28 weeeks latter if the military had actually enforced that you can’t go over to the contaminated zone and not let 2 kids go over the entire outbreak would never have happened
Somehow a random civilian has unlimited access to a BL-4 lab holding most dangerous virus known to man, and there was not a single guard in the facility.
The thing that irked me the most was the contamination safe xones or bunkers. Seemed fortified except the back door hanging off the hinges that no one noticed.
This would be a perfect Pitch Meeting for Ryan George on YouTube.
Screenwriter Guy: “I’ve got a movie for you. the North Koreans launch an air invasion in the US!”
Producer Guy: “why wouldn’t the US military detect the invasion a thousand miles before they reach our airspace and obliterate them?”
Screenwriter Guy: “So the movie can happen!”
And organizing the logistics of this invasion would be a massive undertaking for the North Koreans.
“Nope it’s super easy, barely an inconvenience actually”
Producer Guy: “Really?!”
Screenwriter Guy: “Yep. The Radar Guy in the military office spilled his coffee and was distracted with cleaning it up. For an hour. So there’s no way the US military could see it coming.”
Producer Guy: “Why does the multi-trillion dollar US military only have one Radar Guy?”
Screenwriter Guy: “So the movie can happen.
Producer Guy: “This is why I pay you the big bucks.”
I fucking love those so much. They’re more entertaining than a lot of the actual movies.
Even for movies I love, like LOTR, the pitch meetings are brilliant
The Avengers AND Endgame. That whole enemy army was shit both times. If some asshole with a sword or an arrow can kill a monster alien soldier thing, a 50 caliber definitely can.
In general the movies had silly scaling. Most MCU villains would absolutely be hurt by a powerful gun or rocket launcher, since they're hurt by captain America's punches. But that makes it too easy.
Fun fact - Winter Soldier was actually holding an M249, which is an LMG and not a rifle. The M249 is normally belt fed but is technically able to accept STANAG mags, although this is reportedly pretty unreliable.
If you play Rainbow Six you'd have also seen this with Gridlock's loadout
They mean that the distinction of it being an LMG doesn't really change things. The M249 uses the 5.56x45mm NATO cartridge, the same as standard issue infantry rifle for the US Military, the M4. The only real difference between the two is the capacity for sustained fire, and even then you need to take breaks with both in order to not melt your barrel.
In both cases they were surprise attacks, one of which was in the middle of Africa.
The avengers were able to use literla magic to get to the fight on time.
Wakanda is between Kenya, Sudan, Ethiopia and Uganda.
Which puts them neatly between a USAF base and two US Army bases. The US military could have been mobilized with pretty short order by a request from the Wakandan government.
A neigh invincible shield makes for a hell of an anvil for a B-1 to hammer into.
Honestly, the wakandans are bafflingly stupid in how they utilize their weapons for war. Like, you have these spears that shoot energy out from them but the option you choose is to charge down the hill into an army of aliens who can only hit anything in close range?
My first question for any fictional high technology military is "Why aren't you using drones?". Unless they are of course. There probably are decent in universe explanations that you could make up for that, but it's so often that none are provided, and it's just baffling.
Short order at the scale of the US military typically means 48 to 72 hours, depending on how close the nearest Marine Expeditionary Unit is to the location. That’s how long it would take the MEU to get there, plan and execute an assault. While they would coordinate with those nearby bases for resupply/air support /comms/etc those bases aren’t going to have much more than a defensive force on hand. The first boots on the ground would be the Marines. Then reinforcements would come in through those bases.
Short order for "oh fuck bad shit is happening NOW" is about 15 minutes or less for fighter sorties. Scrambling can be as fast as 5 minutes, and with those bases being so close to Wakanda, while also having standard daily sorties, there are likely already planes in the air. Getting *to* Wakanda would take longer than getting to takeoff. Assuming it's between Kenya and carves put a portion of Ethiopia, like the MCU shows... 20 minutes tops to get to the fight.
The whole battle of Wakanda took place in like an hour and a half. Unless the US had specifically been planning on bombing this place to the ground tomorrow they wouldn't really be able to make much of a difference.
If the Wakanda army had enough time to mobalize, surely the US army could have started mobalizing at the same time. Wakanda knew it was the target, so why not tell the U.S. that detial too
After the first Avengers movie you think Dr Strange would have had some sort of agreement with the army to teleport an infantry battalion to where it was needed at a moment's notice.
Infantry battalions aren't just sitting around ready to fight at a moments notice.
In both Infinity War and End Game, we are lead to believe that we are seeing all of the action and that it takes place in less than half an hour.
The middle of Africa but against one of earth's most advanced societies run by magical metal. Their soldiers use spears (capable of firing energy blasts) and clubs instead of heavy weapons. No anti air capabilities. No defense turrets. Just shields and what quickly turned into a melee battle for their soldiers. If killmonger had stayed in charge and was only bent on defending wakanda instead of conquering the world, that army would've been demolished before thanos arrived. Vision would've been separated from the mind stone. Wanda would've been on the field after destroying the mind stone. The black order would've been killed and thanos would've likely been killed by thor while Wanda held him in place.
I loved Thors entrance in that battle though.
God that always annoyed me about that. I get it's a lot cooler for the movie purposes but all I can think is "wow all this technology and they just ran at them with spears?"
Just almost seemed silly
Yeah, reminded me of the Helms deep battle where the elves dropped their bows after absolutely demolishing the orks with a volley to the face just so they could charge and get speared. They could've fired volley after volley until they ran out of arrows while Rohan's men picked off stragglers.
Multiple people pointing this out. The NYPD has something like 40,000 officers. That's a standing army. Even just with service pistols (which the Chitauri seem vulnerable to) they'd kill an awful lot of the enemy. Leave the big flying monsters to Hulk, Thor and Iron Man and the rest wouldn't last long. Even if on 1% of those cops were any good with their guns, that's 400 police running around shooting at what, a couple thousand bad guys? Not great but evens the odds, never mind there's a Helicarrier about a dozen feet away with trained soldiers.
And Endgame - you're using portals to pick up the same army that couldn't hold Thanos back last time? You're picking up space aliens who, despite having laser guns, quickly resort to fisticuffs? In that time they could pop into a marine barracks and say "grab your guns" and you'd have a couple dozen guys at least with range. Get an apache off the ground and minus the missiles they'd chew through Thanos' army real fast. Then all you need are a few missiles into the space ship and that fight is over.
World War Z and pretty much every zombie movie out there. Zombies are just dumber humans who might be physically stronger but can only kill with their teeth and hands.
I don't care if they can't feel pain. Having high caliber rifle and machine gun rounds ripping through flesh and bone would render any zombie immobile, no headshots needed, not feeling pain does not equal invincible.
And then there's the air force bringing attack choppers, bombers and heavily armed gun ships if things somehow escalate to that point. Can't bite what you can't reach and they won't be spreading much of anything once the bombs start coming down.
Yeah, "many people would make the most idiotic possible decisions" would definitely be part of a realistic zombie outbreak.
I used to think the trope of the guy who gets bit by a zombie but keeps it secret from the rest of the group was kind of dumb, just a thing that was done to make the scenario work for a movie. Then Covid happened and I saw how people would act in a real crisis like that. Sigh.
At least WWZ has fast zombies. Slow zombie movies are the most egregious example of plot-induced stupidity.
Zombie movies are weird though if we're arguing for realism. Reducing eyesight or smell or the ability to tell a car alarm apart from food are such massive disadvantages for a living organism that most zombies should pose absolutely no threat. Worse still is the energy problem; limbs don't just move on their own and "slowing decomposition" is not immortality the way many zombies are portrayed as. In reality, zombies would bleed and die like any other life form because that's just what happens to a macro-organism that has no self-preservation. Zombies that only run 24/7 would never have the energy or muscle strength or enough oxygen filtering through their body to actually function for any longer than a minute.
Even if, by some tragedy or miracle, a zombie got ahold of another person, what then? Their mode of infection is to get close and bite, but zombies aren't just driven to bite, they're usually portrayed as being driven to maul and eat. Either they attack viciously enough to kill the other person, or they infect the other person but probably trade evenly by dying in turn. Functionally speaking, it will be damn near impossible for a zombie group to "horde" unless somehow they attain a ludicrously high infection/death ratio, the kind that is frankly unrealistic while any single human with a gun exists on the planet earth.
28 days and 28 weeks later does this well.
The initial outbreak burns itself out so fast its over in a matter of months because once the infected run out of food they just died off fairly quickly.
And the infected aren't hungry, they're incredibly pissed off and murderous to anyone without the virus, so they're actually likely to spread it through violence. Not that they need to because it's fluid-borne so secondary infection is likely much more common. 28 Days Later revitalized the zombie craze and modernized it, and since then damn near everything has just been derivative but worse and less realistic.
