Bibliography (including unused sources) reference bibliography [0] Atomic Heritage Foundation, "Debate over the Bomb" Jun. 6, 2014, (ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/history/debate-over-bomb) [1] Breihand, Tom "The Grisly, Goofy Starship Troopers [sic] Played Dumb To Make Hollywood Look Even Dumber," Deadspin, Nov. 20, 2015 (deadspin.com/the-grisly-goofy-starship-troopers-played-dumb-to-make-1741600229) [1.1] Encyclopedia Britannica "Fasces" (www.britannica.com/topic/fasces) [1.2] Encyclopedia Britannica “The Punic Wars” (www.britannica.com/event/Punic-Wars) [2] Flashback FilmMaking "The Making of 'Starship Troopers'" [reposted documentary footage] (ruclips.net/video/KkDpCDI_cZY/видео.html) [2.1] Gordon, Andrew "6 Mind Blowing Ways 'Starship Troopers' Predicted the Future" Cracked, Jul. 10, 2011 (www.cracked.com/article_19259_6-mind-blowing-ways-starship-troopers-predicted-future.html) [3] Heinlein, Robert Anson “Starship Troopers” e-book edition, Berkley Publishing, imprint: Penguin Random House LLC, 1959, edition ISBN: 9781101500422 [4] Heinlein, Robert Anson "Who Are the Heirs of Patrick Henry? Stand Up and Be Counted!" Colorado College Tiger, Apr. 18, 1958; Preserved on Digital Microfiche and Catalogued by TriCollege Libraries Digital Collections (trislandora-production.brynmawr.edu/object/sc268924) [4.1] IMDB.com, Verhoven, www.imdb.com/name/nm0000682/ [4.2] IMDB.com, Riefenstahl, Leni, "Triumph des Willens" 1935 [4.3] IMDB.com, Van Dien, Casper, www.imdb.com/name/nm0000680/) [4.4] IMDB.com, Richards, Denise, (www.imdb.com/name/nm0000612/) [4.5] IMDB.com, Harris, Niel Patrick (www.imdb.com/name/nm0000439/) [4.6] IMDB.com, Vacano, Jost (www.imdb.com/name/nm0005911/) [5] International Committee of the Red Cross "The Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949" United States Department of the Army "'The Law of Land Warfare' Department of the Army Field Manual 27-10" The United States Department of the Army, July 1956 (irp.fas.org/doddir/army/fm27-10.pdf) [5.1] {user} KerrAvon2055 "How long was the boot training at Camp Currie?" scifi.stackexchange.com, May 5, 2020, (scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/40150/how-long-was-the-boot-training-at-camp-currie) [6] Kempley, Rita "'Starship Troopers': A Slew of Beauties Bash Big Bugs" The Washington Post, Nov. 7, 1997 (www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/starshiptrooperskemp.htm) [7] Kronke, David "Attack of the $100-Million Insects" The Los Angeles Times, Sep. 23 1996 (www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-09-23-ca-46882-story.html) [8] Levine, Gloria "Starship Troopers Actor Is Ready to Help with Helldivers 2 Crossover" 80LV, Mar. 14, 2024 (80.lv/articles/starship-troopers-actor-is-ready-to-help-with-helldivers-2-crossover/) [9] Marsh, Calum "Starship Troopers: One of the Most Misunderstood Movies Ever " The Atlantic, Nov. 7, 2013 (www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/11/-em-starship-troopers-em-one-of-the-most-misunderstood-movies-ever/281236/) [9.0] Naval History and Heritage Command, Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, United States Navy (www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs.html) [9.1] The Numbers, Starship Troopers Theatrical Performance, (web.archive.org/web/20220409145135/www.the-numbers.com/movie/Starship-Troopers#tab=box-office) [10] Patterson, William H., Jr. "Robert A. Heinlein: A Biography" The Heinlein Society, Aug. 10, 2011 (www.heinleinsociety.org/robert-a-heinlein-a-biography/) [10.1] Reddit Post by MojoRoosevelt "Starship Troopers == The Stone Pillow?" 2021 (www.reddit.com/r/heinlein/comments/moi1tz/starship_troopers_the_stone_pillow/) [11] Sammon, Paul M. "The Making of Starship Troopers," Boulevard Books, 1997, published by arrangement with Sony Pictures, Inc., ISBN: 1-57297-252-1 [12] Singer, Leigh "Starship Troopers 20 years on: Director Paul Verhoeven reveals how his movie predicted Donald Trump" Digital Spy, Nov. 11, 2017 (www.digitalspy.com/movies/a823951/starship-troopers-paul-verhoeven-donald-trump-20-years-anniversary/) [12.1] Simpson, Paul "Starship Troopers: Interview: Edward Neumeier" SciFi Bulletin, 2017 (scifibulletin.com/film-reviews/film-interviews/starship-troopers-interview-edward-neumeier/) [13] Smith, Adam "Starship Troopers Review”, EmpireOnline, Jan. 1, 2000 (www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/starship-troopers-review/) [14] Smith, Adam and Williams, Owen "Triple Dutch: Paul Verhoeven’s sci-fi trilogy," EmpireOnline, Dec. 02, 2014 (www.empireonline.com/movies/features/paul-verhoeven/) [14.0] Uniform Code of Military Justice, Article 85 [14.1] United States Marine Corps Training and Education Command MCWP 3-11.2 Marine Rifle Squad, Section III, Patrolling [15] Verhoeven, Paul (dir.) "Starship Troopers" Tristar Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, 1997 [16] Watts, Kyle "Attitude and Spirit: Marine Recon Vets Inspire Next Generation" Marine Corps Association, Nov. 15, 2023 (www.mca-marines.org/leatherneck/attitude-and-spirit/)
So, before I potentially waste 3.5 hours, did you listen to the film's two commentary tracks? Far more important of the two being the one with Paul Verhoeven and Edward Neumeier speaking together. Pretty much every single absurd myth about this film (it's a leftist satire, Verhoeven hates the society depicted, the bugs are innocent, etc) is refuted at some point by a direct quote from Verhoeven during that. Which is how I know virtually nobody cares what the man actually thinks about this or anything else when talking about this film. Also have you seen his entire filmography? His Dutch films about WW2 shed a lot of light on these issues, but again, nobody has seen them. He also wrote a book on Christianity which is really a book about how he views history and the human experience. Again, nobody has read it. I don't see it in here. This Digital Spy article you link is so absurdly framed that I think one would have to be an absolute moron and cretin to think it could be useful for anything. "As a result, Starship Troopers doesn't just blur the line on supporting "our troops" on their bug-hunting mission; it obliterates that line like an anthill flooded by a vat of insecticide. "The only good bug is a dead bug!" is one of the catchy slogans the troops regularly parrot to boost morale. " WHAT THE FUCK DOES THIS MEAN? TELL ME. What is the real analog to the bug hunt? The bugs are a plot device. Deliberately made monstrous and unintelligent by Verhoeven. There is no analog. They are an enemy we can make no parallels with deliberately. And do you repeat that absurd LIE (yes, it's a deliberate attempt to mislead you) that Verhoeven hated the novel and refused to read it? That's in the commentary track, but comes out far differently to what scholars like you read in the imdb trivia section that gets quoted on wikipedia. You should REALLY listen to these people for yourselves. Not through scifibulletin or digital spy. These people give you a line of the man framed by a page of themselves. Obscured and distorted to worthlessness. That you would take this list of sources to be impressive is concerning.
Instead of making two hour video essays about movies, leftists should make video essays about Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen, Nick Land, Curtis Yarvin, transhumanism, posthumanism, and the neo-reaction (NRx) movement.
Puts on a Kermit voice: "That depends, what even do you mean by "comment" and "Internet". Is there even a way to know? Some serious scientists I've know have tried to define these terms but have failed. I'm note even sure if it can be done apart from defining them as metaphysical concepts closely related to god. So... what do you think about that?" *Proceeds to shed a single tear about this profound moment of realisation*
"Do you want to live forever?" is a famous cry attributed to Marine Corps Sergeant Major Daniel Joseph Daly during the Battle of Belleau Wood in June 1918
Y'know, this is the first RUclips video I've seen where; 1: There's a proper bibliography 2: Stays coherent and well paced while being over an hour long 3: Doesn't treat the listener like an idiot Thank fuck someone on this platform that isn't a company gives a shit about citations and references. I'd ask "why don't more people on RUclips do this?" but i already know why. They're lazy, and don't think it's important to do so. So they'll either throw in a link to something that might be relevant to what they're talking about, or just not give a shit and do nothing. The bibliography alone is enough to let me know you actually took time and effort to carefully state your conclusions, and helps me trust that you did proper research into what you're talking about. Genuinely one of my favorite creators already
1. His bibliography is not proper at all 2. The video is mostly a play by play of both the movie and the book for 2 hours with his own input interspersed throughout complaining about leftists misunderstanding the movie
I did and I didn't like. This essay is caping for fascism. The idea that Heinlein wasn't fascist while also saying that he wrote a book expressing his beliefs that could be a textbook for fascism is just illogical. It doesn't hold up by itself. I'm surprised that he pointed us to this.
@Tacom4ster I disagree. It's satire or criticism is at its very core. ( I'm just venting a bit. Don't take this as me trying to debate you or anything. Ignore if needed) We see these guys get mutilated to go to war against some beings on a whole other planet that could just be left alone. The general pop culture opinion of the time was that war is fat cats in Washington sending young men to die for no good reason. Vietnam vets would have been watching this with their sons and grand sons. That war was widely considered a bs waste of time and life. The criticism of this "war rocks" fictional world would have been received easily by the general public at the time. The real satire and criticism that it hides is the criticism of patriarchy which is where I get his point partially but for the most part his argument doesn't make sense.
This is one of those instances where I think it's best you just get through the book yourself and make a decision on your own. Your decision might not change, but it'll at least be more informed. I'm of the position that the content of the book--while holding a number of conservative values that fascists like to espouse, as the essayist pointed out in the video can be precursors to fascism--isn't an endorsement of a society that is fascistic in nature.
