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It's pretty obvious that the original starship troopers is pretty tongue in cheek about how dumb its fascist society is. There's a lot of subtle references in movie that non-military parties out there going 'why the gently caress are we at war with a bunch of bugs', but the meat-grinder society requires an enemy so we see waves and waves of people fed to the sacrifice for no reason, and if you aren't careful, you get caught up in the excitement of it. As I understand it, its a pretty good troll of the original pro-militarisim themes of the book. But then I see trailers for the following movies, and I get the feeling they don't understand any of what Paul Verhoeven’s movie was about? Has anyone ever bothered watching them?
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May 25, 2021 02:07
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They're all varying degrees of bad with a couple bright spots but none of them hit the mark the first one settled on. Ed Neumeier wrote all three of the live action films and I believe he directed the third one as well. Phil Tippet directed the second movie so apart from the "laser" guns just being LED blinkers is has some surprisingly good special effects for a straight to DVD movie. But the movie sucks, it's an Aliens style "trapped in an outpost with monsters trying to get in" movie and generally has nothing to do with the satire and everything to do with crappy horror movie beats. Starship Troopers 3 is terrible but also insane. The Federation is so desperate for new recruits that it is outgrowing fascism and diving headlong into religious fundamentalism. It's a lot closer to the first movie but it has zero budget and the writing has given up on subtlety entirely. The best part is the commander of the armed forces having his own pop single. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIsv1YOFNys Then you have the two CGI anime films that are technically canon to the films, but they feel more like Shinji Aramaki movies than Starship Troopers movies. Johnny Rico basically becomes Big Boss from Metal Gear, right down to the eyepatch. Your best bet to get more of what the original film was going for is Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles. It strikes a balance between the overt fascism critique of the movie with the more "Military lifestyle" themes of the book. It's not a bad show if you can handle some late 90s TV CGI. Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 02:57 on May 25, 2021 |
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May 25, 2021 02:55
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I love Starship Troopers. Verhoeven is a genius. When I saw the movie at maybe 14 years old in the theater I got absolutely zero of the satire. I just thought it was a great action movie. I didn't notice any of the overt fascism. I just thought, "man, they're pretty hardcore with the whole punishment." After "getting it", it's just soooo soooo much better. I have not seen the sequels. I think I saw a part of 2 on TV. I have no interest in seeing them despite how much I loved the first one. I'm assuming I'd be very disappointed.
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May 25, 2021 03:48
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Arcsquad12 pretty much nailed it. Both sequels are trash. 2 is straight up worse than your average made for sci-fy(Syfy)channel turd. 3 is also bad but in a slightly more amusing way. Like they just said "gently caress it this script is ridiculous take some power armor and tits too because why not" Its like if a japanese game show tried to remake the first film. Watch them if its free and if youre still in covid lockup or have absolutely nothing else to do with your afternoon. Roughnecks is cool but prob hard to track down. (at least it was back in the day when you had to buy each dvd individually from Suncoast) Its fun and adds the other book aliens but if i remember right skips all the fascism stuff from the film. The anime movies are bad skip them. banned from Starbucks fucked around with this message at 09:26 on May 25, 2021 |
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May 25, 2021 09:23
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banned from Starbucks posted:Roughnecks is cool but prob hard to track down. (at least it was back in the day when you had to buy each dvd individually from Suncoast) Its fun and adds the other book aliens but if i remember right skips all the fascism stuff from the film. They do poke at it a bit during the Tesca (I think it's the Tesca campaign? The jungle one) campaign episodes when Rico is wounded and there's all the talk about what SICON does eith wounded Troopers deemed to be headcases and they do a flashback to Rico's military training and it's pretty similar to the movie training.
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May 25, 2021 15:07
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Arcsquad12 posted:They're all varying degrees of bad with a couple bright spots but none of them hit the mark the first one settled on. This is a great breakdown, thanks! When I saw something about the cgi anime films I literally thought someone had just ripped solid snake's model and it was some weird fan thing , who signed off on this? That pop single is amazing.
