8:09 - In the novel, The recruiter was far worse off, Described as barely human. Later, Rico finds him in the officer's bar looking normal and healthy. The recruiter explains that he removes his prosthetics while recruiting to make sure those who enlist know what they're in for and scare away those too weak to handle service.
Yep, it was explicitly for transparancy, which is why its so annoying that Veerhoven bastardised almost every part of the novel's philosophy into a simplistic nazi parody. As much as I love this film, Veerhoven is the student who didnt understand the lesson, but speaks as if the smartest man in the room. To me, this is a perfect example of loving the art, but hating the artist.
@@yxcdeb I love the book and the movie for completely different reasons. Heinlein was a Naval Academy grad. He felt that service to something greater than oneself was the greatest thing one could achieve. Starship Troopers was written to show that. One could contrast that to Harry Harrison's Bill, the Galactic Hero. Harrison wrote BTGH as a counterpoint to Starship Troopers and Asimov's Foundation series. I love the movie because it does show that Ultranationalism can lead to Fascism. In the DVD movie commentary, both Veerhoven and Neumeier specifically talk about how neither one of them actually read the book.
@@notsocrates9529 When you have people do so for Communism, Dictatorships, and Monarchs it only makes sense people would do the same for Fascism, they're all equally flawed ideologies which take good ideas to drastic extremes with no thought for the individual
The year Starship Troopers came out, MST3K did a special about the Oscars. After poking fun at the frontrunners for Oscar nominations for half an hour, the last punchline of the show was a throw-away joke about Starship Troopers. And yet, here we are 25 years later, and people are STILL talking about Starship Troopers. Nobody even cares about The English Patient.
@@TheSteakStyles I only remember a joke in Seinfeld about someone saying they didn't like the movie and then everyone turning on them for not liking it. Also I just double-checked, and I got the year wrong; the 1997 Oscars were for the movies that came out in 1996, so the Oscar winner that Starship Troopers "competed" against was Titanic. Even saying that though, I still hear more people talk about Starship Troopers today than Titanic, especially since most of what I hear about Titanic are parodies and jokes rather than the meaningful content behind it. Oh and Starship Troopers was nominated for best visual effects, but lost to Titanic. Also Jurassic Park the Lost World, but it just goes to show that Oscars are more about Hollywood circle-jerking than meaningful acknowledgement.
Fun bit of trivia: Movie props are expensive, so if they aren't too famous or iconic (lightsabers, ruby red slippers, etc.), they tend to end up in warehouses until needed for another film or show. If you are a fan of Firefly, you might note some familiar armor on the Alliance military.
Not only that but the reason they have the oversized silly looking assault rifles is that they were going to have the power armour in the movie. they made the power armour scaled rifles with no scope because helmet camera link. Then, low on budget, commissioned cheap helmets and flak vests instead of the originally intended armor.
I was an extra in that scene where they run into the ships. We ran ALL day. They filmed it at a hangar at LAX and had huge green screens in the background. The gear was hot and heavy, but it was still a kind of cool experience.
Starship troopers is a bit tongue in cheek but it’s also a pretty accurate portrayal of military life. Signing up for the wrong reasons, love troubles, making friends with people you’d have never thought you would, and getting to play with explosives. The only thing it’s missing is a caffeine and alcohol abuse.
At the end Rico yells "come on you apes you wanna live forever". It's a haunting scene because it's a direct quote from Ironside's character who is reenlisted and dies in combat. This paints a haunting future as the cycle of death and war for these soldiers starts over and over again.
There's a deeper layer to that line. It's also saying that the only way for a mortal human to live forever is to be remembered through heroic deeds/a glorious sacrifice. It's a way to get them to risk their lives with less hesitation. But the reason *Rico* says it is to cement Radchek's legacy and pass on his teachings to the new Roughnecks.
I felt that too, but I think when you remember the novel is actually a bildungsroman it is part of showing him turning from boy to man, which is kinda wholesome? But yes, that only really just adds to the hauntingness if you see it as him growing up to take his place in the grinder. Though again in the book the soldiers are all super elite as opposed to the human wave nonsense in the film, so it isn't a grinder in the book.
The novel was also satirical, but it in a different way, it continuously exalted the militaristic system while at the same time showing you all the cracks it had, if Verhoeven actually thought the book was prowar he didn't understood it. Ironside's character (Rasczak) line, is repeated by Rico because at the end of the movie the system has processed him and spit another Rasczak. In the book you see Rico's father "seeing the light" and enlisting, at all points you see the system grinding up people and remaking them into usable pawns (kinda like the military dies to soldiers)
I saw this in the theater as a young man. A theater on Ft. Knox, and most of the other seats were taken by other young men who were in basic training. Made the movie far more interesting and amusing. Especially during the shower scene, when some young recruit jumped up down front. He started pointing at the screen and hollering, "Sarge! Sarge! Why don't we get that?"
Funny story, years ago at Fort Hood there was a barracks snafu where some young guy got paired as a roommate with a young female troop. Both had just come out of Basic Training, didn’t know that wasn’t normal, and shared a room for a few months until they had their first big inspection. The Leadership had a field day and tore the dude a new one but again he didn’t know better, in fact he actually mentioned Starship Troopers during his defense. Not sure if the female troop got in trouble! 😂
@@davealmighty9638I had one in boot camp in fall 2009 in the Marine Corps. It was thanksgiving and they let us watch “300” on base theater MCRD San Diego.
@slaytanic921 in 2005, when going through basic training, we somehow managed to pass barracks inspection for the first time in front while our CO was doing the inspection. This had been the first time I'd seen the movie at 20 since watching it when it came out at 11 or 12. To us, it was juts getting hyped about our ongoing training. Somehow, the director made an awesome movie trying to satire facism and knowing a bit more about the works its is based from, there is a part of me that believes there should be a difference between civilians and citizens.
i keep seeing people talk about the meteor as a false flag and there's no proof that the bugs can launch them. But noone ever mentions the part of the movie where we literally see a meteor launched at the fleet as they approach the homeworld. Sure it could be a conincidence, and it's the only instance in the movie we see it actually happen outside of the propeganda, but i think intentionally clipping it out while saying "the only evidence is propeganda" is dishonest.
The bugs have colonised multiple planets they have developed some technique to do interstellar travel, just as humans have. As well they mention in the movie about Mormon colonists in the arachnid zone and it seems clear this is retaliation for that and potentially other actions. Its not a false flag its retaliation.
I don't think that it was the Federation either. These bugs are highly organised and can shoot starships from the ground, something that the human generals could not foresee either, apparently. The bugs' planning and carrying out of the plan is more proficient and intelligent than humans', who fumbled their way into a planet that I can't even imagine what objective interest we might possibly have on it. This is the story of two empires colliding, but humans are more to blame and the first aggressors, IMO.
Some good points here. The false flag idea is interesting, but feels like a bit of a reach. If we accept that the movie is written as satire and the viewer's motivation is to question the veracity of everything, then I could see it. I think you would have to go in with that bias, though. I don't recall and other hints that the bugs are secretly benevolent and humans are the actual aggressors. I think if you were making that case, you would need some evidence of bugs attempting to surrender but being killed anyway, bugs trying to communicate about a truce, etc.
Please know that there are deleted scenes of her Fleet guy erasing messages from Rico. He really was a snake that let her think Rico had discarded her.
Too bad they deleted that, I think showing that the other guy is a creep trying to get into her pants and she never finds out would have worked well. Or, after the guy has a heroic death scene defending her from the bugs Rico mentions she must have been too busy to answer his messages so she checks her message history and finds out he was gaslighting her. Instead of stupid love triangle BS show that the the kind of psycho perv the internet tries to claim is some ugly fat guy living in their mom's basement is actually perfectly normal looking and can get into a high position in this system.
One point from the book that was left out [to make it a satire of militarism] was that a person didn't have to be in the military to gain citizenship [which Heinlein noted in a later article]. Working in any government offices [such as the Peace Corps in our system] would allow citizenship, as the concept was to make the potential Citizen aware of the need to keep others in mind, and be willing to give up your own desire to "get all you can at others' loss".
The movie deliberately left out a lot from the book. Indeed, the book famously has a line where someone says, " The arachnids aren't bugs, bugs don't build starships." Because in the book, the arachnids were intelligent and built starships and other machinery.
@@jv-lk7bc He said "that's ONE thing" that annoyed him, directly implying that there are others. But I guess I wouldn't expect solid reading comprehension from people that use "smh".
The two biggest themes in the book are discipline and putting the needs of others ahead of your own, but every character in the movie has a selfish desire for joining the military.
I think an important thing to mention is the dialogue. When Rico was a private in a squad, the squad leader was voicing the very same lines that Rico finds himself saying when he becomes of that role, which truly hint and show the transformation.
@@Bootyhunter70 in this case transformation, indoctrination typically comes with the basic training and first deployment, which is what we see, causing patriotism to take over.
I think you missed the main point, Rico knows he is putting on an act for the fresh recruits. Before he addresses the new troopers he asks Ace Levy “Give ‘em a little of the old man?” The old man meaning the late Lt. Jean Rasczak who used the very same words to them. Ask any drill sergeant and they will admit part of their demeanor is partly acting mean while trying to teach vital skills.
i think the idea was that the leader of the roughnecks was a character, so when you become the leader, you take on the character. its like the regalia of a particular unit. how standards and banners are passed down through time in a unit, but in this instance, the banners and standards being passed down, were the character of the leader of the unit.
"some key changes" should read "nothing from the book made it into the screenplay". The movie is good but has no relation to the book. Heinlein's book is foundational SciFi and deserved to actually be put on screen.
I agree an actual adaptation of the book deserves to be put on screen, because this movie is not an adaptation of the book. However, the movie is both bad and does have relation to the book, if you can call twisting the philosophy completely around to try to discredit the author being a relation
@@Back-alley-technician The movie doesn't really show them as aggressive. They are definitely violent, but we only see them do that where humans are invading their territory. Other than the asteroid hitting earth, we never see them attack outside their own territory. And if the asteroid is a false flag, then they have only acted defensively.
@@ThatGuy-bz2in i don't believe the bugs really can send asteroids to the earth, and even if they could why would they, what do they gain? they don't have space travel, its not like they are gonna invade the earth for its resources or anything. As far as their actions when the infantry show up, what does a hive of bees do when you disturb their hive? does that make bees a terrible and aggressive species?
@@canadiangopher4443 you're kinda just repeating my point back to me. The previous comment was that they were aggressive. My comment was that we only really see them defending their own territory. The only aggressive action was the attack on earth, which we never really see any evidence of them having done.
The thing about the novel that the movie was unable to capture was the use of the mobile infantry suits. His was one of the first Sci-fi works that went into detail about the power suits...how they could see in the dark, had individual radar, enhanced the user speed and strength. Real groundbreaking stuff for 1959. The movie didn't have either the budget or technology to depict that...which is a real shame.
Yeah, i was sad when I realized it wouldn’t have the mobile infantry suits, nor would they drop via the pods, both of which were covered extensively in the book. Hopefully at some point a skilled director will remake the movie and include the suits drop pods.
@@johnpatz8395 You should look into the sequels, except ST2, which is trash. On the sequels they got a lot more of the mecha stuffs. ST4 and ST5 is actually japanese animation but still continuing the story of Rico who now already become a badass. What they lost is of course the intentional sarcasm of Verhoven.
3:30 "The main group of recruits discuss their reasons for enlisting in the military..." While arguably not a member of the main group, one uncredited female recruit in this scene states that she enlisted so that she might (be permitted or licensed to) have babies.
It is a bit of a hike, I live in the free state of Florida. Just kidding about Trudy, look at the mumbling stumbler we have fake in charge.@@CanadianTehGamer
I was in an airborne unit and we kept a copy of Starship Troopers at the front desk of our barracks. Since we all had 24 hour duty at the desk at some point, we all read it. No one knows who left the book there, but it was almost a relic to us.
I liked the lessons of the Sgt, sometimes it is better just to shut up. If you are worth a shit, your Sgt will take care of you. As a retired SNCO I fought for my troops every day. I won some...
So glad someone took the time and finally focused on the lack of diversity of bugs in this film. I had that same thought back when I first saw this movie! I feel so much more secure and included now.
Dizzy was better for Rico than Carmen. She loved him selflessly and wholeheartedly. Carmen was all about prioritizing herself as an individual, whereas Dizzy was a team player- she supported Rico 100% to where his success was her success, too. Dizzy earned her place with Rico. Carmen just showed up when it was convenient.
Always thought Dizzy was hotter, prettier, more...yeah. Never got why Rico was into fish-faced Carmen, an "upper-class pretty" girl w/ daddy issues who reminds me of a bass I once caught... and when she said "I love you" to Rico she sounded like she swallowed a turd. IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN CARMEN WHO DIED!
@@martyschriver Well, that's an entirely subjective opinion. Objectively speaking, Carmen behaved like a basic bitch. Unlike Dizzy, however, SHE was a ride-or-die... literally 💯
The Mormons provoked many Indian wars, and counted on the U. S. Army to come to their rescue. The film is also a satire of Manifest Destiny, and how Indians were viewed as "bugs."
@John Doe I see the bugs as basically any enemy of a nationalistic state. In order to commit genocide you must turn the enemy into something subhuman, into vermin, into bugs. And what do we do with vermin? We must exterminate them. We see this in many ethnic cleansings - the dehumanizing of the enemy.
The Starship Troopers movie wasn't even about the book. The only scene taken directly from the book was the classroom. Otherwise they just borrowed character names and aesthetics. The working title of the script was Bug Hunt.
ah yes, totalitarian, where you can leave the boot camp at any time and you are even told several times to do so, where a general is able and willing to leave his rank because he knew he fucked up, where media is so unrestricted that you can literaly have a live stream from the landing at normandy (or its equivalent in this universe)
A pedantic criticism that nevertheless cuts at the quality of the review. Many people use authoritarian and totalitarian interchangeably even though there are important distinctions between them as you point out.
@@PrimusGladius and that is not the only bad use of terms the authors of this vid are vaguely familiar with. I mean come on, how does it even come to you to say "utopian faschist society"? Dystopian, n'est-ce pas? I'd say it's an overall disappointing video with a pile of very wrong and silly conclusions. Obviously drawn by a person entirely unfamiliar with concepts of war, political structures or even just military service.
He tries to make it seem like everything about the humans is wrong and the bugs are innocents defending themselves. One line that proves it is false is when they join their new unit and ask the female officer about her combat experience. She says Zegema Beach which is the vacation planet Rico’s father wanted to take him. Defending by attacking a resort? There is no good or bad in this title. More about two opposing forces colliding. War, military, politics and everything connected to them is usually marred in the grey area. That’s where the fascist satire comes in. There are some things about the society that makes sense and others that have you laughing or shaking your head because it’s absurd or blatantly wrong.
My biggest thing as an adult is how impressionable Rico was. He was constantly taking pieces from everyone. Others felt defined and knew what they wanted, Rico was the opposite.
Its his leadership type, assimilating the best qualities of those he meets into his own character (usually making a better leader). Anybody that claims to know themselves after only experiencing high school is delusional. Real experiences amongst adults in a larger venue are required to develop an actual sense of self.
Rico was dumb and unexceptional. His friends were not. But Rico was wise, so he constantly took pieces from everyone. It's why he grows and becomes a leader and saves the day. Also, I don't really believe that his friends didn't take pieces from others too. His smart friend who became a psychic was not reading his own books in college, but what others people wrote. If people lack the humility and wisdom to actually learn from others, they grow up to be all "personality" and no brains. An empty brain is a useless brain, regardless of how fast or cool it may think it is.
arguably with the exception of the asteroid bit (which could have been a natural disaster, you never actually find out what happened), their citizens are more informed of the war effort and what is going on than real life.
A scene that I think gets overlooked often is the cafeteria scene. If you pay attention to the background you'll see the trainers watching the argument with Rico and he showed that he was better at commanding/being an "Alfa male", that's when he is given command over a training squad. I always thought that was super good environmental storytelling. I was also surprised at the amount of people that thought the movie was pro-war instead of satirical
I think Douglas Adams' legendary quote comes in to play here. "anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.” But really it's "it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it." that makes the difference. Yes Rico is gunning for squad leader, it's not his desire to get the job that gets him the job, it's his ability to lead and put others before him that really pushes him to the forefront.
"I was also surprised at the amount of people who thought it was pro war instead of satirical " never underestimate how incredibly stupid a massive chunk of society is.
I think it also goes back to the class teachings at the beginning being very fascist in ideology where it's very survival of the fittest. Zim didn't stop him butting in line because he saw it as a show of strength and if no one stops him it's seen as weakness on their part. Bully society.
Verhoven never read the book. Just skimmed it to tell his antifascist message. Heinlein’s novel is actually quite prescient on how social scientists mess everything up. Take our current clown world as an example. Unfortunately in the real world we won’t have veterans coming to save us from ourselves.
@@thisfool89 Actualy its also incredible how badly the director understands the original book. I like the movie. But the book is not nazi propaganda. There is a lot of pretty strong thoughts. And mainly its about free vote rights as people does not think about greater good when they vote, but about them selves. That only if you need to earn the right for vote, you can put the countly and future above your own interrests.
The inside job bit is wrong though and can easily be debunked by the scene of the asteroid taking out the comms deck of the Roger Young (The ship that Carmen serves on). The reason that scene exists is so that you draw a logical conclusion that the same asteroid that hit the Roger Young is the same one that decimates Buenos Aires and because the Roger Young couldn't communicate this back to Earth it comes as a surprise attack against the planet.