I came here from FD Signifier too. The failure of satire and irony had already been on my mind since this election, so I watched the entire thing and I'm glad I did. I think a factor in this is that we are still emotional beings. Even with a sense of detachment, media that compels emotion in us can have some kind of influence this way. Maybe Starship Troopers went past art to being a modern mythology. People on the left are still out there fighting objectivism when the new right has largely already moved on from "selfishness writ large alchemically transforms into utopia" to a recognition of the need for something greater than oneself. One thing I've come to think about Trump is that a lot of what he does, the way he talks, the ridiculous gaffes, is a work. The "weave" isn't gibberish, it's spinning an emotional narrative that can't really be countered by fact, because it isn't fact to begin with. It's gut talk. At the same time, it's also nonsense. The left sees the nonsense, the right feels the meaning. Already steeped in the foundations of fascist appeal, things like xenophobia allow for the emotions in place to attach to obvious nonsense like "they're eating the dogs, they're eating the cats!" All the debunking in the world doesn't do anything to get to the real "thoughts" behind this, about fear of the unknown, the inability of people in a monoculture to assess threats in unknown strangers, etc. The only way to really debunk is to address and resolve the fear. And the left's other responses are to sneer at it, which doesn't work because the right already feels like the left is a bunch of out of touch snobs, or to become hyperbolic, fostered by so much ragebait that genuinely presents stuff without context, to the point that people in the middle or apathetic just tune it out. It makes me think a bit of the whole Strauss Great Conversation thing where you're talking at two levels, one the surface message and the other the hidden meaning, only instead of conveying a deeper set of thoughts it's conveying a not terribly hidden "gut truth" we can't or won't counter. The whole "microphone BJ" business, having looked at it, can credibly be interpreted in two ways. Whether that was intentional or not, it's another drop into the ocean that's separating consensus realities. I think Trump's connections with pro wrestling are interesting. Pro wrestling used to be what preteen and teenage boys like me engaged with before the Tates of the world. It was silly, but not fascist. It told high dramas of good versus evil, how good can become evil and evil can become good, redemption arcs, etc. You knew evil because evil is as evil does; heels were mean. And yes at some level you knew it was scripted (not fake -- real athletes taking real risks of injury or death to bear the weight of a mythology), but you got so into it that the emotional programming worked. Kayfabe nominally died in, I think 1988? But maybe it didn't. Maybe it got resurrected as a means not to provide people with a mythology of strength in a decidedly non-fascist struggle of good versus evil safely in the squared circle, but a grand arc narrative in which the evil is the liberals in government. I don't buy into the whole Cultural Marxism business, but I will say, I think the left's ideas about effecting cultural change from the top down through largely performative stuff, even if well intentioned, has failed. It hasn't rewritten the emotional landscape in people who need to hear it, and it's arguably an intentional refocusing away from class issues. It smells like BS to the right for a reason, it kinda is. And the overall liberal sense that you can pretend your way into a better world solely intellectually, without real sacrifice, is a bit silly in hindsight. What I know about poststructuralism could probably fit on a postage stamp, but my vague memories of concepts about lack of objective truth and the ability to rewrite consensus perception of reality seems relevant. I guess I should go back and reread, but, I'm pretty sure the actually smart people in there did have some important things to say about how implementing this is probably going to take more work than just pretending and media diversity primarily aimed at making melanically-challenged liberals feel like they're good people. Like I said I don't think this is some intentional campaign, evil or not, by people, just a systems effect of where ideas and choices went in a world where the bottom line is still money for shareholders. So other than realizing that laughing at fascism won't get us anywhere, and screaming in terror about it doesn't seem to work, what are we left with? If I had a spare hundred billion dollars handy, I'd be funding movies and other media that leverages the growing conviction on both sides of the need to work to something greater than oneself, but recognizes that human morality doesn't come from punishment, it comes from empathy being hardwired in the brain (assuming you don't screw it up) by virtue of basic game theory in social animals. Community, friendship, love. I liked Lord of the Rings for its message of a credible identifiable everyman choosing courage and needing others. But it was lost in a sea of over the top action flick visions of infinite power without sacrifice, followed by the antihero movies. Which, again, satire failed us. Yes Fight Club is allegory and you're not supposed to identify with the protagonist any more than Rick, but ... doesn't it kinda look like fun? I'm neither smart enough nor educated enough to have answers, and I'm not sure my questions and thoughts even make any sense, but I wanted to put that out there. Anyway, thank you for the exhaustive effort.
While I don't hate satire as a form of comedy, I think the big problem is that most of the people that try to write it are too... assured they don't need to make the intent clear based on assuming the audience's morals. Like you said, it usually requires an already agreeable audience. As another example, Warhammer 40k started out as satire, decided to just lean into the fashy stuff, and now GW needs to do damage control because nazi's try to show up to official events. And why? Because almost every story about the imperium is just "Hard man must make the hard choices to save the innocent from the other" over and over and over and ove with a paper thin veneer of 'this is kinda bad, huh?'. And then books like the Ciaphas Cain series put an even more affable face to the brutal, merciless jackboots the Imperium uses to stomp out dissent. I think the ultimate flaw of satire is that it's written by the kind of people that think writing a message subtly is the same thing as writing it well. "A modest proposal", one of the most pointed to examples of enduring satire, is pretty obvious in its intent, and the targets understood that it was a joke, even if they brushed off it's critiques. (Sorry for the door stopper comment but I've been frustrated by this exact thing and thinking about it a lot lately when I got back into WH40k lol)
40k is an absolute political minefield and I feel you lol James Wokshop really wants you to believe the imperium sucks and is bad, but at the same time put it in a galaxy where the imperium trying anything more benevolent might see it completely wiped out. That just makes it look like "doing what needs done" kind of stuff and gives it heroic sacrificial archetypes n stuff. Satire is so hard to do well. If HD2 had more of a narrative or was a book, I think it would. It sort of takes the modest proposal idea of "this is good and correct, in fact, we should take it ten steps further" approach, but it's failure is that it's set dressing and not the forefront, so it's easily ignored or brushed off.
I think HD2 works a bit more effectively as satire bc the more you dig, the more shady stuff you see the powers that be in Super Earth pull. The overt propaganda and actual hints at civil unrest and oppression. Thing is tho, you actually have to care and look for it. Read between the lines. If you don't, it's just a fun silly game and setting. It does make a statement, but it's whispered rather than shouted and not the express point. I can't say I like the book of Starship Troopers, and I definitely do not agree with the philosophical arguments of the book. A lot of the conclusions are just stated as imperative facts when really it's just a set of logical steps starting from a certain framework and directed through a specific lense. Like the argument that morality must be dictated through corporal punishment and selfless service must be beaten into a person. You can reach the conclusion that morality and selfless service are an inherent virtue of humanity through a different line of logical steps. Heinlein's philosophies and ideals are pretty indicative of the 50s era war mongers, and I think his ideas are extremely outdated by views on war and militarism in the modern day. Even Smedley Butler's 1935 "War is a Racket" pushes against Heinlein's views of militarism. Very good video, it was worth the wait. The dramatic readings and atmosphere were awesome. The quality is incredible. I have some disagreements, but I'd have to work pretty hard to pin them down and articulate them well and im just too lazy for that lmao
One thing I like about the satire of HD2 is that, even though the enemies are monstrous in their form, the Humans are unequivocally the agressors and the bad guys. Why are we at war with the bugs and bots? Because we wanted their planets and resources and launched unprovoked attacks on them. And aside from the intro video suburb (which smacks pretty heavily of propaganda), there is no sign that the HD society works as anything other than a meat grinder that spends a ton on bombs and sees humans as another form of ammunition. Satires like 40k and Verhoeven's ST fail in part because the threat is real, the threat cannot be reasoned with or made peace with, and it is an existential threat from an "outside other" that wants nothing less than the destruction of Humanity. In effect, they create a fictional world in which all the rhetoric of real-world fascists is made reality, and by extension, fascism becomes justified. I am not, by any means, right-wing, but facing multiple armies of chaos demons and zombies and orcs...I would probably become pretty okay with the ideology that says, "kill em all!"
1:37:17 not to be a know it all but actually as a genuine reading suggestion, Aelita is a 1923 political sci fi novel. Soviet authors produced a decent amount of political sci-fi throughout the 20s and 30s. I only know this from a Russian science fiction class, it’s an obscure but fascinating genre.
1:08:10 I’m gonna be that guy and point out how they did know it was a trap when Rico’s squad was sent in. Afterwards Neil Patrick Harris tells Rico about it and how they were sent to investigate a higher intelligence at play with the bugs
I think the cockroach stomping scene is satirical, because it's completely irrelevant to the war effort in any practical way. It's like a little pep rally or eating "liberty cabbage," basically. "The only good bug is a dead bug." Also, it's kinda telling that it's kids being encouraged to do it. If it was Aunt Mabel, the tone would be different.
It speaks to the tribal mindset of folks and the way humans think. It's a problematic but very human thing to seek representative vengeance. "There are bugs out there killing us. Oh, here are some bugs right here. We're going to kill them back. Look! We're helping." Nevermind that the cockroaches are in no way related to the enemy. It's emotional catharsis, not practical gains in the war effort. It feels incredibly relevant to bring up in a war satire addressing Otherizing.
I think starship troopers is a hilarious satire, but the bug part needs to be redone to have them be able to communicate and see propaganda on their side. That makes the joke much better. The film also has a sad outlook for mankind, the only way we are United is through conflict and control. That’s life I guess. I also believe Paul was trying to work through issues he had from his childhood growing up dominated by fascism. I mean his gore encounter was seeing real people pick up body parts and his dad forgot to shield his eyes, so Paul is genuinely showing us how he felt.
Only just started watching this video but I gotta say, that transition at 5:43 has me HOOKED. You have my undivided attention for the next 3 and a half hours funny internet man
The point made in this video about how the 'in-group' of this fascist system is the whole human race and how that makes it more appealing to the audience kind of put into words something that's been on my mind a bit recently. It seems like in the fantasy/sci-fi community, people will usually recognize and point out xenophobia and fascist rhetoric from fictional groups when those groups are fantasy races or humans opposing other humans, but often will 'ironically' support or make endless excuses for it when it comes from humans opposing aliens (or elves and orcs or whatever). The obvious textbook example of this is most of the wh40k fandom. Of course the presence of this double standard varies from person to person, but it's an interesting pattern that I've noticed.
That's why I'm always uncomfortable with Warhammer 40K. I know most people are probably just joking and are self-aware when they talk about killing everyone from this of that race or organisation, but plenty of fascist and fascist-adjacent people join in on that, even in my personal, real life experience.
@@samba-v8cyeah I love the minis of 40K but the fandom is extremely misogynistic and racist coded. AoS is a lot less bad, especially because most races work together against chaos, so the fandom isn’t as prone to overt racism and "wannabe military" fascist behaviour
@@samba-v8cAt this point in my life I believe anyone is susceptible to propaganda. I truly believe that humans change to their environment, you can make anyone good or bad by the system they are in. Therefore even a "good" person will change overtime if they are constantly told the same thing over and over again and are desensitized to it. Even if people are self aware of WH40k overtime hearing the same stuff over and over will begin to chip away at their thinking. It may be small, barely even perceptible but they will still be at least even a little desensitized to the topic. For Nazis and the powers that be even that tiny little victory is a win. That's how these corporations operate they just slowly tweak things and over long enough periods of time we all become more and more desensitized into the insanity we live in. Just my personal thoughts. I think alot of us think we are unchanging and stable, but I just don't believe that anymore. I think that I change on the system I am in.
This was a great analysis, can we get an Apocalypse Now/ Heart of Darkness episode?Would like to hear your breakdown on “human morality” vs “human progress” (probably not the word I’m looking for) and how it’s still relevant especially with all the conflicts going on currently.
Finally someone who gets it. Loved this vid brother watched the flick back as a kid had the toys with the minis with money me and my cousin made. Didn’t know about the books till i was in my early 20’s in 2014 as a PV2 where I saw it at the PX at my first duty station in korea hovey/casey. Was a 13B so ran thru the book pretty quick in a field problem since you know if we aint shooting we napping
Nazis were supposed to have fled to South America to escape justice in Europe, its kind of an open joke for alot people that you were either a paperclip Nazi in U.S. aeorpace/rocketry or you fled to South America.
