"I want to make a movie so painfully obvious in its satire that everyone who understands it lives in perpetual psychological torment inflicted on them by all the people who don't." --Paul Verhoeven, 1996
He failed. The world he build looks cool as hell. With heroes. There’s no reason to believe they aren’t fighting a defensive war. Unless your a 9/11 truther.
@@dannyf1168 Asteroids tend to travel at about one thousand miles per hour. Light speed is about 670.6 million miles per hour. A light year is traveling at light speed for 8,766 hours. Hence, one light year is approximately 5.88 billion miles of travel. The Arachnid Quarantine Zone, specifically the Planet Klendathu, is on the opposite side of the Milky Way Galaxy, which is approx. one hundred thousand light years. Meteorites fly faster than asteroids and according to FedNet, orbital missile platforms neutralize them before they enter our atmosphere. With all that in mind, they can see meteorites coming, but not asteroids? If those meteorites, none the less the asteroid that wiped out Buenos Ares, were launched by the bugs from the Klendathu system, it would mean that those supposed attacks would have been launched before the federation, and possibly mankind as a whole, even existed; which is totally barring the suuuuper advanced math that the bugs would need to even aim for such a distance. TL;DR: The Buenos Ares attack was a false flag and the Federation are global fascists that need to start wars to keep their society in order.
It's meant to be an anti Iraq war piece that pointed out that terrorism leads to facist talking points and support. And needs to be protected at all costs.
The movie was literally created with the meta narrative being "this is the type of movie the Terran Federation would produce to make itself look good." It's supposed to be in-universe propaganda. The irony that the American Empire produces similar movies as earnest propaganda is not lost on me.
Interesting. And where did you gleem this "meta narrative" from? Any interviews or commentaries because that seems like 100% assumption. The film shows ZERO signs that the military or the government covers up, distorts, hides any information from the rest of humanity/or the viewer. Nothing makes them actually "look good" when they're slaughtered and are unrecognizable bloody pieces covering the terrain as far as the eye can see. The military leader who bungled the invasion accepts full responsibility and steps down and let's a new leader with a new plan take over. The main character doesn't get the girl, he loses the one he wants and loses the one that wants him. Not exactly a "happy ending" Is it possible, you're just wrong?
I was a little too young to understand the satire the first time I saw Starship Troopers, it aged like a fine wine as I realized what it’s really about. Great movie my Dad shared with me.
In summary, this reminds me of the people who believe that in Star Wars, the US is represented by the Rebels, and not, as it clearly is, by the Empire.
100000% the prequels even go deep in 2000s politics. the clone wars are about an aging republic that was once good, that has become corrupt, waging a war against terrorists, where the “good guys” the Jedi become the “bad guys”, having their ideals corrupted by joining in a galactic war, leading to them not seeing the obvious threat of the huge clone army run by one person, and the good just republic founded on freedom becomes an evil empire. It’s very clear. Palpatine wages a war against himself, via his proxy he created in the confederacy and trade federation. funding both sides via the banking guilds which he had ties to. It’s about America in Afghanistan and Iraq. Fighting a proxy America created, to benefit the elite, wallstreet and corporations. And it’s eventual fall to fascism.
...But that's the point. The US is BOTH the rebels and the Empire. The US starts out as a revolution against the evil empire, then builds up and struggles with its internal contradictions and then becomes the evil empire.
It's fascinating that a satire as unsubtle as "Starship Troopers" still goes over people's head, including film critics. A good number of viewers simply cannot think about what they're consuming.
Weird how seasoned film critics aren't "media literate" enough. Also, the film critics who DID see it as a satire also HATED the movie. To paraphrase one review "it was a stupid idea to make a movie where we're supposed to hate all the characters".
@@treborkroy5280.....everyone that sees him has already sworn the fucking oath of service lmao. He isn't an army recruitment officer dingbat, just a low level secretary.
@@ProletariatPrince is just for show, even the teacher had a prosthetic when he's seen later. Should read the book to get an idea why they have the amputees out front
For those confused about the meteor attack, both in the book and the movie, the bugs were responsible. THE issue is the HUGE plothole that is due to the bug home planet being on the opposite side of the galaxy means in reality the bugs COULDN'T have possibly be responsible due to the millions of years light has to travel to reach Earth. So many people have come up with the head canon that the meteor strike was either a false flag attack or a freak accident (a product of incompetence what were orbital defenses doing?) and blamed on the bugs.
Truer words were never said, BUT, I'm just going to say how I feel and that's that the science holds out, not only would the bugs need to correctly compensate for the constant movement of the earth AND the alleged launch site, any obstacles in the missile trajectory, how insanely precise the shot needs to be over that distance, and that FTL travel capacity for the asteroid would be needed for it to take less than 2 million years (if it was to mean anything in response to any earlier action by humans), there's the simple fact that shooting one asteroid at a time at that slow speed was clearly not enough to do anything more than kick the human hornet's nest and say "Hello, how are you, we're declaring war" and you have to agree that all of that amounting to a deliberate attack makes no sense 😆 So I grant you this was the intent of both sources but people always run with these ideas as implications of the writing just for fun, and based on evidence the asteroid is either a freak accident, a false flag ruse, or if it is an attack by them it's an indication of the Arachnids' level of technology being very early space age (akin to our only means of space travel being one rocket every few years instead of managing to produce a full space fleet) Obligatory Helldivers 2 reference is (almost) obligatory here but the plot hole is closed up by Super Earth justifying war with the Terminids because the subtext reveals they 1. can be farmed and harvested for the oil that enables FTL travel for their ships and they would be screwed if they lose access to this resource, and 2. They were dumb enough in the first place to raise them like cattle and increase their populations/fast track their evolution to a point that they become a threat to the population of any planet they happen to be on, so they're reaping what they've sown and have to defend themselves. And I say "happen to be on" because the other plot hole of how they spread to other planets is covered by lore in suggesting they were carried from planet to planet by humans for the purposes of generating and maximising their fuel supply, and so it works 😅 So the game does a better job of criticising our capitalist/military-industrial complex world as much as it matches S.T.'s ridicule of a hypothetical but worryingly possible fascist, authoritarian, military dictatorship I hope you would agree with the head canon 😊
But it's sci-fi, and the canon is that the meteor WAS sent by the bugs. Even Verhoeven agrees with that, and Heinlein literally wrote that. If you find the answer unsatisfying, well, it's sci-fi magic. You don't have the option to create a complex conspiracy based on things that are not present in the book or movie, and then assert that is the "true" meaning. No, it's a fan theory. it's the equivalent of Game of Thrones fans asserting that there is a time travelling fetus.
what an odd piece of propaganda to show, the main character doesn't get the girl, the military fails multiple times, the war isn't won by the end of the film, it's just hinted that they have a better chance. You'd think they'd make the propaganda a little more pristine and perfect instead of showing what we all saw.
@@treborkroy5280 "what an odd piece of propaganda to show," - Arguably. "the main character doesn't get the girl" - But has a chance of dying for a noble cause. How does that compare to indulging in a high school crush? "the military fails multiple times" - But the war goes on. We shouldn't lose hope in the face of a single failure. Or several. "the war isn't won by the end of the film, it's just hinted that they have a better chance." - Which means we all still have a chance to do our part. I question your faith, and your patriotism as a citizen of the Federation. "You'd think they'd make the propaganda a little more pristine and perfect instead of showing what we all saw." - I think the best arguments for that are the grotesque violence, and the motif of disfigured veterans who've clearly suffered for their service. But we could imagine that hypothetical Federation propagandists making such a film might think that mixing in some of the horrors of war might grant the movie some credibility, and strengthen the message. Or they so take those realities of life for granted that they don't consider that the audience might find them offputting. Or they think the only way to bring those horrors to an end is Victory,.
@@treborkroy5280I've seen you reply to a bunch of comments and I can't tell if you're truly that lost or are a very committed troll. It is structured as a propaganda film in many of its segments, but yes, its story deliberately undermines the propaganda in pretty obvious over the top ways so that anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together can get the lampooning of fascism is so clearly demonstrating.
@@Fantallana If you can't prove a point, just use lame insults huh? It's not fun having your opinion of something that feels so sure do a 180. I was fully sure the film was a satire of fascism for many years until I heard a convincing argument against it and I now fully agree it is not. I've watched the film many times since then trying to prove my new opinion wrong and I haven't been able to so far. I can only find one single solitary monent of the film where any disingenuous action, one lie/obfuscation of reality or cohercing someone to do anything they don't want to do...and it's Neil's character giving Rico a telepathic nudge to choose one tunnel over another leading bugs away from another team that was close to capturing the brain bug successfully. Aside from that, no lie or twisting of any truth was displayed for the audience to see. Any you can't find one either.
Its so funny how there are people who claim that "Starship troopers" is not parody for fascist propaganda and say shit like: "communists see themselves as bugs LMAO".
@@gr0mit948 we’re talking about the movies, the movie was created as a counter to the actual book which portrays the yeehaw style fascism as a good thing
Starship Troopers is a gem and it sucks thar we probably won't see a movie such as it be made ever again. The sequels are such an affront to what this movie was. Such a shame, but the OG will always be special.
Well, the third film did really play into the fascism, fanatic religion and so on. But the production quality was very low. Interestingly it was Neumeier that wrote all three movies.
I love anything Paul Verhoven does ever since I first saw Robocop as a kid in the 80's. Total Recall was another great and incredibly bloody movie of his and nobody does gory squib work like he does. I had my dad take me to see this film when I was 16 and have loved it ever since. It lampoons fascism as well as Robocop skewered the Reagan era.
Funny you mention it because Verhoeven didn't want to do another VFX heavy movie, and Arnie (who had saved Total Recall from development hell) had to talk him in to doing to picture. Verhoeven then desperately tried to write out all the action, and had to be pushed back into making the movie we saw. Robocop has the same screen writer as Starship Troopers by the way.
I was a non English speaking pre pubescent child when i watched it on cable first time, and even back then i thought it was an over the top action comedy...
I watched this movie when it came out, while I was in the Army, stationed in Germany, with 1ID Infantrymen, after a one month FTX in Grafenwöhr…none of them understood it. Not the uniforms, not the officer with no legs and missing a hand, not the propaganda and definitely not the fascism. /whoosh before there was /whoosh
I love how Helldivers is causing Starship Troopers to get more attention recently. Obvious I love Starship Troopers and I love that it invites commentary, regardless of how bad some takes on it are.
The irony of course being that the intention of Heinlein's novel was to be though provoking and challenge liberal ideas, while Verhoeven (so he claims) just wanted to call everyone fascists.
You can look at classical art and think "This is beautiful. I love it". That is a normal response. Fascists look at classical art not for its beauty, but because "WE made this, and THEY can't, that is why we are superior". It is never about beauty, it is about showing supremacy. There is nothing behind that alleged adoration, it is just means to an end. For them beauty is a tool to push their agenda, not a goal in itself.
Imagine watching this movie after knowing Verhoeven made Robocop and not getting it. It's basically an in universe propaganda film meant to inspire people to enlist.