The Bugs can knock small asteroids out of their orbital path in a limited scale, but that doesn't mean they can aim an asteroid at a moving target (the Earth) hundreds of light years away. The actual reason that scene exists is so that you can see how "the Bugs can move asteroids, therefore they could have launched an asteroid at Earth from hundreds of lightyears away" is a deeply spurious argument. The asteoid that hit the Roger Young did so in another star system; even if you imagine it's the nearest star sytem to our own (which is only 4 lightyears distance), that's still over 38 trillion kilometres away. Even if the asteroid was travelling at 100,000 kilometres per hour, it'd still have taken that asteroid 43,200 years to get to Earth. In order for the Bugs to have intentionally targeted Earth with the asteroid that hit Buenos Aires, they'd have had to calculate the speed and trajectory of the asteroid (as well as the movement of the Earth, and the robit of our star sytem around galactic central point, and every major potential gravitational body in the asteroid's path) hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years in advance, meaning they'd have had to do so long before humans evolved. The distances involved, and the comparatively slow speed an asteroid moves at, mean that it's all-but-impossible for the Bugs to have launched the asteroid attack on Earth.
@@CorvusBelli01 I away find this argument pretty funny. So you see the asteroid changing trajectory or where it came from and go "AHA - bugs couldn't predict that!". Despite neither bugs nor humans having a set way of FTL travel. Despite the trajectory change needing to be calculated by the "inside job" people. To think that you would have to willingly ignore things that are openly provided in the movie and then go "well you need to read between what you've read between the lines!!!". The actual answer is that Verhoeven didn't care about physics, distance and space travel enough to even consider those things and it shows.
@@raidolato Because they have ships capable of travelling at FTL speeds, which they would need to have to have established interstellar human colonies in a reasonable timeframe. That solves that problem pretty handily, and is a very common sci-fi staple.
@@ofgreyhairwaifu4089 "So you see the asteroid changing trajectory or where it came from and go "AHA - bugs couldn't predict that!"." The difference between changing the trajectory of an asteroid to hit "a stationary target within a few hundred kilometres", versus hitting "a moving target a few hundred LIGHTYEARS away", is vast. So vast, in fact, that comparing the two is ridiculous. "Despite the trajectory change needing to be calculated by the "inside job" people" They'd be using an asteroid from within our solar system, which would be a VASTLY simpler set of calculations, and depending on how they move the asteroid (thrusters attached to the asteroid, for example) they can even alter as necessary during it's flight to hit Earth. "The Bugs launched an asteroid at Earth" is the films equivalent to the Gleiwitz incident, or the Reichstag fire. The fact that you hear the fascist governments convenient justification for their war and think "yup, sure, seems totally reasonable to me, it's not like fascists ever lie to achieve their goals, and that's totally not a major theme of the movie" is pretty amusing.
They're spesifically *Argentinian* blondes, And everyone should know who's descendants blond, blue eyed Argentinians are. Oh, and it wasn't "hinted" that it "might" have been a false flag attack on Buenos Aires. It's blatantly made clear that it was the government, unless you are ready to believe that the bugs somehow predicted the future, sent an asteroid billions of years ago, and managed to calculate every variable on the slow interstellar trajectory of the rock. There's a lot to unpack in the film, it would take a much longer video to go through it all. One if my favorite movies.
@@bobbyboyd4737 Yeh, it's as if these people have never met or spoken too or read about soldiers at any point in their lives. Good soldiers tend to be pretty stoic and masculine. And masculine men tend to talk like this.
@@bobbyboyd4737 This was the veteran (in the book, with visible disabling wounds [missing legs]) whose job it was to eliminate those people (like Johnny), who had no clue as to why they wanted to join, and or were doing it for a "lark", or to run away from home, etc.
After being deployed with NATO-OTAN forces, the co-ed shower scene is only unusual for Americans. Many other countries deploy entirely co-ed in living quarters and showers. It was a bit shocking for me at first seeing a Gorgeous blonde Sweed step out of the shower in front of me, introducing herself, but I soon realized it really wasn’t that big a deal. Only prudish Americans think it’s outrageous, and my wife.
So true. My better half and I were mistaken for foreigners by foreigners at a swingers club because we were so relaxed about nudity (we were stunned to find _so_ many skin-shy people there). We were both born and raised in the U.S. but somehow we missed the memo about nudity being shameful and wrong.
Personally I just don't want to see anyone naked. Also hate being naked myself as I feel vulnerable physically. Don't need to see some saggy smelly balls, hanging vag lips, or the brown void. Breasts are okay but don't get mad if my eye catches them. They are there and distracting.
I grew up during comunist regime and we had a thing called TV speaker - it was a person who talked before the movie and whose purpose was to explain to us how we should understand the movie we are about to see. This reminded me about it a lot.
Reminds me of the Chinese version of Fight Club where before the buildings blow up at the end it cuts away to say the police took care of everything and the main character went to a mental care facility and recovered from his illness. lol Can't have the authorities look like they aren't all-powerful and all-knowing, I guess.
I read the book "Starship Troopers" while I was serving in the infantry in Vietnam in 1967. Neither I nor anyone I knew over there that read it (The USO provide us with paper backs which we passed around) saw it as anything other than an anti-war novel.
yeah, the book seemed libertarian, and sort of leaned on the fact that democracy ended up breaking down because people eventually just voted themselves to have ice cream, and had no skin in the game. Changes when you put your name on the dotted line, and have a better appreciation for freedoms.
That’s interesting. While I had read it along before this, it was actually part of the required reading for the army officers basic infantry course when I went through it in the late 80s. The army doesn’t view it as being anti-war. No, don’t get me wrong, I’m not disagreeing with your interpretation of the book. I can absolutely see how you’re coming at it with that viewpoint and I think it’s totally legitimate. I think one of the things that make this book great is, it can be viewed from a lot of different angles, and held up to illustrate various points of view.
Yep when u think how that system work and have conclusions. :) First i think it was a shity movie class-B sci-fi. But afthere i watched it, the movie is great. AND why they were angry about starship troopers ? Not bcs is was gloryfing nazis systems but bcs it was look almost like United States. 🤣
It did not reflect a Nazi-like system, because there was no one being taken away in the middle of the night, like the Gestappo did in Germany during the war. Nothing like concentration camps, was even hinted at.
I would respectfully suggest, "The Politics of Starship Troopers" here on youtube. It has a good comparison of book vs movie and shows where many of the points presented above, aren't supported by the text.
@@mikehenrys Also the Sky Marshall who F**ked up, took responsibility and resigned, for a more competent leader. In a Nazi or Commie system, the leaders never take responsibility, they just keep sending more men to the grinder until the system falls apart, or they win.
Someone pointed out that, despite the enemy having a distinctly different silhouette and body structure from a human, the MI continue to use human shaped targets, and human-on-human scrimmages. Almost like fighting xenos is an afterthought
Idk if it was retconned in the movie, but the book has other alien species like "the Skinnies" who are initially allied with the Arachnids until the end of the book.
This analysis is full of errors. Here's just a few points: 1. Paul Verhoeven did not read the book, he put it down after reading a few pages. 2. This is not an authoritarian state. An authoritarian state does not afford it’s citizens civil liberties or political rights. 3. Accusing the film of lacking diversity is silly as the soldiers are highly diverse & the highest military leader is a black woman. 4. There is absolutely zero indication in the film that the Buenos Aires attack was a false flag operation. The best you can do is point to people’s “speculations”. That’s simply inserting things that aren’t in the film. 5. You say the treatment of the brain bug at the end illustrates just how "victimized" the bugs are while completely ignoring how the brain bug treated two unarmed prisoners of war. Not to mention how the bugs treated a Mormon settlement on a planet that the bugs were not indigenous to either. 6. The bugs are an aggressive colonizing species that are spreading through the system so confrontation with them is inevitable. Obviously they are not interested in a live-and-let-live philosophy evidenced by what they did to the Mormon settlers (not a single weapon was shown in the carnage). The Federation at the very least creates quarantine zones to avoid contact with the bugs which is what a let-live policy would entail. Ultimately it's not the audience's fault for not seeing Verhoeven's "hidden brilliance" (sarcasm alert). It's his fault. He did not make an effective satire of fascism. Fascism is not even depicted in the society he showed. Using German uniforms does not add any substance to the argument.
Exactly right, Verhoeven simply failed in his goal, and now he's mad that people are "misinterpreting" his work. How about the fact that Rico's parents are rich despite being non-citizens, and that he could've picked any other line of work as a non-citizen and lived in affluence. Or the fact that being rich afforded him no special benefits in the army, which is an incredible showcase of meritocracy that doesn't even exist in our "democratic" and free society. If he wanted to show that the bugs were a non-threat or that the meteor was the military's doing, he sure did a poor job at that, since the former is clearly not a true and the latter is pure speculation. He could've made society far less fair and impoverished, the military more shady and corrupt, and the bugs more "innocent", but he failed at all of those things and that's his fault.
Sadly Verhoeven was incapable of understanding the novel. There's nothing in the movie that suggest the bugs were set up: in fact, Carmen's ship encounter an Asteroid coming from Klendathu towards earth. the bugs are shown targeting fast moving spaceships in orbit form the surface. The bugs are not misunderstood.
Mee to. My son however who's 10 immedately told me it's a movie about space nazis, who bombed their own city & invaded the bugs.. so those hints are pretty obvious to today's generation.
@@alexanderbenkendorf688 Every time I hear somebody claim the internet is making us dumber, I roll my eyes. Because I keep meeting kids like your son. I am truly terrified of how useless I am going to be when I get old.
About the disfigurement part, i think Verhoeven left out one crucial thing. In the book, the recruitment officer that is missing limbs is later seen with fully functional bionic prosthethics. He also says that the "disabled" thing is just a part of the shtick they came up in the higher up for propaganda reason, and that the prosthethics make him even more capable in some fields than regular limbs.
Very much so! In the boom, he doesn't wear his prosthetics as a way to dissuade half-hearted thrill seekers from joining the MI. That way, they get even less washout and more willing, less doe-eyed recruits. It is an incredibly important scene, like many of the books scenes, that were cut in favor of the director's attempt at propoganda.
The whole point of it was discouragement. Every bit during your enlistment if you weren't fighting forces was to make it as onerous as possible. You had to WANT to be a citizen so much that you were willing to make great sacrifices.
Verhoeven left all those parts about the "benevolent authoritarian government" out on purpose. He wanted a satire about how normal, likeable or even "good" people would fall for a fascist system and AFAIK it was pure studio interference that the movie was turned into an adaption of Heinlein's book in the first place. Verhoeven supposedly hated the book and just took some names and a few scenes he could fit into his original concept.
When I first saw the previews in the theater, the scene where the bugs are rushing the remote compound they were in is reminiscent of a scene from the book "Armor" by John Steakley I was STOKED They might make that into a movie (and I think it would be an awesome movie). Still enjoyed Starship Troopers and went back to get the book and was shocked at how literally different they are. The movie took the Title, some character names, and a few background ideas, and then sprinted in a different direction.
I remember reading that book as a kid. I honestly don't remember much but I do think it has a major twist in it that easily works in a book (because you can't see the characters) but I don't know would be particularly easy to pull off in a movie. I remember enjoying it very much though and if they could properly adapt it I would definitely watch it.
@@ryanhenderson8908I have read the book multiple times now. I think it is still in print. Yes, there was a twist near the end realizing who stood in front of them because he was the ONLY person in the universe who could have stepped into the suit and it responded to him.
The dialogue in the shower scene is important for the audience to understand the fascism. The people have to earn their citizenship to be able to do jobs and even have babies.
@@pookachu64 The fascist government policy. "service guarantees citizenship". The people earn their citizenship. One way is with military service. The government in this movie restricts certain rights, lifestyles, profession etc unless a person is a "citizen". This policy is unheard of in the U.S.. The right to procreate is an inalienable human right in the U.S. and in most societies.
@@daniellewis2133 Yes, but in a fascist state everyone has a purpose for the state and must earn their rights hence the restriction on citizenship. But normally these kinds of states want women to have babies and so there would be no restriction there and in fact it would be the opposite, becoming a mother would earn a woman the right to citizenship.
@@TheJetstream10 Having citizenship allows you to have more then 2 children. Johnny Rico parents weren't Citizens they were Civilians. It helps to prevent overpopulation.
So sad how few people have read this masterpiece. It really is fantastic. I am glad that the movie has gained more and more popularity in my life though.
I picked up the book on a whim walking through Walmart with my mom in 1997, I was 13 at the time. It was a tie in semi promotional thing for the movie (the book cover had the movie poster on it). The book was totally Heinlein's classic though. I took it home and was absolutely enthralled, it introduced me to so many new ideas and on top of that introduced me to Heinlein as an author. It's STILL one of my favorite books of all time. Needless to say, I had my dad take me to the movie when it was released. I think that was the first time in my life I had a "this is nothing like the book...." moment. To this day I'm still not a big fan of it. I can see the popcorn movie appeal, but it always just reminds me of my disappointment at 13.
I was fortunate to see the movie when it came out and to read the novel this year. Both are amazing in their own rights. The novel is much more than fascist jingoism.
@@furiouskaiser9914 Actually, I listened to an unabridged audiobook, not read the novel. I don't know why I wrote it that way. The reader was excellent. Look up the ship names and historical references; it's with it!
Both are masterpieces in their own right. The movie is wonderful, but I hate the legacy it left for the book. The book is wonderful and not fascist at all. There is some element of authoritarianism to it, but the reason for the switch to a more authoritarian government is the utter lack of discipline in society as well as a general selfish nature to individuals. It's 2023 and Heinlein's dystopian future that led to the regime is largely playing out. We have Dr. Spock's book to thank for not disciplining kids. We have government officials using their station for personal gain. I could go on. The service requirement to vote and be politically active is two fold. It requires both discipline and that you to put the wellbeing of others before yourself. Basically it's a way to weed out the self-serving and the corrupt. It's spelled out that you can live comfortably in a nice society without ever having to serve and the distinction between the two is minimal. I hate how Verhoven twisted this idea that service and discipline are just the machine breaking and remolding you into an obedient tool. Instead of it being a test to see who is fit to lead, it's perverted to be a form of control. And I know Heinlein gets a lot of crap, but the ideas here are not far off from Douglas Adams who is essentially the polar opposite of Heinlein politically. Adams wrote "it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it." This then gets summarized to "anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job." We have a lot to learn from the old authors still.
Even as a kid, I knew it was meant to be tongue in cheek. Still a good 'fun' movie to watch though. Or rather, that aspect of it, made it a better movie. More depth and substance as it were.
It's crazy how kids like us caught on to that, but critics panned it as being pro-nazi and all that. If a 10 year old can watch it and understand it's more than a mindless action flick, how come the critics couldn't? I think they were just jaded by the gratuitous nature of all his films. I've watched his stuff before this one. Flesh+Blood, Robocop, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, and Showgirls are all very pointed and dive much deeper than surface level. I do find it very interesting that Robocop is a very deep philosophical movie, Total Recall is a solid adaptation of a PKD story that toys with the idea of fake reality, and then this is only looked at on a surface level. It doesn't make sense.
Starship Troopers was the first R rated movie I ever watched (5 years old when it came out in 1997) and my dad let us kids watch it to my moms disapproval. It made me want to join the Marine Corps (which I later did) and it also made me fall in love with Denise Richards only to realize when I was an adult she was the real villain lol. Dizzy was the real one. That being said the movie was so impactful to me that I didn't even think to read the book until I had already served in the Marines and honestly I'm glad it worked that way. It gave me a much better appreciation for the military themes in the book and a much better understanding of the leadership lessons/political opinions expressed in the book. The book and movie only share the title, SOME names (Diz was a guy who died in the first couple chapters) and the general plot of killing bugs in space but that's pretty much where the similarities end. The book does not promote fascism as Paul Verohoven thought. He self admittedly didn't read past the first chapter of the book and was scorned growing up in a Nazi occupied country.
The part where Sgt. Zim answers why they train with knives when nukes are available is so much better presented in the book. No ridiculous "cannot push a button if you disable his hand" quip. He explained that war is violence for a purpose, and excessive violence is counterproductive. Spank children to correct behavior, but don't beat them. It also was a call back to the opening chapter where the Mobile Infantry conducted a raid on another planet, destroying a few factories, some other buildings, all to show the native population that the MI can attack them with impunity, and to convince them to obey. The Feds wanted compliance, not extermination.
On the B.A. event, thats the astroid that took out the communication on Carmen's ship, the only one that could've given proper warning of its existence. The asteroids are also how they spread planet to planet so they DO have the ability to make those calculations.
Its not so much the calculations as much the time involved. That Asteroid would have had to be shot a factor of time longer than the existence of humanity as a sentient organism in order to bridge the vastness of space to smite Buenos Ares. The Average speed of an asteroid is is about 12 miles per second, or a blistering 43200 miles an hour. To reach Proxima Centauri, a meagre 4.246 lights years from our sun, traveling at the speed listed above, it would take approximately 66812 Years. With what is presented in the film if that Asteroid was going at any appreciable FTL speeds than Carmen's ship would never have been seen again, let alone be able to see the asteroid at all. The Bugs could not have done Buenos Ares.
@@ballisticwaffles I would assume that that there is some sort of wormhole or hyperspace tunnel that allows the asteroid to travel to the solar system in a drastically faster rate. Perhaps the bug is capable of using wormhole as means of interstellar travel? You know, the film mentioned that humans also use similar technology (hyperspace travel).
@@LucasEckhart No, there's no wormhole, the bugs are just that, bugs. There's nothing special about them other than they exist at the other end of the galaxy from Earth. That's part of the brilliant satirism of the movie. It's the humans that are the invasive species, the colonizers, and the eradicators. The facist utopia only exists as long as there is an enemy to fight.
