History Main / RockBeatsLaser

** In the climax of '' Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker'', the Final Order is about to employ electronic countermeasures against Resistance forces landing on a Star Destroyer hull. Then the Resistance fighters ride out of their dropship ''on horseback''.

** [[Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger Dutch]] used this trope in the climax of the [[Film/{{Predator}} first movie]] making traps out of sticks and stones and covering himself in mud to mask his heat signature. But it doesn't actually work. Despite exploiting the predator's heat vision to his advantage, Arnold's low-tech approach fails to beat the alien. It's only when the latter decides to "even things out" by removing its multipurpose helmet and shoulder gun that Arnold manages to beat it. And even then it's more due to dumb luck more than anything. In the expanded ''Predator'' material, the Predators are shown to particularly enjoy hunting humans because of our ability to make rocks beat lasers. Being intelligent, wily, and resourceful makes us the second-ultimate prey. The expanded universe goes on to reveal that Predators themselves gain more honor from [[WillfullyWeak hunting things using only low-tech weapons]]: any hunter can laser someone with a rock from a kilometre away, but using a rock to beat someone with a laser takes true skill. In the 2010 ''Franchise/AlienVsPredator'' game, you gain bonus points for completing a level using only your wrist blades.

* In ''ComicBook/GoldDigger'', Madrid finds herself in a fight against herself from six years in the future (to protect herself from ''sixteen'' years in the future), but any weapon she pulls out or cobbles together gets just as hastily ''dis''assembled by "Plus Six's" HardLight tools. Present Madrid puts together one last weapon, which turns out to be a spring-loaded rock with enough components to give off a high-energy signature to get Plus Six to take it apart, which launches the rock right into her face.

* ''ComicBook/{{Hawkeye}}'': Two issues of ''ComicBook/Hawkeye2012'' revolved around Clint trying to recapture a videotape of him murdering someone. [[Characters/MarvelComicsSteveRogers Captain America]] notes that criminal organisations are using more and more analogue technology since digital information is much more easily traceable.
* In ''ComicBook/FantasticFourTheEnd'', the solar system is surrounded by a high-tech energy barrier meant to prevent any communication or travel between the solar system and the rest of the universe while it's completing its trial period before joining the Galactic community. The Mad Thinker, part of a group of super-villains seeking to work with outside agents to bring the barrier down, outwits the barrier by the simple method of using Morse Code and what amounts to a flash light since the barrier didn't block normal light from passing through.

* Two issues of ''ComicBook/{{Hawkeye}}'' revolved around Clint trying to recapture a videotape of him murdering someone. [[Characters/MarvelComicsSteveRogers Captain America]] notes that criminal organisations are using more and more analogue technology since digital information is much more easily traceable.
* In ''ComicBook/FantasticFour: The End'', the solar system is surrounded by a high-tech energy barrier meant to prevent any communication or travel between the solar system and the rest of the universe while it's completing its trial period before joining the Galactic community. The Mad Thinker, part of a group of super-villains seeking to work with outside agents to bring the barrier down, outwits the barrier by the simple method of using Morse Code and what amounts to a flash light since the barrier didn't block normal light from passing through.

* Explicitly argued against in ''WebOriginal/OrionsArm'', where [[https://web.archive.org/web/20160407061653/http://old.orionsarm.com/intro/pluckybaseline.html the "Plucky Baseline"]] is specifically declared impossible. A higher sophont is fundamentally unbeatable by a lower one barring the aid of an equal.

