Fun fact: the "helmet-off" cadet who got killed during training & the female cadet who accidentally shot him are married in real life. They met on set & have been together for 25 years.
17:35 That's one of the gags in the film. Earlier in the film, Neil Patrick Harris' character is shown in propaganda detailing the fastest way to kill a bug. It's an easy kill shot. None of the Troopers ever aim for it. They all waste ammo. None of them use their sights. The director did this on purpose for the whole gag of it.
@@spikedpsycho2383 The whole point of shooting drills is that you teach your body to aim as a reflex. The brain simplifies repeated actions, like how you don't have to consider the exact way to move your arm to switch on a light in a room you're familiar with. That means you don't have to think about where to aim, you just think _to_ aim.
@@CruelestChris the whole point of this mockery...is infantry go in with infantry weapons. Totally inadequate to defeat the enemy bugs. The powered armor was eschewed in the movie. Still....they have - No tanks - No infantry fighting vehicles - despite hover transports to move infantry, they have no gunships. - The one weapon suitable for killing bugs, the mini nuke bazooka, they only use once. - the Navy could have bombarded the site before landing. Abd lastly they were training to fight other infantry. None of their infantry training equipped them to handle bugs.
@@spikedpsycho2383 That's because their government doesn't want to win this war, because if they did they'd have to find a new enemy. Their whole society requires they have a war with someone, otherwise there's no need for military service. The hive of stupid vicious ants they can just kick every so often is perfect, they can say whatever they want about it. That's why they suddenly start fighting effectively (full air support) when the idea the bugs might be intelligent comes up. They can attack Klendathu whenever they want, they choose not to.
@@CruelestChris Read the book, Verhoven twisted EVERY part of the book to fit a political narrative. In the book the Federated Government KNEW the Arachnids were intelligent and had colonized dozens of worlds, but after numerous attempts at opening peaceful relations and being ignored the Government used an alien race to negotiate a treaty establishing borders and areas for future colonies. In the book the government actively dissuades service, even in the war. Second this is the first war the Federated Government had ever had, they had peaceful relations with over 40 other space faring races. Earth and its colonies had been at peace for 500 years, but a radical religious group ignored every warning from the Government and illegally colonized a planet belonging to the Arachnids. When they were wiped out the Government apologized to the Arachnids and did nothing else. The war started when the Arachnids began invading other human colonies breaking the treaty. People who served gave up all civil liberties while serving, they were property of the government and the government made it VERY clear that service was horrific and deadly. Anyone could serve unless they were mentally incapable of understanding the oath, so no matter the physical disability or deformity if you volunteered for service the government had to take you. Also it was a crime punishable by death to try to stop someone from serving. Federal Service could include terraforming, scouting for potential mining asteroids, building infrastructure on colonies, working in waste disposal, policing, fire fighting, and the frontier medical corp were all federal service. According to Heinlein 19 out of 20 veterans of federal service had never served in any military capacity. Also only veterans of federal service could vote or hold political office, but were held to a higher standard by law than anyone else. What a normal person would get a fine for a citizen would get executed for. Rico's father in the book proudly proclaimed that not one Rico had served for 100 years. Also citizens were forbidden from acquiring fortunes, or holding onto any serious wealth, they were expected and forced by law to donate everything earned past what was considered necessary for a middle class life. While non citizens could have as much wealth as they desired as long as they paid their taxes. Non citizens had full civil liberties but were not allowed to vote or hold political office but could protest, had full freedom of speech, freedom of religion, could own any property, run any corporation or business, move freely, basically non citizens had more freedoms than even people in liberal democracies have today. Except they could not vote. Notice I said Veterans, anyone still serving or who made a career of service was ineligible to vote, voice any political opinion, support any political cause or candidate, and had no civil liberties at all while serving, they were property for the entirety of their service. The whole idea of the book is that citizens sacrifice for the good of the whole of humanity, and since they did they were allowed to vote and hold political office to determine the laws and guide humanity to a bright peaceful future without war or conflict. Of course Verhoven the racist claims to be anti fascist yet oddly supports very fascist and white supremacist movements and ideals so of course he would twist a book about an egalitarian peace seeking government that only allows those who were willing to give their life for humanity to vote or hold office. Also in the book MI used drop pods and powered armor at all times, each had nuke launchers on their rifles, and their rifles easily destroyed an arachnid, issue was power and ammunition ran out before the bugs did. The Bugs also used advanced tactics and strategy, were feared by all other sentient races in the galaxy because they were expansionistic and had only one race they would trade with. All of that would have ruined Verhoven's political agenda and narrative while making the movie. He went out of his way to mock the book the ideas in the book and did what so many brain dead idiots do today and call something fascism that opposes their political agenda.
I met Casper Van Dien at the Calgary Expo a few years ago. He was a super funny, super nice guy. We took a picture together and rather than invade his personal space I kinda went back to back with my arms crossed. He smiled and "Oh? Are we doing this?" and did the same thing, laughing the whole time. Totally cool guy. I told him he looked great and he seemed genuinely pleased. My girlfriend more or less gushed over him and he was super cool about that too. He did a panel with Dyna Meyer and they clearly had a blast.
I was at that panel, they said there was a lot of competition on set and then they challenged each other, who could do 10 push ups fastest. They looked like they were still friends and had a great time hanging out and answering questions.
The commitment and complete absence of irony with which Ironsides delivers the line "The sucked his brains out." is one of my favorite moments in all of cinema.
In 1981 Ironside was in a film called "Scanners" where he played a telepath who was able to make people's head explode. He had a long career before and after this movie and has often been required to act out ridiculous scenes. A true professional actor.
All the actors 100% acted the hell out of this movie. Hands down my favorite part was the mom absolutely losing her mind with glee over the group of kids stepping on bugs.
I saw this in theaters back in '97, it was made even better because there were some very drunk marines there who were cheering and randomly screaming, "Go Marines!" or "Go Crickets!". This also has another fantastic soundtrack by Basil Poledouris.
Casper Van Dien was cast in the lead by Verhoeven speciffically because of his looks. He looked exactly like an image from a German WW2 recruitment poster.
@68K Me too but Germans were unrealistic with their propaganda. Look up their cloning program, it is not actual cloning as we know it today but they brainwashed girls and guys to create the perfect race, creepy AF.
Look at him at 3:10 ... he is a bit too tanned and his hair could be lighter, but in all other aspects he fits the bill. Maybe he's an "americanized" version of that propaganda poster Übermensch. BTW, I once knew a guy whose father was the result of that Nazi breeding project. It kinda worked, his father was this insanely tall muscular blonde dude, and the guy looked a lot like his father. Not that I'd call it a smart idea or good or moral in any way, but the result certainly looked a lot like the Nazis had imagined...
If I'm not mistaken, he has said since that he hired the young cast specifically on their looks and 'poor' performances. He hired attractive actors with not great acting abilities intentionally to make it seem cheesy and trashy in contrast to the OTT violence and horror
Did you notice that the biology teacher was Blanche from The Golden Girls? The officer uniform design was partly based on Verhoeven's choice, having been a child in The Netherlands during WWII, combined with what one of the production designers said at the time, "If you're looking for sexy uniforms, you gotta go with the Third Reich."
@@bumfricker2487 Unfortunately, people back then didn't understand that it was all a satire. People took it seriously and didn't like it because of that.
Denise Richards even said later in interviews that she hated her performance in this movie. I suspect it was a result of Verehoeven directing her to act that way on purpose, as he clearly wanted the young actors to have a soap opera-ish way about them. All part of the satire.
Want something else you can't unsee Watch Star Wars ep4 again, pay VERY close attention to Darth Vader when he meets Leia for the first time, how he moves and stands You can hate me for it later ;)
The boot camp stuff was 1 year before the initial "Planetary Defenses are better than ever!" scene. The asteroid hitting Buenos Aires was pretty much Pearl Harbor 2.0 for Humanity. That's why a year later the fleet is mobilized, the defenses are beefed up, etc.
I saw this in the cinema and when the guy gets his head blown off in the training accident I realized this wasn't a star trek or star wars type movie. The effects still look great for a 1997 film.
I saw it in the cinema too, multiple times. As for the star trek comparison, it is actually the anti-star trek. Check out the review and analysis on Red Letter Media.
I think you're the first reactors I've seen that noticed that the terms of Federal Service are for a minimum term and then it's the _military_ and not the volunteer who gets to decide if they can leave or not. Also, yes, during the training part of the movie they're not a war with the bugs (they just study them in high-school biology the way we might do mice or frogs), they only start officially fighting the bugs after the meteor - which raises the interesting question of who the human shaped targets with human style weapons they're using for target practice are supposed to represent.
Well if we are assuming that the movie universe in somewhat inline with the book they fight other human militants, rebels etc etc. But more interestingly another alien race they call "Skinnies". They were featured in the animated show Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles.
@@moonoracle115 This movie has nothing to do with the books, considering Verhoeven hated the book. If anything it's a satire of the book. The implications are likely that, before the bugs, Humans were fighting other Humans. I think we can assume that Earth is now just 1 large fascist government, so clearly there were no more Humans to conquer. Now their wars have to be waged amongst the stars and will never end.
The book had a lot of messages about being a citizen, why wars are fought, and how the Veteran Citizen government in the book and the movie came about, but Johnny Rico's story was mostly about Heinlein's views on what a citizen of a nation should be.
@@jacksmith-vs4ct Heinlein was not parodying anything, he was all serious about the militant fascist society being “the best”. It was Verhoeven who made it into a fascist critical parody in the movie, it was also a critique of US Hooray-patriotism and foreign policy in the Middle East (Gulf wars).
@@n3rdy11 I'd quibble that it's not strictly fascist. Democracy-for-veterans, along with a brutal penal system and militarism. Looks despotic, but I suppose it's Heinlein's conceit that such a system would actually have broad public support (including from the civilians - even if they can't vote, the system would either require their acquiescence or their brutal suppression). As much as I wouldn't want to limit the franchise to veterans, I question whether such a society would be that militaristic. US militarism seems to depend on the limited political influence of veterans, and faith that conscription is never going to be enforced again. [Actually, I guess what's being pilloried here is the actual system, and the public political consciousness that supports it. And Verhoeven has called it "fascism," but I think he uses the term loosely. Still, respect for his perspective, since he actually lived under Nazi occupation as a child in the Netherlands]
@@n3rdy11 That is not true at all. If Heinlein "was all serious about the militant fascist society being 'the best'" then why did he run for California State Assembly as a liberal Democrat? Why did so many of his books feature protagonists from hedonistic anarchical or libertarian societies? Why did his political nonfiction book "Take Back Your Government!" emphasize grassroots movements to bring the voice of the people into government? People who dismiss Heinlein as a fascist are really ignoring his entire life in favor of their misinterpretation of one book.
This was literally filmed as a propaganda film. I mean, Starship Troopers would be a movie playing at cinemas in the universe where Starship Troopers takes place.
Because the characters wear Nazi uniforms we're supposed to think their prosperous multicultural meritocracy is the bad guys. That's how dumb Verhoeven is, or how dumb he thinks the audience is.
@@fakecubed Or maybe he trusts the audience to be smart enough to realize that we're probably not seeing the whole picture here? The idea of this entire movie is that it's a propaganda film. We see what appears to be a prosperous multicultral society, but we're only shown the POV of rich people and the military who have an agenda to paint a rosy picture of this militarized authoritarian society. We also see indications that public, corporal punishment is common place...so how are political dissenters treated? For that matter, how are those who are not able bodied and can't serve in the military treated in this alleged meritocracy? The one woman in the shower scene who mentions she joined the military to "get licensed to have babies" strongly hints at eugenics! So is everyone actually prosperous and happy? How do we know that this prosperty we see isn't on the backs of an oppressed underclass? Maybe he trusted his audience to be smart enough to pick up on that? He was kind of clearly kind of naive in that trust!
In the book, the mobile infantry wears massive mech suits, so it makes a bit more sense to have them on the ground instead of just using artillery. But that was way too expensive to make, so they made them wear regular armour instead. We see those suits in one of the sequels though.
@@Klaus-em3ixThank you. There are so many of them now that I can't keep track of what was shown in which. Part of the 25 year long "we must repackage everything as an existing popular IP" craze Hollywood has had.
I can really recommend The Expanse as a Show to watch! It's probably the best Sci fi Show around at the moment and one of my favourites. Also you talked about asteroids and I had to mention it
The book Starship Troopers was a major inspiration for Warhammer 40K. Blizzard wanted to make a Warhammer 40K game, but were unable to license it, so instead they changed some stuff around and made Starcraft instead.