Troopers = Superior warriors defending the superior society by destroying the alien invader bugs. Bugs = Anything and everything that stands in the way of the perfect, superior society. Loved the whole concept and action of the movie 100%! "The only good bug is a dead bug!" So true...so true...lol.
When I was in the military, we loved this movie. Apparently, the director's "slap in the face" was lost on us. We saw it as satire but fun. We wanted to be Rico.
That's the thing about fascism: It is so infectious, that you can't easily teach people about it without accidentally triggering another fascist uprising. At least in nationalist cultures. It has been tried again and again. Robber cave, Third Wave, etc. Lots of teachers that think they should teach kids about fascism and accidentally re-creating it.
@@Tony_Cardoza what's even more impressive is that he made them cool WITHOUT the power armor. When they added the power armor back in, it made them even better.
I remember stumbling on this movie in the early 2000s. I was hesitant to see it but watched it just to pass the time. Turned out to be one of the best movies I have ever seen. A true classic!
"Never once thought that the Bugs didn't send the asteroid and don't know anyone that has said that beyond this video" The Bug sent the asteroid in the movie and bombed Buenos Aires in the book. It's clearly shown. People trying to make it into some kind of Red Flag event are just making up a scenario to fit their own mental mood.
It’s a fanfic theory. This guy just plagiarized from the fandom wiki and other random sites. No way he actually watched the movie or read the book from what he’s saying about them.
@@rockymountainkitchen7834 Exactly. They showed the bug doing it. Although the geometry of it landing on Earth would make it slightly less believable. But the humans were the baddies without a doubt.
@@FunningRast exactly. It's fanfic and it's a more modern theory playing on all the false flag talk from the conspiracy theory crowd. This is just a projection of modern politics onto the movie. I've seen this movie way too many times and I never once got the idea humans staged the attack. The farthest I would go is to call it a Pearl Harbor theory where government saw the attack coming and chose not to react knowing it would incite the masses. With how we track asteroids moving today, it's highly unlikely that any future society would be blindsided by an asteroid attack like this. Opportunistic isn't the same as a false flag.
I didn't take the scene with the Brain bug as suggesting that the Arachnids were victimized. More like a smart vicious creature feeling fear after being captured by the creatures who's brains its been sucking out. Not fear of a conquering humankind but fear of retaliation
yeah I was about to say that. thats the same goddamn bug that sucked out their brains, called false SOS signals and generally fed false info to the federation so they can slaughter dozens of thousands of infantry... also its made pretty clear in the movies that the rocks were definitely launched by the bugs, as far as I remember there are zero hints about it being fake, and also they keep launching more asteroids after... this video is overall complete bull in my opinion
Same. It was more a juxtaposition between the "good guys", and a celebration that they had found a way to inspire fear in their opponent. That fear could be inspired. That the creatures they had dedicated themselves to killing weren't just unfeeling robots, but actually had a 'person' behind them that could be tortured. Kind of reminds me of the newspapers when Bin Laden was killed. Just felt a bit..off
The 'victory' scene is one of the most hollow and damning victory scenes ever. The hollow victory is that they made one bug scared. That's all you accomplished? After sending hundreds of thousands of men to die in a war of colonization? That's all you accomplished? The damning part of the victory is that even though they know bugs have feelings, too, it will not stop their colonization or genocide attempts.
It's perfect. I was read the interview with the creator in those days when this movie launched. He said the same. He also said, he had try to explain the movie to the guy who played Rico, but that guy isn't understood, because he's never saw any similar to the na71s and the bolsheviks. The only part what i missing from your video, that part, what was the most important one, the speach what represented the whole movie logic. That short speach in the classroom. But the 2 youngster "activity" pushed up from our eyes, the "philosophy" behind that future earth regime. Congratulation! Excellent review, thank You🙂(And sorry for my bad english, i never learned)
Service was a litmus test for discipline and being willing to serve others was just too hard of a concept. But let's not forget the famous Douglas Adams quote "it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it." that is talking about that same thing from the opposite end of the political spectrum to Heinlein. The premise is simple that those least likely to want authority are the most suited to be given authority. George Washington falls in this category. Instead, he made all the recruits have selfish desires for wanting to serve and depicted the "carrot on a string" model of recruitment. They can exploit people that want something bad enough they'll die for it. For what it's worth, I think Rico in the movie becomes more of what Heinlein was looking for after the attack on BA. It becomes more about others than himself. He's got nothing left, so why not make sure nobody else suffers like he does. It's still very shallow, but it's the closest the movie came to the book's intentions.
For those who did not read the book, the goverment there was not run by military and was not tolitarian. Those in active service were prohibited participation in politics. Only retired of honorably discharged military could vote or be voted. Thus all government workers and politicians were civilians and it was a democracy, only it was not univerlsal suffrage, but restricted to those who passed the service. And in the novel it is referred as one of the most liberal regimes with very low taxes and very few restrictions i.e. lots of personal freedoms. Which is opposite of what totalitarian regimes usually do.
In the movie, the leaders are held accountable (the sky marshal is replaced after the botched mission to K), the public is informed about the war (the media deploys along side the troops), the bugs did send the meteor (We see them sending more, and Verhoven says as much in commentary.) and the ending is happy (Rico has matured into a confident leader who knows why he fights)
That's the problem with so many movie epilogue scenes like this. you get a line or two and 20 seconds to show how the rest of a characters life turned out? Leaves a lot to the imaginations of the audience. (which can be good if that is the intent - but I don't think it was here)
Starship Troopers is proof of Gladwell's "Satire Paradox." There's always a chance that people will get off on the very thing you're trying to satirize. My memories of seeing Starship Troopers for the first time (as an adult) are that the audience was waaay into the bug-hunting.
You can't make a satire of the thing you don't understand and aren't even willing to understand. Verhoeven had to be fed all the information by the screenwriters, because he refused to check the source material for himself past the first few pages he deemed "boring". Thus he accidentally created a pretty damn good movie with a message that fell completely flat on his actual intentions with it... and then tried doubling down on it in the third movie, which... doubled down on all the wrong things, if he wanted it to be a satire of fascism.
Whenever I play Half Life 2, and it's time for the Strider battle at the Nexus building, I always yell "Do you want to live forever?". This was one of my dad's favorite movies. He loved movies with explosions and lots of gunplay, and I take after him. Love this stuff!
Do you want to live forever? What does that mean to you? Do you want to die (now as opposed to an old man in bed), or do you want to be in history and songs for great deeds?
@@johnnycampbell3422 I know where you're coming from, and while I can appreciate the philosophy that you're talking about, I actually say it because they say it in the movie
well, maaaaaybe. It's true that the bugs almost wiped out the human fleet in orbit by throwing big rocks up in the sky, but throwing a huge asteroid million of miles across space with a precise trajectory to hit earth? nah, that seems very doubtful. even if they could calculate it or have "space bugs" that could fly into space and do it. which (as far as we know) they don't. So yeah, it was the humans.
@@AlIguana No, it wasn't. It was actually the bugs. In both the books and the movies it was canonically the bugs. They just maximized the incident to get everyone rolling in the direction of the bugs to fight them. Not that wasn't unjustified. The bugs were sending a continuous stream of rocks at Earth. That's what hits the ship partway through the movie. A rock on the way to Earth from the bugs.
@@AlIguana We know they colonized multiple planets in multiple star systems. They have some form of interstellar travel. Explain the mechanism that allows humans to travel across the galaxy in his or days using the informal in the film. Explain the mechanisms that allow humans to implant thoughts into a ferret.
Man I saw this as a teenager and laughed the whole time. I was shocked when I learned some people (most people?!?!?!) didn't realize it was a satire. They're living in full fledged fascism and celebrating it. How could you not get that?!
Justifying cruel levels of corporal punishment and normalizing violence for the glorification of the privilege soldier class in society for the purposes of desensitizing the youth to committing worse violence on the state's enemies. All while the elite officers are wearing literal SS uniforms
@@alanoldham1700 The government before the federation wasn't our world though. It was a mixture of high incompetence, ideological social experiments (on a societal scale) and a culture of youth criminality stemming from lack of responsibility. That does not make the federation fascist, unless you think any kind of responsibility is fascist.
I always thought the ending was sad... You knew his childhood friends would go on to live their dreams of high profile, glamorous careers and luxuries but, he'd be thrown to the frontline until he don't come back
Those that serve understand. A shorter life living under the motivation of real survival is much more rewarding than slow death as an institutionalized slave. Its real life vs. fake life and the life of a soldier is just as controlled as the life of a civilian, both just lie to themselves in different ways. One fights under the premise of creating freedom while the other "lives" life under the illusion of freedom. The civilians that feel sorry for soldiers are the most delusional as most soldiers can see how the civilians live as slaves without knowing the higher virtues that could be experienced in real situations.
I agree but, my point is that he never even wanted that life and only did it to follow them before losing his family and all he had left at the end was battle. Unlike most, he had nothing to return to, is what I meant was the upsetting unspoken message at the end
@@climatepurification Jingoistic horse shit. Do you trust politicians? Because that is who sends the dumb kids off to die in places they have no reason to be. GTFO with your serving is glory bullshit. Do you know who serves? Elementary teachers who spend 8 years going to school to get a master's degree and state certification for the right to teach YOUR kids for $40k a year. Some semi-literate kid who goes off to die in Iraq or Vietnam is just sad.
She was also the reason her training starship lost its entire top bridge when she changed courses from the original path and then was cheered as the hero of the day.
I loved this movie and every spin-off that came from it. That it was anti-war totally flew over my head. Large bugs are easy to fear and kill without remorse. I never questioned them striking first. This movie sparked a love of sci-fi infantry novels to this day.
Original novel was more interesting, the problem was communication and understunding, most bugs were not individuals but mindless drones, so when they killed colonists they considered it to be not so bad morally action because they assumed humans are similiar in nature, only brain bugs were sentient and were communicating in so alien way both species just couldnt engage in diplomacy, point of sending infantry in the first place was just to capture brain bug, research it not kill it and establish diplomacy to stop war without exterminating them, it is clear that humanity is stronger in later part of conflict but choses not to destroy the bugs and sacrifice many soldiers just for a chance of diplomatic solution.
Anti-war? He picked a bad premise for anti-war, aliens eradicating humans. Anti-war is a suicidal choice. He did such a great job of satirically making fun of the military, I made a career of it, as did my son and my daughter. Well done on anti-military.
@@69BTony Just a concept of Enders game seems to be inspired by it, Heinleins original story was not anti war nor anti military, treated it as extension of politics in situation when there is no other option and promoted idea of measured response and negotiatons, i believe Heinlein was serving in the navy himself. I think he was kind a guy like Kennedy to some extend, Kennedy also served in military and was a patriot yet was one of the few that opposed being draggad into wars and military conflicts by his adivsors, generals and CIA. But yeah i got into politics, i also did not liked realy anti war theme in Enders Game where situation was so extreme and it was matter of survival, still a good novel, ive also read sequels to this book but those were not as good.
Honestly i feel like you missed one of the more glaring head nods in the movie. The main characters(s) grew up in argentina which is where a lot of high ranking nazi officials escaped to once their defeat became certain during WW2.
I enjoyed the book. I took it as examining two issues: How would humanity respond to encountering alien races that are hellbent on destroying us a species? A species we cannot communicate with let alone reason with? We either fight and defeat them or get wiped out. I didn't and don't take it as a celebration of war or a glorification of fascism - thats Verhoeven's take on it but not what I got from the book. Heinlein fought in WWII against the Japanese, I am sure he was well aware of the horrors of warfare. The second question I recall from the book is what the meaning of Citizenship should be. In our society you are a citizen by accident of birth in most cases, or you earn it after immigrating and applying for it etc. Heinlein asked the question: what if you had to *earn* your citizenship by serving your society in some capacity, what if the right to vote on the future of your society was predicate on your having risked yourself to earn that right so that you would place *value* on your citizenship and your right to vote? Would that make you more conscientious about how you voted? Certainly a worthwhile question for an SF author to ask, isn't it? Verhoeven is the person that turned this into a shallow exploration of authoritarianism and painted it with a pro-Nazi viewpoint. The questions about the Bugs mentioned in this video and the question raised as to whether or not Buenos Aires was a false-flag attack arise from the Director's intent to deride fascism, not from the book as I recall. It has coloured many people's views of Heinlein's works quite unfairly in my opinion and done a serious disservice to SF fans as a result. The book also covers combat with other species that gets ignored in this movie interpretation for the sake of simplifying the message I would imagine. If you read his other books, the author explores a lot of different issues and tells completely different tales that are at complete odds with his perceived rightwing reputation as a result of Verhoeven's version of this story. Citizen of the Galaxy is an exploration of the impact of Slavery on the freed slave for instance. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (my favourite of his books in fact) is a great story of Revolution and a society seeking freedom from oppression by authoritarian governments - the complete opposite to the Verhoeven interpretation of Starship Troopers in fact. Time Enough for Love and Stranger In A Strange Land are explorations of sexuality and relationships as well as philosophy that take yet another view. I Will Fear No Evil is about an elderly rich man getting his brain transplanted into the body of a young woman and explores the impact of having your physical gender changed completely. He was a Science Fiction author, he explored a lot of different ideas from different perspectives and he won a *lot* of awards - but he is tarnished as being somehow pro-facist these days because a Director decided to reinterpret one of his novels in that manner. I think that this has done him a serious disservice and discouraged a lot of people from reading some excellent stories they might otherwise enjoy. That said the movie is fun and I do like it despite the flaws :P
Great rundown on it. Funnily enough I love both the book and movie, the movie because if you decide to look at it at face value, all of the negatives are 'presumed'. In my eyes Verhoeven proved he was shallow, tried to make a mockery of a state utopia and ended up making it look good. It's not inherently an undesirable society to live in, outside of the war(and the obvious satire), especially if you apply the overtones of the book to it.
Good take, and I agree. In particular, I found the "false flag" claim not credible: I don't recall anything in the movie (which I've watched several times) hinting that Buenos Aires was other than what it appeared to be. I'm not sure where the Buenos Aires Truther" movement started, but I think it contrived. I've always thought of Heinlein as a libertarian realist, a man who celebrated individual liberty and recognized that defending a society that valued it required hard men -- and, because he was more libertarian than conservative, hard women as well. It's been a few decades since I read _Starship Troopers_, but I recall that I liked it. I know I very much enjoy the movie.
You know what is really sad. If you actually read the book you find out what the movie got wrong. For example, instead of trying to get people to join the military, the recruiters actaully discouraged people. They used retired soldiers who were missing limbs to let you know what you were getting into. The book was portraying an idea where if you wanted to be in a plotical office or wanted to have a career in the beuacracy you had to be a veteran. It also had the idea that everyone had basic rights like freedom of speech, innocent until proven guilty, etc but citizens were retired military and they could run for political offic and they could vote. The logic was that if you were not willing to lay your life down for your fellow man then you had no right to have command over them. In the book, earth had multiple colonies and a majority of the poplulation of earth were not citizens so they could not vote or hold political office while a large percentage of the colony population did sign up for the military. Also, there was more than one alien race, the bugs were just the 1st one that mankind ran into that was equal to us militarily. I di enjoy the movie but I cringed many times during the moving wondering what kind of idiot would destroy the source material in the way they did with the movie.
The movie was most definitely a critique of neo-fascism/Naziism, but the book was anything but. Heinlin wrote his novel in 1959 with WWII fresh in people's memories. The novel explored the dangers of "unfettered" democracy against Russian and Chinese totalitarin communism. Heinlin expressed concerns that an unfettered democracy where people could vote without earning the right through merit (military service or somethign similar) would fall to the communist tide. The concern was that people had come to believe that the right to vote equated to the ability to get whatever you wanted without work or effort. Moreover, while the right to vote was limited to those who earned it through merit, all other citizens retained their rights (freedom of speech, freedom of religion, etc.). The novel was hardly fascist, and, arguably, was not "pro war" (there are very few combat depiction in the novel, and during the invasion of the "Skinnies", efforts were taken not to harm civilians). It was simply about the benefits of a meritocracy over what he perceived was a major weakness in Western Philosophy.
Hard Agree, . Heinlein always prized critical thinking and merits, so he didn't directly wrote the critics of a militarized state, he wants the reader to realize what's happening. He was in the Navy, he knows where all the cracks where on the system....
This is really good, thank-you. I met CasparVan Dien not long after ST was released. He was very nice, a dedicated, hardworking, actor who emphasized the importance of research to my theater students. I remember him quite fondly.
@@carsilk2492 Yeah what I've heard is that he lives a pretty quiet life with his family taking occasional roles. Basically a standard middle class living driving his kids to school, taking the trash out, watching TV, etc. No mansions, butlers, or magical alien doomsday cults needed like the rest of Hollywood. Pretty cool way to live honestly.
I was in my early 20's when I first saw the film. My friends laughed at me when I told them I found the propagandized nature of the film disturbing. I guess to them it was just another summer blockbuster... It wasn't until years later a close friend recommended the novel.
That fact that we watched this as kids is hilarious. It's considered a kid movie despite all the blood, gore, and nudity 😅. Good times. Reminds me of how the first Robocop was considered a kid movie too.
I would argue that Rico did not get that man killed in training, as the M-3 Tactical Helmet does very little when live rounds are fired at locations on the head that the helmet wouldn't cover on or off.
I believe it was due to Rico _ordering_ his soldier out of formation and keeping him in an active live fire drill. Rico not being rated to repair the M3 tactical helmet means he should have not given that order but ordered his recruit off the exercise field. Rico as a person was definitely not responsible for the death but Rico the squad leader gave a command outside the SOP which resulted in a death, and thus is responsible. The was only one right choice and Rico didn't choose it.
