Starship Troopers (spoilers)

[Rom's Sehlat]

This is about the first film, not the book (so much) or the second or third films. What did you think of this?

Are most movies about individuals during wartime this sad? Johnny lost almost all of his friends. His crush basically dumped him.

I watched the movie before reading about it: it was supposed to have parallels to the Nazis and the SS. That would explain why Carl and his fellow military intelligence people had trench coats (on a spaceship...) that resembled that Nazi guy's from IJ "Raiders."

It appears to me that in-story, the humans could have simply established meteor stopping weapons near the Klandathu system to knock down all the meteors that have the arachnid spore on them.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The movie was a farce, a joke. It was a parody of the novel, nothing more. It should be treated as such.

 

[JarodRussell]

Still can't get over the fact that Barney Stinson is in this movie.

 

[Holdfast]

One of the funniest movies ever; I love it. Full of witty lines and scenes; some great satirical jabs at a wide range of targets; and some pretty decent action sequences. I trust the uniforms weren't the only parallel to fascism you noted.

Still can't get over the fact that Barney Stinson is in this movie.

At the time of release, it was far weirder seeing Doogie Howser in it.

 

[Goliath]

Hail Victory! Hail Doogie!

Actually, while most of the movie was enjoyable satire, there were a few serious parts.

I was particularly struck by Johnny Rico's short speech at Dizzy's funeral, about the nature of both soldiering and citizenship. As General Sir John Hackett said: a soldier does not set himself up as a slayer; he offers himself up to be slain.

That was one of the few elements of Heinlein's overall message that deserved to be taken seriously, and I thought the movie treated it with appropriate respect.

 

[Gaith]

Are most movies about individuals during wartime this sad?

Uh... have you not seen Apocalypse Now, Flags of Our Fathers/Letters from Iwo Jima, Saving Private Ryan, The Hurt Locker, etc., etc.? Depressing and downbeat pretty much goes with the territory, yeah.



I find the movie to be a pretty sharp and interesting satire until the last mission, when it suddenly becomes exactly the sort of rah-rah "ain't war an adventure" flick that it earlier ridiculed, as it certainly seems that the protagonists achieve what could be a defining victory in the war. If the filmmakers had had real stones, everyone would have died abrupt and meaningless deaths, but the demands of commerce evidently required some sort of upbeat finale.

And no, it's no good to claim that the upbeat ending is a sly parody of upbeat war movie endings, because there's nothing sly or winking about it. It's a betrayal of the earlier promise and daring, plain and simple.

 

[FPAlpha]

It's a perfect beer and pretzel movie to get together for bad movie night.

The book just set the framework but the movie went in an almost totally different direction but it still had glimpses of social critique and should be taken as a satirical movie for most parts.

It's best not to overanalyze the movie because of the huge plotholes and at times very bad acting but the SFX are very good, there's plenty of gore and some really memorable oneliners (which my friends and me still quote today).

 

[Gaith]

Oh, and:

Are most movies about individuals during wartime this sad? Johnny lost almost all of his friends. His crush basically dumped him.

Yeah, his high school girlfriend dumped him, and he deserved it - he was just a pretty face blockhead with no intellectual ambition or other interesting personality traits. That means more smart supermodel types for us suave geeks out there.

 

[scnj]

I'd consider this a guilty pleasure if I felt guilty about it. One of my top ten (maybe top five) movies of all time.

 

[iguana_tonante]

I trust the uniforms weren't the only parallel to fascism you noted.

Well, the Citizens' Federation's flag was kinda Reichsadler-ish. That's it, right?

 

[Holdfast]

I trust the uniforms weren't the only parallel to fascism you noted.

Well, the Citizens' Federation's flag was kinda Reichsadler-ish. That's it, right?

Yeah, that's about it...

 

[Kegg]

It's a fun movie and it's aged pretty well. Verhoven doesn't always hit the mark but Starship Troopers went right out of the park. Probably one of my favourite sci-fi films from the nineties, anyway, I'm sure it'd crack the top ten.

I find the movie to be a pretty sharp and interesting satire until the last mission, when it suddenly becomes exactly the sort of rah-rah "ain't war an adventure" flick that it earlier ridiculed, as it certainly seems that the protagonists achieve what could be a defining victory in the war. If the filmmakers had had real stones, everyone would have died abrupt and meaningless deaths, but the demands of commerce evidently required some sort of upbeat finale.

That's the kind of 'upbeat finale' that's appropriately disturbing, though. Fascism triumping over its enemies is more unsettling then it being defeated, no? A war begun on dubious aims that banked much on thoroughly demonizing the enemy and which has now defeated and likely enslaved them to a histrionic military-industrial complex that'll just keep expanding its lebensraum across the galaxy. A bit like how Total Recall (frankly, a much weaker film) gets to have its upbeat heroic action ending which can also be read as his mind slipping away.