I think you missed an opportunity for an interesting discussion about what happened with Helldivers. The devs were so committed to the idea of the helldivers being a poorly trained and poorly equipped force of canon fodder that they were incredibly trigger happy with nerfs to the point of almost killing the game by making it so frustrating to play. They only reversed course after the game bleeded out a lot of players and people got so mad with the latest round of nerfs that they tried to essentially sabotage the in game objectives and defy "high command" meaning the devs. There was even a rebel community faction born out of that. Probably the closest I have seen a live service game actually satirize fascism.
That's a bit of a different overall conversation and it was all still developing when I started writing this. It'd have to get into the weeds over the video game industry and that's like two hours on its own
That was definitely worth the wait. I do love that despite the very professional narration you still do the goofy little voices for the quotes. Not as over the top as on the streams obviously, but it did make me smile. The exploration of the movie and book were super interesting and I think you made a good point for the movie just not really working as a satire of fascism. I will say that the "failure of satire" bit at the end felt quite undercooked. It did come across like you tried to say that satire is always ineffective and bad, which doesn't really follow from the earlier parts of the video. But I'm not sure if that's what you intended, that part just felt like it was cut short because the video was already so long. I do think Satire as an artform is an interesting topic regarding the modern day discourse and internet culture in particular. Originally, the idea behind satire is to reveal some uncomfortable truth about people, socities, ect, by using hyperbole and absurdity. Especially in online discourse satire has just become part of normal speech - most of the bits you do in your lifestreams are a good example I think. And of course there is what we call "Realsatire" in German, when something in reality is already so absurd that there is no way to satirize it. (The israeli cum scroundrel incident comes to mind) Anyway, I'm just rambling now. Great video, the bit about satire in general might be worthy of a follow up video. Or maybe a stream callin or something. Keep up the good work!
Satire is generally a terrible literary device, at least in English. I'm not sure where I said satire is effective or worthwhile pretty much anywhere in this piece
@@EastsideTyler Maybe I phrased that poorly, it was just unclear to me whether the statement about satire was meant in a more general way or specifically in regards to Starship Troopers. (which you answered) I don't fully agree that satire is generally terrible, but I do think it is not very useful when critizing fashism. Works that have a bit of a fashist problem among their audience often use "it's satire" as an excuse / deflection, which doesn't really do anything to discourage the fashists. (W40K being another prominent example)
@@asgarzigel I think teh problem arises when you try to satirize political ideologies instead of, idk, dumb cultural events like the "israeli cum scoundrel" incident, whatever that is. if you fuck up the cum satire you look like an idiot. if you fuck up the fascist satire you look like a fascist.
Heyy, Tyler! I just wanted to say thank you so much for the fantastic content!! This video felt like a real treat from HBomberguy. The sort of video that I quickly realize I am in awe of, and love consuming, despite having very little to no familiarity with the material. I was born in 1988, and while I’d never seen Starship Troopers entirely, I knew it was an adaptation and that it had a deep cultural impact. I cried more than once, I really enjoyed the gameplay on screen, and I admired your dedication to voicing everything into/as distinguishable and memorable personalities. I really came away from this feeling I had a great understanding not only of the film, but also the book, and even the significance of both on the media and political landscapes they both emerged onto. Possibly most importantly, I was entertained, and invested, the entire way through the video. I think I rewatched it twice immediately, haha. I hope your surgery goes well, and you have a loving community behind you, choom. As well as a wife and family of animals! I hope your recovery goes smoothly, and I know it will; your support systems will make sure of it! Take care, and thank you again for such wonderful content, Tyler!!!
After finishing it, I got to say interesting watch. Heinlein's ideas make me feel uncomfortable as hell though. By making voluntary service a requirement for voting, you create a group of people who identify with each other because of a number of shared intense experiences. To stay part of this group people will likely stay in line with the general thinking of the broader group, somewhat enforced by punishments towards dissenters. Thus you create a de facto homogenous voting class. To me that is antithetical to the spirit of freedom and would shape a society that stagnates to keep their preferred status quo. Side note: Would this mean that the leaders are just the most popular retired generals? Next to that I noticed how going into service was a way to get out of the lower economical classes in society (ergo poverty is a glossed over issue in the book). This shows that society "just works" as defined by Tod Howard... uhm bug puns unintended :P On the other hand, I find it funny that the Koala and Capybara exemplify of how species are not intending on survival of the fittest. If it happens it is either an accident or human caused (imagine a lion erasing their complete food supply on purpose).
Heinlein ideas are controversial, but they are not inherently fascist For me, the issue with heinleins ideas is that we don't know if these ideas would ever actually work Because Heinlein made them work In Heinlein's book, his society works because he wrote it as such... Whether these ideas could function without becoming actual fascism or unequal authoritarianism Is up for debate.
Engagement comment for the engagement throne! Also, I love how you touch on the fact that Heinlein kinda didn't know what he was talking about at times when it came to designing an infantry force and the fact that the book Mobile Infantry suffers from being what is effectively a special operations force that is used as a conventional warfighting force.
Great essay, well structured and articulated plus a bibliography to boot. My main criticism would be towads the particularly venemous sections of commentary aimed towards Verhoeven, vague groups of people on the internet, and... satire as a genre? It felt at odds with what I gathered was part of the motivation behind the video, to not over simplify and over antagonize both the people and media representing a viewpoint you don't agree with
My takeaway (and I hope I'm wrong) is that if the subtlety is such that the lowest common denominator misses the subversion, then it's not satire but merely propaganda for the subject it purports to attack. Even excluding the temporal element, continental assumptions about authoritarianism, and the background of US adventurism in the middle-east and the Balkans, it appears there's a pretty heavy-duty cultural divergence at work here, one that's so stark and yawning as to trigger fears it's insurmountable. It's supposed to be seductive, that's the point ffs! What the- but I must stop. As I said, I'm hoping I'm wrong.
heinlein loves him some brutal retributive justice. i forget which book it's from but there's a scene where a guy who hit a pedestrian with his car and kept going is deliberately run over, inflicting the same damage, and medical treatment withheld for the amount of time the pedestrian had to wait before emergency services got to them. he likes to say an armed society is a polite society, generalizing the nuclear doctrine of mutually assured destruction to interpersonal relationships. it made sense when i was a teenager but gets harder to sympathize with as i learn more about the racial politics of american violence. his notions about sex kind of sour anything else he might have to say.
Yes Heinliens xenophobic racism /paranoia (he was terrified of China and thought they would dominate the world militarily) His eye for an eye, make it violent and a spectacle ideology towards justice As well as his authoritarian state tendencies Become more and more evident over his career Which is too bad because his Book Friday, was one sci Fi story I thought was brilliant and ahead of its time Though you can see elements of Heinlien's odd repressed sexual phobia at work in that work as well.
Nope can't watch, no 1 minute segment of vhs or cassette tapes being pushed into devices and the play button being press means this isn't a real video essay.
5:33 _"[...]Paul Verhoeven didn't write Starship Troopers as a satire[...]"_ _“I want to make a movie so painfully obvious in its satire that everyone who understands it lives in perpetual psychological torment inflicted on them by all the people who don't.”_ - Paul Verhoeven
55:40 or so I think this party is meant to also mimic other coming of age movies in the late 90s/early 00s Basically, this whole movie is a combination war hero's story with a coming of age film where people come into their own
Vod gang commenting for RUclips engagement gods (I actually watched ((listened to)) all 3 hours and 36 minutes before commenting because youtube will know if you don't)
Omg... I'm so sad we missed out on that Crusades epic with Verhoeven and Schwarzenegger. But oh well, I got Starship Troopers, which my best friend and I fell asleep to pretty much every time we had a sleepover. It was Starship Troopers for years... and then Super Troopers for a few years. I swear the word "Troopers" had nothing to do with it.
After 2nd rewatch i can say its a grest video overall, well paced, takes both intresting and logical. Only thing i could somewhat have gripes with is the relatively monotone delivery, outside of book excerpts, but its more of a 5/10 in an otherwise outstanding video than a real negative. Cant wait to see more, great work man.
... 44 minutes in and I can't shake the feeling you are making the exact opposite conclusion the evidence you present suggests... the movie is framed, basically literally as propaganda and from there it makes sense all the actors are young, attractive, white people, though what ever, casting is casting. The bugs are depicted in the movie as lesser to their "true" counterparts from the book, a change a fascist would probably make for the sake of propaganda. The anecdote of the teacher being essentially dumbed down, again, makes sense if you want the audience to "get" a point that comes off as "war bad" despite being intended as "war good". "the gestapo are literally infallible psychics" is absolutely a convenient lie to tell the masses. And fake ads suggesting such a thing is possible would just be additional cover through a different medium but ultimately from the same source. I could have sworn you actually tried to say "it can't be a satirical propaganda film, because it's shot like an actual propaganda film." You also make a point of casting doubt on later interviews yet the only relevant sources NOT disqualified by that logic are [13] and [15] Also, in the future cite in the form of " [x] (page number) " rather than just the page number after the source by name.
"the ridiculous and weird roach scene can't be satire because it panders to fascist mentality" literally 2+2=0 also hi, Paul. you acknowledge it's weird... and faschy... and then you say it's sincere?!
Yes the film comes off as fascist propaganda The issue is that the propaganda doesn't sell you against it, it sells you on it To the point even Verhoeven and the writer of the film Have admitted they made the fascist society look good And that they aren't sure if they showed the actual society in the book Would people actually find an issue with it Verhoeven even admits that the society Heinlien presents is more appealing then our current democracy and society That's why he chose to instead show a fascism he was more familiar with (Nazism) then the society from the book. That says a lot to me, when the director and writer have To admit that they not only failed at the satire But they also feared showing the actual society Heinlein showcased because it might be too appealing to a lot of people....
Great video, this book is probably one of my favorites, despite that there should have been more action. I do have a question. In the stream where you first mentioned doing this, you mentioned something about wanting to talk about why Johnny keeps getting recommended for advancement by his superiors. Something along the lines of how he is accepting that some people just know better than him about certain subjects? If you remember what I'm talking about, can you elaborate for me a bit? I don't think you went over it here, or I may have overlooked it somehow.
Funny, from my recollection Heinlein’s book is a satire of communism. With The bugs representing communism and the Federation being the contrast to the society destroying bugs. Let’s not forget Heinlein was a massively disillusioned leftie turned Libertarian by the time he wrote Starship Troopers. And FUCK YEAH Dizzy is bestest best girl and Carmen’s a whore. If we pulled a rocky horror theater party with starship troopers everyone would be yelling “ whore” at Carmen.
I'm not sure you did a great job steelmanning your opponents (in terms of categorising the movies role in the book-movie dialectic, not fascism itself which you posit the movie steelmans for you), so much as merely predicting then dismissing them, but this was otherwise a tremendously well informed and interesting analysis. I have read the book and watched movie many times each, love them as flawed gems and defining moments in scifi, and have consumed a lot of analysis and thought on them, and been through many of the commentary and interviews you cite. I say all that to stress that I think I still learned a lot of new things and that this is a valuable contribution to the discussion. This comment is mostly just an appreciation of the hard work you put in however, because the algorithm demands it. I've subbed to this and your other channel which appears to be your main one.
