IT'S TRUE -- good science fiction movies are all about discussing and exploring the human condition and Big Philosophical Ideas.

But make no mistake. We also love sci-fi because of the tech inherent to the genre, be it spaceships, robots, time travel machines or whatever else can be imagined. Sci-fi can be just plain cool because of these shiny (and sometimes "lived in") flourishes.

And certainly, the concept of the sci-fi weapon also has its allure. Whether it's a cyborg hero taking down villains with some kind of crazy blaster, or evil Dark Lords wiping out entire planets with their mechanical monstrosities, there is no doubt that the destructive capabilities of such futuristic weaponry appeal to a certain base instinct in us all.

But before we get started, let's lay out a few ground rules for this list. For the sake of clarity (and our sanity), we decided that we wouldn't include robots (sorry T-1000) or mecha suits or superhero weapons (sorry Iron Man on both counts). Additionally, to be included here the item has to have been designed to be a weapon (no Power Loader, for example) and it can't be a vehicle or something you can ride in (with one exception, which we will explore below).

And lastly, a big shout-out to our faithful friends and followers on Facebook , who helped us come up with some of the more notable items on this list. Let's continue the discussion below!

25. The Alpha-Omega Bomb

Beneath the Planet of the Apes

The folks behind the original Planet of the Apes weren't satisfied with virtually wiping out mankind and civilization via nuclear war (as revealed at the end of the first film). So in the sequel, Beneath the Planet of the Apes , they introduced this device, which as Charlton Heston's ever-lovable Taylor puts it, can "burn the planet to a cinder." And that's exactly what happens in the closing moments of the film! (We won't even talk about the face-peeling mutant freaks who spent millennia worshipping the thing as their god.)

24. "Hand" Grenade

Death Race 2000

Death Race 2000 stars David Carradine as a famed racer named Frankenstein whose ultimate plan is to win the Transcontinental Road Race, shake hands with the President, and kill him with the grenade that is built into his fake hand. Evil plans don't get much more brilliantly foolproof than that. Unfortunately for Frank, he was driving against Sylvester Stallone, necessitating early deployment of the Hand Grenade. On the plus side, it worked like a charm.

23. The SOL Satellite

Akira

When bad s#!t goes down in Neo-Tokyo and crazy kids like Tetsuo start to display intense psionic abilities, the government tries to gain the upper hand by firing this orbital weapon at the kids. Bad idea. And while the SOL satellite can't get the job done, it is nonetheless a massive display of power from the sky -- and a really wicked sequence in the film. Kaa-neee-daaaaa!

22. Gristle Gun

eXistenZ

Apparently director David Cronenberg has a thing for bizarre guns. Even weirder than James Woods' fleshy pistol in Videodrome is this kooky little weapon that Jude Law's character constructs out of discarded Chinese food. It may look silly, but this gun can take down an angry, knife-wielding waiter with two poorly aimed shots to the face. It's probably best that Cronenberg sticks to movies about virtual reality video games rather than designing video games himself.

21. Sonic Shotgun

Minority Report

There wasn't much of this piece in the Tom Cruise/Steven Spielberg film, but we liked what we saw -- and heard. Yeah, the "sonic" part allows for some sweet sound effects, and the swivel motion of the hilt for reloading (we think) is pretty cool too.

(Honorable mention goes to the Sick Stick, also from this film, which makes its targets all pukey. Yuck.)

20. Mini-Nuke

Starship Troopers

Rocket-propelled grenades are all fine and well, but what if you're staring down a nest full of gigantic space bugs who want nothing more than to rip the flesh from your bones? Then you upgrade to the mini-nuke. This handy little device looks like any old RPG launcher, but it packs enough wallop to bring down a mountain. Suddenly being front-line infantry doesn't seem so bad.

19. The Noisy Cricket

Men in Black

Judge this weapon by its size, do you? … Uh, sorry, wrong franchise…

Sure this little Men in Black stunner may look like it came out of an arcade vending machine (they still have those, don't they?), but the Noisy Cricket wielded by Will Smith's Agent J packs a serious punch. Capable of blowing a hole through a wall with a single shot, the Noisy Cricket also has enough of a kickback that if its user isn't careful they might get thrown through a wall too. If this happens, cracking wise is recommended.

