History Main / ThisIsMyBoomstick

In a GodGuise or TimeTravel scenario, a modern person with some technological convenience uses it to try and impress the more primitive locals. Guns and cigarette lighters are common versions, with Polaroid cameras not far behind. Japanese fiction has a particularly egregious variant, where [[MedievalEuropeanFantasy a medieval Europe analogue]] is introduced to such "unbelievable technologies" as [[KatanasAreJustBetter katanas]] and pictographic writing.

In a GodGuise or TimeTravel scenario, a modern person with some technological convenience uses it to try and impress the more primitive locals. Guns and cigarette lighters are common versions, with Polaroid cameras not far behind.

* Played with in ''Film/Timecop''. The opening scene has a terrorist using submachine guns to kill a group of Confederate soldiers in 1864 but that was hardly "showing off" before he did it. Later, an agent is seen going into his Wall Street office in 1929 and listening to a CD player of heavy metal music as he works but makes sure it's in private.

->''Yeah. All right, you primitive screwheads, listen up. See this? This...is my '''''BOOMSTICK!''''' It's a twelve gauge double barreled Remington, S-Mart's top-of-the-line. You can find this in the sporting goods department. That's right, this sweet baby was made in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Retails for about $109.95. It's got a walnut stock, cobalt blue steel and a hair trigger. That's right. Shop Smart. Shop S-Mart. YA GOT THAT!?''

* Played straight in all of Larry Niven's ''{{Ringworld}}'' books. Justified in that the explorer's third millennium technology truly IS godlike by the standards of most of the subsistence level natives. Subverted in that at first they frequently trip over the EXISTING religious dogma / cargo cult of the previous owners.

* Double-subverion in Papua New Guinea when the Australian government was able to get a number of small villages to stop making war on each other by setting up a police station with minimal staff and a machine gun. The villagers, who were all subsistence farmers, still had a few hundred people per village. However, they thought that going to war was a terrifying event (anthropologists noted that many of the older men in the villages showed signs of PTSD) and were happy to have a face-saving reason to avoid doing so.

* ''Series/MacGyver'': In "Good Knight, [=MacGyver=]", Mac convinces KingArthur's court that he is a powerful wizard by lighting a match.

** Going the other direction, Lyle later attempts to scare George off with a lighter shaped like a handgun. George, having never seen any kind of gun before, keeps charging. Then it turns out the gun is real (Lyle inadvertently grabbed a gun off a guide instead of his lighter, which shares the same shape and look as the gun).

* An episode of ''Anime/{{Doraemon}}'' revolved around this: Nobita tried gathering a number of modern objects and using the time machine to travel back in time to the prehistoric age in order to invoke the trope and have the locals make him their king. However, being an idiot, the stuff he took either didn't work in that era (like a radio or a flashlight without batteries), or didn't cause any awe whatsoever (like a pack of playing cards). He ends up mistaken by a monkey and tied to a noose by some cave people [[IdenticalGrandson looking suspiciously like his friends]]. To humiliate him even further, Doraemon shows up, chases away a mammoth with his ray gun and the cave people make ''him'' their king.

** Parodied/subverted: Lyle Van de Groot, rich snob white guy, attempts to impress his native guides by offering them lighters and showing off his Poloroid camera... even though his guides are clearly familiar with such things. The guides play along for a bit, and then burst out laughing at him, whereupon their translator makes it clear they're not only unimpressed, they know more about cameras than ''he'' does.

Named for a famous line in ''Film/ArmyOfDarkness'', the third ''Franchise/EvilDead'' film, where the time-displaced zombie-fighting housewares stocker Ash is threatened by medieval peasants. He has a shotgun. Violent HilarityEnsues.

** Also subverted in regards to dehydrated rations; the Confederates had similar ideas in the works, and the narration specifically notes that the time-traveler seems a little miffed that they aren't impressed by it.

** See [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult Cargo Cult]] in ThatOtherWiki

* Subverted in Papua New Guinea when the Australian government was able to get a number of small villages to stop making war on each other by setting up a police station with minimal staff and a machine gun. The villagers, who were all subsistence farmers, thought that going to war was a terrifying event and were happy to have a face-saving reason to avoid doing so.

-->'''Bear:'' "Thunderstick"? You actually said "Thunderstick"? ''That'', my friend, is a Winchester 30.06.

* Played straight in ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' when an amnesiac Kirk is revered as a mystic due to using resuscitation techniques to revive a "dead" child.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': several examples. In "The War Games", the Second Doctor proves he's from the future by demonstrating the use of the Sonic Screwdriver (on actual screws, for once).
** River Song does it too. In "The Pandorica Opens" she vaporises a piece of furniture to gain the Tribune’s respect.

