So much for fiction. I've dealt with lasers in real life. A failed demonstration is never on the plan. Weapon-level lasers were a known fact in development by the mid-1970s. The Stargate TV series didn't begin until 1997, twenty years later. Why get people ready for a failed technology---when it was already 20 years in the making?
Don't draw real-life inferences about weapons from works of fiction. Everybody has seen people shot by various weapons in films, and the results are all fiction. Especially, the "blow-them-away" effects of shotguns. When a movie takes pains to be realistic, then it could be good, but not otherwise.
So much for fiction. I've dealt with lasers in real life. A failed demonstration is never on the plan. Weapon-level lasers were a known fact in development by the mid-1970s. The Stargate TV series didn't begin until 1997, twenty years later. Why get people ready for a failed technology---when it was already 20 years in the making?
Don't draw real-life inferences about weapons from works of fiction. Everybody has seen people shot by various weapons in films, and the results are all fiction. Especially, the "blow-them-away" effects of shotguns. When a movie takes pains to be realistic, then it could be good, but not otherwise.