* ZigZaggingTrope in ''WesternAnimation/TheAvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes'':

* ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}: WesternAnimation/BeastWars'':
** In "Go with the Flow", Oona, the little protohuman girl, successfully took down Waspinator with a stick thanks to Cheetor's advice: "When you're battling 'bots, hack at the hinges." Really, Waspinator may have been the series' ButtMonkey, but he's still an alien war machine.
** Also, in the series finale "Nemesis", the primitive humans held off Inferno, a flamethrower wielding war machine, and Quickstrike, a poison wielding war machine, with, well, sticks. The two did eventually get their act together, though, mostly because they weren't expecting the assault. They were inspired by Dinobot, who took down Megatron with a stone hammer in "Code of Hero". Although, again, Dinobot is an alien war machine. Subverted moments earlier, when Dinobot attacks Megatron with a stick (no rock yet) and is brutally smacked aside and mocked for thinking it would work.
** In "Bad Spark", [[ImplacableMan Rampage's]] introductory episode, he proved to be unstoppable by conventional weapons. They could only halt his progress by having Silverbolt bury him in a rock slide.

* In an almost literal example, ''Manga/SoulHunter'' has Bukichi (a man with Sennin Bone Structure but no Sendo training or Paopei) destroying the all-suctioning Paopei Kongen Kinto by throwing a large rock at it: because the rock was too big to fit through the vase Paopei's mouth, Kongen Kinto overheated and broke into pieces. (In context, despite looking like magic the Paopei are result of alien technology).

* This occasionally happens on ''Series/{{Leverage}}'' against high-tech security systems. In "The Last Dam Job" this happens twice. As their antagonist has recognized them and knows them enough to predict what they will, do they are forced to be somewhat creative. [[spoiler:Hardison and Eliot use Mussels (an invasive species) to shut down a dam instead of a more complicated computer intrusion. Later, Hardison and Chaos plan to give Archie and Parker a bunch of high-tech doodads to break into a vault. Archie thanks them, but notes that all they need is flour, milk, eggs, and sugar. With the only advanced tech involved being Archie's tazer cane and a bomb, it works perfectly.]]

** The Fremen. Desert-dwelling nomads with handmade gear, beat TheEmpire's most badass, ruthless, and well-armed soldiers, the [[DoomTroops Sardaukar]], with knives, [[{{Sandworm}} sandworms]], and, er, one teensy little atomic bomb (but this was used only to remove a geographic obstacle to worm-travel, not on the enemy). This deserves some clarification, because while it is an example, it's not as bad as it looks outside of context. Melee combat with bladed weapons in the Dune universe is actually the norm, because of [[DeflectorShields shielding]] technology that renders projectile weaponry nearly useless. Although the Fremen lack such shielding technology, so it still counts. 1984's [[Film/Dune1984 David Lynch movie adaptation]] kind of ruins this by actually giving the Fremen ''more'' advanced weapons than the Saudarkar, in the form of [[MakeMeWannaShout voice-amplifying sonic guns]].

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[[quoteright:350:[[Film/ReturnOfTheJedi https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/victoryonendor.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:"[[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Good ol' Rock, nothing beats that!]]"]]

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** In one episode, the combined energy blasts of Mojo Jojo, Princess, and [=HIM=] only manage to hold off the girls... until Fuzzy Lumpkins drops a rock, and defeats them.
** In "Beat Your Greens", when a race of advanced vegetable aliens try to invade the planet, the Powerpuff Girls and the kids of Townsville fend them off by literally ''eating them''.

** In another episode, when a race of advanced vegetable aliens try to invade the planet, the Powerpuff Girls and the kids of Townsville fend them off by literally ''eating them''.

* In ''WebAnimation/DeathBattle: [[Franchise/MetalGear Solid Snake]] vs. [[VideoGame/SplinterCell Sam Fisher]]'', this comes up. [[spoiler:Sam's usual loadout includes a modular SC-20K assault rifle, a Five-Seven pistol, and a slew of other hi-tech gadgets including EMP grenades and his iconic NightVisionGoggles. Snake prefers to travel light on missions and only has an M1911 Operator, a stun-knife and a few other innocuous items. Snake is no match for Sam in a direct firefight, but Snake is able to gradually pull the technological rug out from under Sam using his [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} famously unorthodox tactics]]. And when it all comes down to a KnifeFight at the end, Snake kills Sam quite easily.]]

* ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds'', be it the book, radio broadcast, or film:

** The [[AuthorityEqualsAsskicking Ga'r King]] can easily take on the Raad and their combat vehicles with just a [[DropTheHammer huge battlehammer]] and by throwing very painful chunks of ice at them. He's also defensively capable of tanking their laser and plasma attacks and healing from them via eating a huge chunk of meat.

* ''ComicBook/{{Daredevil}}'', having failed to defeat ComicBook/{{Ultron}} by [[http://the-isb.blogspot.com/2006/05/badass-panels-volume-seven-daredevil.html crashing a truck into him]], knocks the robot's head off with a stick. And not one of those he always uses. An ''ordinary wooden stick''. Then again you need to consider that the only reason he could do that was because [[WorfHadTheFlu Ultron 13 was an amalgamation of contradicting personalities and conveniently/literally tore himself apart]]...
* Justified in ''[[Franchise/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica JLA: Year One]]'' with Franchise/TheFlash. Snapper Carr complains that the League having a library in their base is pointless, since they also have a computer and can use it to do research much faster. But no Internet connection in the world can move faster than Flash, who has a book open to the appropriate page before Snapper even finishes typing. And could probably even run to any library in the world and back in the time it takes Google to load. This was based on RealLife accounts of the series' [[Creator/MarkWaid writer]] answering comic trivia faster than the Internet.

* In ''Franchise/WonderWoman: ComicBook/AmazonsAttack'', the Amazons repeatedly take down tanks and jet fighters using bows and arrows.[[note]]Though considering DC's Amazons, it's a fair idea to think magic was involved.[[/note]]

* Two issues of ''ComicBook/{{Hawkeye}}'' revolved around Clint trying to recapture a videotape of him murdering someone. Comicbook/CaptainAmerica notes that criminal organisations are using more and more analogue technology since digital information is much more easily traceable.

* When ''ComicBook/CindyAndBiscuit'' were abducted by an alien scientist, it ended with Biscuit sending his spaceship haywire by urinating on an important control panel, and Cindy beating him with an iron bar until he agreed to take her home.

* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'':

** ''ComicBook/StrangersAtTheHeartsCore'': Variant. ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} cannot open her Kryptonian parents' house's door using her laser-key, so she uses a hairpin to click the futuristic lock open, something the locksmith could have never counted on.

** {{Subverted|Trope}} between Alpha Quadrant ships and what the ''Babylon 5'' factions have, as a number of various technical advances give the Alpha Quadrant ships firepower comparable or superior to the Minbari ones and shields strong enough to resist it while much smaller;

** Partially {{subverted|Trope}} by the Windsword assault tank, that is explicitly better armed and armoured than anything in the Earthforce arsenal in spite of being just a ''FlawedPrototype'' rushed into production (the final product would be much superior). This comes from another instance of the trope being played straight: over two centuries earlier, Minbari analysts warned that their ground equipment was outmatched by what the Centauri and Orieni had for the same reasons it's outmatched by Earthforce equipment but were ignored until the Windsword clan, to shut them up, decided to verify and [[OhCrap saw they were right]], at which point they started a development program for a new tank with improved protection and a better and turreted main gun, with the assault tank having been literally cobbled together from the still incomplete new technologies at the start of the war to have something not completely outmatched by Earthforce vehicles;
** {{Subverted|Trope}} by the Alpha Quadrant ground forces: they're not seen in action, but the narration points out their equipment was designed well with superior technology than either the Minbari or Earth Alliance, with their artillery having various kinds of cheap but extremely effective munitions, Klingon tanks having coil guns and being {{Hover Tank}}s, and Federation hover tanks having phaser cannons and DeflectorShields. Also partially played straight, as the kinds of munitions available to Alpha Quadrant artillery include "the primitive but capable high explosive-fragmentation shells" (first fielded in ''1887'' in RealLife).