** Later, the team is introduced to a village of farmers called the Genii. Sheppard offers to trade with them for food. As payment, he offers to give them C4 to quickly get rid of trees to clear more areas for farming. The Genii are interested in C4... as detonators for their nuclear weapons in order to destroy Wraith hive-ships. As it turns out, they have vast underground bunkers with a 50's era society, with the farmers on the surface as a facade.
* Happens several times in ''Series/SirArthurConanDoylesTheLostWorld''. Though in one episode, Marguerite tries to scare off a man by pulling out her gun, but since he's never seen one before he keeps advancing. She has to actually demonstrate its power to get him to back off.

* In the [[{{Hatedom}} widely hated]] [[SeasonalRot episode]] "Beer Bad" of ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', Xander scares a quartet of arrogant college kids cum cavemen with his lighter. "Fire angry!"
* In an episode of ''Series/TheAdventuresOfSuperman'', several people get sent to the time of the cavemen. A mobster quickly gets the cavemen to obey him with his lighter and gun and sets them against the others. Superman puts a stop to it by demonstrating he is more powerful (making a bigger fire with his heat vision, punching through a boulder, etc).
* ''Series/MacGyver'': In "Good Knight, [=MacGyver=]", Mac convinces KingArthur's court that he is a powerful wizard by lighting a match.
* ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow'': In "Out of Time", Jax and Stein get stranded in the Middle Ages and pass themselves off as wizards with tricks like pretending a smartphone is a magic mirror. Eventually, the spoiled and petulant boy-king says he's bored with them and orders them executed until their friends show up to rescue them.

* On an episode of ''TheWestWing'', Michael O'Keefe guest stars as a reporter who has just returned from an extensive amount of time overseas, and considers being a member of the White House Press Corps a step down. At one point, he tells a story about how he used his lighter and PDA to convince a primitive South American tribe that he was a god.

[[folder:ComicBooks]]

[[folder:Fanfic]]
* Played straight and almost verbatim with ''FanFic/HarryPotterAndTheMethodsOfRationality'' when Rationalist!Harry [[spoiler: improvises a rocket-broomstick in order to break out of Azkaban with Professor Qurrell and Bellatrix Black]], he remembers the movie trailer and flies away, not before shouting the epic line:
-->''"All right, you primitive screwheads, listen up. See this? This...is my... BROOMSTICK!!!"''

[[folder:Film]]

* ''Film/TheManWhoWouldBeKing'' - rifles, masonic talismans and a lucky hit with an arrow convince the Kushians that Sean Connery is the reincarnation of the Demi-god Iskander (Alexander the Great)

* Parodied/subverted by the movie version of ''Film/GeorgeOfTheJungle'': Lyle Van de Groot, rich snob white guy, attempts to impress his native guides by offering them lighters and showing off his Poloroid camera... even though his guides are clearly familiar with such things. The guides play along for a bit, and then burst out laughing at him, whereupon their translator makes it clear they're not only unimpressed, they know more about cameras than ''he'' does.
-->'''Kwame''': He says that he likes your magic pictures...but he prefers the resolution of the Leica 35-millimeter transparencies. He also says that your lens is dirty, but he has the equipment to clean it for you.
** Going the other direction, Lyle later attempts to scare George off with a lighter shaped like a handgun. George, having never seen any kind of gun before, keeps charging. Then it turns out the gun is real (Lyle inadvertently grabbed a gun off a guide instead of his lighter, which shares the same shape and look as the gun.)
* In ''Film/MuppetTreasureIsland'', the villain is effectively able to scare off the natives who have come to the rescue with one single shot of his gun.
-->'''Spa'am:''' We see you have boom boom sticks. Bye Bye!

* One has to wonder what Picard was thinking in ''Film/StarTrekInsurrection'' when he continues to try and explain things like holograms to the Ba'ku even ''after'' they reveal they're just as knowledgeable and technologically capable as he is, if not more.
** They're able to fix Data's positronic brain, something almost no one in the Federation knows how to do, given that its creator is dead.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
* Poked fun at in one strip of ''ComicStrip/TheFarSide'', wherein two bears are looking at a rifle on the ground, and one of them says to the other:
-->'''Bear:'' "Thunderstick"? You actually said "Thunderstick"? ''That'', my friend, is a Winchester 30.06.

* The EasterEgg prizes for the armies that won the ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' campaign ''Dark Shadows'' were a set of "Magic Items" supposedly found near the NegativeSpaceWedgie at the North Pole. They're fairly obviously mundane equipment from ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'', for example a PowerFist, a flamer and a Power Sword, that [[MagicFromTechnology seem like magic]] to the natives.

* In the [=PS2=] game ''ShadowOfDestiny'' the main character is transported back to the middle ages and manages to scare away the locals with his lighter.
** Another option the main character is given is to threaten the locals with trapping them inside of his magic box - a cell phone with someone else's picture as the wallpaper.