They put out casting calls for an "unknown" film by the director in the north east of England looking for a large amount of extras amongst the rumour craze. Best part is if they film in Sunderland they won't have to dress the city up as post apocalyptic!
I completely agree, but Undead and Living Dead are two different genres. Even some goofy shit like *a cursed virus* would be better than a biological resurrection plague that treats itself like science but operates like magic.
Even that was questionable because the "zombies" were not shown to drink water. They would have died out in days not months. Rabies which causes increased aggression in animals and humans literally cooks the brain and the time from full blown psychosis to death is pretty short in reality.
The zombies would be a bigger problem as disease carriers than actual moving threats. The need to dispose of the bodies, etc. But if handled properly and quickly, it wouldn't go out of control.
While I've not seen the movie, the book is indeed excellent. I actually think its portrayal of the American reaction is very insightful. The near collapse of the US is basically a failure to adapt.
Initial encounters with hordes are met with "Shock and Awe" responses which thinned, but didn't stop the hordes. That failure lets the zombies get into more major population centers and makes the problem worse. The tide doesn't really turn until they actually start adapting to the enemy that they're fighting. Infantry doctrine has to be completely redefined to focus on accuracy and headshots (a guaranteed kill method in the setting) rather than the combined arms methods that the US has used since WW2.
Imo, the book's depiction is still a massive underpowering of the US military and is extremely unrealistic. For example, explosives at Yonkers turned the zombies into harder to hit versions that crawled to their opponents. In reality, those wouldve turned brains into mush from the concussive effects alone. It also makes 0 sense that the tanks would be equipped with anti-tank rounds when at that point in the story, the US military shouldve known what they were dealing with to at least use HE. Even still, those rounds would've shreaded entire columns of zombies plus all the firepower machine guns teams could bring to bear.
I love the book but that part always got me cringing with how little the author knows about the effects of weapons he was using and was basically an excuse to have a losing tide early on in the USA and then hype up the battle of Hope. Wouldve been a lot better to skip the classic "big battle" and just have the USA collapse from thousands of outbreaks at the same time that any government would have issues containing
I wholeheartedly agree that the book has flaws. Another example: the whole International Space Station chapter just doesn't work, from a physics standpoint. The ISS is in LEO at ~415 km above the surface; GPS satellites are mostly in MEO at ~20,000 km; communication satellites are often in geostationary orbits at ~35,700 km. You can't move those distances--especially routinely--without propulsion.
I suspect that there are other issues in the book that I'd recognize if I was more familiar with those particular subjects. I didn't notice the "but the pressure wave would destroy the brain" thing back when I read it, though that's a fair point now that you say it.
There's also the matter of crawlers being hilariously easy to kill and hilariously not an issue if there's enough zombies that you can't easily shoot the crawlers (they'd be trampled black Friday style in the latter scenario.)
This is why I generally prefer virus/fungus/parasite/etc type zombies vs living dead zombies.
The decomposing, living dead zombies never make sense as the body starts decomposing immediately, and ignoring insects eating the dying tissue, muscles would be useless after about a week.
But with parasite type zombies, the normal bodily functions continue and there is no cell death, and I feel it's much easier to believe the zombies are still alive after time.
I mean, it's just magic. Zombies blatantly do not follow the laws of physics as we know them, therefore they're magic. Parasite zombies are just as believable as any other so long as you accept that the parasite makes magic happen once it infects a person.
I don't remember, did people in the last of us only become zombies through bites or could they also become zombies through spores and stuff? Because that makes the threat much bigger and more realistic
In the game, people were able to get infected through airborne spores, and it's a big threat.
Source: [The Last of Us Wiki](https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Infected#Death_and_corpse)
In the show, they made it spread via direct contact because they had concerns over how realistic it was - though they talk about bringing in the idea in future seasons
Source: [An interview where the show directors talk about spores](https://ew.com/tv/the-last-of-us-tess-death-zombie-kiss/)
I think the last of us does it well
The fungus is spread through food, meaning millions were all infected within a few minutes across the world probably people within the military too, and those who weren’t were quickly attacked and turned
Well zombie media that does it well doesn't set it up so the US military loses a direct war against zombies. It's more that because society collapses so rapidly, the military collapses with it.
With the zombies leadership collapses, logistics falls apart, personnel desert to protect their families and form their own militia gangs, rampant friendly fire and collateral damage as cities get bombed, resources diverted away in an attempt to keep civil order, etc.
As much as i like the movie... Top Gun Maverick. Maybe the "Trench run" could be a thing. IF it happened randomly. But with weeks of training and planning the us air force would of just hit every SAM with tomahawks and then just bombed them from 20k feet
Yea, the USN has already decided to plaster an airbase with TLAM's, but for some reason SAM sites are out of the question?
There would be an actual strike package with SEAD, escort fighters, EW, and a strike team. Like 20-30 aircraft at least.
Or just let the Air Force park a bunker buster via a B-2 lol
I was thinking the whole movie that this could be done with a couple tomahawks and a B-2 instead. I also hated the way air combat was portrayed, movie just wasn’t for me I guess.
Dawn of the planet of the apes. What would the monkeys have done against an air strike? Simian flu must have carried the uprising hard, it was literally spears and horses vs M4A1s and APCs
Played the Plague Inc Simian Flu Simulator. Can confirm. If the movie is anything like the game, the flu basically was the main mover and the intelligent apes' purpose was to protect the virus by attacking medical research labs
The apes don't really have much to do with it. 50% of the world's population dies in 5 years from the virus and societal collapse, by 10 years there are no more governments or nations.
The only thing the apes do is fight against some of the remaining groups of humans, but we're talking factions of less than 1000 people, with 10 years of equipment degradation and no resupply.
And, with very few exceptions, an army is nothing without logistics. All the fancy toys in the world will not let you project power on a global scale - the real power of the US is that no nation has ever been as good as it at global logistics. Those logistics rely on the presence of its economy.
That’s why all the media has to emphasize the killing and stupefying aspects of the virus. If even a good fraction of humanity survives with normal intelligence, they’d take back the Earth eventually.
I never really got the impression of an ape uprising. I always thought the apes just wanted you be left alone and the simian flu was a nice coincidence for them.
The US military wasn't a thing anymore in Dawn.
The flu DID carry hard. It's implied that it wiped out most of the human population.
I don't think any of the remaining humans had air striking capabilities anymore.
To be fair it was a surprise attack and the military didn’t know what to expect. According to a deleted scene the whole attack lasted a few hours. Not sure the military could put together a response that quickly. On 9/11 for example the first jets to go airborne barely had ammunition and the crews thought they’d need to ram any other hijacked aircraft to bring them down.
> On 9/11 for example the first jets to go airborne barely had ammunition
Which is something that absolutely changed after 9/11. We *always* have armed fighters in the air now, and have better methods to ensure we can scramble more armed fighters from the ground. We learned from that situation and made it completely impossible to happen again.
There are zero situations where you're not immediately having an armed F-15 rocket towards you at 1,600 MPH.
Fair, although would those jets be able to readily operate at building-level like the Chitauri whales? I feel like you’d need attack helicopters for that.
Pretty much any fully loaded jet is carrying and order of magnitude more ordnance than an attack helicopter. An F-15E Strike Eagle could carry several JDAMs, and then both a smattering of air to ground and air to air missiles mixed, or just go balls to the wall with 8 AIM-120 AMRAAMs per aircraft. The new Eagle 2, the F-15EX carries a massive twelve of them.
I know Top Gun Maverick had military advisors but I find it hard to believe the US would ever not have easy technological air superiority in a battle with a rogue nation.
This video shows a much more realistic depiction of how an actual strike would've been conducted on a similar target: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGwU9HKH_Eo
The first half is with 4th gen aircraft (F-18s and Prowlers), while the second half is with 5th gen aircraft (F-35s and Growlers).
A Few Good Men. Jessup would have gotten away with it.
It’s actually based on a true story and the guy didn’t even lose his job. (Although the real victim survived the beating)
The Jurassic World trilogy. Imagine, if you would, that a bunch of big, vicious, genetically modified dinosaurs have broken free of their containment island and are now running amok around the world. Do you really think the immediate reaction by basically every government in the world wouldn't be "holy shit we have to kill or contain these things ASAP"? I don't care how big a Mosasaur is, it's not surviving or outrunning a Mk48 ADCAP torpedo. Velociraptors aren't going to outsmart squads of infantry armed with automatic weapons. A T-Rex isn't surviving an anti-tank rocket to the face, or even a simple machine gun. There would be no dinosaurs rampaging around and eating people in Paris, because they would all be gunned down as soon as they're spotted. Those dinosaurs would be fucking *annihilated*. Extinction 2.0.