I gotta say, I love your SquareSpace advert! Stylistically appropriate for this movie, too! The only way it could be better is if you'd said "Would you like to know more?" at the end 😉 Anyway, the movie... yeah, there's a sliiiiiiight subtext going on! When the movie was released, most critics took the film at face value and thought it was celebrating fascism, completely missing the fact that pretty much everything in the movie is deliberate, from the fascisty uniforms to the stupidly attractive cast members. I mean, of course they all look like they'd just stepped off the set of Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place (which was actually true for some of them!); this is propaganda, so naturally the heroes are gorgeous in a vacant sort of way! I guess the critics failed to notice that most of the adults are maimed in horrible ways... which just goes to show that even when the satire is as obvious as this, some people just aren't going to get the joke. As far as I know, the original script was much more a generic soldiers vs alien bugs story that was intended to show off Phil Tippett's creature FX talents. However, when the budget was going to be so high, the studio decided that they needed a recognisable property to help sell the film so they optioned Starship Troopers. Similarities between book and film are scarce, though. While some of the character names and situations were retained, the political stance is poles apart. Indeed, Verhoeven never even finished reading the novel before he made the film, as it was so far away from his own political views. He chose instead to make the story more of an overt satire on militarism and propaganda, drawing on his own childhood experiences of living in Nazi-occupied Holland... which makes the accusations of the movie glorifying fascism all the more ironic! Perhaps the biggest change, though, was the fact that in the book the troopers all wear power-armour; in fact, it can probably be said that Starship Troopers was the source of all sci-fi mech-suits, so you can imagine how fans of the book felt when they found out that the film has dropped their favourite element! Sadly though, the budget wouldn't cover swarms of bugs AND mech-suited troops, so the titular troopers essentially became hilariously ill-equipped WWII ground troops. But even without power armour, they're gonna fight... and they're gonna win! Ooo-ahh!!
The fact that anyone could watch the scene of kids stomping on cockroaches and still not get it boggles my mind, let alone the blatant nazi uniforms...
I think it have a lot to do about adaptations before 2000, the movie and the book have barelly anything in common. You could say this kind of adaptation was kinda rare back than and lot of people didn't get it, this days we are used to it 😅
@@heptonaut This movie would have likely been boycotted: 2002 was just 1 year after 9/11. The Buenos Aires Meteor, in a film that wasn't recognized as satire, would have likely been considered in terrible taste. Of course, this movie existed before 9/11, so obviously not a reference to that event. It was certainly prescient.
This is one of those rare instances in which I actually _read most of the book_ before seeing the _movie._ The main characters all have the same names and play largely the same roles, but it's _very_ different. I don't remember any point where they actually _deal_ with any bugs.
Oh, shit.... this is gonna be GOOD! I know how Simone got squeamish during much tamer movies.... this is gonna be EPIC! =D Edit: Also, I want to recommend the movie Dragonheart.
wow... someone seen/knows-about and recommends dragonheart... I really liked this movie, it has it's flaws, but it's still good before we had 'eragon' movie and also the 'how to train your dragon' movie series, we had dragonheart
@@redmoonbloodmoon3161 I first saw Dragonheart on HBO, and immediately sought it out on DVD. Yes, it does have it's flaws, but I think it's an absolutely amazing movie overall. Plus it shares an actor in common with this movie. I have watched it dozens of times, and it's one of the few movies that actually makes my cold-hearted ass tear up at the end. I am so waiting for one reaction channel to do that movie, and Cinebinge might just be the one.
Michael Ironside, the actor who played Lt. Radchek, was also in Total Recall. Also, I cannot believe you missed the obvious old joke. When Lt. Radchek said "Fire at will" some smart @$$ always says "Which one is Will."
The underlying commentary is director who tried to rebrand a story as just about the opposite of it's initial origin. The troopers are extremely well trained and equipped with the best kit available- like mech suits, the Mobile Infantry are supposed to be one man armies given millions or billions worth of gear per soldier. Also, the society is only lead by those that sacrifice to secure voting or political office, while civilians are unrestricted otherwise; in the book and film, the implication is the two classes get along (after an initial civil war a thousand years ago) and the politicians opt to not screw over the civilians due to be held accountable by veterans who watched comrades give their lives for the federation. So we get the film where we have human mass wave tactics and 20th century Germany commentary over a purely elective and entirely unrestricted means to political office, where, Rico comes from a rich family, Despite not being able to vote. In the end it made for a messy, confused, gory awesome fest of a classic.
I think the issue is that the author of the book actually glorified fascist, authoritarian regimes and hid it under the veneer of a space war story....and the director chose to directly satirize the novel and the author's depiction of the glorious military Terran Federation. IOW, he joked about what Heinlen took seriously.
@@eschatological He did a very poor job of 'directly' satirizing it. He needed to humanize the 'bugs' and/or show actual negative effects of the "Fascism". No inter-human war, no poverty, no protests, no martial law, no scape-goated group/race of people, no resource shortages, no legislation that shows why the exclusive government is bad, a volunteer military, military commanders publically taking responsibility for failures and resigning, etc. There was an idea and a framework, but Paul didn't make it a reality. He made a movie about killing 'bugs' in which a few people wear Nazi-like uniforms.
@@yodieyuh Yeah, I've never understood why people love this movie, tbh. It's campy, but there's better camp. I feel like it gained traction during the brief fascination America had with Denise Richards....and coed showers.
@@yodieyuh The movie is an excellent satire. You simply didn't understand it. No good satire movie explains to you the negative affects of it's subject. A good satire simply gives you the propaganda, and you can pull the negative aspects from it with critical thinking. Not everything needs to be spoon fed to you. The enemies being bugs and not humans is literally what makes it such a good satire. If it were humans, it makes you empathetic. That's the exact opposite reaction that he was looking for in the audience. This is a satire of Fascist propaganda. You're not supposed to connect with the enemy. The enemy is supposed to give you a feeling of disgust. That's literally the whole point. It further deepens the divide between the tribal US vs THEM mentality. The further you can distance yourself from the enemy, the better the satire. It's a propaganda film. You're not supposed to connect with the enemy. It's a tribalism mentality that's being pushed here. The less you can empathize with the enemy, the stronger you build your tribal walls. This is done effectively in this movie. Because it's propaganda, you have to try very very very very hard to empathize with an enemy. That's the whole point. It's supposed to feel like a "utopia". It's a propaganda movie. What propaganda movie talks shit about themselves? That's why it's supposed show only the "good things" about their society. The negative parts are subliminal and therefor much more effective. It's not in your face as you said it should be, because that would make it a lesser of a satire. The movie doesn't need to tell you that having a strong military presence in high school is bad. It just shows it as it is in society. It shouldn't have to tell you it's bad. You simply feel it underneath your skin. The whole televised segments with the people having debates? Yeah, that gives you insight on their society. When they talk about strong values such as strength and power and authority is being better than weak values like empathy and understanding? That's how they are as a society and they don't need to tell you that it's bad, you simply feel unnerved by it naturally. The fact that the soldiers can literally see their own infantry company get cut to shreds in the most violent and upsetting way possible, but be completely fine the next day joking around with each other shows the power of brainwashing that fascism has on their mentality. The movie doesn't tell you it's bad, because you already know it. This is what makes it a great satire. When I first saw the movie, I was 11. I didn't even understand the concept of "satire". But the film didn't need to spoon feed it to me as you suggested it should have. As a 11 year old, at first all I thought was cool soldiers killing bugs. But the longer I thought about it, the more I realized that there was something deeply disturbing about that society, and even though I can find similarities to my own American reality, there was something there that would terrify me deeply if I were to swap places and live in that world. That's why the movie is an excellent satire. It doesn't spoon feed you information on why certain things are bad. It makes you look beyond the propaganda and makes you think critically as it did to me as a 11 year old.
One thing that did translate faithfully from the book to the screen was Dizzy's death. In the book, he died on the retrieval boat. In the movie, she died on the retrieval boat. And I think Heinlein would have liked making Dizzy a young woman and Johnny's love interest. He definitely would not have liked some of the other changes.
I'm so glad I was informed about the fish tongue bug. I genuinely mean that. It's fascinating and has started me on a journey to seek out all sorts of awful creatures. I am glad I don't live in California. Even though I'm not a fish that bug would still freak me out a little. Anyone heard of the Candiru? It's a tiny parasitic catfish that lives in the Amazon. While it's never been scientifically proven the stories persist that it's attracted to the scent of urine. Once it gets the scent it makes a mad dash up the stream into the urethra. Using the backward facing spikes on it's head it lodges itself in there and happily drinks your blood. Lucky for me I live in Australia where the only dangerous creature is all of them.
I’m so glad you two Get It. Everyone _hated_ this movie when it came out. Fans of the original book hated it because Verhoeven’s unspoken goal was “if you like this book, you’re a wannabe fascist, and I’m going to make sure everyone knows it”; and general audiences hated it because they either wouldn’t or couldn’t process a story whose subtext asked you to side with the gross-looking bugs at the same time its text was telling you to do the opposite.
I always love how Blizz cribbed a ton of stuff from 40k, Aliens, SST, and....Space Battleship Yamato. Ha ha, they just had to get that awesome captain in there. "Battlecruiser operational"
You guys seem to have missed the "one year earlier" between the first battle on the planet and the rest of the movie. At the time the asteroid hit, nobody knew about the bugs, nobody was at war, they had no planetary defenses.
pretty sure they did know about the bugs as it was also stated at one point that the asteroid was retaliation for terran expansion or something into the bug territory which they didn't think were that smart at the time.
also the planetary defense system might not have actually worked or even existed. The government of Starship Troopers is extremely incompetent and would always rather patch up public perception with propaganda than fix the underlying issues.
The movie is actually based on the book “Starship Troopers” by famous sci-fi writer Robert A. Heinlein. The book received some criticism due to the militaristic focus and was even described as fascist by some. Book is really good though and covers quite a bit more than the movie, which is a bit more novel considering the director :)
Yeah, the book is described as fascist by people who don't actually know what fascism is. The book is more libertarian in nature, as was Heinlein himself. (Not a member of the Libertarian Party, but an advocate of libertarian political philosophy.) In the book, military service, i.e. service to the State, is entirely voluntary. In a fascist society everything is in service to the state. “Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.” - Benito Mussolini I liked that the movie retained enough of Heinlein's political thesis during the classroom scenes to undercut Verhoeven's "the Federation is fascist" message. It's rather hilarious that in arguing against Heinlein Verhoeven got to pick and choose how to present Heinlein's argument and Verhoeven still lost. A libertarian society with a fascist paint job is still a libertarian society.
@@flatebo1 That's just, like, your opinion, man. I'd say Verhoeven clearly won the argument, and we can't both be right. Also, would libertarians really be ok with having their right to procreate restricted? Considering the way they lost their shit about masks and vaccines I doubt it...
@@korganrocks3995 I'm mot sure the "baby license" is an aspect of the book. I don't recall it, anyway. So that may be more of a Verhoeven thing than a Heinlein thing. And no, Verhoeven did not win the argument because Verhoeven clearly understands nothing about fascist governments. Fascist governments do not vote out incompetent political leadership as the Federation does after the disaster on Planet P. Fascist government's do not allow live broadcasting of active military operations. Fascist governments deify their political leadership. To publicly disgrace a failed political leader is to undermine the entire premise of fascism. Fascist governments conceal the failures of their leaders. They displace blame onto patsies. Fascism is all about the subordination of everything to the state. A fascist government would conscript soldiers into tis military. The Federation cannot - because it cannot force a person to become a citizen against his will. Like far too many people who love to label everything they dislike as "fascist" Verhoeven's understanding of it is entirely surface-level. Which is pretty much why he seems to think that using Nazi-inspired uniforms is all he needs to do to make his "war turns people into fascists" argument. Kind of like how the anti-capitalist message of Robocop utterly fails due to Verhoeven's complete failure to understand capitalism.
@@flatebo1 How can you be sure the failed political leader who is publically disgraced is anything but a patsy, while the people who are really in charge avoid all accountability? Modern problems require modern solutions, so fascism in the future might become more subtle than "glorious leader can do no wrong". 😉 That said, ten years ago I would have assumed traditional fascism wouldn't fly today, but this last decade has made it depressingly clear that there are still a lot of people who will flock to it as soon as someone like Trump says the quiet part out loud and gets away with it... Starship Troopers is actually one of the only Heinlein books I haven't read, so I can't speak on the differences between book and film. Thank you for the substantial answer though, that's not something I'm used to seeing. Could you elaborate on Verhoeven's complete failure to understand capitalism, because I don't see anything odd about Robocop in that sense?
