6 Ways to Make SciFi and Fantasy Weapons More Believable

The Weaver said:

I'm hope I'm not sounding mean but I am tired of articles like this. Does everything single thing in SFF need to be hyper-realistic? I understand the need to have consistency in your world and for things to match up but it starts to reach into the of ridiculousness if you nitpick ever little thing. It's fiction for crying out loud not everything needs to match 100% to realistic to be good.

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I agree with this for the most part. Ridiculous is a staple of the genera. Only time a weapon bothers me is when it's one of the following; Dangerous to the user with no benefits (eg darth maul's bad ass double lightsaber. It was cool, but doesn't help him any and is a massive risk)
would be uncomfortable to hold (eg orcish sword from skyrim) or huge and boxy. Like a large number of sci-fi guns. weapons are almost never huge and boxy, huge and boxy gets in your way, and doesn't look cool IMO.

So long as it doesn't have one of those flaws, I'll look past it, even if it's obscenely silly.

An easy source for unusual, creative weapons as inspiration, is to usually look for those in history that didn't catch on due to a high amount of talent needed to properly use them.

Literally, the simpsons quote says it partially: "Nunchucks: Cool, but useless."

When in fact nunchucks can be an incredible tool in the right hands.

Simply give your weapon to a skilled user, and they'll make it cool, so long as its at least usable while being as ridiculous as it can be while still being cool.

For example, the elbow rocket powered fist from Gipsy Danger in Pacific Rim. Somewhat practical, but also stupidly cool.