18. Head Bomb

Total Recall

When you need to sneak into a heavily fortified Martian installation and somehow smuggle in a weapon at the same time, it's best to kill two birds with one stone. Arnold Schwarzenegger made an entrance as only he can by disguising himself as a large, redheaded woman. Not only was the mask convincing until it started malfunctioning, but it made a handy bomb when Arnold needed a quick distraction. Who says you need to prioritize form or function?

17. Seismic Charge

Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones

Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaannng!! When Jango Fett (and his boy) are looking to take out a nosy Obi-Wan Kenobi in an asteroid field in Attack of the Clones, the bounty hunter puts these memorable little suckers to use. While the charge's ability to slice entire asteroids in half is impressive, the device's sucking all sound out of the area around it and then producing a shock wave out of that sound is really freaking cool too. And yes, we know in real life there's no sound in space, and no, we don't care.

16. Identity Disc

Tron

Imagine if your wallet contained every last piece of information about you and took the form of a Frisbee. And what if you could use that Frisbee as a weapon that bounces off walls and turns anyone it touches into a pile of corrupted data particles? That's pretty much daily life in The Grid. This is one tool you definitely don't want to leave home without.

15. L.O.O.K.E.R. Gun

Looker

Also known as the Light Ocular-Oriented Kinetic Emotive Responses gun, this device showed up in the 1981 Michael Crichton sci-fi-posing-as-thriller picture. Featuring some out there concepts at the time -- 3D digital scanning, subliminal advertising, Albert Finney starring in a sci-fi movie -- the most memorable was the L.O.O.K.E.R. gun. This pistol didn't fire bullets but instead pulses of light that momentarily daze its target, resulting in the "illusion of invisibility" for the user.

14. Monomolecular Wire

Johnny Mnemonic

Monomolecular wire isn't a unique concept in popular fiction, but Johnny Mnemonic made it cool. The idea is simple -- a thin chain of diamond molecules with unbreakable bonds that can be used as a garrote or whip. Even better is the fact that the molecular generators are stored in an assassin's thumbs. It's sort of like having a lightsaber stashed in your finger tips.

13. The Auto 9

RoboCop

Serve the public trust. Protect the innocent. Uphold the law. Carry this big-ass gun.

Yes, RoboCop's directives are clear. And helping on that last front is the fact that Old Detroit's favorite cyborg son also has a specially designed leg holster that keeps this firearm neatly tucked away in his leg when he's not using it. Also, the Auto 9's ability to fire in three-round shots is a nice feature to have whether you're battling scum-of-the-earth street criminals or skeevy corporate execs.

12. Proton Pack

Ghostbusters

The government classifies them as unlicensed nuclear accelerators. We prefer to think of them as the best damned device for getting rid of ghosts you'll ever come across. The Proton Packs allow the Ghostbusters to reign in everyone from Slimer to the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man with only mild to moderate property damage. And, of course, they're mostly safe -- as long as you don't cross the streams.

11. Thermal Detonator

Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi

"Because he's holding a thermal detonator!" Cue Salacious Crumb getting all cutesy-scared.

Even though we never got to see this particular weapon actually put to use in Return of the Jedi (the Expanded Universe is another matter altogether), the threat of it was almost enough to save Han Solo from Jabba. Almost. Still, we get a charge out of the Thermal Detonator as much for its sleek design and the idea of what it's capable of as anything else. Surely those who wield it are our kind of scum… fearless and inventive.

10. Deckard's Gun

Blade Runner

Decades into the future, when cars fly, robots are used for slave labor, and it never stops raining, hard-boiled detectives still rely on bullets to get the job done. Their handguns just pack more of a wallop. Detective Deckard's gun is as much rifle as it is pistol (the prop was actually constructed with components of a German target rife). It looks cool, and it's got the range and power to take down fleeing Replicants in the middle of a rainstorm.

9. Phaser

Star Trek

Let's be specific here. We're not talking about the ping-y sounding handguns used in J.J. Abrams' reboot. No, it's the incendiary, wipe-the-floor-with-these-bad-boys variety of phaser that has shown up in the likes of Wrath of Khan and First Contact that gets us going. Sure, you can set your phaser to stun, but when facing off against the likes of the Borg, why would you?

