+Derke73 SST was a much more impressive achievement because it had to animate large numbers of ORGANIC and assymetrical creatures to go with the geometric vehicles and prosthetics. Titanic just had to do the ship and some flooded sets. Nothing easy, but not impossible if you had the money. Think of all the skill that had to go into the puppetry, idk how they did it. Not taking anything away from Titanic, it's probably the best movie I've seen , objectively speaking; but SST had an enormous task ahead of it and still exceeds expectations 20 years later. Also, the ship sinking is only one part of Titanic. The special effects of SST are worth far more to it. As usual, the academy fucks the deserving film.
toally agree, ST looks fine (i'd call it awesome) till today while all of Titanics cgi looks really outdated because its overused instead of composed with practical effects.
I think a large part of sst holding up so we'll is although it is littered with cgi it is also drenched in practical effects to go along with it instead of pure cgi
the effects are so strong, so effective, so advanced, if released today, i would not be able to notice that this was almost 20 years old...almost 20years!
Fuck that comment makes me feel old. I still love this film and I'm sad I've got old. Especially when I think it's 20 years old! I think it's a modern classic and really did a great job delivering an objective view of a futuristic society. So much so that people are still debating what the film was about and what it meant nearly 20 years later.
I really had to check the date of release online when I first watched this movie. It doesn't really seem like a movie from the late 90s IMO. Visually, it looks better than a lot of the bullshit we have coming to theaters lately.
Saw this in theaters with my friends and we all loved it so much we saw it again. I took it for an action comedy and loved Ace and Dizz. I wish I had someone like that stalking me. The effects blew me away back then and today they still look better then the Justice League. This director has made some quality stuff that I think we Americans were to stupid to understand its satire.
+Son of Tiamat The dialogue was purposely meant to be cheesy because the entire movie is a parody of plenty of cliches found in movies. The entire point of the movie is that you start off by taking it seriously but then start beginning to realize that you were voting for the wrong people the entire time because they are blindly killing the bugs with hatred based off of what the media has told them about them. It's fascism in a different form. Kinda like the way Nazis blindly treating Jews like they weren't people. If you closely pay attention to the movie you'll notice that the Arachnids only attack the people once they've begun firing at them on their home planet. Also the arachnids are never actually shown to want to take over other planets. Even when earth was attacked all you saw were explosions that was it. Almost as if it was all propaganda to encourage everyone to hate the Arachnids and Love hating them because they were celebrated for it. This is what fascism is. Convincing selfish people that they are the most important. The movie was meant to be satire. Look it up. Hope you found this interesting :)
It's not always the movies fault. Here's a dirty secret: Normal 2D films look dim if projected through a 3D capable projector. Most theatres have outfitted their largest rooms with 3D projectors and don't have the budget to use both 3D and 2D projectors. So, the reason why so many films look dim now is simply because the theatre you saw it in was using a 3D projector.
You might have a point if it was not for the fact that when this film was released most if not all theaters did not have 3D projectors installed at the time. Just saying ;) I mean seriously we are talking of film released in 1997 after all.
We aren't talking about watching them on bluray or dvd or what have you. The fact remains when this film was released such was not availible so your argument is moot.
You so right. I was 14 when this came out and Denise Richards was it especially in the next year when Wild Things came out and she got her gear off but now I'm older i totally think Diz is so much hotter and has much more sex appeal and attitude and seems she'd both be more loyal and better in bed. Absolute brilliant movie!
This film could quite easily have been total garbage and if made today I'm sure it would have been. The director and care taken on the special effects and set pieces were crucial.
The most amusing thing about Starship Troopers is the fact,that is meant as a satire on militarism,propaganda,machismo etc. and nobody got it when it first came out,not even intellectual movie critics.Another great thing about this movie,is how timeless and even prophetic his message is.You can compare it to the Nazis in WW II or to the american War on Terror,after 9/11.Also,the special effects are holding up pretty well,hell thereare newer movies who's effects look much worse.
+doubleP Bullshit, there was quite a big uproar after the movie came out about the fascist remarks about it, large portion of audience and critics were aware of it.
RequiemTao A large portion of the braindead audience & critics,accused Verhoeven of ''glorifying fascism'',which is actually amusing.I remember reviews on magazines,who were infuriated,because ''Verhoeven is promoting fascist ideology and imagery'' etc. etc.
+doubleP Ever read Starship Trooper? I did, many times. Verhauven trashed the novel but made an entertaining movie. Heinlein throws a pretty good curve ball and remains thought provoking when going beyond the superficial.
Paul Verhoeven is a damn legend. I hope so much he has one big film left in him. Imagine what he could do with 2020 tech. And this score is fucking amazing.
+Israel Wade For a time Denise did make it huge based on her looks, but quickly fell. NPH disappeared off mainstream, considering he was always busy between TV, movies, and theater and only became massively popular once again with How I met your Mother as Barney and also in Harold and Kumar.
The society portrayed is a) not a fascist one (it looks like a meritocratic democracy) and b) is incredibly appealing. I particularly like the element of only being eligible to vote if you serve, and consequently getting lower taxes among other things. Separate those who work for the greater good from those just along for the ride, who sit on the internet criticising society but won't lift a finger to help it.
***** It's very appealing - it is in some ways a meritocracy ie get out of society what you're willing to give it. If you aren't willing to put in the effort...well, you get to be a civilian and get less perks. In the film, we see that even soldiers that have lost multiple limbs are serving in their own way and losing a hand or arm isn't actually too much of a barrier to service, so it does seem like it is a society that discriminates. The only division in society seems to be: you're either willing to defend your way of life..or you're not, leading to slightly different treatment by society such as lower taxes and disqualification from certain jobs.
How the hell did the Elites take influence from the arachnids? The elites are two-legged, self intelligent species. If you want to see a creature in gaming like the arachnids look at the ant-lions from half-life 2
There was a few games released of it too, one at the time by Acclaim for the N64, but they lost the license half way through and released it anyway as Armorines: Project Swarm
I love Starship Troopers. I don't get why people dislike it so much. Yeah, it's not faithful to the book, but it still has some kick ass battle scenes.
@@RonJohn63 that was the whole point of the mobile infantry and totalitarian military regimes. So full of themselves, they believed nothing can stand against them
Lucas back in the day with that movie was innovating to the limit. It was inevitable. He and Sony pushed the technology forward. Also the scope of phantom menace is way bigger than this one. ! but i get your point. !
I remember seeing this movie in theaters with my mom as a kid. Ill never forget how half the theater cleared out during the shower scene as parents covered their kids eyes to protect them from the nudity. Never mind all the graphic violence lol
damn in Europe balkans we don't have stupud shit like this. I was 13 years and my parents think it is something normal for a child to get used to just normal human nudity. They thought me well cuz some kids nowadays when see a topless woman on the beach they stare as hypnotyzed freaks ! but eyaaah Western audiencies are kind of sissy girls ! OHHH MY KID WILL SEEEE A TITTTY !!
I fucking love starship troopers. I saw it when I was in high school. Age 16 in 1997 - I actually called up a marine recruiter and got to sit down with him and my dad (who was also a marine) but he thought I was too young at the time and my dad wanted me to finish high school and then try again. When m the recruiter asked why I wanted to join I noted starship troopers as a reason and I wanted to earn my citizenship instead of just having it by default cause I was born in America. Both looked shocked and said they both were very proud of me. On September 12th 2001 I enlisted as a response to the terrorist attacks the previous day. I was the only one to show up that day and I was greeted by some of the highest ranking officers and NCO's in upstate ny that day.
Wow.... I've never seen someone make such a big decision based on a completely wrong viewing of a piece of entertainment media. The point was you shouldn't need to earn your citizenship through military service, that it should be something everyone has by default, that the military is over-glorified by American culture, fuck, there is direct Nazi imagery in the movie FFS.
Will Niles completely trolled you fuckin morons. His satire which in a nut shell is the damn movie, COMPLETELY went over all your heads. I Find it truly ironic how you dipshits couldn't see that. Please though, keep telling us all how you guys "got" the movie, but a fuckin comment on RUclips shattered your pathetic illusion of always "getting" it.
Funny...batching Niles for being inspired to join the military for his love of this movie. Maybe he wasn't tricked or the message didn't go over his head. The USMC has the highest level of camaraderie I've every been honoured to be a part of while I was in. There's nothing wrong with Military service. Get over yourselves.
I LOVE this movie. Saw it in theaters. A group of friends and I came to see Bean with Rowan Atkinson, but the projector malfunctioned. All of us couldn’t run into Starship Troopers fast enough. We were all thirteen years old, and slipping into that showing made me feel as if we were getting away with something great and memorable.
I remember seeing this and being so blown away. For years this and Star Wars were my favorite movies. Now I have watched this as many times as the original Star Wars and is still one of if not my favorite movie. Casper Van Dien, Jack Busey, and Walking dead fans Gabriel is the black guy who gives his life with a nuke in his hand. Maybe my favorite scene in the movie is that one at the end. GIMME THE NUKE! YOU TRYN TO BE A HERO WATKINS!?JUST TRYN YO KILL SOME BUG SIR! GET OUTTA HERE!!!
omg what a fucking classic... best movie ever, I almost puked watching titanic , this was my consolation prize I cant believe it only made 120 million dollars this movie was a basis for countless games and movies after CULT CLASSIC is an understatement
I still remember seeing this in the cinema when it came out, i can remember how hyped we were about this movie. It is still great and love the visuals.
I'm surprised you didn't mention that the movie never explains if the Bugs are even capable of launching meteors, or how it's even possible that a meteor launched from the opposite side of the galaxy could reach Earth without Faster Than Light travel, or why the Moon's ring wasn't able to shoot down the meteor before it hit Buenos Aires, or at least put out a call for evacuation. Every implication is made in the film that the Bugs never even directly attacked Earth and that the meteor was a random natural disaster that the government allowed to happen as a pretence to begin a war with Klendathu. Nobody ever seems to pick up on that...
Of course the biology teacher claims that the Bugs seed meteors with their eggs then pitch them into space as a way of proliferating their species across space, but we never actually see anything that proves they're capable of space travel or transporting their eggs to meteors, so I'm not buying it.
Of course you are not buying it because thats bullshit spoiled by the media and military to give them a reason to launch a "revenge invasion" on the bugs homeworlds, it would be like 9 11 without actual terrorist doing that just to have an excuse to start a war
Paul Verhoven does seem to have been weirdly prescient. First he anticipated the economic/social destruction of Detroit in Robocop, and then In Starship Troopers...well you get the idea.
