Re: Fisrt photo of phaser prop...for real this time.
I thought the whole point of all these redesigns was to make Trek look like it evolved from today's technology. The new Enterprise, tricorders that look like Crackberries, communicators that look like iPhones, a bridge that looks like the Apple Store, uniforms that don't look like velour. The phaser looks like a prop from one of the original Flash Gordon serials that hasn't been polished in a few decades.
The handle being the trigger I get, but twirling the nozzle around to go from stun to kill? It's kind of an odd '30s sci-fi serial-ish throwback in a movie that's about taking an old sci-fi show into the 21st Century.
Did they do that a lot in the 1930s?
Anyway, a ray gun is a ray gun. Phasers are ray guns. This is a pretty cool ray gun.
I thought the whole point of all these redesigns was to make Trek look like it evolved from today's technology. The new Enterprise, tricorders that look like Crackberries, communicators that look like iPhones, a bridge that looks like the Apple Store, uniforms that don't look like velour. The phaser looks like a prop from one of the original Flash Gordon serials that hasn't been polished in a few decades.