I really love this vid! Content and format. I love seeing you be dickish online but seeing you in your true wheelhouse is great! I don’t know how you feel or how well versed you are in the writings of Frank Herbert (Dune Series) but I would love to see you pick apart the fourth book in the series, God Emperor of Dune. A lot of it is kinda puking philosophy at the reader but I love it lol. Thanks for the vid Tyler!
Hi! This is a really interesting video I find your overall perspective and research into the film fascinating! I will say, this feels like the central throughline is only half in mind? Because you spend most of your runtime on the movie/book narratives with asides and tangents it bloats the runtime, distracts from the commentary about fascism and satire and turns watching it into a slog - to me, it feels like you're trying to cram all of your thoughts about starship troopers into one vid instead of making a point through starship troopers? With a bit of focus, condensing and pulling in some other failed satires of fascism (especially in the weimar era, which had a bunch) you could have tightened it up to more effectively deliver its core message. (Also the last line was incredibly twitter-beef and while I get where it comes from, this is deep-dive on starship troopers which hasn't really gone into actual irl fascism beyond a sketched-out definition. If you spend a video on practical discussions on anti-fascist resistance then maybe, but as-is it raises the stakes beyond what the video can support.) Apologies if I'm overstepping the bounds of what a random commentator on the internet should say, you really are very interesting and I'm excited to see what you have to offer the world!
Yeah, this is a bad critique. The full synopsis are critical to show the content of what I'm talking about. Without the full synopsis and explanatory dives leaves you to open a real criticism, that you didn't fully engage with the material you're talking about. Yeah, you for sure overstepped here lol
So the reason Rico suddenly plotshifts from "Carmen's dead" to "Let's go save Carmen" in the movie is because Karl psionically mindbends her location into his mind (Possibly because he knows that's where the brainbug is, not necessarily to save Carmen). It seems like Rico's not fully aware that's the reason at any point. It's nodded to (literally, I think) later by Karl when they all meet up. This is a case of forshadowing: The ferret at the beginning is Rico at the end.
I take it back, the weakest part of the video is probably the veeerrry last portion. Much of it trips over itself somewhat, is somehow both too short and also too wordy. The first half of the whole video is spent painstakingly explaining Starship Troopers was not a satire, or at least that satire wasn't a vocally-stated priority. And then in the final few minutes Verhoeven is petulant and satire as a concept is useless and snobbish? How did we make that leap? Also that closing statement just gets weirdly violent for basically no reason lmao "You won't be laughing when they slit your throats". What's that supposed to mean, man?
It means that if you fail to understand your enemy and treat them as ignorant because they don't understand a joke only you care about, you might distract yourself to the point they get the drop on you and literally murder you.
I saw it as two fold 1.Failed satire that has the opposite effect, shouldn't be respected or defended And Verhoeven and others have admitted they made the federation look too cool and the bugs as the undeniable monsters... 2. Many leftists will bend over backwards to defend the failed satire Despite not understanding that the federation is not actually fully fascist And that conservatives don't understand satire Despite the fact that that is not true Ray Bradbury and Kirk Vonnegut have many satirical works and they were openly conservative politically... And leftists act really snobbish Bout how superior they are to conservatives cause they have higher media literacy Which underestimates conservatives...
"Heinlein could have written an entire million word series about neo-dog teams, and I would have read every word, but he had his panties in a bunch about nukes, so we got this." ...Same
@Schneekardinal if your choices in front of you either genociders or future genocider that means system is broken and you should either tell to yourself "it doesn't matter" and never again vote until system get fixed or vote to fix said system when possible
@@birgaripadam7112 And if your choices are genocide at a rate of x or genocide at a rate of x+1, you should choose what? And in your example: who does the "fixing" of the system? Donald Trump? Seems like you'd have an easier time fixing things with Dems in power.
Watching this because it was recommened by FD Signifier, but to be honest, i've probably always felt this way about this movie since I 1st watched it. Even tho I enjoyed it as typical blockbuster fair, i just never had the words to put it how I felt about its take on satire, till this video✌
So I must dissagree with the premise that the state portrayed in starship troopers is fascist. It is not a state which has a dictator or violates the rights of its people. It has voluntary military service and shows people operating in civilian life who feel no need to be involved in politics, going as far as to see it as a useless accessory. It depicts a limitedly enfranchised democratic system with civil rights for all. However the guy making the film thought he was depicting a fascist state. I believe he said the idea was 'war makes facists of us all'. Frankly, Id say he doesn't understand facism. In the end, the creators intent doesn't matter to what is depicted. He fails to actually depict a facist state. I see what he was aiming for and there is indeed dangers to this democracy as depicted. Primarily the intelligence arm which is seeking to establish a psychic core which will be incentivised to violate the integrity of the civilians rights. The movie is also wearing the fashion of a fascist state. Its also confused because it is meant to be aan in universe propaganda piece. But even in that context it doesn't come across as fascist propaganda. As for helldivers it probably is either fascist or technocritic. It certainly has fascist elements even if technocratic.
Tyler used to be a journalist, believe it or not. He's talked a bit on the standards that he wanted the video to be-- during his reaction to Lore Lodge's Killdozer documentary iirc
Having now watched the whole thing, my main takeaway is that I should give Helldivers 2 a whirl Nah I'm playing. I've been looking forward to this, as one of countless authors downstream from Heinlein's imagination and a longtime member of vod gang. Didn't disappoint.
3:26:15 This definition of fascism is so broad as to be meaningless. Communist regimes are fascist under thus definition. Liberal democracies arguably fit the bill as well.
@blazinnub2097 The video creator? I must have missed that. People often conflate authoritarianism and/or totalitarianism with fascism. It doesn't help that the leftists have intentionally watered down fascism in order to use it as a cudgel against anyone to the right of them, including liberals.
Honestly it's a problem so broad it's hard to pick an entry point, but maybe helping people differentiate between authoritarianism, totalitarianism, and fascism couldn't hurt. Benevolence too. It feels like they stopped teaching this stuff in school in the 00's, along with the importance of nuance, and now we're all bogged down in the result. I honestly can't believe this discourse is even happening. I guess it's yet more proof that what one considers self-evident can become myth real quick.
If someone who had never seen American Dad heard Tyler reading a quote in the voice of Roger -they wouldn't bat an eyelid after some of these quote readings.
Bibliography
(including unused sources)
reference bibliography
[0] Atomic Heritage Foundation, "Debate over the Bomb" Jun. 6, 2014, (ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/history/debate-over-bomb)
[1] Breihand, Tom "The Grisly, Goofy Starship Troopers [sic] Played Dumb To Make Hollywood Look Even Dumber," Deadspin, Nov. 20, 2015 (deadspin.com/the-grisly-goofy-starship-troopers-played-dumb-to-make-1741600229)
[1.1] Encyclopedia Britannica "Fasces" (www.britannica.com/topic/fasces)
[1.2] Encyclopedia Britannica “The Punic Wars” (www.britannica.com/event/Punic-Wars)
[2] Flashback FilmMaking "The Making of 'Starship Troopers'" [reposted documentary footage] (ruclips.net/video/KkDpCDI_cZY/видео.html)
[2.1] Gordon, Andrew "6 Mind Blowing Ways 'Starship Troopers' Predicted the Future" Cracked, Jul. 10, 2011 (www.cracked.com/article_19259_6-mind-blowing-ways-starship-troopers-predicted-future.html)
[3] Heinlein, Robert Anson “Starship Troopers” e-book edition, Berkley Publishing, imprint: Penguin Random House LLC, 1959, edition ISBN: 9781101500422
[4] Heinlein, Robert Anson "Who Are the Heirs of Patrick Henry? Stand Up and Be Counted!" Colorado College Tiger, Apr. 18, 1958; Preserved on Digital Microfiche and Catalogued by TriCollege Libraries Digital Collections (trislandora-production.brynmawr.edu/object/sc268924)
[4.1] IMDB.com, Verhoven, www.imdb.com/name/nm0000682/
[4.2] IMDB.com, Riefenstahl, Leni, "Triumph des Willens" 1935
[4.3] IMDB.com, Van Dien, Casper, www.imdb.com/name/nm0000680/)
[4.4] IMDB.com, Richards, Denise, (www.imdb.com/name/nm0000612/)
[4.5] IMDB.com, Harris, Niel Patrick (www.imdb.com/name/nm0000439/)
[4.6] IMDB.com, Vacano, Jost (www.imdb.com/name/nm0005911/)
[5] International Committee of the Red Cross "The Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949"
United States Department of the Army "'The Law of Land Warfare' Department of the Army Field Manual 27-10" The United States Department of the Army, July 1956 (irp.fas.org/doddir/army/fm27-10.pdf)
[5.1] {user} KerrAvon2055 "How long was the boot training at Camp Currie?" scifi.stackexchange.com, May 5, 2020, (scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/40150/how-long-was-the-boot-training-at-camp-currie)
[6] Kempley, Rita "'Starship Troopers': A Slew of Beauties Bash Big Bugs" The Washington Post, Nov. 7, 1997 (www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/starshiptrooperskemp.htm)
[7] Kronke, David "Attack of the $100-Million Insects" The Los Angeles Times, Sep. 23 1996 (www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-09-23-ca-46882-story.html)
[8] Levine, Gloria "Starship Troopers Actor Is Ready to Help with Helldivers 2 Crossover" 80LV, Mar. 14, 2024 (80.lv/articles/starship-troopers-actor-is-ready-to-help-with-helldivers-2-crossover/)
[9] Marsh, Calum "Starship Troopers: One of the Most Misunderstood Movies Ever
" The Atlantic, Nov. 7, 2013 (www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/11/-em-starship-troopers-em-one-of-the-most-misunderstood-movies-ever/281236/)
[9.0] Naval History and Heritage Command, Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, United States Navy (www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs.html)
[9.1] The Numbers, Starship Troopers Theatrical Performance, (web.archive.org/web/20220409145135/www.the-numbers.com/movie/Starship-Troopers#tab=box-office)
[10] Patterson, William H., Jr. "Robert A. Heinlein: A Biography" The Heinlein Society, Aug. 10, 2011 (www.heinleinsociety.org/robert-a-heinlein-a-biography/)
[10.1] Reddit Post by MojoRoosevelt "Starship Troopers == The Stone Pillow?" 2021 (www.reddit.com/r/heinlein/comments/moi1tz/starship_troopers_the_stone_pillow/)
[11] Sammon, Paul M. "The Making of Starship Troopers," Boulevard Books, 1997, published by arrangement with Sony Pictures, Inc., ISBN: 1-57297-252-1
[12] Singer, Leigh "Starship Troopers 20 years on: Director Paul Verhoeven reveals how his movie predicted Donald Trump" Digital Spy, Nov. 11, 2017 (www.digitalspy.com/movies/a823951/starship-troopers-paul-verhoeven-donald-trump-20-years-anniversary/)
[12.1] Simpson, Paul "Starship Troopers: Interview: Edward Neumeier" SciFi Bulletin, 2017 (scifibulletin.com/film-reviews/film-interviews/starship-troopers-interview-edward-neumeier/)
[13] Smith, Adam "Starship Troopers Review”, EmpireOnline, Jan. 1, 2000 (www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/starship-troopers-review/)
[14] Smith, Adam and Williams, Owen "Triple Dutch: Paul Verhoeven’s sci-fi trilogy," EmpireOnline, Dec. 02, 2014 (www.empireonline.com/movies/features/paul-verhoeven/)
[14.0] Uniform Code of Military Justice, Article 85
[14.1] United States Marine Corps Training and Education Command MCWP 3-11.2 Marine Rifle Squad, Section III, Patrolling
[15] Verhoeven, Paul (dir.) "Starship Troopers" Tristar Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, 1997
[16] Watts, Kyle "Attitude and Spirit: Marine Recon Vets Inspire Next Generation" Marine Corps Association, Nov. 15, 2023 (www.mca-marines.org/leatherneck/attitude-and-spirit/)
TLDR Tyler practices what he preaches when it comes to plagiarism.