My memory might be wrong but after argetina was destroyed by the bugs the death count showed something like 8 million casualties, even tough its actually half that number? Also rico being argentinian is probably because the real life reports of nazi refugees hiding there.
ok your comment is old and I truly hope you are past your past stupidity but still: Nobody seems to pick up on that because there's nothing to pickup. You can't take this movie seriously and try analyzing it in this manner. Doing that makes you look stupid.
I remember seeing this at the cinema with my friends and I recall how entertaining, absurd, funny and gratuitously action packed it was. A blend that has since never been matched, rivaled or even contested. It's a one of a kind movie and never fails to give me what I want when I don't feel like engaging my brain.
Honestly, after I read the book, I no longer like the film as much as I used to. It really is a nigh-day comparison, because it is so different from the original source material. After spending some time in the army, I realized that Robert Heinlein really wrote it for people who has been in the service. The way people interacted with each other and even the terminology was more "military." The training sequence, which was extremely brutal in the book, was much more realistic. The training in the book really made the Aracnids out to be much more cunning and feirce as a foe, because they were trained for months on end to the point that they were real professional infantrymen. The Aracnids really had to be mega-badasses to defeat them in the first battle of Klendathu. It made the struggle more plausible. And that is just one of MANY points that make the book, in my opinion, superior to the film.
+Contrasting The Void I have reread the book a few times and the tone is much more subtle in print. You dealt with real life humans forced into a meat grinder.
The two exist separately, and are both very good. I don't even consider the film a real 'adaptation' - it's just its own thing. One day someone may adapt the book faithfully, but somehow I don't think people would be please even then.
@@ilyanagalen9320 The problem is the book is very misunderstood and people think its a glorification of fascism (but its not beacuse fascism doesnt have any voting for one not even voting restricted to service and theres no racial inequality in their society either)
Movies is leftist europian scam..i m not suprised that in U.S people didnt realized that is satire..Verhoeven is mocking to American in almost every of his movies done in Hollywood..it s shame what he does to Heinlein..real studie abouth humen heroizam and sttrugle Verhoeven turn in leftis propaganda
Thanks for all the great old reviews i remember when a friend worked in a movie theater and we saw so many movies for free. It feels like being a teenager again
Love this movie. Every time I hear of it I'm taken back to a reviewfrom LOADED magazine that said, "Giant beetles shoot up the enemy with their electric bum spunk! :'D
Remember seeing an ad in a magazine for this movie and i wanted to see it so much. Then a few days later my neighbour got it on VHS. I was 7 at that time and it scared the living shit out of me. 21 years later and it still scares me with its awesomeness
Some of the cg work in this film still hasn't been beaten, also I wish more movies used miniatures, cg never looks as good, TFA lacked in that regard, the ships in that film had nowhere near as much solidity as the originals. I think it flopped because of the poor choice of lead. Over all class film.
Your reviews are very comprehensive and entertaining, and somehow I can't stop watching them. I'm surprised you don't have six figures of subscribers already.
Watched Starship Troopers at Bar Le Ritz last week on 35mm. That movie has aged like fine wine. The effects are still flawless and the satire is now more pertinent than ever.
I always saw this as having strange parallels with "All Quiet on the Western Front" - the dynamic between the classmates and the teachers, of the immense peer-pressure. I figure it had to be deliberate.
Nah this movie is nearly perfect. I'll admit the dialogue doesn't speak to a realism we're familiar with but in the situation and with the tone of the film it really works and keeps you vested in the arc of each character, which concludes in an interesting way.
+Ryan Sizemore The dialogue was purposely meant to be cheesy because the entire movie is a parody of plenty of cliches found in movies. The entire point of the movie is that you start off by taking it seriously but then start beginning to realize that you were voting for the wrong people the entire time because they are blindly killing the bugs with hatred based off of what the media has told them about them. It's fascism in a different form. Kinda like the way Nazis blindly treating Jews like they weren't people. If you closely pay attention to the movie you'll notice that the Arachnids only attack the people once they've begun firing at them on their home planet. Also the arachnids are never actually shown to want to take over other planets. Even when earth was attacked all you saw were explosions that was it. Almost as if it was all propaganda to encourage everyone to hate the Arachnids and Love hating them because they were celebrated for it. This is what fascism is. Convincing selfish people that they are the most important. The movie was meant to be satire. Look it up. Hope you found this interesting :)
Your channel is amazing. Not enough people appreciate the hard work you put into these reviews. The way they are put together, honestly I look forward to watching them
I really like how in your movie reviews that you give credit to the musical composers, it so often gets overlooked. Great review of a film that had a lot of poor reviews at the time of its release but is actually great.
I always think about the actors as very intentional choice - to put typical barbie and ken plus kind of beverli hills atmosphere at the beginning to hard contrast with horrors of war and brutality. All the characters really fit well into their roles, and btw i would not spend a pico-second with Karmen over Diz if i had a choice :D PS: there was solid PC game of starship troopers, semi real-time strategy, leading and equipping squad trough missions. bit like later warhhamer dawn of war RTSs
My father took me to the cinema to watch this in 97. I was 12. When I left the room (with my 9yr brother, in the very end of it) because of the excessive violence, my father laughed, and would later recount the episode a couple times to other people as an example of how "easily scared" I was. Way to go, dad. What's worse for a kid? A violent movie or bad parenting? I don't talk to him anymore. As for the movie, I will watch it again now, it seem awesome.
My dad took me to see Pet Cemetery. I told him it was scary and maybe we should go watch Rain Man with mom in the other theater. It may have made me a deranged adult, but god damnit, I hung in there.
This review was solid! In future please make a better watermark. Our eyes naturally go to the brightest part of the screen and you made a big white watermark...it's very distracting...
pluto545 I'm sorry they appear in the what? I donno what that is sorry. I did watch that cartoon though, wasn't good. And I don't think it wouldn't be affordable at the time, because when you've got animated and CGI alien bugs, you can do the same to the suits of armor. I mean when the book designed something that looks like THIS: fc01.deviantart.net/fs6/i/2005/090/e/6/Starship_Troopers_secondary_by_rubendevela.jpg And they make them into Blue colonial marines, they really screwed up.
Verhooven essentailly piggybacked on an existent book to make HIS movie with HIS themes.. The power armor was irrelevant to his intention with the film.. Really the whole point was to show how UNPREPARED the military was, though I suppose it could have been done with body armor too.
I didn't even know there was an anime until I watched it on RUclips a few months ago. In fact, it might have been in the sidebar/recommendations for this video.
the way you delve into a movie and how its made, feels not like a review, but something else, its much better than the normal review on youtube :) good work as always :)
Great Review!! I love this movie in alle its aspects. (Effects, Practical Effects, Music, Sound effects, Story ...) They should make a direct continuation of the first movie (which is great) and look past no. 2 and 3 or start again with a remake or reboot!
It's amazing how good the effects look even 23 years later. Looks even better than some of the modern movies. Maybe they had to be more creative back then.
See? Animatronics + CGI = AWESOMENESS! Even for today, these VFXs are still looking solid. IMO, only some movies in 90s which it's special effects holds true until today. Jurassic Park, Starship Troopers, Saving Private Ryan, to name the few. Looking eve further back, The Thing could also counted as one as well. Oh btw nice review for this one, ST is one of my favourite movies, I can honestly say that I was shocked to find that despite it gets TEEN rating in my place when it's released, gore and violence is shown. But what I love is that the movie manages to throw sarcastic tone in regards of fascism, pro-war stance and even kinda "mock" it's own source, the novel :)) Good movie, still occasionally watching the Klendhatu drop scene, funny af :))
'Saved By the Bell in Space,' directed by Paul Verhoeven, and starring Casper Van Dien as Zachary 'Zack' Morris, Denise Richards as Kelly Kapowski, Patrick Muldoon as Albert Clifford 'A.C.' Slater, and Jake Busey as Samuel 'Screech' Powers.
Honestly, the book by Heinlein had never been ment as a parody. Does it contain social- ironic statements, yes but is it ment as a parody, no. It was still an echo to World War II. Instead of evil Germans and Japanese Heinlein had used Monster Bugs here. In the time he had written his book highly popular. " Evil " is correct because what would had happened if Hitler&Co had won the war? I would not wanted to live in such a world. Also the movie misses one strong aspect of the book. The hero really is a Latino American and no White Bread. Heinlein did this fully aware of his people´s lingering racism. James A. Michener had done the same in his novelle SOUTH PACIFIC around the same time. The musical transformed this well with the song. YOU´VE GOT TO BE CAREFULLY TAUGHT ( on RUclips as well ). The trainings methods of the soldiers are somewhat the same of the US Marine Corps and the social politcal ideas are still common around conservative Americans.
@@rogerlynch5279 agreed. It's not parody or satire, but it's an extreme what if, and a thought experiment about what society would look like if a post ww3 world left the countries in ruins, but soldiers from all sides used their discipline and teamwork to rebuild civilization and attempt a new form of democracy that's less populist and more responsible and resilient. The bugs were symbols of the hoards of collectivist forces, like the fascists and communists. Heinline was defending individualism but saying we can't defend it if we're selfish, we have to mature into public service and genuine self sacrifice if we are going to survive the total-war of total collectivist civilizations. Some of these ideas are ww1 and ww2 philosophical reactions, some are just him thinking out loud and wondering. The rise of communism really came about as a reaction to ww1, but so did other things too.
I recall that the budget didn't allow for high quality CGI for both the arachnid adversaries and for the powered armor that enhanced the human soldiers' capabilities. The "bugs" were rightfully given priority. It is interesting to see the actors who played primary villains from Highlander and Highlander 2 in this.
You know, in hindsight it's not that surprising Paul Verhoeven hated the book. He's Dutch. He filmed Soldaat Van Oranje, about Dutch freedom fighters fighting the nazis. Of course he's going to hate a book about Earth united under a military dictatorship.
Civilians may not get a vote, but that doesnt make it a dictatorship. The system was actually closer to the early roman republic. Also paul never even read the book, he didnt have a clue about what it was actually about.
Citizens do get to vote though. Not everyone in the early roman republic had a say in government either, but that didnt stop it from being a republic now did it? Also i think you were being funny with that comment but i really cant tell if you were serious or not.
