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Some of the old-timers tried to avoid cliches. If you ever read Arthur C Clarke's "Earthlight" - what, early 1960s - he had a moonbase mining site firing bolts of molten rock no less at the ships overhead.
In typical Clarke fashion, though, that wasn't the point, just a side issue. The real issue was a spy on the moonbase transmitting information to the enemy. No hi-tech system then available explained how it happened, or who the spy was.
How: well, a telescope can work two ways: accepting faint signals of light coming in, and recording it on arcane electronic detectors;or by reversing the direction by using much the same arcane electronic equipent to send pulses of radiation through a telescope by old fashioned morse code, with the enemy moving into the (very wide) beam width at agreed times.
Still, the cliches can be fun.
Every bomb placed under a car MUST HAVE an ancient digital display counting down, or a red flashing LED - just so the average couch potato knows what is going on.
Also they are always exactly synchronised with the good guys' watches.
And they are always defused either 1 or 2 second from kaboomba. Never anything like 23 hours 18 minutes. Or even 10 minutes.
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