@@korganrocks3995 Well, maybe because the Sky Marshall is the elected head of the war effort (and possibly the government - this is somewhat unclear). What evidence do you have, other than your simple presumption, that there *are* other people "really in charge" behind the scenes? There might be , but given the stress the movie and book place upon the citizen accepting personal responsibility for how the state exercises the political power granted to it by the citizen, this might be difficult to pull off, much less sustain. "Modern problems require modern solutions..." There are no "modern problems". There are just the same old problems with a modern paintjob. Humans haven't evolved into some radically different lifeform over the last cople centuries. The problems people face now are the same ones people have dealt with for millennia. Food. Shelter. Family. Security. Liberty. How much to we want and what are we willing to do to get it? "That said, ten years ago I would have assumed traditional fascism wouldn't fly today,..." 36 years ago I took a class on American Utopian Communities. Utopian communities are either secular (most 1960's socialist communes) or religious (like the Amish, Shakers, early Mormons) and either embrace technology (Mennonites) or reject it (again, Amish). But all of them sell the same product - "unconditional" love, acceptance and care for/by community members...so long as you blindly obey the dictates of the community's leaders. Utopian communities control their members in a variety of ways, including financially (you sign over *all* of your worldly possessions to the community/group), intellectually (forbidden books/music/even words as well as mandatory use of new terms, idiosyncratic redefinitions of existing words, mandatory reading, etc.) and socially (members are highly discouraged/forbidden to have any meaningful contact with outsiders, even family). Utopian communities are, in essence, miniature totalitarian states, i.e. mini-fascisms each with their own "Dear Leaders", such as David Koresh or Jim Jones. Any community member who doesn't submit to the group is ejected from the community. Anyone being expelled loses all of his possessions - because they aren't *his" possessions. They belong to the community. He loses his job (because he typically works in a community-owned business or for a business owned by community members). And he loses every social relationship since other community members are forbidden from interacting with him. And he's likely alienated everyone he knew prior to joining the community. So the excommunicant winds up completely broke, alone and often lacking any foundation upon which to start anew. Anyway, after a semester of studying a variety of utopian communities on the last class before finals the professor went around the room asking every student whether they would consider joining a utopian community either permanently or just on a trial basis (utopian communities that accept new members typically put them through a probationary period before acceptance) to see if they'd like it. There were around fifteen students in the class. I was the last one he called upon. I was the only one who said "Never." Every other student was willing to at least give a utopian community a try - if they found one that appealed to their sensibilities. Every one was willing to, in essence, give fascism a shot. I had long wondered just how many people answered dishonestly. Once the first few people said "yes" there is mounting social pressure for every following person to agree with the group consensus. I'd wondered whether the high pro-utopianism rate was simply an effect of selection bias. They all had chosen to take a class about utopian communities, after all, so maybe they were predisposed to view them favorably. The last couple years have pretty clearly shown that there are a vast number of people who actively want someone else to take responsibility for their lives. To tell them what they can and cannot do. To tell them who they can and cannot associate with. To tell them what they can and cannot think about. These people are not conservatives. They are modern leftists/progressives. They are, if not fully committed to fascism, at least very well-disposed towards it. The modern left ostracizes anyone who deviates from the approved ideology. They actively seek to deprive them of jobs, careers, friends, even access to their own property (consider how the Canadian government went after the bank accounts of those protesting government policy). The modern left redefines words, then insists that everyone use and understand them in their "new" meaning - even in historical contexts where that new meaning is wholly inapplicable. The modern progressive left is a utopian cult. It's rainbow-flag fascism. "Could you elaborate on Verhoeven's complete failure to understand capitalism..." Sure. What Verhoeven presents in Robocop is not capitalism. It's a corporatocracy . Capitalism is characterized by the free exchange of goods and services between willing participants. Capitalism is a self-regulating system with little use for government as governmental interference invariably distorts market incentives and thus subverts the goal of capitalism. Capitalism is, in short, democracy applied to economics where every transaction is an election, every dollar is a vote and every vote counts.. Contracting a company, like OCP, to provide a basic government service, like policing, is anathema to capitalism. It involves those wielding political power selling the power of the state to a favored company. Exploiting access to governmental power and patronage like this is the bread and butter of corporatocracy because it is literally "rule by corporations" Which is what OCP is doing.. OCP rules because OCP bought the government.
It was humans that "started" the war. The arachnids were in a quarantine zone that no one was supposed to cross, but Mormons tried to set up a colony on one of their planets. Only then did the bugs retaliated. The funny part is that the "Propaganda" shown on the news feed during the movie makes this very clear. I.E. The "propaganda" shown is 100% facts, and not lies, distortions or anything untrue. The director might have been intending to parody a "fascist" society, but he accidentally portrayed a moral and truthful culture.
This film is the ultimate satire against War and Politics, as director Paul Verhoeven despised the novel and stopped reading it half way through, calling it "boring and dull," as well as learning that it serves as military propaganda. The film received mixed reviews by Critics, and it was a box office disappointment, making $122 million against a $100 million dollar budget, but was nominated for Best Visual Effects, losing to TITANIC, which opened up a a week later in December 1997.
I always found it kinda funny that everybody prides themselves of having "got" this one, and yet they totally miss the point of Showgirls. Funny because they really are two sides of the same coin.
Just a lil bit more, every time I see this film-- I am reminded that nearly the entire supporting cast are stacked with performers with large to extremely large ranges and talent, despite their characters having limited range-- remember Neil Patrick Harris, Clancy Brown, Seth Gilliam, Michael Ironside, Rue McClanahan and Dean Norris…were all this this film.
If you want more Paul Verhoeven you can always do Basic Instinct, that has one of the most popular scenes in the history of movies, Sharon Stone leg cross, but no more great Sci fy unfortunately. And yes this movie is a heavy criticism on popular populist government regimes, humans for sure are the bad guys, even the acting is a parody of 80s and 90s TV and movies, specially stuff like Beverly hills 90210 or Baywatch and action movies.
@@JoeCool7835 It's not terrible, and if you like it that's great, there's a lot of movies that I like and others don't, but in my opinion it just isn't on the same level as the other 3, fast from it actually.
The biology class bug dissection scene always reminds me of when I was in college taking biology. ... Big frogs... My assignment in partner was also queasy... But I'd been processing animals since I was a little kid...lol. The instructor commented as he watched me "zip, zop," and open the frog..." You've done this before.." "Yeah. Old hat to me." ( I was 50 years old and in first year... Only year...of college. )
Lots of sledgehammer political satire in Verhoeven which is what I love. The original is by the famous sci-fi writer Robert Heinlein. The human society has elements of ancient Sparta.
One thing that's not very clearly explained in the movie. The bugs clearly don't have any ability to throw asteroids at other planets, much less ones all the way across the galaxy.
Well, it's not clearly explained on purpose: it's playing tricks with the audience, making us root for the bad guys XD An anti-propaganda masterpiece in my opinion.
I never really picked up on the idea that they were sent by humans... though I figured that with his parents they just sometimes "accidentally" let one through to keep rallying people.
In the Book, Juan (Johnny) Rico was Filipino. And the Mobile Infantry werent cannon-fodder, they were power-armor wearing supersoldiers. Starship troopers is one of the first written examples of power armor in fiction.
When George mentions the creature that replaces a fish's tongue, it's an isopod called the tongue-eating louse. There's actually a really entertaining 2012 found footage horror film from director Barry Levinson called "The Bay" which uses that as its monster. It's worth checking out.
Paul Verhoven grew up during the occupation of Netherlands, so the designs were by choice, but this movie is definitely propaganda winning so to speak. At the start Rico isn't sure if violence is the answer, every grown up that served is horribly maimed, in a normal story the main characters might learn to resolve things without violence. But in this movie they're chearing that the bug is afraid, rather than the normal story where they learned to be different from those before, and maybe in that story they'd learn to live with the bugs, but not this one where violence is the answer.
The bug is "afraid". Another great detail: obviously it is terrified, no need to be psychic to know that. I heard the intelligence people just fake being psychic (I mean, cards? Really? Every con artist has to know the lie should be slightly more elaborate, but I guess the simpler, the more effective it is! XD), giving them a psychological advantage over everyone else. It makes a lot of sense once you see the movie like that.
@@leovk5779 No, no, no, you're not getting it. The very fact that it CAN be afraid is the point - its a fucking bug, dude. The Federation are legit unclear if these things are even sentient, ya know? For it to be afraid, it has to understand what is happening. As an example, there's nothing to suggest ants have the capacity to know fear - they're not advanced enough cognitively to espouse emotions like that. But this thing? It *is* afraid. That's why they cheer - they realize they're not just fighting a mindless swarm which will require total genocide to combat, but a foe that is conscious, has a mind, has emotions. And can know fear. Which would you rather be fighting: A mindless swarm that will never ever ever stop and knows no fear, only instinctual programming driving it to expand and consume, or a foe that can and does know terror at your coming?
@Richard Moore Fact is, Vehoven did a terrible job in a sense, because tons of people who watch this come away thinking "damn dude, i'd like to enlist". He tried to do a mocking jab at militant fascistic societies and their propaganda, but in large part all he did was make propaganda for militant fascistic societies lol That said, it illuminates something many viewers don't realize - you have been propagandized to. Look at your wording there Richard - "normal", being the keyword. You have been so utterly consumed by propaganda demonizing this sort an ethos, that you have internalized it as 'abnormal' relative to the media you've seen. Reality check: In nature, violence is regularly the answer to resolving issues. When facing a foe, its better they are afraid than resolute in unconscious instinct. Predators and prey do not learn to live together - they fight to the death, because one cannot survive without the other dying. What I mean to say is, you have been propagandized to and conditioned to perceive reality in a way that is utterly-abnormal, yet, you perceive the normality of naturalistic function as 'abnormal', and you are not alone - that is perhaps the most noteworthy facet of this film as per the many and varied responses that Ive observed.
@@no-xr8wv Maybe that was Verhoeven's point, to show the propaganda does work, if you feel pumped at the end of the film isn't that actually scary? You've been shown horrors of war, with obvious sarcastic tones that its definitely a good idea to sign up, and you still want to go along with it. I find that scary. Luckily its just a harmless film with a federation that doesn't actually exist that you can't sign up for service in.
@@no-xr8wv In addition, the ethos of the federation is "might makes right" and that seems to be something that's not "normal" to teach kids, exactly as you say propaganda, hey? But history shows that its exactly right, history written by the victors, but co-operation also served people very well in history, and for whatever reason co-operation is the only "normal" thing to teach kids.
22:49 Michael Ironside says w/a straight serious face: "It sucked his brains out"; Clancy Brown & Michael Ironside are so cool in this movie, it nearly implodes.
If you’re interested in a space movies revolving around such nutty-crazy ideas (like, for example, the space Nazis living on the dark side of the moon), I’d recommend the 2012 sci-fi film Iron Sky. It's quite a bit of fun entertainment.
One of the theories is that the bugs *didn't* send the meteor. Bugs are way the hell over on the other side of the galaxy, it would take FOREVER to reach Earth and how could they possibly be so precise from so far away? The Federation covered up their incompetence of having a lacking detection and defense system against rogue asteroids by blaming the bugs for the attack. It also makes a great excuse to rally the people to start a war that will be costly that higher ups have probably been wanting for years. It is similar to how warhawks blamed the accident that sunk the _USS Maine_ on a Spanish attack or mine in order to help start the Spanish-America War.
To give you an idea of how far this diverges from the original story in a way I KNOW you can relate to. Compare it to The Lord of the Ring. Only in the movie version Sam waits for the Fellowship to break up. Then, we he gets Frodo alone he kills him and takes the ring for himself. Then he builds an ultra-light plane and flies it to Mordor and with the ring he and Sauron get into a civil union and uses the power of the ring to raise a family of SUPER orcs....good stuff...you should see the ray-gun Sam uses to take out Aragorn
The map they show of where the bug planet is in comparison to Earth makes it impossible for the bugs to have sent it. The rock wasn't moving at light speed or beyond and it would have taken millions of years to reach Earth. It makes much more sense that the earth military sent the asteroid themselves to prompt the civilian government to declare war on the bugs.
Only if you base it in some kind of reality.....the clue is in the genre title......Science Fiction, not Science Truth. In Fiction the Bugs have wormhole tech that make the speed of light redundant. Or they might even have all the Rings of Power and the One Ring, the Infinity Gauntlet and the Stick of Truth so all bets are off. If you want the best version of this story then read the book and see just how different this film is.
@@tommy5675 Exactly. The movie is NOT the book. The movie is a subtle (well, not that subtle at times XD) anti-propaganda masterpiece, hence why the interpretation that the human government, not the bugs, sent the asteroid to start the war makes so much sense. I'm pretty sure that was the intent of Verhoeven, which is why he made it so different from the book. The book is, from what I heard (never read it), a pro-military utopia, they have a completely different take on a relatively similar story.
I know the movie takes liberties from the book but in the book, the bugs were on multiple planets one being in our solar system. And they are only a threat for half of the book, different aliens named skinnies are the real baddies.