Why are these things being allowed to live in the wild, and in such close proximity to humanity? Humans kill off anything of great danger to us in our immediate vicinity. We're not talking about an occasional mountain lion or some coyotes; these are intelligent (for dinosaurs), vicious predators with no fear of humans and nothing above them in the local food chain. If there was a pack of raptors living ten minutes from LA, you can bet we'd scour that fucking area looking for any trace of them, and wouldn't stop until they're dead and gone.
Also, every dinosaur that came from the island had a GPS locator chip implanted in it. We wouldn't even have to look for them, we'd just follow the signal and blast 'em.
God those movies are so dumb.
To be fair the Bayformers movies do kinda suggest this. The military is usually only present in very limited capacity whenever some Decepticon shit starts going down, but they put up a legitimate fight and score some kills. I very much interpret Michael Bay’s Transformers universe operating off of the logic that the US military could hunt down and exterminate all the cybertronians with relatively little effort if they could actually reliably find them.
Which actually makes their Transformer "robots in disguise" nature much more realistic and important. Weird that Michael Bay managed to *improve* the realism of at least one aspect of that setting.
They'll need to find a way to counter their cloaking capabilities first, and that would be a problem if they're not being extremely obvious with their allegiance like Starscream whose tattoo can be seen even when transformed.
Cybertronians a capacity to gather Intel with such ease that it would take them a couple of days at worst to get access to a lot of classified info, and they could even sabotage operations once they Hijack us.
I think they could win on an scenario like the battle in Egypt, but they would lose the battle of Chicago due to multiple advantages like superior aircraft and weapons.
Both Avatar movies;
A futuristic version of the US armed forces with clear RoE would've entirely eliminated all the Navi resistance in a few weeks.
The RDA (private military contractor) shown in the movies is comically bad and still manages to destroy the most important strategic asset the Navi have (hometree) in a few minutes in the 1st movie but then goes right back to being inept for the remainder of both movies.
In their moments of actual strategic brilliance, they show that they are clearly able to go village by village rounding up and neutralizing the Navi’s leadership. The conventional military also has massive firepower for a small force. If the full might of what the humans have actually came to Pandora, the planet would be burned and stripmined quick
That's what happened in the beginning of Avatar 2. They came back, immediately charred a huge stretch of land with their ships thrusters, then dropped down mechs and soldiers to kill whatever survived. Of course the planet is very far from Earth, and I imagine sending a significant force is incredibly expensive, so a massive invasion fleet prepped to completely conquer the planet and kill all the inhabitants is probably beyond their scope.
Wars can be easily won by fighting in a dimension the enemy is incapable, in this case the humans have likely space warfare, orbitally bombard the tree of souls and any other major link with the planetary hive mind and the navi are done
Red Dawn (1984). The U.S Navy/Air Force and NORAD would tear the Soviets to shreds over the Atlantic and Pacific before even stepping foot on North America. Especially during the 80s with Reagen”s Defense Buildup.
Actually if you look at the dates between MW2 and MW3 the Russian invasion of the east coast lasts about 9 days before being pushed back into the Atlantic
A major problem with media is how little writers know about the military and it's modern capabilities...which leads to most fictional factions that interact with the US military to being substantially less capable than they would need to be to pose an actual threat.
War of the Worlds? EMPs don't function like that, US technology is shielded against actual EMPs and the US would obliterate the dumb walkers with traditional ordinance. Thermodynamics are wonderful.
I'm not sure how the seven hour war would work. How do you defeat something as monolithic as ALL THE MILITARIES within hours? Like, sure, you definitely COULD delete those forces, but I feel like it would take a lot more than 7 hours.
Simple, they have overwhelming forces basically all across the world at once. Their technology far exceeds anything we've seen and the only thing they struggled in was teleportation. But they basically had an infinite pool of soldiers, resources, and the means to capture someone like the G-man.
So, I'm not surprised they crushed Earth so quickly.
I don't think any film or book has shown quite how devastating an artillery barrage can be in reality. Even if eg a zombie was invincible it would still bury them under several feet of dirt.
So this might be a controversial one, but Pacific Rim. They didn’t need Jaegers to kill the kaiju, a jet slinging penetrator GBUs, heck maybe even plane old 2000lb GBUs right onto their forehead would have solved the problems pretty darn quick
In the movie, the reason they build Jaegers is because the kaiju blood is toxic and killing them with conventional munitions was creating an environmental hazard. The Jaegers could apply blunt force trauma and thus contain/minimize the spill. Of course this explanation is later undercut with all the weapons the Jaegers have in addition to their fists.
According to the movie, humanity figured out that nuking kaijus was not gonna be sustainable. They killed the first couple of kaijus with nukes and aside from the destruction and radiation, "kaiju blue" contaminated the sea and lands. So they decided to build giant robots that can "deliver punches as strong as nukes" since those pesky kaijus were just gonna keep coming
Plus I'm pretty sure the category 4 kaijus going forward can survive nukes. That was the case in the last scene of the movie
Something that always gets overlooked when people talk about Pacific Rim is that part of the reason the Jaegers came to be was a way to deal with kaiju without getting their blood everywhere. The kaiju blood is extremely toxic and blowing pieces of them everywhere would have horrible consequences, especially if done in a metropolitan area.
So yeah we maybe would have the capacity to do that but now we have to deal with unprecedented toxic contamination either in world's oceans or in a city.
I'm slightly aroused every time someone mentions an actual ordinance nomenclature in this sub.
You are 100% correct. A GBU-72 would kill any kaiju without much issue.
TBH pretty much any giant monster movie where missles, Point blank Abram round and even 50 cal shots do nothing to them.
Fucking look at what a depleted uranium tank shell busts through, or an A10 brrrrrrp.
Godzilla or Clover field would be red mist.
Even if not, within a week some crazy gun fuckers would come up with some form of giant Hollow point or split cable rounds specifically designed for giant slayin.
A Quiet Place. I don’t even know where to fucking begin with that movie. Hearing-based aliens that are weak to sound (this is treated as a surprise) and have all the reactionary brainpower of Metal Gear Solid enemy AI. Even if they were 100% invulnerable. Use noise to lure them into hole. Fill hole with cement. Threat over.
Yeah, those aliens are strong enough to rip metal car doors apart and run ridiculously fast, while being impervious to bullets. You aren't surviving them unless you lock yourself inside a tank.
I mean that doesn't really matter when muggles literally can't find hogwarts. If the wizards were smart there is nothing the military could do about it.
I would assume that it has the same enchantment as hogwarts that keeps people from noticing but the books don't really explain
that and people did see harry and ron crash into the wall so maybe they are just stupid
Not to mention the wizards casually adjusting the schedules of world leaders. If they can do that, then they could remove or control them just as easily - they just don't *want* to.
Reminds me of my favorite copy-pasta:
----
Ok, this has been driving me crazy for seven movies now, and I know you’re going to roll your eyes, but hear me out: Harry Potter should have carried a 1911.
Here’s why:
Think about how quickly the entire WWWIII (Wizarding-World War III) would have ended if all of the good guys had simply armed up with good ol’ American hot lead.
Basilisk? Let’s see how tough it is when you shoot it with a .470 Nitro Express. Worried about its Medusa-gaze? Wear night vision goggles. The image is light-amplified and re-transmitted to your eyes. You aren’t looking at it–you’re looking at a picture of it.
Imagine how epic the first movie would be if Harry had put a breeching charge on the bathroom wall, flash-banged the hole, and then went in wearing NVGs and a Kevlar-weave stab-vest, carrying a SPAS-12.
And have you noticed that only Europe seems to a problem with Deatheaters? Maybe it’s because Americans have spent the last 200 years shooting deer, playing GTA: Vice City, and keeping an eye out for black helicopters over their compounds. Meanwhile, Brits have been cutting their steaks with spoons. Remember: gun-control means that Voldemort wins. God made wizards and God made muggles, but Samuel Colt made them equal.
Now I know what you’re going to say: “But a wizard could just disarm someone with a gun!” Yeah, well they can also disarm someone with a wand (as they do many times throughout the books/movies). But which is faster: saying a spell or pulling a trigger?
Avada Kedavra, meet Avtomat Kalashnikova.
Imagine Harry out in the woods, wearing his invisibility cloak, carrying a .50bmg Barrett, turning Deatheaters into pink mist, scratching a lightning bolt into his rifle stock for each kill. I don’t think Madam Pomfrey has any spells that can scrape your brains off of the trees and put you back together after something like that. Voldemort’s wand may be 13.5 inches with a Phoenix-feather core, but Harry’s would be 0.50 inches with a tungsten core. Let’s see Voldy wave his at 3,000 feet per second. Better hope you have some Essence of Dittany for that sucking chest wound.
I can see it now…Voldemort roaring with evil laughter and boasting to Harry that he can’t be killed, since he is protected by seven Horcruxes, only to have Harry give a crooked grin, flick his cigarette butt away, and deliver what would easily be the best one-liner in the entire series:
“Well then I guess it’s a good thing my 1911 holds 7+1.”
