Starship Troopers general thread

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik

This article is from May... but you get the idea.

Starship Troopers, one of the finest fascistic films to ever grace the silver screen is now hosted on Netflix. So while Netflix's library of old crap might be drying up, they still managed to secure rights to one of the most delightful, gory and satirical science fiction films of "recent" history. Despite the fact the director, Paul Verhoeven apparently couldn't get through the book and the movie itself is at best a complete bastardization of Heinleins original novel, Starship Troopers was still a great film to watch... for ladies and gentlemen and children of all some ages!

Kids will be intrigued by the curious and exotic Arachnids, enthralled by the docile and peaceful Tanker bugs, and dazzled by giant beetles that can crap ship busting bug plasma!

And the adults will appreciate the unabashed militarism and fascism of a future Human society that is every bit worth fighting for despite being such a idyllic dystopia. The satire might be a bit much and over the years the fascist and authoritarian themes have triggered many, but for the astute viewers, that was the point of those scenes.

Starship Troopers skewered militarism, fascism, and so forth delivered in a satirical manner so straight that some people took it way too seriously. Regardless, it added to the atmosphere of the film. It's amazing that a movie about Starship Troopers fighting vicious omnicidal bug monsters somehow is still best remembered for how it presented a Human society that was every bit as 'sanitized' as the TNG era Federation of Star Trek but it's complete opposite in so many ways.

So c'mon you apes. Watch the movie already, again if you have to!



And in case you are wondering, apparently it is the remastered edition transferred to Netflix!



Which means Denise Richards looks amazing as always... even if Dina Meyer's character was way cooler in this film. :cool:
 
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Yinko

Well-known member
The differences are interesting to note. The book never gave off any real signs of fascism, as such, and bulk of it is in non-combat zones. It takes place over years, Rico's father ends up enlisting when Rico is getting out of officer's school.

Contrast that with the movie, most of it is in combat on Klendathu. The manner in with which and in which in depicts everything is completely different. It's like the Earth-Sea miniseries, Le Guin said "it's its own thing" (possibly as a veiled insult). If you stop thinking of it as related to the book and consider it on its own merits, it's good. The director wanted to make the audience feel conflicted by making fascism sexy again, and it worked. I just don't think he got what he wanted, he seems the sort to want a "I can't believe I rooted for those guys" moment to hit the audience as the leave the theater, when instead that never arrived for the majority.
 

Argent

Well-known member
I just don't think he got what he wanted, he seems the sort to want a "I can't believe I rooted for those guys" moment to hit the audience as the leave the theater, when instead that never arrived for the majority.

That is mainly becasue we see very little outside battles. The book is a charater peice that follows a young man as he comes to understand the world he lives in.

The movie is a war movie. We have Rico have a short scene in highschool where we are told that choosing into serve is good. Then we go to basic training then war. Unlike the book we do not see how Rico wanted to be a anything but Mobile Infantry. Instead it is brushed passed quickly. We do not see any reasons behind his choices.

We never see Rico explore the military culture and explain the differences between it and civilian life. We do not get the debates that are the focus of officer school.

Instead we get a scene about how the bugs bombed Earth and a failed invasion. Then we move from battle to battle. Nothing shows the Bugs as misunderstood.

There was no "are we the baddies" moment in the movie. There was not even enough explanation about the goverment to show that they may even be a dictatorship like the director wanted.

It also never helped that Verhoven never understood that Starship Troopers was never war book but instead a thought experiment with an on going war as part of the backdrop.


Starship Trooper had the same problem that Ender's Game ran into. They are both worls that rely on an internal monologue to get across the philosophical ideas that make up their major themes. But that is much harder to do in a movie and makes for a much slower paced movie then the action movies that where made from those two books.
 

Navarro

Well-known member
The differences are interesting to note. The book never gave off any real signs of fascism, as such, and bulk of it is in non-combat zones. It takes place over years, Rico's father ends up enlisting when Rico is getting out of officer's school.

The film doesn't have any fascist substance either. No regimentation of society as a whole, no secret police, no economic failure and deprivation, and the closest thing the TF has to a Glorious Leader resigns in public disgrace right after Klendathu. What the movie's TF really represents is 1990s America with a Nazi coat of paint over it, because Verhoeven was never able to psychologically get over the trauma of the Allied bombing raid that almost levelled his childhood home.
 
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Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
The film doesn't have any fascist substance either. No regimentation of society as a whole, no secret police, no economic failure and deprivation, and the closest thing the TF has to a Glorious Leader resigns in public disgrace right after Klendathu. What the movie's TF really represents is 1990s America with a Nazi coat of paint over it, because Verhoeven was never able to psychologically get over the trauma of the Allied bombing raid that almost levelled his family home.

I dunno.