Are you implying thaty the Early Roman Republic was in any way comparable to a modern democracy? Because if so, you're just being idiotic for no reason.
There is literally no reason for you to call me or anybody on the internet names. Also, the roman republic was not facist, it operated with a senate. And while racist is probably an accurate term for how romans viewed other peoples, I want you to tell me which modern, 1st world countries did not have a racist streak at any point in time. I am not defending racism, but it seems rather silly for you to use that as point of discussion.
Funnily enough I watched this again only last night. This is my favourite Paul Verhoeven film after RoboCop, and for a movie that's now 20 years old it stands up very well. The bug effects are still fantastic and the cast interact with them flawlessly. I can't help watching the entire movie with a stupid grin on my face as it is without a doubt a 2-hour war propaganda film; notice in the Mobile Infantry recruitment video there's footage of Rico and Dizzy on Planet P from later in the movie? That's right, everything had already happened and we are being given the heroic highlights. And that's why the cast are young and beautiful, to encourage those like them and those that want to be them to sign up for Federal Service - acting chops be damned! Another sly plot point about Starship Troopers is the fact that the asteroid manages to hit Buenos Aires. The movie makes a point of showing us early on that there is a protective ring around the Earth, bristling with cannons to destroy any object sent our way. So my question is, why didn't they work this time? Did the Federation deliberately allow this astroid to hit Earth, in order to anger and mobilise the masses into recruiting for Federal service to fight the bugs? Was there even an asteroid at all? Starship Troopers is a war satire, a dark comedy and a great military science fiction movie in one go. 8/10
Dina Meyer is absolutely hypnotic in this film. One has to remember that this film was released in '97. This year also saw the release of the P.O.S. 'Special Edition' of Star Wars which is an interesting juxtaposition.
Tongue and cheek sci fi at its best. Doesn't take itself too seriously and once you don't take the movie too seriously either and enjoy it for what it, is .
Love this movie, love the book, love the tactical game, love the anime OVA from the 80's, love the 2012 3D Animated movie. Do not like the Direct to DVD movies 2 and 3. Indifferent about the FPS game. Don't agree entirely on this video, but good video never the less!
As someone who read the original novel and who knows the director's motives for making this film this way, I find it to be a high insult to Heinlein. His idea was a society that could vote only so long as they had done a term in public service (being of a military background himself, he decided on the story of a soldier) with all other rights guaranteed by birth. His premise was "unless you truly know what the hell is going on and know the prices that all have to pay for policy, then you have no business dictating policy by voting". The idea was pure Meritocracy, the question of "what have you done" against "who are you born to" against "what you say sounds awesome in a perfect world, but is the world perfect?". The biggest insult from Verhoeven was him calling Heinlein a Nazi and then butchering Heinlein's magnum opus in film form when Heinlein risked his life against the Nazis on a personal level (fought in battle against the Nazis) withour reading more than a few pages of the book hes claiming his movie is based on. Verhoeven should stick to sexy neo-noir with naked Sharon Stone scenes rather than inject his political vies into a complex hard sci-fi series he hasn't bothered to even read with a clear and objective mind.
Precisely. I've read it twice. It's a simple book but with complex and atypical ideas that aren't fully proscriptive, but are more about challenging your assumptions and growing as a person, as most of his other books have done. Hell, Stranger in A Strange Land inspired a lot of the ideas that were mirrored in the hippie movement. Heinline was a genius. By no means do I agree with his solutions to various questions, but the questions are SO insightful.
One of my all time favourites, the music is up there with Robocop (for obvious reasons), the action and effects... an amazing action movie that gets you pumped.
I love this movie, seen it several times, but admittedly I haven’t watched it in many years (at least 10). Watching this review reminded how gory and badass the special effects are...I gotta get this on blu-ray!
DrewGee 502 you really have to! The effects still hold up to this day and outshine many films released now! A beautiful Film that I will always fondly remember!
+Oliver Harper the resurrection trailer is the first time I'd ever heard it, but since it's not in the movie, I figured it must have been bought from something else.
You mentioned towards the end why people tend not to watch Starship Troopers frequently even if they liked it, and I think part of the reason is with all the sum of the parts put together, the movie come up a bit empty. Personally, I don't think there was any any major plot resolution, nor character development. I didn't connect with the most of the main characters, nor found their interactions charming. The movie was visually impressive, but also kinda generic. The movie was campy but without the charm or humor. And, let's face it, there really wasn't a story for the movie to follow. So altogether, most viewers don't emotionally connect with it, which by nature is in a genre (sci-fi) most people have a hard time investing in to begin with. Even the satire, which was supposed to be the most significant piece of the movie, almost becomes a victim of itself due to the lack of clarity and consistence. A commentator wrote "I don't dispute that the film had many touches of light satire. I'm laughing at the notion that these add up to some coherent political message. They don't." To me it's like trying to point out the satire in the movie 300 that the Spartans are fighting for the freedom of Greece, but historically, had no problems keeping an entire fellow Greek population group (helots) in perpetual slavery. But, I might be looking into this a bit too much. Also if you read the book and enjoyed it, most likely the movie is not going to be worth watching again. Being an open leftist who probable thinks the American system is the next Fascist empire, it's no surprise that Paul Verhoeven took the book's themes and practically ignored it. Which is fine, but the movie barely resembles the source material in the first place. No "Skinnies" aliens, little discussion regarding the political themes of rights and responsibilities, heck even no power armor that is practically given a whole chapter in the book. (Although this was somewhat resolved in the offshoot series) It's almost like he wanted to do his own sci-fi movie, but needed the name recognition to help sell it. All in all, an ok movie, which has remained unchanged from the first time I watched it as a teenager. But like you mentioned, I never had the urge to watch it again, and after reading the book later (disclosure: after I joining the military) I found the book much better. But I do give the movie kudos for providing a wealth of offshoot series that I did enjoyed, such as the Roughneck Series and even the latest CG movie Starship Troopers: Invasion. Oh and keep up the good work on these reviews. I actually learn a bit from these movies regarding the production and "making of" portions.
That's an interesting analysis. I personally love this movie for its effects and satire but I agree that the whole cast with the exception of Ironside and Brown were horribly bland and wooden. Even Neil Patrick Hassis in his Gestapo uniform was forgettable. I would say that the movie's still worth a look though
adamtherock2008 Don't get me started on Neil Patrick Harris. His talents were virtually wasted in this film. When it came to the special effects Paul Verhoeven definitely had the right experience and vision. The movie is still impressive today. But it's as if he had all the art assets ready to go from the beginning, but left the story until last minute. He even admitted to not reading past the first chapter in the book, so he decided to throw in some satirical angle to it, which he seems to be the strongest at. Which is a shame because the book was not at all like that. To be fair, the book would not make a good movie by itself, but most of the cartoon or CG movies that came afterwards were superior in almost every way (Roughneck series come to mind). And almost everyone of those were more faithful to the source material then this movie was.
Truth be told, I've only seen the two live action sequels. The first is unbearably awful and the second is ok but nothing great. My friend though keeps raving about the animated series. I might just check it out
I feel Verhoeven was the wrong choice to direct this film, but looking beyond that, I agree that the film is too muddled to be memorable. (The most memorable parts for me are the bug designs and effects) I'd extend that to the satire. I enjoy Verhoeven's satire in Robocop especially, in the TV clips and what Murphy suffered through; but I don't think it works quite as well here, even though it's basically a retread. I thought this film was entertaining as a kid, but I didn't really get that it was supposed to be satirical. The gung-ho nature felt too much like saturday morning cartoons. (But then I didn't realise the 60s Batman show was supposed to be campy satire either, so there's that.) Even now I feel the film just goes along with it too much, despite the OTT 40s-style propaganda pieces. At the end, Johnny and pals race on towards Klendathu; compared to Murphy regaining some amount of humanity, and just trying to be a good cop. I saw the film before reading the book, and as always, no matter what sequence it happens in, I thought the book was better. And I'm annoyed if the film-maker snubs, or fails to understand, the themes of the book. (Verhoeven and Peter Jackson, don't get me started!) I can't agree with everything in the society of the book, and I think it'd be tough to make into a good film, but I don't think it's fascist either; at least not to the extent that's been screamed about since it's publication. But I'd admit that accurately portraying the society of the book wouldn't be my main concern with a hypothetical remake. Just so long as it's not such a ham-fisted hatchet-job again, and we get some proper powered armour.
One thing that kept distracting me were the ridiculous tactics on display. Heinlein's novel differed in that he understood military details and how a hi-tech fight would play out. For instance, in the book the soldiers are protected by energy shields and are armed with more than the stupid pea-shooters they have in the movie.
valinor100 I think it was purposely made that way. In fact, the whole movie purposely misrepresented the book. It's a fun movie to be sure, with truly stunning effects, but the underlying implications are a bit dismaying. If the world of the novel was so bad, shouldn't an honest depiction of it be the best way to discredit it in the eyes of reasonable people? Why is it necessary to turn the book into a caricature of itself in order to criticize it?
valinor100 The military aren't always the brightest, or the most caring towards their troops. Under-equipped at times, blatantly abusive of the troops at others, tactically inept...the stories of military incompetence aren't all that rare. The movie kept the depiction of war a little more grounded, more relatable to recent warfare. Unfaithful to the source? Yeah, but that's not automatically a bad thing. The original is always there to be enjoyed for its merits.