@@The1Ryu They...Do? You don't get any rights to say how the society in which you live under and its laws are designed unless you gain citizenship. Positions of power require it before even looking at you. Fascist states don't just force everyone to join up because that leads to massive unrest. Instead, many like the Federation make it a patriotic duty that provides immense benefits upon completion. If your only chance at a future is to join the military because your society is built around that then that's conscription with the aesthetics of free choice.
@@aaroncarter4019 That's not conscription. Yes many states, both fascist and otherwise, in the modern day have conscription and mandatory military service, and they do not have massive unrest. The only thing gained via military service in Starship Troopers is the duty to vote. In correct in the movie Rico's parents are incredibly wealth and privileged, but not only are they not citizens, they denigrate citizenship.
@@The1Ryu You seem to see conscription as bad but not understand the underlying issues that make a system that pushes everyone save for the wealthiest to join the military. It's the thinnest degree of separation with conscription. You can't just say they don't get to vote as if their inability to make any change to the system that governs them is nothing. If the veterans wanted they could vote to strip all none citizens of wealth or force them to dedicate it all to the federation's military funding and they would have no legal say on the matter.
The best bad argument I seen was one guy said the director always failed at making a depiction of a bad world. And used RoboCop as an example. 😂😂 He continued in replies to argue that yes he would like a RoboCop future.
In starship troopers, it is very purposeful to make it look good (in certain ways), like all characters being attractive and developed fancy technology.
Verhoeven claims he chose handsome actors because "moar nazi" but actually the movie was planned to spend most of its budget on practical effects and big set piece action scenes, so getting any big name actors was out of the question anyway. Instead, they hired TV actors who were cheap, and then alternated between claiming this was a stylistic choice and claiming the movie would have been better if they had cast better actors. Two excuses that are mutually exclusive, and neither of which is true.
Worth adding - The only reason Verhoeven made Total Recall was because Arnie was really pushing the project. Verhoeven was never given the budget for big names.
The Imperium of Man is not "good" as opposed to evil, it is "order" as opposed to chaos. It is not a good institution, it is the only institution there is.
Erm, no, they aren't. We see a couple of veterans who are wounded. But we see hundreds (literally) of adults in the movie and only a handful have prosthetics.
Not gonna lie, this movie got me. I understand what it is, but it will always have a soft spot in my heart. I’m also a vet, and doing well in life. We don’t always end up on the street and broken.
The book and movie were made by 2 different people with different visions. That's like using Zack Sanders Justice league to explain Justice league unlimited.
Its my all-time favorite movie. I saw it in theater when I was a teenager and didn't understand the satire. I loved it unironically, it fed into my nationalism, and I wanted to be Rico. As an adult it's still my favorite movie cause as a lefty I now totally understand how much the movie makes fun of nationalism and those easily swept up by it. The fact that it duped me makes it more profound and transformative for me.
The movie really doesn't say anything about nationalism. The bugs are shown as a force of nature at first and then as a species unwilling to negotiate by the end, nationalism has nothing to do with either point.
@@The1Ryu nationalism is a hyper tribalistic movement that incorporates ultra militaristic culture and can often lead to genocide. One of the main aspects of genocide is the dehumanization of the enemy to the point where the enemy is viewed as vermin or BUGS that need to be eradicated. "The only good bug is a dead bug!" The humans are the bad guys in Starship Troopers. They're territorial, genocidal, imperialistic, nationalists.
@@The1Ryu why not the bugs? It can be argued that the bugs are acting in self defense and that the humans are the aggressors. Even the attack on Buenos Aires is very likely a false flag operation committed by the humans to justify invading the bugs.
Starship troops (the film) was a bad parody. it also wasn't marketed as a parody when it released to theaters, it was marketed as a streight film adaptation. The director Paul Verhoeven admitted that he only read a few pages of the book before tossing it. Studio just let it slide knowing that your average movie go'er had never even heard of Robert Heinlein
He just heard it was facist and didn't even read the book his producer did, Robert Heinlein was a goofy ww2 vet liberal/progressive democrat but was anti communist. Whats funny is Paul did the book what critics did to his movie
starship troopers is the closest thing to a mobile suit gundam film we will ever have in terms of the sci-fi aesthetic and the way the effects are done and politics. But Gundams far more subtle and less campy.
Watching starship troopers as a kid I and many of my peers I've talked to about the movie actually reached the same conclusion as the "bad thread" the satire is in a lot of ways too high minded, in the sense that it's most clear a s a critique to people who ALREADY are anti war and anti fascist. To others, it can have the opposite effect.
9.95 strong disagree. The very idea, that fascists are just ‘different’ and ‘unable to detect nuance’ is a fascist thing to say and disregards Hannah Arendt notion of the banality of evil, meaning that almost anyone can be a bad person under the right circumstances. The word capacity in this context is some straight up Hans Lander Mr Candy shit. I have a failsafe, where you can take any sentence, and if you replace the substantive through another, like ‘gay’ or ‘Jew’ and it then sounds iffy, it was a bad sentence to begin with. Play that game with these tweets. See how it sounds. Fascism usually rises, because people are desperate and it gives them a clear, unnuanced blueprint to follow, along with a common enemy acting as a scapegoat. It’s not that people lack the capacity to detect nuance. It’s that they turn a blind eye to it, because the ideology seems to solve their problems and nuance gets in the way of that.
Honestly, i saw this in high school at about age 16 or 17. Loved it. Still do. But i didn't really get the message. THE NEXT DAY, a classmate said "they're Nazis" and immediately I was like "oh, shit, you're right." I did get a bit stung seeing NPH in a full Nazi outfit, but all it took was somebody saying "no, that was the point" to put it all in the correct perspective. I was never the brightest when it came to anthropology, but at that point in my life, i didnxt take interest in general anthropology.
8:40 first time watching this dude's video. wtf are you even trying to say? That the recruiter dude lost his legs because he joined a fascist military? So if he joined a normal defensive military with no fascistic purpose, then he would not have lost his limbs? Yes starship trooper society is fascist and fascists are bad, that's all true. But you also cannot string a coherent sentence together.
I don't know what's happened recently, but their is a disturbing trend of people who need all media to unsubtlety spell themselves out for their audience. People seem allegeric to ambiguity and nuance.
Actually it seems to be the opposite - We are seeing people asserting things that are not actually in the movie are actually fully canon, and any reading without it is incorrect. Like, in this case, asserting that the humans attacked the bugs first (which is directly contradicted by the movie), or that the asteroid was a false flag (also directly contradicted). When you are refusing to engage with things that the piece of media tells you, you are not being media literate, you are being a conspiracy theorist. "If I just ignore all the things that happen, this movie is a perfect satire of capitalism" is not a very strong line of reasoning.
@@lostalone9320 that's not at all what a conspiracy theory is. Getting something wrong about a movie is just being incorrect intentionally or not. It's no different than mishearing a song lyric.
@@kap1618 No, people have complex theories about how actually the Federation sent the asteroid that destroyed Buenos Aires. This is not because they "missed" that the movie tells us that it was sent by the bugs. It's that they firmly (aggressively even) believe that the movie lied to them about it, and actually it's all a false flag as a pretext for war with the bugs. The movie gives absolutely no evidence for this theory whatsoever, and even the idiot of a director says that the bugs sent the asteroid. But that does not stop those "media literates" from saying that this is in fact the intended message. This is a common and popular interpretation of the film. But every single part of this theory is totally fabricated, and we see absolutely none of it on the screen. It is a literal theory about a conspiracy, all just to back up the idea that the Federation is evil, and even when the movie tells us that this is not correct, they just ignore the movie and claim that their imagination is correct.
@@lostalone9320 What your describing is a fan theory which is a common thing amongst tv shows. If you want an actual conspiracy theory then you can ask why is that this movie is now being used as more culture war bs? Not helping the fact that people seem to get really offended by any piece of media that condemns N*zism or fascism. If you want to call this movie a bad satire of fascism or N*zism then fine but for some reason saying N*zis are bad rubs certain people online the wrong way.
That clip really sums it up; We clearly see that veteran has a fully mechanical, articulated hand, a feat of crazy engineering. However, he has no legs; mechanical legs would be EASIER to implement/construct than a fully articulated hand. But he does not have any, why? Because the state (the Federation) doesn’t see him as an individual person, whose quality of life matters. He’s a cog, legs are superfluous to requirement. THAT’S the commentary
The bugs being able to launch asteroids is only partially explained. There are larger tanker variants we see able to launch plasma into space... as for calculations and shit? No clue. Might be something like Brain Bugs doing calculations and doing psychic Rachni stuff to communicate to bugs across systems in a relay.
@@Gortboy2k11 there are also space bugs and FTL travel in a sci-fi movie in which a biology teacher jacks plugs into her cyborg face. The explanation I saw was that they used the plasma to knock asteroids into a flight path. It's all hokey but whatever.
@@Virjunior01 yeah the “Skinnies” were humanoid aliens that ended up helping the humans once they were saved. The movie lacks so much context to why the bugs are like this and skipped over their mind control abilities. There is so much missing to help add to the story 😭
I watched SST for the first time when I was like 7-10, even then I got then subtext and meaning behind what they were saying. To see people asking, or taking the stuff in this film at face value hurts my soul. Its a fantastic film, and depressing to see people willingly choose fascism…
Fascism isn’t to do with war, all regimes wage war, it’s about social traditionalism fused with left wing economics. In other words, socialism that is confined to a nation/people and not enforced on all other nations/peoples. Life is an aesthetic project, we should aim to fill it with beauty. The one thing that makes life worth living, is that which inspires passion. Art and beauty inspire passion in the observer. Love is a subordinate aspect of passion. There’s a reason why people are so depressed in the meaningless, ugly, leftist cities.
@@ANTIStraussian well that’s just a declaration, unfortunately for you, it Is not a declaration rooted in fact. As I said, all regimes wage war, you’d be silly to say otherwise. Communists constantly sought expansion through their ideological project of the “global proletarian revolution”. Liberal regimes invaded countries to spread “democracy” and egalitarianism, that just so happen to benefit them territorially. The only reason that you associate fascism with war is because the only regimes that were fascist had rightful irredentist claims on territory that they had lost because of the treaty of Versailles and prior wars. Fascism is just nationalism (the idea that all peoples have a right to a homeland and sovereignty) with a left wing economic flavour to it. War is not unique to any system of politics, try again.
@@ANTIStraussian no, I don’t. It’s also not even fascist 😂 it’s more akin to the liberal anti-national project United States of America or the Russian federation than any real fascist government. For instance, you cannot have a multinational fascist state because that is an oxymoron, you also would not have mixed showers for men and women, the government is so far from fascism that I’m not even sure Paul Verhoeven knows what fascism is (or if he has even read the book for that matter). He has inadvertently just made a very good movie that satirises the global American empire, with a thin fascist façade, which is pretty funny really.
@@ANTIStraussian Do you not see the parallels with the establishment of Israel, the forced removal of Palestinians and the establishment of an American ally in a region which is not theirs (the Mormon colony), 911 (the attack on Buenos Aires) and then the invasion of klendathu (the invasion of Iraq). The federation is literally the USA.
