Named after SONY founder Akio Morita, the Morita smart rifle from Starship Troopers (1997) is rapidly becoming one of science fiction filmdom’s iconic weapons. Not since the pulse rifle from Aliens (1986) has a blank-firing prop made such an impact on fans. The signature: star-flame bursts spewing seemingly limitless ammunition at the hordes of arachnids, laying waste to several planetoids in the film and assuring the mobile infantry victory.

Check out our Morita photo gallery here.

A typical Morita - this one is a blank-firing

With any production, the use of actual firearms can be hazardous. The primary use of the blank-firing weapons was for visual effect and impact. For the purpose of this article, a “shell’ or “enclosure” will indicate a blank-firing or hero-type rifle. “Non-firing” indicates a hero-shell enclosure with resin parts to replace the firearm. Safety is the greatest concern on any set, and creating realistic non-firing versions of weapons maintains safety while keeping with the authentic look. If you mishandle a real firing weapon, even a blank gun, the hazards are exponential. You might also be surprised how many rubber stunt guns you can spot if you pay close attention.

There were two versions produced in blank-firing, non-firing hero and rubber stunt.

Standard Mobile Infantry rifle: This is the longer version of the two (almost 44 inches long). The design was an over-under with a Ruger (AC-556 full auto or Mini-14 semi-auto) mounted on top and a pump shotgun on the bottom. In two versions, the shotgun actually fired a flash round for effect. The shotgun had to be sawed off so the barrel didn’t extend too far past the front of the rifle. This required some class III paperwork for sure.

Mobile Infantry officer/Fleet carbine: A shorter more compact version of the MI rifle, minus the shotgun. The MI officer was the same field-green color as the long version, and the Fleet carbine was more of a gun metal in appearance. The colors differentiated between the two. These were also fitted with an AC-556 or Mini-14.

A screen shot of the ACC-556 Morita. The auto-selector is visible near the rear of the ejection port.

The blank weapons were designed and built around the Ruger AC-556 (auto) and the Ruger Mini-14 (semi-auto), both firing .223 hot-load blanks provided by Joe Swanson’s Motion Picture Blanks which supplied thousands of rounds of ammunition for Starship Troopers and other films as well. To date, that has been his largest supply of ammo for a film. There has never been any specifics provided on the exact number of firing weapon shells produced (125 shells were rumored). The AC-556 is a full automatic version of the Mini-14 and is rather expensive, and according to Rock Galotti, the film’s weapons coordinator, there weren’t very many AC-556’s used, and most of those were burned up from shooting, and none really survived the shoot.

The Morita was designed as a dual trigger over-under design, with the lower being an Ithica feather weight 12 gauge pump shot gun. The stunt models have a resin and aluminum molded Remington Model 870, which created some confusion for those searching for the proper shotgun used. There was a special aluminum bracket designed to mount the shotgun on select rifles. The shotgun just slid right into place after removing the butt stock. The main clamshell was based on the off –the-shelf Muzzlelite bullpup stock. The art department then added the creative look and feel to the Muzzlelite to make it a little more unfamiliar to the audience, and added length to non-carbine models.

The design is very simple. It’s a two-piece clam shell molded in fiberglass, dyed field-green and sprayed with silver heat-resistant paint on the inside to prevent overheating as much as possible. Many of the shells suffered from heat induced warping, so the heat shielding didn’t help very much.

The Rugers were threaded on the end of each barrel to accommodate a custom made steel barrel extension which was also fitted with a restrictor to allow blank firing and blow back gases to cycle the next round. The carbines had a smaller steel barrel and restrictor. The barrel extension was attached, and the rifle would just lay right into the shell. There was a central mounting aluminum bracket which secured the rifle into the shell. The securing points inside the shell were secured in placed with both machine screws and epoxy putty (liquid wood).

Michael Ironsides brandishing the field green mobile infantry officers'

Once the rifle and barrel were in place, the two shell halves were carefully matched up, and 8 machine screws held it all together. One flaw in the design of the gun enclosure (shell) was that the steel extension barrel and prop shotgun were both held together by a two-piece machined-aluminum support. The support is just aft of the flash hider and is held in place by two small roll pins at the base, which fitted horizontally into the shell into small drilled holes. Although effective, all of the weight of the front of the gun sat on those two roll pins. Fiberglass is strong but brittle, and the fiberglass often cracked or broke in this area from usage or when cleaned by the armorers.

All of the fiberglass shells were produced as firing or hero non-firing. The shells were interchangeable and probably were switched out due to powder residue found in some that have been purchased. The “hero” (indicating main character or principal prop) non-firing had a resin copy of a Mini-14 receiver and looked exactly like the real firing models sans metal. This was primarily for safety concerns, and if a rifle is not firing on film, and it’s in close up, it’s probably a non-firing hero or a rubber stunt version. There were countless rubber stunt models produced as well, with the carbine being the rarer of the two. The rubber stunt pieces in production allow stunt personnel to roll, fall or tumble onto a soft prop without breaking it or injuring themselves.

A rare photo illustrating how the rifle and shotgun barrels mesh into the shell.

Some interesting tidbits: There were two Moritas made with a reverse-countdown digital counter installed at the base of the carrying handle, in the rear. This was probably intended for close-ups to show the rounds remaining and to give dramatic visual effect. Each counter started at 1000 rounds and was fitted with a green digital display powered by a 9-volt battery.

Each blank-firing rifle used a 30-round stainless steel magazine with a sleeve over the magazine to make it look more interesting and mask the familiar look of it. The non-firing rifle had a real magazine, but it was permanently attached to the shell. There were a few 40-round magazines used to extend the shooting time for longer continuous bursts. These were mostly likely used in the scene where Casper Van Dien is pierced in the leg by an arachnid. The prolonged continuous blank-fire, along with the help of editing, must have required extended blank ammunition to maintain the shot. One note: The blank rifles were very loud during shooting, and it upset the residents of Casper, Wyoming. Imagine almost 50-100 of these going off during the night-time shoots. As a humorous nod to the disruption, a local resident actually produced small buttons that read, “Relax, it’s only a movie,” to calm folks in the area. After all they were being defended by the Mobile Infantry and the Morita.