Science-fiction and technology go hand in hand, with one influencing the other over the years. This had led to both fantastical imaginings and real-world applications. Sci-fi movies usually showcase this relationship using advanced spaceships, robots, and of course, weapons.
We've seen some amazing weapons in the genre, most notably lightsabers from Star Wars, phasers from Star Trek, and the M41A Pulse Rifle from Aliens. Of course, we've seen some equally bizarre weapons over the years that follow more along the lines of Dude, Where's My Car's Continuum Transfunctioner; very mysterious and powerful devices whose mystery (and absurdity) are only exceeded by their power. Today we're going to take a look at some of the most bizarre science-fiction weapons ever seen on the big screen.
ZORG Z-F1
It's important to keep in mind that "bizarre" doesn't necessarily mean "bad," as no one could say that The Fifth Element's Zorg Z-F1 Pod Weapon System isn't incredibly good at what it does... which is everything. The multi-purpose weapon is the "All-Dressed" of guns, with multiple firing options.
We've seen weapons like this in other sci-fi films, with Judge Dredd's Lawmaker showcasing the coolest version of a multi-purpose weapon. On the flip side, Beverly Hills Cop III's Annihilator 2000 jumped the shark by including a CD player and microwave. The Z-F1 is an exercise in excess and is bizarre in form, but it functions very well. Just don't push the little red button on the bottom of the gun.
"HAND" GRENADE
Death Race 2000 was a Roger Corman feature that starred David Carradine, Sylvester Stallone, and Simone Griffeth, set in a post-apocalyptic world craving brutal entertainment. Carradine played Frankenstein, one of the drivers in the deadly Transcontinental Road Race that valued violence and mayhem over speed and strategy.
Frankenstein, fed up with the government's backing of the race and the direction of the world, has decided to assassinate the President after winning the race with a very unique, yet bizarre weapon. Hidden within his prosthetic hand is a grenade that he planned to explode when greeting the president, giving new context to the term "hand" grenade.
L.O.O.K.E.R. GUN
Michael Crichton's Looker was an attempt at holding a mirror up to society's obsession with media and beauty, while also presenting a mystery about a series of murders of recent plastic surgery patients. Looker was one of the first films to use computer-generated images to create a realistic human character.
The film also featured a truly odd weapon of choice for the killer, which was a gun that emitted pulses of light to hypnotize/blind its victims/give the bearer the illusion of invisibility. The gun was named the Light Ocular-Oriented Kinetic Emotive Responses, or L.O.O.K.E.R Gun, which means its vague purpose may be secondary to making the acronym work with the title of the film.
NOISY CRICKET
1997's Men in Black first introduced the dangerous Noisy Cricket, which was capable of blasting a hole through a wall. However, what is truly bizarre about the weapon is not it's level of power, but the tiny unit equipped to deliver such a powerful shot.
Not only is the actual weapon incredibly tiny, but it also produces a huge recoil that shoots Will Smith's Agent J flying back with every shot, which is played to great comedic effect in the film. While it makes sense that this weapon could have been created for an alien hand that would be suitable for firing it, it seems strange that the MiB would equip their agents with such an odd weapon.
DALEK PLUNGER
Yes, we know that it's technically called a Manipulator Arm, but the sooner we can all accept that it's a toilet plunger, the better off we'll be. Dr. Who and the Daleks was a 1965 feature film starring Peter Cushing that was based on the second Doctor Who serial, The Daleks. The film wasn't canonically tied to the TV series, but the design of the popular Daleks was largely the same.
The Daleks are genetically modified nuclear-mutated cyborg aliens, with two ports for weapon attachments and a desire to exterminate. While the Gunstick on one port can be a very deadly weapon, the Manipulator Arm/Dalek Plunger is a multi-purpose arm for gripping, pushing, turning, suffocating, crushing heads, and, of course, plunging.
GRISTLE GUN
David Cronenberg's final produced screenplay was the hard-to-explain and even-harder-to-understand eXistenZ, which starred Jude Law and Jennifer Jason Leigh. They played biotechnological virtual reality game programmers on the run from multiple groups with various claims on the newest VR game - eXistenz.
In one particularly unsettling scene set within the virtual reality world, Jude Law's character constructs a gun made out of the bones of a meal he had just finished eating, assembling the Gristle Gun. The unsettling piece of hardware is not only made from bones, but it also fires human teeth as bullets.
HEAD BOMB
We've taken a look at a number of advanced or disturbing firearms so far, and 1987's Total Recall featured a lot of those. However, the film's familiar-yet-deadly guns were not nearly bizarre enough for the planet of Mars, so along with the audience's first actual introduction to the planet, the "Head Bomb" would also make its first odd appearance.
Initially revealed as a highly-advanced robotic mask worn by Arnold Schwarzenegger's character to get past security, the malfunctioning mask soon reveals its secondary purpose. The robotic mask would deliver a final taunt before exploding and creating a distraction. This means Arnold's character was wearing a malfunctioning explosive on his head for the entire trip to Mars.
DE-EVOLUTION GUN
It's hard to differentiate one bizarre choice from another when it comes to the Super Mario Bros. movie adaptation, which is widely accepted as one of the oddest video game adaptations we've ever seen. The film saw King Koopa, played by Dennis Hopper, attempting to merge his Dino-reality with the Mario Bros. world.
One of the weapons in his arsenal is a De-Evolution Gun, which is fairly aptly named. It was designed as a portable version of King Koopa's Devo Chamber that creates his reptilian Goomba henchman. The De-Vo Gun is shown devolving a human into a monkey, but we're not entirely sure how this strange weapon applied to his plans for world domination.
GLAIVE
While Krull could just as easily be considered a fantasy story, it is set on the planet Krull and features a huge teleporting spaceship known as the Black Fortress, planting it firmly in the realm of science fiction. The 1983 film was a critical and financial failure, though it has developed a cult following over the years.
Krull featured an interesting use of the special effects technology of the time, and also focused on a very bizarre weapon that seems ill-thought out in its construction. The Glaive is a five-pointed boomerang-like weapon that can hover and fly, because magic. However, as every single grabbable arm of the weapon has a blade on it, it's all kinds of impractical.
POINT OF VIEW GUN
Easily one of the strangest weapons seen across any genre is the Point of View Gun seen in 2005's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which was an adaptation of Douglas Adams' iconic sci-fi book and radio series of the same name. The book saw the last surviving humans forced to hitchhike across the galaxy after the destruction of Earth, which puts them in many dangerous and odd situations.
The Point of View Gun is able to make whoever is shot with it see things from the perspective of whoever is holding the gun, which saw a squad of alien Vogons taken out by depressed robot Arthur's firing of the weapon. While the Point of View gun only ever appeared in the film, it was still allegedly created by Adams.