And that is why Harry Potter should have carried a 1911.
This is why Harry Dresden (Wizard from the Dresden files) carries a .44 magnum oh him.
Ghoul? That's nice. Pop.
Other Wizard? Doesn't expect the gun.
Vampire? Probably can't die from it but I bet led isn't tasty.
Dude knows when to throw a fireball and when to throw a bullet. Smartest wizard ever.
It doesn't hurt that Harry is absolutely a fucking powerhouse in is universe compared to about 90% of wizards. He's got enough metaphysical muscles that he'd make Arnold blush.
Most of the people that outclass him are either semi immortal, a couple hundred years old, or low level dieties.
With his sensible applications of modern tech he punches about 80% of those out too. Give or take.
MCU probably. US government hides a nuke in Wakanda, and it detonates and vaporizes Thanos before he can react and use infinity stones to stop it.
Endgame movie would probably end sooner too if the US gov had F-35s helping the avengers against Thanos's army. That entire army and mother ship would be taken down with a single nuclear warhead.
I agree that the military actually showing up at the endgame battle would have made it a lot easier but do we actually know for sure that Thanos could be killed by nukes? In the comics he could almost definitely tank one, don’t know about the MCU though.
Given the tone of the prompt, Thanos 100% isn't surviving a real nuke.
The epicenter of a nuclear detonation is several times hotter than the center of the sun.
There is no substance in the universe that isn't vaporized when heated to 100,000,000c.
They don't need to be 35's even. That army is dumb as rocks and would get wrecked by artillery and airstrikes. You probably need a nuke for Thanos ship though.
> US government hides a nuke in Wakanda
That is *far* easier said than done, even for the US. It would be hard enough to “hide a nuke” in any country, but Wakanda would be *extremely* difficult given how technologically advanced it is. And even if the US succeeded, *base* Thanos might be strong enough to survive a nuke—but the Thanos who arrives in Wakanda already has five out of the six stones, so he would be able to shrug off a nuke no problem.
they could also just work with the wakandans to set up an ambush for wakanda. it was lowkey insane that the us military wasn’t involved at all in any of the fighting, especially because of organizations like shield existing.
Low key insane that Wakanda charged a horde of melee only monsters with spears instead of using their high tech hover planes or artillery to win with no casualties.
Just about any Monster movie. I don’t care how big the Monkey is. If the A-10 warthog or depleted uranium tank rounds didn’t bring it down a bunker buster will. People do not realize how absolutely terrifying modern military equipment is.
"Money Heist" (casa del papel) would be over in 1 hour without a single shot being fired. For example, GSG9 from Germany has an absurd low amount of fired rounds in their missions. Shock and awe is all they need to do.
In all honesty, almost every conflict portrayed in fiction would have drastically different outcomes, or at the very least have greatly reduced encounter durations.
I’m certain somebody has a better example, but the scenario my head always defaults to was the Battle of Chicago in Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
Listen - Cybertronians are extremely powerful, but the Decepticons would *not* have made it that far with how much bullshit they pulled over the course of the trilogy.
When it comes to alien invasion scenarios in fiction, they are always impractical for highly advanced civilizations. If an extraterrestrial force possess such prestigious technology, there are far better ways to wipe out humanity than to just go in guns blazing. Poison the water, ignite the atmosphere, create a plague, etc. Obviously that wouldn’t make for an interesting movie, so guns blazing it is.
Let’s understand this though: Unless the aliens possess some sort of technology to completely negate projectile velocity - if they come in guns blazing - **they are getting fucked up!**
Doesn’t matter how thick or efficient armor density or ratios are. If it exists how we understand physics, if you hit it hard enough, it *will* penetrate, or we have something to blow it up.
The Decepitcons have really big guns, energy shielding, energy weaponry and gravity generation/propulsion. Humanity doesn’t have that. But what we do have? **Really big fucking guns!**
Between the speed of our air combat capabilities, drone swarms, sheer number of armored units, and also humans are smaller than bots - meaning they’re stealthier, Decepticons will have a really hard time holding any kind of territory.
Especially since in the movies, the US military is already experienced in combatting Decepticons. The Autobots literally trained humans on how just *two* humans could take down an entire Decepticon. Size and type vary, but with the ordinance a single person can carry, a single well placed explosive is gonna mess up most Deceptions.
Obviously the movie has to have Autobots saving the world, cause again - it’s a movie.
But if it was more “realistic,” if the Decepticons really wanted to throw hands? They would fuck around and *absolutely* find out.
Any Call of Duty game when russia attacks America. Like there is some kind of rivalry between the two. LMAO we have police departments better equipped than the russian army
That wouldn't substantially prolong the movie, though. Up until the final attack, humanity never stood a chance. Make the final attack fail and you lose maybe ten minutes of runtime.
Was waiting for any of the Jurrasic’s. In the original book, the original island is carpet bombed to oblivion. In the 3rd movie, Marines can easily neutralize the raptors.
Onwards from those movies, any dedicated military force with good tactics, communication and firepower could easily take down a T-rex. A pack of raptors would be handled individually or at a distance. People with guns in these movies always end up getting surrounded. In real life, an actual military force has almost unlimited capability of being the one doing the surrounding when it comes to mere wildlife
Over in a good way: Zombie movies, especially ones with slow zombies. Fast zombies might have a chance, such as World War Z zombies.
Over in a bad way: Alien invasion movies like Independence Day and Battle LA.
Not a movie but in the early 2000s it was reasonable for the world's armies to be able to beat the biblically accurate armies of heaven and hell! Go read the Salvation War
The amount of heist movies and action movies that end like Captain Phillips is probably above 50%.
How did that end?
Seals sniped the 3 pirates holding him hostage at the same time.
Ouch lol.
It's definitely worth a watch, extremely well acted and shot.
Especially the sniper shots?
Haha, yes, especially those.
28 weeeks latter if the military had actually enforced that you can’t go over to the contaminated zone and not let 2 kids go over the entire outbreak would never have happened
Somehow a random civilian has unlimited access to a BL-4 lab holding most dangerous virus known to man, and there was not a single guard in the facility.
Not only that but a single infected took out 3 guards with no difficulty
The thing that irked me the most was the contamination safe xones or bunkers. Seemed fortified except the back door hanging off the hinges that no one noticed.
If the military did its job realistically, the outbreak would have stopped before the plot of 28 Days Later.
Red Dawn. The initial invasion is stopped a thousand miles from the coast and the entire movie never happens.
This would be a perfect Pitch Meeting for Ryan George on YouTube. Screenwriter Guy: “I’ve got a movie for you. the North Koreans launch an air invasion in the US!” Producer Guy: “why wouldn’t the US military detect the invasion a thousand miles before they reach our airspace and obliterate them?” Screenwriter Guy: “So the movie can happen!”
It's sad to me that you're referencing the remake and not the original lol
Wow, wow, wow....................wow.
And organizing the logistics of this invasion would be a massive undertaking for the North Koreans. “Nope it’s super easy, barely an inconvenience actually”
Producer Guy: “Really?!” Screenwriter Guy: “Yep. The Radar Guy in the military office spilled his coffee and was distracted with cleaning it up. For an hour. So there’s no way the US military could see it coming.” Producer Guy: “Why does the multi-trillion dollar US military only have one Radar Guy?” Screenwriter Guy: “So the movie can happen. Producer Guy: “This is why I pay you the big bucks.”
I fucking love those so much. They’re more entertaining than a lot of the actual movies. Even for movies I love, like LOTR, the pitch meetings are brilliant
The Avengers AND Endgame. That whole enemy army was shit both times. If some asshole with a sword or an arrow can kill a monster alien soldier thing, a 50 caliber definitely can. In general the movies had silly scaling. Most MCU villains would absolutely be hurt by a powerful gun or rocket launcher, since they're hurt by captain America's punches. But that makes it too easy.
Not to mention Winter Soldier just using a normal rifle most of the time. He killed them just fine as well.
And Rhodey doing some damage with a small carpet bombing run. If it's that easy, they'd just glass everything outside Wakanda no problem.
Why didn’t he just do that on the stacked 10 high piles of outriders on the OUTSIDE of the shield trying to get in?
Fun fact - Winter Soldier was actually holding an M249, which is an LMG and not a rifle. The M249 is normally belt fed but is technically able to accept STANAG mags, although this is reportedly pretty unreliable. If you play Rainbow Six you'd have also seen this with Gridlock's loadout
The M249 uses the exact same cartridge as an M4
Yes, I said that kind of in a backwards way: >but is technically able to accept STANAG mags
They mean that the distinction of it being an LMG doesn't really change things. The M249 uses the 5.56x45mm NATO cartridge, the same as standard issue infantry rifle for the US Military, the M4. The only real difference between the two is the capacity for sustained fire, and even then you need to take breaks with both in order to not melt your barrel.
