Category: Art
Tarleton’s family sued and got a nice chunk of change because of the BS put forth by this otherwise fine film. Grumpy
Eventually, these guys wear out and come home. However, they
still retain a few marketable skills. Images: Department of Defense
My editors here at FMG let me indulge in a bit of fiction from time to time so long as I don’t grow overly accustomed to the space…
After all he had been through, after all he had seen and done, Matt Eastman never imagined that going to college could be so intimidating. Matt was the archetypal non-traditional student. He found himself utterly alone in an unfamiliar town, living off his GI bill, about to embark on Life 2.0.
Matt had discovered the crummy apartment online and dropped his deposit sight unseen. It turned out that the pictures on the website had been taken during the Clinton administration. This place was a dump, but the price was right. The actual unit he rented had peeling paint and smelled vaguely of cats. The carpet looked like some teenager’s High School science experiment. As Matt had moved his few possessions in, he humored himself. He had seen worse.
That first evening, around nine, there came a knock upon the door. Matt didn’t know a soul. He had literally no idea who this could be.
Matt was fit and lived alone. He also had very few material possessions. He had always been conservative with money. What he saved on this dump was going into his savings account to facilitate something better later, ideally something he might share with somebody a bit softer and less hairy than he. However, that was down the road a ways. For now, with literally nothing to fear, he just padded over to the door and swung it wide.
There were three rough-looking young men standing outside. Matt sized them up without conscious thought. He couldn’t help that. It was simply residual fallout from his former life. All three sported shaved heads, wife-beater t-shirts, and an excess of tats. They seemed vaguely surprised that Matt had actually opened his door without any extra cajoling.
The apparent alpha of this motley trio spoke first. He didn’t bother giving his name, “I am the leader of the local neighborhood watch, amigo. We come around every month to collect the neighborhood watch dues. They are fifty dollars due on the first.”
Matt did some quick mental math, multiplying his estimate of the number of apartments in this complex times fifty bucks each month. He was impressed. This was a pretty lucrative racket.
“What does that fifty bucks buy me, guys?” Matt asked amiably.
The leader spoke up again, “Fifty dollars a month guarantees you protection against the less savory members of the local community. My men and I patrol 24/7, making sure nobody messes with you or your stuff. However, fail to pay on time and bad stuff will happen to you. That’s predictable. Participation is not voluntary.”
The other two men just stood with their arms crossed and smiled.
Matt pondered for a moment before proceeding, “Well, I certainly appreciate your keeping our cozy little neighborhood safe, but I don’t have cash.
Something tells me you likely can’t process plastic. I don’t see how I can pay you for your service. That and today is the fifth of the month. I don’t have to pay for five days when I wasn’t here, do I?”
The leader continued, “Whatever, jefe. As today is the fifth, we’ll prorate it. That means you still owe us fifty bucks. We’ll give you until tomorrow to find an ATM. Don’t be late going forward. This is a dangerous neighborhood. We would hate for something bad to happen.”
“Why can’t I just call the cops?” Matt mused. “If this place is so rugged, surely the police could come up with some handy tips.”
“Listen, buddy,” the spokesman said. “Cops don’t come here. We own those that do. It’s just us in this place. Nobody else is coming to help you. Just dig up fifty bucks by the first of every month, and you’ll be fine.”
Matt answered, “I’m a brand new student, so I’ll be gone most of tomorrow. However, I will be back in time for supper. I’ll make a point to be ready then. I appreciate the selfless work that you neighborhood watch volunteers do on my behalf. Fifty dollars seems like a bargain.”
The three men stole a quick glance at each other. The only one who had spoken carefully lifted the edge of his shirt to expose the butt of a heavy magnum revolver stuffed into his low-slung britches. Matt seemed suitably impressed, and the three men departed.
Matt pored over the exchange much of the evening and into the following morning. The next day was a blur of offices and administrative minutiae. In some ways, that wasn’t altogether different from his old job. Before he knew it, the day’s school registration chores were done, he had a class schedule, and it was time to head home. He didn’t bother with the ATM.
Matt slipped into his austere apartment and bolted the flimsy door. In his entire world, he owned one single item of value. He spun the combination lock off of his heavy plastic case and swung the lid wide. Resting atop his hand-built rifle was his tan beret, carefully folded. This he set aside. He then hefted his Mk 18 and worked the action by rote, its familiar dimensions falling into his hands like a piece of his anatomy.