In the novel they're dropped from orbit then flying around with jet packs in powersuits while firing atomic bombs. When I saw this I fully went into the cinema expecting to be blown away by a combination of the Quake 2 intro and the game Starseige: Tribes, if you ever seen or played either of those incredible ancient games - Christ I'm old. By comparison the movie was pretty much just Saving Private Ryan or Aliens or Predator or any other number of movies. That is a bunch of solders getting hauled around in a troop transport. It even used that cliche of putting the characters an impossible situation only to be saved at the very last minute by these things, so much so that you might as well have called them The Eagles. Although, To be fair that was in the book as well IIRC. Granted this was the 90s so they possibly didn't have the technology to do half the stuff from the book - which I don't quite buy since the way they modeled the bugs still looks pretty good - but it still came across as pretty lame if you've read the book, even if you disregard the politics, and doesn't make much sense if you think about it for five minutes: for instance why would you still be using infantry in the future? At least the author of the book sat down and thought about it making sure it incorporate it in a way that made sense, that is the future equivalent of Airborne Rangers. Which was a pretty unique vision for the time and is still today. Confusingly they did this while still incorporating terminology from the book, for example, in the book they're called apes because when dressed up power armor they literally looked like apes but in the movie they called them apes because ??? Even the political satire wasn't that great in comparison to the novel, although if you actually adapted the novel two thirds of it would of been of just been the main character getting trained right the way though to officer school - it was that preachy - At least Verhoeven was smart enough to tone that down. The thing is that in the book the author - who was very much a member of the counter culture, he did write Stanger in a Strange Land BTW - was making fun of both sides: that is envisioning a militaristic authoritian fascist future but presenting it in a way which didn't sound too bad even if you were opposed to that sort of thing. Which is itself interesting even if you may not personally believe in it. Sort of how Plato tried to construct from our perspective would be a completely fascist society because he was attempting to use it as an analogy to examine of how the concept of justice works, if you were to assume that people could work together to active collective goals and not just fight amongst themselves. I mean maybe justice is just shorthand for social cohesion, who knows? In the movie Verhoeven just went the route of satire but only doing so to the one side: the implication being that the majority of people are just ignorant and it is only us enlightened inviduals who are able to see this, that is if you're smart it means you believe XYZ and you only think ABC because you're stupid, like the very idea that you might sit down look at the data and still believe ABC is completely unacceptable, which ironically is the way morons think and which is what keeps them moronic, since such intellectual arrogance just makes it impossible to examine, change or adapt your own opinions let alone having any actual real intellectual authority to challenge or change other peoples. Also a lot of stuff in the movie was obviously just put into it for marketing reasons, for instance the only reason they stuck a love triangle in it was because at the time teen dramas like Beverly Hills 90210 where the hot thing so it was incorporated just to appeal to the kids - oh, and the shower scene but that just appeals to everyone. I guess it starts a conversation: if that conversation is how lame movies usually are compared to the book version and how you're almost always better off just reading the book.
@@SamiiYou They had the choice, budget-wise, of power armor or bugs. No bugs, no movie... Rico mentions in the book that the "apes" bit probably dates back at least to Ancient Rome, if not further back, it's just something NCOs tend to call recruits and "grunt" troops, even today. And yes, Heinlen does get rather preachy, doesn't he?!?
The thing is, it wasn't trying to just lambast Heinlein. He also was the executive producer on the animated series which delved more into the sci-fi tech and military reasoning. He said his piece but wasn't trying to scream into the void.
yeah, I read the book shortly after I saw the movie. Fascism aside, I still think the notion of requiring some sort of service (doesn't have to be military, just any sort of public service job) isn't exactly a horrible idea for a requirement before getting some sort of government benefit (maybe not voting, but could be applied to other benefits) of course, like anything, it would have to be a heavily regulated system to prevent abuse.
@@VoodooV1 There is no need for a service since every citizen will do many services for the government, from studiyng to working and paying taxes. Just to add a "by the way you HAVE to work on this factory otherwise you won't get constitutional recognition" is just asking for trouble and pissing off a lot of people that for all intents and porpuses should throw you out of office as soon as they have the slightest chance.
@@PointReflex Mostly right. The book was a discussion about how far a civilization could be pressed and still retain individual freedom, democracy, and isonomy. Verhoeven never even read it, and took the word of some of his doltish lefty friends that is was "pro-fascism." Verhoeven brilliantly directed Robocop, but his approach to Starship Troopers couldn't have been more benighted and unphilosophical.
Only 2 things was missed during the "satirical slap": 1 - The director do not undersand the book. 2 - If you wish to make militant society as a "bad" do not give them all-or-nothing enemy like bugs. When US have been attacked at 9/11 the response was same: war and militarisation. So this is a very natural habit when someone will kill you: you start to fight back.
Maybe you're missing something? There's no reason the humans need to fight the bugs other than they want to. It's hinted that the humans are the invading force, not the other way around. Of course the bugs are going to be all in when they're on the defensive.
The idea about the "false flag" has about as much merit as JarJar being a sith. Just because you can imagine it doesn't mean that someone would add those plot pieces and never reveal it. ie: that never happened
I enjoyed the book for the power armour. I enjoyed the movie because it's visually very impressive and has an engaging cast. I just view them as completely separate entities, because they're so wildly different from each other. The only thing I don't like in the movie is Carmen. She manipulates Johnny into signing up for the military, then dumps the poor bastard before he's even finished basic training. If her motivation had really just been because she wanted to focus on her career, like she says in the "dear John" video message, it would be harsh but understandable. However the truth was, she immediately jumps into bed with Xander, who she was openly flirting with even in front of her boyfriend at the football game. Carmen was a disloyal snake, especially compared to Dizzy, who is devoted to Johnny. It's very unsatisfying that Carmen survives, and Dizzy gets brutally butchered by the bugs.
There are a lot of unsatisfying things in the movie, quite true. And the book and movie are quite different, separate entities.....if not for the fact that the movie goes out of its way to try to disparage the philosophy of the book! The movie, rather than being a faithful adaptation, was a deliberate attack on the book. That's why I hate it. As far as Carmen, in the book she was more of Rico's crush than a girlfriend, so there was no betrayal. Dizzy was a guy in the book, no romantic subplot at all. Blame Verhoeven for the betrayal and butchery.
If you had read the rest of Heinleins novels you would realize he would have gotten a real kick out of the movie. Seriously. He would very likely have been it's biggest fan.
I watched it 30+ times...it wasn't until TH-cam came out that I started to see the allussions to Naziism. Funny thing is - back in the 90's one of the reasons the movie was not too much success was because of the militaristic focus...when in fact the director Paul V had intentionally created a war film to mock the military perspective on things. Ended up he was very misunderstood. Looks like that perception is turning around!
As much as he tried showing a fascist uncaring world....he utterly failed making me see that. Everyone there freely stated their opinions. Everyone could vote provided they risked their ass defending the earth. Leaders who fucked up were replaced. All volunteer army. Coed military with zero real harassment. Diversity in leadership? People of any color is so normal it's strange to even ask. Other than uniforms...where is the fascism? No one is getting beat up for speaking their minds.
The most unrealistic and stupid thing in this movie was how completely unprepared the soldiers were to fight the bugs, and just swarmed the bugs not with nuclear orbital bombardment, chemical or biological weapons, or even tanks, but with a ton of infantry that the bugs were highly effective against due to their huge numbers and resilience to bullets, allowing them to overwhelm any human infantry force.
Imagine if they bombarded the planet with nukes and then fought the arachnids in a fiery wasteland. The first battle could've been a horror story. Tanks and infantry alike are torn to pieces by bugs that burst from the ground. The air is filled with fighters and bombers that are snatched from the sky by winged beasts or are hit by acidic plasma. More nukes are dropped in the distance as the ground rumbles and the vitrified sand cracks beneath their feet. Ash obscures sight, only the flash of bombs silhouetting bio engineered horrors as the noise of battle and the desperate are occasionally pierced by the roars of alien fury. Through abandoned radios voices can be heard, demanding, begging, dying. Rico then hears three words "....on my position." He looks up and sees something metallic cutting across the blighted sky. He yells to his squad over the radio to follow him as he runs to a still functional APC, the only cover available. They rush in and try to close the hatches. One private, whose name he couldn't remember, is pulled by something with too many limbs to be human into the ash storm. His screams are muffled as Rico closes the hatch. Inside there is sobbing and praying, all the while the private continues to scream. Then the ground rumbles and the APC is thrown. Rio hits his head against the steel frame and loses consciousness. At home they were peerless soldiers in an unstoppable warmachine, but here they are food.
That is the worst part of the movie. The whole MI concept is ignored. MI is like a one person flying tank but moving "on the bounce". The opening scene in the book talks about how Rico jumps over buildings dropping bombs from his racks, using his flamer and having mini nukes. The move totally missed what Heinlein was doing. It is kind of sad that no one has ever done a faithful recreation of Heinlein's works. Comparing it to Nazi Germany is unfair.
What do you mean the leaders aren't held accountable? The person responsible for the drop site massacre stepped down in shame. The Bugs are the aggressors, they attacked earth, not earth attacking them; the Mormon colonists were not associated with the government. Soldiers are expendable, as violence is the ultimate authority. To think otherwise is asinine. When you can wage a war against a foe intent on violence, without using violence yourself, or losing a single soldier, do let us know, because humanity would surely benefit from this knowledge.
I understand what the director was trying to do with the movie but as a combat vet it’s relatable on a different level. I know I’m going to get a bit of hate here but there are several ideas expressed in the movie that are actually on point. The definition of a citizen should be the definition of a citizen. Every soldier I’ve known has a lot in common with the MI.
As a fellow war vet, I get you- the idea of "service equals citiizinship" reverberated w me, as every citizen should take responsibility for their actions, and equally have to deal with the consequences.
![[Full Episode] The Restaurant War Thailand ศึกพ่อค้าซ่าแม่ค้าแซ่บ Episode 1 | 22 ก.ย. 67](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/BuzQ70v-UZQ/mqdefault.jpg)
What was your impression of the "Starship Troopers" movie when you first saw it?
I loved the gender equality and saw it immediately.
@@twilightgardenspresentatio6384 I loved the bewbs and noticed them immediately
@@LastBastian Mine was that this isn't what Heinlein wrote, but it's a very photogenic movie.
Loved it
In the book, there was a third race "the skinnies" that changed allegiance from the humans to the bugs.
8:09 - In the novel, The recruiter was far worse off, Described as barely human. Later, Rico finds him in the officer's bar looking normal and healthy. The recruiter explains that he removes his prosthetics while recruiting to make sure those who enlist know what they're in for and scare away those too weak to handle service.
Yep, it was explicitly for transparancy, which is why its so annoying that Veerhoven bastardised almost every part of the novel's philosophy into a simplistic nazi parody. As much as I love this film, Veerhoven is the student who didnt understand the lesson, but speaks as if the smartest man in the room. To me, this is a perfect example of loving the art, but hating the artist.
@@yxcdeb He inadvertently made fascism look appealing and reasonable.
@@yxcdeb I love the book and the movie for completely different reasons. Heinlein was a Naval Academy grad. He felt that service to something greater than oneself was the greatest thing one could achieve. Starship Troopers was written to show that. One could contrast that to Harry Harrison's Bill, the Galactic Hero. Harrison wrote BTGH as a counterpoint to Starship Troopers and Asimov's Foundation series.
I love the movie because it does show that Ultranationalism can lead to Fascism. In the DVD movie commentary, both Veerhoven and Neumeier specifically talk about how neither one of them actually read the book.
@@notsocrates9529 When you have people do so for Communism, Dictatorships, and Monarchs it only makes sense people would do the same for Fascism, they're all equally flawed ideologies which take good ideas to drastic extremes with no thought for the individual
" what their in for"
they're*
The year Starship Troopers came out, MST3K did a special about the Oscars. After poking fun at the frontrunners for Oscar nominations for half an hour, the last punchline of the show was a throw-away joke about Starship Troopers.
And yet, here we are 25 years later, and people are STILL talking about Starship Troopers. Nobody even cares about The English Patient.
That is a very specific reference lol
Googled "the English patient" after reading this... Can honestly say I don't even remember that film being advertised.
@@TheSteakStyles I only remember a joke in Seinfeld about someone saying they didn't like the movie and then everyone turning on them for not liking it.
Also I just double-checked, and I got the year wrong; the 1997 Oscars were for the movies that came out in 1996, so the Oscar winner that Starship Troopers "competed" against was Titanic.
Even saying that though, I still hear more people talk about Starship Troopers today than Titanic, especially since most of what I hear about Titanic are parodies and jokes rather than the meaningful content behind it.
Oh and Starship Troopers was nominated for best visual effects, but lost to Titanic. Also Jurassic Park the Lost World, but it just goes to show that Oscars are more about Hollywood circle-jerking than meaningful acknowledgement.
Nah, not exactly. See it as such if you like.
Thanks in no small part to Helldivers 2!
The best bit about the kids squashing the bugs is when it cuts to the mum and she's maniacally laughing and clapping
lmao
Probably it is not their mum, but their teacher, and it makes it ever more grim.
Reminds me of the one photo of Trump kissing a woman's baby at a Rally.
Kamala Harris anyone?
@@paulgrove1407 or Biden trying to do the same thing, but the kid's parent pulled her away from him.
Fun bit of trivia: Movie props are expensive, so if they aren't too famous or iconic (lightsabers, ruby red slippers, etc.), they tend to end up in warehouses until needed for another film or show. If you are a fan of Firefly, you might note some familiar armor on the Alliance military.
Federation*
Now that you mention it, I did notice some similarities between the two but originally I thought it was just a coincidence.
Also in power rangers Lost galaxy they used this same armor
I remember the infantry armor and weapons made a comeback in a Power Ranger episode. I believe it was the Power Ranger Space season.
Not only that but the reason they have the oversized silly looking assault rifles is that they were going to have the power armour in the movie. they made the power armour scaled rifles with no scope because helmet camera link. Then, low on budget, commissioned cheap helmets and flak vests instead of the originally intended armor.
I was an extra in that scene where they run into the ships. We ran ALL day. They filmed it at a hangar at LAX and had huge green screens in the background. The gear was hot and heavy, but it was still a kind of cool experience.
cool! Glad you had that experience in life!
How many bugs did you kill!
You did your part!
Thank you for your service;)
I checked......and they have no record of you on the set........would you like to know more!
Bug propaganda.
Smells like treason against SUPER EARTH
Looper has been reported to the Ministry of Truth.
you made me cry of laughter xD
good bug is a dead bug
Starship troopers is a bit tongue in cheek but it’s also a pretty accurate portrayal of military life. Signing up for the wrong reasons, love troubles, making friends with people you’d have never thought you would, and getting to play with explosives. The only thing it’s missing is a caffeine and alcohol abuse.
yep, as i take a sip right now. My thoughts exactally.
Don't forget the tobacco use too
Don't forget the over excessive use of hot sauce
@@kirby89000 And the inscrutinable semi-mystic ritual ceremonies.
AND NICOTINE
At the end Rico yells "come on you apes you wanna live forever". It's a haunting scene because it's a direct quote from Ironside's character who is reenlisted and dies in combat. This paints a haunting future as the cycle of death and war for these soldiers starts over and over again.
KERLS, DO YOU WANT TO LIVE FOREVER - Quote of FREDERICK THE GREAT in the Batlle of Kunersdorf ( Seven Year´s War )
Marine Corps Sgt. Maj. Dan Daly said something very similar in WW1. “Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?”
There's a deeper layer to that line. It's also saying that the only way for a mortal human to live forever is to be remembered through heroic deeds/a glorious sacrifice. It's a way to get them to risk their lives with less hesitation.
But the reason *Rico* says it is to cement Radchek's legacy and pass on his teachings to the new Roughnecks.
I felt that too, but I think when you remember the novel is actually a bildungsroman it is part of showing him turning from boy to man, which is kinda wholesome? But yes, that only really just adds to the hauntingness if you see it as him growing up to take his place in the grinder.
Though again in the book the soldiers are all super elite as opposed to the human wave nonsense in the film, so it isn't a grinder in the book.
The novel was also satirical, but it in a different way, it continuously exalted the militaristic system while at the same time showing you all the cracks it had, if Verhoeven actually thought the book was prowar he didn't understood it. Ironside's character (Rasczak) line, is repeated by Rico because at the end of the movie the system has processed him and spit another Rasczak.
In the book you see Rico's father "seeing the light" and enlisting, at all points you see the system grinding up people and remaking them into usable pawns (kinda like the military dies to soldiers)
I saw this in the theater as a young man. A theater on Ft. Knox, and most of the other seats were taken by other young men who were in basic training. Made the movie far more interesting and amusing. Especially during the shower scene, when some young recruit jumped up down front. He started pointing at the screen and hollering, "Sarge! Sarge! Why don't we get that?"
Funny story, years ago at Fort Hood there was a barracks snafu where some young guy got paired as a roommate with a young female troop. Both had just come out of Basic Training, didn’t know that wasn’t normal, and shared a room for a few months until they had their first big inspection. The Leadership had a field day and tore the dude a new one but again he didn’t know better, in fact he actually mentioned Starship Troopers during his defense. Not sure if the female troop got in trouble! 😂
Never heard of trips to a movie theater during basic training. 🤔🤔
@@davealmighty9638I had one in boot camp in fall 2009 in the Marine Corps. It was thanksgiving and they let us watch “300” on base theater MCRD San Diego.
@slaytanic921 in 2005, when going through basic training, we somehow managed to pass barracks inspection for the first time in front while our CO was doing the inspection. This had been the first time I'd seen the movie at 20 since watching it when it came out at 11 or 12.
To us, it was juts getting hyped about our ongoing training. Somehow, the director made an awesome movie trying to satire facism and knowing a bit more about the works its is based from, there is a part of me that believes there should be a difference between civilians and citizens.