Love that the ones who were given the novel and told to do something with it, together with the actors and writers hated the original novel and the shithead who wrote it, that they completely turned on it. And yes, the OG novel writer held speeches är seminars, which all had the tendency to go straight to "might makes right, and here is why..." Love the first film. Take care all, Kind regards, Solo - Sweden
@@SamUtley-pb9um Brother, I know libertarians whom are a knife edge from being all sorts of things, racists, Nazis, fascists, socialists, capitalists etc etc Being a libertarian is a bit like loving freedom, who doesn't? AND you can believe in social darwinism at the same time:) This is not dunking on you brother, simply stating the fact being "libertarian" these past hundred years is a bit like the word republican. It used to mean "I Don't want a king or queen to rule, the people knows what people needs, kings and queens only knows what they want and consequences be damned" By the original definition, I am a republican, but I wouldn't vote for the party or any politician until they give me some stuff we actually need, instead of just inventing problems which can be "solved" by "something" (private prisons, hospitals, Elon Musk's Tesla tunnels/fire hazard), something that will first be built with tax payer money, privati,de and given to highest "bidder"/donor (whom can give you benefits after your terms as a politician, like the guy at FDA who helped aprove Oxycodone as "non addictive" he quit FDA and is now working for the wackier family with a VERY impressive paycheck and strange benefits...hmm:) Until then, I'd vote for the lesser evil...or slightly lesser evil, I am in no way a Democratic party fan. So, I'm an OG republican, but also progressive leftie who thinks we should always stick together, vote once every two/four years, but real change, comes with being in a Union, join unions and band together so that the real people (ie not politicians and definitely not shitty libertarian/social darwinist/ fascist sci-fi writers:) Wish you the best brother, Solo
Verhoeven was TERRIBLE at making satire. He didn't understand the one major fundamental element of satire. You have to make fun of the thing you are satirizing. He didn't do it in Robocop and he didn't do it in Starship Troopers. In fact he did the opposite in both cases.
Iiiii would have to at least put it out there that it is the extreme degrees to which the society goes to respond to issues, such as licenses to start a family and the death sentence in less than 24 hours to create a false sense of justice, plus the idea of sending thousands to their death in mass ground movements instead of orbital bombardment to the max, would, especially in the late 90's be considered ridiculous and heavy-handed to the point that it's obviously worthy of ridicule and get some laughs. Verhoeven lived through a Nazi occupation and wanted to explicitly decry fascism, but at the same time wanted to create a convincingly deadpan 90's action film while also slyly subverting The Hero's Journey to become one of an unambitious young man's transformation into a "'useful idiot" in a fascist machine, and i think that last one is brilliantly done. Other cases of dark/black humour achieve the same in a similar deadpan manner like in Always Sunny in Philadelphia - for "The Gang" where they always believe thenselves to be in the right, the penny almost never drops and it usually ends with them giving up any attempt at change and going back to their assholish ways. The movie was predicated on the idea that this would be a nightmarish way to live and "thank goodness that we've hopefully leared our lesson and that will likely never happen again!", I reckon the only reason the movie didn't succeed the way it wanted to was because nazi sympathies never truly went away but pushed into hiding, people had had their fill of Vietnam movies and receiving anti-war films in a different manner but jingoism and racism/othering were still alive and well in politics, and Americans in particular were on an upward trajectory of becoming desensitised to violence - Case in point, you would have thought at least that the movie would perform well because of all the crazy action scenes or "The guy that made Robocop made it" 🤷♂️ Granted it could also have underperformed because it was assumed to be too sincere in its evocation of Nazi imagery in a kinder world, but I'm basing it off of more recent events, we wouldn't have gotten the return of such extreme far-right politics if there weren't people out there working to bring it back and people who could be motivated to join based on such hateful premises
@@thebackup2121 The problem with this kind of interpretation is that it assumes that people would rather live the way we are currently living than be a badass military hero protecting all of humanity from violent space bugs. We know people would rather lie to themselves and do things that make themselves feel good than live like crap and do things that make themselves feel bad. I'm sorry but he really just did make it too appealing. He was bad at satire.
@@SomeCanine You mentioned a fundamental element of satire is making fun of what you're satirizing. I don't think that is required for a satire. The Boys, while funny, takes its subject matter seriously. If you're making fun of something, my first thought is Blazing Saddles, which falls into a gre area of parody and satire.
Am I the only one who thought it was just a cool action film when I watched it at 12 years of age? That it was satire was completely lost on me but in my defence, I was not aware of the context.
Yeah I was ~10-12yo first time I watched it. I understood it was campy and tongue-in-cheek, but the level of satire completely went over my head. I just thought it was a fun, cool, slightly self-aware action movie that looked like the cutscenes in Command and Conquer games.
I feel like the movie would be way more understandable if they cut the runtime in half and ended it after the first battle. Like the message would be way more apparent if the final moments of the film were all the characters we’ve grown to know and care for all die off helpless and screaming on the orders of overconfident and incompetent leadership.
“If they don’t hold their leaders accountable.” Did…did he not really watch the movie where the previous commander resigned over the massive failure of the Klendathu drop?
That's a military operation failure. He's not being held accountable over the systems and rules governing the whole fascistic society. He couldn't anyway. He is a commander in the military. The narrator isn't referring to military leadership. It's political leadership. Come on man.
@@apcfire Yes, a military operation failure which led to accountability by the person in charge. The nerve to sit there and claim the system is fascistic and doesn't hold anybody to account only to say, "oh well I didn't mean THAT leadership role under fascistic rule" when met with an example of the opposite of what you say, is insane. No, he gave you a brilliant example, you don't get to just say "no", especially when we're talking about a role in the damn military of a "fascist" system.
I've never seen Starship Troopers, but that scene with the disabled vet isnt funny and therefore we shouldnt think about it anymore, its funny because you have to think about it further lmao. Its also, yes, hilariously unsubtle, because its a joke lol.
It is painful to watch Hasan recklessly assign fascist sympathy to the twitter poster while basically agreeing with the ultimate point of the twitter poster. I personally love the movie as a comedy and parody. But as a political work it fails. The fascists win. And to fascists who don't care to engage with its deeper themes, its also a great movie that reinforces their world view. And if Hasan believes liberals will also take away from the movie that fascism looks good, it has failed in the extreme as a work of satire. Because Hasan is basically acknowledging that the only people who recognize its antifascist are already ardently antifascist and everyone else is suckered into the aesthetics of fascism.
The director may have intended to satirise fascism with that thin veneer, but he just ended up making a movie that satirises the liberal, egalitarian project that is the United States of America.
Ya'll really gotta listen to JREG's I wanna die in a war? It's a darth of meaning in their life, and desire to have a purpose and find beauty at any cost.
Starship Troopers makes it seem appealing to the monkey brain, until you see how most of the older veterans are disabled, wounded, scarred, or mangled. There are very few untouched older folk in the whole movie. That sends a message, of the human price for Stratocracy. Heinlein's original work is very problematic, but a bit more nuanced. Because Heinlein himself is problematic, but a bit more nuanced. He was of the firm belief that democracy should only be participated by people who serve it in some manner, and was appaled at US withdrawal from Vietnam. Conversely, he was also a gender abolitionist, feminist, and liberal on many other aspects, even a nudist. He believed the ideal society was post-gender, post-race Militarized Direct Democracy. Of course, he overlooked that any democracy that starts to be molded by a militaristic hierarchy eventually takes on more fascist elements ipso facto. Another work that was hevily inspired by Heinlein, to many people's surprise, but makes more sense when you think about his work; is Star Trek. Would you like to know more?
They are there to show recruits the reality of their choice. It's explained in book but since the director didn't bother to read it, he included parts he didn't understand and clearly you dont either. You're missing the obvious point of deterring those who don't truly want that path. It would be true if they NEVER showed the veterans and what happened to them. Hiding the bad from the new recruits and they don't do that, AT ALL.
@kroy5280 I wouldn't be balefully judging others based on presupposition. I actually grew up on Heinlein's work, and have respect for his nuanced view more than most I wager. I get his concepts, I do not agree with most, but I understand his idea of informed consent and sacrifice needed for purer democracy. Then again, his ideas also change from Starship Troopers to Stranger in a Strange Land, and his later short stories; which he carefully outlines his 'responsible citizen'; I doubt you read beyond the first paragraph of my comment. I also understand what Verhoeven was trying to do. His work doesn't really critique the Stratocratic Liberalism of Heinlein, because there has not been a society like that on Earth, it is a speculative society, like Plato's Republic. Verhoeven instead uses the premise as a jumping off point to critique military industrial complex and its effects on a democracy. I mean if you have a gripe about that, the book also doesn't have a propaganda channel because all citizens naturally know their rights come from their participation in their democracy, and that not all who enlist are soldiers, many being public workers and volunteers. Then again, Heinlein was a man of nuances and fine lines, one cannot call him one thing or another without reducing whole aspects of his worldview.
@@HierophanticRose "to critique military industrial complex and it's effects on democracy" At what point in the film does the director in any way shape or form give a critique on the industrial military complex and how it affects democracy? I feel like you and many many others are reading between lines that aren't there and superimposing a ton of assumptions onto the work. Give one example of one of these critiques of the military and how it affects democracy. I'm curious to hear what you'll decide to use to attempt to prove it's there. Nearly every character in the film goes out of their way to deter the main character from joining. His father, his teacher, the people you first meet when recruiting, visibly maimed from whatever they encountered, all there to deter him. And he on his own volition, his own choice signs up. No one glamorized the military, no one mad it "sexy" it looked honest, and real. At no point was democracy affected negatively by the military engaging in military action against a blatant existential threat to humans and the Earth. They call for volunteers, not conscripts. Not slaves, not forced or coherence but encouraged to join to literally help save the human race. No leader twisted rules, told lies, deceived the human race about any aspect of the war. The death tolls were true, the video were uncensored. And the leader responsible for the failure and loss of human life took responsibility PUBLICLY and resigned allowing a new leader and a new plan to go forward. How....fascistic of these people huh?
@kroy5280 Speaking strictly of the movie, it is blatantly implying that unchecked military will create forever wars. It IS in between the lines because we are essentially watching it from the perspective of the soldiers. Which is why it cuts to the propaganda channel. We do not know if the asteroid came from the Arachnids, nor do we know if the war is one of defense or offense, or somewhere in between. In fact, the very reason of his trepidation of joining in the beginning, his family's trepidation, and the little tidbits dropped here and there all show this. It is open to interpretation on purpose, but the movie is definitively not pro militarized democracy. This is only the case for the movie however, in the book it is clear the Arachnids are an enemy, that the youth know by in large what is at stake, and that there is no propaganda, and the military is not one of industrial and corporate lobbying, but an advanced version of a 'Citizen Army', tied to the republic and its ideals. So, trying to meld the book and movie and saying "The movie says X but the book says Y, so the understanding is wrong" is comparing apples or oranges. After a certain point, only thing common between the two is the name and setting, movie in fact being more in line with Halderman's Forever War. Also f outta here with you people shit, approach what I say as an individual or do not approach you collectivist.