So, before I potentially waste 3.5 hours, did you listen to the film's two commentary tracks? Far more important of the two being the one with Paul Verhoeven and Edward Neumeier speaking together. Pretty much every single absurd myth about this film (it's a leftist satire, Verhoeven hates the society depicted, the bugs are innocent, etc) is refuted at some point by a direct quote from Verhoeven during that. Which is how I know virtually nobody cares what the man actually thinks about this or anything else when talking about this film.
Also have you seen his entire filmography? His Dutch films about WW2 shed a lot of light on these issues, but again, nobody has seen them. He also wrote a book on Christianity which is really a book about how he views history and the human experience. Again, nobody has read it. I don't see it in here.
This Digital Spy article you link is so absurdly framed that I think one would have to be an absolute moron and cretin to think it could be useful for anything.
"As a result, Starship Troopers doesn't just blur the line on supporting "our troops" on their bug-hunting mission; it obliterates that line like an anthill flooded by a vat of insecticide. "The only good bug is a dead bug!" is one of the catchy slogans the troops regularly parrot to boost morale. "
WHAT THE FUCK DOES THIS MEAN? TELL ME. What is the real analog to the bug hunt? The bugs are a plot device. Deliberately made monstrous and unintelligent by Verhoeven. There is no analog. They are an enemy we can make no parallels with deliberately.
And do you repeat that absurd LIE (yes, it's a deliberate attempt to mislead you) that Verhoeven hated the novel and refused to read it? That's in the commentary track, but comes out far differently to what scholars like you read in the imdb trivia section that gets quoted on wikipedia.
You should REALLY listen to these people for yourselves. Not through scifibulletin or digital spy. These people give you a line of the man framed by a page of themselves. Obscured and distorted to worthlessness. That you would take this list of sources to be impressive is concerning.
Putting this up for free? You could have gotten a solid $1/user if you'd have just posted it on Patreon!
Tyler my guy you're supposed to put these behind a paywall.
This isn’t the Chicago style me and other historians are used to.
2 hour plus long video essay out the gate😂
Come correct or don't come at all!
💪💪💪 thanks for stopping by!
Omg stumbling on this video AND FD is in the comments? What a time to be alive!
FD sir you are the G.O.A.T.
You really do pick the worst white people to hang out with man.
Oh so you're the reason this is now in my recommended.
"Fascism doesn't appeal to fascists, it appeals to people who become fascists."
This line hit me like a freight train.
Me too, its so momumentally stupid. Women who like women are not lesbian, they are becoming lesbian... just as retarded.
thats the most midwit thing ive ever heard. "fascism doesnt appeal to fascists" utter nonsense
It became the aesthetics of facsism
Instead of making two hour video essays about movies, leftists should make video essays about Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen, Nick Land, Curtis Yarvin, transhumanism, posthumanism, and the neo-reaction (NRx) movement.
it appeals to fascists and those with a desire for order and beauty
This is a comment on the internet
Citation needed
@@williamchamberlain2263 a joke isn't funny anymore, if you have to explain it. Watch more Tyler and you'll get it :)
This is a bar of soap
Puts on a Kermit voice: "That depends, what even do you mean by "comment" and "Internet". Is there even a way to know? Some serious scientists I've know have tried to define these terms but have failed. I'm note even sure if it can be done apart from defining them as metaphysical concepts closely related to god. So... what do you think about that?"
*Proceeds to shed a single tear about this profound moment of realisation*
@@NourianPeters that also is a very detailed comment on the internet. A beautiful one at that! 🥺
"Do you want to live forever?" is a famous cry attributed to Marine Corps Sergeant Major Daniel Joseph Daly during the Battle of Belleau Wood in June 1918
I think he knows since he keeps dropping jokes and references that most likely only someone who used to be in the Corps would know.
Also attributed to King Frederick II of Prussia at the battle of Kolin in 1757 "do you want to live forever, dogs?"
@@aprenda123 the reason it's included as it is in the video is because that's how Heinlein has the quote in the book
@@EastsideTyler attributed to "an unknown platoon sergeant"
@goldenhide which is kinda really important...
Y'know, this is the first RUclips video I've seen where;
1: There's a proper bibliography
2: Stays coherent and well paced while being over an hour long
3: Doesn't treat the listener like an idiot
Thank fuck someone on this platform that isn't a company gives a shit about citations and references.
I'd ask "why don't more people on RUclips do this?" but i already know why. They're lazy, and don't think it's important to do so. So they'll either throw in a link to something that might be relevant to what they're talking about, or just not give a shit and do nothing.
The bibliography alone is enough to let me know you actually took time and effort to carefully state your conclusions, and helps me trust that you did proper research into what you're talking about.
Genuinely one of my favorite creators already
1. His bibliography is not proper at all
2. The video is mostly a play by play of both the movie and the book for 2 hours with his own input interspersed throughout complaining about leftists misunderstanding the movie
I think you need to broaden your horizon on RUclips because there are so many RUclipsrs who do what you’re talking about. Like a lot!
@@BobBob-yr4qothe bibliography is perfectly correct. A bibliography is just a list of the resources used.
@@BobBob-yr4qo Write a better one. Oh wait, you won't.
@@SPOOKYTIMEZ2099
Throw me some examples cause my youtube feed is diverse af and I don't remember ever seeing a bibliography on any of em
Im giving this essay another chance because FD Signifier liked it
I did and I didn't like. This essay is caping for fascism.
The idea that Heinlein wasn't fascist while also saying that he wrote a book expressing his beliefs that could be a textbook for fascism is just illogical. It doesn't hold up by itself.
I'm surprised that he pointed us to this.
@@Theyungcity23 huh, still I suppose this movie is still weak satire with the comedic commercials added as an afterthought
@Tacom4ster I disagree. It's satire or criticism is at its very core. ( I'm just venting a bit. Don't take this as me trying to debate you or anything. Ignore if needed)
We see these guys get mutilated to go to war against some beings on a whole other planet that could just be left alone. The general pop culture opinion of the time was that war is fat cats in Washington sending young men to die for no good reason. Vietnam vets would have been watching this with their sons and grand sons. That war was widely considered a bs waste of time and life.
The criticism of this "war rocks" fictional world would have been received easily by the general public at the time.
The real satire and criticism that it hides is the criticism of patriarchy which is where I get his point partially but for the most part his argument doesn't make sense.
@Theyungcity23 maybe it should have been more obvious, I'm still gonna rewatch the movie, I love Verhoeven
This is one of those instances where I think it's best you just get through the book yourself and make a decision on your own. Your decision might not change, but it'll at least be more informed. I'm of the position that the content of the book--while holding a number of conservative values that fascists like to espouse, as the essayist pointed out in the video can be precursors to fascism--isn't an endorsement of a society that is fascistic in nature.
I came here from FD Signifier too. The failure of satire and irony had already been on my mind since this election, so I watched the entire thing and I'm glad I did.
I think a factor in this is that we are still emotional beings. Even with a sense of detachment, media that compels emotion in us can have some kind of influence this way. Maybe Starship Troopers went past art to being a modern mythology. People on the left are still out there fighting objectivism when the new right has largely already moved on from "selfishness writ large alchemically transforms into utopia" to a recognition of the need for something greater than oneself.
One thing I've come to think about Trump is that a lot of what he does, the way he talks, the ridiculous gaffes, is a work. The "weave" isn't gibberish, it's spinning an emotional narrative that can't really be countered by fact, because it isn't fact to begin with. It's gut talk. At the same time, it's also nonsense. The left sees the nonsense, the right feels the meaning. Already steeped in the foundations of fascist appeal, things like xenophobia allow for the emotions in place to attach to obvious nonsense like "they're eating the dogs, they're eating the cats!" All the debunking in the world doesn't do anything to get to the real "thoughts" behind this, about fear of the unknown, the inability of people in a monoculture to assess threats in unknown strangers, etc. The only way to really debunk is to address and resolve the fear. And the left's other responses are to sneer at it, which doesn't work because the right already feels like the left is a bunch of out of touch snobs, or to become hyperbolic, fostered by so much ragebait that genuinely presents stuff without context, to the point that people in the middle or apathetic just tune it out.
It makes me think a bit of the whole Strauss Great Conversation thing where you're talking at two levels, one the surface message and the other the hidden meaning, only instead of conveying a deeper set of thoughts it's conveying a not terribly hidden "gut truth" we can't or won't counter. The whole "microphone BJ" business, having looked at it, can credibly be interpreted in two ways. Whether that was intentional or not, it's another drop into the ocean that's separating consensus realities.
I think Trump's connections with pro wrestling are interesting. Pro wrestling used to be what preteen and teenage boys like me engaged with before the Tates of the world. It was silly, but not fascist. It told high dramas of good versus evil, how good can become evil and evil can become good, redemption arcs, etc. You knew evil because evil is as evil does; heels were mean. And yes at some level you knew it was scripted (not fake -- real athletes taking real risks of injury or death to bear the weight of a mythology), but you got so into it that the emotional programming worked. Kayfabe nominally died in, I think 1988? But maybe it didn't. Maybe it got resurrected as a means not to provide people with a mythology of strength in a decidedly non-fascist struggle of good versus evil safely in the squared circle, but a grand arc narrative in which the evil is the liberals in government.
I don't buy into the whole Cultural Marxism business, but I will say, I think the left's ideas about effecting cultural change from the top down through largely performative stuff, even if well intentioned, has failed. It hasn't rewritten the emotional landscape in people who need to hear it, and it's arguably an intentional refocusing away from class issues. It smells like BS to the right for a reason, it kinda is. And the overall liberal sense that you can pretend your way into a better world solely intellectually, without real sacrifice, is a bit silly in hindsight. What I know about poststructuralism could probably fit on a postage stamp, but my vague memories of concepts about lack of objective truth and the ability to rewrite consensus perception of reality seems relevant. I guess I should go back and reread, but, I'm pretty sure the actually smart people in there did have some important things to say about how implementing this is probably going to take more work than just pretending and media diversity primarily aimed at making melanically-challenged liberals feel like they're good people. Like I said I don't think this is some intentional campaign, evil or not, by people, just a systems effect of where ideas and choices went in a world where the bottom line is still money for shareholders.
