Starship Troopers Still Being Fussed Over

[Steve R.]

25 years ago, one brilliant sci-fi movie fixed the entire genre

Sometimes good satire can lead to good sincerity.

www.inverse.com

This is one of the most misunderstood movies ever, as defined by me. The short summary, Paul Verhoeven turned Starship Troopers into a flashy mindless one-dimensional shoot-em-up to appeal to adolescents. I obviously cannot get into Verhoeven's mind, but it would appear that he had only a minimal (negative) grasp of Heinlein's universe. Heinlein back in his day, was controversial. In fact, one of the questions posed by Heinlien (and carried forward in the movie) that has great relevance today: What does it mean to be a citizen?

Heinlien was advocating that citizenship needed to be earned. A person who is granted something for nothing (such as citizenship) really has no vested interest in in the obligations of citizenship. The parents of Johnny Rico essentially called him a fool for wanting to earn citizenship. (Why put your life in jeopardy? Let ignorant fools put their lives in danger instead. We will even give you an all expense paid vacation at Zegema Beach so that you can avoid the obligations of citizenship.) The quote below, from the Inverse article is another typical twisting of what Heinlien was attempting to convey. It wasn't about "pure democracy" but about making the commitment to become a citizen and to work towards protecting society.

"Because the film casually asserts the idea that only those who serve in the futuristic military are “real” citizens, it presents the ease at which fascist ideas could take over a mainstream democracy. As the film opens, Rasczak (Michael Ironside) lectures his students about the failures of pure democracy, championing the status quo of this future world."

Back in 2020, I had previously commented on this movie, where I wrote: "You really need to read the book, by Robert Heinlien. Forget about the "bugs". The story (in the book) is about leadership and what if means to be an officer." I guess, think of the movie: An Officer and a Gentlemen.

I also wrote: "As an aside, Starship Troopers portrays a 1950's society. It is dressed-up to appear "modern", but it isn't. Took me a while to realize that." In a sense, Verhoeven should be given credit for recreating a 1950s society. The problem of course is that there is no "warning" to that effect, which left me and possibly others confused.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Yes, Verhoeven's approach was a bit "slick and glossy" - but at least it was better than the sequels.

Heinlein was notorious for buggering with people's minds in his adult series. His little gem I Will Fear No Evil turned sexuality on its head. Then there was Stranger in a Strange Land that played mind-games with religious types. BUT there was no better mind-hump than All You Zombies - which gives you a paradoxical creature who can't exist - yet does - through the perils and joys of time travel. To be honest, though, I even liked his fiction that was targeted to younger audiences and that also embellished duty, honor, and responsibility.

Robert Anson Heinlein, who also wrote as Anson Williams... many of us miss you dreadfully.

 

[Pat Hartman]

I find that a lot of Sci-Fi movies concentrate on the bang-bang shoot'em up rather than the actual story. Star Wars would be a much better movie without most of the battle scenes.

 

[Darrell]

Star Wars would be a much better movie without most of the battle scenes.

Kind of has it in the title though to be fair

 

[Steve R.]

Star Wars would be a much better movie without most of the battle scenes.

When we saw Star Wars in May 1977, I was simply blown-away by the star ships. Back in 1977 this was new and innovative. Though time has passed, some of the space battle scenes with Starship Troopers were very good. One example was Rodger Young (The ship was named after a war hero, follow the link.) and where the drop ships were being discharged. (If you look closely at the drop ships being discharged their thrusters are pointed in the wrong direction. The thrusters should been pointed "up" to push the drop ships towards Klendathu.) Back to the issue, battle scenes today compared to 50 years ago are much better with the help of CGI, but have become to prevalent and can be overdone to being a distraction. I have more or less given-up watching new MCU movies. I've also avoided the John Wick movies.