..besides, there's decidedly something goofy about a Nazi mind reader touching a giant vagina-alien and declaring it's afraid.

 

[lurok]

I love Troopers the way I love Forbidden Planet or Day The Earth Stood Still: dated and kitsch, but with underlying universal and timeless themes. Classic Hollywood SF.

Apart from the obvious bug FX, gore, satire, yadda-yadda, one of the big things that struck me when I saw it was how well the film did the space battle scenes. The ships had a real sense of weight and mass, and when attacked you felt these were leviathans that were being taken down by implacable and resourceful enemy...

 

[Gaith]

I find the movie to be a pretty sharp and interesting satire until the last mission, when it suddenly becomes exactly the sort of rah-rah "ain't war an adventure" flick that it earlier ridiculed, as it certainly seems that the protagonists achieve what could be a defining victory in the war. If the filmmakers had had real stones, everyone would have died abrupt and meaningless deaths, but the demands of commerce evidently required some sort of upbeat finale.

That's the kind of 'upbeat finale' that's appropriately disturbing, though. Fascism triumphing over its enemies is more unsettling then it being defeated, no?

Frankly, no, not when the "enemy" is not once shown to be capable of any kind of compassion. Suppose that, during WW2, the fate of the world came down to zombies vs. Nazi Germany. Sorry, but I'll always root for humans, no matter how corrupt, over literally mindless bugs/creatures.

If there had been hints that the bugs had their own civilization, feelings, love, etc., that'd be a different story, but that's not what the movie presented.

 

[{ Emilia }]

The movie was a farce, a joke. It was a parody of the novel, nothing more. It should be treated as such.

In fact Verhoeven commented on the fact that that was the intent. And that he was shocked that most Americans took it at face-value because they didn't understand the irony.

It's been ages since I saw it, though and I remember it to be utter crap.

 

[Timby]

The movie was a farce, a joke. It was a parody of the novel, nothing more. It should be treated as such.

In fact Verhoeven commented on the fact that that was the intent.

Not quite. Verhoeven says that after reading through the first third or so of the book, he found himself incredibly bored. He didn't start reading it until Ed Neumeier came up to him with the script.

I'm not necessarily sure I blame him. It's not a particularly good book, even by Heinlein's standards.

 

[Kegg]

Frankly, no, not when the "enemy" is not once shown to be capable of any kind of compassion.

At what point would the enemy have shown compassion? Hell, almost everything we see of the bugs is when they're under fire by humans, to which their reaction is pretty understandable.

All we know of the aliens is force-fed to us by propaganda newsreels, and the briefest of suggestions of 'a live and let live policy' is ridiculed as facile. The origins of the war seem to have something to do with a Mormon fundamentalist invasion of bug territory.

It's very easy to demonize an Other. It's even easier in fantasy where the Other can be quite literally unhuman.

While it's an adaption of Heinlein's Starship Troopers, what the movie actually makes me think of is Now Wait For Last Year (probably by way of The Forever War). In that Philip K. Dick novel humans chose to ally with the humanoid race of Lilistar against the ugly bug aliens or Reegs, although as it turns out the human-types of Lilistar are jackbooted thugs and the Reegs are far more compassionate. That that novel and tell it entirely from Lilistar-geared propaganda aimed at Earth and I wonder if there'd be much difference between that movie and this.

 

[Gaith]

At what point would the enemy have shown compassion?

I don't mean to humans, but maybe to each other. There could have been medic bugs; we could see bugs trying to protect or mourning their fallen comrades. But no, they're presented as mindless.

Hell, almost everything we see of the bugs is when they're under fire by humans, to which their reaction is pretty understandable.

It really doesn't take gigantic leaps of imagination to conceive of hints that might show the bugs in a better light. We could have seen Doogie suppressing information showing that the bugs' homeworld is a peaceful one, or that they're pleading for an end to the war. If the movie had been really daring, it could have shown Rico acccidentally learning as much, thus requiring Doogie to murder him in order to keep the war machine going.

Either way, when discussing what the movie could have shown, saying "but they didn't show that!" is not all that convincing.

 

[Kegg]

I don't mean to humans, but maybe to each other. There could have been medic bugs; we could see bugs trying to protect or mourning their fallen comrades. But no, they're presented as mindless.

I didn't see a lot of medic humans. Clearly, a mindless much.

We could have seen Doogie suppressing information showing that the bugs' homeworld is a peaceful one, or that they're pleading for an end to the war.

Which would make the subtext a little more blunt, no? To turn this on its head, we have little to no evidence they aren't a peaceful race. It's the dividing line the movie is walking: It's presenting something the creators see as contemptible and presents it without little overt commentary beyond the bombastic propaganda.

Assuming Doogie Howser can perform telepathy, and that's an if, the only time we get an opinion from the bugs is one of fear.

 

[lurok]

I would have loved to have been a test-score analyst on this film to see how many moviegoers identified with the protagonists...