It does feel like an anti-Trek Utopia. The fact he chose beautiful people to do fun things in a 'utopian' society while you get these random bits of Nazi imagery, criminals being executed within 24 hours and scenes of kids stomping cockroaches to the cheering of their Teacher is fairly decent satire even if it's not substance. I have to think it was done intentionally that way. Making it look so awesome and attractive just to see how people would react to it.

And having watched it again recently, there are definitely things which obviously you could do in this move because the foe in this film are bugs. Like right before Carmen's Pilot Boyfriend dies, his last words are "Some day someone that looks like me is going to kill you and your entire fucking race."

It was a pretty strong statement, one I honestly don't remember hearing previous times I saw the film but noticed this time around (maybe it was an edit in the remaster?) and though impactful then, it's essentially meaningless because he's talking to a Bug. But if those were his last words to some rubber forehead alien like in Star Trek or whatever... it'd definitely stand out more.

Starship Troopers could only be made in such a watered down, satirical and fun way because the enemies were omnicidal bugs.
 

Navarro

Well-known member
I dunno.

It does feel like an anti-Trek Utopia. The fact he chose beautiful people to do fun things in a 'utopian' society while you get these random bits of Nazi imagery, criminals being executed within 24 hours and scenes of kids stomping cockroaches to the cheering of their Teacher is fairly decent satire even if it's not substance. I have to think it was done intentionally that way. Making it look so awesome and attractive just to see how people would react to it.

Verhoeven notably said in an interview that the TF is "only fucking good for killing bugs". So he seems to think that he presented the TF as worse than he presented it as. Which is telling given that in the DVD commentary he says that the spread of American culture worldwide is as bad as the Nazi conquests and genocides in WW2. We're dealing with a satire by somebody who doesn't understand either the source material or the concepts he's trying to satirise.
 
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Navarro

Well-known member
Verhoeven notably said in an interview that the TF is "only fucking good for killing bugs". So he seems to think that he presented the TF as worse than he presented it as. Which is telling given that in the DVD commentary he says that the spread of American culture worldwide is as bad as the Nazi conquests and genocides in WW2. We're dealing with a satire by somebody who doesn't understand either the source material or the concepts he's trying to satirise.

TBF the SST movie does have good jabs at half-cocked military adventurism. But its "deeper political themes" are pure nonsense.
 

Yinko

Well-known member
Yes, I was talking about the movie.
Ok, did that in the book too. The sky-marshal position is kind of BS to my mind though. You have to go from enlisted to general and then re-enlist in the space forces and work your way up to admiral, that's the minimum qualification in the book. Seems like they fight so much that field promotions are common, they use commissions that accelerate the process (neither of which are represented in the books or movie) or the whole thing is BS and the skymarshal is just appointed by commitee and claimed to have such a qualification for propaganda purposes.
 

Navarro

Well-known member
Ok, did that in the book too. The sky-marshal position is kind of BS to my mind though. You have to go from enlisted to general and then re-enlist in the space forces and work your way up to admiral, that's the minimum qualification in the book. Seems like they fight so much that field promotions are common, they use commissions that accelerate the process (neither of which are represented in the books or movie) or the whole thing is BS and the skymarshal is just appointed by commitee and claimed to have such a qualification for propaganda purposes.

Which is especially implausible since the book starts in a time of relative peace. I think Heinlein was just too wedded to his idea that in the TF military everybody fights to really take into account the practicalities of the isssue.
 

ParadiseLost

Well-known member
Verhoeven notably said in an interview that the TF is "only fucking good for killing bugs". So he seems to think that he presented the TF as worse than he presented it as. Which is telling given that in the DVD commentary he says that the spread of American culture worldwide is as bad as the Nazi conquests and genocides in WW2.

Its telling because it means he's fucking disconnected from reality.

If that's actually his opinion, I'd recommend just ignoring everything he says. Someone that disconnected from reality isn't capable of proper satire.

Just enjoy his works as the crazy balls to the walls movies they are.
 

Shipmaster Sane

You have been weighed
Starship Troopers, one of the finest fascistic films to ever grace the silver screen is now hosted on Netflix.
The differences are interesting to note. The book never gave off any real signs of fascism, as such, and bulk of it is in non-combat zones. It takes place over years, Rico's father ends up enlisting when Rico is getting out of officer's school.

Contrast that with the movie, most of it is in combat on Klendathu. The manner in with which and in which in depicts everything is completely different. It's like the Earth-Sea miniseries, Le Guin said "it's its own thing" (possibly as a veiled insult). If you stop thinking of it as related to the book and consider it on its own merits, it's good. The director wanted to make the audience feel conflicted by making fascism sexy again, and it worked. I just don't think he got what he wanted, he seems the sort to want a "I can't believe I rooted for those guys" moment to hit the audience as the leave the theater, when instead that never arrived for the majority.
The federation of the film is in no way fascist. They're a strongly militarist republic. The simple presence of thriving private industry and the fact that Civilians, even those who publicly speak out against government dogma, are wealthy and comfortable, should have been enough to show that.