@@CharlieBravoTango agreed on civilians and citizens. Have you read the book? I love the book.
only thing missing out of this was "would you like to know more?" between every point lol Love this movie, and book,
"would you like to know more" and "I'd buy that for a dollar" are catch phrases that have stuck in my head for over 20 years.
Very witty.
I'm doing my part, are you?
😂😂
I just typed this. This was definitely a missed opportunity by the channel. Like all the research just to miss it.
Why yes! Yes I would like to know more 😅😂
The scene where the queen bug sucks the brain out of that guys head like a Capri Sun. Traumatized me as a child.
Lmaox10! You're comment had me rolling!
Same!!!!
Don't worry! That bug would starve to death around the likes of you folks! - LOL!
Michael Ironside 'They sucked his brains out!' Awsome scene lol
@@jamesmcstein6758 It's delivered so well and so campy
i keep seeing people talk about the meteor as a false flag and there's no proof that the bugs can launch them.
But noone ever mentions the part of the movie where we literally see a meteor launched at the fleet as they approach the homeworld.
Sure it could be a conincidence, and it's the only instance in the movie we see it actually happen outside of the propeganda, but i think intentionally clipping it out while saying "the only evidence is propeganda" is dishonest.
How fast is that meteor traveling and how far is that planet, or any bug, from Earth?
The bugs have colonised multiple planets they have developed some technique to do interstellar travel, just as humans have. As well they mention in the movie about Mormon colonists in the arachnid zone and it seems clear this is retaliation for that and potentially other actions. Its not a false flag its retaliation.
As I understand the false flag theory is that the human fleet could destroy the meteor and preferred not to do it
I don't think that it was the Federation either. These bugs are highly organised and can shoot starships from the ground, something that the human generals could not foresee either, apparently. The bugs' planning and carrying out of the plan is more proficient and intelligent than humans', who fumbled their way into a planet that I can't even imagine what objective interest we might possibly have on it. This is the story of two empires colliding, but humans are more to blame and the first aggressors, IMO.
Some good points here. The false flag idea is interesting, but feels like a bit of a reach. If we accept that the movie is written as satire and the viewer's motivation is to question the veracity of everything, then I could see it. I think you would have to go in with that bias, though. I don't recall and other hints that the bugs are secretly benevolent and humans are the actual aggressors. I think if you were making that case, you would need some evidence of bugs attempting to surrender but being killed anyway, bugs trying to communicate about a truce, etc.
Please know that there are deleted scenes of her Fleet guy erasing messages from Rico. He really was a snake that let her think Rico had discarded her.
I never knew that.
It seemed that she had just dumped Rico because she was so enamored with eventually captaining her own ship.
@@mikehenrys the more you know...
Thank you for this, makes her far more likeable.
@@kkmardigrce do you want to know more?
Too bad they deleted that, I think showing that the other guy is a creep trying to get into her pants and she never finds out would have worked well.
Or, after the guy has a heroic death scene defending her from the bugs Rico mentions she must have been too busy to answer his messages so she checks her message history and finds out he was gaslighting her.
Instead of stupid love triangle BS show that the the kind of psycho perv the internet tries to claim is some ugly fat guy living in their mom's basement is actually perfectly normal looking and can get into a high position in this system.
One point from the book that was left out [to make it a satire of militarism] was that a person didn't have to be in the military to gain citizenship [which Heinlein noted in a later article]. Working in any government offices [such as the Peace Corps in our system] would allow citizenship, as the concept was to make the potential Citizen aware of the need to keep others in mind, and be willing to give up your own desire to "get all you can at others' loss".
The movie deliberately left out a lot from the book. Indeed, the book famously has a line where someone says, " The arachnids aren't bugs, bugs don't build starships." Because in the book, the arachnids were intelligent and built starships and other machinery.
@MF Nickster *thats* the part that annoyed you? smh
@@jv-lk7bc He said "that's ONE thing" that annoyed him, directly implying that there are others. But I guess I wouldn't expect solid reading comprehension from people that use "smh".
and they have the exampel of the blind man who counting the legs of a centipede.
The two biggest themes in the book are discipline and putting the needs of others ahead of your own, but every character in the movie has a selfish desire for joining the military.
I think an important thing to mention is the dialogue. When Rico was a private in a squad, the squad leader was voicing the very same lines that Rico finds himself saying when he becomes of that role, which truly hint and show the transformation.
The skit was takin from a officer and a gentleman
transformation or indoctrination?
@@Bootyhunter70 in this case transformation, indoctrination typically comes with the basic training and first deployment, which is what we see, causing patriotism to take over.
I think you missed the main point, Rico knows he is putting on an act for the fresh recruits. Before he addresses the new troopers he asks Ace Levy “Give ‘em a little of the old man?” The old man meaning the late Lt. Jean Rasczak who used the very same words to them.
Ask any drill sergeant and they will admit part of their demeanor is partly acting mean while trying to teach vital skills.
i think the idea was that the leader of the roughnecks was a character, so when you become the leader, you take on the character.
its like the regalia of a particular unit. how standards and banners are passed down through time in a unit, but in this instance, the banners and standards being passed down, were the character of the leader of the unit.
"some key changes" should read "nothing from the book made it into the screenplay". The movie is good but has no relation to the book. Heinlein's book is foundational SciFi and deserved to actually be put on screen.
I agree an actual adaptation of the book deserves to be put on screen, because this movie is not an adaptation of the book. However, the movie is both bad and does have relation to the book, if you can call twisting the philosophy completely around to try to discredit the author being a relation
This is the first time I've ever seen anyone refer to Jake Busey as a heartthrob.
That was autocorrect, it was meant to be heart attack looking for a place to happen.
Tall
Has money
2/2 for things women want.
@@apanickedseagull still missing the most important ingredient to being a heartthrob...GOOD LOOKS
@@marquesekj At a certain level of income good looks for a man is irrelevant.
@@apanickedseagull then maygbe it's a wallet-throb?
Starship Troopers is one of the few things where the book and the movie have nothing to do with each other and I love both.
yeah they are two totally different story's but they each are great in their own right.😃
It smelled false flaggy, but the bugs are also an aggressive species, so they probably did it or were planning it.
@@Back-alley-technician The movie doesn't really show them as aggressive. They are definitely violent, but we only see them do that where humans are invading their territory. Other than the asteroid hitting earth, we never see them attack outside their own territory. And if the asteroid is a false flag, then they have only acted defensively.
@@ThatGuy-bz2in i don't believe the bugs really can send asteroids to the earth, and even if they could why would they, what do they gain? they don't have space travel, its not like they are gonna invade the earth for its resources or anything. As far as their actions when the infantry show up, what does a hive of bees do when you disturb their hive? does that make bees a terrible and aggressive species?
@@canadiangopher4443 you're kinda just repeating my point back to me. The previous comment was that they were aggressive. My comment was that we only really see them defending their own territory. The only aggressive action was the attack on earth, which we never really see any evidence of them having done.
The thing about the novel that the movie was unable to capture was the use of the mobile infantry suits. His was one of the first Sci-fi works that went into detail about the power suits...how they could see in the dark, had individual radar, enhanced the user speed and strength. Real groundbreaking stuff for 1959. The movie didn't have either the budget or technology to depict that...which is a real shame.
Yeah, i was sad when I realized it wouldn’t have the mobile infantry suits, nor would they drop via the pods, both of which were covered extensively in the book. Hopefully at some point a skilled director will remake the movie and include the suits drop pods.
@@johnpatz8395 Both the anime spin off movies and the animated Roughneck Chronicles depict the powered suits.
@@johnpatz8395 You should look into the sequels, except ST2, which is trash. On the sequels they got a lot more of the mecha stuffs. ST4 and ST5 is actually japanese animation but still continuing the story of Rico who now already become a badass. What they lost is of course the intentional sarcasm of Verhoven.
The thing about the novel was that it was completely raped by Verhoeven to make the movie.
Wasn't the mobile infantry suits partly an inspiration for the 40k Space Marines?
The war lasted so long that Starship Troopers turned into Ender's Game.
Amazing comment.
Orson Scott Card reference for the win.
@@KageNoTora74 Good writer, trash human.
I see what you did there...👍🏽
I love the comparison but where are the Pigs!
3:30 "The main group of recruits discuss their reasons for enlisting in the military..." While arguably not a member of the main group, one uncredited female recruit in this scene states that she enlisted so that she might (be permitted or licensed to) have babies.
We should totally adapt this system.
@@69BTony Tell me you've not read the book without telling me you haven't read the book.
Well Canadia, The book and the movie are nothing alike. I like both independently. Has Trudy made having balls illegal yet?@@CanadianTehGamer
@@69BTony Why don't you come over and ask him yourself?
It is a bit of a hike, I live in the free state of Florida. Just kidding about Trudy, look at the mumbling stumbler we have fake in charge.@@CanadianTehGamer
I was in an airborne unit and we kept a copy of Starship Troopers at the front desk of our barracks. Since we all had 24 hour duty at the desk at some point, we all read it.
No one knows who left the book there, but it was almost a relic to us.
what a fitting tribute to heinlein. he wrote the book to "celebrate the poor bloody infantryman" afterall.
I read it in the 80's when the Navy had it on the Petty Officer Reading List.
I liked the lessons of the Sgt, sometimes it is better just to shut up. If you are worth a shit, your Sgt will take care of you. As a retired SNCO I fought for my troops every day. I won some...
I couldn't tell you how many units I've seen around the world that had a copy of it somewhere. That and Kiplings Barrack Room Ballads.
cool story bro. I was with meal team 69 at the Battle of Waterloo.
So glad someone took the time and finally focused on the lack of diversity of bugs in this film. I had that same thought back when I first saw this movie! I feel so much more secure and included now.
Dizzy was better for Rico than Carmen. She loved him selflessly and wholeheartedly. Carmen was all about prioritizing herself as an individual, whereas Dizzy was a team player- she supported Rico 100% to where his success was her success, too. Dizzy earned her place with Rico. Carmen just showed up when it was convenient.
But Carmen was prettier
@@martyschriver I'd take Diz any day.
@@arphod Same here.
Always thought Dizzy was hotter, prettier, more...yeah. Never got why Rico was into fish-faced Carmen, an "upper-class pretty" girl w/ daddy issues who reminds me of a bass I once caught... and when she said "I love you" to Rico she sounded like she swallowed a turd. IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN CARMEN WHO DIED!
@@martyschriver Well, that's an entirely subjective opinion. Objectively speaking, Carmen behaved like a basic bitch. Unlike Dizzy, however, SHE was a ride-or-die... literally 💯
The premise of the conflict is that Missionaries went against advice and settled on an Arachnid planet.
That can be unpacked in so many ways.
Oh and how many times have intrepid Mormons settled in very inhospitable places? Heinlein knew.
Ask Mesoamerica of the 16-17th Century
The Mormons provoked many Indian wars, and counted on the U. S. Army to come to their rescue. The film is also a satire of Manifest Destiny, and how Indians were viewed as "bugs."
@@drbuckley1 The Bugs were portrayed more akin to the Communists of the Cold War.
@John Doe I see the bugs as basically any enemy of a nationalistic state. In order to commit genocide you must turn the enemy into something subhuman, into vermin, into bugs. And what do we do with vermin? We must exterminate them. We see this in many ethnic cleansings - the dehumanizing of the enemy.
The Starship Troopers movie wasn't even about the book. The only scene taken directly from the book was the classroom. Otherwise they just borrowed character names and aesthetics. The working title of the script was Bug Hunt.
ah yes, totalitarian, where you can leave the boot camp at any time and you are even told several times to do so, where a general is able and willing to leave his rank because he knew he fucked up, where media is so unrestricted that you can literaly have a live stream from the landing at normandy (or its equivalent in this universe)
the novice interpretation of youtubers has been spreading to the masses of young people who think they have it figured out.
When you control people's mind by controlling the society, the people will enforce others to do what their masters will.
A pedantic criticism that nevertheless cuts at the quality of the review. Many people use authoritarian and totalitarian interchangeably even though there are important distinctions between them as you point out.
@@PrimusGladius and that is not the only bad use of terms the authors of this vid are vaguely familiar with. I mean come on, how does it even come to you to say "utopian faschist society"? Dystopian, n'est-ce pas?
I'd say it's an overall disappointing video with a pile of very wrong and silly conclusions. Obviously drawn by a person entirely unfamiliar with concepts of war, political structures or even just military service.
He tries to make it seem like everything about the humans is wrong and the bugs are innocents defending themselves. One line that proves it is false is when they join their new unit and ask the female officer about her combat experience. She says Zegema Beach which is the vacation planet Rico’s father wanted to take him. Defending by attacking a resort? There is no good or bad in this title. More about two opposing forces colliding. War, military, politics and everything connected to them is usually marred in the grey area. That’s where the fascist satire comes in. There are some things about the society that makes sense and others that have you laughing or shaking your head because it’s absurd or blatantly wrong.
My biggest thing as an adult is how impressionable Rico was. He was constantly taking pieces from everyone. Others felt defined and knew what they wanted, Rico was the opposite.
Pretty much how youth actually are
Its his leadership type, assimilating the best qualities of those he meets into his own character (usually making a better leader). Anybody that claims to know themselves after only experiencing high school is delusional. Real experiences amongst adults in a larger venue are required to develop an actual sense of self.
@@climatepurification THIS. Yes. Anyone who finished high school or coledge and think that he is complete ,,human" is soo wrong.
Rico was dumb and unexceptional. His friends were not. But Rico was wise, so he constantly took pieces from everyone. It's why he grows and becomes a leader and saves the day. Also, I don't really believe that his friends didn't take pieces from others too. His smart friend who became a psychic was not reading his own books in college, but what others people wrote. If people lack the humility and wisdom to actually learn from others, they grow up to be all "personality" and no brains. An empty brain is a useless brain, regardless of how fast or cool it may think it is.
theres nothing wrong with that though right? RIGHT?
"Where citizens aren't aware of what's going on."
Just like real life then.
That's... that's the... yes. correct. Well done.
arguably with the exception of the asteroid bit (which could have been a natural disaster, you never actually find out what happened), their citizens are more informed of the war effort and what is going on than real life.
@@retropulpmonkey They got there eventually.
A scene that I think gets overlooked often is the cafeteria scene. If you pay attention to the background you'll see the trainers watching the argument with Rico and he showed that he was better at commanding/being an "Alfa male", that's when he is given command over a training squad. I always thought that was super good environmental storytelling. I was also surprised at the amount of people that thought the movie was pro-war instead of satirical
I think Douglas Adams' legendary quote comes in to play here. "anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.” But really it's "it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it." that makes the difference.
Yes Rico is gunning for squad leader, it's not his desire to get the job that gets him the job, it's his ability to lead and put others before him that really pushes him to the forefront.
"I was also surprised at the amount of people who thought it was pro war instead of satirical " never underestimate how incredibly stupid a massive chunk of society is.
I think it also goes back to the class teachings at the beginning being very fascist in ideology where it's very survival of the fittest. Zim didn't stop him butting in line because he saw it as a show of strength and if no one stops him it's seen as weakness on their part. Bully society.
Verhoven never read the book. Just skimmed it to tell his antifascist message. Heinlein’s novel is actually quite prescient on how social scientists mess everything up. Take our current clown world as an example. Unfortunately in the real world we won’t have veterans coming to save us from ourselves.
@@thisfool89 Actualy its also incredible how badly the director understands the original book.
I like the movie. But the book is not nazi propaganda. There is a lot of pretty strong thoughts. And mainly its about free vote rights as people does not think about greater good when they vote, but about them selves. That only if you need to earn the right for vote, you can put the countly and future above your own interrests.
The inside job bit is wrong though and can easily be debunked by the scene of the asteroid taking out the comms deck of the Roger Young (The ship that Carmen serves on). The reason that scene exists is so that you draw a logical conclusion that the same asteroid that hit the Roger Young is the same one that decimates Buenos Aires and because the Roger Young couldn't communicate this back to Earth it comes as a surprise attack against the planet.
The Bugs can knock small asteroids out of their orbital path in a limited scale, but that doesn't mean they can aim an asteroid at a moving target (the Earth) hundreds of light years away. The actual reason that scene exists is so that you can see how "the Bugs can move asteroids, therefore they could have launched an asteroid at Earth from hundreds of lightyears away" is a deeply spurious argument.
The asteoid that hit the Roger Young did so in another star system; even if you imagine it's the nearest star sytem to our own (which is only 4 lightyears distance), that's still over 38 trillion kilometres away. Even if the asteroid was travelling at 100,000 kilometres per hour, it'd still have taken that asteroid 43,200 years to get to Earth.
In order for the Bugs to have intentionally targeted Earth with the asteroid that hit Buenos Aires, they'd have had to calculate the speed and trajectory of the asteroid (as well as the movement of the Earth, and the robit of our star sytem around galactic central point, and every major potential gravitational body in the asteroid's path) hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years in advance, meaning they'd have had to do so long before humans evolved. The distances involved, and the comparatively slow speed an asteroid moves at, mean that it's all-but-impossible for the Bugs to have launched the asteroid attack on Earth.
@@CorvusBelli01 Cosmic distances and time do not count in this film. After all, people went to the planet of bugs and did not age at all.
@@CorvusBelli01 I away find this argument pretty funny. So you see the asteroid changing trajectory or where it came from and go "AHA - bugs couldn't predict that!". Despite neither bugs nor humans having a set way of FTL travel. Despite the trajectory change needing to be calculated by the "inside job" people. To think that you would have to willingly ignore things that are openly provided in the movie and then go "well you need to read between what you've read between the lines!!!". The actual answer is that Verhoeven didn't care about physics, distance and space travel enough to even consider those things and it shows.