He had built the weapon up himself to reflect the gun he had used during his time in special operations. He gave the suppressor a quick twist to ensure that it was still locked tight and then replaced the batteries in both the Holosight as well as the tactical light. Scooping up four full P-Mags, he then placed everything on his rickety coffee table.
Matt judged the space with a discerning eye. He then dragged his battered recliner over until it faced the apartment’s only door squarely. Satisfied that the geometry was right, he flipped on the outside light before extinguishing everything inside. He then unlocked the door and cracked it open about two inches. Sickly yellow illumination streamed through the opening from the isolated bulb on the landing.
Satisfied, Matt dropped himself back into his chair, quietly charged his rifle, and rested the weapon across his lap. The only adornment in the apartment was a professionally framed scroll from his time in the 2-75 Rangers hanging lonely and alone on his living room wall. This he could just barely make out in the dim glow from outside. Glancing at the luminescent hands of his expensive dive watch, Matt allowed his vision to acclimate, steadied his breathing, and waited.
Private Dwayne Hicks sat in an expansive classroom alongside the rest of his platoon of newly minted boots. Each Marine had a well-used Pulse Rifle sitting on the table in front of them. The weapons were clean enough to be used as surgical implements and smelled vaguely of CLP.
Gunnery Sergeant Mike “Madman” McGehee stepped to the front of the class carrying his own Pulse Rifle as though it was something with which he had been born. Holding the weapon at arm’s length, he said, “I want to introduce you to a personal friend of mine. This is an M41A pulse rifle… 10 millimeter with over-and-under 30 millimeter pump action grenade launcher.”
Hicks made a mental note. Though he was brand new to the U.S. Colonial Marines, he felt he might someday have need of that snappy bit of prose.
The following narrative presupposes that you have already seen the movie Aliens at least a time or two. If that is not the case, I sure wouldn’t admit that to anyone. I’ll hang on until you have rectified that.
Origin Story
It is not hyperbole to say that James Cameron is the most successful movie maker in history. His films have made more than $11 billion worldwide. Titanic and Avatar would be more than enough to cement a director as a legit success. Add to that Terminator, True Lies, and The Abyss, and you have a skillset that is equally at home across comedic, sci-fi, action and dramatic genres. However, I would assert that all of those movies pale in comparison to his one true masterpiece.
The story goes that Cameron walked into a meeting with studio executives equipped with nothing more than a white board and a dry erase marker. He supposedly then wrote the word, “Alien” in big letters across the board.
This was an obvious reference to Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi opus of the same name. Then he simply added a single character to form the word, “Alien$.” The clear implication was that his vision for the Alien sequel was about to make them a whole pile of money.
And that it did. Aliens returned $180 million against an $18.5 million budget, and those were 1986 dollars. However, all that cash is secondary to what that incredible movie actually represented. Aliens showed us just how cool a deftly executed combat science fiction film could be.
Details
For the sci-fi movie nerd purist, Aliens really hit the sweet spot. Falling as it did right at the end of the era of analog special effects, the film showcased Cameron’s writing and directing skills, James Horner’s epic musical score, and Stan Winston’s preternatural special effects. The cumulative end result captured lightning in a bottle.
While the monsters, uniforms, and miniature spacecraft effects were both superlative and groundbreaking, it was the weapons that really raised the bar. Simon Atherton and the mob at Bapty outside of London supplied the hardware.
Founded in 1919 by Major PS Bapty, this company did the guns for such classics as Star Wars, the Indiana Jones films, scads of James Bond movies, and a bunch of Marvel superhero flicks, to name but a few. Cameron himself played an integral role in the design of the ordnance.
Particulars
The handguns were fairly pedestrian. The standard Colonial Marine sidearms were generally unmodified pistols from the era.
Corporal Hicks carried a cut-down Ithaca 37 12-gauge shotgun. This custom one-off weapon closely resembles an Ithaca Stakeout, a curious 1970s-vintage AOW shotgun that saw some modest commercial success. However, Hicks’ unique version sported a pistol grip adapted from that of a German MP40 submachine gun.