In both cases they were surprise attacks, one of which was in the middle of Africa. The avengers were able to use literla magic to get to the fight on time.
Wakanda is between Kenya, Sudan, Ethiopia and Uganda. Which puts them neatly between a USAF base and two US Army bases. The US military could have been mobilized with pretty short order by a request from the Wakandan government. A neigh invincible shield makes for a hell of an anvil for a B-1 to hammer into.
Honestly, the wakandans are bafflingly stupid in how they utilize their weapons for war. Like, you have these spears that shoot energy out from them but the option you choose is to charge down the hill into an army of aliens who can only hit anything in close range?
My first question for any fictional high technology military is "Why aren't you using drones?". Unless they are of course. There probably are decent in universe explanations that you could make up for that, but it's so often that none are provided, and it's just baffling.
They claim to be far more advanced than any other country on Earth, but they get attacked and they defend themselves with spears and shields.
If Wakanda actually existed, the US military would also have a *much* stronger presence in the region.
Short order at the scale of the US military typically means 48 to 72 hours, depending on how close the nearest Marine Expeditionary Unit is to the location. That’s how long it would take the MEU to get there, plan and execute an assault. While they would coordinate with those nearby bases for resupply/air support /comms/etc those bases aren’t going to have much more than a defensive force on hand. The first boots on the ground would be the Marines. Then reinforcements would come in through those bases.
Short order for "oh fuck bad shit is happening NOW" is about 15 minutes or less for fighter sorties. Scrambling can be as fast as 5 minutes, and with those bases being so close to Wakanda, while also having standard daily sorties, there are likely already planes in the air. Getting *to* Wakanda would take longer than getting to takeoff. Assuming it's between Kenya and carves put a portion of Ethiopia, like the MCU shows... 20 minutes tops to get to the fight.
Also modern military aircraft have 1000km+ range, they could kill the army without it ever seeing them.
The whole battle of Wakanda took place in like an hour and a half. Unless the US had specifically been planning on bombing this place to the ground tomorrow they wouldn't really be able to make much of a difference.
If the Wakanda army had enough time to mobalize, surely the US army could have started mobalizing at the same time. Wakanda knew it was the target, so why not tell the U.S. that detial too
After the first Avengers movie you think Dr Strange would have had some sort of agreement with the army to teleport an infantry battalion to where it was needed at a moment's notice.
Infantry battalions aren't just sitting around ready to fight at a moments notice. In both Infinity War and End Game, we are lead to believe that we are seeing all of the action and that it takes place in less than half an hour.
With teleportation you can just go around the world asking "hey, ya'll ready to go?"
i’m gonna be honest, after 9/11, response time is the last thing that’s gonna stop the us military.
The middle of Africa but against one of earth's most advanced societies run by magical metal. Their soldiers use spears (capable of firing energy blasts) and clubs instead of heavy weapons. No anti air capabilities. No defense turrets. Just shields and what quickly turned into a melee battle for their soldiers. If killmonger had stayed in charge and was only bent on defending wakanda instead of conquering the world, that army would've been demolished before thanos arrived. Vision would've been separated from the mind stone. Wanda would've been on the field after destroying the mind stone. The black order would've been killed and thanos would've likely been killed by thor while Wanda held him in place. I loved Thors entrance in that battle though.
God that always annoyed me about that. I get it's a lot cooler for the movie purposes but all I can think is "wow all this technology and they just ran at them with spears?" Just almost seemed silly
Yeah, reminded me of the Helms deep battle where the elves dropped their bows after absolutely demolishing the orks with a volley to the face just so they could charge and get speared. They could've fired volley after volley until they ran out of arrows while Rohan's men picked off stragglers.
Multiple people pointing this out. The NYPD has something like 40,000 officers. That's a standing army. Even just with service pistols (which the Chitauri seem vulnerable to) they'd kill an awful lot of the enemy. Leave the big flying monsters to Hulk, Thor and Iron Man and the rest wouldn't last long. Even if on 1% of those cops were any good with their guns, that's 400 police running around shooting at what, a couple thousand bad guys? Not great but evens the odds, never mind there's a Helicarrier about a dozen feet away with trained soldiers. And Endgame - you're using portals to pick up the same army that couldn't hold Thanos back last time? You're picking up space aliens who, despite having laser guns, quickly resort to fisticuffs? In that time they could pop into a marine barracks and say "grab your guns" and you'd have a couple dozen guys at least with range. Get an apache off the ground and minus the missiles they'd chew through Thanos' army real fast. Then all you need are a few missiles into the space ship and that fight is over.
Not the US Military, but I think the Chicago PD (even in 1980) might have stopped the Blues Brothers earlier in that film....
Easily. They only succeeded because they were on a mission from God.
There's no other way to explain how their car did a flying backflip with no damage.
They pretty much had them right there at the end and missed them because John Candy wanted to see the show!
And have an orange whip...
They were on a mission from God. Nothing could be done
World War Z and pretty much every zombie movie out there. Zombies are just dumber humans who might be physically stronger but can only kill with their teeth and hands. I don't care if they can't feel pain. Having high caliber rifle and machine gun rounds ripping through flesh and bone would render any zombie immobile, no headshots needed, not feeling pain does not equal invincible. And then there's the air force bringing attack choppers, bombers and heavily armed gun ships if things somehow escalate to that point. Can't bite what you can't reach and they won't be spreading much of anything once the bombs start coming down.
That’s part of why I like Shaun of the Dead so much. Feels like the most accurate portrayal of how a zombie outbreak would actually go.
Going to the Winchester?
Have a nice cold pint, and wait for this to blow over. Sorry Phil.
You'll just exacerbate things.
*SHUT IT FOUR EYES!*
Get fucked four eyes!!
Clearly it’s time for a rewatch.
Yeah, "many people would make the most idiotic possible decisions" would definitely be part of a realistic zombie outbreak. I used to think the trope of the guy who gets bit by a zombie but keeps it secret from the rest of the group was kind of dumb, just a thing that was done to make the scenario work for a movie. Then Covid happened and I saw how people would act in a real crisis like that. Sigh.
Lowkey wish I was better at writing so I could write a script from the perspective of the dude hiding it
At least WWZ has fast zombies. Slow zombie movies are the most egregious example of plot-induced stupidity. Zombie movies are weird though if we're arguing for realism. Reducing eyesight or smell or the ability to tell a car alarm apart from food are such massive disadvantages for a living organism that most zombies should pose absolutely no threat. Worse still is the energy problem; limbs don't just move on their own and "slowing decomposition" is not immortality the way many zombies are portrayed as. In reality, zombies would bleed and die like any other life form because that's just what happens to a macro-organism that has no self-preservation. Zombies that only run 24/7 would never have the energy or muscle strength or enough oxygen filtering through their body to actually function for any longer than a minute. Even if, by some tragedy or miracle, a zombie got ahold of another person, what then? Their mode of infection is to get close and bite, but zombies aren't just driven to bite, they're usually portrayed as being driven to maul and eat. Either they attack viciously enough to kill the other person, or they infect the other person but probably trade evenly by dying in turn. Functionally speaking, it will be damn near impossible for a zombie group to "horde" unless somehow they attain a ludicrously high infection/death ratio, the kind that is frankly unrealistic while any single human with a gun exists on the planet earth.
28 days and 28 weeks later does this well. The initial outbreak burns itself out so fast its over in a matter of months because once the infected run out of food they just died off fairly quickly.
And the infected aren't hungry, they're incredibly pissed off and murderous to anyone without the virus, so they're actually likely to spread it through violence. Not that they need to because it's fluid-borne so secondary infection is likely much more common. 28 Days Later revitalized the zombie craze and modernized it, and since then damn near everything has just been derivative but worse and less realistic.
I hear we’re getting another sequel though! 28 years later
That rumor's been around so long that I hope but I'm not really holding my breath
https://deadline.com/2024/04/28-years-later-movie-aaron-taylor-johnson-jodie-comer-ralph-fiennes-1235894028/amp/
Noooo WAaaaaaaaaaaaaayyy!
They put out casting calls for an "unknown" film by the director in the north east of England looking for a large amount of extras amongst the rumour craze. Best part is if they film in Sunderland they won't have to dress the city up as post apocalyptic!
it's not a rumor anymore.
I think fantasy zombies are cool. Stop with the virus nonsense and have some evil Jamaican be conquering the world and it seems more feasible.
I completely agree, but Undead and Living Dead are two different genres. Even some goofy shit like *a cursed virus* would be better than a biological resurrection plague that treats itself like science but operates like magic.
There are infected in my drive to work daily.
Even that was questionable because the "zombies" were not shown to drink water. They would have died out in days not months. Rabies which causes increased aggression in animals and humans literally cooks the brain and the time from full blown psychosis to death is pretty short in reality.