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May 25, 2021 16:40
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WilWheaton posted:This is a great breakdown, thanks! For the anime films Invasion (2012) and Traitor of Mars (2017), Ed Neumeier and Casper Van Dien were executive producers but Neumeier only wrote Traitor of Mars. Shinji Aramaki directed both and he wrote Invasion. Now if you know anything about Shinji Aramaki it's for exoskeleton designs and CGI animated movies and series. I dont think he's a particularly good director and he's a pretty bad writer but he's the big name in CGI science fiction anime so he keeps getting directors roles. The CGI Ghost in the Shell series was pretty awful and my enthusiasm for Blade Runner Black Lotus fell through the floor when he was pegged as series director. The guy needs a better writer to rein him in because he's clearly talented but ends up going for overdesigned and underwritten productions that end up being far, far less than the sum of their parts.
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May 25, 2021 20:28
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Arcsquad12 posted:The best part is the commander of the armed forces having his own pop single. I was extremely drunk when I watched those movies with my also wasted friends and I am glad that this part was real and not my brain playing tricks on me. The sequels are great for drinking games and to riff on with friends but no OP, I don't think they get it.
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Jun 2, 2021 18:33
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people forget that even the book, fascist as it is, shits on the military as where all the people too dumb or psychologically unfit for other areas of service are shunted off to gain citizenship. like there’s a whole bunch of ways to do the “service” in that society, the military is for people who can’t serve in any other way
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Jun 3, 2021 00:36
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It's been rather a while since I've read it, but no I'm rather sure military service is the only way to gain citizenship, and that there's a multi-page tirade in the dead middle of it as to why only people who serve in the military are fit for citizenship and that this is the ideal way to run a society.
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Jun 3, 2021 01:17
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I haven’t read it in 20 years so maybe. I’m not prepared to die on this hill, maybe that was a different book
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Jun 3, 2021 01:55
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I think you're both right. The conceit was that armed service was essentially the way to fast track citizenship compared to other methods.
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Jun 3, 2021 02:17
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Arcsquad12 posted:Your best bet to get more of what the original film was going for is Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles. It strikes a balance between the overt fascism critique of the movie with the more "Military lifestyle" themes of the book. It's not a bad show if you can handle some late 90s TV CGI. It also tells a story that doesn't have an ending because it got cancelled before the last season aired Bastards
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Jun 3, 2021 11:57
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Arcsquad12 posted:I think you're both right. The conceit was that armed service was essentially the way to fast track citizenship compared to other methods. I always saw it as any approved service will make you a Citizen, so being a Doctor, or scientist would work, but that's not guaranteed to work because fascist tend towards anti-intellectualism because it's easier to control the uneducated. The only way to GUARANTEE citizenship is Military service, so just get in there, and if you survive we'll let you vote for one of these 2 identical people. The Starship Troopers wiki says: "Citizens are people who joined the Federal Service and were honorably discharged and given franchise. Joining the Federal Service does not necessarily mean the military, and applicants may be assigned to any field where they sacrifice their time and effort for the Federation (Teaching, any of the civil services, experimental test subjects, etc), though military service is the most glorified. It all falls under Federal Service. " BooDooBoo fucked around with this message at 12:04 on Jun 3, 2021 |
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Jun 3, 2021 12:01
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BooDooBoo posted:experimental test subjects Lol
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Jun 3, 2021 16:27
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indigi posted:Lol If they succeed, you get a free trip to Pluto and a guaranteed career reading bug minds.
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Jun 3, 2021 20:21
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indigi posted:Lol "OK Mr Tormé, You've helped us prove that we can take a brain out of a skull and suspend it in a jar, congratulations Citizen! Please go vote now, It's illegal not to vote, WHY AREN'T YOU VOTING!?"
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Jun 6, 2021 19:44
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All I remember from the third (live action) movie is the song and the ending where the bad guy is devoured by a giant bug vagina with teeth. Roughnecks was pretty solid though from what I can remember, even if it ends on a massive cliffhanger.
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Jun 7, 2021 14:51
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Fantastic Foreskin posted:It's been rather a while since I've read it, but no I'm rather sure military service is the only way to gain citizenship, and that there's a multi-page tirade in the dead middle of it as to why only people who serve in the military are fit for citizenship and that this is the ideal way to run a society. The conversation from the school about "active citizens" is them quoting passages from the book at each other, if I recall.