As I already mentioned in another review of Starship Troopers, in which the narrator also believed in the Fascism idea created by Verhoenven, the director made a criminal misuse of the book. He raped Heinlein's story. Not only Verhoeven twisted the war between the Humans and the Bugs as an evil expansionism by the Nazi Humans claiming we should look for a peacefull coexistence; on the dvd commentary, Verhoeven explains that the final scene was primarily intended as a very cynical coda: it shows that Johnny Rico has become a full-blown mindless war machine just like Lt. Rasczak (he has even copied his war cry "Come on, you apes, you wanna live forever?") and that mankind still thinks they can win this war through superior firepower. In this context, the final tag line 'They'll keep on fighting' can be read as 'They still haven't learned anything'. Paraphrasing another youtube comment: "Verhoeven tried to create a satire on Heinlein's novels, he ended up creating a homage to its philosophy. He did the exact same thing with Robocop, trying to put a lame lefty spin on an iron-balls action movie. Luckily, his grasp on subtext is so weak that the initial (and best) layer comes out on top." The director mocks the military in the movie from start to finish. There is a lot of subtext in this movie that went missing. When Rico is fighting "the other guy", there are two images in the walls taken from "1984". But the governament isn't Nazi-Fascist, it's a democracy. People vote, but they must serve the Federation in some way - usually a hazardous one - to earn this right. This is how the ancient Greeks did. Only men capable of getting a "panoplia" (meaning "full armor") were citizens and could vote. And by the way, Verhoeven decided to put women in the Mobile Infantry and make the shower scene to prove that, in the future, men and women would be completely "equal". What a joke... The Mobile Infantry of the book is 100% male. And still on the shower scene, a woman says she is serving because she wants to be a mother and needs a license to have kids. This is an invention of the director to claim the governament is evil-fascist-eugenist, leftist mambo jambo at its best. What the book says is about taking responsability, understanding there is no "free meal" and the importance of hard work. Everything a Leftist hates.And the soldier in question, Johnny Rico, is Filipino. The director chose a lot of Berverly Hills 90210 wannabees to be the protagonists as, in the Leftist canon, white people are evil oppressors and fascists. All in all, the book is about the forming of a Marine/Soldier. It is also something that every over-grown childish leftist militant is mortally afraid of: to grow up. Whenever something is against the Leftist agenda, it is "fascist". He didn't even finish the book, he said it wa depressing and that "War makes fascists of us all." Typical leftist propaganda. Middle class socialist snobs, are the only clever people in the world and they have degrees in Political Science, or Sociology to prove it! Everybody except them is stupid! They need to do the thinking on behalf of us proles, because we must be thick, because we aren't middle class socialists. All soldiers are particularly stupid (unless they wear jackboots and have little red stars on their hats). It therefore follows that any expendable prole can be given "a gun" and sent off to die for his socialist betters at five minutes notice. In the real world it takes months of training on top of an adequate education to produce a minimally competent front line soldier and years to train military technicians to service complex equipment. The middle class socialist is too stupid to understand this! This anti-militarist ranting desguised as movie is a proof of this reality. The director, a leftist, made a clear point with the scene of kids playing with guns and ammunition like a bunch of retards, clearly saying that "guns kill", "only stupid people use guns", etc. Leftists will always scream and giggle that people can't have guns and that the military and police forces also can't have guns. As Revel and Beaufre noticed, this only happens in a one way road. Only the Western democracies are exorted to do so, while the "proletarian democracies" are free to field gigantic armies and teach weapons' handling at school (literally). The double standard is very simple. - Coupled with the kids with guns scene, the soldiers of the Mobile Infantry, theoretically are highly trained soldiers, are a bunch of knuckleheads who simply run with guns blazing in automatic. Also leftist idiology, which I mentioned in my first post. There is a joke about a leftist reporter annoying an Australian or Canadian officer that showing some kids how to fire guns in a summer camp. She was saying the usual bull that the officer was teaching them to be murderers and that guns are dangerous. The officer replied that the kids would be properly supervised on the range and would receive the proper weapons' handling discipline. The reporter went on and said ""But you're equipping them to become violent killers."; for which the officer replied "Well, you're equipped to be a prostitute, but you're not one, are you?"
Not necessarily. Many aspects of the movie are very good (the insects are briliantlty made), the soudtrack is great and the military maneuvers are also interesting; the characters Lt. Rasczak and Sgt. Zim are great soldiers and if the director really wanted to make a faithfull movie of Starship Troopers he would come up with a sci-fi masterpiece instead of the barely profitable lefty spinoff.
I saw this flick 3 times while it was in theaters back in the day. I loved it, still do. The special effects and the music are incredible. The "Saved by the Bell" (perfect analogy) style acting never bothered me. I haven't seen this movie in a long time either, but will definitely be revisiting it soon on blu ray since he said the effects still look great...
loved this movie growing up, the citizenship aspect really grabbed me, with the way our society has gone i wish we used their system or certain aspects of it anyways
You didn’t understand the movie. You believe that Iraq had WMDs? You support the nazi-dominated Ukraine regime because US imperialist propaganda tells you to?
@@SimonAshworthWood ukraine picked a fight with russia by violating a geopolitical contract for land aka eastern ukraine... thats why they were invaded...
@@SimonAshworthWood Alsoo i learned the us guberment can not be truested since i was 14 and the propaganda facilities aka public schools tried to lie to me about the civil war. knew then as i do now...
The movie Starship Troopers has little to do with the 1959 Robert A. Heinlein novel. It's a lot like the movie World War Z. Both movies pull so far away from the original material that they become their own disconnected enjoyable thing.
I was in the eighth grade about two years after this movie had come out, that Christmas I was given the original book (I was a serious fan of Heinlein at the time, but I had only read his "juvenile" series at the time. His "mature" work is just weird...) Anyways, the question I was most asked at the time when I would pull the book out to read when I was in class was "Hey, does it describe the shower scene?!" It's been 21 years since, and I still get a chuckle out of the disappointed looks when I said it did not.
Get Starship Troopers on Bluray here goo.gl/wCnQna
You forgot to mention the CGI animated series that came out a year after the movie premiered.
too bad the sequels were fuckin' awful
Bet you wish that had come out before you made the Retrospective/Review
Still apposite
This review and the movie does zero justice to the book. I would suggest to watch /watch?v=kVpYvV0O7uI
1997 was a solid sci fi year. I remember seeing Event Horizon, The Fifth Element and Starship Troopers.
The fifth element was amazing for its time, probably the best movie Milla has been in
Men in Black
Gattaca and
ALIEN
resurrection
A LOT of the effects in "Titanic" look cheesy now. This movie's effects hold up WAY better.
+Derke73 Completely agree.
+Derke73 SST was a much more impressive achievement because it had to animate large numbers of ORGANIC and assymetrical creatures to go with the geometric vehicles and prosthetics. Titanic just had to do the ship and some flooded sets. Nothing easy, but not impossible if you had the money. Think of all the skill that had to go into the puppetry, idk how they did it. Not taking anything away from Titanic, it's probably the best movie I've seen , objectively speaking; but SST had an enormous task ahead of it and still exceeds expectations 20 years later. Also, the ship sinking is only one part of Titanic. The special effects of SST are worth far more to it. As usual, the academy fucks the deserving film.
toally agree, ST looks fine (i'd call it awesome) till today while all of Titanics cgi looks really outdated because its overused instead of composed with practical effects.
I think a large part of sst holding up so we'll is although it is littered with cgi it is also drenched in practical effects to go along with it instead of pure cgi
@@MrPobanz that's not true though. Titanic uses plenty of practical effects and minatures.
the effects are so strong, so effective, so advanced, if released today, i would not be able to notice that this was almost 20 years old...almost 20years!
Fuck that comment makes me feel old. I still love this film and I'm sad I've got old. Especially when I think it's 20 years old! I think it's a modern classic and really did a great job delivering an objective view of a futuristic society. So much so that people are still debating what the film was about and what it meant nearly 20 years later.
Oh, holy crap, I didn't actually think it was almost 20 years old.
I really had to check the date of release online when I first watched this movie. It doesn't really seem like a movie from the late 90s IMO. Visually, it looks better than a lot of the bullshit we have coming to theaters lately.
like 25 years old now - and the effects still hold up - crazy!
Saw this in theaters with my friends and we all loved it so much we saw it again. I took it for an action comedy and loved Ace and Dizz. I wish I had someone like that stalking me. The effects blew me away back then and today they still look better then the Justice League. This director has made some quality stuff that I think we Americans were to stupid to understand its satire.
"Starship Troopers; its like 'Saved by the Bell' in space." That made me lol
Starship Troopers is an eighties movie that happened to come out in the nineties. That's why it's not as popular as Robocop or Total Recall.
+Son of Tiamat (formerly known as tiakpark) Excellent observation.
salaciousBastard Thank you
+Son of Tiamat (formerly known as tiakpark) But it has the 2010s special effects!
jurisprudens Pfft. The SFX in ST actually look better than most movies today.
+Son of Tiamat The dialogue was purposely meant to be cheesy because the entire movie is a parody of plenty of cliches found in movies. The entire point of the movie is that you start off by taking it seriously but then start beginning to realize that you were voting for the wrong people the entire time because they are blindly killing the bugs with hatred based off of what the media has told them about them. It's fascism in a different form. Kinda like the way Nazis blindly treating Jews like they weren't people. If you closely pay attention to the movie you'll notice that the Arachnids only attack the people once they've begun firing at them on their home planet. Also the arachnids are never actually shown to want to take over other planets. Even when earth was attacked all you saw were explosions that was it. Almost as if it was all propaganda to encourage everyone to hate the Arachnids and Love hating them because they were celebrated for it. This is what fascism is. Convincing selfish people that they are the most important. The movie was meant to be satire. Look it up. Hope you found this interesting :)
What makes this flick really special is that ITS WELL LIT!!!! todays movies are so dark and bland with so much filtering, it's ridiculous!
It's not always the movies fault. Here's a dirty secret: Normal 2D films look dim if projected through a 3D capable projector. Most theatres have outfitted their largest rooms with 3D projectors and don't have the budget to use both 3D and 2D projectors. So, the reason why so many films look dim now is simply because the theatre you saw it in was using a 3D projector.
Razzy1312 so when i watch them on blu ray, they still dark as fuck.....not buying it
You might have a point if it was not for the fact that when this film was released most if not all theaters did not have 3D projectors installed at the time. Just saying ;) I mean seriously we are talking of film released in 1997 after all.
Grieyls again, forget the theatres, watch today's movies on bluray/dvds/cable, all darker and washed out
We aren't talking about watching them on bluray or dvd or what have you. The fact remains when this film was released such was not availible so your argument is moot.
The woman who plays Dizy is way hotter than Denise Richards, you fucked up Rico
+AttentionJunkie Indeed Dina Meyer is a goddess. She is 47 and still super hot.
+Jim Humphries I loved her in Burn Notice.
Jennifer Brewer
LOL
I feel bad for laughing at that, but you put it so eloquently.
Yeah she turned out way better than Denise Richards did.
You so right. I was 14 when this came out and Denise Richards was it especially in the next year when Wild Things came out and she got her gear off but now I'm older i totally think Diz is so much hotter and has much more sex appeal and attitude and seems she'd both be more loyal and better in bed. Absolute brilliant movie!
