Casper Van Dien is loving the Starship Troopers renaissance but still finds it mind-boggling some take it at face value
Casper Van Dien is loving the Starship Troopers renaissance but still finds it mind-boggling some take it at face value
"Quentin Tarantino talked to me for five hours about why Starship Troopers is one of the best movies ever made."
My first viewing I did mostly take it at face value. But in my defense, I was a dumb 11 year old kid. It wasn't until Neil Patrick Haris came out in full SS uniform that I started asking questions.
I don't understand why people wouldn't take it at face value without any further context offered to them beforehand. It's a campy action film that's a lot of fun but with just the faintest dusting of authoritarianism that could be easily disregarded as just part of the ambience of the filmmaker's decisions. It ends on a hopeful scene implying better understanding of the Bugs in order to reach victory.
You've got to read the book to get it, but even then that doesn't really shift the film out of being a Big Action Shooter that's fun to watch.
I think what made it an obvious parody was the over the top PSA/commercials they broadcasted, and the fact that citizens are treated as a privileged class. I think at one point someone mentions that they have to become a citizen in order to be legally allowed to have children and that's why they joined the army. It's so far abstracted from our own reality, that I even picked up on the fact that it was a parody watching it for the first time at 12 years old.
TBF but a parody of what? Sure it has a satirical look and exaggerates aspects of modern society, however we are trying to balance that against the book.
We could even say that the movie is taking shots at Heinlein’s own personal beliefs because arguably Heinlein’s personal politics paint him as a rabid anti-communist, pro-nuclear and -projection of force.
Personally I viewed the commercials and over the top stratified society based using a trope of a somewhat Roman or Spartan militaristic society, but it’s been a long, long time since I read the book to remember enough to actually compare Heinlein’s politics to the book and then the film to that book and modern society.
No
Gam*rs
I’ve seen this a few times, ca you explain this to me? Is it a way of talking about people that consider themselves capital G gamers without having them come in and ruin the conversation with whining or gamergate bs?
I would just like to take this moment to suggest people find a comfortable place to sit with a stiff drink, spliff or whatever and listen to the first chapter of the audio book - and I mean really listen, actively visualize the story and everything being described, let yourself really emotionally connect with the events as much as possible - it's a really powerful and well written bit of action sci-fi.
It's on YouTube read by Christopher Hurt, first chapter is about 40 min, I've read a lot of sci-fi and it's without a doubt in my mind the strongest and most thought provoking opening to a Sci fi. It gets you pulled into the characters, the world, and emotion without a break in the action - and for a book punished in 1959 the action is unbelievably believable, it's hard to imagine better high energy action sci-fi combat -- someone needs to make a real gritty anime of it.
Doesn't appear to be on audible UK - is it on USA?
I don't know, I just listen on YouTube, it's not got the useful features but it works
Would you like to know more?
NGL I'm still a little salty at OWI only making the Extermination game after the Troopers Mod for Squad took off so hard. No credit to the hard work on that mod that rekindled the interest at all.
I just watched the movie because there were boobies.
There were some nice ones.
People don't even get Robocop, and that one is even less subtle (IMO).
Neo Nazis didn't get The Dead Kennedys (a very left-leaning hardcore punk band). It motivated them to write a song titled "Nazi punks fuck off" (the lyrics just repeat the song's title aggressively) in an attempt to pass the message into their thick, mostly empty skulls.
I mean he's pretty much been on board with it all along. I'm pretty sure he's been involved in most of the sequels in some way.
Unrelated, but I met Casper at a convention last summer, and he was super cool. He seems like he'd be a fun guy to know.
Is it really that mind-boggling? ST has always seemed to me to read whichever way you are already predisposed to. How does everybody dying make it an anti-war movie? I would be shocked if the kind of person who believes in the good of a war machine were surprised that lots of people die in war.
Maybe my memory is a bit hazy, but the bugs actually annihilate a city, right? What is the human response supposed to be? The extreme nature of the government and military only come across as insane if you've already been educated about fascism. Desperate times do indeed call for desperate measures, which muddies the antifascist message in my opinion.
It's a great movie, but anyone who thinks it's going to change anyone's mind from their preconceptions is fooling themselves.
What am I missing?
"I want to make a movie so painfully obvious in its satire that everyone who understands it lives in perpetual psychological torment inflicted on them by all the people who don't."
- Paul Verhoeven, director of Starship Troopers
The movie makes it clear that:
- The bugs were responding to human colonization
- Humans fired the first shots
- The government is lying to everyone claiming the bugs are mindless. They overjoyed shouts of the soldiers when they learn the opposite is true - is only because they learn that the bugs are terrified.
- The endless over the top propaganda is supposed to be a pretty fuckin heavy clue that it's a fascist state.
One of the hallmarks of fascism is that the enemy are simultaneously too strong - so we must militarise - and too weak, because we are the superior race and destined to prevail.
4 in particular I think is more open to interpretation based on ones existing biases than people seem to think. Being over the top doesn't necessarily have to be mockery and authorial intent is peanuts to a random personwatching a movie.
The other points IIRC are individual moments rather than recurring themes. It's not surprising to me that significant numbers of people overlook them.
None of your points except maybe number 4 is true.
It's the same reason people thought Stephen Colbert was a champion of conservatism until he moved to the tonight show.
Maybe my memory is a bit hazy, but the bugs actually annihilate a city, right?
The bugs were alleged to send an asteroid from another solar system and hit Earth. Logically, the bugs would have to know hundreds of years that they were going to get in a war with the Humans, know how to shoot an asteroid across the galaxy, and know exactly Earth was going to be for the asteroid to hit.
The bugs don't launch the asteroids ballistically, they are launched superluminally as can be seen by the gravity singularity that Denise Richards detects when they (almost) avoid the asteroid.
If I recall correctly, most things that the bugs did was fake news, just propaganda to justify the war that sustain the failed government.
Lies !! The bug obviously launched that asteroid ! You're a traitor spreading lies it's all that i see !
We must have based humanity off the movie.
"its afraid... Its afraid!!" cheering
Anyone who misses the satire is a dolt, but I do agree satire is ineffective in changing minds. It's a preaching to the choir sort of genre.
I watched the trailer and thought to myself, 20 years ago me would be super excited for this game!