So other than realizing that laughing at fascism won't get us anywhere, and screaming in terror about it doesn't seem to work, what are we left with? If I had a spare hundred billion dollars handy, I'd be funding movies and other media that leverages the growing conviction on both sides of the need to work to something greater than oneself, but recognizes that human morality doesn't come from punishment, it comes from empathy being hardwired in the brain (assuming you don't screw it up) by virtue of basic game theory in social animals. Community, friendship, love. I liked Lord of the Rings for its message of a credible identifiable everyman choosing courage and needing others. But it was lost in a sea of over the top action flick visions of infinite power without sacrifice, followed by the antihero movies. Which, again, satire failed us. Yes Fight Club is allegory and you're not supposed to identify with the protagonist any more than Rick, but ... doesn't it kinda look like fun?
I'm neither smart enough nor educated enough to have answers, and I'm not sure my questions and thoughts even make any sense, but I wanted to put that out there.
Anyway, thank you for the exhaustive effort.
Fantastic comment
Kayfabe bit really tickled my fancy if I do say so myself.
The people have voted and decided to make America great again. Want to know more?
The best parts were where Tyler was like "Also here's this funny thing my wife did..." it's adorable how much he loves her.
While I don't hate satire as a form of comedy, I think the big problem is that most of the people that try to write it are too... assured they don't need to make the intent clear based on assuming the audience's morals. Like you said, it usually requires an already agreeable audience.
As another example, Warhammer 40k started out as satire, decided to just lean into the fashy stuff, and now GW needs to do damage control because nazi's try to show up to official events. And why? Because almost every story about the imperium is just "Hard man must make the hard choices to save the innocent from the other" over and over and over and ove with a paper thin veneer of 'this is kinda bad, huh?'. And then books like the Ciaphas Cain series put an even more affable face to the brutal, merciless jackboots the Imperium uses to stomp out dissent.
I think the ultimate flaw of satire is that it's written by the kind of people that think writing a message subtly is the same thing as writing it well. "A modest proposal", one of the most pointed to examples of enduring satire, is pretty obvious in its intent, and the targets understood that it was a joke, even if they brushed off it's critiques.
(Sorry for the door stopper comment but I've been frustrated by this exact thing and thinking about it a lot lately when I got back into WH40k lol)
The colbert report is a good example of what you've pointed out. His satire of right wing pundits was just to be a right wing pundit.
@@xenn4985 I actually liked the Colbert Report back in the day, but yeah, too often the joke was ‘I’m repeating what you said in a smug voice’.
@@joshuafreeman3609 I liked it too, the guy was funny more often than not. But the point of the show fell flat on its face.
40k is an absolute political minefield and I feel you lol James Wokshop really wants you to believe the imperium sucks and is bad, but at the same time put it in a galaxy where the imperium trying anything more benevolent might see it completely wiped out. That just makes it look like "doing what needs done" kind of stuff and gives it heroic sacrificial archetypes n stuff.
Satire is so hard to do well. If HD2 had more of a narrative or was a book, I think it would. It sort of takes the modest proposal idea of "this is good and correct, in fact, we should take it ten steps further" approach, but it's failure is that it's set dressing and not the forefront, so it's easily ignored or brushed off.
But then on the other side if you make satire too obvious it comes across as dumb and uninspired... like the last season of The Boys
At last the prodigal essay arrives, looking forward to listening to the whole thing.
I think HD2 works a bit more effectively as satire bc the more you dig, the more shady stuff you see the powers that be in Super Earth pull. The overt propaganda and actual hints at civil unrest and oppression. Thing is tho, you actually have to care and look for it. Read between the lines. If you don't, it's just a fun silly game and setting. It does make a statement, but it's whispered rather than shouted and not the express point.
I can't say I like the book of Starship Troopers, and I definitely do not agree with the philosophical arguments of the book. A lot of the conclusions are just stated as imperative facts when really it's just a set of logical steps starting from a certain framework and directed through a specific lense. Like the argument that morality must be dictated through corporal punishment and selfless service must be beaten into a person. You can reach the conclusion that morality and selfless service are an inherent virtue of humanity through a different line of logical steps. Heinlein's philosophies and ideals are pretty indicative of the 50s era war mongers, and I think his ideas are extremely outdated by views on war and militarism in the modern day. Even Smedley Butler's 1935 "War is a Racket" pushes against Heinlein's views of militarism.
Very good video, it was worth the wait. The dramatic readings and atmosphere were awesome. The quality is incredible. I have some disagreements, but I'd have to work pretty hard to pin them down and articulate them well and im just too lazy for that lmao
One thing I like about the satire of HD2 is that, even though the enemies are monstrous in their form, the Humans are unequivocally the agressors and the bad guys. Why are we at war with the bugs and bots? Because we wanted their planets and resources and launched unprovoked attacks on them. And aside from the intro video suburb (which smacks pretty heavily of propaganda), there is no sign that the HD society works as anything other than a meat grinder that spends a ton on bombs and sees humans as another form of ammunition.
Satires like 40k and Verhoeven's ST fail in part because the threat is real, the threat cannot be reasoned with or made peace with, and it is an existential threat from an "outside other" that wants nothing less than the destruction of Humanity.
In effect, they create a fictional world in which all the rhetoric of real-world fascists is made reality, and by extension, fascism becomes justified. I am not, by any means, right-wing, but facing multiple armies of chaos demons and zombies and orcs...I would probably become pretty okay with the ideology that says, "kill em all!"
Sweet bud I like the live streams but I was hoping you'd do some video essays and this is a great one
Commenting cus i was there when F D said make a whole second channel
1:37:17 not to be a know it all but actually as a genuine reading suggestion, Aelita is a 1923 political sci fi novel. Soviet authors produced a decent amount of political sci-fi throughout the 20s and 30s. I only know this from a Russian science fiction class, it’s an obscure but fascinating genre.
I'm no fan of the politics of the USSR, but you are on point that they had some great sci-fi writers and more than a few great film makers
1:08:10 I’m gonna be that guy and point out how they did know it was a trap when Rico’s squad was sent in. Afterwards Neil Patrick Harris tells Rico about it and how they were sent to investigate a higher intelligence at play with the bugs
I never thought I'd see the day
This film is about, as serious, as the movie, _"Spaceballs"._
Too much punctuation, says me, a guy who uses too much punctuation
here before this fucking BLOWS UP. well done getting this out there man!
It was worth the wait this was very informative and I now added star ship troopers to my reading list and future library of books
This video is retarded, his conclusion amount to "i dont get it, so it is not a joke".
I think the cockroach stomping scene is satirical, because it's completely irrelevant to the war effort in any practical way. It's like a little pep rally or eating "liberty cabbage," basically. "The only good bug is a dead bug." Also, it's kinda telling that it's kids being encouraged to do it. If it was Aunt Mabel, the tone would be different.
It speaks to the tribal mindset of folks and the way humans think. It's a problematic but very human thing to seek representative vengeance. "There are bugs out there killing us. Oh, here are some bugs right here. We're going to kill them back. Look! We're helping." Nevermind that the cockroaches are in no way related to the enemy. It's emotional catharsis, not practical gains in the war effort. It feels incredibly relevant to bring up in a war satire addressing Otherizing.
17 hour later, I finally get to sit down and watch this. Well worth the wait that we've been teased. Here's to more like this.
is this guy a streamer or something?
@@tyruswillier7358 yeah, his streaming channel is westside tyler, mostly political themes with some internet drama, video game and art-related stuff
this video fucking sucked, dude fundamentally does not understand satire and also he's incredibly smug and annoying the entire time
Came here for the FD Signifier, stayed for the essayside Tyler. Shout out to y'all for great and informative content.
I feel like it's been years since this has been first brought into discussion.
Sargon walked so this man could run
I think starship troopers is a hilarious satire, but the bug part needs to be redone to have them be able to communicate and see propaganda on their side. That makes the joke much better.
The film also has a sad outlook for mankind, the only way we are United is through conflict and control. That’s life I guess.
I also believe Paul was trying to work through issues he had from his childhood growing up dominated by fascism. I mean his gore encounter was seeing real people pick up body parts and his dad forgot to shield his eyes, so Paul is genuinely showing us how he felt.
I think the video proves what it set out to in a very entertaining way I can't believe it actually lived up to the hype
VOD gang
Only just started watching this video but I gotta say, that transition at 5:43 has me HOOKED. You have my undivided attention for the next 3 and a half hours funny internet man
The point made in this video about how the 'in-group' of this fascist system is the whole human race and how that makes it more appealing to the audience kind of put into words something that's been on my mind a bit recently. It seems like in the fantasy/sci-fi community, people will usually recognize and point out xenophobia and fascist rhetoric from fictional groups when those groups are fantasy races or humans opposing other humans, but often will 'ironically' support or make endless excuses for it when it comes from humans opposing aliens (or elves and orcs or whatever). The obvious textbook example of this is most of the wh40k fandom. Of course the presence of this double standard varies from person to person, but it's an interesting pattern that I've noticed.
That's why I'm always uncomfortable with Warhammer 40K. I know most people are probably just joking and are self-aware when they talk about killing everyone from this of that race or organisation, but plenty of fascist and fascist-adjacent people join in on that, even in my personal, real life experience.
@@samba-v8cyeah I love the minis of 40K but the fandom is extremely misogynistic and racist coded. AoS is a lot less bad, especially because most races work together against chaos, so the fandom isn’t as prone to overt racism and "wannabe military" fascist behaviour
@@samba-v8cAt this point in my life I believe anyone is susceptible to propaganda. I truly believe that humans change to their environment, you can make anyone good or bad by the system they are in.
Therefore even a "good" person will change overtime if they are constantly told the same thing over and over again and are desensitized to it.
Even if people are self aware of WH40k overtime hearing the same stuff over and over will begin to chip away at their thinking. It may be small, barely even perceptible but they will still be at least even a little desensitized to the topic.
For Nazis and the powers that be even that tiny little victory is a win. That's how these corporations operate they just slowly tweak things and over long enough periods of time we all become more and more desensitized into the insanity we live in.
Just my personal thoughts. I think alot of us think we are unchanging and stable, but I just don't believe that anymore. I think that I change on the system I am in.
Tyler setting a new standard what I expect from a RUclips video? Would be the first time, hopefully won't be the last. VOD GANG!
This was a great analysis, can we get an Apocalypse Now/ Heart of Darkness episode?Would like to hear your breakdown on “human morality” vs “human progress” (probably not the word I’m looking for) and how it’s still relevant especially with all the conflicts going on currently.
Where do I pay a dollar to see the bibliography?? But fr, great job dude! Way to knock it out of the park on the first go daaang
Damn, We got the Starship Troopers video before GTA 6
7:16 MAD GOD mentioned. Absolute tour de force of practical effects/Dargeresque madness
Finally someone who gets it. Loved this vid brother watched the flick back as a kid had the toys with the minis with money me and my cousin made. Didn’t know about the books till i was in my early 20’s in 2014 as a PV2 where I saw it at the PX at my first duty station in korea hovey/casey.
