movie was pretty frickin cool. When I saw that, I said to meself... I need to get me one of those.
Blender And Linux Fan
...about the great spacecruiser Yamamoto from Star Blazers and its killer beam?
How bought the popcorn laser that wrecks the Professor's house. Kent! Stop playing with yourself!
I didn't say it could vaporize popcorn, I said it could pop corn (pop the corn).
I don't blame you for reading it that way, when I saw my post again, I did a doubletake too.
Now *that's* a beam of light!
I know I stand alone on this, but I think the Infanto Ray, from Space Ace, should have made the list.
Also, there's the Big-O-Beam, from the 'Attack From Mars' pinball game. Oh, and who could forget Frylock's eyeball-beams?
Then there's the laser from 'Laserblast,' with the beam-gun from 'Teenagers from Outer Space' coming in a close second. (Cue Crow: See? Proof you can be too rich AND too thin!)
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I may be the only one here, but I really liked the beams from the shadow ships in Babylon 5. Purple and silent, they cut through just about any other ship like it wasn't even there. A spooky weapon for a spooky ship.
Are in the movie "Battle in Outer Space", 1961. Great movie.
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