Ultimate Geek Fu

Today's Ultimate Geek Fu topic is weapons.

No, not cool weapons, as was the subject a few Friday Challenges ago. Today we're talking about dumb weapons. Specifically, what is the most outlandish, stupid, ridiculous, or nonsensical weapon you ever saw a hero or villain wield in a story, movie, or TV show?

For example, did you ever wonder how Star Trek phasers know exactly how much to disintegrate, so that the zapped person disappears in a neat, glowing, blob, without once ever leaving behind either a hole in the floor or a pair of smoking shoes? (Or worse, a pair of smoking feet?)

Did you, like me, nearly burst out laughing when Obi-Wan went to consult Yoda in the Jedi Daycare Center, and walked into a room full of toddlers with light sabers? No wonder they're so good at replacing amputated Jedi body parts with prosthetics! Their world must be full of 10-year-old Jedi academy washouts with eye patches, hobbling around on peg-legs.

At the moment, though, my pick for the single stupidest signature weapon ever put into a movie is the "glave," from Krull. It's the magic dingus ("the starfish of doom," Karen called it) that can do anything. It slices! It dices! It opens cans and bottles with an easy twist! It destroys ultimate evil in a single shot! (Guess Ultimate Evil had a glass jaw, huh?) Best of all, it takes absolutely no training or practice to learn how to operate it!

Anyway, that's my current pick. What's yours?

Let the arguments begin.

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ULTIMAGE GEEK FU runs every Wednesday. Have a question that's just bugging the heck out of you about Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate, Battlestar Gallactica, Farscape, Firefly, Fringe, Heroes, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Smallville, The X-Files, X-Men, The Man From Atlantis, Fireball XL5, Space: 1999, Forbidden Planet, Linux distributions, or pretty much any other even slightly remotely SF-flavored subject that you can remember or imagine? Send it to slushpile@thefridaychallenge.com with the subject line, "Ultimate Geek Fu," and we'll stuff it in the queue.