@@raidolato Because they have ships capable of travelling at FTL speeds, which they would need to have to have established interstellar human colonies in a reasonable timeframe. That solves that problem pretty handily, and is a very common sci-fi staple.
@@ofgreyhairwaifu4089
"So you see the asteroid changing trajectory or where it came from and go "AHA - bugs couldn't predict that!"."
The difference between changing the trajectory of an asteroid to hit "a stationary target within a few hundred kilometres", versus hitting "a moving target a few hundred LIGHTYEARS away", is vast. So vast, in fact, that comparing the two is ridiculous.
"Despite the trajectory change needing to be calculated by the "inside job" people"
They'd be using an asteroid from within our solar system, which would be a VASTLY simpler set of calculations, and depending on how they move the asteroid (thrusters attached to the asteroid, for example) they can even alter as necessary during it's flight to hit Earth.
"The Bugs launched an asteroid at
Earth" is the films equivalent to the Gleiwitz incident, or the Reichstag fire. The fact that you hear the fascist governments convenient justification for their war and think "yup, sure, seems totally reasonable to me, it's not like fascists ever lie to achieve their goals, and that's totally not a major theme of the movie" is pretty amusing.
As a south American Latino, the fact that Rico was a blue eyed blonde was pretty accurate
They're spesifically *Argentinian* blondes, And everyone should know who's descendants blond, blue eyed Argentinians are.
Oh, and it wasn't "hinted" that it "might" have been a false flag attack on Buenos Aires. It's blatantly made clear that it was the government, unless you are ready to believe that the bugs somehow predicted the future, sent an asteroid billions of years ago, and managed to calculate every variable on the slow interstellar trajectory of the rock.
There's a lot to unpack in the film, it would take a much longer video to go through it all. One if my favorite movies.
But it's feasible is it not?
Isn't there quite a few in Argentina with German lineage?
@@pog428 if you tell me to picture an average argentinian, he would be white and blonde. Or just white.
@@pog428 That's the whole point, it's hinting they're descendants of nazis.
@@pog428 And Italian. Many Europeans immigrated to South America.
"Put your hand on that wall!"
"The enemy cannot push a button if you disable his hand. Medic!!!"
The best part of the whole damn movie.
"Fresh meat for the grinder."
This is not a statement about how the authorities feel about the recruits. It's just a statement of fact.
Lmao I have to agree! You knew it was coming, but it was done so damn well you had to laugh.
Always loved that scene, especially since you can see so many holes in that wall showing there is always that one recruit being a smartass xD.
@@bobbyboyd4737 Yeh, it's as if these people have never met or spoken too or read about soldiers at any point in their lives.
Good soldiers tend to be pretty stoic and masculine. And masculine men tend to talk like this.
@@bobbyboyd4737 This was the veteran (in the book, with visible disabling wounds [missing legs]) whose job it was to eliminate those people (like Johnny), who had no clue as to why they wanted to join, and or were doing it for a "lark", or to run away from home, etc.
After being deployed with NATO-OTAN forces, the co-ed shower scene is only unusual for Americans. Many other countries deploy entirely co-ed in living quarters and showers. It was a bit shocking for me at first seeing a Gorgeous blonde Sweed step out of the shower in front of me, introducing herself, but I soon realized it really wasn’t that big a deal. Only prudish Americans think it’s outrageous, and my wife.
So true. My better half and I were mistaken for foreigners by foreigners at a swingers club because we were so relaxed about nudity (we were stunned to find _so_ many skin-shy people there).
We were both born and raised in the U.S. but somehow we missed the memo about nudity being shameful and wrong.
Personally I just don't want to see anyone naked. Also hate being naked myself as I feel vulnerable physically.
Don't need to see some saggy smelly balls, hanging vag lips, or the brown void. Breasts are okay but don't get mad if my eye catches them. They are there and distracting.
Ya r/quityourbullshit
Lol and my wife
I can just sense the SHARP cases sky rocketing because someone "eye raped" someone in the co-ed showers...
I grew up during comunist regime and we had a thing called TV speaker - it was a person who talked before the movie and whose purpose was to explain to us how we should understand the movie we are about to see. This reminded me about it a lot.
Reminds me of the Chinese version of Fight Club where before the buildings blow up at the end it cuts away to say the police took care of everything and the main character went to a mental care facility and recovered from his illness. lol Can't have the authorities look like they aren't all-powerful and all-knowing, I guess.
They have those in Reddit comment threads now.
I read the book "Starship Troopers" while I was serving in the infantry in Vietnam in 1967. Neither I nor anyone I knew over there that read it (The USO provide us with paper backs which we passed around) saw it as anything other than an anti-war novel.
yeah, the book seemed libertarian, and sort of leaned on the fact that democracy ended up breaking down because people eventually just voted themselves to have ice cream, and had no skin in the game. Changes when you put your name on the dotted line, and have a better appreciation for freedoms.
@@BRYANMTRUNNELL damn that's a really, really good summary of the philosophy of starship troopers
That’s what I thought also. Calling it fascists is way overkill. You can say dystopian or authoritarian I guess
That’s interesting. While I had read it along before this, it was actually part of the required reading for the army officers basic infantry course when I went through it in the late 80s. The army doesn’t view it as being anti-war. No, don’t get me wrong, I’m not disagreeing with your interpretation of the book. I can absolutely see how you’re coming at it with that viewpoint and I think it’s totally legitimate. I think one of the things that make this book great is, it can be viewed from a lot of different angles, and held up to illustrate various points of view.
Yep when u think how that system work and have conclusions. :) First i think it was a shity movie class-B sci-fi. But afthere i watched it, the movie is great. AND why they were angry about starship troopers ? Not bcs is was gloryfing nazis systems but bcs it was look almost like United States. 🤣
This movie was an amazing feat. To be so amazingly campy but still be so idealistically committed.
It did not reflect a Nazi-like system, because there was no one being taken away in the middle of the night, like the Gestappo did in Germany during the war.
Nothing like concentration camps, was even hinted at.
I would respectfully suggest, "The Politics of Starship Troopers" here on youtube. It has a good comparison of book vs movie and shows where many of the points presented above, aren't supported by the text.
@@mikehenrys Also the Sky Marshall who F**ked up, took responsibility and resigned, for a more competent leader.
In a Nazi or Commie system, the leaders never take responsibility, they just keep sending more men to the grinder until the system falls apart, or they win.
@@ML-dk7bf Good point. Thanks.
And that campiness is why so many people missed that it was supposed to be satire.
Someone pointed out that, despite the enemy having a distinctly different silhouette and body structure from a human, the MI continue to use human shaped targets, and human-on-human scrimmages.
Almost like fighting xenos is an afterthought
NGL I figured that was the prop makers just being lazy
Or because bugs were a new unknown threat and one can't foresee anything like this. Much easier to use known silhouettes.
i guess if you are desensitized to shoot a fellow human, you will shoot pretty much anything
At one point of the film they speak about making war with other humans.
Idk if it was retconned in the movie, but the book has other alien species like "the Skinnies" who are initially allied with the Arachnids until the end of the book.
This analysis is full of errors. Here's just a few points:
1. Paul Verhoeven did not read the book, he put it down after reading a few pages.
2. This is not an authoritarian state. An authoritarian state does not afford it’s citizens civil liberties or political rights.
3. Accusing the film of lacking diversity is silly as the soldiers are highly diverse & the highest military leader is a black woman.
4. There is absolutely zero indication in the film that the Buenos Aires attack was a false flag operation. The best you can do is point to people’s “speculations”. That’s simply inserting things that aren’t in the film.
5. You say the treatment of the brain bug at the end illustrates just how "victimized" the bugs are while completely ignoring how the brain bug treated two unarmed prisoners of war. Not to mention how the bugs treated a Mormon settlement on a planet that the bugs were not indigenous to either.
6. The bugs are an aggressive colonizing species that are spreading through the system so confrontation with them is inevitable. Obviously they are not interested in a live-and-let-live philosophy evidenced by what they did to the Mormon settlers (not a single weapon was shown in the carnage). The Federation at the very least creates quarantine zones to avoid contact with the bugs which is what a let-live policy would entail.
Ultimately it's not the audience's fault for not seeing Verhoeven's "hidden brilliance" (sarcasm alert). It's his fault. He did not make an effective satire of fascism. Fascism is not even depicted in the society he showed. Using German uniforms does not add any substance to the argument.
it feels like the person here is justifying as humans as "genociders" and making the bugs "good???" lol
@@hays0939 pretty much
Exactly right, Verhoeven simply failed in his goal, and now he's mad that people are "misinterpreting" his work. How about the fact that Rico's parents are rich despite being non-citizens, and that he could've picked any other line of work as a non-citizen and lived in affluence. Or the fact that being rich afforded him no special benefits in the army, which is an incredible showcase of meritocracy that doesn't even exist in our "democratic" and free society.
If he wanted to show that the bugs were a non-threat or that the meteor was the military's doing, he sure did a poor job at that, since the former is clearly not a true and the latter is pure speculation. He could've made society far less fair and impoverished, the military more shady and corrupt, and the bugs more "innocent", but he failed at all of those things and that's his fault.
I'd give this a like, except you said something about "Verhoeven's hidden brilliance". He was not brilliant at all. He was jealous, and small.
@@garymelchisky2880 that was sarcasm
Sadly Verhoeven was incapable of understanding the novel. There's nothing in the movie that suggest the bugs were set up: in fact, Carmen's ship encounter an Asteroid coming from Klendathu towards earth. the bugs are shown targeting fast moving spaceships in orbit form the surface. The bugs are not misunderstood.
You still don't get it.
@@-iIIiiiiiIiiiiIIIiiIi- What don't I get? Everything I said is 100% accurate.
I watched this movie when I was 10, so I didn't care about any of those hidden messages. I just enjoyed soldiers shooting monsters.
@@wylderwatkins667 Bro he was 10 what do you want from him?
@@wylderwatkins667 sir this is a youtube video comment section
Calm down Rico
Mee to. My son however who's 10 immedately told me it's a movie about space nazis, who bombed their own city & invaded the bugs.. so those hints are pretty obvious to today's generation.
@@alexanderbenkendorf688
Every time I hear somebody claim the internet is making us dumber, I roll my eyes. Because I keep meeting kids like your son. I am truly terrified of how useless I am going to be when I get old.
About the disfigurement part, i think Verhoeven left out one crucial thing. In the book, the recruitment officer that is missing limbs is later seen with fully functional bionic prosthethics. He also says that the "disabled" thing is just a part of the shtick they came up in the higher up for propaganda reason, and that the prosthethics make him even more capable in some fields than regular limbs.
Very much so! In the boom, he doesn't wear his prosthetics as a way to dissuade half-hearted thrill seekers from joining the MI. That way, they get even less washout and more willing, less doe-eyed recruits. It is an incredibly important scene, like many of the books scenes, that were cut in favor of the director's attempt at propoganda.
The whole point of it was discouragement. Every bit during your enlistment if you weren't fighting forces was to make it as onerous as possible. You had to WANT to be a citizen so much that you were willing to make great sacrifices.
It was also to make recruits think twice before signing up, clearly signalled in the book.
they came up with it to dissuade people from volunteering. does that sound in any way fascist to you?
Verhoeven left all those parts about the "benevolent authoritarian government" out on purpose. He wanted a satire about how normal, likeable or even "good" people would fall for a fascist system and AFAIK it was pure studio interference that the movie was turned into an adaption of Heinlein's book in the first place. Verhoeven supposedly hated the book and just took some names and a few scenes he could fit into his original concept.
i hate when i click on a thumbnail then realize its looper
Why?
@@christopher8659 their content is shallow, derivative, and obviously just taken from other better channels.
I see what you mean now... a very mid take on this film.
@@sbaltys and biased
When I first saw the previews in the theater, the scene where the bugs are rushing the remote compound they were in is reminiscent of a scene from the book "Armor" by John Steakley
I was STOKED They might make that into a movie (and I think it would be an awesome movie).
Still enjoyed Starship Troopers and went back to get the book and was shocked at how literally different they are.
The movie took the Title, some character names, and a few background ideas, and then sprinted in a different direction.
TOTALLY!!!! MAKE ARMOR Damnit!!!!
Armor was so good. I loved the similarities too.
Armor is a great book.
I remember reading that book as a kid. I honestly don't remember much but I do think it has a major twist in it that easily works in a book (because you can't see the characters) but I don't know would be particularly easy to pull off in a movie. I remember enjoying it very much though and if they could properly adapt it I would definitely watch it.
@@ryanhenderson8908I have read the book multiple times now. I think it is still in print.
Yes, there was a twist near the end realizing who stood in front of them because he was the ONLY person in the universe who could have stepped into the suit and it responded to him.
The dialogue in the shower scene is important for the audience to understand the fascism. The people have to earn their citizenship to be able to do jobs and even have babies.
Is it fascism or militarism?
@@pookachu64 The fascist government policy. "service guarantees citizenship". The people earn their citizenship. One way is with military service. The government in this movie restricts certain rights, lifestyles, profession etc unless a person is a "citizen". This policy is unheard of in the U.S.. The right to procreate is an inalienable human right in the U.S. and in most societies.
In the free U.S. the people have the right to choose their profession, lifestyle, procreation etc.
@@daniellewis2133 Yes, but in a fascist state everyone has a purpose for the state and must earn their rights hence the restriction on citizenship. But normally these kinds of states want women to have babies and so there would be no restriction there and in fact it would be the opposite, becoming a mother would earn a woman the right to citizenship.
@@TheJetstream10 Having citizenship allows you to have more then 2 children. Johnny Rico parents weren't Citizens they were Civilians. It helps to prevent overpopulation.
So sad how few people have read this masterpiece. It really is fantastic. I am glad that the movie has gained more and more popularity in my life though.
I picked up the book on a whim walking through Walmart with my mom in 1997, I was 13 at the time. It was a tie in semi promotional thing for the movie (the book cover had the movie poster on it). The book was totally Heinlein's classic though. I took it home and was absolutely enthralled, it introduced me to so many new ideas and on top of that introduced me to Heinlein as an author. It's STILL one of my favorite books of all time.
Needless to say, I had my dad take me to the movie when it was released. I think that was the first time in my life I had a "this is nothing like the book...." moment. To this day I'm still not a big fan of it. I can see the popcorn movie appeal, but it always just reminds me of my disappointment at 13.
I was fortunate to see the movie when it came out and to read the novel this year. Both are amazing in their own rights. The novel is much more than fascist jingoism.
Listening to an audiobook of it now. Never read it before. Came across my TH-cam feed yesterday spontaneously.
@@furiouskaiser9914 Actually, I listened to an unabridged audiobook, not read the novel. I don't know why I wrote it that way. The reader was excellent. Look up the ship names and historical references; it's with it!
Both are masterpieces in their own right. The movie is wonderful, but I hate the legacy it left for the book.
The book is wonderful and not fascist at all. There is some element of authoritarianism to it, but the reason for the switch to a more authoritarian government is the utter lack of discipline in society as well as a general selfish nature to individuals. It's 2023 and Heinlein's dystopian future that led to the regime is largely playing out. We have Dr. Spock's book to thank for not disciplining kids. We have government officials using their station for personal gain. I could go on. The service requirement to vote and be politically active is two fold. It requires both discipline and that you to put the wellbeing of others before yourself. Basically it's a way to weed out the self-serving and the corrupt. It's spelled out that you can live comfortably in a nice society without ever having to serve and the distinction between the two is minimal.
I hate how Verhoven twisted this idea that service and discipline are just the machine breaking and remolding you into an obedient tool. Instead of it being a test to see who is fit to lead, it's perverted to be a form of control.
And I know Heinlein gets a lot of crap, but the ideas here are not far off from Douglas Adams who is essentially the polar opposite of Heinlein politically. Adams wrote "it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it." This then gets summarized to "anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
We have a lot to learn from the old authors still.
Even as a kid, I knew it was meant to be tongue in cheek. Still a good 'fun' movie to watch though. Or rather, that aspect of it, made it a better movie. More depth and substance as it were.
It's crazy how kids like us caught on to that, but critics panned it as being pro-nazi and all that. If a 10 year old can watch it and understand it's more than a mindless action flick, how come the critics couldn't?
I think they were just jaded by the gratuitous nature of all his films. I've watched his stuff before this one. Flesh+Blood, Robocop, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, and Showgirls are all very pointed and dive much deeper than surface level. I do find it very interesting that Robocop is a very deep philosophical movie, Total Recall is a solid adaptation of a PKD story that toys with the idea of fake reality, and then this is only looked at on a surface level. It doesn't make sense.
And the special effects still look good today.
The asteroid was not an inside job. you literally posted the scene right before the ship is hit by an asteroid hit off course by the bugs..
Starship Troopers was the first R rated movie I ever watched (5 years old when it came out in 1997) and my dad let us kids watch it to my moms disapproval. It made me want to join the Marine Corps (which I later did) and it also made me fall in love with Denise Richards only to realize when I was an adult she was the real villain lol. Dizzy was the real one. That being said the movie was so impactful to me that I didn't even think to read the book until I had already served in the Marines and honestly I'm glad it worked that way. It gave me a much better appreciation for the military themes in the book and a much better understanding of the leadership lessons/political opinions expressed in the book. The book and movie only share the title, SOME names (Diz was a guy who died in the first couple chapters) and the general plot of killing bugs in space but that's pretty much where the similarities end. The book does not promote fascism as Paul Verohoven thought. He self admittedly didn't read past the first chapter of the book and was scorned growing up in a Nazi occupied country.
Rah
Thank you for your service solider!
@@diltzm rah!
@@Anonymous-rn7fp I'm a Marine but thank you!