@@HierophanticRose My guy I've watched this movie too many times to not be able to counter everything you're saying. They do know where the meteors came from, it's clearly said in the film that they're being launched from an asteroid belt near the twin star of their solar system. Visual diagram and everything. It's not a false flag, it's an alien life that is behaving like how the Dark Forest Theory suggest. They encountered humans trying to start colonies on planets that at the time appeared barren. The arachnids were subterranean. After some human/big conflicts with colonists the bugs started launching meteors at Earth forcing earth to develop an orbital station to take out the constant volley of meteors. The only reason the first one hits earth is because the ship that sees it first had it's communications relay damaged otherwise they would have been warned and possibly prevented. Zero chance it was a "false flag" There's no indication of a "forever war" simply because the war wasn't resolved by the end of the film. It's how the book ends as well. You're projecting modern Bush era sentiments onto a story that predates the Iraq war by many decades. The wounded veterans are there as a deterrence for the young to want to join. Pay attention, when does any one actually try and cknvince Rico to enlist? Everyone, EVERYONE attempts to discourage him. There's no making the military sexy, it's brutally honest about it. Never once in the film does the military or the government mistreat, misinform, or mislead the citizens of earth, nearly every aspect of the war effort is transparent, from Neil's Nazi coated scientists gangs doings on to the generals war plans. They lose? The public knows. No obfuscation. Sorry you're just wrong. Try rewatching it again. And the cuts to the propaganda news stuff is just a Paul Verhoeven thing, it's used in Robocop and some in Total Recall. It isn't unique to Starship Troopers. There's no "ah see that's WHY there are propaganda films showing it's fascists!" when it's just an interesting way to give exposition to the story. Not some hidden, wink wink nod nod reasoning.
Idk why these comments and hasan don’t bring up the novel which is the original source material and is what most facists/nazis talk about when they speak on starship troopers yeah the film is satirical version but the source material is what most of those nazis mean they talk about the original source material being fascist
13:50 Not just fascism, but national identity horseshit... Most American action movies, even if globe or universe spanning, will have a white American in the lead role, and nobody else means as much. The same happens in most Japanese media of the same type, to the point where though it honestly was pointless, Solid Snake is half-Japanese.
@@The1Ryu not at all. Just that the most important character or the lone hero always has to be from their own nationality or culture to be "relatable." It subconsciously reinforces the idea that your country is the most important and has the best people.
@@Virjunior01 This is just projection, you think this and so you think everyone does, but most people don't. That's obvious because people all across the world identify with the heroes of American movies, hence why they are popular all over the world. Similarly, anime is popular in America despite the heroes being from a totally different nationality and culture. Before anime, Japanese and Chinese martial arts films were popular in the west as well.
@@The1Ryu you prove my point by saying what you just did. If America was the global heroic nationality, why isn't it used internationally? In lots of Korean stuff, Japanese people are "lesser" or "enemies." Why do you think that is? In 90s American movies, Arabs and Muslims were written almost exclusively as terrorist big bads... but in the 80s, at the end of the Cold War? You had Rambo fighting with the Muhajadin (who later became the Taliban) as brave soldiers helping America fight the Russians, who were the big bads of THAT era. You miss a lot by not thinking. It's a documented FACT that the US Military would not participate with personnel or equipment unless they were portrayed in a generally positive light. Think. When was the last time you saw an American movie in which "military" or government were the bad guys before Oppenheimer went there 5%? It was always _internal._ As in Conspiracy Theory with Mel Gibson, American government versus one dude... an underdog story. Same with a TV show like The X-Files. Or JFK and Ruby, both tackling the inner disputes and basically doing nothing to tell of foreign intervention or their repercussions. We have no big movies focusing on Kissinger fucking up Cambodia, right? And then there's Ip Man with Donnie Yen. That tells of how China was assaulted by the Japanese in ww2... has there ever been a Chinese movie you've heard of tackling China invading Nepal and working over Tibet? And conversely, has there ever been a big Japanese movie you've heard of that acknowledges their history fighting as the Axis in a real way? Godzilla Minus One _does_ have a kamikaze pilot who chickened out as a lead... that's a great movie and the characters motivations are made better for that, but HALF of the movie is showing how busted up Japanese society was in the wake of the atomic bomb... it still makes sense given the time period and the fact that Godzilla as a premise was ALWAYS about that primarily... which Minus One completely abandoned to be just another kaiju movie to keep the franchise going. You don't GET those kinds of stories, which is ass. Instead, pretty much every nation, like I said, provides an insular cultural viewpoint and refuses to honestly get outside of that. Get it?
@@The1Ryu my problem is that so much "entertainment" also serves the purposes of lionization and base nationalism to make people just feel good, rather than teach or present something truly new to its audience... which is why audiences are "targeted."
If there were giant alien arachnids trying to kill us hasan would say his streaming job would be harder, from his 3.5 million dollar West Hollywood mansion, or in his 200,000 dollar Porsche taycan.
Is “war is bad because he lost my legs” satire? Kind of hinges on whether these wars are unnecessary. If they are defending against extinction - loses its value.
@@ANTIStraussian It's ironic that leftists can look at a racially diverse clean and orderly society with gender equality and open and free debate and voting rights and say "fascists" because of a guy with a trenchcoat with an eagle on his cap. Literally nothing about the terrans are fascist. They don't even have a dictator 😂😂😂😂
@@RonRoyGosselin good for Rico but I'm talking about in general a character literally states her desire to join the military to be a parent. And agree with what? You think that's a good thing?
I mean they do give a guy a 30 minute trial and then execute him on prime time tv. I always assumed everyone thought the news reels were propaganda of the state. The asteroid was a gulf of tonkin, operation himmler But this comment section shows the red pilled guys like the government in the movie.
Ffs fascists don’t cares whether the movie is a parody are not even if we’ve already explained to them, they knows and they chose not to care. Same thing about the Punisher or any other fascist parodies. Artists, writers & directors should have made movies & art that are outright critiques of fascism instead of catering to fascist sensibilities, so that fascists couldn’t interpreted in any other ways. God ! Hasan is such a midwit sometimes.
Doesn't matter, it's not for them, the solution can't be to not create anything slightly deep. Right wing nuts also claim george carlin would be on their side today which is literally the opposite of his stance.
No, the movie very clearly says that facism and "controled democracy" are the only ways of mantaining a fuctional society when faced with a military threat, this movie is not a parody of facism, its a comentary on facism, and the reason people are still talking about it today is because it controversialy presents facism in a positive light not just in the meaningless aesthethic choices like cool uniforms and action scenes, but particularly in the more serious debate sections, specially the teacher at the start of the movie who makes the strong argument (regardless of if you aggree) that people who provide great service to a society at their own peril or well beign should be given more political power "service guarantees citizenship" meaning only those who participate in the betterment of society are considered citizens while those who dont are "civilians" who have less political power
what makes startship troopers an important piece of political comentary is that it both shows how horrible facism is and also why facism is the best aproach to dealing with military conflicts, this movie is very clearly not a run of the mill parody of facism and u can see that in the fact that a lot of right wing people have adopted this movie as one of the best representations of the "positive" aspects of an authoritarian government
Saying it's fascist because right wingers like it is like saying All in the Family is racist because racists like Archie Bunker,. Right wingers are stupid.
"I want to make a movie so painfully obvious in its satire that everyone who understands it lives in perpetual psychological torment inflicted on them by all the people who don't."
--Paul Verhoeven, 1996
thanks paul!
great quote. thanks for sharing!
"I didn't read the book" -Paul Verhoeven, 1996
He failed. The world he build looks cool as hell. With heroes.
There’s no reason to believe they aren’t fighting a defensive war. Unless your a 9/11 truther.
@@dannyf1168
Asteroids tend to travel at about one thousand miles per hour. Light speed is about 670.6 million miles per hour. A light year is traveling at light speed for 8,766 hours. Hence, one light year is approximately 5.88 billion miles of travel.
The Arachnid Quarantine Zone, specifically the Planet Klendathu, is on the opposite side of the Milky Way Galaxy, which is approx. one hundred thousand light years. Meteorites fly faster than asteroids and according to FedNet, orbital missile platforms neutralize them before they enter our atmosphere.
With all that in mind, they can see meteorites coming, but not asteroids? If those meteorites, none the less the asteroid that wiped out Buenos Ares, were launched by the bugs from the Klendathu system, it would mean that those supposed attacks would have been launched before the federation, and possibly mankind as a whole, even existed; which is totally barring the suuuuper advanced math that the bugs would need to even aim for such a distance.
TL;DR: The Buenos Ares attack was a false flag and the Federation are global fascists that need to start wars to keep their society in order.
Calling Jake Busey a heartthrob is crazy
My heart skips a beat when I lay eyes on him
Starship troopers is literally meant to be an anti war propaganda piece, and it must be protected at all costs
@jerms_mcerms9231 WRONG! Those bugs with mechanical legs and guns are even MORE anti war propaganda baked in titties!
amen, its a good marker for a normal human being that if they have a problem with this movie, you stay well clear of them.
It's meant to be an anti Iraq war piece that pointed out that terrorism leads to facist talking points and support.
And needs to be protected at all costs.
@jerms_mcerms9231 Yeah we don't talk about the original source material lmao
@@Grimmance it came out before the Iraq war.
The movie was literally created with the meta narrative being "this is the type of movie the Terran Federation would produce to make itself look good." It's supposed to be in-universe propaganda. The irony that the American Empire produces similar movies as earnest propaganda is not lost on me.
Interesting. And where did you gleem this "meta narrative" from? Any interviews or commentaries because that seems like 100% assumption. The film shows ZERO signs that the military or the government covers up, distorts, hides any information from the rest of humanity/or the viewer. Nothing makes them actually "look good" when they're slaughtered and are unrecognizable bloody pieces covering the terrain as far as the eye can see. The military leader who bungled the invasion accepts full responsibility and steps down and let's a new leader with a new plan take over. The main character doesn't get the girl, he loses the one he wants and loses the one that wants him. Not exactly a "happy ending" Is it possible, you're just wrong?
@@treborkroy5280what are you doing? You expect them to be able to think critically?
Just let them parrot the stupid shit other people hae said.
@@treborkroy5280 Shhh don't try and reason with them they genuinely think the bugs did nothing wrong.
Nazis because trenchcoat 😂
@@noahboy7309 wait until you realize that the movie is a bad satire of the novel
I was a little too young to understand the satire the first time I saw Starship Troopers, it aged like a fine wine as I realized what it’s really about. Great movie my Dad shared with me.
In summary, this reminds me of the people who believe that in Star Wars, the US is represented by the Rebels, and not, as it clearly is, by the Empire.
100000% the prequels even go deep in 2000s politics. the clone wars are about an aging republic that was once good, that has become corrupt, waging a war against terrorists, where the “good guys” the Jedi become the “bad guys”, having their ideals corrupted by joining in a galactic war, leading to them not seeing the obvious threat of the huge clone army run by one person, and the good just republic founded on freedom becomes an evil empire. It’s very clear.
Palpatine wages a war against himself, via his proxy he created in the confederacy and trade federation. funding both sides via the banking guilds which he had ties to.
It’s about America in Afghanistan and Iraq. Fighting a proxy America created, to benefit the elite, wallstreet and corporations. And it’s eventual fall to fascism.
...But that's the point. The US is BOTH the rebels and the Empire. The US starts out as a revolution against the evil empire, then builds up and struggles with its internal contradictions and then becomes the evil empire.