@@ThreadBomb You say that, but here's the thing. The Chicxulub crater is a 120km diameter crater from an asteroid about 10km diameter, made about 66 million years ago, bringing an end to the age of the dinosaurs and wiping out around 75% of all species of plant and animal life on Earth at that point. That's about 160 cubic kilometers of solid rock moving at about 75,000kmh. As any decent astronomer will tell you, that's not even that big as rocks in space go. Throwing rocks at other peoples planets is actually a very _good_ weapon since firstly, rocks are really cheap, secondly they're actually pretty hard to detect until they get close, thirdly a rock is actually very hard to stop and lastly they do an _insane_ amount of damage when they hit but have no messy radioactives. The propoganda here, if anything, is that they have defences that_could_ stop big rocks since that would need Deathstar level of firepower and if they had that they could just blow up Bug planets.
This movie was loosely base from the 1959 book Starship Troopers is where we get the idea on a "The space marine" style soldiers for the modern movies, games and TV shows from ALIENS to Halo. Fun fact the term Space Marine was around longer than that from the 1930s Sci Fi books Amazing Stories December 1936. The backstory of the Starship Troopers book here - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers
The cool thing about this movie is that it works on several levels. On the surface level it's a big awesome action movie about man vs bugs, but the movie has much more to offer. Like the fact that the humans in the movie live in a fascist society that only solves problems through violence, and the citizens are 100% expendable cannon fodder. Just look at how maimed every single older character is even in the beginning. There are a bunch of other little details dropped throughout the movie that they don't exactly live in a post scarcity utopia like Star Trek or something as well. Like the fact that you need to become a soldier to have a baby, they hold public executions on live tv, "administrative punishment" etc. At the end NPH shows up in a straight up Gestapo uniform to make it really clear that you have been cheering for the space Nazis the whole movie. Veerhoven originally wanted to make a movie about a group of happy-go-lucky teens who were all gung ho to join the military, only to later reveal that they lived in Germany in the 1930s. Of course, this movie would be difficult to get made in Hollywood, but he and his screenwriting partner decided they could get away with it in a sci-fi setting after Veerhoven had had a couple of massive sci-fi hits with Robocop and Total Recall.
Then there's the whole deal with the first half of the movie being almost a parody of 90210-type shows with a love square (one larger than a love triangle) to distract you from really listening to what's being said in the classrooms and on the news. But it's laid out pretty clearly that the war started when human space Mormons started colonizing a planet in the bug system and got wiped out, and it's the humans who keeps escalating the conflict by invading new planets. Not surprising since the teachers in the school keeps reminding us that naked use of force is the simplest way to solve any problem. Even in the end when they have captured the big brain bug they could probably establish some kind of communication with it since they have mind readers available, but they don't even try that. Nope, just cheering when they discover that the bug is afraid, then back to the meat grinder with even younger soldiers.
@@magnusengeseth5060 Additionaly, the human government probably started the war by sending the asteroid to Earth, not the aliens. Also, those mind readers? Probably fake, part of the propaganda, to have a psychological impact over the rest of society. Card tricks? Reading the mind of the alien and realising it is "afraid"? Well duh, way to state the obvious.
A small correction - if you wanted the right to have a child, military service wasn't required. If it had been, Rico would never have been born, as neither of his parents were citizens, meaning they'd never served. However, as one recruit did mention, it was EASIER to get permission to have children if you'd served.
All you sad is true... But you didnt tell the reason for it. Veerhoven never read the novel and so this movie comes out as a complete satire of the thing he wanted to show. He's just another left wing elite who thinks the original Novel is fashistic. If in reaity, it describes a perfect libertarian society. Show me a fashistic society where an opponent of the "goverment" can become stupidly rich. Or where military leaders just step down after they made a huge mistake.
I loved the movie for what it was :) Since this came out, several movies and series have picked up the military uniforms from this one to use as hand me down props, including the classic, Firefly series :) The Death from Above tatoos take on a different meaning if you read the book and realize what type of troops they really were. :P
My favourite Verhoeven movie and one of my all time favourite movies. It's so cheesy, so funny, soooo violent, the bombardment of stupid clichés and tropes is constant and the satire is so on point. Pure cinematic goodness! And the CGI still holds up pretty darn well I'd say.
Clancy Brown (the actor who plays Sergeant Zim) also voices Mr. Krab in Spongebob Squarepants and Lex Luthor in the DC Animated Universe. He also voiced Surtur in Thor: Ragnarok. Amazing actor.
hey there bob, i also love heinlein's work , another of my favorites is A.E van vogt , both brilliant writers ahead of their times, cinematography and special effects have only recently caught up with their vaulting imaginations
I always thought they used the meteor as a reason to go to war with the bugs because it seemed impossible to send a meteor from one side of the galaxy to the other without crashing it into a different planet
Basically, Paul Verhoeven took the book, which is about civic duty and sacrificing for your fellow man, and said, "Well... this is fascism." Meaning he had no idea what the book was about at all. Seriously, the original book presented a society that was about as far from fascistic as you could get, and Verhoeven couldn't get past the "veterans are the only ones who can vote." Thing is, in the book a "veteran" wasn't necessarily the military, but anyone who had worked in the civil service and risked their lives to make society better. The film is entertaining, but it has nothing to do with Heinlein's novel, other than sharing a name.
A good friend working at _Studio ADI_ took me on a tour of the shop when this was in pre-production.¹ I got the see the brainbug. It was not only true to size, but disgustingly gorgeous! *Loved the ad!* 😄 ··•✺•·· ¹ ─ As well as _Alien³_
Honestly I thought it was impossible to miss the fascism allegory (literally 'SS' troopers), but apparently some people think this is just a fun war movie. 🤷 🤷 I'm glad that you were in tune with what the film was putting out there.
@@nicolivoldkif9096 Well, I think the connection is obvious once you rewatch the movie knowing that that was Verhoeven intention all along to have the human ruled by a fascist government, and the humans the expansionist bad guys who started a war with insects living peacefully on their own planets.
@Léo VK you really need to rewatch the movie yourself. That was the goal of PVH, but he should have read the book beforehand and selected a different one to do this satire with as he tried to create a fascist satire using a libertarian wet dream as a base. For example, the Terran Federation gave 2 fucks that the mormons who ignored their quarantine of Arachnid territory died. It was only when the Arachnids launched a strategic attack on humans because of their inability to comprehend and society that was not uniform in thoughts and goals. So yes PVH was desperately trying to create that narrative, he failed because the source material was not what he thought it was. Frankly PVH understanding of fascism is you have a military, your a Fascist.
Oh yay! More Paul Verhoeven goodness, and so much fun. (His movie Hollow Man, starring Kevin Bacon, is a neat dark thriller; a take on The Invisible Man horror story.)
I saw this when it came out (I was around 12) and I got the fascism commentary; it was always funny how a lot of adults were talking about how it "glorified" fascism; one of those moments in which I realized that adults are not smarter really... (south park film was another one)
You’re correct, re: the humans being the bad guys, and being fascists. Verhoeven was a kid during the German occupation of the Netherlands and has vivid memories of Allied forces bombing German military installations near his family’s home in The Hague, and of German military itself. Some people make “Hope and Glory” in response (John Boorman). Verhoeven made “Starship Troopers.” They’re both great.
Between this and Robocop you've seen Verhoeven's amazing achievement of decent budget AND satirical social commentary.. He poured so much to overflowing on these two projects alone.
The planetary defenses were one year later. Same with them being at war. They said one year earlier when they flashed back to Johnny being in school. And then also going to military boot camp. That was all before they had planetary defenses.
As someone who read the book a long time before this movie was made... I was eager to see the movie and then realized that the movie was almost completely unlike the book. There are a few themes that remain and, to be honest, the "Would you like to know more" bit is a good meme. But as someone who enjoyed the book, it was a bit of a let down.
The film has a completely different take on things than the book from what I heard: the book is a pro-military utopia, while this film is a subtle (well, not that subtle at times) anti-propaganda masterpiece playing tricks with the audience's mind to have them root for what are clearly the bad guys. Not to say the book isn't good, I've heard it has a LOT of fans, I've never read it. I like the movie very much.
@@leovk5779 I have read the book. It's not what you think it is. You should try reading it, before trying to talk about what you've heard might possibly be in it.
Kudos to George for pronouncing Paul Verhoeven so correctly. You're the smartest, cutest couple/non couple out there. What a difference a border makes.
This is gonna be fun. Back when it came out, I was too young to get it and I took everything shown at face value. As a German, especially the uniforms of the high-ranking officers had me repulsed, they very much resemble Nazi uniforms. So I thought this movie promoted fascism, haha. Boy, was I wrong. ^^
Paul Verhoeven made a whole lot of great movies. You have seen some of his work (Total Recall, Robocop) but I can definitely recommend the Thriller Basic Instinct (1992) with Michael Douglas which made the actress Sharon Stone famous and his earlier film Flesh and Blood (1985) with Rutger Hauer (Blade Runnner) which was a more realistic take on medieval times then people were probably used to. Quite a few naughty scenes, you may have to blur a bit more than usual 😉
Fun fact: the "helmet-off" cadet who got killed during training & the female cadet who accidentally shot him are married in real life. They met on set & have been together for 25 years.
That's nice to know :)
Man willing to forgive (accidental) headshot. Woman willing to love the guy inside the horribly maimed head. A match made in Klendathu! :)
Awesome!
Nice story for the grandkids.
Met granny by headshoting me! :P
"Son, your mother blew my head off. I knew it was love at first, um.....*ahem."
17:35 That's one of the gags in the film. Earlier in the film, Neil Patrick Harris' character is shown in propaganda detailing the fastest way to kill a bug. It's an easy kill shot. None of the Troopers ever aim for it. They all waste ammo. None of them use their sights. The director did this on purpose for the whole gag of it.
aiming in the fog of war...... Vietnam, Iraq
TELLING PEOPLE WHERE to aim on adrenaline
@@spikedpsycho2383
The whole point of shooting drills is that you teach your body to aim as a reflex. The brain simplifies repeated actions, like how you don't have to consider the exact way to move your arm to switch on a light in a room you're familiar with. That means you don't have to think about where to aim, you just think _to_ aim.
@@CruelestChris the whole point of this mockery...is infantry go in with infantry weapons. Totally inadequate to defeat the enemy bugs. The powered armor was eschewed in the movie. Still....they have
- No tanks
- No infantry fighting vehicles
- despite hover transports to move infantry, they have no gunships.
- The one weapon suitable for killing bugs, the mini nuke bazooka, they only use once.
- the Navy could have bombarded the site before landing.
Abd lastly they were training to fight other infantry. None of their infantry training equipped them to handle bugs.
@@spikedpsycho2383
That's because their government doesn't want to win this war, because if they did they'd have to find a new enemy. Their whole society requires they have a war with someone, otherwise there's no need for military service. The hive of stupid vicious ants they can just kick every so often is perfect, they can say whatever they want about it. That's why they suddenly start fighting effectively (full air support) when the idea the bugs might be intelligent comes up. They can attack Klendathu whenever they want, they choose not to.
@@CruelestChris Read the book, Verhoven twisted EVERY part of the book to fit a political narrative.
In the book the Federated Government KNEW the Arachnids were intelligent and had colonized dozens of worlds, but after numerous attempts at opening peaceful relations and being ignored the Government used an alien race to negotiate a treaty establishing borders and areas for future colonies.
In the book the government actively dissuades service, even in the war. Second this is the first war the Federated Government had ever had, they had peaceful relations with over 40 other space faring races. Earth and its colonies had been at peace for 500 years, but a radical religious group ignored every warning from the Government and illegally colonized a planet belonging to the Arachnids. When they were wiped out the Government apologized to the Arachnids and did nothing else. The war started when the Arachnids began invading other human colonies breaking the treaty.
People who served gave up all civil liberties while serving, they were property of the government and the government made it VERY clear that service was horrific and deadly.
Anyone could serve unless they were mentally incapable of understanding the oath, so no matter the physical disability or deformity if you volunteered for service the government had to take you. Also it was a crime punishable by death to try to stop someone from serving.
Federal Service could include terraforming, scouting for potential mining asteroids, building infrastructure on colonies, working in waste disposal, policing, fire fighting, and the frontier medical corp were all federal service. According to Heinlein 19 out of 20 veterans of federal service had never served in any military capacity.
Also only veterans of federal service could vote or hold political office, but were held to a higher standard by law than anyone else. What a normal person would get a fine for a citizen would get executed for. Rico's father in the book proudly proclaimed that not one Rico had served for 100 years. Also citizens were forbidden from acquiring fortunes, or holding onto any serious wealth, they were expected and forced by law to donate everything earned past what was considered necessary for a middle class life. While non citizens could have as much wealth as they desired as long as they paid their taxes. Non citizens had full civil liberties but were not allowed to vote or hold political office but could protest, had full freedom of speech, freedom of religion, could own any property, run any corporation or business, move freely, basically non citizens had more freedoms than even people in liberal democracies have today. Except they could not vote.
Notice I said Veterans, anyone still serving or who made a career of service was ineligible to vote, voice any political opinion, support any political cause or candidate, and had no civil liberties at all while serving, they were property for the entirety of their service.