*** Also {{Subverted|Trope}}: [=BiLPro=] weapons aside, the Attarn are a technologically advanced race, whose ships are equipped with indigenously-developed ArtificialGravity (something Earth and Narn got only at the end of the Earth Civil War, and even then with technological help from the Interstellar Alliance and, for Earth, decades of study of alien technologies), armour comparable to the ludicrously-armoured Earthforce ships and sensors extremely superior to what the Grome and Hurr had, meaning their ships could survive more punishment than their opponents, hit them at longer ranges and ''sneak over six hundred fighters and attack bombers in the middle of the Grome fleet assembled over their homeworld'' (the opening strike of the war).

** Even more jarring, in many fps games, e.g., [[VideoGame/GoldenEyeWii GoldenEye on Wii]], meleeing someone with the butt of an assault rifle is more deadly than shooting someone with a bullet from [[ArbitraryGunPower said rifle]]. It will take just one or two melee hits, but many [=AK47=] shots to kill someone.[[note]]Unless you [[BoomHeadshot aim for the head]], in which case it takes two or three bullets.[[/note]] This is mostly just to get the player out of tight spots, as actively trying to rush and melee will get you killed pretty quickly.

* ''VideoGame/StarCraft'':

* Spoofed in ''Webcomic/AntiHeroForHire'': Canada managed to conquer the northern half of the United States using dinosaurs. Yes, dinosaurs. The American hi-tech missile shields, prepared to stop [=WMDs=], were never programmed with anti-dinosaur measures. It was called "The Unexpected War".

* Explicitly argued against in ''WebOriginal/OrionsArm'', where [[http://old.orionsarm.com/intro/pluckybaseline.html the "Plucky Baseline"]] is specifically declared impossible. A higher sophont is fundamentally unbeatable by a lower one barring the aid of an equal.

* In ''WesternAnimation/AvengersAssemble'', Hawkeye literally defeats two Doombots with rocks by flipping two pebbles into their knee joints, completely paralyzing them. Why a super genius like ComicBook/DoctorDoom would overlook such an obvious design flaw is anyone's guess.

** In the same series, Wakandan technology is superior to pretty much everything, thanks to their strongly implied usage of {{Magitek}} and the fact that the spears and arrows are outfitted with heads made of Vibranium (the ultimate {{Unobtainium}} of the Franchise/MarvelUniverse -- to put this into perspective, the Adamantium used on ComicBook/{{Wolverine}} is Vibranium's ''second-rate, inferior copy'').

* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'':

** Then there's Shamgar in Judges 3:31: "After Ehud came Shamgar son of Anath, who struck down six hundred Philistines with an ox-goad."

* Discussed in the ''Series/DoctorWho'' fic “[[https://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=8044 Fear and Freedom]]”, when the Sixth Doctor and Susan are locked in a prison camp during a period of civil upheaval in mid-twenty-first century America. The Doctor notes that escape from low-tech prisons such as this one is actually more difficult than escaping from a more high-tech one, as there are no computers or sensors to fool but just iron bars and angry guards, so their best bet is to wait for the First Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Evelyn to sort out the situation from the outside.

* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZelda'' fic ''Zelda and the Manacle of Cahla'', one of the types of enemies Zelda fights is MechaMooks with built in {{Magitek}} weapons called Automatons. Wielding only [[BowAndSwordInAccord a sword, bow and arrows]], a whip and some magic spells from the titular manacle, she clears through literal hoards of them.

* Tarzan brings down a helicopter with a single well-aimed rock in the 2013 ''WesternAnimation/{{Tarzan|2013}}'' 3D movie.
* Zigzagged in the second ''WesternAnimation/UltimateAvengers'' movie. Wakanda's weapons technology is surprisingly effective, but this is solely because they are forged of Vibranium and their few gun-based weapons are powered/controlled from a downed Chitauri ship. When the ship is destroyed, and they have to rely on their medieval-grade tech, they really don't do so well, for all that their weapons are capable of piercing Chitauri armor.