It's fascinating that a satire as unsubtle as "Starship Troopers" still goes over people's head, including film critics. A good number of viewers simply cannot think about what they're consuming.
Weird how seasoned film critics aren't "media literate" enough. Also, the film critics who DID see it as a satire also HATED the movie. To paraphrase one review "it was a stupid idea to make a movie where we're supposed to hate all the characters".
8:00
>have prosthesis technology
>don't even bother to give the guy a leg
Yep this is definitely the US.
The point of that scene is to make younger people not want to join Service. It's supposed to steer them away.
When he's not at that dest he has the prosthetic legs, it's just for the recruits that he's seen that way. It makes sense if you're think. Try it.
@@treborkroy5280.....everyone that sees him has already sworn the fucking oath of service lmao. He isn't an army recruitment officer dingbat, just a low level secretary.
its worse because they gave him a prosthetic arm but not legs. so he is accommodated only to the level that he can perform his job. but no further.
@@ProletariatPrince is just for show, even the teacher had a prosthetic when he's seen later. Should read the book to get an idea why they have the amputees out front
For those confused about the meteor attack, both in the book and the movie, the bugs were responsible. THE issue is the HUGE plothole that is due to the bug home planet being on the opposite side of the galaxy means in reality the bugs COULDN'T have possibly be responsible due to the millions of years light has to travel to reach Earth.
So many people have come up with the head canon that the meteor strike was either a false flag attack or a freak accident (a product of incompetence what were orbital defenses doing?) and blamed on the bugs.
Truer words were never said, BUT, I'm just going to say how I feel and that's that the science holds out, not only would the bugs need to correctly compensate for the constant movement of the earth AND the alleged launch site, any obstacles in the missile trajectory, how insanely precise the shot needs to be over that distance, and that FTL travel capacity for the asteroid would be needed for it to take less than 2 million years (if it was to mean anything in response to any earlier action by humans), there's the simple fact that shooting one asteroid at a time at that slow speed was clearly not enough to do anything more than kick the human hornet's nest and say "Hello, how are you, we're declaring war" and you have to agree that all of that amounting to a deliberate attack makes no sense 😆
So I grant you this was the intent of both sources but people always run with these ideas as implications of the writing just for fun, and based on evidence the asteroid is either a freak accident, a false flag ruse, or if it is an attack by them it's an indication of the Arachnids' level of technology being very early space age (akin to our only means of space travel being one rocket every few years instead of managing to produce a full space fleet)
Obligatory Helldivers 2 reference is (almost) obligatory here but the plot hole is closed up by Super Earth justifying war with the Terminids because the subtext reveals they 1. can be farmed and harvested for the oil that enables FTL travel for their ships and they would be screwed if they lose access to this resource, and 2. They were dumb enough in the first place to raise them like cattle and increase their populations/fast track their evolution to a point that they become a threat to the population of any planet they happen to be on, so they're reaping what they've sown and have to defend themselves. And I say "happen to be on" because the other plot hole of how they spread to other planets is covered by lore in suggesting they were carried from planet to planet by humans for the purposes of generating and maximising their fuel supply, and so it works 😅 So the game does a better job of criticising our capitalist/military-industrial complex world as much as it matches S.T.'s ridicule of a hypothetical but worryingly possible fascist, authoritarian, military dictatorship
I hope you would agree with the head canon 😊
But it's sci-fi, and the canon is that the meteor WAS sent by the bugs. Even Verhoeven agrees with that, and Heinlein literally wrote that. If you find the answer unsatisfying, well, it's sci-fi magic. You don't have the option to create a complex conspiracy based on things that are not present in the book or movie, and then assert that is the "true" meaning. No, it's a fan theory. it's the equivalent of Game of Thrones fans asserting that there is a time travelling fetus.
It’s a propoganda film, made FOR the Federation. When you realize that, it’s a masterpiece.
what an odd piece of propaganda to show, the main character doesn't get the girl, the military fails multiple times, the war isn't won by the end of the film, it's just hinted that they have a better chance. You'd think they'd make the propaganda a little more pristine and perfect instead of showing what we all saw.
@@treborkroy5280 "what an odd piece of propaganda to show," - Arguably.
"the main character doesn't get the girl" - But has a chance of dying for a noble cause. How does that compare to indulging in a high school crush?
"the military fails multiple times" - But the war goes on. We shouldn't lose hope in the face of a single failure. Or several.
"the war isn't won by the end of the film, it's just hinted that they have a better chance." - Which means we all still have a chance to do our part.
I question your faith, and your patriotism as a citizen of the Federation.
"You'd think they'd make the propaganda a little more pristine and perfect instead of showing what we all saw." - I think the best arguments for that are the grotesque violence, and the motif of disfigured veterans who've clearly suffered for their service. But we could imagine that hypothetical Federation propagandists making such a film might think that mixing in some of the horrors of war might grant the movie some credibility, and strengthen the message. Or they so take those realities of life for granted that they don't consider that the audience might find them offputting. Or they think the only way to bring those horrors to an end is Victory,.
@@treborkroy5280I've seen you reply to a bunch of comments and I can't tell if you're truly that lost or are a very committed troll. It is structured as a propaganda film in many of its segments, but yes, its story deliberately undermines the propaganda in pretty obvious over the top ways so that anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together can get the lampooning of fascism is so clearly demonstrating.
@@treborkroy5280are you perhaps twelve
@@Fantallana If you can't prove a point, just use lame insults huh? It's not fun having your opinion of something that feels so sure do a 180. I was fully sure the film was a satire of fascism for many years until I heard a convincing argument against it and I now fully agree it is not. I've watched the film many times since then trying to prove my new opinion wrong and I haven't been able to so far. I can only find one single solitary monent of the film where any disingenuous action, one lie/obfuscation of reality or cohercing someone to do anything they don't want to do...and it's Neil's character giving Rico a telepathic nudge to choose one tunnel over another leading bugs away from another team that was close to capturing the brain bug successfully. Aside from that, no lie or twisting of any truth was displayed for the audience to see. Any you can't find one either.
Its so funny how there are people who claim that "Starship troopers" is not parody for fascist propaganda and say shit like: "communists see themselves as bugs LMAO".
Those comments immediately reminded me of small soldiers with the good guy goofy diverse aliens and the bad guy soldier action figures lol
"haha they see themselves as bugs which I also do!"
bugs are cool
@@gr0mit948 I woudnt call a neo-liberal militaristic utopia with fascist aesthetics a near perfect democracy.
@@gr0mit948 we’re talking about the movies, the movie was created as a counter to the actual book which portrays the yeehaw style fascism as a good thing
The craziest part of all this is calling Jake Busey a 90s heartthrob
What? You didn't wanna lick those huge, throbbing teeth?
Starship Troopers is a gem and it sucks thar we probably won't see a movie such as it be made ever again.
The sequels are such an affront to what this movie was. Such a shame, but the OG will always be special.
Well, the third film did really play into the fascism, fanatic religion and so on. But the production quality was very low. Interestingly it was Neumeier that wrote all three movies.
I love anything Paul Verhoven does ever since I first saw Robocop as a kid in the 80's. Total Recall was another great and incredibly bloody movie of his and nobody does gory squib work like he does. I had my dad take me to see this film when I was 16 and have loved it ever since. It lampoons fascism as well as Robocop skewered the Reagan era.
top 5 all time for those 3 movies alone
Even Showgirls?
@@Ki_Adi_Mundi Showgirls is great.
Funny you mention it because Verhoeven didn't want to do another VFX heavy movie, and Arnie (who had saved Total Recall from development hell) had to talk him in to doing to picture. Verhoeven then desperately tried to write out all the action, and had to be pushed back into making the movie we saw.
Robocop has the same screen writer as Starship Troopers by the way.
I was a non English speaking pre pubescent child when i watched it on cable first time, and even back then i thought it was an over the top action comedy...
I was just thinking the same. Like how can people not tell when we could as kids 😂
@@Nilsanewe are so fucked. Paul is torturing us 28 years later
I watched this movie when it came out, while I was in the Army, stationed in Germany, with 1ID Infantrymen, after a one month FTX in Grafenwöhr…none of them understood it. Not the uniforms, not the officer with no legs and missing a hand, not the propaganda and definitely not the fascism. /whoosh before there was /whoosh
Same thing in the 82nd. This used to be a movie we watched on bus trips.
But this was in late 2010s
I felt the same way watching hurt locker with other grunts, the only guys who weren't laughing or cheering were eod or former eod guys...
I love how Helldivers is causing Starship Troopers to get more attention recently. Obvious I love Starship Troopers and I love that it invites commentary, regardless of how bad some takes on it are.
The irony of course being that the intention of Heinlein's novel was to be though provoking and challenge liberal ideas, while Verhoeven (so he claims) just wanted to call everyone fascists.
@@lostalone9320The movie doesn't do that.
You can look at classical art and think "This is beautiful. I love it". That is a normal response.
Fascists look at classical art not for its beauty, but because "WE made this, and THEY can't, that is why we are superior". It is never about beauty, it is about showing supremacy.
There is nothing behind that alleged adoration, it is just means to an end. For them beauty is a tool to push their agenda, not a goal in itself.
you know communist and socialist do the same right?
Just say your side of politics has the uglies and be done with it.
That said, fascists aren't that interested in looking at art.
@@davidm1926 Hitler was a painter and obsessed with artwork. Can you explain why your said what you did?
@@davidm1926 dude hitler literally went to art school wtf u talking?
Definitely went to high school with guys who completely missed the point of this movie
Yea, the ones that call it fascism.
@@Veritas.0exactly
Imagine watching this movie after knowing Verhoeven made Robocop and not getting it. It's basically an in universe propaganda film meant to inspire people to enlist.
If the government in the movie is fascist why wouldn't it just conscript like the other fascist states?
@@The1Ryu They...Do? You don't get any rights to say how the society in which you live under and its laws are designed unless you gain citizenship. Positions of power require it before even looking at you. Fascist states don't just force everyone to join up because that leads to massive unrest. Instead, many like the Federation make it a patriotic duty that provides immense benefits upon completion. If your only chance at a future is to join the military because your society is built around that then that's conscription with the aesthetics of free choice.
@@aaroncarter4019 That's not conscription. Yes many states, both fascist and otherwise, in the modern day have conscription and mandatory military service, and they do not have massive unrest. The only thing gained via military service in Starship Troopers is the duty to vote. In correct in the movie Rico's parents are incredibly wealth and privileged, but not only are they not citizens, they denigrate citizenship.
@@The1Ryu You seem to see conscription as bad but not understand the underlying issues that make a system that pushes everyone save for the wealthiest to join the military. It's the thinnest degree of separation with conscription.
You can't just say they don't get to vote as if their inability to make any change to the system that governs them is nothing. If the veterans wanted they could vote to strip all none citizens of wealth or force them to dedicate it all to the federation's military funding and they would have no legal say on the matter.
To enlist and help fight off a literal, real existential threat to all of them? How fascistic! /s😊
The best bad argument I seen was one guy said the director always failed at making a depiction of a bad world. And used RoboCop as an example. 😂😂 He continued in replies to argue that yes he would like a RoboCop future.
I'd buy that for a dollar!
In starship troopers, it is very purposeful to make it look good (in certain ways), like all characters being attractive and developed fancy technology.