The whole idea of the book is that citizens sacrifice for the good of the whole of humanity, and since they did they were allowed to vote and hold political office to determine the laws and guide humanity to a bright peaceful future without war or conflict.
Of course Verhoven the racist claims to be anti fascist yet oddly supports very fascist and white supremacist movements and ideals so of course he would twist a book about an egalitarian peace seeking government that only allows those who were willing to give their life for humanity to vote or hold office.
Also in the book MI used drop pods and powered armor at all times, each had nuke launchers on their rifles, and their rifles easily destroyed an arachnid, issue was power and ammunition ran out before the bugs did. The Bugs also used advanced tactics and strategy, were feared by all other sentient races in the galaxy because they were expansionistic and had only one race they would trade with.
All of that would have ruined Verhoven's political agenda and narrative while making the movie. He went out of his way to mock the book the ideas in the book and did what so many brain dead idiots do today and call something fascism that opposes their political agenda.
I met Casper Van Dien at the Calgary Expo a few years ago. He was a super funny, super nice guy. We took a picture together and rather than invade his personal space I kinda went back to back with my arms crossed. He smiled and "Oh? Are we doing this?" and did the same thing, laughing the whole time. Totally cool guy. I told him he looked great and he seemed genuinely pleased. My girlfriend more or less gushed over him and he was super cool about that too. He did a panel with Dyna Meyer and they clearly had a blast.
I was at that panel, they said there was a lot of competition on set and then they challenged each other, who could do 10 push ups fastest. They looked like they were still friends and had a great time hanging out and answering questions.
The commitment and complete absence of irony with which Ironsides delivers the line "The sucked his brains out." is one of my favorite moments in all of cinema.
Mine is his, "Hold what you've got! "
Rue McClanahan from the GOLDEN GIRLS as the blind biology teacher is one of the best random casting choices.
@@michaelconnor1542 thank you for being a friend
What about Dougie Houser, as a Psi-cop
“They sucked his brains out”
Ironside saying that line without cracking broke me 😆
In 1981 Ironside was in a film called "Scanners" where he played a telepath who was able to make people's head explode. He had a long career before and after this movie and has often been required to act out ridiculous scenes. A true professional actor.
@@stvdagger8074 He also literally said "suck your brains out" in Scanners.
All the actors 100% acted the hell out of this movie. Hands down my favorite part was the mom absolutely losing her mind with glee over the group of kids stepping on bugs.
23:06 you probably didn’t notice him, but that guy freaking out was Kuato. The guy from Total Recall who had the baby in his stomach
Wasn't Kuato the stomach baby?
He was the brother and host of of Kuato.
I saw this in theaters back in '97, it was made even better because there were some very drunk marines there who were cheering and randomly screaming, "Go Marines!" or "Go Crickets!". This also has another fantastic soundtrack by Basil Poledouris.
Casper Van Dien was cast in the lead by Verhoeven speciffically because of his looks. He looked exactly like an image from a German WW2 recruitment poster.
@68K Me too but Germans were unrealistic with their propaganda. Look up their cloning program, it is not actual cloning as we know it today but they brainwashed girls and guys to create the perfect race, creepy AF.
@@carn9507 Italy has a pretty big range of skin tones. Italians with Piedmontese roots are far more fair-skinned than people from Sicily
Look at him at 3:10 ... he is a bit too tanned and his hair could be lighter, but in all other aspects he fits the bill. Maybe he's an "americanized" version of that propaganda poster Übermensch.
BTW, I once knew a guy whose father was the result of that Nazi breeding project. It kinda worked, his father was this insanely tall muscular blonde dude, and the guy looked a lot like his father.
Not that I'd call it a smart idea or good or moral in any way, but the result certainly looked a lot like the Nazis had imagined...
If I'm not mistaken, he has said since that he hired the young cast specifically on their looks and 'poor' performances. He hired attractive actors with not great acting abilities intentionally to make it seem cheesy and trashy in contrast to the OTT violence and horror
@68K to me he look more north West Europa... More precisely belgium, netherland and Luxembourg...
Did you notice that the biology teacher was Blanche from The Golden Girls? The officer uniform design was partly based on Verhoeven's choice, having been a child in The Netherlands during WWII, combined with what one of the production designers said at the time, "If you're looking for sexy uniforms, you gotta go with the Third Reich."
The quality of the CGI was so good that for quite a long time, Starship Troopers was used as a benchmark for new resolutions and tech for DVD etc
@@ThreadBomb yep, and it cost a fortune and make back very little money
@@bumfricker2487 Unfortunately, people back then didn't understand that it was all a satire. People took it seriously and didn't like it because of that.
I love the little touches of the movie like the fact all the ex army characters like the school teachers were horrible scarred in some way.
I"ve watched this movie for years, i never noticed how much she grinned until you guys pointed it out. I can't unsee it.
Denise Richards even said later in interviews that she hated her performance in this movie. I suspect it was a result of Verehoeven directing her to act that way on purpose, as he clearly wanted the young actors to have a soap opera-ish way about them. All part of the satire.
Want something else you can't unsee Watch Star Wars ep4 again, pay VERY close attention to Darth Vader when he meets Leia for the first time, how he moves and stands
You can hate me for it later ;)
I heard that the director was specifically looking for attractive actors who couldn’t really act, to sell the empty, propaganda feeling.
@@user-il9ze9py8c lmao
Let's not blame PV for her bad acting.
The boot camp stuff was 1 year before the initial "Planetary Defenses are better than ever!" scene. The asteroid hitting Buenos Aires was pretty much Pearl Harbor 2.0 for Humanity. That's why a year later the fleet is mobilized, the defenses are beefed up, etc.
I saw this in the cinema and when the guy gets his head blown off in the training accident I realized this wasn't a star trek or star wars type movie. The effects still look great for a 1997 film.
I saw it in the cinema too, multiple times. As for the star trek comparison, it is actually the anti-star trek. Check out the review and analysis on Red Letter Media.
SSP DARK FLEET
The opening scene didn't immediately clue you in?
I think you're the first reactors I've seen that noticed that the terms of Federal Service are for a minimum term and then it's the _military_ and not the volunteer who gets to decide if they can leave or not. Also, yes, during the training part of the movie they're not a war with the bugs (they just study them in high-school biology the way we might do mice or frogs), they only start officially fighting the bugs after the meteor - which raises the interesting question of who the human shaped targets with human style weapons they're using for target practice are supposed to represent.
Likely insurgents or dissidents who don't agree with the government.
And why did the Terran Federation have a huge, armed to the teeth Space Battle Fleet BEFORE they even knew about Arachnids?
Well if we are assuming that the movie universe in somewhat inline with the book they fight other human militants, rebels etc etc. But more interestingly another alien race they call "Skinnies". They were featured in the animated show Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles.
@@kallemattiwaris2422 Because it would be insane to wait until something is threatening you to start building a military.
@@moonoracle115 This movie has nothing to do with the books, considering Verhoeven hated the book. If anything it's a satire of the book. The implications are likely that, before the bugs, Humans were fighting other Humans. I think we can assume that Earth is now just 1 large fascist government, so clearly there were no more Humans to conquer. Now their wars have to be waged amongst the stars and will never end.
The book had a lot of messages about being a citizen, why wars are fought, and how the Veteran Citizen government in the book and the movie came about, but Johnny Rico's story was mostly about Heinlein's views on what a citizen of a nation should be.
Yeah the book is incredibly different and pretty sure Heinlein was kinda parodying nationalism though hard to say.
It also helped popularize mechs/exo suits. As it's one of the earliest cases of a big robot piloted by a person.
@@jacksmith-vs4ct Heinlein was not parodying anything, he was all serious about the militant fascist society being “the best”. It was Verhoeven who made it into a fascist critical parody in the movie, it was also a critique of US Hooray-patriotism and foreign policy in the Middle East (Gulf wars).
@@n3rdy11 I'd quibble that it's not strictly fascist. Democracy-for-veterans, along with a brutal penal system and militarism. Looks despotic, but I suppose it's Heinlein's conceit that such a system would actually have broad public support (including from the civilians - even if they can't vote, the system would either require their acquiescence or their brutal suppression).
As much as I wouldn't want to limit the franchise to veterans, I question whether such a society would be that militaristic. US militarism seems to depend on the limited political influence of veterans, and faith that conscription is never going to be enforced again.
[Actually, I guess what's being pilloried here is the actual system, and the public political consciousness that supports it. And Verhoeven has called it "fascism," but I think he uses the term loosely. Still, respect for his perspective, since he actually lived under Nazi occupation as a child in the Netherlands]
@@n3rdy11 That is not true at all. If Heinlein "was all serious about the militant fascist society being 'the best'" then why did he run for California State Assembly as a liberal Democrat? Why did so many of his books feature protagonists from hedonistic anarchical or libertarian societies? Why did his political nonfiction book "Take Back Your Government!" emphasize grassroots movements to bring the voice of the people into government? People who dismiss Heinlein as a fascist are really ignoring his entire life in favor of their misinterpretation of one book.
One of the best, most misunderstood, sci-fi/satires ever made.
George - "I'm starting to get the sense humans are the bad ones here." Cue Mitchell and Webbs, "Are we the Baddies?" Sketch hahaha
This was literally filmed as a propaganda film. I mean, Starship Troopers would be a movie playing at cinemas in the universe where Starship Troopers takes place.
It’s like “a nations pride” from inglorious bastards
This is what would have happened if the Nazis won.
Because the characters wear Nazi uniforms we're supposed to think their prosperous multicultural meritocracy is the bad guys. That's how dumb Verhoeven is, or how dumb he thinks the audience is.
@@fakecubed Or maybe he trusts the audience to be smart enough to realize that we're probably not seeing the whole picture here?
The idea of this entire movie is that it's a propaganda film.
We see what appears to be a prosperous multicultral society, but we're only shown the POV of rich people and the military who have an agenda to paint a rosy picture of this militarized authoritarian society.
We also see indications that public, corporal punishment is common place...so how are political dissenters treated?
For that matter, how are those who are not able bodied and can't serve in the military treated in this alleged meritocracy? The one woman in the shower scene who mentions she joined the military to "get licensed to have babies" strongly hints at eugenics!
So is everyone actually prosperous and happy? How do we know that this prosperty we see isn't on the backs of an oppressed underclass?
Maybe he trusted his audience to be smart enough to pick up on that?
He was kind of clearly kind of naive in that trust!
@@sandpiperr Political dissenters are speaking freely about their dissent on public TV broadcasts. Did you even watch this movie?
In the book, the mobile infantry wears massive mech suits, so it makes a bit more sense to have them on the ground instead of just using artillery.
But that was way too expensive to make, so they made them wear regular armour instead.
We see those suits in one of the sequels though.
At the end of the third movie
@@Klaus-em3ixThank you. There are so many of them now that I can't keep track of what was shown in which. Part of the 25 year long "we must repackage everything as an existing popular IP" craze Hollywood has had.
Don't know if anyone else pointed this out to you guys, but the teacher in the biology class scene is Rue McClanahan (Blanche, from The Golden Girls)
And the award for best acting goes to.... George, for his outstanding performance in the Square Space add 🤣
I can really recommend The Expanse as a Show to watch! It's probably the best Sci fi Show around at the moment and one of my favourites. Also you talked about asteroids and I had to mention it
“Oh! That’s a Zerg!”
YESSS!! A StarCraft fan! 💖💖💖
The book Starship Troopers was a major inspiration for Warhammer 40K. Blizzard wanted to make a Warhammer 40K game, but were unable to license it, so instead they changed some stuff around and made Starcraft instead.
13:14 "Who started this war?"
😂😂😂😂 For such an innocent question, the answer is super dark.
Hans... are we the baddies?😊
This a had a bunch of sequels on comicbooks, movies direct to video, animated CGI series, a fan fave.
Couple of video games, recently. Terran Command and Extermination. An RTS and a co-op shooter respectively.
Fun fact: the military combat costumes were recycled into Power Rangers Lost Galaxy
They were also painted purple and reused as Alliance trooper outfits in the Firefly series.
Basic Instinct is an iconic 90's movie, technically a neo-noir erotic thriller film, directed by Paul Verhoeven.
I gotta say, I love your SquareSpace advert! Stylistically appropriate for this movie, too! The only way it could be better is if you'd said "Would you like to know more?" at the end 😉
Anyway, the movie... yeah, there's a sliiiiiiight subtext going on! When the movie was released, most critics took the film at face value and thought it was celebrating fascism, completely missing the fact that pretty much everything in the movie is deliberate, from the fascisty uniforms to the stupidly attractive cast members. I mean, of course they all look like they'd just stepped off the set of Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place (which was actually true for some of them!); this is propaganda, so naturally the heroes are gorgeous in a vacant sort of way! I guess the critics failed to notice that most of the adults are maimed in horrible ways... which just goes to show that even when the satire is as obvious as this, some people just aren't going to get the joke.
