Does Not Illustrate: Frickin Laser Beams

Page name notwithstanding, the trope Frickin' Laser Beams is about laser beams that travel much slower than the speed of light and/or have knockback. In essence: fictional lasers acting not at all like real lasers.

So the image, a warning sign for Sharks WFLB, is not an illustration of the trope (but rather, of the title). The same goes for the quote.

edited 6th Apr '12 4:57:31 PM by Spark9

Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!

And the laconic, for that matter...

The words above are to be read as if they are narrated by Morgan Freeman.

Boy was that a HORRIBLE laconic. Fixed.

An Ear Worm is like a Rickroll: It is never going to give you up.

It's an easily visible laser and it's coming from a shark's head, which is not how lasers work in real life. Image is fine.

Lasers absolutely work that way in life, if you (as the image suggests) attach them to the head of a shark.

Motion to pull: illustrates a different trope.

People likely think that the trope is about lasers used by unlikely creatures or in unlikely locations (because that's where the page name is from) but that's not what the trope is about. The trope is "Artistic License - Lasers", not "animal using a weapon".

Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!

kraaas may have been referring to the part where the beam (and attendant 'muzzle flash') is visible as a big bright line from the weapon to the target, which is also part of the trope and is mentioned briefly in the description. Now, if the trope's definition was "laser weapons depicted unrealistically in fiction" this might make it at least slightly illustrative, but if it's really the more narrow "laser weapons depicted as slower-than-light projectiles in fiction" then it's mostly just a Visual Pun involving the Trope Namer. Because, As You Know, Real Life lasers do become visible more or less like that if they're losing energy to the ambient medium. The muzzle flash is still silly, though.

I should probably also point out that I thought this trope is what we renamed Where Did They Get Lasers? to a few years back, but that turns out to be Family-Friendly Firearms. Just in case anyone else was confused.

Something like this◊? But not that, SW blaster rifles were retconned to not be lasers.

Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.

Clock is set.

That is good. It's about the best static representation of a slowly moving bolt of light I can think of.

Tropes Are Flexible, so just because it's not called a "laser" in-universe doesn't disqualify it for this trope.

Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!

Handwaved examples do still count as the trope, but I am not a fan of that particular screenshot.

Rhymes with "Protracted."

Do you have a better one?

I think it works well.

The Internet misuses, abuses, and overuses everything.

Alright, the clock's up and we need to do something with this. How's this crop of the "Luke firing blaster" shot?

It works for me.

I'm not crazy, I just don't give a darn!

I don't like it.

Rhymes with "Protracted."

Well the only other decent ones I was able to find were this from some guy on flikr (copyrighted) and this◊, which I've seen before a few times.

While #12 isn't really that good quality, it's still the best suggested option.

The Internet misuses, abuses, and overuses everything.

I saw a real good Cracked image for this...

I'll upload in a minute.

   Evil is my favorite color.   

This trope is common enough that we probly shouldn't have to settle for a weak or mediocre image just because it's the only one suggested.

Rhymes with "Protracted."

No, I disagree. The image is better than a blank, so let's put it up until we get any better suggestions. Hypothetical suggestions don't help anyone.

Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!

Alright, it's been a week since the clock expired and the consensus, such as it is, is that the Luke pic is better than nothing, so it's up, potholed, and tagged. Locking up.