The Federation was designed to be "Fascist" in the vision of someone who sees modern america as "Fascist", i.e., a retard.
 

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
TBF the SST movie does have good jabs at half-cocked military adventurism. But its "deeper political themes" are pure nonsense.

Yeah when this film came out it was either to triggered or simply shallow negative reviews, the former for people who missed the point and the latter for thinking Starship Troopers is somehow exceptionally worse then Total Recall or Robocop. While personally I think those other two Verhoeven films are better (especially Robocop) Starship Troopers is still a good movie, especially by the low standards of Hollywood science fiction, especially back in the 80's and 90's.

The jabs against militarism are great, especially in the military recruitment ads and just like in Robocop and Total Recall which had memorable advertisements (and news reports) which skewered biased news media, propaganda and corporatism and capitalism, you got a lot of stuff skewering patriotism and nationalism and militarism with the fake ads in SST.

I just don't think he got what he wanted, he seems the sort to want a "I can't believe I rooted for those guys" moment to hit the audience as the leave the theater, when instead that never arrived for the majority.

I totally agree with that. Even fans who understand the movie and whatever harebrained themes the Director was trying to inject in here aren't exactly liking the movie for showing the darkness of war or the potential falseness of future utopias. Even all of the main characters are basically likable and if characters aren't likable, it's more due to their romantic choices (CARMEN!!!) then their ideology.

The impact would've been more serious if they weren't fighting omnicidal bugs... but another human (or close to human race) because then you'd have all that propaganda focused on non-omnicidal bugs but actual sentient beings capable of being empathic with. But you don't get the opportunity because they're all getting nuked and machine gunned and there would never be that trope towards the end of seeing your enemy as a reflection of yourself... because again... machine gun goes pew pew pew. ;)

It'd be much easier to question the society if their perfect awesome anti-Trek Utopia was actually suppressing some more familiar and sympathetic "other" faction out there instead of Bugs. But then again the movie might've never seen the light of day if it was done that way... and of course it certainly might have even less to do with the novel source material.

Plus who knows even if they tried if the Director or Studio wouldn't royally F it all up somehow in the process.
 

Navarro

Well-known member
I mean, the arachnids are the real fascists of the SST movie, as their hivemind seeks to destroy humanity because our individuality disgusts it.

The impact would've been more serious if they weren't fighting omnicidal bugs... but another human (or close to human race) because then you'd have all that propaganda focused on non-omnicidal bugs but actual sentient beings capable of being empathic with. But you don't get the opportunity because they're all getting nuked and machine gunned and there would never be that trope towards the end of seeing your enemy as a reflection of yourself... because again... machine gun goes pew pew pew.

I mean, if he wanted to do that Verhoeven could have simply re-introduced the Skinnies from the novel as allies of the bugs. Instead, fans of the movie are literally arguing that non-sentient warrior bugs deserve all the rights the Geneva Convention gives to POWs. Because that's the only way to make their precious "satire" work.
Its telling because it means he's fucking disconnected from reality.

If that's actually his opinion, I'd recommend just ignoring everything he says. Someone that disconnected from reality isn't capable of proper satire.

Just enjoy his works as the crazy balls to the walls movies they are.

Yep. The SST movie is best enjoyed as a popcorn action film about fighting evil aliens.
 

CarlManvers2019

Writers Blocked Douchebag
I mean, if he wanted to do that Verhoeven could have simply re-introduced the Skinnies from the novel as allies of the bugs. Instead, fans of the movie are literally arguing that non-sentient warrior bugs deserve all the rights the Geneva Convention gives to POWs. Because that's the only way to make their precious "satire" work.

Kinda reminds me of Ender’s Game before the revelation regarding the Bugs’ sapience and how they didn’t realize the mass murder they did

How can you feel sorry about a species that’s basically 99.999999% mook with no dialogue lines or are mostly existing just to kill you

Goblin Slayer being an “AntiHero” for being willing to kill Goblin children’s more believable
 

Terthna

Professional Lurker
Its telling because it means he's fucking disconnected from reality.

If that's actually his opinion, I'd recommend just ignoring everything he says. Someone that disconnected from reality isn't capable of proper satire.

Just enjoy his works as the crazy balls to the walls movies they are.
Paul Verhoeven kept trying to push an anti-American political message in his films, but he was simply too ignorant of reality for it to come across as anything other than parody. Lucky for us, said unintentional parodies are incredibly entertaining as long as you ignore what he was actually trying to say.
 

CarlManvers2019

Writers Blocked Douchebag
Paul Verhoeven kept trying to push an anti-American political message in his films, but he was simply too ignorant of reality for it to come across as anything other than parody. Lucky for us, said unintentional parodies are incredibly entertaining as long as you ignore what he was actually trying to say.

I wonder how Paul Verhoeven actually talking to Robert A. Heinlein would've gone.
 

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