Just What You See, Pal

From Terminator (the first film):

The Terminator: The .45 Long Slide, with laser sighting.
Alamo Guns Clerk: These are brand new; we just got these in. That's a good gun. Just touch the trigger, the beam comes on and you put the red dot where you want the bullet to go. You can't miss. Anything else?
The Terminator: Phased-plasma rifle in the forty watt range.
Alamo Guns Clerk: Hey, just what you see, pal.

News Item: Researchers demonstrate 100-watt-level mid-infrared lasers. "...room temperature peak output power as high as 120 watts was obtained from a single device, which is up from 34 watts only a year ago."

So our technology has passed that 40 watt threshold in the past year. Just sayin'.