As far as I know, the original script was much more a generic soldiers vs alien bugs story that was intended to show off Phil Tippett's creature FX talents. However, when the budget was going to be so high, the studio decided that they needed a recognisable property to help sell the film so they optioned Starship Troopers. Similarities between book and film are scarce, though. While some of the character names and situations were retained, the political stance is poles apart. Indeed, Verhoeven never even finished reading the novel before he made the film, as it was so far away from his own political views. He chose instead to make the story more of an overt satire on militarism and propaganda, drawing on his own childhood experiences of living in Nazi-occupied Holland... which makes the accusations of the movie glorifying fascism all the more ironic!
Perhaps the biggest change, though, was the fact that in the book the troopers all wear power-armour; in fact, it can probably be said that Starship Troopers was the source of all sci-fi mech-suits, so you can imagine how fans of the book felt when they found out that the film has dropped their favourite element! Sadly though, the budget wouldn't cover swarms of bugs AND mech-suited troops, so the titular troopers essentially became hilariously ill-equipped WWII ground troops.
But even without power armour, they're gonna fight... and they're gonna win! Ooo-ahh!!
Hollowman was Paul's last good gig in Hollywood! You got to do that one.
You're right, it's a satire movie, although a lot of people didn't realize it was satire until years after it's release.
The fact that anyone could watch the scene of kids stomping on cockroaches and still not get it boggles my mind, let alone the blatant nazi uniforms...
i got it was satire when the logo came into view at the start.
I think it have a lot to do about adaptations before 2000, the movie and the book have barelly anything in common.
You could say this kind of adaptation was kinda rare back than and lot of people didn't get it, this days we are used to it 😅
yeah people really didn't get it at the time. if it had come out 5 years later it would have landed a lot better
@@heptonaut This movie would have likely been boycotted: 2002 was just 1 year after 9/11. The Buenos Aires Meteor, in a film that wasn't recognized as satire, would have likely been considered in terrible taste. Of course, this movie existed before 9/11, so obviously not a reference to that event. It was certainly prescient.
This is one of those rare instances in which I actually _read most of the book_ before seeing the _movie._ The main characters all have the same names and play largely the same roles, but it's _very_ different. I don't remember any point where they actually _deal_ with any bugs.
Oh, shit.... this is gonna be GOOD! I know how Simone got squeamish during much tamer movies.... this is gonna be EPIC! =D
Edit: Also, I want to recommend the movie Dragonheart.
wow... someone seen/knows-about and recommends dragonheart... I really liked this movie, it has it's flaws, but it's still good
before we had 'eragon' movie and also the 'how to train your dragon' movie series, we had dragonheart
@@redmoonbloodmoon3161 I first saw Dragonheart on HBO, and immediately sought it out on DVD. Yes, it does have it's flaws, but I think it's an absolutely amazing movie overall. Plus it shares an actor in common with this movie. I have watched it dozens of times, and it's one of the few movies that actually makes my cold-hearted ass tear up at the end. I am so waiting for one reaction channel to do that movie, and Cinebinge might just be the one.
A team of a human and dragon grifting l. Excellent.
Michael Ironside, the actor who played Lt. Radchek, was also in Total Recall. Also, I cannot believe you missed the obvious old joke. When Lt. Radchek said "Fire at will" some smart @$$ always says "Which one is Will."
The underlying commentary is director who tried to rebrand a story as just about the opposite of it's initial origin. The troopers are extremely well trained and equipped with the best kit available- like mech suits, the Mobile Infantry are supposed to be one man armies given millions or billions worth of gear per soldier. Also, the society is only lead by those that sacrifice to secure voting or political office, while civilians are unrestricted otherwise; in the book and film, the implication is the two classes get along (after an initial civil war a thousand years ago) and the politicians opt to not screw over the civilians due to be held accountable by veterans who watched comrades give their lives for the federation.
So we get the film where we have human mass wave tactics and 20th century Germany commentary over a purely elective and entirely unrestricted means to political office, where, Rico comes from a rich family, Despite not being able to vote.
In the end it made for a messy, confused, gory awesome fest of a classic.
I think the issue is that the author of the book actually glorified fascist, authoritarian regimes and hid it under the veneer of a space war story....and the director chose to directly satirize the novel and the author's depiction of the glorious military Terran Federation.
IOW, he joked about what Heinlen took seriously.
@@eschatological
He did a very poor job of 'directly' satirizing it.
He needed to humanize the 'bugs' and/or show actual negative effects of the "Fascism".
No inter-human war, no poverty, no protests, no martial law, no scape-goated group/race of people, no resource shortages, no legislation that shows why the exclusive government is bad, a volunteer military, military commanders publically taking responsibility for failures and resigning, etc.
There was an idea and a framework, but Paul didn't make it a reality. He made a movie about killing 'bugs' in which a few people wear Nazi-like uniforms.
I really should re-re-read the book. I've seen the movie more times. Sadly, I loaned out my copy and never got it back.
@@yodieyuh Yeah, I've never understood why people love this movie, tbh. It's campy, but there's better camp. I feel like it gained traction during the brief fascination America had with Denise Richards....and coed showers.
@@yodieyuh
The movie is an excellent satire. You simply didn't understand it. No good satire movie explains to you the negative affects of it's subject. A good satire simply gives you the propaganda, and you can pull the negative aspects from it with critical thinking. Not everything needs to be spoon fed to you.
The enemies being bugs and not humans is literally what makes it such a good satire. If it were humans, it makes you empathetic. That's the exact opposite reaction that he was looking for in the audience. This is a satire of Fascist propaganda. You're not supposed to connect with the enemy. The enemy is supposed to give you a feeling of disgust.
That's literally the whole point. It further deepens the divide between the tribal US vs THEM mentality. The further you can distance yourself from the enemy, the better the satire. It's a propaganda film. You're not supposed to connect with the enemy. It's a tribalism mentality that's being pushed here. The less you can empathize with the enemy, the stronger you build your tribal walls. This is done effectively in this movie. Because it's propaganda, you have to try very very very very hard to empathize with an enemy. That's the whole point.
It's supposed to feel like a "utopia". It's a propaganda movie. What propaganda movie talks shit about themselves? That's why it's supposed show only the "good things" about their society.
The negative parts are subliminal and therefor much more effective. It's not in your face as you said it should be, because that would make it a lesser of a satire.
The movie doesn't need to tell you that having a strong military presence in high school is bad. It just shows it as it is in society. It shouldn't have to tell you it's bad. You simply feel it underneath your skin.
The whole televised segments with the people having debates? Yeah, that gives you insight on their society. When they talk about strong values such as strength and power and authority is being better than weak values like empathy and understanding? That's how they are as a society and they don't need to tell you that it's bad, you simply feel unnerved by it naturally.
The fact that the soldiers can literally see their own infantry company get cut to shreds in the most violent and upsetting way possible, but be completely fine the next day joking around with each other shows the power of brainwashing that fascism has on their mentality. The movie doesn't tell you it's bad, because you already know it.
This is what makes it a great satire.
When I first saw the movie, I was 11. I didn't even understand the concept of "satire". But the film didn't need to spoon feed it to me as you suggested it should have. As a 11 year old, at first all I thought was cool soldiers killing bugs. But the longer I thought about it, the more I realized that there was something deeply disturbing about that society, and even though I can find similarities to my own American reality, there was something there that would terrify me deeply if I were to swap places and live in that world.
That's why the movie is an excellent satire. It doesn't spoon feed you information on why certain things are bad. It makes you look beyond the propaganda and makes you think critically as it did to me as a 11 year old.
One thing that did translate faithfully from the book to the screen was Dizzy's death. In the book, he died on the retrieval boat. In the movie, she died on the retrieval boat. And I think Heinlein would have liked making Dizzy a young woman and Johnny's love interest. He definitely would not have liked some of the other changes.
Yeah well, considering what Heinlen did like, I'm not sure I care!
So much nostalgia from this movie! xD .. I was so scared of that slug creature when I was a kid..
I'm so glad I was informed about the fish tongue bug. I genuinely mean that. It's fascinating and has started me on a journey to seek out all sorts of awful creatures. I am glad I don't live in California. Even though I'm not a fish that bug would still freak me out a little. Anyone heard of the Candiru? It's a tiny parasitic catfish that lives in the Amazon. While it's never been scientifically proven the stories persist that it's attracted to the scent of urine. Once it gets the scent it makes a mad dash up the stream into the urethra. Using the backward facing spikes on it's head it lodges itself in there and happily drinks your blood. Lucky for me I live in Australia where the only dangerous creature is all of them.
I’m so glad you two Get It. Everyone _hated_ this movie when it came out. Fans of the original book hated it because Verhoeven’s unspoken goal was “if you like this book, you’re a wannabe fascist, and I’m going to make sure everyone knows it”; and general audiences hated it because they either wouldn’t or couldn’t process a story whose subtext asked you to side with the gross-looking bugs at the same time its text was telling you to do the opposite.
16:07 Spore crawlers
24:02 Zerg rush
24:09 Mutalisks
25:10 Nydus worm
27:38 Infestor
I always love how Blizz cribbed a ton of stuff from 40k, Aliens, SST, and....Space Battleship Yamato. Ha ha, they just had to get that awesome captain in there. "Battlecruiser operational"
"The enemy cannot push a button, if you disable his hand"..... such a memorable line
You guys seem to have missed the "one year earlier" between the first battle on the planet and the rest of the movie. At the time the asteroid hit, nobody knew about the bugs, nobody was at war, they had no planetary defenses.
pretty sure they did know about the bugs as it was also stated at one point that the asteroid was retaliation for terran expansion or something into the bug territory which they didn't think were that smart at the time.
also the planetary defense system might not have actually worked or even existed.
The government of Starship Troopers is extremely incompetent and would always rather patch up public perception with propaganda than fix the underlying issues.
But they dissected bugs in school and the teacher spoke specifically about the alien bugs.
The movie is actually based on the book “Starship Troopers” by famous sci-fi writer Robert A. Heinlein. The book received some criticism due to the militaristic focus and was even described as fascist by some.
Book is really good though and covers quite a bit more than the movie, which is a bit more novel considering the director :)
Yeah, the book is described as fascist by people who don't actually know what fascism is. The book is more libertarian in nature, as was Heinlein himself. (Not a member of the Libertarian Party, but an advocate of libertarian political philosophy.) In the book, military service, i.e. service to the State, is entirely voluntary. In a fascist society everything is in service to the state.
“Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.” - Benito Mussolini
I liked that the movie retained enough of Heinlein's political thesis during the classroom scenes to undercut Verhoeven's "the Federation is fascist" message. It's rather hilarious that in arguing against Heinlein Verhoeven got to pick and choose how to present Heinlein's argument and Verhoeven still lost. A libertarian society with a fascist paint job is still a libertarian society.
@@flatebo1 That's just, like, your opinion, man. I'd say Verhoeven clearly won the argument, and we can't both be right. Also, would libertarians really be ok with having their right to procreate restricted? Considering the way they lost their shit about masks and vaccines I doubt it...
@@korganrocks3995 I'm mot sure the "baby license" is an aspect of the book. I don't recall it, anyway. So that may be more of a Verhoeven thing than a Heinlein thing.
And no, Verhoeven did not win the argument because Verhoeven clearly understands nothing about fascist governments. Fascist governments do not vote out incompetent political leadership as the Federation does after the disaster on Planet P. Fascist government's do not allow live broadcasting of active military operations.
Fascist governments deify their political leadership. To publicly disgrace a failed political leader is to undermine the entire premise of fascism. Fascist governments conceal the failures of their leaders. They displace blame onto patsies. Fascism is all about the subordination of everything to the state. A fascist government would conscript soldiers into tis military. The Federation cannot - because it cannot force a person to become a citizen against his will.
Like far too many people who love to label everything they dislike as "fascist" Verhoeven's understanding of it is entirely surface-level. Which is pretty much why he seems to think that using Nazi-inspired uniforms is all he needs to do to make his "war turns people into fascists" argument. Kind of like how the anti-capitalist message of Robocop utterly fails due to Verhoeven's complete failure to understand capitalism.
@@flatebo1 How can you be sure the failed political leader who is publically disgraced is anything but a patsy, while the people who are really in charge avoid all accountability? Modern problems require modern solutions, so fascism in the future might become more subtle than "glorious leader can do no wrong". 😉 That said, ten years ago I would have assumed traditional fascism wouldn't fly today, but this last decade has made it depressingly clear that there are still a lot of people who will flock to it as soon as someone like Trump says the quiet part out loud and gets away with it...
Starship Troopers is actually one of the only Heinlein books I haven't read, so I can't speak on the differences between book and film. Thank you for the substantial answer though, that's not something I'm used to seeing. Could you elaborate on Verhoeven's complete failure to understand capitalism, because I don't see anything odd about Robocop in that sense?