* In [[http://nobodyscores.loosenutstudio.com/index.php?id=233 this gem]] from ''NobodyScores'', we are reminded that cell phones are only a tiny node of a larger system.
** Forgot to set your phone to [[Series/DoctorWho Universal Roaming]], eh?
* [[http://partiallyclips.com/2002/01/13/king-and-queen/ This strip]] from ''PartiallyClips'' showcases a unique subversion of the concept.
* In ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'', Zoe is launched back in time and is imprisoned because she is thought to be spy. But she is given her "strange club" (shotgun) and saves the stupid king with it "She can call down the thunder to smite tie unrighteous!". Incidentally this plotline starts with a joke referring to evil dead.
** A nude magazine is also used to persuade the very very hard-to-persuade hermit.
* ''{{Webcomic/Erfworld}}'' is something of a subversion, as it features a strategy game geek who gets summoned into a game world. His knowledge of exploiting game mechanics to great effect might have changed the course of the war were it not for his superior, [[Main/PointyHairedBoss Lord Stanley]].
** [[spoiler: Parson did change the course of the war, [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome by Uncroaking the volcano and roasting the entire invading army.]] Now things are going sorta kinda his way. Maybe.]]
* ''Adventures In Aaron's Room'' parodies the TropeNamer [[http://transformershomage.com/fanfics/Toys/Advent0411.jpg here.]] [[HilariousInHindsight Note the filename:]] comic 4 frame 11. ''411.''
* ''{{Webcomic/Zukahnaut}}'' plays this straight, unless you consider the fact that the natives have the technology and the creatures that came through some sort of dimensional portal don't an [[InvertedTrope inversion]]. At the true end of the conflict between the goat men and the monkey centaurs that's carried over from their shared native world, Darius, under threat by the groups he's been trying to talk down, breaks a primitive spear by putting a bullet through it. He then [[DiscussedTrope explains the situation completely]] to make it clear to the two sides. As Darius points out, the trope is [[JustifiedTrope justified]] in so far as many individuals and groups are technologically behind (though they may have magic or other advantages).
** Before giving the speech he actually uses, Darius gives a ShoutOut to ''Film/ArmyOfDarkness'', "Man I wish I knew the '''boom-stick speech''' by heart..."

* ''WesternAnimation/DaveTheBarbarian'': In "Ned Frischman: Man of Tomorrow" the nerdy Ned travels back in time to impress natives with the power of a garage door opener. However, since there are no garage doors to open it doesn't produce the effect he desired. Played straight later on when Ned brings back video games which everyone soon becomes addicted to.
** He also invents the sitcom. Though it is eventually made obsolete when the heroes invent reality programming.
* In a time-traveling episode of ''{{Transformers}} G1'', Starscream brews up some gunpowder to intimidate and conquer a medieval region when the robots run out of energy for their blasters. Played with in that a local alchemist who sides with the Autobots ''already knows'' how to make gunpowder, he just thinks of it as "dragon's bane".

-->'''Bear:'' "Thunderstick"? You actually said "Thunderstick"? ''That'', my friend, is a Winchester Model 70.

* A [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-3HEyR-c3M Dodge commercial]] shows a disheveled British soldier in the UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution running back to his lines to warn them of an attack by the Americans. The soldiers line up in formation and prepare to fire upon the hidden forces, followed seconds later by three roaring [[CoolCar Challenger SRT8 muscle cars]] - one of which is driven by UsefulNotes/GeorgeWashington - to coming screaming in over a hill followed by horses and soldiers. The redcoats panic and flee. Sadly, the car's weren't painted in [[AmericanRobot red, white and blue]].

** In another episode, a human slaver who sells Unas has captured the team and develops a liking for firearms, as they inflict more pain to the Unas than staff weapons. He kills a slave Unas by emptying the entire clip and then says that the drawback of the weapon appears to be that it overheats quickly (obviously, he doesn't understand the concept of ammunition). After a beat, he produces the clips for the weapon and shows that he has figured out how to reload it.

** And perhaps somewhat subverted in a much later episode when O'Neil's team delivers several crates filled with modern firearms to help supply a group of rebel Jaffa they're allied with. The Jaffa, more used to the flashy energy weapons they'd been trained with by the Goa'uld they'd previously served, are quite skeptical of the value of the Earth-made weapons. O'Neill has to convince them that they're worth using by having Carter (wielding a FN[Fabrique Nationale] P-90) do a side-by-side comparison with a Jaffa marksman wielding a staff weapon at the shooting range. The staff weapon blows a flaming chunk out of the target log, while the P-90 ''saws it in half''. O'Neill points out that staff weapons are designed to invoke this trope by being big, flashy, and terrifying, whereas a P-90 is designed to kill things very efficiently.

* The EasterEgg prizes for the armies that won the ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' campaign ''Dark Shadows'' were a set of "Magic Items" supposedly found near the NegativeSpaceWedgie at the North Pole. They're fairly obviously mundane equipment from ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'', for example a PowerFist and a Laser Sword, that [[MagicFromTechnology seem like magic]] to the natives.

* The Time Traveler does this with matches in ''TheTimeMachine'' by H. G. Wells. He's somewhat disappointed because he's in the far future and had hoped the natives would be the ones doing the impressing.