Was a 13B so ran thru the book pretty quick in a field problem since you know if we aint shooting we napping
25:40 There's actually lot of white latinos in Buenos Aires and in the rest of Argentina, so of course they would have latinamerican last names
Rico is Phillipino
Nazis were supposed to have fled to South America to escape justice in Europe, its kind of an open joke for alot people that you were either a paperclip Nazi in U.S. aeorpace/rocketry or you fled to South America.
Came here from FD's recommendation, didnt regret it. Incredible video.
I think you missed an opportunity for an interesting discussion about what happened with Helldivers. The devs were so committed to the idea of the helldivers being a poorly trained and poorly equipped force of canon fodder that they were incredibly trigger happy with nerfs to the point of almost killing the game by making it so frustrating to play. They only reversed course after the game bleeded out a lot of players and people got so mad with the latest round of nerfs that they tried to essentially sabotage the in game objectives and defy "high command" meaning the devs. There was even a rebel community faction born out of that. Probably the closest I have seen a live service game actually satirize fascism.
That's a bit of a different overall conversation and it was all still developing when I started writing this. It'd have to get into the weeds over the video game industry and that's like two hours on its own
@@EastsideTyler fair enough but maybe it could be something for a different video
Starship Troopers also inspired Tomino who made Gundam. The gun cannon is just a big marauder
I knew this was going to be a banger of an essay after just part one. Excellent work Tyler!
Incredible work, thank you
Finally....
Westside essay
That was definitely worth the wait. I do love that despite the very professional narration you still do the goofy little voices for the quotes. Not as over the top as on the streams obviously, but it did make me smile. The exploration of the movie and book were super interesting and I think you made a good point for the movie just not really working as a satire of fascism.
I will say that the "failure of satire" bit at the end felt quite undercooked. It did come across like you tried to say that satire is always ineffective and bad, which doesn't really follow from the earlier parts of the video. But I'm not sure if that's what you intended, that part just felt like it was cut short because the video was already so long.
I do think Satire as an artform is an interesting topic regarding the modern day discourse and internet culture in particular. Originally, the idea behind satire is to reveal some uncomfortable truth about people, socities, ect, by using hyperbole and absurdity. Especially in online discourse satire has just become part of normal speech - most of the bits you do in your lifestreams are a good example I think.
And of course there is what we call "Realsatire" in German, when something in reality is already so absurd that there is no way to satirize it. (The israeli cum scroundrel incident comes to mind)
Anyway, I'm just rambling now. Great video, the bit about satire in general might be worthy of a follow up video. Or maybe a stream callin or something.
Keep up the good work!
Satire is generally a terrible literary device, at least in English. I'm not sure where I said satire is effective or worthwhile pretty much anywhere in this piece
@@EastsideTyler Maybe I phrased that poorly, it was just unclear to me whether the statement about satire was meant in a more general way or specifically in regards to Starship Troopers. (which you answered)
I don't fully agree that satire is generally terrible, but I do think it is not very useful when critizing fashism. Works that have a bit of a fashist problem among their audience often use "it's satire" as an excuse / deflection, which doesn't really do anything to discourage the fashists. (W40K being another prominent example)
@@asgarzigel I think teh problem arises when you try to satirize political ideologies instead of, idk, dumb cultural events like the "israeli cum scoundrel" incident, whatever that is. if you fuck up the cum satire you look like an idiot. if you fuck up the fascist satire you look like a fascist.
ESSAY SIDE?! VOD GANG RISE UP!! VOOOOOOOD GAAAAANG
I strongly enjoy this aspect of Tyler. Tyler - continue to produce these essays, I desire to listen to more!
Heyy, Tyler! I just wanted to say thank you so much for the fantastic content!! This video felt like a real treat from HBomberguy. The sort of video that I quickly realize I am in awe of, and love consuming, despite having very little to no familiarity with the material. I was born in 1988, and while I’d never seen Starship Troopers entirely, I knew it was an adaptation and that it had a deep cultural impact.
I cried more than once, I really enjoyed the gameplay on screen, and I admired your dedication to voicing everything into/as distinguishable and memorable personalities. I really came away from this feeling I had a great understanding not only of the film, but also the book, and even the significance of both on the media and political landscapes they both emerged onto.
Possibly most importantly, I was entertained, and invested, the entire way through the video. I think I rewatched it twice immediately, haha.
I hope your surgery goes well, and you have a loving community behind you, choom. As well as a wife and family of animals! I hope your recovery goes smoothly, and I know it will; your support systems will make sure of it! Take care, and thank you again for such wonderful content, Tyler!!!
After finishing it, I got to say interesting watch. Heinlein's ideas make me feel uncomfortable as hell though. By making voluntary service a requirement for voting, you create a group of people who identify with each other because of a number of shared intense experiences. To stay part of this group people will likely stay in line with the general thinking of the broader group, somewhat enforced by punishments towards dissenters.
Thus you create a de facto homogenous voting class. To me that is antithetical to the spirit of freedom and would shape a society that stagnates to keep their preferred status quo. Side note: Would this mean that the leaders are just the most popular retired generals?
Next to that I noticed how going into service was a way to get out of the lower economical classes in society (ergo poverty is a glossed over issue in the book). This shows that society "just works" as defined by Tod Howard... uhm bug puns unintended :P
On the other hand, I find it funny that the Koala and Capybara exemplify of how species are not intending on survival of the fittest. If it happens it is either an accident or human caused (imagine a lion erasing their complete food supply on purpose).
Bangladesh is currently dealing with the fall out of an entrenched military elite ruling class being overthrown
i always thought it was supposed to be uncomfortable, to make you reflect on how one's own military is used
Heinlein ideas are controversial, but they are not inherently fascist
For me, the issue with heinleins ideas is that we don't know if these ideas would ever actually work
Because Heinlein made them work
In Heinlein's book, his society works because he wrote it as such...
Whether these ideas could function without becoming actual fascism or unequal authoritarianism
Is up for debate.
Engagement comment for the engagement throne!
Also, I love how you touch on the fact that Heinlein kinda didn't know what he was talking about at times when it came to designing an infantry force and the fact that the book Mobile Infantry suffers from being what is effectively a special operations force that is used as a conventional warfighting force.
Found this channel because of FD Signifier. Great content. I cant wait for your next video. Also "Hey Paul!"
Great essay, well structured and articulated plus a bibliography to boot.
My main criticism would be towads the particularly venemous sections of commentary aimed towards Verhoeven, vague groups of people on the internet, and... satire as a genre? It felt at odds with what I gathered was part of the motivation behind the video, to not over simplify and over antagonize both the people and media representing a viewpoint you don't agree with
My takeaway (and I hope I'm wrong) is that if the subtlety is such that the lowest common denominator misses the subversion, then it's not satire but merely propaganda for the subject it purports to attack.
Even excluding the temporal element, continental assumptions about authoritarianism, and the background of US adventurism in the middle-east and the Balkans, it appears there's a pretty heavy-duty cultural divergence at work here, one that's so stark and yawning as to trigger fears it's insurmountable.
It's supposed to be seductive, that's the point ffs! What the- but I must stop.
As I said, I'm hoping I'm wrong.
heinlein loves him some brutal retributive justice. i forget which book it's from but there's a scene where a guy who hit a pedestrian with his car and kept going is deliberately run over, inflicting the same damage, and medical treatment withheld for the amount of time the pedestrian had to wait before emergency services got to them.
he likes to say an armed society is a polite society, generalizing the nuclear doctrine of mutually assured destruction to interpersonal relationships.
it made sense when i was a teenager but gets harder to sympathize with as i learn more about the racial politics of american violence. his notions about sex kind of sour anything else he might have to say.
The truth is hard to accept.
Yes Heinliens xenophobic racism /paranoia (he was terrified of China and thought they would dominate the world militarily)
His eye for an eye, make it violent and a spectacle ideology towards justice
As well as his authoritarian state tendencies
Become more and more evident over his career
Which is too bad because his Book Friday, was one sci Fi story I thought was brilliant and ahead of its time
Though you can see elements of Heinlien's odd repressed sexual phobia at work in that work as well.
I actually cant tell you saying Heinlein isnt extreme enough?
Yeah, the Free Love and orgy fixation Heinlein had was kind of weird, but I guess it was just him being influenced by the swinger scene.
I've been holding my breath for so very long!
Nope can't watch, no 1 minute segment of vhs or cassette tapes being pushed into devices and the play button being press means this isn't a real video essay.
I missed the last few streams but I'm glad the algorithm gods blessed me with this video!
5:33 _"[...]Paul Verhoeven didn't write Starship Troopers as a satire[...]"_
_“I want to make a movie so painfully obvious in its satire that everyone who understands it lives in perpetual psychological torment inflicted on them by all the people who don't.”_ - Paul Verhoeven
"I read one page of the book then threw it away, lol. I don't have to read it to know what's in it."
- Paul Veerhoven
Mission accomplished. 😢
Yeah because he didn't write the original Starship Troopers. The guy follows what you quoted with that directly after it. Did you miss that?
@@orangmawas3858 He also didn't technically write any Starship Troopers--or at least not the official screenplays
55:40 or so
I think this party is meant to also mimic other coming of age movies in the late 90s/early 00s
Basically, this whole movie is a combination war hero's story with a coming of age film where people come into their own
Love how all the characters have character names except for Jake Busey, who's just always Jake Busey
Great video, subscribed!
It took 3:30 hours, but you did convince me to give the book a chance.
Now that's a run length, vod gang rides again
VOD Gang represent!
Vod gang commenting for RUclips engagement gods (I actually watched ((listened to)) all 3 hours and 36 minutes before commenting because youtube will know if you don't)
Why not both during and after?
*coughs* "AIL HAIL SAINT ALGORHITMUS! May this offering please you"
Omg... I'm so sad we missed out on that Crusades epic with Verhoeven and Schwarzenegger. But oh well, I got Starship Troopers, which my best friend and I fell asleep to pretty much every time we had a sleepover. It was Starship Troopers for years... and then Super Troopers for a few years. I swear the word "Troopers" had nothing to do with it.
Well done! Fantastic
This was really excellent. If you make more, I will watch them.
This was well researched and really thought provoking.
I want more!
Great video. I never read the books. This was informative and changed my mind, and I hope you release more videos just like this.
After 2nd rewatch i can say its a grest video overall, well paced, takes both intresting and logical. Only thing i could somewhat have gripes with is the relatively monotone delivery, outside of book excerpts, but its more of a 5/10 in an otherwise outstanding video than a real negative. Cant wait to see more, great work man.
... 44 minutes in and I can't shake the feeling you are making the exact opposite conclusion the evidence you present suggests...
the movie is framed, basically literally as propaganda and from there it makes sense all the actors are young, attractive, white people, though what ever, casting is casting.
The bugs are depicted in the movie as lesser to their "true" counterparts from the book, a change a fascist would probably make for the sake of propaganda.