I fucking love this movie and always have.
The CGI still looks fantastic.
Service guarantees citizenship.
Chazbot You're looking at the remastered cgi, which is a TRUE remaster in terms of what we get these days.
This film could quite easily have been total garbage and if made today I'm sure it would have been. The director and care taken on the special effects and set pieces were crucial.
I'm doing my part.
The most amusing thing about Starship Troopers is the fact,that is meant as a satire on militarism,propaganda,machismo etc. and nobody got it when it first came out,not even intellectual movie critics.Another great thing about this movie,is how timeless and even prophetic his message is.You can compare it to the Nazis in WW II or to the american War on Terror,after 9/11.Also,the special effects are holding up pretty well,hell thereare newer movies who's effects look much worse.
+doubleP the only people who didnt get it were morons, it was the exact same sarcastic tone as Robocop
+doubleP Bullshit, there was quite a big uproar after the movie came out about the fascist remarks about it, large portion of audience and critics were aware of it.
RequiemTao A large portion of the braindead audience & critics,accused Verhoeven of ''glorifying fascism'',which is actually amusing.I remember reviews on magazines,who were infuriated,because ''Verhoeven is promoting fascist ideology and imagery'' etc. etc.
+doubleP Ever read Starship Trooper? I did, many times. Verhauven trashed the novel but made an entertaining movie. Heinlein throws a pretty good curve ball and remains thought provoking when going beyond the superficial.
+doubleP What? Every reviewer I listened to or read, at the time of release, commented on how it parodies militarism and facism very well.
Paul Verhoeven is a damn legend. I hope so much he has one big film left in him. Imagine what he could do with 2020 tech.
And this score is fucking amazing.
TomOostenrijk you'll burn in hell. there you can't say words like the f-word.
surely neil patrick harris went further than denise richards
He totally did. My mistake for not discussing his success. :)
+Israel Wade For a time Denise did make it huge based on her looks, but quickly fell. NPH disappeared off mainstream, considering he was always busy between TV, movies, and theater and only became massively popular once again with How I met your Mother as Barney and also in Harold and Kumar.
@@bluehavencd she was at peak (a very high peak, at that) beauty in 1997. She's the only real reason to watch the movie.
@@RonJohn63 Nah, the bugs, action, and satire of a fascist country are the reasons this film endures still.
In regards to what... *penises?🍆🍆🍆...🙋♀️🙋♂️*
(Doogie went above & beyond #TrustMe)
I watch it once or twice a year. If I notice it's on, I'll stop and watch it.
+Red Judas I watch it at least twice a year, as I do with the Animated series and the audiobook. I first read the book in 1967 and revisit it often.
***** Both are good. I also think Paul accidentally made Fascism look good.
Red Judas
unfortunately you are correct.
The society portrayed is a) not a fascist one (it looks like a meritocratic democracy) and b) is incredibly appealing. I particularly like the element of only being eligible to vote if you serve, and consequently getting lower taxes among other things. Separate those who work for the greater good from those just along for the ride, who sit on the internet criticising society but won't lift a finger to help it.
***** It's very appealing - it is in some ways a meritocracy ie get out of society what you're willing to give it. If you aren't willing to put in the effort...well, you get to be a civilian and get less perks. In the film, we see that even soldiers that have lost multiple limbs are serving in their own way and losing a hand or arm isn't actually too much of a barrier to service, so it does seem like it is a society that discriminates. The only division in society seems to be: you're either willing to defend your way of life..or you're not, leading to slightly different treatment by society such as lower taxes and disqualification from certain jobs.
Klendathu Drop, bloody awesome piece of music!
Paul Verhoeven should directed judge dredd...thats just how it should be
It fits his ideology so I agree with that. Both Dredd and Verhoven are European I'm origin and both are obsessed with America being fascistic.
Never thought of that match before but agree 100%
Damn.. that never occurred to me. His violence and satire would have been perfect for Dredd.
No.
Agreed
Halo the movie, a few years before Halo was even made
Yh, halo also got inspiration from predator and alien.
+Kieran Holmes Which were inspired by Starship troopers the book.
Cameron even sent copies of the book to the actors of "Aliens" to read it
How the hell did the Elites take influence from the arachnids? The elites are two-legged, self intelligent species. If you want to see a creature in gaming like the arachnids look at the ant-lions from half-life 2
How they can fuck up the special effects today if they are "more advanced"?
it is something to consider.
it's Starcraft actually
There was a few games released of it too, one at the time by Acclaim for the N64, but they lost the license half way through and released it anyway as Armorines: Project Swarm
I knew it!!! I loved that game, it reminded me so much of this movie, that's why I loved playing COD Ghosts Extinction
Hello, you!
Greetings matey.
I love Starship Troopers. I don't get why people dislike it so much. Yeah, it's not faithful to the book, but it still has some kick ass battle scenes.
I dont know anyone who doesn't like it
Kick ass when they're well matched. Outnumbered? That's just annihilation.
The infantry tactics are *ATROCIOUS.* (TBF, just about all military tactics in movies suck pretty bad.)
@@RonJohn63 that was the whole point of the mobile infantry and totalitarian military regimes. So full of themselves, they believed nothing can stand against them
@@tbone9474 no... moviemakers just suck at "military".
God I miss the fuckin 90s. Best decade ever.
This is how you do SFX!!!! 20 years later and they still hold!!! Compare that to Phantom Menace's SFX!!!
to be fair Phantom Menace looks good considering it was FULL CGI made on Windows 95/98 pcs...
I don't see a problem with Phantom Menace CGI at all.
Lucas back in the day with that movie was innovating to the limit. It was inevitable. He and Sony pushed the technology forward. Also the scope of phantom menace is way bigger than this one. ! but i get your point. !
"Saved by the bell in space".
That is the best summary I've ever heard for this move. Great video.
I remember seeing this movie in theaters with my mom as a kid. Ill never forget how half the theater cleared out during the shower scene as parents covered their kids eyes to protect them from the nudity. Never mind all the graphic violence lol
Sounds perfectly American to me...
damn in Europe balkans we don't have stupud shit like this. I was 13 years and my parents think it is something normal for a child to get used to just normal human nudity. They thought me well cuz some kids nowadays when see a topless woman on the beach they stare as hypnotyzed freaks ! but eyaaah Western audiencies are kind of sissy girls ! OHHH MY KID WILL SEEEE A TITTTY !!
@@51stcenturygirlwhat such big del abut niduty in fim no one worse thdn nudity in rel life
I fucking love starship troopers. I saw it when I was in high school. Age 16 in 1997 - I actually called up a marine recruiter and got to sit down with him and my dad (who was also a marine) but he thought I was too young at the time and my dad wanted me to finish high school and then try again. When m the recruiter asked why I wanted to join I noted starship troopers as a reason and I wanted to earn my citizenship instead of just having it by default cause I was born in America. Both looked shocked and said they both were very proud of me. On September 12th 2001 I enlisted as a response to the terrorist attacks the previous day. I was the only one to show up that day and I was greeted by some of the highest ranking officers and NCO's in upstate ny that day.
Charles Jannuzi you missed the entire point of the movie if it inspired you to join the marines
Wow.... I've never seen someone make such a big decision based on a completely wrong viewing of a piece of entertainment media.
The point was you shouldn't need to earn your citizenship through military service, that it should be something everyone has by default, that the military is over-glorified by American culture, fuck, there is direct Nazi imagery in the movie FFS.
Will Niles completely trolled you fuckin morons. His satire which in a nut shell is the damn movie, COMPLETELY went over all your heads. I Find it truly ironic how you dipshits couldn't see that. Please though, keep telling us all how you guys "got" the movie, but a fuckin comment on RUclips shattered your pathetic illusion of always "getting" it.
Will Niles hahaha good little sheep.
Funny...batching Niles for being inspired to join the military for his love of this movie. Maybe he wasn't tricked or the message didn't go over his head. The USMC has the highest level of camaraderie I've every been honoured to be a part of while I was in. There's nothing wrong with Military service. Get over yourselves.
Somehow the intro makes the movie look more awesome than it already is. That score!
I LOVE this movie. Saw it in theaters. A group of friends and I came to see Bean with Rowan Atkinson, but the projector malfunctioned. All of us couldn’t run into Starship Troopers fast enough. We were all thirteen years old, and slipping into that showing made me feel as if we were getting away with something great and memorable.
I remember seeing this and being so blown away. For years this and Star Wars were my favorite movies. Now I have watched this as many times as the original Star Wars and is still one of if not my favorite movie. Casper Van Dien, Jack Busey, and Walking dead fans Gabriel is the black guy who gives his life with a nuke in his hand. Maybe my favorite scene in the movie is that one at the end. GIMME THE NUKE! YOU TRYN TO BE A HERO WATKINS!?JUST TRYN YO KILL SOME BUG SIR!
GET OUTTA HERE!!!
Roughnecks: The Starship Troopers Chronicles never gets the nod in deserves. =/
One of my favorite films of all time. I've seen it at least 5 times and it never, ever stops being awesome. I love this movie.
omg what a fucking classic... best movie ever, I almost puked watching titanic , this was my consolation prize
I cant believe it only made 120 million dollars
this movie was a basis for countless games and movies after
CULT CLASSIC is an understatement
I was mad when they killed Dizzy
This IS a brilliant satire..and I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees that.
First time I saw this movie as a teen I fucking hated it... Then, I got it...
I still remember seeing this in the cinema when it came out, i can remember how hyped we were about this movie. It is still great and love the visuals.
Should mention about the 3D animated series. It was GREAT!
I'm surprised you didn't mention that the movie never explains if the Bugs are even capable of launching meteors, or how it's even possible that a meteor launched from the opposite side of the galaxy could reach Earth without Faster Than Light travel, or why the Moon's ring wasn't able to shoot down the meteor before it hit Buenos Aires, or at least put out a call for evacuation.
Every implication is made in the film that the Bugs never even directly attacked Earth and that the meteor was a random natural disaster that the government allowed to happen as a pretence to begin a war with Klendathu. Nobody ever seems to pick up on that...
Of course the biology teacher claims that the Bugs seed meteors with their eggs then pitch them into space as a way of proliferating their species across space, but we never actually see anything that proves they're capable of space travel or transporting their eggs to meteors, so I'm not buying it.