Verhoeven claims he chose handsome actors because "moar nazi" but actually the movie was planned to spend most of its budget on practical effects and big set piece action scenes, so getting any big name actors was out of the question anyway.
Instead, they hired TV actors who were cheap, and then alternated between claiming this was a stylistic choice and claiming the movie would have been better if they had cast better actors. Two excuses that are mutually exclusive, and neither of which is true.
Worth adding - The only reason Verhoeven made Total Recall was because Arnie was really pushing the project. Verhoeven was never given the budget for big names.
That describe the fans who think the empire in warhammer 40k is “good”.
The Imperium of Man is not "good" as opposed to evil, it is "order" as opposed to chaos. It is not a good institution, it is the only institution there is.
They miss the part where almost all the adults in the movie are crippled lmao
Erm, no, they aren't. We see a couple of veterans who are wounded. But we see hundreds (literally) of adults in the movie and only a handful have prosthetics.
Not gonna lie, this movie got me. I understand what it is, but it will always have a soft spot in my heart. I’m also a vet, and doing well in life. We don’t always end up on the street and broken.
There's also an actual starship troopers game that just came out like 3 months ago and now is being overshadowed by helldivers
It's a shame because Starship Troopers: Extermination is really fun and the devs are pretty active with the community
It's still about a year and a half to be a proper released game, I'm letting them cook
@@Agentsmiskatonicit is a good game, but Helldivers 2 does the humor and satire much better imo.
@@709mash I totally agree. I'm going to be curious to see how the humor evolves over development.
@uliseto that's true! I think the next update is releasing the actual classes instead of the starting 3.
Calling Jake Buscy s 'hearthrob' is so fucking hilarious. 🤣
Read the book. The movie doesn’t do the source material justice
Its the ultimate meta, a book that was misundestood by its movie that was misundestood by its audience
The book and movie were made by 2 different people with different visions. That's like using Zack Sanders Justice league to explain Justice league unlimited.
@@kap1618 At least Zach Snyder is more accurate to the source material
@@MuricanBearWarrior How? The way her writes Batman, Superman, and even Lex is awful.
Its my all-time favorite movie. I saw it in theater when I was a teenager and didn't understand the satire. I loved it unironically, it fed into my nationalism, and I wanted to be Rico. As an adult it's still my favorite movie cause as a lefty I now totally understand how much the movie makes fun of nationalism and those easily swept up by it. The fact that it duped me makes it more profound and transformative for me.
The movie really doesn't say anything about nationalism. The bugs are shown as a force of nature at first and then as a species unwilling to negotiate by the end, nationalism has nothing to do with either point.
@@The1Ryu the humans are the nationalists.
@@09daniscool Why them but not the bugs?
@@The1Ryu nationalism is a hyper tribalistic movement that incorporates ultra militaristic culture and can often lead to genocide. One of the main aspects of genocide is the dehumanization of the enemy to the point where the enemy is viewed as vermin or BUGS that need to be eradicated. "The only good bug is a dead bug!" The humans are the bad guys in Starship Troopers. They're territorial, genocidal, imperialistic, nationalists.
@@The1Ryu why not the bugs? It can be argued that the bugs are acting in self defense and that the humans are the aggressors. Even the attack on Buenos Aires is very likely a false flag operation committed by the humans to justify invading the bugs.
Starship troops (the film) was a bad parody. it also wasn't marketed as a parody when it released to theaters, it was marketed as a streight film adaptation. The director Paul Verhoeven admitted that he only read a few pages of the book before tossing it. Studio just let it slide knowing that your average movie go'er had never even heard of Robert Heinlein
He just heard it was facist and didn't even read the book his producer did, Robert Heinlein was a goofy ww2 vet liberal/progressive democrat but was anti communist. Whats funny is Paul did the book what critics did to his movie
No it wasn't... What are you talking about? And no the studio didn't ''let it slide''. The studio wanted a Verhoeven movie...
starship troopers is the closest thing to a mobile suit gundam film we will ever have in terms of the sci-fi aesthetic and the way the effects are done and politics. But Gundams far more subtle and less campy.
Renegade Cut summed up Starship Troopers as this: they are really good… at killing bugs…
starship troopers is too subtle for nazis.
Red pill kids like the government in the movie, who will be president in 10/20 years?
A retired 5 star General based Christian nationalist?
Watching starship troopers as a kid I and many of my peers I've talked to about the movie actually reached the same conclusion as the "bad thread" the satire is in a lot of ways too high minded, in the sense that it's most clear a s a critique to people who ALREADY are anti war and anti fascist. To others, it can have the opposite effect.
Paul Verhoeven is of course known for his subtlety.
Thought Slime and Starship Troopers rule
Wow Hasan having a good take about something that's crazy.
"Its afraid!" american foreign policy toward the rest of the world.
ive never heard anyone ever say its hard to make fun of attractive people
bizarre take
He said he wanted to cast vapid blank people lol
9.95 strong disagree. The very idea, that fascists are just ‘different’ and ‘unable to detect nuance’ is a fascist thing to say and disregards Hannah Arendt notion of the banality of evil, meaning that almost anyone can be a bad person under the right circumstances.
The word capacity in this context is some straight up Hans Lander Mr Candy shit.
I have a failsafe, where you can take any sentence, and if you replace the substantive through another, like ‘gay’ or ‘Jew’ and it then sounds iffy, it was a bad sentence to begin with.
Play that game with these tweets. See how it sounds.
Fascism usually rises, because people are desperate and it gives them a clear, unnuanced blueprint to follow, along with a common enemy acting as a scapegoat. It’s not that people lack the capacity to detect nuance. It’s that they turn a blind eye to it, because the ideology seems to solve their problems and nuance gets in the way of that.
You don't get it. Hasan and his midwit audience just want to feel superior.
I wouldn't be surprised if we never saw Denise Richards again ✨
I loved the movie as a kid because she was pretty and shooting bugs and now I love it as an anti war propaganda piece…. And she’s still pretty
How is a movie that depicts a completely necessary war and anti-war movie?
Honestly, i saw this in high school at about age 16 or 17. Loved it. Still do. But i didn't really get the message.
THE NEXT DAY, a classmate said "they're Nazis" and immediately I was like "oh, shit, you're right."
I did get a bit stung seeing NPH in a full Nazi outfit, but all it took was somebody saying "no, that was the point" to put it all in the correct perspective.
I was never the brightest when it came to anthropology, but at that point in my life, i didnxt take interest in general anthropology.
Are they?
Or did he just wear a Nazi uniform.
I tend to judge people for more than the clothes they wear.
One of the best movies ever
8:40 first time watching this dude's video. wtf are you even trying to say? That the recruiter dude lost his legs because he joined a fascist military? So if he joined a normal defensive military with no fascistic purpose, then he would not have lost his limbs?
Yes starship trooper society is fascist and fascists are bad, that's all true. But you also cannot string a coherent sentence together.
This Isaac fella immediately derailed his entire “analysis” by mistaking parody for satire.
well like american military the nazis also have women serving in the military.
I don't know what's happened recently, but their is a disturbing trend of people who need all media to unsubtlety spell themselves out for their audience. People seem allegeric to ambiguity and nuance.
Actually it seems to be the opposite - We are seeing people asserting things that are not actually in the movie are actually fully canon, and any reading without it is incorrect.
Like, in this case, asserting that the humans attacked the bugs first (which is directly contradicted by the movie), or that the asteroid was a false flag (also directly contradicted). When you are refusing to engage with things that the piece of media tells you, you are not being media literate, you are being a conspiracy theorist.
"If I just ignore all the things that happen, this movie is a perfect satire of capitalism" is not a very strong line of reasoning.
@@lostalone9320 that's not at all what a conspiracy theory is. Getting something wrong about a movie is just being incorrect intentionally or not. It's no different than mishearing a song lyric.
@@kap1618 No, people have complex theories about how actually the Federation sent the asteroid that destroyed Buenos Aires. This is not because they "missed" that the movie tells us that it was sent by the bugs. It's that they firmly (aggressively even) believe that the movie lied to them about it, and actually it's all a false flag as a pretext for war with the bugs.
The movie gives absolutely no evidence for this theory whatsoever, and even the idiot of a director says that the bugs sent the asteroid. But that does not stop those "media literates" from saying that this is in fact the intended message. This is a common and popular interpretation of the film. But every single part of this theory is totally fabricated, and we see absolutely none of it on the screen.
It is a literal theory about a conspiracy, all just to back up the idea that the Federation is evil, and even when the movie tells us that this is not correct, they just ignore the movie and claim that their imagination is correct.
@@lostalone9320 What your describing is a fan theory which is a common thing amongst tv shows. If you want an actual conspiracy theory then you can ask why is that this movie is now being used as more culture war bs? Not helping the fact that people seem to get really offended by any piece of media that condemns N*zism or fascism.
If you want to call this movie a bad satire of fascism or N*zism then fine but for some reason saying N*zis are bad rubs certain people online the wrong way.
Tweeter saw ST and said why not
That clip really sums it up; We clearly see that veteran has a fully mechanical, articulated hand, a feat of crazy engineering.
However, he has no legs; mechanical legs would be EASIER to implement/construct than a fully articulated hand. But he does not have any, why?
Because the state (the Federation) doesn’t see him as an individual person, whose quality of life matters. He’s a cog, legs are superfluous to requirement.
THAT’S the commentary
That's stupid, because he is in no way a better cog without his legs.
Your message is completely undercut by several scenes. Including Rico being saved and repaired.
@@The1Ryu He works at a desk, giving him legs is a waste of resources in the eyes of the regime.
@@dannyf1168 Rico is a soldier? A guy working a desk doesn't need legs but a soldier does.
@@alexisborden3191 More of a waste of resources then making every building wheel chair accessible?
The bugs being able to launch asteroids is only partially explained. There are larger tanker variants we see able to launch plasma into space... as for calculations and shit? No clue. Might be something like Brain Bugs doing calculations and doing psychic Rachni stuff to communicate to bugs across systems in a relay.
@@Gortboy2k11 there are also space bugs and FTL travel in a sci-fi movie in which a biology teacher jacks plugs into her cyborg face.
The explanation I saw was that they used the plasma to knock asteroids into a flight path.
It's all hokey but whatever.
They leave out from the book that the bugs have colonized other planets and took control of the Skinnies so it is possible but 🤷🏻♀️
@@jessicahuenink3796 yeah they're spacefaring. That's why I have a feeling Mass Effect's Rachni were inspired by these
@@jessicahuenink3796 oh yeah, "Skinnies" were a humanoid alien race, right?
@@Virjunior01 yeah the “Skinnies” were humanoid aliens that ended up helping the humans once they were saved. The movie lacks so much context to why the bugs are like this and skipped over their mind control abilities. There is so much missing to help add to the story 😭
the IOF
I watched SST for the first time when I was like 7-10, even then I got then subtext and meaning behind what they were saying. To see people asking, or taking the stuff in this film at face value hurts my soul. Its a fantastic film, and depressing to see people willingly choose fascism…
Fascism isn’t to do with war, all regimes wage war, it’s about social traditionalism fused with left wing economics. In other words, socialism that is confined to a nation/people and not enforced on all other nations/peoples. Life is an aesthetic project, we should aim to fill it with beauty. The one thing that makes life worth living, is that which inspires passion. Art and beauty inspire passion in the observer. Love is a subordinate aspect of passion. There’s a reason why people are so depressed in the meaningless, ugly, leftist cities.
