Once gun violence is normalized as the Way of the West, by way of Spaghetti Westerns (cowboy movies made in Italy), then plot resolutions become easier. You get to blow away certain characters, and you don't have a strong afterlife consensus, so the screen writer gets away with some not-haunted future. Yet one lives every day with one's memories.
Chances are, I'm going to find a gun-centric plot line rather too boring to encourage, in the sense of produce. My audiences are hungering for scalable models (both up and down) wherein people get along without resorting to the Easy Way. That's just too predictable, as in mechanical.
We've already seen that scene in every detail. Murder mysteries help get the ball rolling. Our deductive Sherlock Holmes powers get more of a workout that way.
This is not a screed about banning guns from movies. I'd be more into reintroducing ballistics in other guises, as I've been enjoying on Youtube, with the pressure gun shot at giant jars of mayo.
There's serious calibration going on, but then we have the opportunity for some throwaway special effects, especially with those slow motion cameras.
We start to learn a lot about physics, as in First Person Physics. The roller coaster teaches about kinetics, Newtonian mechanics. Imagine a world in which most physics majors were also skydivers.
Likewise the science of trajectories and explosive events is nowhere more developed than in the civilian fireworks industry. The colorful and highly designed bouquets, timed to music in many cases, teach as much about the generalized principles as some of that cruise missile stuff.
Decouple the physics from weaponization and you're in a whole new world. Physics is cool again, vs enslaved by the hotheads.
In geek circles, "learning X the hard way" became a thing, one could say in backlash to the "for dummies" books, although I'd argue it's plenty hard either way, i.e. "for dummies" took on the tough topics. However some object to the whole style of dumbing it down to make it accessible. The point is to keep it as inaccessible as necessary to not be considered diluted or watered down at all.
"The hard way" was code for "undiluted" like when a tourist asks for a meal just like the locals are eating. They're doing anthropology more than trying to cater to or pamper their own personal tastes. If personal taste had been a priority, then why not restaurant hop and write Yelp reviews? Those with a similar palette will learn to follow you around. No, the intrepid tourist is honest and sincere in wanting a clone, a carbon copy, of what the natives are getting. "Don't dumb it down for me just because I'm an outsider" the pro might convey.
On the other hand, lets leave the door open for more defensive methodologies, as sometimes "going native" is a recipe for disaster. As an outsider, untrained, not prepared, they'd be cruel to obey your directives and take you on their walk.
They'd also hurt their own chances, in taking you on as their burden. You being a sensitive anthropologist who understands there's a healthy balance between professional curiosity and taking foolish gambles.
We know from the movies that the reporter trying to "embed" in this or that police force or military, or lets say gang, is likely to encounter others not in the know and unsure of the agreements. The tribe that encounters your tribe sees they have you as an ostensive member. How does that impact inter-tribal calculations? As an anthropologist, it's not your intent to spark new tensions. The observer's role cannot honestly be erased in most cases, but it can be low profile.
Having spent time in Quarter World again recently (in walking radius), and thinking arcade games = language games (Wittgenstein's influence), while also keeping in mind the Coffee Shops Network charitable giving arcade palace (a place to see and be seen?), I'm back to designs for serious simulators, like pilots get, and maybe some truckers.
You get a lot more time on a simulator before they hand you a real car. But we're talking brainwashings of all types, and whom do you trust to brainwash your brain? I'd use hypertoons in mine. I'd be my own first subject, Guinea Pig K.
Time in a high bandwidth pod might prove mind altering but in a good way.
These would take human subject experiments, which in some cases would mean tinkering with in-house prototypes and letting friends sign a waiver. They're just arcade games, enhanced to teach organic chemistry or calculus or one of those.
They don't replace what we've already got going, but for some prove an invaluable (as in valuable) supplement.
Get more attention slices focused on risk-taking for charity, and practicing for professions, and you will have fewer attention slices left over for Easy Way screen writers.
Compete for a slice of the attention pie and wedge it bigger, with quality programming that doesn't happen to hinge on firing projectiles at one another. That's more TV-14 through R. Imagine a new rated MN for Mature Nonviolent, very triggering to some viewers. "What about deductive thinking, wouldn't it go out the window?" As if great powers of deduction were on display today. Guns Dumb Ya Down (or at least there's that risk).