Of course you are not buying it because thats bullshit spoiled by the media and military to give them a reason to launch a "revenge invasion" on the bugs homeworlds, it would be like 9 11 without actual terrorist doing that just to have an excuse to start a war
Paul Verhoven does seem to have been weirdly prescient. First he anticipated the economic/social destruction of Detroit in Robocop, and then In Starship Troopers...well you get the idea.
My memory might be wrong but after argetina was destroyed by the bugs the death count showed something like 8 million casualties, even tough its actually half that number?
Also rico being argentinian is probably because the real life reports of nazi refugees hiding there.
ok your comment is old and I truly hope you are past your past stupidity but still:
Nobody seems to pick up on that because there's nothing to pickup. You can't take this movie seriously and try analyzing it in this manner. Doing that makes you look stupid.
I remember seeing this at the cinema with my friends and I recall how entertaining, absurd, funny and gratuitously action packed it was. A blend that has since never been matched, rivaled or even contested. It's a one of a kind movie and never fails to give me what I want when I don't feel like engaging my brain.
Oliver, your reviews are first class. Keep up the great work!
Honestly, after I read the book, I no longer like the film as much as I used to. It really is a nigh-day comparison, because it is so different from the original source material. After spending some time in the army, I realized that Robert Heinlein really wrote it for people who has been in the service. The way people interacted with each other and even the terminology was more "military." The training sequence, which was extremely brutal in the book, was much more realistic. The training in the book really made the Aracnids out to be much more cunning and feirce as a foe, because they were trained for months on end to the point that they were real professional infantrymen. The Aracnids really had to be mega-badasses to defeat them in the first battle of Klendathu. It made the struggle more plausible.
And that is just one of MANY points that make the book, in my opinion, superior to the film.
+Contrasting The Void I have reread the book a few times and the tone is much more subtle in print. You dealt with real life humans forced into a meat grinder.
The two exist separately, and are both very good. I don't even consider the film a real 'adaptation' - it's just its own thing. One day someone may adapt the book faithfully, but somehow I don't think people would be please even then.
@@ilyanagalen9320
The problem is the book is very misunderstood and people think its a glorification of fascism (but its not beacuse fascism doesnt have any voting for one not even voting restricted to service and theres no racial inequality in their society either)
Movies is leftist europian scam..i m not suprised that in U.S people didnt realized that is satire..Verhoeven is mocking to American in almost every of his movies done in Hollywood..it s shame what he does to Heinlein..real studie abouth humen heroizam and sttrugle Verhoeven turn in leftis propaganda
@@bernardokrolo2275 It was a warning. and prophetic your democratie is in real danger
I have to say, during my last few hours off of work, I'm really enjoying binge-watching your videos. Thank you for that.
Thanks for all the great old reviews i remember when a friend worked in a movie theater and we saw so many movies for free. It feels like being a teenager again
I watched this film for the first time yesterday after seeing this video and I love it! Maybe one of my favourite films of all time.
Oh shit, I just realized that Hank Schrader is in this movie.
I think Gomey is an extra in the infantry too!
He's in so many movies, Terminator 2, Total Recall, Lethal Weapon.. Guy's got some credits. "They're minerals Marie!".
Love this movie. Every time I hear of it I'm taken back to a reviewfrom LOADED magazine that said, "Giant beetles shoot up the enemy with their electric bum spunk! :'D
Remember seeing an ad in a magazine for this movie and i wanted to see it so much. Then a few days later my neighbour got it on VHS. I was 7 at that time and it scared the living shit out of me.
21 years later and it still scares me with its awesomeness
Some of the cg work in this film still hasn't been beaten, also I wish more movies used miniatures, cg never looks as good, TFA lacked in that regard, the ships in that film had nowhere near as much solidity as the originals. I think it flopped because of the poor choice of lead. Over all class film.
TFA didn't flop though
ThePopbanks007 I meant ST flopped, I wasn't clear sorry.
My bad
Imagine if Star Wars was like this! The fans would have a heart attack🤣🤣.
Starship Poopers! Great film! Totally stands up to anything scifi of today!
Your reviews are very comprehensive and entertaining, and somehow I can't stop watching them. I'm surprised you don't have six figures of subscribers already.
When Dizzy died it broke my heart.Wonderful film. Verhoeven through and through. Great great entertainment..
my favorite part of the movie {DO YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE?}
no, YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO RECO
Great analysis and presentation.
Am binge-watching your channel this weekend.
Cheers Scott!
Are you familiar with the German WWII film Das Boot? I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on it.
Pretty sure there were two version of Das Boot - didn't see the much longer German cut - but it was supposed to be better than the theatrical version.
One of my favorite war movies.
Same, I was worried there would only be ten or so movies and that it would just take a day or two, but I've been very pleasantly surprised :)
Watched Starship Troopers at Bar Le Ritz last week on 35mm. That movie has aged like fine wine. The effects are still flawless and the satire is now more pertinent than ever.
I just discovered your channel tonight and am already addicted to listening to you talk LOL many more reviews to see.
I always saw this as having strange parallels with "All Quiet on the Western Front" - the dynamic between the classmates and the teachers, of the immense peer-pressure. I figure it had to be deliberate.
Nah this movie is nearly perfect. I'll admit the dialogue doesn't speak to a realism we're familiar with but in the situation and with the tone of the film it really works and keeps you vested in the arc of each character, which concludes in an interesting way.
+Ryan Sizemore The dialogue was purposely meant to be cheesy because the entire movie is a parody of plenty of cliches found in movies. The entire point of the movie is that you start off by taking it seriously but then start beginning to realize that you were voting for the wrong people the entire time because they are blindly killing the bugs with hatred based off of what the media has told them about them. It's fascism in a different form. Kinda like the way Nazis blindly treating Jews like they weren't people. If you closely pay attention to the movie you'll notice that the Arachnids only attack the people once they've begun firing at them on their home planet. Also the arachnids are never actually shown to want to take over other planets. Even when earth was attacked all you saw were explosions that was it. Almost as if it was all propaganda to encourage everyone to hate the Arachnids and Love hating them because they were celebrated for it. This is what fascism is. Convincing selfish people that they are the most important. The movie was meant to be satire. Look it up. Hope you found this interesting :)
+That Potato With Big Dreams why do you copy and paste the same answer to all comments!?
Erick Gaudreault Because I'm insane
@@jaycub4711 Spot on - you can watch it and feel sorry for the bugs
Your channel is amazing.
Not enough people appreciate the hard work you put into these reviews.
The way they are put together, honestly I look forward to watching them
I really like how in your movie reviews that you give credit to the musical composers, it so often gets overlooked. Great review of a film that had a lot of poor reviews at the time of its release but is actually great.
I always think about the actors as very intentional choice - to put typical barbie and ken plus kind of beverli hills atmosphere at the beginning to hard contrast with horrors of war and brutality. All the characters really fit well into their roles, and btw i would not spend a pico-second with Karmen over Diz if i had a choice :D PS: there was solid PC game of starship troopers, semi real-time strategy, leading and equipping squad trough missions. bit like later warhhamer dawn of war RTSs
My father took me to the cinema to watch this in 97. I was 12. When I left the room (with my 9yr brother, in the very end of it) because of the excessive violence, my father laughed, and would later recount the episode a couple times to other people as an example of how "easily scared" I was. Way to go, dad.
What's worse for a kid? A violent movie or bad parenting?
I don't talk to him anymore. As for the movie, I will watch it again now, it seem awesome.
My dad took me to see Pet Cemetery. I told him it was scary and maybe we should go watch Rain Man with mom in the other theater. It may have made me a deranged adult, but god damnit, I hung in there.
The scene with the fighters bombing the bugs is maybe the coolest CGI ever.
This film is amazing. From start to finish it has so many messages about life
This review was solid! In future please make a better watermark. Our eyes naturally go to the brightest part of the screen and you made a big white watermark...it's very distracting...
+Fuzzy Puppet Thanks for your feedback. This review was produced nearly 3 years ago. The watermark was replaced in late 2013.
OK awesome! love your channel!
A petty frustration compared to the greatness of the video
there are no petty frustrations, only frustration.
This movie is great.
But they got the Starship Troopers Armour.
They're SUITS OF MECHS not body armour
Zelousmarineinspace It would've been unfilmable at the time. They appear in the anime and the 3D roughneck cartoon.
pluto545 and also the most recent Troopers movie
pluto545 I'm sorry they appear in the what?
I donno what that is sorry.
I did watch that cartoon though, wasn't good.
And I don't think it wouldn't be affordable at the time, because when you've got animated and CGI alien bugs, you can do the same to the suits of armor.
I mean when the book designed something that looks like THIS:
fc01.deviantart.net/fs6/i/2005/090/e/6/Starship_Troopers_secondary_by_rubendevela.jpg
And they make them into Blue colonial marines, they really screwed up.
Verhooven essentailly piggybacked on an existent book to make HIS movie with HIS themes.. The power armor was irrelevant to his intention with the film.. Really the whole point was to show how UNPREPARED the military was, though I suppose it could have been done with body armor too.
I didn't even know there was an anime until I watched it on RUclips a few months ago.
In fact, it might have been in the sidebar/recommendations for this video.
Love your reviews! Lots of details!
the way you delve into a movie and how its made, feels not like a review, but something else, its much better than the normal review on youtube :)
good work as always :)
I propably watched this movie over 50 times. Its my guilty pleasure
what's there to be guilty about?
Great Review!!
I love this movie in alle its aspects. (Effects, Practical Effects, Music, Sound effects, Story ...)
They should make a direct continuation of the first movie (which is great) and look past no. 2 and 3 or start again with a remake or reboot!
+Stefan J. Knudsen I want Bethesda to make this their next pet project. I wanna kill some bugs in Trooper Armor.
I'd sign up to act as a trooper even for free this movie needs revival
Been watching your vids all night. Great stuff! Keep em going.
It's amazing how good the effects look even 23 years later. Looks even better than some of the modern movies. Maybe they had to be more creative back then.
See? Animatronics + CGI = AWESOMENESS!
Even for today, these VFXs are still looking solid. IMO, only some movies in 90s which it's special effects holds true until today. Jurassic Park, Starship Troopers, Saving Private Ryan, to name the few. Looking eve further back, The Thing could also counted as one as well.