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Jun 7, 2021 23:29
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Soes the book is readily available on Google and I gave it a skim, the federal service is explicitly military but necessarily combat. It starts during peacetime where it's mentioned a lot of people wind up in getting shoved wherever they can find a place for them. I didn't find the treatise on a model society before my laptop battery died though.
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Jun 8, 2021 05:07
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My vague memory of the experimental test subjects was that it's from a hypothetical about someone who civil service doesn't want and every branch of the military doesn't want. They're legally obligated to offer everyone something, so you get that if you keep insisting. One weird sideways fascist thing from the book is that it's pretty insistent that current military shouldn't have any political role. None of the active soldiers or military leadership gets to vote, only retired
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Jun 8, 2021 06:11
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Yeah I seem to recall a line about how, if push came to shove, they'd have you count the bristles on a caterpillar by touch.
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Jun 8, 2021 06:52
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Yeah those are both things the recruiter says to talk people out of joining. How much it's true and how much he's exaggerating to scare off the kids is unclear. It seems to have been a long time since the army did anything before the war broke out so they're overstaffed. The idea behind sufferage for veterans is that they're willing to put the common good ahead of their own as evidenced by their willingness to join the military. It's a strange and oddly utopian line of thinking, but Heinlein was nuts so I suppose that shouldn't be surprising. I suspect current members don't get sufferage since they haven't shown sufficient commitment to the service/society, as evidenced by completing one's tour.
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Jun 8, 2021 15:05
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Fantastic Foreskin posted:It's been rather a while since I've read it, but no I'm rather sure military service is the only way to gain citizenship, and that there's a multi-page tirade in the dead middle of it as to why only people who serve in the military are fit for citizenship and that this is the ideal way to run a society. yeah it's pretty explicit that it's military only, if not necessarily combat. this guy summaries the relevant parts of the book pretty well. http://dd-b.net/dd-b/misc/strooper-federal-service.html Fantastic Foreskin posted:The idea behind sufferage for veterans is that they're willing to put the common good ahead of their own as evidenced by their willingness to join the military. It's a strange and oddly utopian line of thinking, but Heinlein was nuts so I suppose that shouldn't be surprising. I suspect current members don't get sufferage since they haven't shown sufficient commitment to the service/society, as evidenced by completing one's tour. Johny Rico's internal monologue: quote:I couldn't to save my life remember why I had signed up. I was sure I remembered a passage in either his high school lessons or officer training where this was challenged as having no basis in anything, but the teacher dismisses that with the admittedly circular logic of it works because it works. but I can't find it now so maybe I'm imagining that.
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Jun 9, 2021 19:31
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Cerv posted:yeah it's pretty explicit that it's military only, if not necessarily combat. this guy summaries the relevant parts of the book pretty well. http://dd-b.net/dd-b/misc/strooper-federal-service.html No, I remember that too. The teacher asks why continue with this system, gets whatever answer, and declares that it was a trick question because the real reason for keeping any system in place is that "it works". Which even as a credulous teenager who hadn't yet grown out of my Heinlein-loving Libertarian phase asked "works for who?"
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Jun 9, 2021 20:42
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Lol back when you could write down "It's a system that works" and be wholly sincere.
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Jun 9, 2021 20:48
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Arcsquad12 posted:I think you're both right. The conceit was that armed service was essentially the way to fast track citizenship compared to other methods. I imagine being a cop probably would be a fast track to citizenship too, and you probably get shot at less while still racking up a similar kill count!
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Jun 11, 2021 00:01
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MadDogMike posted:I imagine being a cop probably would be a fast track to citizenship too, and you probably get shot at less while still racking up a similar kill count! Based on the training the military goes through in the first movie it looks like the army mostly runs around tight quarters gunning down people, so... I'm not sure they HAVE cops.
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Jun 11, 2021 00:23
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Police officer is explicitly listed as a job "reserved" for veterans only. One of the other MI says that's what he wants to do when his tour is over.