The anecdote of the teacher being essentially dumbed down, again, makes sense if you want the audience to "get" a point that comes off as "war bad" despite being intended as "war good".
"the gestapo are literally infallible psychics" is absolutely a convenient lie to tell the masses. And fake ads suggesting such a thing is possible would just be additional cover through a different medium but ultimately from the same source.
I could have sworn you actually tried to say "it can't be a satirical propaganda film, because it's shot like an actual propaganda film."
You also make a point of casting doubt on later interviews yet the only relevant sources NOT disqualified by that logic are [13] and [15]
Also, in the future cite in the form of " [x] (page number) " rather than just the page number after the source by name.
finish the video lmao
"the ridiculous and weird roach scene can't be satire because it panders to fascist mentality"
literally 2+2=0
also hi, Paul.
you acknowledge it's weird... and faschy... and then you say it's sincere?!
Yes, lmao. It is literally fascist propaganda is my point. You are incredulously repeating my point, what is your argument?
Yes the film comes off as fascist propaganda
The issue is that the propaganda doesn't sell you against it, it sells you on it
To the point even Verhoeven and the writer of the film
Have admitted they made the fascist society look good
And that they aren't sure if they showed the actual society in the book
Would people actually find an issue with it
Verhoeven even admits that the society Heinlien presents is more appealing then our current democracy and society
That's why he chose to instead show a fascism he was more familiar with (Nazism) then the society from the book.
That says a lot to me, when the director and writer have
To admit that they not only failed at the satire
But they also feared showing the actual society Heinlein showcased because it might be too appealing to a lot of people....
@@mckenzie.latham91
Why are
You typing
Like this
This the video on the internet
Indeed the comment in the section
Great video, this book is probably one of my favorites, despite that there should have been more action.
I do have a question. In the stream where you first mentioned doing this, you mentioned something about wanting to talk about why Johnny keeps getting recommended for advancement by his superiors. Something along the lines of how he is accepting that some people just know better than him about certain subjects? If you remember what I'm talking about, can you elaborate for me a bit? I don't think you went over it here, or I may have overlooked it somehow.
Its pretty much handled in the bildunsroman/new ideal segments but I can go over it again on stream
I saw it in theaters as a Teen, was very excited for it. Was very upset that Titanic won for best visuals, fuck that boat.
Good shit dude. Love the content, hope it proves fruitful enough for you to keep putting out.
What will we bother him to release now?
Funny, from my recollection Heinlein’s book is a satire of communism. With The bugs representing communism and the Federation being the contrast to the society destroying bugs. Let’s not forget Heinlein was a massively disillusioned leftie turned Libertarian by the time he wrote Starship Troopers. And FUCK YEAH Dizzy is bestest best girl and Carmen’s a whore. If we pulled a rocky horror theater party with starship troopers everyone would be yelling “ whore” at Carmen.
This is the third time I’ve listened to this essay, and it’s amazing how much you were able to hit in under four hours.
extremely hyped, looking forwards to more content like this. This is my jam.
I'm not sure you did a great job steelmanning your opponents (in terms of categorising the movies role in the book-movie dialectic, not fascism itself which you posit the movie steelmans for you), so much as merely predicting then dismissing them, but this was otherwise a tremendously well informed and interesting analysis. I have read the book and watched movie many times each, love them as flawed gems and defining moments in scifi, and have consumed a lot of analysis and thought on them, and been through many of the commentary and interviews you cite. I say all that to stress that I think I still learned a lot of new things and that this is a valuable contribution to the discussion.
This comment is mostly just an appreciation of the hard work you put in however, because the algorithm demands it. I've subbed to this and your other channel which appears to be your main one.
I really love this vid! Content and format. I love seeing you be dickish online but seeing you in your true wheelhouse is great!
I don’t know how you feel or how well versed you are in the writings of Frank Herbert (Dune Series) but I would love to see you pick apart the fourth book in the series, God Emperor of Dune. A lot of it is kinda puking philosophy at the reader but I love it lol. Thanks for the vid Tyler!
Hi! This is a really interesting video I find your overall perspective and research into the film fascinating! I will say, this feels like the central throughline is only half in mind? Because you spend most of your runtime on the movie/book narratives with asides and tangents it bloats the runtime, distracts from the commentary about fascism and satire and turns watching it into a slog - to me, it feels like you're trying to cram all of your thoughts about starship troopers into one vid instead of making a point through starship troopers? With a bit of focus, condensing and pulling in some other failed satires of fascism (especially in the weimar era, which had a bunch) you could have tightened it up to more effectively deliver its core message.
(Also the last line was incredibly twitter-beef and while I get where it comes from, this is deep-dive on starship troopers which hasn't really gone into actual irl fascism beyond a sketched-out definition. If you spend a video on practical discussions on anti-fascist resistance then maybe, but as-is it raises the stakes beyond what the video can support.)
Apologies if I'm overstepping the bounds of what a random commentator on the internet should say, you really are very interesting and I'm excited to see what you have to offer the world!
Yeah, this is a bad critique. The full synopsis are critical to show the content of what I'm talking about. Without the full synopsis and explanatory dives leaves you to open a real criticism, that you didn't fully engage with the material you're talking about.
Yeah, you for sure overstepped here lol
mald
In before 100k subs. This is Perfect second monitor content man! thank you! thank you for all the effot this must have taken!
So the reason Rico suddenly plotshifts from "Carmen's dead" to "Let's go save Carmen" in the movie is because Karl psionically mindbends her location into his mind (Possibly because he knows that's where the brainbug is, not necessarily to save Carmen). It seems like Rico's not fully aware that's the reason at any point. It's nodded to (literally, I think) later by Karl when they all meet up.
This is a case of forshadowing: The ferret at the beginning is Rico at the end.
you're like the noah caldwell gervais of film analysis. really excellent work, excited to see what you do next :)
First video is immediately a banger. I'd love to see what you do in the future
Oh thank god i just rewatched starship troopers im so excited
I take it back, the weakest part of the video is probably the veeerrry last portion. Much of it trips over itself somewhat, is somehow both too short and also too wordy. The first half of the whole video is spent painstakingly explaining Starship Troopers was not a satire, or at least that satire wasn't a vocally-stated priority. And then in the final few minutes Verhoeven is petulant and satire as a concept is useless and snobbish? How did we make that leap?
Also that closing statement just gets weirdly violent for basically no reason lmao "You won't be laughing when they slit your throats". What's that supposed to mean, man?
It means that if you fail to understand your enemy and treat them as ignorant because they don't understand a joke only you care about, you might distract yourself to the point they get the drop on you and literally murder you.
@@EastsideTylerand there we are. Was basically going to state the same thing.
I saw it as two fold
1.Failed satire that has the opposite effect, shouldn't be respected or defended
And Verhoeven and others have admitted they made the federation look too cool and the bugs as the undeniable monsters...
2. Many leftists will bend over backwards to defend the failed satire
Despite not understanding that the federation is not actually fully fascist
And that conservatives don't understand satire
Despite the fact that that is not true
Ray Bradbury and Kirk Vonnegut have many satirical works and they were openly conservative politically...
And leftists act really snobbish Bout how superior they are to conservatives cause they have higher media literacy
Which underestimates conservatives...
"Heinlein could have written an entire million word series about neo-dog teams, and I would have read every word, but he had his panties in a bunch about nukes, so we got this." ...Same
I don't think Israel-Palestine is an infantile voting issue...
The situation won't change unless anti-BDS laws start being contested.
@FanaticalTactician nothing will change until politicians lose votes
@@birgaripadam7112 So... Trump 2024? What could go wrong.
@Schneekardinal if your choices in front of you either genociders or future genocider that means system is broken and you should either tell to yourself "it doesn't matter" and never again vote until system get fixed or vote to fix said system when possible
@@birgaripadam7112 And if your choices are genocide at a rate of x or genocide at a rate of x+1, you should choose what?
And in your example: who does the "fixing" of the system? Donald Trump? Seems like you'd have an easier time fixing things with Dems in power.
Watching this because it was recommened by FD Signifier, but to be honest, i've probably always felt this way about this movie since I 1st watched it. Even tho I enjoyed it as typical blockbuster fair, i just never had the words to put it how I felt about its take on satire, till this video✌
::radio host voice:: Westside Tyler is a video essayist on the internet.
So I must dissagree with the premise that the state portrayed in starship troopers is fascist. It is not a state which has a dictator or violates the rights of its people. It has voluntary military service and shows people operating in civilian life who feel no need to be involved in politics, going as far as to see it as a useless accessory.
It depicts a limitedly enfranchised democratic system with civil rights for all. However the guy making the film thought he was depicting a fascist state. I believe he said the idea was 'war makes facists of us all'. Frankly, Id say he doesn't understand facism.
In the end, the creators intent doesn't matter to what is depicted. He fails to actually depict a facist state. I see what he was aiming for and there is indeed dangers to this democracy as depicted. Primarily the intelligence arm which is seeking to establish a psychic core which will be incentivised to violate the integrity of the civilians rights. The movie is also wearing the fashion of a fascist state.
Its also confused because it is meant to be aan in universe propaganda piece. But even in that context it doesn't come across as fascist propaganda.
As for helldivers it probably is either fascist or technocritic. It certainly has fascist elements even if technocratic.
I just switched over from the F.D video .👋🏾
Finally someone gets it. Felt like I was the only one who knew Neumeier even existed
this is too professional for a video with helldiver 2 gameplay in the background
Tyler used to be a journalist, believe it or not. He's talked a bit on the standards that he wanted the video to be-- during his reaction to Lore Lodge's Killdozer documentary iirc
Great video dude! Just a heads up, diving when on fire will put it out.
WESTSIDE VIDEO ESSAYIST ERA🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Listened to this for 3 hours and can't come up with a better comment than:
**Starshit Poopers!**
Having now watched the whole thing, my main takeaway is that I should give Helldivers 2 a whirl
Nah I'm playing. I've been looking forward to this, as one of countless authors downstream from Heinlein's imagination and a longtime member of vod gang. Didn't disappoint.
3:26:15 This definition of fascism is so broad as to be meaningless. Communist regimes are fascist under thus definition. Liberal democracies arguably fit the bill as well.
I mean bro did say Stalin was a fascist, which is incredibly laughable
@blazinnub2097 The video creator? I must have missed that. People often conflate authoritarianism and/or totalitarianism with fascism. It doesn't help that the leftists have intentionally watered down fascism in order to use it as a cudgel against anyone to the right of them, including liberals.
Honestly it's a problem so broad it's hard to pick an entry point, but maybe helping people differentiate between authoritarianism, totalitarianism, and fascism couldn't hurt. Benevolence too. It feels like they stopped teaching this stuff in school in the 00's, along with the importance of nuance, and now we're all bogged down in the result.
I honestly can't believe this discourse is even happening.
I guess it's yet more proof that what one considers self-evident can become myth real quick.
If someone who had never seen American Dad heard Tyler reading a quote in the voice of Roger -they wouldn't bat an eyelid after some of these quote readings.
CRISP audio dude!
It might have taken a long time to make it but damn was it worth it.