The part where Sgt. Zim answers why they train with knives when nukes are available is so much better presented in the book. No ridiculous "cannot push a button if you disable his hand" quip. He explained that war is violence for a purpose, and excessive violence is counterproductive. Spank children to correct behavior, but don't beat them.
It also was a call back to the opening chapter where the Mobile Infantry conducted a raid on another planet, destroying a few factories, some other buildings, all to show the native population that the MI can attack them with impunity, and to convince them to obey. The Feds wanted compliance, not extermination.
On the B.A. event, thats the astroid that took out the communication on Carmen's ship, the only one that could've given proper warning of its existence. The asteroids are also how they spread planet to planet so they DO have the ability to make those calculations.
letc be hones here, Carmen rly hate comunication arrays.
Its not so much the calculations as much the time involved. That Asteroid would have had to be shot a factor of time longer than the existence of humanity as a sentient organism in order to bridge the vastness of space to smite Buenos Ares. The Average speed of an asteroid is is about 12 miles per second, or a blistering 43200 miles an hour. To reach Proxima Centauri, a meagre 4.246 lights years from our sun, traveling at the speed listed above, it would take approximately 66812 Years. With what is presented in the film if that Asteroid was going at any appreciable FTL speeds than Carmen's ship would never have been seen again, let alone be able to see the asteroid at all. The Bugs could not have done Buenos Ares.
@@ballisticwaffles A good excuse is a logical excuse. 👍
@@ballisticwaffles I would assume that that there is some sort of wormhole or hyperspace tunnel that allows the asteroid to travel to the solar system in a drastically faster rate. Perhaps the bug is capable of using wormhole as means of interstellar travel? You know, the film mentioned that humans also use similar technology (hyperspace travel).
@@LucasEckhart No, there's no wormhole, the bugs are just that, bugs. There's nothing special about them other than they exist at the other end of the galaxy from Earth. That's part of the brilliant satirism of the movie. It's the humans that are the invasive species, the colonizers, and the eradicators. The facist utopia only exists as long as there is an enemy to fight.
If you thought Heinlein’s book was pro war and pro fascism, then you missed the point of the book. Or as I suspect, you didn’t actually read the book.
Well, Heinlein celebrates a set of virtues. The director disagreed with these virtues as leading to good results.
Troopers = Superior warriors defending the superior society by destroying the alien invader bugs.
Bugs = Anything and everything that stands in the way of the perfect, superior society.
Loved the whole concept and action of the movie 100%!
"The only good bug is a dead bug!"
So true...so true...lol.
When I was in the military, we loved this movie. Apparently, the director's "slap in the face" was lost on us. We saw it as satire but fun. We wanted to be Rico.
Paul verhoven stinks, thats why. He's a leftist pig.
That's the thing about fascism: It is so infectious, that you can't easily teach people about it without accidentally triggering another fascist uprising. At least in nationalist cultures. It has been tried again and again. Robber cave, Third Wave, etc. Lots of teachers that think they should teach kids about fascism and accidentally re-creating it.
Truth...Verhoeven tried to ruin Heinlien's work and only succeeded in making the MI even more cool.
@@BryceByerley Agreed!
@@Tony_Cardoza what's even more impressive is that he made them cool WITHOUT the power armor. When they added the power armor back in, it made them even better.
I love Starship Troopers because it makes internet pseudo-intellectuals go positively unhinged if they think you didn't """get it""".
I remember stumbling on this movie in the early 2000s. I was hesitant to see it but watched it just to pass the time. Turned out to be one of the best movies I have ever seen. A true classic!
did you do your part and kill a few bugs?
@@SaraMorgan-ym6ueOh, I did kill a few roaches.😁
Never once thought that the Bugs didn't send the asteroid and don't know anyone that has said that beyond this video
You're right, the movie even shows a giant bug shoot something out of his ass out to space to knock an asteroid towards earth.
"Never once thought that the Bugs didn't send the asteroid and don't know anyone that has said that beyond this video"
The Bug sent the asteroid in the movie and bombed Buenos Aires in the book. It's clearly shown. People trying to make it into some kind of Red Flag event are just making up a scenario to fit their own mental mood.
It’s a fanfic theory. This guy just plagiarized from the fandom wiki and other random sites. No way he actually watched the movie or read the book from what he’s saying about them.
@@rockymountainkitchen7834 Exactly. They showed the bug doing it. Although the geometry of it landing on Earth would make it slightly less believable.
But the humans were the baddies without a doubt.
@@FunningRast exactly. It's fanfic and it's a more modern theory playing on all the false flag talk from the conspiracy theory crowd. This is just a projection of modern politics onto the movie.
I've seen this movie way too many times and I never once got the idea humans staged the attack. The farthest I would go is to call it a Pearl Harbor theory where government saw the attack coming and chose not to react knowing it would incite the masses. With how we track asteroids moving today, it's highly unlikely that any future society would be blindsided by an asteroid attack like this. Opportunistic isn't the same as a false flag.
I didn't take the scene with the Brain bug as suggesting that the Arachnids were victimized. More like a smart vicious creature feeling fear after being captured by the creatures who's brains its been sucking out. Not fear of a conquering humankind but fear of retaliation
yeah I was about to say that. thats the same goddamn bug that sucked out their brains, called false SOS signals and generally fed false info to the federation so they can slaughter dozens of thousands of infantry... also its made pretty clear in the movies that the rocks were definitely launched by the bugs, as far as I remember there are zero hints about it being fake, and also they keep launching more asteroids after... this video is overall complete bull in my opinion
Maybe it had to suck brains to protect it's own kind
Same. It was more a juxtaposition between the "good guys", and a celebration that they had found a way to inspire fear in their opponent. That fear could be inspired. That the creatures they had dedicated themselves to killing weren't just unfeeling robots, but actually had a 'person' behind them that could be tortured.
Kind of reminds me of the newspapers when Bin Laden was killed. Just felt a bit..off
Humanity struck first, the bugs were defending themselves. Have you not watched the movie?
The 'victory' scene is one of the most hollow and damning victory scenes ever.
The hollow victory is that they made one bug scared. That's all you accomplished? After sending hundreds of thousands of men to die in a war of colonization? That's all you accomplished?
The damning part of the victory is that even though they know bugs have feelings, too, it will not stop their colonization or genocide attempts.
It's perfect. I was read the interview with the creator in those days when this movie launched. He said the same. He also said, he had try to explain the movie to the guy who played Rico, but that guy isn't understood, because he's never saw any similar to the na71s and the bolsheviks. The only part what i missing from your video, that part, what was the most important one, the speach what represented the whole movie logic. That short speach in the classroom. But the 2 youngster "activity" pushed up from our eyes, the "philosophy" behind that future earth regime. Congratulation! Excellent review, thank You🙂(And sorry for my bad english, i never learned)
I'll always love this movie. RICO! YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO!
You do realize that this movie was meant for adults, lol
Yet most of us in the comments saw it as kids
@@SuperJbunt indeed lol
@@SuperJbunt totally busted it out for my 11 year old this last month!
Yeah i was 10 roughly when this came out
Yes I saw it lol
What was the LOL
Saw the movie countless times back in the days and i still love it. It's an underrated masterpiece.
You really should read the book then. The movie strips out soooo much. In the book the Terrans are fighting TWO alien races, not just one.
Or is you're short on time, watch Roughnecks : Starship Troopers Chronicles, a brilliant series.
Things you only notice in Starship Troopers if you're ignorant of the film's origins*
Apparently all the themes involving personal responsibility flew completely over Vanderhoover's head, because of course they did.
Service was a litmus test for discipline and being willing to serve others was just too hard of a concept. But let's not forget the famous Douglas Adams quote "it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it." that is talking about that same thing from the opposite end of the political spectrum to Heinlein. The premise is simple that those least likely to want authority are the most suited to be given authority. George Washington falls in this category.
Instead, he made all the recruits have selfish desires for wanting to serve and depicted the "carrot on a string" model of recruitment. They can exploit people that want something bad enough they'll die for it.
For what it's worth, I think Rico in the movie becomes more of what Heinlein was looking for after the attack on BA. It becomes more about others than himself. He's got nothing left, so why not make sure nobody else suffers like he does. It's still very shallow, but it's the closest the movie came to the book's intentions.
...but it wasn't his fault!! (sorry, had to!! :))
It's a sad indictment on modern values that what is clearly a meritocracy is immediately labelled 'fascist'.
@@PersonalityMalfunction It falls a bit short of being a true Meritocracy, there likely wouldn't a Citizen/Civilian divide if it was one.
@@PersonalityMalfunction bingo
25 years later you can't beat a classic
For those who did not read the book, the goverment there was not run by military and was not tolitarian. Those in active service were prohibited participation in politics. Only retired of honorably discharged military could vote or be voted. Thus all government workers and politicians were civilians and it was a democracy, only it was not univerlsal suffrage, but restricted to those who passed the service. And in the novel it is referred as one of the most liberal regimes with very low taxes and very few restrictions i.e. lots of personal freedoms. Which is opposite of what totalitarian regimes usually do.
In the movie, the leaders are held accountable (the sky marshal is replaced after the botched mission to K), the public is informed about the war (the media deploys along side the troops), the bugs did send the meteor (We see them sending more, and Verhoven says as much in commentary.) and the ending is happy (Rico has matured into a confident leader who knows why he fights)
That's the problem with so many movie epilogue scenes like this. you get a line or two and 20 seconds to show how the rest of a characters life turned out? Leaves a lot to the imaginations of the audience. (which can be good if that is the intent - but I don't think it was here)
Starship Troopers is proof of Gladwell's "Satire Paradox." There's always a chance that people will get off on the very thing you're trying to satirize. My memories of seeing Starship Troopers for the first time (as an adult) are that the audience was waaay into the bug-hunting.
That's because the satirist, in this case, completely misunderstood the original story.
You can't make a satire of the thing you don't understand and aren't even willing to understand.
Verhoeven had to be fed all the information by the screenwriters, because he refused to check the source material for himself past the first few pages he deemed "boring".
Thus he accidentally created a pretty damn good movie with a message that fell completely flat on his actual intentions with it... and then tried doubling down on it in the third movie, which... doubled down on all the wrong things, if he wanted it to be a satire of fascism.
Why would killing murderous aliens be a bad thing?
@@jeskler Hm. I swear he was credited in the third movie too.
But yeah, can't see him mentioned on the wiki page.
@@spencerevans8719 Because they are Mexicans or something. Well, that'd be the reasoning if we're to assume this is a movie about fascism.
Whenever I play Half Life 2, and it's time for the Strider battle at the Nexus building, I always yell "Do you want to live forever?". This was one of my dad's favorite movies. He loved movies with explosions and lots of gunplay, and I take after him. Love this stuff!
Do you want to live forever? What does that mean to you? Do you want to die (now as opposed to an old man in bed), or do you want to be in history and songs for great deeds?
@@johnnycampbell3422 I know where you're coming from, and while I can appreciate the philosophy that you're talking about, I actually say it because they say it in the movie
@@GingerSnape46 Daniel daily said the quote in WW1 during a battle leading his men to attack. I have found how someone views the meaning says a lot.
The line that stuck with me was, " Do the best of someone better"
Well the line "Do you want to live forever" was more famous to me from Conan the Barbarian and I used it in multiple D&D campaigns over the years.
the bug meteor was legit. you're planting ideas
well, maaaaaybe. It's true that the bugs almost wiped out the human fleet in orbit by throwing big rocks up in the sky, but throwing a huge asteroid million of miles across space with a precise trajectory to hit earth? nah, that seems very doubtful. even if they could calculate it or have "space bugs" that could fly into space and do it. which (as far as we know) they don't. So yeah, it was the humans.
@@AlIguana No, it wasn't. It was actually the bugs. In both the books and the movies it was canonically the bugs. They just maximized the incident to get everyone rolling in the direction of the bugs to fight them.
Not that wasn't unjustified. The bugs were sending a continuous stream of rocks at Earth. That's what hits the ship partway through the movie. A rock on the way to Earth from the bugs.
@@AlIguana
We know they colonized multiple planets in multiple star systems. They have some form of interstellar travel.
Explain the mechanism that allows humans to travel across the galaxy in his or days using the informal in the film.
Explain the mechanisms that allow humans to implant thoughts into a ferret.
Man I saw this as a teenager and laughed the whole time. I was shocked when I learned some people (most people?!?!?!) didn't realize it was a satire. They're living in full fledged fascism and celebrating it. How could you not get that?!
What exactly was fascist about their society tho?
Justifying cruel levels of corporal punishment and normalizing violence for the glorification of the privilege soldier class in society for the purposes of desensitizing the youth to committing worse violence on the state's enemies. All while the elite officers are wearing literal SS uniforms
@@alanoldham1700 The government before the federation wasn't our world though. It was a mixture of high incompetence, ideological social experiments (on a societal scale) and a culture of youth criminality stemming from lack of responsibility.
That does not make the federation fascist, unless you think any kind of responsibility is fascist.
@@DoubleBob So... what Fascist literally claimed throughout the 1920s, 30s, 50s and through to today about the "Liberal Democracies"
@@Inucroft It's okay if you don't know. No need to hide behind vague sophistry.
I always thought the ending was sad... You knew his childhood friends would go on to live their dreams of high profile, glamorous careers and luxuries but, he'd be thrown to the frontline until he don't come back
Those that serve understand. A shorter life living under the motivation of real survival is much more rewarding than slow death as an institutionalized slave. Its real life vs. fake life and the life of a soldier is just as controlled as the life of a civilian, both just lie to themselves in different ways. One fights under the premise of creating freedom while the other "lives" life under the illusion of freedom. The civilians that feel sorry for soldiers are the most delusional as most soldiers can see how the civilians live as slaves without knowing the higher virtues that could be experienced in real situations.
I'd rather be on the front lines than live those vapid lives.
I agree but, my point is that he never even wanted that life and only did it to follow them before losing his family and all he had left at the end was battle. Unlike most, he had nothing to return to, is what I meant was the upsetting unspoken message at the end
@@enjoyyourself7455 If he hadn't left, he would have died with his family. He got to avenge them instead.
@@climatepurification Jingoistic horse shit. Do you trust politicians? Because that is who sends the dumb kids off to die in places they have no reason to be. GTFO with your serving is glory bullshit. Do you know who serves? Elementary teachers who spend 8 years going to school to get a master's degree and state certification for the right to teach YOUR kids for $40k a year. Some semi-literate kid who goes off to die in Iraq or Vietnam is just sad.
Imagine calling Jake Busey a 90s heart throb 😂
Ya, he has teeth that would be the envy of any zombie.
He was a serial killer in The Frighteners.
It also always bothered me how at the end, Denis richards character is walking around fine with a giant hole in her shoulder.
She was also the reason her training starship lost its entire top bridge when she changed courses from the original path and then was cheered as the hero of the day.
I loved this movie and every spin-off that came from it. That it was anti-war totally flew over my head. Large bugs are easy to fear and kill without remorse. I never questioned them striking first. This movie sparked a love of sci-fi infantry novels to this day.
Original novel was more interesting, the problem was communication and understunding, most bugs were not individuals but mindless drones, so when they killed colonists they considered it to be not so bad morally action because they assumed humans are similiar in nature, only brain bugs were sentient and were communicating in so alien way both species just couldnt engage in diplomacy, point of sending infantry in the first place was just to capture brain bug, research it not kill it and establish diplomacy to stop war without exterminating them, it is clear that humanity is stronger in later part of conflict but choses not to destroy the bugs and sacrifice many soldiers just for a chance of diplomatic solution.
@@maciejrozanski154 sounds similar to Enders Game when you say it like that.
@@taurianferguson Enders game might have been inspired by it to some extend, i do not know tho.
Anti-war? He picked a bad premise for anti-war, aliens eradicating humans. Anti-war is a suicidal choice. He did such a great job of satirically making fun of the military, I made a career of it, as did my son and my daughter. Well done on anti-military.
@@69BTony Just a concept of Enders game seems to be inspired by it, Heinleins original story was not anti war nor anti military, treated it as extension of politics in situation when there is no other option and promoted idea of measured response and negotiatons, i believe Heinlein was serving in the navy himself. I think he was kind a guy like Kennedy to some extend, Kennedy also served in military and was a patriot yet was one of the few that opposed being draggad into wars and military conflicts by his adivsors, generals and CIA.
But yeah i got into politics, i also did not liked realy anti war theme in Enders Game where situation was so extreme and it was matter of survival, still a good novel, ive also read sequels to this book but those were not as good.
Honestly i feel like you missed one of the more glaring head nods in the movie.
The main characters(s) grew up in argentina which is where a lot of high ranking nazi officials escaped to once their defeat became certain during WW2.
I enjoyed the book. I took it as examining two issues: How would humanity respond to encountering alien races that are hellbent on destroying us a species? A species we cannot communicate with let alone reason with? We either fight and defeat them or get wiped out. I didn't and don't take it as a celebration of war or a glorification of fascism - thats Verhoeven's take on it but not what I got from the book. Heinlein fought in WWII against the Japanese, I am sure he was well aware of the horrors of warfare.
The second question I recall from the book is what the meaning of Citizenship should be. In our society you are a citizen by accident of birth in most cases, or you earn it after immigrating and applying for it etc. Heinlein asked the question: what if you had to *earn* your citizenship by serving your society in some capacity, what if the right to vote on the future of your society was predicate on your having risked yourself to earn that right so that you would place *value* on your citizenship and your right to vote? Would that make you more conscientious about how you voted? Certainly a worthwhile question for an SF author to ask, isn't it?
Verhoeven is the person that turned this into a shallow exploration of authoritarianism and painted it with a pro-Nazi viewpoint. The questions about the Bugs mentioned in this video and the question raised as to whether or not Buenos Aires was a false-flag attack arise from the Director's intent to deride fascism, not from the book as I recall. It has coloured many people's views of Heinlein's works quite unfairly in my opinion and done a serious disservice to SF fans as a result. The book also covers combat with other species that gets ignored in this movie interpretation for the sake of simplifying the message I would imagine.