It is to do with war, perpetual war and building your society around that.
@@ANTIStraussian well that’s just a declaration, unfortunately for you, it Is not a declaration rooted in fact. As I said, all regimes wage war, you’d be silly to say otherwise. Communists constantly sought expansion through their ideological project of the “global proletarian revolution”. Liberal regimes invaded countries to spread “democracy” and egalitarianism, that just so happen to benefit them territorially. The only reason that you associate fascism with war is because the only regimes that were fascist had rightful irredentist claims on territory that they had lost because of the treaty of Versailles and prior wars. Fascism is just nationalism (the idea that all peoples have a right to a homeland and sovereignty) with a left wing economic flavour to it. War is not unique to any system of politics, try again.
@@The1Green4Man do you like the government in the movie?
@@ANTIStraussian no, I don’t. It’s also not even fascist 😂 it’s more akin to the liberal anti-national project United States of America or the Russian federation than any real fascist government. For instance, you cannot have a multinational fascist state because that is an oxymoron, you also would not have mixed showers for men and women, the government is so far from fascism that I’m not even sure Paul Verhoeven knows what fascism is (or if he has even read the book for that matter). He has inadvertently just made a very good movie that satirises the global American empire, with a thin fascist façade, which is pretty funny really.
@@ANTIStraussian Do you not see the parallels with the establishment of Israel, the forced removal of Palestinians and the establishment of an American ally in a region which is not theirs (the Mormon colony), 911 (the attack on Buenos Aires) and then the invasion of klendathu (the invasion of Iraq). The federation is literally the USA.
Love that the ones who were given the novel and told to do something with it, together with the actors and writers hated the original novel and the shithead who wrote it, that they completely turned on it.
And yes, the OG novel writer held speeches är seminars, which all had the tendency to go straight to
"might makes right, and here is why..."
Love the first film.
Take care all,
Kind regards,
Solo - Sweden
Dude Heinlein was a libertarian
@@SamUtley-pb9um Brother, I know libertarians whom are a knife edge from being all sorts of things, racists, Nazis, fascists, socialists, capitalists etc etc
Being a libertarian is a bit like loving freedom, who doesn't? AND you can believe in social darwinism at the same time:)
This is not dunking on you brother, simply stating the fact being "libertarian" these past hundred years is a bit like the word republican.
It used to mean
"I Don't want a king or queen to rule, the people knows what people needs, kings and queens only knows what they want and consequences be damned"
By the original definition, I am a republican, but I wouldn't vote for the party or any politician until they give me some stuff we actually need,
instead of just inventing problems which can be "solved" by "something"
(private prisons, hospitals, Elon Musk's Tesla tunnels/fire hazard),
something that will first be built with tax payer money, privati,de and given to highest "bidder"/donor
(whom can give you benefits after your terms as a politician, like the guy at FDA who helped aprove Oxycodone as "non addictive" he quit FDA and is now working for the wackier family with a VERY impressive paycheck and strange benefits...hmm:)
Until then, I'd vote for the lesser evil...or slightly lesser evil, I am in no way a Democratic party fan.
So, I'm an OG republican, but also progressive leftie who thinks we should always stick together, vote once every two/four years, but real change, comes with being in a Union, join unions and band together so that the real people (ie not politicians and definitely not shitty libertarian/social darwinist/ fascist sci-fi writers:)
Wish you the best brother,
Solo
Satire fascism - next name of hamas😆
Verhoeven was TERRIBLE at making satire. He didn't understand the one major fundamental element of satire. You have to make fun of the thing you are satirizing. He didn't do it in Robocop and he didn't do it in Starship Troopers. In fact he did the opposite in both cases.
Iiiii would have to at least put it out there that it is the extreme degrees to which the society goes to respond to issues, such as licenses to start a family and the death sentence in less than 24 hours to create a false sense of justice, plus the idea of sending thousands to their death in mass ground movements instead of orbital bombardment to the max, would, especially in the late 90's be considered ridiculous and heavy-handed to the point that it's obviously worthy of ridicule and get some laughs. Verhoeven lived through a Nazi occupation and wanted to explicitly decry fascism, but at the same time wanted to create a convincingly deadpan 90's action film while also slyly subverting The Hero's Journey to become one of an unambitious young man's transformation into a "'useful idiot" in a fascist machine, and i think that last one is brilliantly done. Other cases of dark/black humour achieve the same in a similar deadpan manner like in Always Sunny in Philadelphia - for "The Gang" where they always believe thenselves to be in the right, the penny almost never drops and it usually ends with them giving up any attempt at change and going back to their assholish ways.
The movie was predicated on the idea that this would be a nightmarish way to live and "thank goodness that we've hopefully leared our lesson and that will likely never happen again!", I reckon the only reason the movie didn't succeed the way it wanted to was because nazi sympathies never truly went away but pushed into hiding, people had had their fill of Vietnam movies and receiving anti-war films in a different manner but jingoism and racism/othering were still alive and well in politics, and Americans in particular were on an upward trajectory of becoming desensitised to violence - Case in point, you would have thought at least that the movie would perform well because of all the crazy action scenes or "The guy that made Robocop made it" 🤷♂️ Granted it could also have underperformed because it was assumed to be too sincere in its evocation of Nazi imagery in a kinder world, but I'm basing it off of more recent events, we wouldn't have gotten the return of such extreme far-right politics if there weren't people out there working to bring it back and people who could be motivated to join based on such hateful premises
@@thebackup2121 The problem with this kind of interpretation is that it assumes that people would rather live the way we are currently living than be a badass military hero protecting all of humanity from violent space bugs. We know people would rather lie to themselves and do things that make themselves feel good than live like crap and do things that make themselves feel bad. I'm sorry but he really just did make it too appealing. He was bad at satire.
I think you're confusing satire with parody. Not all satires have to be comedic.
@@kap1618 I think you're confusing satire with parody. I never once mentioned comedy.
@@SomeCanine You mentioned a fundamental element of satire is making fun of what you're satirizing. I don't think that is required for a satire. The Boys, while funny, takes its subject matter seriously. If you're making fun of something, my first thought is Blazing Saddles, which falls into a gre area of parody and satire.
Paul GOAThoven
Am I the only one who thought it was just a cool action film when I watched it at 12 years of age? That it was satire was completely lost on me but in my defence, I was not aware of the context.
Well ya, you were 12. I was 11. Satire wasn't really something I understood at that age.
Yeah I was ~10-12yo first time I watched it. I understood it was campy and tongue-in-cheek, but the level of satire completely went over my head. I just thought it was a fun, cool, slightly self-aware action movie that looked like the cutscenes in Command and Conquer games.
Nobody knows anything about politics at 12 years old, seriously.
I feel like the movie would be way more understandable if they cut the runtime in half and ended it after the first battle.
Like the message would be way more apparent if the final moments of the film were all the characters we’ve grown to know and care for all die off helpless and screaming on the orders of overconfident and incompetent leadership.
“If they don’t hold their leaders accountable.”
Did…did he not really watch the movie where the previous commander resigned over the massive failure of the Klendathu drop?
That's a military operation failure. He's not being held accountable over the systems and rules governing the whole fascistic society. He couldn't anyway. He is a commander in the military. The narrator isn't referring to military leadership. It's political leadership.
Come on man.
Then I mistaken my comment entirely and will be more patient as to the meaning of the original post.
@@TheDarkkilla12 All good man.
@@apcfire The society isn't fascist, you can't hold people accountable to something that doesn't exist.
@@apcfire Yes, a military operation failure which led to accountability by the person in charge. The nerve to sit there and claim the system is fascistic and doesn't hold anybody to account only to say, "oh well I didn't mean THAT leadership role under fascistic rule" when met with an example of the opposite of what you say, is insane.
No, he gave you a brilliant example, you don't get to just say "no", especially when we're talking about a role in the damn military of a "fascist" system.
it was definitely weird later when it got kinda religious feeling the second movie was still pretty good tho
I've never seen Starship Troopers, but that scene with the disabled vet isnt funny and therefore we shouldnt think about it anymore, its funny because you have to think about it further lmao.
Its also, yes, hilariously unsubtle, because its a joke lol.
It is painful to watch Hasan recklessly assign fascist sympathy to the twitter poster while basically agreeing with the ultimate point of the twitter poster. I personally love the movie as a comedy and parody. But as a political work it fails. The fascists win. And to fascists who don't care to engage with its deeper themes, its also a great movie that reinforces their world view. And if Hasan believes liberals will also take away from the movie that fascism looks good, it has failed in the extreme as a work of satire. Because Hasan is basically acknowledging that the only people who recognize its antifascist are already ardently antifascist and everyone else is suckered into the aesthetics of fascism.
still one of my favourite movies
The director may have intended to satirise fascism with that thin veneer, but he just ended up making a movie that satirises the liberal, egalitarian project that is the United States of America.
PepeLa
The movie is about how a fascist society would depict themselves.
@@kap1618 the coldest take
Ya'll really gotta listen to JREG's I wanna die in a war?
It's a darth of meaning in their life, and desire to have a purpose and find beauty at any cost.
Starship Troopers makes it seem appealing to the monkey brain, until you see how most of the older veterans are disabled, wounded, scarred, or mangled. There are very few untouched older folk in the whole movie. That sends a message, of the human price for Stratocracy.
Heinlein's original work is very problematic, but a bit more nuanced. Because Heinlein himself is problematic, but a bit more nuanced. He was of the firm belief that democracy should only be participated by people who serve it in some manner, and was appaled at US withdrawal from Vietnam. Conversely, he was also a gender abolitionist, feminist, and liberal on many other aspects, even a nudist. He believed the ideal society was post-gender, post-race Militarized Direct Democracy. Of course, he overlooked that any democracy that starts to be molded by a militaristic hierarchy eventually takes on more fascist elements ipso facto.
Another work that was hevily inspired by Heinlein, to many people's surprise, but makes more sense when you think about his work; is Star Trek.
Would you like to know more?
They are there to show recruits the reality of their choice. It's explained in book but since the director didn't bother to read it, he included parts he didn't understand and clearly you dont either. You're missing the obvious point of deterring those who don't truly want that path. It would be true if they NEVER showed the veterans and what happened to them. Hiding the bad from the new recruits and they don't do that, AT ALL.
@kroy5280 I wouldn't be balefully judging others based on presupposition. I actually grew up on Heinlein's work, and have respect for his nuanced view more than most I wager. I get his concepts, I do not agree with most, but I understand his idea of informed consent and sacrifice needed for purer democracy. Then again, his ideas also change from Starship Troopers to Stranger in a Strange Land, and his later short stories; which he carefully outlines his 'responsible citizen'; I doubt you read beyond the first paragraph of my comment.
