I think this recent development is a good one. It's a counterreaction to the old rule that dominated for decades up to sometime around 1990, that if an animal appeared in a movie, it would have to die, especially in a very loud or graphic way. Now THAT was a cliché! When it finally switched because the "creative" folks finally realized how ridiculous it had gotten, my reaction to those scenes you're talking about was "Yay! Finally someone breaks the standard rule on this!"

Well if I ever found myself in some sort of Hollywoodesque disaster situation, I would immediately strap myself to the nearest dog - in much the same way that if I ever found myself falling from a height, I'd attach myself to the nearest available cat's back

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N6MAA10816
'Forensic anthropologist! That's why no gun'
Are you a Bright?

Holding a gun sideways and/or one handed and expecting to hit anything at all, even if it's 10 ft away. Especially if the character doesn't have any sort of practice with a firearm. If someone's shooting at you, you hope he's holding the thing sideways - better chance of shooting his henchman, or the dog two blocks over than you.

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http://amssolarempire.blogspot.com

I've heard that if you fired a handgun sideways like that in real life it'd probably break your wrist (probably due to the recoil)?

I know there's been at least one CSI that mentioned that sort of problem. In fact, it was mentioned that the shooter in question had clearly learned everything they knew about guns from TV/movies.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

(Matherly goes geeky and completely misses the point)

Obi-Wan seemed to be in good company of those who remember the past

Yoda
Vader
Palapintine
Uncle Owen
Aunt Beru
Bail Organa
Etc.

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Carl Matherly

Offical Battlestar Galactica Apologist

Named Time Magazine's 2006 "Person of the Year"

Only if it's a Magnum or larger, and the gunframe is too light to absorb the momentum. It takes a lot of recoil to break an average wrist.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Note I wrote Star Wars. That's what the original film was known as in 1977.

In 1977 there was no Yoda, Palpatine, Bail Organa, etc. Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru hinted at knowing a bit about Luke's past as peripheral players, but that was it. The only one in the film who was "a sole survivor" was Obi-Wan. Of course Vader knew what Kenobi knew, but he had become part of the system, not a sole survivor of its ravages.

Point still still stands firmly.

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Well, in defense of Star Wars, the lonely survivor who remembers the past is a cliche that stretches back several millenia.

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Keeper of the Jabberwock

Most of the original Star Wars story is a millenia-old cliche; a farmboy discovers that his father was a knight, inherits his father's sword from the local wizard, who teaches him magical powers, they gather a band of adventurers who sneak into a Dark Lord's fortress, rescue a princess, fight an epic battle and topple an Evil Empire.

I'm sure that story was being told "a long time ago".

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

It seems that when "comedy" writers for current movies run out of ideas (usually within the first five minutes or so), they figure it's time some male cast member took a shot to the crotch.

Could someone tell these imbeciles that was worn out the second time it was used?

Perhaps a better approach would be to walk up to the writer, kick him in the groin, and then say, "You're right. That IS funny!" After that, he probably would reconsider his choice of material.

Holding a gun sideways and/or one handed and expecting to hit anything at all, even if it's 10 ft away. Especially if the character doesn't have any sort of practice with a firearm. If someone's shooting at you, you hope he's holding the thing sideways - better chance of shooting his henchman, or the dog two blocks over than you.

Anyone holding a weapon that way automatically identifies themselves as a firearms moron. You couldn't hit squat deliberately by holding a weapon that way.

You have to clothespin a playing card to the cylinder to get it to make that sound. In real-life situations, most folks either forget or don't bother.

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Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

Not to mention, as pointed out on CSI, the real possibility of getting a hot brass casing in the face.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

You can get a revolver to make that sound. What you do is close the cylinder, cock the hammer back about half-way, then spin the cylinder. And what is that sound telling you? That you are breaking the action!

If you must, absolutely hold you pistol sideways when you fire it, then you need this product: http://www.thegunzone.com/glock/glock-gag.html

David.

I got a kick out of the white guy with big fluffy dredlocks in "Children of Men", who would hold his gun sideways while pointing it at someone if he wasn't about to fire but was just threatening or running toward him/her, and then flipped it upright to fire (and then back again).

(There was one exception, and in that particular case, he was firing sideways without even looking toward his target a few feet away; instead he was staring at the other guy he wanted to intimidate and scare for a while before killing.)

At one of our IDPA shoots, we did this. The game was three targets at 7 yards. The goal was to fire 6 shots, reload, then another 6, all while holding the gun sideways. The second heat was to do the same thing holding the gun properly. Nearly every right handed shooter hit the target to their left of the one they were shooting at.

As for it breaking the wrist, it wouldn't matter. The muzzle climbs because the shape of the hand, and the direction of the force in relation to the shape of the gun forces it that way. If you hold it sideways, it will recoil back and left (for a righty) instead of back and up. Since most people think the front will always come up, it can be funny to watch. From behind. To their right.

This also affects accuracy. If the line of sight is perfectly horizontal, the bullet will leave the barrel and climb above the LOS until it reaches it;s peak height, then cross the LOS again on the way back down. Sighting in a rifle for 250 yards, may mean that the bullet climbs 3 inches above the LOS during it's flight. If there is a target 6 inches in diameter, the target will be hit somewhere at any range between the muzzle and about 325 yards. This is call the Point Black Range, because there is no need to hold high. Many of the large black powder rifles will have a level built into the sight because even a slight tilt to one side can affect the impact point of the bullet, to the right or left. When the gun is tipped on it's side (right handed shooter), the bullet will be headed quite a bit to the left from the very start. It will also drop away from the LOS from the moment it's fired. Since it didn't have an upward trajectory, it will usually hit low left from the target.

Police who have the ballistic shields need to hold the gun sideways because it's the only way to do it. I have seen guns with sights mounted on the side of the slide as well.

There is a technique being taught to police when approaching a car at close range where the gun is held sideways in the shooting hand, while the elbow of the other hand is propped on the hip and the hand cups the shooting hand, pulling back like doing a curl in weightlifting. This is supposed to help prevent the officers being disarmed. As a martial arts practitioner, this seems a bad idea. If the gun hand is hit to the shooter's left hard enough, the left arm will fold back in and trap their right arm against their body. Once the left arm is pressed, it will get ugly. Maybe this is addressed in a way the article didn't explain though.

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I'm not gullible because I'm a Leo.--Actually said to me by a co-worker
Never trust anyone with 'The' for a middle name. --Said to me by a guy in Denny's at 4 am.
The difference between planning and pessimism can only be seen in retrospect. -- One of mine
Truth ain't like puppies; a bunch of them running around and you get to pick the one you like best." -- Emerson on Pushing Daisies

Speaking of sword fights, you forgot the all-important "fight on a staircase". You would be absolutely astonished at how many swordfight movies fall into this trap.

<<Physical injury as comedy. Especially physical injury of one sort or another to the male gonads. Anyone who thinks that's humorous has never been hurt that way, or if they have, they have some sort of mental illness to think it's still funny.>>

SkepticJ, this parody was meant for you:

Edit: Slightly NWS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNR8d...elated&search=

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"He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River."

--Anonymous

And the inevitable "swing from a rope" and "one swordsman defeating a group at once" cliches.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Like weather reporters?