@@korganrocks3995 Well, maybe because the Sky Marshall is the elected head of the war effort (and possibly the government - this is somewhat unclear). What evidence do you have, other than your simple presumption, that there *are* other people "really in charge" behind the scenes? There might be , but given the stress the movie and book place upon the citizen accepting personal responsibility for how the state exercises the political power granted to it by the citizen, this might be difficult to pull off, much less sustain.
"Modern problems require modern solutions..."
There are no "modern problems". There are just the same old problems with a modern paintjob. Humans haven't evolved into some radically different lifeform over the last cople centuries. The problems people face now are the same ones people have dealt with for millennia. Food. Shelter. Family. Security. Liberty. How much to we want and what are we willing to do to get it?
"That said, ten years ago I would have assumed traditional fascism wouldn't fly today,..."
36 years ago I took a class on American Utopian Communities. Utopian communities are either secular (most 1960's socialist communes) or religious (like the Amish, Shakers, early Mormons) and either embrace technology (Mennonites) or reject it (again, Amish). But all of them sell the same product - "unconditional" love, acceptance and care for/by community members...so long as you blindly obey the dictates of the community's leaders.
Utopian communities control their members in a variety of ways, including financially (you sign over *all* of your worldly possessions to the community/group), intellectually (forbidden books/music/even words as well as mandatory use of new terms, idiosyncratic redefinitions of existing words, mandatory reading, etc.) and socially (members are highly discouraged/forbidden to have any meaningful contact with outsiders, even family). Utopian communities are, in essence, miniature totalitarian states, i.e. mini-fascisms each with their own "Dear Leaders", such as David Koresh or Jim Jones.
Any community member who doesn't submit to the group is ejected from the community. Anyone being expelled loses all of his possessions - because they aren't *his" possessions. They belong to the community. He loses his job (because he typically works in a community-owned business or for a business owned by community members). And he loses every social relationship since other community members are forbidden from interacting with him. And he's likely alienated everyone he knew prior to joining the community. So the excommunicant winds up completely broke, alone and often lacking any foundation upon which to start anew.
Anyway, after a semester of studying a variety of utopian communities on the last class before finals the professor went around the room asking every student whether they would consider joining a utopian community either permanently or just on a trial basis (utopian communities that accept new members typically put them through a probationary period before acceptance) to see if they'd like it. There were around fifteen students in the class. I was the last one he called upon.
I was the only one who said "Never."
Every other student was willing to at least give a utopian community a try - if they found one that appealed to their sensibilities. Every one was willing to, in essence, give fascism a shot.
I had long wondered just how many people answered dishonestly. Once the first few people said "yes" there is mounting social pressure for every following person to agree with the group consensus. I'd wondered whether the high pro-utopianism rate was simply an effect of selection bias. They all had chosen to take a class about utopian communities, after all, so maybe they were predisposed to view them favorably.
The last couple years have pretty clearly shown that there are a vast number of people who actively want someone else to take responsibility for their lives. To tell them what they can and cannot do. To tell them who they can and cannot associate with. To tell them what they can and cannot think about. These people are not conservatives. They are modern leftists/progressives. They are, if not fully committed to fascism, at least very well-disposed towards it.
The modern left ostracizes anyone who deviates from the approved ideology. They actively seek to deprive them of jobs, careers, friends, even access to their own property (consider how the Canadian government went after the bank accounts of those protesting government policy). The modern left redefines words, then insists that everyone use and understand them in their "new" meaning - even in historical contexts where that new meaning is wholly inapplicable. The modern progressive left is a utopian cult. It's rainbow-flag fascism.
"Could you elaborate on Verhoeven's complete failure to understand capitalism..."
Sure. What Verhoeven presents in Robocop is not capitalism. It's a corporatocracy . Capitalism is characterized by the free exchange of goods and services between willing participants. Capitalism is a self-regulating system with little use for government as governmental interference invariably distorts market incentives and thus subverts the goal of capitalism. Capitalism is, in short, democracy applied to economics where every transaction is an election, every dollar is a vote and every vote counts..
Contracting a company, like OCP, to provide a basic government service, like policing, is anathema to capitalism. It involves those wielding political power selling the power of the state to a favored company. Exploiting access to governmental power and patronage like this is the bread and butter of corporatocracy because it is literally "rule by corporations" Which is what OCP is doing.. OCP rules because OCP bought the government.
It was humans that "started" the war. The arachnids were in a quarantine zone that no one was supposed to cross, but Mormons tried to set up a colony on one of their planets. Only then did the bugs retaliated.
The funny part is that the "Propaganda" shown on the news feed during the movie makes this very clear. I.E. The "propaganda" shown is 100% facts, and not lies, distortions or anything untrue. The director might have been intending to parody a "fascist" society, but he accidentally portrayed a moral and truthful culture.
This film is the ultimate satire against War and Politics, as director Paul Verhoeven despised the novel and stopped reading it half way through, calling it "boring and dull," as well as learning that it serves as military propaganda.
The film received mixed reviews by Critics, and it was a box office disappointment, making $122 million against a $100 million dollar budget, but was nominated for Best Visual Effects, losing to TITANIC, which opened up a a week later in December 1997.
I always found it kinda funny that everybody prides themselves of having "got" this one, and yet they totally miss the point of Showgirls. Funny because they really are two sides of the same coin.
I thought ST came out in July 1997.
@@Madbandit77 No it was released in November.
Just a lil bit more, every time I see this film-- I am reminded that nearly the entire supporting cast are stacked with performers with large to extremely large ranges and talent, despite their characters having limited range-- remember Neil Patrick Harris, Clancy Brown, Seth Gilliam, Michael Ironside, Rue McClanahan and Dean Norris…were all this this film.
If you want more Paul Verhoeven you can always do Basic Instinct, that has one of the most popular scenes in the history of movies, Sharon Stone leg cross, but no more great Sci fy unfortunately.
And yes this movie is a heavy criticism on popular populist government regimes, humans for sure are the bad guys, even the acting is a parody of 80s and 90s TV and movies, specially stuff like Beverly hills 90210 or Baywatch and action movies.
Actually, there is one more sci-fi movie by Paul Verhoeven, albeit with more of a horror angle. That would be "Hollow Man" with Kevin Bacon.
@@JoeCool7835 Sci fy? Yes. Great? Nope.
@@pedrothevenard Well, I liked it, anyway.
@@JoeCool7835 It's not terrible, and if you like it that's great, there's a lot of movies that I like and others don't, but in my opinion it just isn't on the same level as the other 3, fast from it actually.
The best "adaptation" of the original book, is the anime Mobile Suit Gundam, talking about a military society in war.
The biology class bug dissection scene always reminds me of when I was in college taking biology. ...
Big frogs... My assignment in partner was also queasy...
But I'd been processing animals since I was a little kid...lol.
The instructor commented as he watched me "zip, zop," and open the frog..." You've done this before.."
"Yeah. Old hat to me."
( I was 50 years old and in first year... Only year...of college. )
Lots of sledgehammer political satire in Verhoeven which is what I love. The original is by the famous sci-fi writer Robert Heinlein. The human society has elements of ancient Sparta.
One thing that's not very clearly explained in the movie.
The bugs clearly don't have any ability to throw asteroids at other planets, much less ones all the way across the galaxy.
Well, it's not clearly explained on purpose: it's playing tricks with the audience, making us root for the bad guys XD
An anti-propaganda masterpiece in my opinion.
I never really picked up on the idea that they were sent by humans... though I figured that with his parents they just sometimes "accidentally" let one through to keep rallying people.
In the Book, Juan (Johnny) Rico was Filipino. And the Mobile Infantry werent cannon-fodder, they were power-armor wearing supersoldiers. Starship troopers is one of the first written examples of power armor in fiction.
When George mentions the creature that replaces a fish's tongue, it's an isopod called the tongue-eating louse. There's actually a really entertaining 2012 found footage horror film from director Barry Levinson called "The Bay" which uses that as its monster. It's worth checking out.
Paul Verhoven grew up during the occupation of Netherlands, so the designs were by choice, but this movie is definitely propaganda winning so to speak.
At the start Rico isn't sure if violence is the answer, every grown up that served is horribly maimed, in a normal story the main characters might learn to resolve things without violence. But in this movie they're chearing that the bug is afraid, rather than the normal story where they learned to be different from those before, and maybe in that story they'd learn to live with the bugs, but not this one where violence is the answer.
The bug is "afraid". Another great detail: obviously it is terrified, no need to be psychic to know that. I heard the intelligence people just fake being psychic (I mean, cards? Really? Every con artist has to know the lie should be slightly more elaborate, but I guess the simpler, the more effective it is! XD), giving them a psychological advantage over everyone else. It makes a lot of sense once you see the movie like that.
@@leovk5779 No, no, no, you're not getting it. The very fact that it CAN be afraid is the point - its a fucking bug, dude. The Federation are legit unclear if these things are even sentient, ya know? For it to be afraid, it has to understand what is happening. As an example, there's nothing to suggest ants have the capacity to know fear - they're not advanced enough cognitively to espouse emotions like that. But this thing? It *is* afraid. That's why they cheer - they realize they're not just fighting a mindless swarm which will require total genocide to combat, but a foe that is conscious, has a mind, has emotions. And can know fear.
Which would you rather be fighting: A mindless swarm that will never ever ever stop and knows no fear, only instinctual programming driving it to expand and consume, or a foe that can and does know terror at your coming?
@Richard Moore Fact is, Vehoven did a terrible job in a sense, because tons of people who watch this come away thinking "damn dude, i'd like to enlist". He tried to do a mocking jab at militant fascistic societies and their propaganda, but in large part all he did was make propaganda for militant fascistic societies lol
That said, it illuminates something many viewers don't realize - you have been propagandized to.
Look at your wording there Richard - "normal", being the keyword. You have been so utterly consumed by propaganda demonizing this sort an ethos, that you have internalized it as 'abnormal' relative to the media you've seen.
Reality check: In nature, violence is regularly the answer to resolving issues. When facing a foe, its better they are afraid than resolute in unconscious instinct. Predators and prey do not learn to live together - they fight to the death, because one cannot survive without the other dying.
What I mean to say is, you have been propagandized to and conditioned to perceive reality in a way that is utterly-abnormal, yet, you perceive the normality of naturalistic function as 'abnormal', and you are not alone - that is perhaps the most noteworthy facet of this film as per the many and varied responses that Ive observed.
@@no-xr8wv Maybe that was Verhoeven's point, to show the propaganda does work, if you feel pumped at the end of the film isn't that actually scary? You've been shown horrors of war, with obvious sarcastic tones that its definitely a good idea to sign up, and you still want to go along with it. I find that scary. Luckily its just a harmless film with a federation that doesn't actually exist that you can't sign up for service in.
@@no-xr8wv In addition, the ethos of the federation is "might makes right" and that seems to be something that's not "normal" to teach kids, exactly as you say propaganda, hey?
But history shows that its exactly right, history written by the victors, but co-operation also served people very well in history, and for whatever reason co-operation is the only "normal" thing to teach kids.
22:49 Michael Ironside says w/a straight serious face: "It sucked his brains out"; Clancy Brown & Michael Ironside are so cool in this movie, it nearly implodes.
If you’re interested in a space movies revolving around such nutty-crazy ideas (like, for example, the space Nazis living on the dark side of the moon), I’d recommend the 2012 sci-fi film Iron Sky. It's quite a bit of fun entertainment.
The _far_ side of the Moon. There is no (permanent) dark side.
And no one believed the black guy who got turned into an Aryan.
@@LuaanTi And yet, in the film, they call it the dark side of the moon. I remember laughing a lot about that.
One of the theories is that the bugs *didn't* send the meteor. Bugs are way the hell over on the other side of the galaxy, it would take FOREVER to reach Earth and how could they possibly be so precise from so far away? The Federation covered up their incompetence of having a lacking detection and defense system against rogue asteroids by blaming the bugs for the attack. It also makes a great excuse to rally the people to start a war that will be costly that higher ups have probably been wanting for years. It is similar to how warhawks blamed the accident that sunk the _USS Maine_ on a Spanish attack or mine in order to help start the Spanish-America War.
As much as I enjoyed this movie for what it is, I do wish there was a movie that was closer to Heinlien's novel; or at the very least a mini series.
I know there is anime of it. Though its a bit dated.
OMG your Squarespace ad was absolutely brilliant. I've been laughing for 5 minutes about it. Spot on. Cheers.
To give you an idea of how far this diverges from the original story in a way I KNOW you can relate to. Compare it to The Lord of the Ring. Only in the movie version Sam waits for the Fellowship to break up. Then, we he gets Frodo alone he kills him and takes the ring for himself. Then he builds an ultra-light plane and flies it to Mordor and with the ring he and Sauron get into a civil union and uses the power of the ring to raise a family of SUPER orcs....good stuff...you should see the ray-gun Sam uses to take out Aragorn
there's also two sequel's Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation and Starship Troopers 3: Marauder
The map they show of where the bug planet is in comparison to Earth makes it impossible for the bugs to have sent it. The rock wasn't moving at light speed or beyond and it would have taken millions of years to reach Earth. It makes much more sense that the earth military sent the asteroid themselves to prompt the civilian government to declare war on the bugs.