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Jun 11, 2021 07:34
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Lemniscate Blue posted:No, I remember that too. The teacher asks why continue with this system, gets whatever answer, and declares that it was a trick question because the real reason for keeping any system in place is that "it works". thanks, found It now. "trick question" was what to search for. quote:Major Reid smiled.
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Jun 11, 2021 19:26
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Another thread about this I remember someone saying that the wheelchair bound recruitment officer in starship troopers is actually wheelchair bound IRL. I love Robocop and count me as one who didn't get starship troopers the first time as well.
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Jun 14, 2021 04:22
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Quaint Quail Quilt posted:I love Robocop and count me as one who didn't get starship troopers the first time as well. 
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Jun 14, 2021 05:56
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I don't think anyone gets Starship Troopers on their first watch. Like it took me a while to realize that Johnny being a vapid idiot is part of the satire. Like he's in the middle of a violent pointless war, everyone around him is dying violent brutal deaths at the hands of inhuman enemies, and here Johnny, still moping over how his high school sweetheart dumped his rear end.
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Jun 14, 2021 14:20
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Johnny Rico a big idiot. Doesn't get that Carmen doesn't have the same feelings for him, ignores Dizzy, kind of happily wanders through war
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Jun 18, 2021 06:52
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Then he does get Dizzy, and then she dies because he decided to remove the giant pincers currently holding her intestines in.
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Jun 18, 2021 07:12
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Actually the more I think about it, the more it show just how dour and bleak this movie really is. Everyone who could possibly make changes for the better loving dies. The would be journalist? Died in the first wave. The girl who wanted to go into politics? Washed out of Boot which is definitely a death sentence for her aspirations in this highly militarized society. You could even include Dizzy and Rasczak in that, both of them have a little more going on between the ears than Johnny and I doubt that either of them would be too pleased to have been given Carl's little speech about necessary sacrifices if either or both of them survived instead of Johnny. Hell nearly anybody shown to have more than two braincells loving dies. All that's left is Johnny who is too self absorbed to really look at what's going on, Carmen who gets everything she wants and has no reason to complain, Carl, whose more than happy to throw on the SS uniform they give him, and Ace; who's simply happy to be off the family farm. Ensuring that the military state continues on for another generation.
David D. Davidson fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Jun 18, 2021 |
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Jun 18, 2021 19:56
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Yeah, the last time I watched the movie j didn't laugh nearly as much and most of the time I felt loving awful for everyone victimized by the regime. It's funny and horrifying at the same time.
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Jun 18, 2021 20:01
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Okay maybe they don't get fascism, but do they get that gratuitous shower scenes sell tickets?
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Jun 19, 2021 23:42
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ikanreed posted:Okay maybe they don't get fascism, but do they get that gratuitous shower scenes sell tickets? Dude gratuitous shower scenes are a staple of anime of course Aramaki included one in Starship Troopers Invasion.
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Jun 19, 2021 23:47
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David D. Davidson posted:Actually the more I think about it, the more it show just how dour and bleak this movie really is. Everyone who could possibly make changes for the better loving dies. The would be journalist? Died in the first wave. The girl who wanted to go into politics? Washed out of Boot which is definitely a death sentence for her aspirations in this highly militarized society. You could even include Dizzy and Rasczak in that, both of them have a little more going on between the ears than Johnny and I doubt that either of them would be too pleased to have been given Carl's little speech about necessary sacrifices if either or both of them survived instead of Johnny. Hell nearly anybody shown to have more than two braincells loving dies. All that's left is Johnny who is too self absorbed to really look at what's going on, Carmen who gets everything she wants and has no reason to complain, Carl, whose more than happy to throw on the SS uniform they give him, and Ace; who's simply happy to be off the family farm. Ensuring that the military state continues on for another generation. you can pretty easily imagine that johnny goes off and writes a tell-all book after the war is over or whatever (if it ever ends) and it's called 'COME ON YOU APES' and it'd just be the most cloyingly dumb self-absorbed 'aw shucks, anyone can be a hero like me' account of things
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Jun 23, 2021 04:31
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