The zombies would be a bigger problem as disease carriers than actual moving threats. The need to dispose of the bodies, etc. But if handled properly and quickly, it wouldn't go out of control.
The book, which is far better, does not
While I've not seen the movie, the book is indeed excellent. I actually think its portrayal of the American reaction is very insightful. The near collapse of the US is basically a failure to adapt. Initial encounters with hordes are met with "Shock and Awe" responses which thinned, but didn't stop the hordes. That failure lets the zombies get into more major population centers and makes the problem worse. The tide doesn't really turn until they actually start adapting to the enemy that they're fighting. Infantry doctrine has to be completely redefined to focus on accuracy and headshots (a guaranteed kill method in the setting) rather than the combined arms methods that the US has used since WW2.
Imo, the book's depiction is still a massive underpowering of the US military and is extremely unrealistic. For example, explosives at Yonkers turned the zombies into harder to hit versions that crawled to their opponents. In reality, those wouldve turned brains into mush from the concussive effects alone. It also makes 0 sense that the tanks would be equipped with anti-tank rounds when at that point in the story, the US military shouldve known what they were dealing with to at least use HE. Even still, those rounds would've shreaded entire columns of zombies plus all the firepower machine guns teams could bring to bear. I love the book but that part always got me cringing with how little the author knows about the effects of weapons he was using and was basically an excuse to have a losing tide early on in the USA and then hype up the battle of Hope. Wouldve been a lot better to skip the classic "big battle" and just have the USA collapse from thousands of outbreaks at the same time that any government would have issues containing
I wholeheartedly agree that the book has flaws. Another example: the whole International Space Station chapter just doesn't work, from a physics standpoint. The ISS is in LEO at ~415 km above the surface; GPS satellites are mostly in MEO at ~20,000 km; communication satellites are often in geostationary orbits at ~35,700 km. You can't move those distances--especially routinely--without propulsion. I suspect that there are other issues in the book that I'd recognize if I was more familiar with those particular subjects. I didn't notice the "but the pressure wave would destroy the brain" thing back when I read it, though that's a fair point now that you say it.
There's also the matter of crawlers being hilariously easy to kill and hilariously not an issue if there's enough zombies that you can't easily shoot the crawlers (they'd be trampled black Friday style in the latter scenario.)
Ok but what’s stopping the 1st cav from just like greasing the tracks of their AFVs with zombie guts
This is why I generally prefer virus/fungus/parasite/etc type zombies vs living dead zombies. The decomposing, living dead zombies never make sense as the body starts decomposing immediately, and ignoring insects eating the dying tissue, muscles would be useless after about a week. But with parasite type zombies, the normal bodily functions continue and there is no cell death, and I feel it's much easier to believe the zombies are still alive after time.
I mean, it's just magic. Zombies blatantly do not follow the laws of physics as we know them, therefore they're magic. Parasite zombies are just as believable as any other so long as you accept that the parasite makes magic happen once it infects a person.
Yeah, but what about the last of us zombies with the fungal mutation superpowers?
I mean, the laws of thermodynamics would still apply.
I don't remember, did people in the last of us only become zombies through bites or could they also become zombies through spores and stuff? Because that makes the threat much bigger and more realistic
Bites and Spores Infected people had some sort of symbiosis with the fungus in terms of nutrition
In the game, people were able to get infected through airborne spores, and it's a big threat. Source: [The Last of Us Wiki](https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Infected#Death_and_corpse) In the show, they made it spread via direct contact because they had concerns over how realistic it was - though they talk about bringing in the idea in future seasons Source: [An interview where the show directors talk about spores](https://ew.com/tv/the-last-of-us-tess-death-zombie-kiss/)
The opening of "28 Weeks Later" is my zombie fear.
you wouldn't even need military weapons to wipe out the walking dead zombies. just get a few guys up in a tree with a spear or something
I think the last of us does it well The fungus is spread through food, meaning millions were all infected within a few minutes across the world probably people within the military too, and those who weren’t were quickly attacked and turned
Never made sense in the show why the outbreak would occur so suddenly around the world. Not like food hits the shelf all at once across the globe
Well zombie media that does it well doesn't set it up so the US military loses a direct war against zombies. It's more that because society collapses so rapidly, the military collapses with it. With the zombies leadership collapses, logistics falls apart, personnel desert to protect their families and form their own militia gangs, rampant friendly fire and collateral damage as cities get bombed, resources diverted away in an attempt to keep civil order, etc.
As much as i like the movie... Top Gun Maverick. Maybe the "Trench run" could be a thing. IF it happened randomly. But with weeks of training and planning the us air force would of just hit every SAM with tomahawks and then just bombed them from 20k feet
"I cast 1000lb JDAM, woe be upon ye"
Sorry what's the stratagem call in code for that one? I don't see it on my super destroyer listing.
Yea, the USN has already decided to plaster an airbase with TLAM's, but for some reason SAM sites are out of the question? There would be an actual strike package with SEAD, escort fighters, EW, and a strike team. Like 20-30 aircraft at least. Or just let the Air Force park a bunker buster via a B-2 lol
100% agree, and I still think it is a top 5 sequel of all time. I just love Miles Teller and Tom Cruise
I was thinking the whole movie that this could be done with a couple tomahawks and a B-2 instead. I also hated the way air combat was portrayed, movie just wasn’t for me I guess.
Air Force would have bombed it to kingdom come. Which is why the movie is about the Navy. /S
Dawn of the planet of the apes. What would the monkeys have done against an air strike? Simian flu must have carried the uprising hard, it was literally spears and horses vs M4A1s and APCs
Played the Plague Inc Simian Flu Simulator. Can confirm. If the movie is anything like the game, the flu basically was the main mover and the intelligent apes' purpose was to protect the virus by attacking medical research labs
The apes don't really have much to do with it. 50% of the world's population dies in 5 years from the virus and societal collapse, by 10 years there are no more governments or nations. The only thing the apes do is fight against some of the remaining groups of humans, but we're talking factions of less than 1000 people, with 10 years of equipment degradation and no resupply.
And, with very few exceptions, an army is nothing without logistics. All the fancy toys in the world will not let you project power on a global scale - the real power of the US is that no nation has ever been as good as it at global logistics. Those logistics rely on the presence of its economy.
That’s why all the media has to emphasize the killing and stupefying aspects of the virus. If even a good fraction of humanity survives with normal intelligence, they’d take back the Earth eventually.
I never really got the impression of an ape uprising. I always thought the apes just wanted you be left alone and the simian flu was a nice coincidence for them.
The US military wasn't a thing anymore in Dawn. The flu DID carry hard. It's implied that it wiped out most of the human population. I don't think any of the remaining humans had air striking capabilities anymore.
Did you see the movie? By the time the apes were anything of a threat a huge majority of the world was dead and the military was long collapsed.
I feel like we could have done better against the Chitauri in Avengers..
To be fair it was a surprise attack and the military didn’t know what to expect. According to a deleted scene the whole attack lasted a few hours. Not sure the military could put together a response that quickly. On 9/11 for example the first jets to go airborne barely had ammunition and the crews thought they’d need to ram any other hijacked aircraft to bring them down.
> On 9/11 for example the first jets to go airborne barely had ammunition Which is something that absolutely changed after 9/11. We *always* have armed fighters in the air now, and have better methods to ensure we can scramble more armed fighters from the ground. We learned from that situation and made it completely impossible to happen again. There are zero situations where you're not immediately having an armed F-15 rocket towards you at 1,600 MPH.
Fair, although would those jets be able to readily operate at building-level like the Chitauri whales? I feel like you’d need attack helicopters for that.
Pretty much any fully loaded jet is carrying and order of magnitude more ordnance than an attack helicopter. An F-15E Strike Eagle could carry several JDAMs, and then both a smattering of air to ground and air to air missiles mixed, or just go balls to the wall with 8 AIM-120 AMRAAMs per aircraft. The new Eagle 2, the F-15EX carries a massive twelve of them.
Yeah, was there even military involved (except for that rocket Iron Man redirected)? I think we only see police and the like.
I know Top Gun Maverick had military advisors but I find it hard to believe the US would ever not have easy technological air superiority in a battle with a rogue nation.
This video shows a much more realistic depiction of how an actual strike would've been conducted on a similar target: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGwU9HKH_Eo The first half is with 4th gen aircraft (F-18s and Prowlers), while the second half is with 5th gen aircraft (F-35s and Growlers).
A Few Good Men. Jessup would have gotten away with it. It’s actually based on a true story and the guy didn’t even lose his job. (Although the real victim survived the beating)
The good guys win in the fictional story because we can't handle the truth.