** {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in the [[Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse EU]]:

* Although not from the SciFi genre, in ''Literature/ElConquistador'' the Aztec warriors easily overpower the Spanish men, although they were one of the most sophisticated, clever and successful armies over all Europe at that time. This is because the Aztecs use their obsidian "Macanas" [[note]]They were actually pretty fearsome weapons ''very'' capable of cut through steel[[/note]] and high-training at the calmécac to cut over the Spanish steel swords and armors.
* Genre SF's TropeCodifier: ''Literature/TheHighCrusade'' by Creator/PoulAnderson (1960). Many later instances contain {{Shout Out}}s to this one.
** A Medieval English army, fully prepped on the eve of leaving to join King Edward's crusade, crushes a small alien invasion force, by dint of cunning, superior numbers, and having no EMP-susceptible equipment or depletable bullets/explosives/laser charges - but plenty of reusable arrows, swords, sheer brute strength and a sense of righteous Christian indignation. Then, using the captured spaceship and the grudging assistance of a surviving alien interpreter (taught ''Latin'' by the army's cleric), they launch a counter-invasion of the evil intergalactic empire, whom they view as the more prolific, Heaven-soiling brethren of the heretics overrunning Israel. Because the invaders to our world have been dominant for so long over such a wide area, nobody up in the stars has any damn idea what politics are any more. The human leader manages to convince every single alien he meets, through bravado, underhandedness, trickery, and good old-fashioned lying, to assail their opponents. When "future" Earth finally reaches the stars, they are met by the emissary of the trans-galactic feudal Christian empire, run by Human descendants of the would-have-been Crusaders. And it is beyond awesome. Especially when the Space duke asks the Earth captain if the Holy Land is free of the Pagans. "Um, yes" says the Captain who is a loyal servant of the Israeli Empire.
** The English have an additional advantage over the aliens: the aliens' weapons have become so advanced that they no longer have any knowledge whatsoever of hand-to-hand combat. Once the English are able to get in close quarters, the aliens don't stand a chance. It takes the English army exactly one battle to figure this out.
** In ''Literature/TimeLag'' Vaynamo isn't even that primitive, though it lacks industry. The heavily overpopulated Chertkoi assumes it will be easy because it is still heavily rural.
** In ''Sargasso of Lost Starships'', the aliens have superhuman PsychicPowers. They can turn back guns. Donovan alerts the soldiers that spears are more dangerous, and they ready them.

* Brutally shown in the novel ''Literature/{{Sten}}'', by Allan Cole and Chris Bunch:

** The short story was intended as an allegory for UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, with the "advanced" side being Nazi Germany and the well-supplied side being a stand-in for the Allies.

** Not exactly. Force shields will indeed block bullets just fine, but most people are used to the energy guns, which take two minutes to recharge between shots. So after an opening exchange of disrupter fire (which the force shields deflect), standard practice is to shut down the force shields to save power. One the shields are off, the rebels pop up with machine guns and mow down the advancing Imperial troops. While the "official" reason for retiring projectile weapons was that they were outperformed by energy guns and force shields, the real reason was that energy guns and force shields were more expensive, so only the nobles or Imperial military could afford them, making rebellions much more difficult. Even so, the deciding factor in most battles was the main characters insane Madness Maze powers.
* Creator/JRRTolkien once gave a lecture to children about dragons where he claimed (in his view) that modern weapons such as machine guns would be ineffective against them, whereas the old heroic techniques such as the arrow in the vulnerable spots would still work. He could very well be right-a Black arrow brought [[Literature/TheHobbit Smaug]] crashing to the ground, while a ''lot'' of bullets would be needed to chip off the scales.
** Probably more true than one would imagine--overlapping sets of hardened scales would me more effective against bullets than they would be against a cutting attack. In fact a lot of modern body armor takes this approach, some of which is even called "Dragonskin."