I also understand what Verhoeven was trying to do. His work doesn't really critique the Stratocratic Liberalism of Heinlein, because there has not been a society like that on Earth, it is a speculative society, like Plato's Republic. Verhoeven instead uses the premise as a jumping off point to critique military industrial complex and its effects on a democracy. I mean if you have a gripe about that, the book also doesn't have a propaganda channel because all citizens naturally know their rights come from their participation in their democracy, and that not all who enlist are soldiers, many being public workers and volunteers. Then again, Heinlein was a man of nuances and fine lines, one cannot call him one thing or another without reducing whole aspects of his worldview.
@@HierophanticRose "to critique military industrial complex and it's effects on democracy"
At what point in the film does the director in any way shape or form give a critique on the industrial military complex and how it affects democracy? I feel like you and many many others are reading between lines that aren't there and superimposing a ton of assumptions onto the work. Give one example of one of these critiques of the military and how it affects democracy. I'm curious to hear what you'll decide to use to attempt to prove it's there. Nearly every character in the film goes out of their way to deter the main character from joining. His father, his teacher, the people you first meet when recruiting, visibly maimed from whatever they encountered, all there to deter him. And he on his own volition, his own choice signs up. No one glamorized the military, no one mad it "sexy" it looked honest, and real. At no point was democracy affected negatively by the military engaging in military action against a blatant existential threat to humans and the Earth. They call for volunteers, not conscripts. Not slaves, not forced or coherence but encouraged to join to literally help save the human race. No leader twisted rules, told lies, deceived the human race about any aspect of the war. The death tolls were true, the video were uncensored. And the leader responsible for the failure and loss of human life took responsibility PUBLICLY and resigned allowing a new leader and a new plan to go forward. How....fascistic of these people huh?
@kroy5280 Speaking strictly of the movie, it is blatantly implying that unchecked military will create forever wars. It IS in between the lines because we are essentially watching it from the perspective of the soldiers. Which is why it cuts to the propaganda channel. We do not know if the asteroid came from the Arachnids, nor do we know if the war is one of defense or offense, or somewhere in between. In fact, the very reason of his trepidation of joining in the beginning, his family's trepidation, and the little tidbits dropped here and there all show this. It is open to interpretation on purpose, but the movie is definitively not pro militarized democracy.
This is only the case for the movie however, in the book it is clear the Arachnids are an enemy, that the youth know by in large what is at stake, and that there is no propaganda, and the military is not one of industrial and corporate lobbying, but an advanced version of a 'Citizen Army', tied to the republic and its ideals. So, trying to meld the book and movie and saying "The movie says X but the book says Y, so the understanding is wrong" is comparing apples or oranges. After a certain point, only thing common between the two is the name and setting, movie in fact being more in line with Halderman's Forever War.
Also f outta here with you people shit, approach what I say as an individual or do not approach you collectivist.
@@HierophanticRose My guy I've watched this movie too many times to not be able to counter everything you're saying. They do know where the meteors came from, it's clearly said in the film that they're being launched from an asteroid belt near the twin star of their solar system. Visual diagram and everything. It's not a false flag, it's an alien life that is behaving like how the Dark Forest Theory suggest. They encountered humans trying to start colonies on planets that at the time appeared barren. The arachnids were subterranean. After some human/big conflicts with colonists the bugs started launching meteors at Earth forcing earth to develop an orbital station to take out the constant volley of meteors. The only reason the first one hits earth is because the ship that sees it first had it's communications relay damaged otherwise they would have been warned and possibly prevented. Zero chance it was a "false flag" There's no indication of a "forever war" simply because the war wasn't resolved by the end of the film. It's how the book ends as well. You're projecting modern Bush era sentiments onto a story that predates the Iraq war by many decades. The wounded veterans are there as a deterrence for the young to want to join. Pay attention, when does any one actually try and cknvince Rico to enlist? Everyone, EVERYONE attempts to discourage him. There's no making the military sexy, it's brutally honest about it. Never once in the film does the military or the government mistreat, misinform, or mislead the citizens of earth, nearly every aspect of the war effort is transparent, from Neil's Nazi coated scientists gangs doings on to the generals war plans. They lose? The public knows. No obfuscation. Sorry you're just wrong. Try rewatching it again. And the cuts to the propaganda news stuff is just a Paul Verhoeven thing, it's used in Robocop and some in Total Recall. It isn't unique to Starship Troopers. There's no "ah see that's WHY there are propaganda films showing it's fascists!" when it's just an interesting way to give exposition to the story. Not some hidden, wink wink nod nod reasoning.
Idk why these comments and hasan don’t bring up the novel which is the original source material and is what most facists/nazis talk about when they speak on starship troopers yeah the film is satirical version but the source material is what most of those nazis mean they talk about the original source material being fascist
Kavernacle has actually pointed out the army in this movie and being like the idf
13:50
Not just fascism, but national identity horseshit...
Most American action movies, even if globe or universe spanning, will have a white American in the lead role, and nobody else means as much.
The same happens in most Japanese media of the same type, to the point where though it honestly was pointless, Solid Snake is half-Japanese.
You're mad that countries make moves that using the people that live in that country?
@@The1Ryu not at all. Just that the most important character or the lone hero always has to be from their own nationality or culture to be "relatable." It subconsciously reinforces the idea that your country is the most important and has the best people.
@@Virjunior01 This is just projection, you think this and so you think everyone does, but most people don't. That's obvious because people all across the world identify with the heroes of American movies, hence why they are popular all over the world. Similarly, anime is popular in America despite the heroes being from a totally different nationality and culture. Before anime, Japanese and Chinese martial arts films were popular in the west as well.
@@The1Ryu you prove my point by saying what you just did. If America was the global heroic nationality, why isn't it used internationally?
In lots of Korean stuff, Japanese people are "lesser" or "enemies." Why do you think that is?
In 90s American movies, Arabs and Muslims were written almost exclusively as terrorist big bads... but in the 80s, at the end of the Cold War? You had Rambo fighting with the Muhajadin (who later became the Taliban) as brave soldiers helping America fight the Russians, who were the big bads of THAT era.
You miss a lot by not thinking.
It's a documented FACT that the US Military would not participate with personnel or equipment unless they were portrayed in a generally positive light.
Think.
When was the last time you saw an American movie in which "military" or government were the bad guys before Oppenheimer went there 5%? It was always _internal._ As in Conspiracy Theory with Mel Gibson, American government versus one dude... an underdog story. Same with a TV show like The X-Files. Or JFK and Ruby, both tackling the inner disputes and basically doing nothing to tell of foreign intervention or their repercussions.
We have no big movies focusing on Kissinger fucking up Cambodia, right?
And then there's Ip Man with Donnie Yen. That tells of how China was assaulted by the Japanese in ww2... has there ever been a Chinese movie you've heard of tackling China invading Nepal and working over Tibet? And conversely, has there ever been a big Japanese movie you've heard of that acknowledges their history fighting as the Axis in a real way?
Godzilla Minus One _does_ have a kamikaze pilot who chickened out as a lead... that's a great movie and the characters motivations are made better for that, but HALF of the movie is showing how busted up Japanese society was in the wake of the atomic bomb... it still makes sense given the time period and the fact that Godzilla as a premise was ALWAYS about that primarily... which Minus One completely abandoned to be just another kaiju movie to keep the franchise going.
You don't GET those kinds of stories, which is ass. Instead, pretty much every nation, like I said, provides an insular cultural viewpoint and refuses to honestly get outside of that.
Get it?
@@The1Ryu my problem is that so much "entertainment" also serves the purposes of lionization and base nationalism to make people just feel good, rather than teach or present something truly new to its audience... which is why audiences are "targeted."
If there were giant alien arachnids trying to kill us hasan would say his streaming job would be harder, from his 3.5 million dollar West Hollywood mansion, or in his 200,000 dollar Porsche taycan.
Is “war is bad because he lost my legs” satire?
Kind of hinges on whether these wars are unnecessary. If they are defending against extinction - loses its value.
The Starship Troopers were Nazis because "trenchcoat and eagle"
The exact same uniform scheme of the US 🙄
So close lol
@@ANTIStraussian It's ironic that leftists can look at a racially diverse clean and orderly society with gender equality and open and free debate and voting rights and say "fascists" because of a guy with a trenchcoat with an eagle on his cap.
Literally nothing about the terrans are fascist. They don't even have a dictator
😂😂😂😂
@@RonRoyGosselinDid you miss the part about needing to serve in the military to get the right to vote and breed.
@@kap1618 Rico's parents didn't need to join the military to breed.
It was only for voting rights, and I agree
@@RonRoyGosselin good for Rico but I'm talking about in general a character literally states her desire to join the military to be a parent. And agree with what? You think that's a good thing?
LOL a film that was meant to make fascism look terrible turned out to making fascism look cool.
man, i don't care, i love starship troopers and starcraft, its fun, i'm having fun!
Imagine a movie with attractive people in it
Service guarantees citizenship...Leaders are elected...It's Fascism yells idiots...
I mean they do give a guy a 30 minute trial and then execute him on prime time tv.
I always assumed everyone thought the news reels were propaganda of the state.
The asteroid was a gulf of tonkin, operation himmler
But this comment section shows the red pilled guys like the government in the movie.
Ffs fascists don’t cares whether the movie is a parody are not even if we’ve already explained to them, they knows and they chose not to care. Same thing about the Punisher or any other fascist parodies. Artists, writers & directors should have made movies & art that are outright critiques of fascism instead of catering to fascist sensibilities, so that fascists couldn’t interpreted in any other ways. God ! Hasan is such a midwit sometimes.
Also doesn't help the book and author are pretty openly in support of right wing ideals
It drives me nuts when leftists respond to people with like Punisher skull as their pfps, "Punisher would hate you".
It sucks more artists and people in general don't understand, you don't get into fascism because you're smart.
Doesn't matter, it's not for them, the solution can't be to not create anything slightly deep. Right wing nuts also claim george carlin would be on their side today which is literally the opposite of his stance.
yeah, it's the artists' fault. galaxy-brain take.
This guy has zero idea
No, the movie very clearly says that facism and "controled democracy" are the only ways of mantaining a fuctional society when faced with a military threat, this movie is not a parody of facism, its a comentary on facism, and the reason people are still talking about it today is because it controversialy presents facism in a positive light not just in the meaningless aesthethic choices like cool uniforms and action scenes, but particularly in the more serious debate sections, specially the teacher at the start of the movie who makes the strong argument (regardless of if you aggree) that people who provide great service to a society at their own peril or well beign should be given more political power "service guarantees citizenship" meaning only those who participate in the betterment of society are considered citizens while those who dont are "civilians" who have less political power
The bugs relates to the leftist propaganda 😂
what makes startship troopers an important piece of political comentary is that it both shows how horrible facism is and also why facism is the best aproach to dealing with military conflicts, this movie is very clearly not a run of the mill parody of facism and u can see that in the fact that a lot of right wing people have adopted this movie as one of the best representations of the "positive" aspects of an authoritarian government
Theyre losing to bugs
@@gapsule2326 tyranids, zerg and xenomorphs are famously pushovers
@@ITSBurgerPT those are like, from different movies lol
Saying it's fascist because right wingers like it is like saying All in the Family is racist because racists like Archie Bunker,. Right wingers are stupid.
@@dangerousd1312 you are right, so I dont understand what "they are losing to bugs" is ment to be
Wow Denise Richards was the worst actress of all time lmao