Exactly. Crushing Buenos Aires, a center of political opposition (I assume), in the process. Two birds with one giant stone.
Only if you base it in some kind of reality.....the clue is in the genre title......Science Fiction, not Science Truth.
In Fiction the Bugs have wormhole tech that make the speed of light redundant. Or they might even have all the Rings of Power and the One Ring, the Infinity Gauntlet and the Stick of Truth so all bets are off.
If you want the best version of this story then read the book and see just how different this film is.
@@tommy5675 Exactly. The movie is NOT the book. The movie is a subtle (well, not that subtle at times XD) anti-propaganda masterpiece, hence why the interpretation that the human government, not the bugs, sent the asteroid to start the war makes so much sense. I'm pretty sure that was the intent of Verhoeven, which is why he made it so different from the book.
The book is, from what I heard (never read it), a pro-military utopia, they have a completely different take on a relatively similar story.
I know the movie takes liberties from the book but in the book, the bugs were on multiple planets one being in our solar system. And they are only a threat for half of the book, different aliens named skinnies are the real baddies.
@@ThreadBomb You say that, but here's the thing. The Chicxulub crater is a 120km diameter crater from an asteroid about 10km diameter, made about 66 million years ago, bringing an end to the age of the dinosaurs and wiping out around 75% of all species of plant and animal life on Earth at that point. That's about 160 cubic kilometers of solid rock moving at about 75,000kmh. As any decent astronomer will tell you, that's not even that big as rocks in space go. Throwing rocks at other peoples planets is actually a very _good_ weapon since firstly, rocks are really cheap, secondly they're actually pretty hard to detect until they get close, thirdly a rock is actually very hard to stop and lastly they do an _insane_ amount of damage when they hit but have no messy radioactives. The propoganda here, if anything, is that they have defences that_could_ stop big rocks since that would need Deathstar level of firepower and if they had that they could just blow up Bug planets.
This movie was loosely base from the 1959 book Starship Troopers is where we get the idea on a "The space marine" style soldiers for the modern movies, games and TV shows from ALIENS to Halo. Fun fact the term Space Marine was around longer than that from the 1930s Sci Fi books Amazing Stories December 1936. The backstory of the Starship Troopers book here - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers
This movie is such a gem. It reminded me so much of Quake 2. Absolutly Loved it.
The cool thing about this movie is that it works on several levels. On the surface level it's a big awesome action movie about man vs bugs, but the movie has much more to offer. Like the fact that the humans in the movie live in a fascist society that only solves problems through violence, and the citizens are 100% expendable cannon fodder. Just look at how maimed every single older character is even in the beginning. There are a bunch of other little details dropped throughout the movie that they don't exactly live in a post scarcity utopia like Star Trek or something as well. Like the fact that you need to become a soldier to have a baby, they hold public executions on live tv, "administrative punishment" etc. At the end NPH shows up in a straight up Gestapo uniform to make it really clear that you have been cheering for the space Nazis the whole movie.
Veerhoven originally wanted to make a movie about a group of happy-go-lucky teens who were all gung ho to join the military, only to later reveal that they lived in Germany in the 1930s. Of course, this movie would be difficult to get made in Hollywood, but he and his screenwriting partner decided they could get away with it in a sci-fi setting after Veerhoven had had a couple of massive sci-fi hits with Robocop and Total Recall.
Then there's the whole deal with the first half of the movie being almost a parody of 90210-type shows with a love square (one larger than a love triangle) to distract you from really listening to what's being said in the classrooms and on the news. But it's laid out pretty clearly that the war started when human space Mormons started colonizing a planet in the bug system and got wiped out, and it's the humans who keeps escalating the conflict by invading new planets. Not surprising since the teachers in the school keeps reminding us that naked use of force is the simplest way to solve any problem.
Even in the end when they have captured the big brain bug they could probably establish some kind of communication with it since they have mind readers available, but they don't even try that. Nope, just cheering when they discover that the bug is afraid, then back to the meat grinder with even younger soldiers.
@@magnusengeseth5060 Additionaly, the human government probably started the war by sending the asteroid to Earth, not the aliens.
Also, those mind readers? Probably fake, part of the propaganda, to have a psychological impact over the rest of society. Card tricks? Reading the mind of the alien and realising it is "afraid"? Well duh, way to state the obvious.
A small correction - if you wanted the right to have a child, military service wasn't required. If it had been, Rico would never have been born, as neither of his parents were citizens, meaning they'd never served. However, as one recruit did mention, it was EASIER to get permission to have children if you'd served.
All you sad is true... But you didnt tell the reason for it. Veerhoven never read the novel and so this movie comes out as a complete satire of the thing he wanted to show. He's just another left wing elite who thinks the original Novel is fashistic. If in reaity, it describes a perfect libertarian society.
Show me a fashistic society where an opponent of the "goverment" can become stupidly rich. Or where military leaders just step down after they made a huge mistake.
Love this movie and I've even managed to get a cameo video from 'Denice Richards' saying hello to me...she was very nice.
12:32
*Marco Inaros: Hey everyone! Ive got an idea!* 😀
I loved the movie for what it was :) Since this came out, several movies and series have picked up the military uniforms from this one to use as hand me down props, including the classic, Firefly series :) The Death from Above tatoos take on a different meaning if you read the book and realize what type of troops they really were. :P
True.
In 2005, there was a Starship Troopers FPS game for Windows. You can take on the hordes of bugs yourself. :)
My favourite Verhoeven movie and one of my all time favourite movies. It's so cheesy, so funny, soooo violent, the bombardment of stupid clichés and tropes is constant and the satire is so on point. Pure cinematic goodness!
And the CGI still holds up pretty darn well I'd say.
Clancy Brown (the actor who plays Sergeant Zim) also voices Mr. Krab in Spongebob Squarepants and Lex Luthor in the DC Animated Universe. He also voiced Surtur in Thor: Ragnarok. Amazing actor.
Anyone else noticed Mr. Eugene Krab?? If not, he was the Drill Sargent.
BTW, the book this is based on was written by my favorite sci-fi author (Robert A Heinlein). The book is very much worth reading.
hey there bob, i also love heinlein's work , another of my favorites is A.E van vogt , both brilliant writers ahead of their times, cinematography and special effects have only recently caught up with their vaulting imaginations
7:52 - LOL!!!!!!! Loved the simultaneous reaction on that one! Oh, too fun. Too. Fun. XD Man, this reaction is gonna be a treat!!!
I saw this movie when I was like 12 years old during summer. It randomly came on at like 3 AM and I was half-asleep and so confused.
That whole thing about the Mormons going to the bug planet is what started the war with the bugs. It forced the bugs to throw a meteor at earth.
I always thought they used the meteor as a reason to go to war with the bugs because it seemed impossible to send a meteor from one side of the galaxy to the other without crashing it into a different planet
Forced?
Basically, Paul Verhoeven took the book, which is about civic duty and sacrificing for your fellow man, and said, "Well... this is fascism."
Meaning he had no idea what the book was about at all. Seriously, the original book presented a society that was about as far from fascistic as you could get, and Verhoeven couldn't get past the "veterans are the only ones who can vote." Thing is, in the book a "veteran" wasn't necessarily the military, but anyone who had worked in the civil service and risked their lives to make society better.
The film is entertaining, but it has nothing to do with Heinlein's novel, other than sharing a name.
A good friend working at _Studio ADI_ took me on a tour of the shop when this was in pre-production.¹ I got the see the brainbug. It was not only true to size, but disgustingly gorgeous!
*Loved the ad!* 😄
··•✺•··
¹ ─ As well as _Alien³_
In this episode we feature a series of battles between Imperial Guard and Tyrranids featuring GW's new line of baby face heroes.
It’s literally just a grey uniform.
Also I am of the morality that I will always stand with my species.
Starship Troopers is actually a book. Which is on the recommended list reading for people who join the US military.
Honestly I thought it was impossible to miss the fascism allegory (literally 'SS' troopers), but apparently some people think this is just a fun war movie. 🤷 🤷 I'm glad that you were in tune with what the film was putting out there.
To be honest, it sometimes take a second watching for it to become obvious.
@Léo VK to be honest it takes a complete lack of understanding of the Nazis or the SS to make a connection outside of the uniforms.
@@nicolivoldkif9096 Well, I think the connection is obvious once you rewatch the movie knowing that that was Verhoeven intention all along to have the human ruled by a fascist government, and the humans the expansionist bad guys who started a war with insects living peacefully on their own planets.
@Léo VK you really need to rewatch the movie yourself. That was the goal of PVH, but he should have read the book beforehand and selected a different one to do this satire with as he tried to create a fascist satire using a libertarian wet dream as a base.
For example, the Terran Federation gave 2 fucks that the mormons who ignored their quarantine of Arachnid territory died. It was only when the Arachnids launched a strategic attack on humans because of their inability to comprehend and society that was not uniform in thoughts and goals. So yes PVH was desperately trying to create that narrative, he failed because the source material was not what he thought it was. Frankly PVH understanding of fascism is you have a military, your a Fascist.
You guys do know that there are at least two more film’s in this series, including one that features the reappearance of Johnny Rico.
The guy who was hiding in the cabinet was in Total Recall the mutant Kuato.
Oh yay! More Paul Verhoeven goodness, and so much fun.
(His movie Hollow Man, starring Kevin Bacon, is a neat dark thriller; a take on The Invisible Man horror story.)
Sound department as well. I dunno why I love the soundtrack to Starship Troopers but the theme song kinda gets me pumped.
I saw this when it came out (I was around 12) and I got the fascism commentary; it was always funny how a lot of adults were talking about how it "glorified" fascism; one of those moments in which I realized that adults are not smarter really... (south park film was another one)
It's a scary realisation as a kid that a lot of adults are actually dumb. 😆
You’re correct, re: the humans being the bad guys, and being fascists. Verhoeven was a kid during the German occupation of the Netherlands and has vivid memories of Allied forces bombing German military installations near his family’s home in The Hague, and of German military itself. Some people make “Hope and Glory” in response (John Boorman). Verhoeven made “Starship Troopers.” They’re both great.
Between this and Robocop you've seen Verhoeven's amazing achievement of decent budget AND satirical social commentary.. He poured so much to overflowing on these two projects alone.
FUN FACT: 7:30 That's the great Clancy Brown, voice of many characters including Mr. Krabs in SpongeBob Squarepants.
Please watch STAR TREK 🖖
Only if it's original Star Trek.
Just not the first movie.
The planetary defenses were one year later. Same with them being at war. They said one year earlier when they flashed back to Johnny being in school. And then also going to military boot camp. That was all before they had planetary defenses.
After first seeing this I could never get over how stupidly big their guns were, like how heavy would they be
As someone who read the book a long time before this movie was made... I was eager to see the movie and then realized that the movie was almost completely unlike the book. There are a few themes that remain and, to be honest, the "Would you like to know more" bit is a good meme. But as someone who enjoyed the book, it was a bit of a let down.
The film has a completely different take on things than the book from what I heard: the book is a pro-military utopia, while this film is a subtle (well, not that subtle at times) anti-propaganda masterpiece playing tricks with the audience's mind to have them root for what are clearly the bad guys.
Not to say the book isn't good, I've heard it has a LOT of fans, I've never read it. I like the movie very much.
@@leovk5779 I have read the book. It's not what you think it is. You should try reading it, before trying to talk about what you've heard might possibly be in it.
@@BlackHawk4698 Could you describe the book, so that we can compare the different themes of the book and the movie?
@@leovk5779 No, I think you should read it for yourself. Otherwise I'd just be perpetuating exactly what I'm asking you not to do.
Kudos to George for pronouncing Paul Verhoeven so correctly. You're the smartest, cutest couple/non couple out there. What a difference a border makes.
One of my favorite films of all time right here.
This is gonna be fun. Back when it came out, I was too young to get it and I took everything shown at face value. As a German, especially the uniforms of the high-ranking officers had me repulsed, they very much resemble Nazi uniforms. So I thought this movie promoted fascism, haha. Boy, was I wrong. ^^
The zerg were based on the tyranids in Warhammer 40K, which in turn were probably influenced by the "bugs" in the novel Starship Troopers.
Paul Verhoeven made a whole lot of great movies.
You have seen some of his work (Total Recall, Robocop) but I can definitely recommend the Thriller Basic Instinct (1992) with Michael Douglas which made the actress Sharon Stone famous and his earlier film Flesh and Blood (1985) with Rutger Hauer (Blade Runnner) which was a more realistic take on medieval times then people were probably used to.
Quite a few naughty scenes, you may have to blur a bit more than usual 😉