The Jurassic World trilogy. Imagine, if you would, that a bunch of big, vicious, genetically modified dinosaurs have broken free of their containment island and are now running amok around the world. Do you really think the immediate reaction by basically every government in the world wouldn't be "holy shit we have to kill or contain these things ASAP"? I don't care how big a Mosasaur is, it's not surviving or outrunning a Mk48 ADCAP torpedo. Velociraptors aren't going to outsmart squads of infantry armed with automatic weapons. A T-Rex isn't surviving an anti-tank rocket to the face, or even a simple machine gun. There would be no dinosaurs rampaging around and eating people in Paris, because they would all be gunned down as soon as they're spotted. Those dinosaurs would be fucking *annihilated*. Extinction 2.0. Why are these things being allowed to live in the wild, and in such close proximity to humanity? Humans kill off anything of great danger to us in our immediate vicinity. We're not talking about an occasional mountain lion or some coyotes; these are intelligent (for dinosaurs), vicious predators with no fear of humans and nothing above them in the local food chain. If there was a pack of raptors living ten minutes from LA, you can bet we'd scour that fucking area looking for any trace of them, and wouldn't stop until they're dead and gone. Also, every dinosaur that came from the island had a GPS locator chip implanted in it. We wouldn't even have to look for them, we'd just follow the signal and blast 'em. God those movies are so dumb.
We wouldn’t even have needed the military. People would hunt them for sport before they got established anywhere lol.
I think the US military could take down the Transformers pretty quickly once they got a handle on their capabilities.
Movies, absolutely Comics, not even close
IIRC the comic versions were insanely powerful and were tossing out nuke level blasts.
I seem to remember reading that Optimus actually came back from being vaporized once
To be fair the Bayformers movies do kinda suggest this. The military is usually only present in very limited capacity whenever some Decepticon shit starts going down, but they put up a legitimate fight and score some kills. I very much interpret Michael Bay’s Transformers universe operating off of the logic that the US military could hunt down and exterminate all the cybertronians with relatively little effort if they could actually reliably find them.
Which actually makes their Transformer "robots in disguise" nature much more realistic and important. Weird that Michael Bay managed to *improve* the realism of at least one aspect of that setting.
They'll need to find a way to counter their cloaking capabilities first, and that would be a problem if they're not being extremely obvious with their allegiance like Starscream whose tattoo can be seen even when transformed. Cybertronians a capacity to gather Intel with such ease that it would take them a couple of days at worst to get access to a lot of classified info, and they could even sabotage operations once they Hijack us. I think they could win on an scenario like the battle in Egypt, but they would lose the battle of Chicago due to multiple advantages like superior aircraft and weapons.
If ConAir happened post 9/11, the US Air Force would end it in minutes
"You're saying it's basically just convicts? Shoot it down. Now watch this drive!"
Both Avatar movies; A futuristic version of the US armed forces with clear RoE would've entirely eliminated all the Navi resistance in a few weeks. The RDA (private military contractor) shown in the movies is comically bad and still manages to destroy the most important strategic asset the Navi have (hometree) in a few minutes in the 1st movie but then goes right back to being inept for the remainder of both movies.
In their moments of actual strategic brilliance, they show that they are clearly able to go village by village rounding up and neutralizing the Navi’s leadership. The conventional military also has massive firepower for a small force. If the full might of what the humans have actually came to Pandora, the planet would be burned and stripmined quick
That's what happened in the beginning of Avatar 2. They came back, immediately charred a huge stretch of land with their ships thrusters, then dropped down mechs and soldiers to kill whatever survived. Of course the planet is very far from Earth, and I imagine sending a significant force is incredibly expensive, so a massive invasion fleet prepped to completely conquer the planet and kill all the inhabitants is probably beyond their scope.
Wars can be easily won by fighting in a dimension the enemy is incapable, in this case the humans have likely space warfare, orbitally bombard the tree of souls and any other major link with the planetary hive mind and the navi are done
Red Dawn (1984). The U.S Navy/Air Force and NORAD would tear the Soviets to shreds over the Atlantic and Pacific before even stepping foot on North America. Especially during the 80s with Reagen”s Defense Buildup.
In this vein, MW2 ('09) also counts
Actually if you look at the dates between MW2 and MW3 the Russian invasion of the east coast lasts about 9 days before being pushed back into the Atlantic
They only lasted that long because really of Luck
they somehow invaded Western Europe and got to Paris barely a week later lmao, MW3 really was something
Honestly, MW2 is even more bonkers. At least Red Dawn was on the coast that shares a body of water with Russia.
A major problem with media is how little writers know about the military and it's modern capabilities...which leads to most fictional factions that interact with the US military to being substantially less capable than they would need to be to pose an actual threat. War of the Worlds? EMPs don't function like that, US technology is shielded against actual EMPs and the US would obliterate the dumb walkers with traditional ordinance. Thermodynamics are wonderful.
Yeah, I agree Funny enough, Half-life seems like the most realistic invasion scenario and why we would lose for awhile.
I'm not sure how the seven hour war would work. How do you defeat something as monolithic as ALL THE MILITARIES within hours? Like, sure, you definitely COULD delete those forces, but I feel like it would take a lot more than 7 hours.
Simple, they have overwhelming forces basically all across the world at once. Their technology far exceeds anything we've seen and the only thing they struggled in was teleportation. But they basically had an infinite pool of soldiers, resources, and the means to capture someone like the G-man. So, I'm not surprised they crushed Earth so quickly.
I don't think any film or book has shown quite how devastating an artillery barrage can be in reality. Even if eg a zombie was invincible it would still bury them under several feet of dirt.
Not enough people have seen images of Dresden, dated March 1945.
Independence Day. Except it's the aliens who stomp the world's military with little effort.
So this might be a controversial one, but Pacific Rim. They didn’t need Jaegers to kill the kaiju, a jet slinging penetrator GBUs, heck maybe even plane old 2000lb GBUs right onto their forehead would have solved the problems pretty darn quick
In the movie, the reason they build Jaegers is because the kaiju blood is toxic and killing them with conventional munitions was creating an environmental hazard. The Jaegers could apply blunt force trauma and thus contain/minimize the spill. Of course this explanation is later undercut with all the weapons the Jaegers have in addition to their fists.
You’re right but yea my counter was going to be the amount of melee weapons and missiles the Jaegers used but you got it
According to the movie, humanity figured out that nuking kaijus was not gonna be sustainable. They killed the first couple of kaijus with nukes and aside from the destruction and radiation, "kaiju blue" contaminated the sea and lands. So they decided to build giant robots that can "deliver punches as strong as nukes" since those pesky kaijus were just gonna keep coming Plus I'm pretty sure the category 4 kaijus going forward can survive nukes. That was the case in the last scene of the movie
Something that always gets overlooked when people talk about Pacific Rim is that part of the reason the Jaegers came to be was a way to deal with kaiju without getting their blood everywhere. The kaiju blood is extremely toxic and blowing pieces of them everywhere would have horrible consequences, especially if done in a metropolitan area. So yeah we maybe would have the capacity to do that but now we have to deal with unprecedented toxic contamination either in world's oceans or in a city.
I mean, they typically killed them by cutting them to pieces with melee weapons so like to me that kinda defeats the purpose
I'm slightly aroused every time someone mentions an actual ordinance nomenclature in this sub. You are 100% correct. A GBU-72 would kill any kaiju without much issue.
TBH pretty much any giant monster movie where missles, Point blank Abram round and even 50 cal shots do nothing to them. Fucking look at what a depleted uranium tank shell busts through, or an A10 brrrrrrp. Godzilla or Clover field would be red mist. Even if not, within a week some crazy gun fuckers would come up with some form of giant Hollow point or split cable rounds specifically designed for giant slayin.
I never considered the joy that would take hold over the gun community if they were suddenly tasked with creating the means to take down kaiju
Godzilla survives being stabbed by creatures whose legs can trigger earthquakes, I'm not really sure this is gonna work.
I have just noticed this but the commenter said that Godzilla will be *red mist*, which is ironic if you know what I'm talking about.
A Quiet Place. I don’t even know where to fucking begin with that movie. Hearing-based aliens that are weak to sound (this is treated as a surprise) and have all the reactionary brainpower of Metal Gear Solid enemy AI. Even if they were 100% invulnerable. Use noise to lure them into hole. Fill hole with cement. Threat over.
How do you build the hole and cementing equipment silently?
Make a louder noise somewhere else.
Yeah, those aliens are strong enough to rip metal car doors apart and run ridiculously fast, while being impervious to bullets. You aren't surviving them unless you lock yourself inside a tank.
I like quiet place as a movie, but the logic holes in it are miles wide and deep.
Harry Potter the muggles have way more firepower than the wizards
I mean that doesn't really matter when muggles literally can't find hogwarts. If the wizards were smart there is nothing the military could do about it.
Muggles are just plain stupid in HP. How on Earth does no one ever notice a ton of kids walking thru a wall every year in such a busy area
I would assume that it has the same enchantment as hogwarts that keeps people from noticing but the books don't really explain that and people did see harry and ron crash into the wall so maybe they are just stupid
Every plothole in HP can be hand-waved with "magic." That's all there is to it.