PS: I just remembered on of my major gripes with Star Ship Troops, was the use of solid projectile weapons (machine guns) against the "bugs". They should have been using napalm, flame throwers, or explosive bullets. Eventually, napalm was used. But I guess, massive indiscriminate shooting was perceived as having adolescent appeal.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

It has been too long since I read the original story, but as I recall, they were using projectile weapons. You and I would say "wide-area flame" as a weapon, but there is precedent in print for bullets in that story.

 

[Pat Hartman]

Speaking of John Wick, I tried to watch one not too long ago and had to turn it off. I LOVE Jack Reacher (Lee Child) and the Gray Man and Orphan X. All get into conflicts that can be pretty violent but that isn't the point of reading the books. I was really disappointed that Tom Cruise got cast as Jack Reacher. Much as I like Tom Cruise in other movies, he is NOT Jack Reacher. Amazon Prime did one of the Reacher stories (Killing Floor) as a series and cast a no-name actor as Reacher (Alan Ritchson). He was a much better fit. Cruise is too small and too pretty.

 

[AccessBlaster]

Yeah, the guy on the far left is average size. Alan Ritchson is more like the character bigger than life!

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Tom Cruise is a pretty decent actor but I've found him to be a bit overrated sometimes. He's popular, I'll give him that much.

 

[Pat Hartman]

There is nothing quite like Tom Cruise in his tidy whities sliding into view to "that old time rock and roll" in Risky Business Probably the greatest movie scene of all time

 

[The_Doc_Man]

The fight/combat scenes are metaphoric in a way, a representation of the deep-seated differences between the two sides. Sort of like the Portland riots and the January 6th event represent the divisions in our own modern society.

 

[Steve R.]

The fight/combat scenes are metaphoric in a way, a representation of the deep-seated differences between the two sides. Sort of like the Portland riots and the January 6th event represent the divisions in our own modern society.

Explain. To me, many of the fight scenes were largely gratuitous kinetic (animated) violence to appeal to adolescent males. Nevertheless, what we see, in the background, is an "miltary" that is reflective of a 1950s society. Going a step further, I'm surprised that Paul Verhoeven retained presenting a 1950s society in the script. Additonally, a backround theme presented by Verhoeven was the meaning of being a citizen (one of Heinlien's themes).

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Explain.

Directors use physical conflict to represent an irreparable ideological or political conflict because they can't fit the precursor conflict in a short time. Here's a case in point from history and the issues that wouldn't be so easy to portray quickly in movies.

After WW1, the Treaty of Versailles drastically constrained Germany, including a requirement for reparations. The great depression left the German people feeling powerless and angry. The democracy that ran Germany (for a while) failed to help the pain of the European depression in which you needed a wheelbarrow to carry money to the store for a single bag of groceries. (That may be SLIGHTLY exaggerated - but not grossly so.) Add to it that Germany and Austria were separated from each other politically, which wasn't seen as a good thing by the citizenry. But the stirrings of the 3rd Reich took a while. Eventually, when the Nationalist party (abbreviated in German as Nazi) took over, the seeds were set to throw off the limits of the treaty and bring Germany to its former glory.

But if you are making a movie about it, you need to describe events that occurred over a couple of decades to show the political evolution that led to the invasion of Poland, the bombing of London, and other elements at the start of the war. Or... you can just show a couple of the riots that left a few bodies behind as a metaphor for the political and social upheavals that had been underway for two decades.

 

[AccessBlaster]

many of the fight scenes were largely gratuitous kinetic (animated) violence to appeal to adolescent males.

Nailed it!

 

[The_Doc_Man]

A friend of mine and I got into a discussion about another movie and the question of whether any of the violence was gratuitous. For the first Terminator, after watching the movie in a theater and then staying up until 2 AM discussing it, we decided that NONE of the violence shown on the screen could count as gratuitous. Every bit of the terminator's (Arnold's T800) violence was a plot point regarding the person they were trying to kill in the past in order to preserve their future.

 

[AccessBlaster]

The Terminator killed everyone in the phone book named Sarah Connor.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Not quite. He missed one.