That would be Ridley Scott though
Projectile weapons in pressurised environments, whether on board a ship or in a different atmosphere on a planet might not really be the best idea. Something with less penetration/more localised damage might be the better choice.
That said, the Star Trek 'phasers'/'disruptors' etc etc are really pretty rubbish weapons in other respects. A projectile weapon such as a machine gun can fire dozens of bullets in the time your phaser has one little zap. OK, admittedly, you can't use a machine gun to heat a rock to stay warm or set the phaser's power pack to explode and clear a way out of a cave/prison cell/whatever. Similarly, projectile weapons probably wouldn't have the Star Wars blaster ability of either opening doors (by shooting the lock) or sealing doors (by shooting the lock).
I suppose the choice between a machine gun or phaser/blaster really depends on whether you want a straightforward weapon or a swiss-army gun.
For what it's worth, I think Aliens is an excellent film with few dodgy plot points (other than the fact that everyone and I mean everyone on the spaceship buggers off down onto the planet surface!), especially in comparison to some of the more modern movies around.
The limited Colonial Marine technology/weaponry is perhaps to some extent just a factor of the technological movie-making limitations of the time it was filmed. I have to say that Cameron didn't exactly cover himself with glory in Prometheus when he had a much freer creative hand due to CGI and the like. I know which of the two movies I'd rather watch.
That said, the Star Trek 'phasers'/'disruptors' etc etc are really pretty rubbish weapons in other respects. A projectile weapon such as a machine gun can fire dozens of bullets in the time your phaser has one little zap. OK, admittedly, you can't use a machine gun to heat a rock to stay warm or set the phaser's power pack to explode and clear a way out of a cave/prison cell/whatever. Similarly, projectile weapons probably wouldn't have the Star Wars blaster ability of either opening doors (by shooting the lock) or sealing doors (by shooting the lock).
Not sure how you come to that conclusion. A laser-based weapon would rather be a lot EASIER to hit stuff with because it hits whatever you actually aim it at. Beam goes straight ahead - ZAP! - while a projectile weapon is affected by things like barrel wear, wind, gravity, recoil kickback and so on. Also, since a projectile moves at a certain speed you need to not aim at where a moving target is, but rather where you believe it WILL be when the bullet actually hits it (again accounting for gravity, depending on the distance)...Imo, the biggest advantage of a projectile weapon is a certain robustness with respect to aiming inaccuracies, i.e. a projectile based weapon basiccaly allows you to hit stuff
Not sure how you come to that conclusion. A laser-based weapon would rather be a lot EASIER to hit stuff with because it hits whatever you actually aim it at. Beam goes straight ahead - ZAP! - while a projectile weapon is affected by things like barrel wear, wind, gravity, recoil kickback and so on. Also, since a projectile moves at a certain speed you need to not aim at where a moving target is, but rather where you believe it WILL be when the bullet actually hits it (again accounting for gravity, depending on the distance)...
So I think lasers win this particular round.
(And yes John, this is why nerds can't have nice things. Lol!)
Now, now. Let's not confuse cinematic decisions with physics
A "phaser" is a light-based weapon where the velocity of light is comparable to a fast car
Good words or bad words?