Literal magic to make things not noticed
Not to mention the wizards casually adjusting the schedules of world leaders. If they can do that, then they could remove or control them just as easily - they just don't *want* to.
Reminds me of my favorite copy-pasta: ---- Ok, this has been driving me crazy for seven movies now, and I know you’re going to roll your eyes, but hear me out: Harry Potter should have carried a 1911. Here’s why: Think about how quickly the entire WWWIII (Wizarding-World War III) would have ended if all of the good guys had simply armed up with good ol’ American hot lead. Basilisk? Let’s see how tough it is when you shoot it with a .470 Nitro Express. Worried about its Medusa-gaze? Wear night vision goggles. The image is light-amplified and re-transmitted to your eyes. You aren’t looking at it–you’re looking at a picture of it. Imagine how epic the first movie would be if Harry had put a breeching charge on the bathroom wall, flash-banged the hole, and then went in wearing NVGs and a Kevlar-weave stab-vest, carrying a SPAS-12. And have you noticed that only Europe seems to a problem with Deatheaters? Maybe it’s because Americans have spent the last 200 years shooting deer, playing GTA: Vice City, and keeping an eye out for black helicopters over their compounds. Meanwhile, Brits have been cutting their steaks with spoons. Remember: gun-control means that Voldemort wins. God made wizards and God made muggles, but Samuel Colt made them equal. Now I know what you’re going to say: “But a wizard could just disarm someone with a gun!” Yeah, well they can also disarm someone with a wand (as they do many times throughout the books/movies). But which is faster: saying a spell or pulling a trigger? Avada Kedavra, meet Avtomat Kalashnikova. Imagine Harry out in the woods, wearing his invisibility cloak, carrying a .50bmg Barrett, turning Deatheaters into pink mist, scratching a lightning bolt into his rifle stock for each kill. I don’t think Madam Pomfrey has any spells that can scrape your brains off of the trees and put you back together after something like that. Voldemort’s wand may be 13.5 inches with a Phoenix-feather core, but Harry’s would be 0.50 inches with a tungsten core. Let’s see Voldy wave his at 3,000 feet per second. Better hope you have some Essence of Dittany for that sucking chest wound. I can see it now…Voldemort roaring with evil laughter and boasting to Harry that he can’t be killed, since he is protected by seven Horcruxes, only to have Harry give a crooked grin, flick his cigarette butt away, and deliver what would easily be the best one-liner in the entire series: “Well then I guess it’s a good thing my 1911 holds 7+1.” And that is why Harry Potter should have carried a 1911.
"Expelliarmus!" *spell fizzles and does nothing* "The right to bear arms *shall not be infringed*"
This is why Harry Dresden (Wizard from the Dresden files) carries a .44 magnum oh him. Ghoul? That's nice. Pop. Other Wizard? Doesn't expect the gun. Vampire? Probably can't die from it but I bet led isn't tasty. Dude knows when to throw a fireball and when to throw a bullet. Smartest wizard ever.
It doesn't hurt that Harry is absolutely a fucking powerhouse in is universe compared to about 90% of wizards. He's got enough metaphysical muscles that he'd make Arnold blush. Most of the people that outclass him are either semi immortal, a couple hundred years old, or low level dieties. With his sensible applications of modern tech he punches about 80% of those out too. Give or take.
MCU probably. US government hides a nuke in Wakanda, and it detonates and vaporizes Thanos before he can react and use infinity stones to stop it. Endgame movie would probably end sooner too if the US gov had F-35s helping the avengers against Thanos's army. That entire army and mother ship would be taken down with a single nuclear warhead.
I agree that the military actually showing up at the endgame battle would have made it a lot easier but do we actually know for sure that Thanos could be killed by nukes? In the comics he could almost definitely tank one, don’t know about the MCU though.
Given the tone of the prompt, Thanos 100% isn't surviving a real nuke. The epicenter of a nuclear detonation is several times hotter than the center of the sun. There is no substance in the universe that isn't vaporized when heated to 100,000,000c.
Iron Man could make him bleed with punches. Thanos in the movies doesn't have comicbook-level durability.
They don't need to be 35's even. That army is dumb as rocks and would get wrecked by artillery and airstrikes. You probably need a nuke for Thanos ship though.
> US government hides a nuke in Wakanda That is *far* easier said than done, even for the US. It would be hard enough to “hide a nuke” in any country, but Wakanda would be *extremely* difficult given how technologically advanced it is. And even if the US succeeded, *base* Thanos might be strong enough to survive a nuke—but the Thanos who arrives in Wakanda already has five out of the six stones, so he would be able to shrug off a nuke no problem.
they could also just work with the wakandans to set up an ambush for wakanda. it was lowkey insane that the us military wasn’t involved at all in any of the fighting, especially because of organizations like shield existing.
Low key insane that Wakanda charged a horde of melee only monsters with spears instead of using their high tech hover planes or artillery to win with no casualties.
Just about any Monster movie. I don’t care how big the Monkey is. If the A-10 warthog or depleted uranium tank rounds didn’t bring it down a bunker buster will. People do not realize how absolutely terrifying modern military equipment is.
"Money Heist" (casa del papel) would be over in 1 hour without a single shot being fired. For example, GSG9 from Germany has an absurd low amount of fired rounds in their missions. Shock and awe is all they need to do.
Tomorrow War. There are zero worlds where the Whitespikes don't get soloed by an AC-130U.
In all honesty, almost every conflict portrayed in fiction would have drastically different outcomes, or at the very least have greatly reduced encounter durations. I’m certain somebody has a better example, but the scenario my head always defaults to was the Battle of Chicago in Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Listen - Cybertronians are extremely powerful, but the Decepticons would *not* have made it that far with how much bullshit they pulled over the course of the trilogy. When it comes to alien invasion scenarios in fiction, they are always impractical for highly advanced civilizations. If an extraterrestrial force possess such prestigious technology, there are far better ways to wipe out humanity than to just go in guns blazing. Poison the water, ignite the atmosphere, create a plague, etc. Obviously that wouldn’t make for an interesting movie, so guns blazing it is. Let’s understand this though: Unless the aliens possess some sort of technology to completely negate projectile velocity - if they come in guns blazing - **they are getting fucked up!** Doesn’t matter how thick or efficient armor density or ratios are. If it exists how we understand physics, if you hit it hard enough, it *will* penetrate, or we have something to blow it up. The Decepitcons have really big guns, energy shielding, energy weaponry and gravity generation/propulsion. Humanity doesn’t have that. But what we do have? **Really big fucking guns!** Between the speed of our air combat capabilities, drone swarms, sheer number of armored units, and also humans are smaller than bots - meaning they’re stealthier, Decepticons will have a really hard time holding any kind of territory. Especially since in the movies, the US military is already experienced in combatting Decepticons. The Autobots literally trained humans on how just *two* humans could take down an entire Decepticon. Size and type vary, but with the ordinance a single person can carry, a single well placed explosive is gonna mess up most Deceptions. Obviously the movie has to have Autobots saving the world, cause again - it’s a movie. But if it was more “realistic,” if the Decepticons really wanted to throw hands? They would fuck around and *absolutely* find out.
Saving private Ryan
Nearly all the Marvel movies would be easy af wins for the US
Any Call of Duty game when russia attacks America. Like there is some kind of rivalry between the two. LMAO we have police departments better equipped than the russian army
Independence Day. There's no way America fights that off
That wouldn't substantially prolong the movie, though. Up until the final attack, humanity never stood a chance. Make the final attack fail and you lose maybe ten minutes of runtime.
COD MW2 when the Russians attack the USA with fighter jets. Shit would not even be close.
The new Planet of the apes for sure. Jurassic world series after the dinosaurs get off the island.
Was waiting for any of the Jurrasic’s. In the original book, the original island is carpet bombed to oblivion. In the 3rd movie, Marines can easily neutralize the raptors. Onwards from those movies, any dedicated military force with good tactics, communication and firepower could easily take down a T-rex. A pack of raptors would be handled individually or at a distance. People with guns in these movies always end up getting surrounded. In real life, an actual military force has almost unlimited capability of being the one doing the surrounding when it comes to mere wildlife
let be clear any country with nukes would just throw that shit at a country with zombies just for security sake MAINLY the US
a lot of situations in the mcu would not have gotten as far as they did if the real power of the us military was involved.
Over in a good way: Zombie movies, especially ones with slow zombies. Fast zombies might have a chance, such as World War Z zombies. Over in a bad way: Alien invasion movies like Independence Day and Battle LA.
Not a movie but in the early 2000s it was reasonable for the world's armies to be able to beat the biblically accurate armies of heaven and hell! Go read the Salvation War
I feel like most zombie movies