The M56 Smart Gun was a heavy support weapon carried by PFCs Jenette Vasquez and Mark Drake in the film. These beastly guns were created by mating a German MG42 belt-fed machinegun to a Cinema Products Model III Steadicam camera harness.
The prop guns were accentuated with a variety of motorcycle parts, specifically the handlebars from a 1976 Husqvarna Magura 360, the control panel from a 1981 Kawasaki KZ750, and the footpegs from a Kawasaki AR-125. As this was the era before digital effects, all of those epic star-shaped muzzle flashes you see in the movie were produced in real time using 8mm blanks.
Star Power
All that stuff is fairly mesmerizing, but the real hero of the movie was the M41A Pulse Rifle. The original plan was to build the Pulse Rifles around MP5 submachine guns with straight magazines.
The astute gun nerd truly committed to his craft can see an image of the prototype of the MP5-based Pulse Rifle on PFC Frost’s “Peace Through Superior Firepower” t-shirt worn in the film. (You can find a decent reproduction here.)
However, the blank-adapted 9mm MP5 hosts did not produce the sort of dynamic muzzle flashes Cameron wanted for his movie. As a result, the Bapty crew switched to .45-caliber M1A1 Thompson submachine guns.
The film’s backstory held that the M41A was produced by Armat Battlefield Systems based in Saginaw, Michigan. These weapons purportedly fired 10x24mm explosive-tipped caseless light armor-piercing rounds from a 99-round magazine. Astute Jarheads typically downloaded their magazines to 95 rounds to enhance reliability. A digital counter on the side of the gun kept track of rounds remaining. Slung underneath the barrel of the M41A was a four-shot 30mm pump-action grenade launcher.
Proper Props
There were either three or four actual operational Pulse Rifles created for the movie along with several inert foam versions. These original lightweight polymer props come up for sale from time to time and typically command upwards of twenty grand apiece. Only one of the live prop weapons had an operational grenade launcher. These guns were painted in Humbrol “Brown Bess” paint that appeared green under the lighting conditions used in the film. Each Pulse Rifle chassis was formed from sheet aluminum and was actually fairly crude up close.
The M41A props were crafted from three different guns. The host Thompsons had the furniture removed and were blank-adapted, but were left otherwise unmolested. The grenade launcher was built from a severely shortened Remington 870 12-gauge shotgun.
The handguard and forearm were taken from a Franchi SPAS-12 shotgun and reversed. The rest of the weapon was bodged together by the mad geniuses at Bapty. All but one of the prop weapons was disassembled after the film so the components could be reused for other projects.
Revolutionary Replicas
I have coveted one of these guns ever since I sat in the CINE 4 theater in Oxford, Mississippi, back in 1986 to see the film for the first time. The Pulse Rifle is the apex predator of firearms. There is an airsoft version, but these are both expensive and hard to find. As I result, my homeschooled kids and I whipped up a replica.
The foundation for my first non-firing M41A was a piece of 1-inch square steel tubing. The SPAS-12 bits came from a cheap airsoft gun. The fire control group was genuine WWII surplus and subsequently expensive. The rest was handcrafted from pine lumber and weathered to suit. The round counter was painted on and covered with a little square of Plexiglas.
The end result is far from perfect, but it’s not half bad, either. However, Information Age 3D printing tech now offers something much more realistic. I sourced the new parts from OuterRim Armorer via Etsy. Etsy has a lame prohibition against selling realistic-looking firearms. Just message Bryan at OuterRim if you’re interested in a Pulse Rifle of your own. You can find him here.
Finishing out the project takes a little talent. Unlike a conventional model kit, there are no instructions, and many of the parts seem a bit incongruous. However, everything does indeed have a place, and the end result is frankly spectacular.
If afforded a decent optical sight and a little tactical bling, a live and functional.45 ACP Pulse Rifle would actually make a superb home defense tool. One can only dream!
The M41A is yet another aspect of James Cameron’s inimitable artistic skill. Now, thanks to Bryan at OuterRim, sci-fi nerds with a little mechanical aptitude can add a facsimile to their own collections for not a lot of cash. You can contact him directly at outerrimarmorer@gmail.com if you’re interested in getting your own 3D-printed Pulse Rifle kit.
I wonder about how many boys over the years have joined the services because of this painting? Grumpy