Oh btw nice review for this one, ST is one of my favourite movies, I can honestly say that I was shocked to find that despite it gets TEEN rating in my place when it's released, gore and violence is shown. But what I love is that the movie manages to throw sarcastic tone in regards of fascism, pro-war stance and even kinda "mock" it's own source, the novel :)) Good movie, still occasionally watching the Klendhatu drop scene, funny af :))
Hey man great videos, Subbed!
Thank you very much! :D
Awesome review. Everytime i watch your videos i always learn something new :)
'Saved By the Bell in Space,' directed by Paul Verhoeven, and starring Casper Van Dien as Zachary 'Zack' Morris, Denise Richards as Kelly Kapowski, Patrick Muldoon as Albert Clifford 'A.C.' Slater, and Jake Busey as Samuel 'Screech' Powers.
The book and the movie are not that different. The book is a subtle parody. The movie is a straightforward parody. Love both.
Honestly, the book by Heinlein had never been ment as a parody. Does it contain social- ironic statements, yes but is it ment as a parody, no. It was still an echo to World War II. Instead of evil Germans and Japanese Heinlein had used Monster Bugs here. In the time he had written his book highly popular. " Evil " is correct because what would had happened if Hitler&Co had won the war? I would not wanted to live in such a world. Also the movie misses one strong aspect of the book. The hero really is a Latino American and no White Bread. Heinlein did this fully aware of his people´s lingering racism. James A. Michener had done the same in his novelle SOUTH PACIFIC around the same time. The musical transformed this well with the song. YOU´VE GOT TO BE CAREFULLY TAUGHT ( on RUclips as well ). The trainings methods of the soldiers are somewhat the same of the US Marine Corps and the social politcal ideas are still common around conservative Americans.
@@rogerlynch5279 agreed. It's not parody or satire, but it's an extreme what if, and a thought experiment about what society would look like if a post ww3 world left the countries in ruins, but soldiers from all sides used their discipline and teamwork to rebuild civilization and attempt a new form of democracy that's less populist and more responsible and resilient.
The bugs were symbols of the hoards of collectivist forces, like the fascists and communists.
Heinline was defending individualism but saying we can't defend it if we're selfish, we have to mature into public service and genuine self sacrifice if we are going to survive the total-war of total collectivist civilizations.
Some of these ideas are ww1 and ww2 philosophical reactions, some are just him thinking out loud and wondering. The rise of communism really came about as a reaction to ww1, but so did other things too.
Patrick Neal Harris did pretty well long term.
I recall that the budget didn't allow for high quality CGI for both the arachnid adversaries and for the powered armor that enhanced the human soldiers' capabilities. The "bugs" were rightfully given priority. It is interesting to see the actors who played primary villains from Highlander and Highlander 2 in this.
Another amazing movie review. Man. How did I miss these?
You know, in hindsight it's not that surprising Paul Verhoeven hated the book. He's Dutch. He filmed Soldaat Van Oranje, about Dutch freedom fighters fighting the nazis. Of course he's going to hate a book about Earth united under a military dictatorship.
Civilians may not get a vote, but that doesnt make it a dictatorship. The system was actually closer to the early roman republic. Also paul never even read the book, he didnt have a clue about what it was actually about.
Justowner Civilians don't get to vote, that automatically makes it a fascist racist regime. End of discussion.
Citizens do get to vote though. Not everyone in the early roman republic had a say in government either, but that didnt stop it from being a republic now did it? Also i think you were being funny with that comment but i really cant tell if you were serious or not.
Are you implying thaty the Early Roman Republic was in any way comparable to a modern democracy? Because if so, you're just being idiotic for no reason.
There is literally no reason for you to call me or anybody on the internet names. Also, the roman republic was not facist, it operated with a senate. And while racist is probably an accurate term for how romans viewed other peoples, I want you to tell me which modern, 1st world countries did not have a racist streak at any point in time. I am not defending racism, but it seems rather silly for you to use that as point of discussion.
Funnily enough I watched this again only last night. This is my favourite Paul Verhoeven film after RoboCop, and for a movie that's now 20 years old it stands up very well. The bug effects are still fantastic and the cast interact with them flawlessly. I can't help watching the entire movie with a stupid grin on my face as it is without a doubt a 2-hour war propaganda film; notice in the Mobile Infantry recruitment video there's footage of Rico and Dizzy on Planet P from later in the movie? That's right, everything had already happened and we are being given the heroic highlights. And that's why the cast are young and beautiful, to encourage those like them and those that want to be them to sign up for Federal Service - acting chops be damned!
Another sly plot point about Starship Troopers is the fact that the asteroid manages to hit Buenos Aires. The movie makes a point of showing us early on that there is a protective ring around the Earth, bristling with cannons to destroy any object sent our way. So my question is, why didn't they work this time? Did the Federation deliberately allow this astroid to hit Earth, in order to anger and mobilise the masses into recruiting for Federal service to fight the bugs? Was there even an asteroid at all?
Starship Troopers is a war satire, a dark comedy and a great military science fiction movie in one go. 8/10
Dina Meyer is absolutely hypnotic in this film.
One has to remember that this film was released in '97. This year also saw the release of the P.O.S. 'Special Edition' of Star Wars which is an interesting juxtaposition.
Tongue and cheek sci fi at its best. Doesn't take itself too seriously and once you don't take the movie too seriously either and enjoy it for what it, is .
Love this movie, love the book, love the tactical game, love the anime OVA from the 80's, love the 2012 3D Animated movie.
Do not like the Direct to DVD movies 2 and 3. Indifferent about the FPS game. Don't agree entirely on this video, but good video never the less!
+Zeithri Holy fuck TT_TT, the 2000 game was so awesome TTTT_TTTT.
As someone who read the original novel and who knows the director's motives for making this film this way, I find it to be a high insult to Heinlein. His idea was a society that could vote only so long as they had done a term in public service (being of a military background himself, he decided on the story of a soldier) with all other rights guaranteed by birth. His premise was "unless you truly know what the hell is going on and know the prices that all have to pay for policy, then you have no business dictating policy by voting". The idea was pure Meritocracy, the question of "what have you done" against "who are you born to" against "what you say sounds awesome in a perfect world, but is the world perfect?". The biggest insult from Verhoeven was him calling Heinlein a Nazi and then butchering Heinlein's magnum opus in film form when Heinlein risked his life against the Nazis on a personal level (fought in battle against the Nazis) withour reading more than a few pages of the book hes claiming his movie is based on. Verhoeven should stick to sexy neo-noir with naked Sharon Stone scenes rather than inject his political vies into a complex hard sci-fi series he hasn't bothered to even read with a clear and objective mind.
Precisely. I've read it twice. It's a simple book but with complex and atypical ideas that aren't fully proscriptive, but are more about challenging your assumptions and growing as a person, as most of his other books have done. Hell, Stranger in A Strange Land inspired a lot of the ideas that were mirrored in the hippie movement.
Heinline was a genius. By no means do I agree with his solutions to various questions, but the questions are SO insightful.
One of my all time favourites, the music is up there with Robocop (for obvious reasons), the action and effects... an amazing action movie that gets you pumped.
Just watched this for the first time in years. I'd love to hear you guys do a commentary. I think it would be a riot!
Yeah, Neil Patrick Harris is a total nobody. I'm glad Denise Richards is doing so well!
+Wheatley I think he may of had a small reoccurring role in some friends like sitcom. But not really sure.
+b3ntleg you do realize he's being sarcastic right?? -_-
And I wasn't being sarcastic?
b3ntleg its not like all sarcastic text can be read in its original tone so~
Sorry, but I'm with b3ntleg on this one. I took his comment as sarcasm.
Apparently critics at the time didn't get the irony and satirical dimension of the movie, I utterly fail to see how :v...
+Gianni Carrea No need to see. Just know. Know that critics are pretty much rubbish and that more often than not they fail dramatically.
My local critic got it, but still wasn't super fond. You can't just say "it's satire therefore it's good".
By god this is one of the best movies I ever did see. Funny, gory, amazing action, deep social commentary and fun to watch.
I love this movie, seen it several times, but admittedly I haven’t watched it in many years (at least 10). Watching this review reminded how gory and badass the special effects are...I gotta get this on blu-ray!
DrewGee 502 you really have to! The effects still hold up to this day and outshine many films released now! A beautiful Film that I will always fondly remember!
What was the last music cue? It sounds so familiar! The ultimate trailer music!
ghostdog2041 The music was first used in the Alien Resurrection trailer i believe.
+Oliver Harper James Horner's 'Aliens' score track 'Bishop's Countdown' used in a lot of trailers in the 90's including 92's Alien 3 trailer.
+Kernel Havok no, it's not Bishop's countdown. I just listened to that.
+Oliver Harper the resurrection trailer is the first time I'd ever heard it, but since it's not in the movie, I figured it must have been bought from something else.
ghostdog2041 That's the track for the last cue I found in this video -- got a timestamp for the point on this video in particular?
You mentioned towards the end why people tend not to watch Starship Troopers frequently even if they liked it, and I think part of the reason is with all the sum of the parts put together, the movie come up a bit empty. Personally, I don't think there was any any major plot resolution, nor character development. I didn't connect with the most of the main characters, nor found their interactions charming. The movie was visually impressive, but also kinda generic. The movie was campy but without the charm or humor. And, let's face it, there really wasn't a story for the movie to follow. So altogether, most viewers don't emotionally connect with it, which by nature is in a genre (sci-fi) most people have a hard time investing in to begin with. Even the satire, which was supposed to be the most significant piece of the movie, almost becomes a victim of itself due to the lack of clarity and consistence. A commentator wrote "I don't dispute that the film had many touches of light satire. I'm laughing at the notion that these add up to some coherent political message. They don't." To me it's like trying to point out the satire in the movie 300 that the Spartans are fighting for the freedom of Greece, but historically, had no problems keeping an entire fellow Greek population group (helots) in perpetual slavery. But, I might be looking into this a bit too much.
Also if you read the book and enjoyed it, most likely the movie is not going to be worth watching again. Being an open leftist who probable thinks the American system is the next Fascist empire, it's no surprise that Paul Verhoeven took the book's themes and practically ignored it. Which is fine, but the movie barely resembles the source material in the first place. No "Skinnies" aliens, little discussion regarding the political themes of rights and responsibilities, heck even no power armor that is practically given a whole chapter in the book. (Although this was somewhat resolved in the offshoot series) It's almost like he wanted to do his own sci-fi movie, but needed the name recognition to help sell it.