If you read his other books, the author explores a lot of different issues and tells completely different tales that are at complete odds with his perceived rightwing reputation as a result of Verhoeven's version of this story. Citizen of the Galaxy is an exploration of the impact of Slavery on the freed slave for instance. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (my favourite of his books in fact) is a great story of Revolution and a society seeking freedom from oppression by authoritarian governments - the complete opposite to the Verhoeven interpretation of Starship Troopers in fact. Time Enough for Love and Stranger In A Strange Land are explorations of sexuality and relationships as well as philosophy that take yet another view. I Will Fear No Evil is about an elderly rich man getting his brain transplanted into the body of a young woman and explores the impact of having your physical gender changed completely.
He was a Science Fiction author, he explored a lot of different ideas from different perspectives and he won a *lot* of awards - but he is tarnished as being somehow pro-facist these days because a Director decided to reinterpret one of his novels in that manner. I think that this has done him a serious disservice and discouraged a lot of people from reading some excellent stories they might otherwise enjoy.
That said the movie is fun and I do like it despite the flaws :P
Great rundown on it. Funnily enough I love both the book and movie, the movie because if you decide to look at it at face value, all of the negatives are 'presumed'. In my eyes Verhoeven proved he was shallow, tried to make a mockery of a state utopia and ended up making it look good. It's not inherently an undesirable society to live in, outside of the war(and the obvious satire), especially if you apply the overtones of the book to it.
Found the appologist
@@Inucroft no you found someone who read the book before seeing the enazified version the movie presents :)
I grok.
Good take, and I agree. In particular, I found the "false flag" claim not credible: I don't recall anything in the movie (which I've watched several times) hinting that Buenos Aires was other than what it appeared to be. I'm not sure where the Buenos Aires Truther" movement started, but I think it contrived.
I've always thought of Heinlein as a libertarian realist, a man who celebrated individual liberty and recognized that defending a society that valued it required hard men -- and, because he was more libertarian than conservative, hard women as well. It's been a few decades since I read _Starship Troopers_, but I recall that I liked it. I know I very much enjoy the movie.
You know what is really sad. If you actually read the book you find out what the movie got wrong.
For example, instead of trying to get people to join the military, the recruiters actaully discouraged people. They used retired soldiers who were missing limbs to let you know what you were getting into.
The book was portraying an idea where if you wanted to be in a plotical office or wanted to have a career in the beuacracy you had to be a veteran.
It also had the idea that everyone had basic rights like freedom of speech, innocent until proven guilty, etc but citizens were retired military and they could run for political offic and they could vote.
The logic was that if you were not willing to lay your life down for your fellow man then you had no right to have command over them.
In the book, earth had multiple colonies and a majority of the poplulation of earth were not citizens so they could not vote or hold political office while a large percentage of the colony population did sign up for the military.
Also, there was more than one alien race, the bugs were just the 1st one that mankind ran into that was equal to us militarily.
I di enjoy the movie but I cringed many times during the moving wondering what kind of idiot would destroy the source material in the way they did with the movie.
The movie was most definitely a critique of neo-fascism/Naziism, but the book was anything but.
Heinlin wrote his novel in 1959 with WWII fresh in people's memories. The novel explored the dangers of "unfettered" democracy against Russian and Chinese totalitarin communism. Heinlin expressed concerns that an unfettered democracy where people could vote without earning the right through merit (military service or somethign similar) would fall to the communist tide. The concern was that people had come to believe that the right to vote equated to the ability to get whatever you wanted without work or effort.
Moreover, while the right to vote was limited to those who earned it through merit, all other citizens retained their rights (freedom of speech, freedom of religion, etc.). The novel was hardly fascist, and, arguably, was not "pro war" (there are very few combat depiction in the novel, and during the invasion of the "Skinnies", efforts were taken not to harm civilians). It was simply about the benefits of a meritocracy over what he perceived was a major weakness in Western Philosophy.
Hard Agree, . Heinlein always prized critical thinking and merits, so he didn't directly wrote the critics of a militarized state, he wants the reader to realize what's happening. He was in the Navy, he knows where all the cracks where on the system....
This is really good, thank-you. I met CasparVan Dien not long after ST was released. He was very nice, a dedicated, hardworking, actor who emphasized the importance of research to my theater students. I remember him quite fondly.
I liked him too. Shame his movie career never really took off
@@greva2904 I like to imagine that by staying out of the Hollywood spotlight, some of these great actors are afforded a more peaceful life
@@carsilk2492 Yeah what I've heard is that he lives a pretty quiet life with his family taking occasional roles. Basically a standard middle class living driving his kids to school, taking the trash out, watching TV, etc. No mansions, butlers, or magical alien doomsday cults needed like the rest of Hollywood. Pretty cool way to live honestly.
I was in my early 20's when I first saw the film. My friends laughed at me when I told them I found the propagandized nature of the film disturbing. I guess to them it was just another summer blockbuster... It wasn't until years later a close friend recommended the novel.
Things you noticed when you were watching it on VHS and things you notice watching it today :
It's a fvkC!ng Awesome Movie !
This video is evidence we truly do live in the dumbest timeline.
That fact that we watched this as kids is hilarious. It's considered a kid movie despite all the blood, gore, and nudity 😅. Good times. Reminds me of how the first Robocop was considered a kid movie too.
Because they are. They build character, but they won't change or influence an adults mind.
@r4v3rbr growing up, Starship Troopers was one of my favorite movies. I still love the movie, especially the soundtrack.
this is one of those movies that I have to stop changing channels when I see it showing
I would argue that Rico did not get that man killed in training, as the M-3 Tactical Helmet does very little when live rounds are fired at locations on the head that the helmet wouldn't cover on or off.
It also being a hat with straps and not some secret weapon being tested which makes the guy look like an idiot struggling with it.
Good point. Glad someone else noticed that.
Are you rated to critique the M3 tactical helmet? Private?
LMAO Would you like to know more?@@briantoplessbar4685
I believe it was due to Rico _ordering_ his soldier out of formation and keeping him in an active live fire drill. Rico not being rated to repair the M3 tactical helmet means he should have not given that order but ordered his recruit off the exercise field.
Rico as a person was definitely not responsible for the death but Rico the squad leader gave a command outside the SOP which resulted in a death, and thus is responsible. The was only one right choice and Rico didn't choose it.
So the bugs are Commies? Now I love it even more.
My pops loved this movie. Everytime I see it on I have to watch it just because of him. RIP to my dad.
Sorry for your loss.
Paul Verhoeven butchered the novel. But in doing so created a masterpiece and started a conversation.
In the novel they're dropped from orbit then flying around with jet packs in powersuits while firing atomic bombs. When I saw this I fully went into the cinema expecting to be blown away by a combination of the Quake 2 intro and the game Starseige: Tribes, if you ever seen or played either of those incredible ancient games - Christ I'm old. By comparison the movie was pretty much just Saving Private Ryan or Aliens or Predator or any other number of movies. That is a bunch of solders getting hauled around in a troop transport. It even used that cliche of putting the characters an impossible situation only to be saved at the very last minute by these things, so much so that you might as well have called them The Eagles. Although, To be fair that was in the book as well IIRC.
Granted this was the 90s so they possibly didn't have the technology to do half the stuff from the book - which I don't quite buy since the way they modeled the bugs still looks pretty good - but it still came across as pretty lame if you've read the book, even if you disregard the politics, and doesn't make much sense if you think about it for five minutes: for instance why would you still be using infantry in the future? At least the author of the book sat down and thought about it making sure it incorporate it in a way that made sense, that is the future equivalent of Airborne Rangers. Which was a pretty unique vision for the time and is still today. Confusingly they did this while still incorporating terminology from the book, for example, in the book they're called apes because when dressed up power armor they literally looked like apes but in the movie they called them apes because ???
Even the political satire wasn't that great in comparison to the novel, although if you actually adapted the novel two thirds of it would of been of just been the main character getting trained right the way though to officer school - it was that preachy - At least Verhoeven was smart enough to tone that down.
The thing is that in the book the author - who was very much a member of the counter culture, he did write Stanger in a Strange Land BTW - was making fun of both sides: that is envisioning a militaristic authoritian fascist future but presenting it in a way which didn't sound too bad even if you were opposed to that sort of thing. Which is itself interesting even if you may not personally believe in it. Sort of how Plato tried to construct from our perspective would be a completely fascist society because he was attempting to use it as an analogy to examine of how the concept of justice works, if you were to assume that people could work together to active collective goals and not just fight amongst themselves. I mean maybe justice is just shorthand for social cohesion, who knows?
In the movie Verhoeven just went the route of satire but only doing so to the one side: the implication being that the majority of people are just ignorant and it is only us enlightened inviduals who are able to see this, that is if you're smart it means you believe XYZ and you only think ABC because you're stupid, like the very idea that you might sit down look at the data and still believe ABC is completely unacceptable, which ironically is the way morons think and which is what keeps them moronic, since such intellectual arrogance just makes it impossible to examine, change or adapt your own opinions let alone having any actual real intellectual authority to challenge or change other peoples.
Also a lot of stuff in the movie was obviously just put into it for marketing reasons, for instance the only reason they stuck a love triangle in it was because at the time teen dramas like Beverly Hills 90210 where the hot thing so it was incorporated just to appeal to the kids - oh, and the shower scene but that just appeals to everyone.
I guess it starts a conversation: if that conversation is how lame movies usually are compared to the book version and how you're almost always better off just reading the book.
@@SamiiYou They had the choice, budget-wise, of power armor or bugs. No bugs, no movie... Rico mentions in the book that the "apes" bit probably dates back at least to Ancient Rome, if not further back, it's just something NCOs tend to call recruits and "grunt" troops, even today. And yes, Heinlen does get rather preachy, doesn't he?!?
i always loved how this nerd tried to make a mockery out of Heinlein but ended up just attracting more people to Heinlein
The thing is, it wasn't trying to just lambast Heinlein. He also was the executive producer on the animated series which delved more into the sci-fi tech and military reasoning. He said his piece but wasn't trying to scream into the void.
Underrated comment.
yeah, I read the book shortly after I saw the movie. Fascism aside, I still think the notion of requiring some sort of service (doesn't have to be military, just any sort of public service job) isn't exactly a horrible idea for a requirement before getting some sort of government benefit (maybe not voting, but could be applied to other benefits) of course, like anything, it would have to be a heavily regulated system to prevent abuse.
@@VoodooV1 There is no need for a service since every citizen will do many services for the government, from studiyng to working and paying taxes. Just to add a "by the way you HAVE to work on this factory otherwise you won't get constitutional recognition" is just asking for trouble and pissing off a lot of people that for all intents and porpuses should throw you out of office as soon as they have the slightest chance.
@@PointReflex Mostly right. The book was a discussion about how far a civilization could be pressed and still retain individual freedom, democracy, and isonomy. Verhoeven never even read it, and took the word of some of his doltish lefty friends that is was "pro-fascism." Verhoeven brilliantly directed Robocop, but his approach to Starship Troopers couldn't have been more benighted and unphilosophical.
Only 2 things was missed during the "satirical slap": 1 - The director do not undersand the book. 2 - If you wish to make militant society as a "bad" do not give them all-or-nothing enemy like bugs. When US have been attacked at 9/11 the response was same: war and militarisation. So this is a very natural habit when someone will kill you: you start to fight back.
Maybe you're missing something? There's no reason the humans need to fight the bugs other than they want to. It's hinted that the humans are the invading force, not the other way around. Of course the bugs are going to be all in when they're on the defensive.
Yet still refuse to believe 9/11 was an inside job as justification to go to war xD
The idea about the "false flag" has about as much merit as JarJar being a sith. Just because you can imagine it doesn't mean that someone would add those plot pieces and never reveal it. ie: that never happened
Yup it's a satire.
Played straight. The best sort of satire. The few pacifists depicted in the film come off as misguided.
@@stephenlreed as they often are in real life.
I enjoyed the book for the power armour. I enjoyed the movie because it's visually very impressive and has an engaging cast.
I just view them as completely separate entities, because they're so wildly different from each other.
The only thing I don't like in the movie is Carmen. She manipulates Johnny into signing up for the military, then dumps the poor bastard before he's even finished basic training.
If her motivation had really just been because she wanted to focus on her career, like she says in the "dear John" video message, it would be harsh but understandable. However the truth was, she immediately jumps into bed with Xander, who she was openly flirting with even in front of her boyfriend at the football game.
Carmen was a disloyal snake, especially compared to Dizzy, who is devoted to Johnny. It's very unsatisfying that Carmen survives, and Dizzy gets brutally butchered by the bugs.
To be fair, though, Dizzy was also an obsessive stalker. To hell with both of them.
They do the power armor pretty well in the 3rd movie and in the animated series which was actually really good.
@@Elyseon I wouldn't mind her stalking me too much. A little redhead filly at my beck and call arouses my, um, authoritarian instincts.
@@rekrn12345 ya loved the animated series... i think the same people did Reboot and Beast wars? 2 other favorites of mine.
There are a lot of unsatisfying things in the movie, quite true. And the book and movie are quite different, separate entities.....if not for the fact that the movie goes out of its way to try to disparage the philosophy of the book! The movie, rather than being a faithful adaptation, was a deliberate attack on the book. That's why I hate it.
As far as Carmen, in the book she was more of Rico's crush than a girlfriend, so there was no betrayal. Dizzy was a guy in the book, no romantic subplot at all. Blame Verhoeven for the betrayal and butchery.
If you had read the rest of Heinleins novels you would realize he would have gotten a real kick out of the movie. Seriously. He would very likely have been it's biggest fan.
I watched this movie at least 50 times in the 90s when I worked offshore, loved it, but I never thought about the natzi connection.
Karls psychic trench coat is the only thing really based on anything german.
I watched it 30+ times...it wasn't until TH-cam came out that I started to see the allussions to Naziism. Funny thing is - back in the 90's one of the reasons the movie was not too much success was because of the militaristic focus...when in fact the director Paul V had intentionally created a war film to mock the military perspective on things. Ended up he was very misunderstood. Looks like that perception is turning around!
As a German that hit me first time watching 😂
As much as he tried showing a fascist uncaring world....he utterly failed making me see that.
Everyone there freely stated their opinions.
Everyone could vote provided they risked their ass defending the earth.
Leaders who fucked up were replaced.
All volunteer army.
Coed military with zero real harassment.
Diversity in leadership? People of any color is so normal it's strange to even ask.
Other than uniforms...where is the fascism? No one is getting beat up for speaking their minds.
I think many of the connections made are weak at best.
The most unrealistic and stupid thing in this movie was how completely unprepared the soldiers were to fight the bugs, and just swarmed the bugs not with nuclear orbital bombardment, chemical or biological weapons, or even tanks, but with a ton of infantry that the bugs were highly effective against due to their huge numbers and resilience to bullets, allowing them to overwhelm any human infantry force.
Exactly much ridiculous in it
The book has a good explanation for why they use the Mobile Infantry versus orbital bombardment(which they do in other battles).
Imagine if they bombarded the planet with nukes and then fought the arachnids in a fiery wasteland. The first battle could've been a horror story.
Tanks and infantry alike are torn to pieces by bugs that burst from the ground. The air is filled with fighters and bombers that are snatched from the sky by winged beasts or are hit by acidic plasma. More nukes are dropped in the distance as the ground rumbles and the vitrified sand cracks beneath their feet. Ash obscures sight, only the flash of bombs silhouetting bio engineered horrors as the noise of battle and the desperate are occasionally pierced by the roars of alien fury. Through abandoned radios voices can be heard, demanding, begging, dying. Rico then hears three words "....on my position." He looks up and sees something metallic cutting across the blighted sky. He yells to his squad over the radio to follow him as he runs to a still functional APC, the only cover available. They rush in and try to close the hatches. One private, whose name he couldn't remember, is pulled by something with too many limbs to be human into the ash storm. His screams are muffled as Rico closes the hatch. Inside there is sobbing and praying, all the while the private continues to scream. Then the ground rumbles and the APC is thrown. Rio hits his head against the steel frame and loses consciousness. At home they were peerless soldiers in an unstoppable warmachine, but here they are food.
After the first battle, they should have known to switch to larger-caliber guns or maybe explosive ammo.
That is the worst part of the movie. The whole MI concept is ignored. MI is like a one person flying tank but moving "on the bounce". The opening scene in the book talks about how Rico jumps over buildings dropping bombs from his racks, using his flamer and having mini nukes. The move totally missed what Heinlein was doing. It is kind of sad that no one has ever done a faithful recreation of Heinlein's works. Comparing it to Nazi Germany is unfair.
Such a prescient and visionary film. Do you want to know more???
😆
What do you mean the leaders aren't held accountable? The person responsible for the drop site massacre stepped down in shame. The Bugs are the aggressors, they attacked earth, not earth attacking them; the Mormon colonists were not associated with the government. Soldiers are expendable, as violence is the ultimate authority. To think otherwise is asinine. When you can wage a war against a foe intent on violence, without using violence yourself, or losing a single soldier, do let us know, because humanity would surely benefit from this knowledge.
I understand what the director was trying to do with the movie but as a combat vet it’s relatable on a different level. I know I’m going to get a bit of hate here but there are several ideas expressed in the movie that are actually on point. The definition of a citizen should be the definition of a citizen. Every soldier I’ve known has a lot in common with the MI.
As a fellow war vet, I get you- the idea of "service equals citiizinship" reverberated w me, as every citizen should take responsibility for their actions, and equally have to deal with the consequences.