8. Smart-Disc

Predator 2

One advantage the City Hunter Predator had in Predator 2 over the original film's Jungle Hunter was a larger and more varied arsenal. The Smart Disc is pretty much the galaxy's coolest boomerang. It's like a razor-sharp Frisbee that can be controlled via in-helmet sensors and always comes back to its owner, no matter what. How this Predator wielded so much fancy tech and still managed to be defeated by Danny Glover is a question for the ages.

7. Genesis Device

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

As with many weapons, Carol and David Marcus' Genesis Device was originally intended to help people, not harm them. It's a world builder -- terraforming technology that can create lush Class M planets where there was once just desolate rock. As Carol Marcus says, it's life from lifelessness. The only problem is it can work both ways, and if you drop Genesis in the middle of a space where there already is life… well, suffice to say bad stuff happens.

Oh, and it turns out it doesn't even work right anyway. The planet it creates is unstable, and it blows itself to hell in a very short time indeed.

6. M41A Pulse Rifle

Aliens

If the sequel to Alien was never produced, we're not sure the first-person shooter video game genre would even exist. Shooter fans owe a huge debt of gratitude to this movie and the pulse rifle it introduced. This mainstay of the Colonial Marines' arsenal looks cool, sounds cool, and packs enough punch to make mincemeat out of the Xenomorphs. Unfortunately, like any real-world gun, it's only useful as long as the ammo supply holds up. Make sure you stock more cartridges than there are Xenomorphs.

5. Death Star

Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope

It blows up planets. What more do you need to know?

We will argue here that while it is true that it does transport and house a large number of troops and people, the Death Star was primarily designed as a weapon. But the technological terror constructed by the Emperor was more than just a physical weapon -- in fact, perhaps it was even more effective as an instrument of fear. Or at least it would've been if not for that farm boy from Tatooine.

4. Weirding Module

Dune

In the original Dune novel, the weirding way is an advanced and highly precise form of martial arts. When he took on the challenge of adapting Dune for the big-screen, one of many changes David Lynch made was to replace the weirding way with Weirding Modules. These devices convert certain sounds into powerful blasts of sonic energy. Space kung-fu is one thing, but it's hard to top the idea of speaking your name and watching stone and flesh explode before you.

3. ARC Gun

District 9

Of the many excellent aspects of Neill Blomkamp's alien refugee tale District 9, the otherworldy weaponry is certainly up near the top of the list. And the concept that only the aliens themselves can use these guns is pretty interesting too, especially when one of our own -- poor old Wikus van der Merwe -- begins to morph into an alien. Suddenly, he's got the power. The power to blow the hell out of crap in gruesome, sci-fi fashion.

2. Glaive

Krull

Krull wasn't exactly a resounding success at the box office in 1983. The film does maintain a cult following, but we wonder how much of that is due to the film's signature weapon, the Glaive. Far from the poleaxe-type weapon of European history, the Glaive in Krull is more akin to the Smart-Disc in Predator 2. It's a combination throwing star and boomerang. But what really sets this beastly weapon apart are the five retractable blades and the many magical enchantments. Magical enchantments that, among other things, actually make wielding such a dangerous weapon practical. In real life, the Glaive is more likely to cut off the wielder's own fingers. But on the planet Krull, it can fulfill prophecies and unite a people under one banner.

1. Lightsaber

Star Wars

The obvious pick for number one? Sure, but come on. George Lucas' lightsaber is such a simple yet awesome concept, it quite frankly amazes us that it took as long as it did to permeate pop culture. Yes, variations on it were around in fiction prior to Star Wars, but Luke and old Ben and, of course, Darth Vader brought this seriously cool weapon to the forefront in 1977. Dare we say it changed all our lives?!

The lighstaber has inspired generation after generation of kids (and adults) to conduct make-believe duels in their backyards -- while also searing our love of the Star Wars franchise into the collective psyche like the burning hot blade of the saber itself. Popcorn blockbusters may come and go, but the lighstaber is a reminder that Star Wars is forever.

Like the man said, it's an elegant weapon… for a more civilized age.

What did we miss? Talk to us on Twitter at @ScottIGN and @jschedeen!