All in all, an ok movie, which has remained unchanged from the first time I watched it as a teenager. But like you mentioned, I never had the urge to watch it again, and after reading the book later (disclosure: after I joining the military) I found the book much better. But I do give the movie kudos for providing a wealth of offshoot series that I did enjoyed, such as the Roughneck Series and even the latest CG movie Starship Troopers: Invasion.
Oh and keep up the good work on these reviews. I actually learn a bit from these movies regarding the production and "making of" portions.
You're right the only character development is just Johnny going through a LOT of development going from rich kid to war hero.
That's an interesting analysis. I personally love this movie for its effects and satire but I agree that the whole cast with the exception of Ironside and Brown were horribly bland and wooden. Even Neil Patrick Hassis in his Gestapo uniform was forgettable. I would say that the movie's still worth a look though
adamtherock2008 Don't get me started on Neil Patrick Harris. His talents were virtually wasted in this film.
When it came to the special effects Paul Verhoeven definitely had the right experience and vision. The movie is still impressive today. But it's as if he had all the art assets ready to go from the beginning, but left the story until last minute. He even admitted to not reading past the first chapter in the book, so he decided to throw in some satirical angle to it, which he seems to be the strongest at. Which is a shame because the book was not at all like that. To be fair, the book would not make a good movie by itself, but most of the cartoon or CG movies that came afterwards were superior in almost every way (Roughneck series come to mind). And almost everyone of those were more faithful to the source material then this movie was.
Truth be told, I've only seen the two live action sequels. The first is unbearably awful and the second is ok but nothing great. My friend though keeps raving about the animated series. I might just check it out
I feel Verhoeven was the wrong choice to direct this film, but looking beyond that, I agree that the film is too muddled to be memorable. (The most memorable parts for me are the bug designs and effects) I'd extend that to the satire. I enjoy Verhoeven's satire in Robocop especially, in the TV clips and what Murphy suffered through; but I don't think it works quite as well here, even though it's basically a retread. I thought this film was entertaining as a kid, but I didn't really get that it was supposed to be satirical. The gung-ho nature felt too much like saturday morning cartoons. (But then I didn't realise the 60s Batman show was supposed to be campy satire either, so there's that.) Even now I feel the film just goes along with it too much, despite the OTT 40s-style propaganda pieces. At the end, Johnny and pals race on towards Klendathu; compared to Murphy regaining some amount of humanity, and just trying to be a good cop.
I saw the film before reading the book, and as always, no matter what sequence it happens in, I thought the book was better. And I'm annoyed if the film-maker snubs, or fails to understand, the themes of the book. (Verhoeven and Peter Jackson, don't get me started!) I can't agree with everything in the society of the book, and I think it'd be tough to make into a good film, but I don't think it's fascist either; at least not to the extent that's been screamed about since it's publication.
But I'd admit that accurately portraying the society of the book wouldn't be my main concern with a hypothetical remake. Just so long as it's not such a ham-fisted hatchet-job again, and we get some proper powered armour.
Love this movie still great after 22 years!
WE GET YOU SIR !!!!! Your video are amazing professional and i really enjoy those small homemade trailer.
One thing that kept distracting me were the ridiculous tactics on display. Heinlein's novel differed in that he understood military details and how a hi-tech fight would play out. For instance, in the book the soldiers are protected by energy shields and are armed with more than the stupid pea-shooters they have in the movie.
valinor100 I think it was purposely made that way. In fact, the whole movie purposely misrepresented the book. It's a fun movie to be sure, with truly stunning effects, but the underlying implications are a bit dismaying. If the world of the novel was so bad, shouldn't an honest depiction of it be the best way to discredit it in the eyes of reasonable people? Why is it necessary to turn the book into a caricature of itself in order to criticize it?
valinor100 The military aren't always the brightest, or the most caring towards their troops. Under-equipped at times, blatantly abusive of the troops at others, tactically inept...the stories of military incompetence aren't all that rare. The movie kept the depiction of war a little more grounded, more relatable to recent warfare.
Unfaithful to the source? Yeah, but that's not automatically a bad thing. The original is always there to be enjoyed for its merits.
As I already mentioned in another review of Starship Troopers, in which the narrator also believed in the Fascism idea created by Verhoenven, the director made a criminal misuse of the book. He raped Heinlein's story. Not only Verhoeven twisted the war between the Humans and the Bugs as an evil expansionism by the Nazi Humans claiming we should look for a peacefull coexistence; on the dvd commentary, Verhoeven explains that the final scene was primarily intended as a very cynical coda: it shows that Johnny Rico has become a full-blown mindless war machine just like Lt. Rasczak (he has even copied his war cry "Come on, you apes, you wanna live forever?") and that mankind still thinks they can win this war through superior firepower. In this context, the final tag line 'They'll keep on fighting' can be read as 'They still haven't learned anything'.
Paraphrasing another youtube comment: "Verhoeven tried to create a satire on Heinlein's novels, he ended up creating a homage to its philosophy. He did the exact same thing with Robocop, trying to put a lame lefty spin on an iron-balls action movie. Luckily, his grasp on subtext is so weak that the initial (and best) layer comes out on top."
The director mocks the military in the movie from start to finish. There is a lot of subtext in this movie that went missing. When Rico is fighting "the other guy", there are two images in the walls taken from "1984". But the governament isn't Nazi-Fascist, it's a democracy. People vote, but they must serve the Federation in some way - usually a hazardous one - to earn this right. This is how the ancient Greeks did. Only men capable of getting a "panoplia" (meaning "full armor") were citizens and could vote. And by the way, Verhoeven decided to put women in the Mobile Infantry and make the shower scene to prove that, in the future, men and women would be completely "equal". What a joke... The Mobile Infantry of the book is 100% male. And still on the shower scene, a woman says she is serving because she wants to be a mother and needs a license to have kids. This is an invention of the director to claim the governament is evil-fascist-eugenist, leftist mambo jambo at its best. What the book says is about taking responsability, understanding there is no "free meal" and the importance of hard work. Everything a Leftist hates.And the soldier in question, Johnny Rico, is Filipino. The director chose a lot of Berverly Hills 90210 wannabees to be the protagonists as, in the Leftist canon, white people are evil oppressors and fascists.
All in all, the book is about the forming of a Marine/Soldier. It is also something that every over-grown childish leftist militant is mortally afraid of: to grow up.
Whenever something is against the Leftist agenda, it is "fascist". He didn't even finish the book, he said it wa depressing and that "War makes fascists of us all." Typical leftist propaganda.
Middle class socialist snobs, are the only clever people in the world and they have degrees in Political Science, or Sociology to prove it! Everybody except them is stupid! They need to do the thinking on behalf of us proles, because we must be thick, because we aren't middle class socialists. All soldiers are particularly stupid (unless they wear jackboots and have little red stars on their hats). It therefore follows that any expendable prole can be given "a gun" and sent off to die for his socialist betters at five minutes notice. In the real world it takes months of training on top of an adequate education to produce a minimally competent front line soldier and years to train military technicians to service complex equipment. The middle class socialist is too stupid to understand this!
This anti-militarist ranting desguised as movie is a proof of this reality. The director, a leftist, made a clear point with the scene of kids playing with guns and ammunition like a bunch of retards, clearly saying that "guns kill", "only stupid people use guns", etc. Leftists will always scream and giggle that people can't have guns and that the military and police forces also can't have guns. As Revel and Beaufre noticed, this only happens in a one way road. Only the Western democracies are exorted to do so, while the "proletarian democracies" are free to field gigantic armies and teach weapons' handling at school (literally). The double standard is very simple.
- Coupled with the kids with guns scene, the soldiers of the Mobile Infantry, theoretically are highly trained soldiers, are a bunch of knuckleheads who simply run with guns blazing in automatic. Also leftist idiology, which I mentioned in my first post. There is a joke about a leftist reporter annoying an Australian or Canadian officer that showing some kids how to fire guns in a summer camp. She was saying the usual bull that the officer was teaching them to be murderers and that guns are dangerous. The officer replied that the kids would be properly supervised on the range and would receive the proper weapons' handling discipline. The reporter went on and said ""But you're equipping them to become violent killers."; for which the officer replied "Well, you're equipped to be a prostitute, but you're not one, are you?"
Filipe Amaral So i guess ur not a fan of the movie ;)
Not necessarily. Many aspects of the movie are very good (the insects are briliantlty made), the soudtrack is great and the military maneuvers are also interesting; the characters Lt. Rasczak and Sgt. Zim are great soldiers and if the director really wanted to make a faithfull movie of Starship Troopers he would come up with a sci-fi masterpiece instead of the barely profitable lefty spinoff.
oldrocker1216 Good to know.
"Come on you apes, you wanna live forever?!"
Relentless Venture Jean Razak, what a legend!
The look on his face when the outpost is getting swarmed - a picture worth a thousand words.
I saw this flick 3 times while it was in theaters back in the day. I loved it, still do. The special effects and the music are incredible. The "Saved by the Bell" (perfect analogy) style acting never bothered me. I haven't seen this movie in a long time either, but will definitely be revisiting it soon on blu ray since he said the effects still look great...
loved this movie growing up, the citizenship aspect really grabbed me, with the way our society has gone i wish we used their system or certain aspects of it anyways
You didn’t understand the movie. You believe that Iraq had WMDs? You support the nazi-dominated Ukraine regime because US imperialist propaganda tells you to?
@@SimonAshworthWood ukraine picked a fight with russia by violating a geopolitical contract for land aka eastern ukraine... thats why they were invaded...
@@SimonAshworthWood Alsoo i learned the us guberment can not be truested since i was 14 and the propaganda facilities aka public schools tried to lie to me about the civil war. knew then as i do now...
The movie Starship Troopers has little to do with the 1959 Robert A. Heinlein novel.
It's a lot like the movie World War Z. Both movies pull so far away from the original material that they become their own disconnected enjoyable thing.
I was in the eighth grade about two years after this movie had come out, that Christmas I was given the original book (I was a serious fan of Heinlein at the time, but I had only read his "juvenile" series at the time. His "mature" work is just weird...) Anyways, the question I was most asked at the time when I would pull the book out to read when I was in class was "Hey, does it describe the shower scene?!" It's been 21 years since, and I still get a chuckle out of the disappointed looks when I said it did not.
An often overlooked film. One of the very few gems that came out of the so-called "dark age of movies" in the mid-to-late 1990s.