Talk:Quigley Down Under

Hollywood Wonders

I figured these shots would take up too much room on the page, but here is what the the Sharps rifle can do with the help of Hollywood and its physics denying ways. Since the rounds are not moving at the speed of light and aren't as heavy or heavier than the person being shot, this is commonly known as impossible, despite what some "rocking chair commandos" may tell you.

Yeah but they look cool. --Jcordell 17:29, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

This guy does a complete flip in the air!

Quigley shoots this guy in the leg and he is sweeped off his feet.

There are several other things that are impossible about this movie. The setting of the movie is the year 1860.

Says who? Where and when is that stated in the film?

Did you watch the movie? It isnt an 1874, it was converted from paper cartridges, to self contained metalic cartridges. -Blaise

Yes, I watched the movie. And the company that built the gun (and two others) used by Selleck in the movie is Shiloh Sharps Company from Big Timber, Montana. They used their model 1874, not a percussion rifle converted to an metallic cartridge (their model 1863 rifle). Shiloh Sharps offers a Model 1874 Quigley rifle to this day on their website. Here's a note from a guy who talked to the Shiloh Sharps people who verified to him that it was an 1874 model in the movie, scroll down to the last post by Michael Hacker on January 13, 2007: http://www.survivalarts.com/archives/000238.html I'll say it again, the gun(s) Selleck used in the movie was/were Model 1874 Sharps. And for historical purposes, there were NO cartridge conversions of Sharps rifles in 1860-1874, no one made the brass for this, no one did the conversions. Quigley would have been carrying a paper cartridge rifle. I realize the script calls for Quigley to have somehow found a gunsmith who magically makes brass center-fire cartridges in an age when the only ones, and they were few and far between, were small caliber rimfires, and then could also magically convert the rifle to fire these. Simply stating that this is a premise of the movie doesn't make it doable in the real world of the time, or historically accurate, anymore than the cartridge conversion that some Texas gunsmith does to Selleck's revolver in another of his revisionist westerns, Last Stand At Saber River which is set in 1865 (not to mention the The Good, The Bad and The Ugly among others). So there was no one on the Australian continent who could shoot accurately at distance? They never heard of the Whitworth rifle, first produced in 1857 that could make head shots at over 1000 yards? Marston has to send fliers around the world to find someone who can shoot accurately at 800-1000 yards? Well maybe so, since the script was written so that none of his hired hands could hit the broad side of a barn with a revolver except that kid that finally shot Quigley in the leg. Frankly the whole premis of this movie is preposterous, why would Marsten not simply kill Quigley at his ranch instead of the whole melodramtic, idiotic "take him two days journey away in a wagon and the let Australia kill him". Huh? Shoot the guy on the ground at your feet and end your problem then and there. And then to top off the stupidity, let some henchman take the rifle and the ammunition with him, instead of Marsten keeping it as a prize as he undoubtedly would have. And then the wagon driver takes off instead of getting off the wagon and shooting Quigley dead after his partner is knifed (apparently they're all too stupid to search him for hidden weapons too). This kind of insanity continues all the way through, culminating in the kid shooting Quigley in the leg and then not blowing Quigley's brains out then and there when he steps on the rifle; and collecting the 200 pounds reward from Marsten. No, they drag him for God knows how long behind a horse, which of course doesn't kill him nor even tear up his clothes. Then Marsten doesn't kill him, but has a quick draw contest, and Quigley is so unaffected by being dragged for miles behind a horse that he outdraws three guys, even though he doesn't like handguns, good Barbera Boxer-style liberal that he is, and hasn't even been able to put his hands on one for the 3 month voyage and his time in Australia before he wins the gunfight. Yet he outdraws three guys who use and practice with a handgun all the time. Yeah, I was able to suspend disbelieve (rolling eyes here).

Then there is the fact that the so-called Model 1858 Remington New Army did not begin production until at least 1860 (the Remington-Beals Army & Navy 1860-62), and the 1861 Army & Navy beginning in 1862; so it could not possibly have been in the United States, let alone Australia, in 1860, and if it's after 1860, the manufacturers are filling military contracts first and foremost for Lincoln's War. The Colt 1860 Army did not begin production until 1860, so considering tooling up, production, assembly, testing and inspection of the guns before they were sent to market, first fulfilling military contracts, there was again no way they could have been in Australia in 1860.

Then there is Matthew Quigley himself. We're supposed to believe that a Wyoming frontiersman in 1860 doesn't like handguns and doesn't carry one, that he'd go halfway around the world to a foreign country without asking or knowing exactly what the shooting job entailed (someone would believe a guy would hire a dude and pay for him to come halfway around the world just to shoot feral dogs??), and when he finds out he would be, in effect, so in tune with John Brown's views that he would go to war with his own people and side with black aborigines against them. Now keep in mind that it had been a year or less since John Brown had been executed for what today would be labeled "terrorist activities" and he would be called a terrorist. Brown led a raid on a U.S. military arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia (this was when the six western counties were still part of the state of Virginia) the goal of which was to lead a slave rebellion and basically overthrow the government of the United States. He was captured, tried for treason and hanged for leading what the government today has made a dirty word, militia, and Brown and his group were in effect, "insurgents". And Matthew Quigley, Wyoming frontiersman who would have had to have had his share of run-ins with hostile Indians, is supposed to be a spritual kinsman of John Brown? I don't think so, not in the 1860's. This movie basically makes Tom Selleck's character into a 1968 liberal Democrat from New York. Bleech.

This is a great debate, but why don't you guys actually have a signature? What are you all afraid of? Also I just watched the movie today and nowhere does it say anything about it being 1860. I just figure it's the late 1860's or even the early 1870's. It's still agood movie even if it isn't an accurate historical portrayl of the hero. --Jcordell 00:42, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Is there some great significance to "having a signature"? If it's after Lincoln's War or in the 1870's, then why is no one carrying a Henry, a Goldenboy Winchester or a Model 73, or even a Spencer? No cartridge conversion revolvers either, (the first one of those was the Remington New Model Army in 1868 converted to .46 Rimfire, according to Cimarron's website, and they paid a royalty to Smith & Wesson who owned the Rollin White patent on bored through cylinders; S&W themselves didn't start making bored through cylinders until nearly two years later with the Model 3 and Colt didn't start making cartridge conversions or doing it on customers guns until, if memory serves, 1871). These guys are armed with Hawkins Plains rifles (percussion) and even the shipping clerk at the end has a single shot percussion pistol under the counter (oh for the days of no passports with RFID chips, fingerprinting and facial recognition software!). I also found it odd that no one in the movie has a shotgun, ranchers and cattle herders in the Outback country would certainly have found a scattergun quite useful, especially with the threat of feral dogs.