Topic: My brother and I just saw Starship Troopers last night.
MIB
Ex-Member
posted
Both my brother and I were thinking that this is one shitty movie. we saw it once before many years ago and we had forgotten how crappy it really was......untill now.
We had gigantic wingless mesquitoes that can launch giant terds at escape velocity, dumbass ground troops that were using mechine guns designed to take out a human against insects with strong boney exo-skeletons and are nearly 20 times bigger than I am, and dumbass starship pilots who have never heard of the idea called loose formations.
Does it come to anyone's surprise that the ships in Starship Troopers where so easily destroyed? They were flying so close to each other that they couldn't manuver to avoid the giant terds and if they got hit and loose control, the ships would ram one another.
As for the ground troops; What the hell were they doing using little machine guns? If it were me, I'd be pulling out grenade launchers, rocket launchers, shotguns with 20oz slugs with explosive tip, plasma weapons, (We have them today in real life. Why don't they have them in......THE FUTURE?) cruise missle launchers, and one REALLY large can of Raid. I know. I know. That was a REALLY cheap shot. On the other hand, later in the movie they have shown that they can simply fire bomb all the giant bugs. So why don't they? Excess of troops they wanted to get rid of perhaps? Or perhaps it's the way they get rid of those charged with insubordination in......THE FUTURE!
Most of the cast were a bunch of chunk heads that can't act and I found that Doogie Houser intelligence guy to be a bit distracting. I found the "news" breaks thrown into the movie here and there just, plain annoying, and the giant bugs' motives for attacking Earth were never explained. I think that's the most irritating thing of all. I'm gonna take a guess and say that all the shares of Orkin they held fell in price by 50% and they just got angry.
posted
The problem is it tries to be too many things at once there's the laughable attempts at being credible with the fascist "themes" and ss style uniforms but that's quickly undermined by the actors who are doing a rendition of Melrose Space. The gratuitous nudity, while enjoyable, was totally out of place and made the movie that much more silly. Now the movie could've worked as a tongue in cheek camp action flick, what with the "newsbreaks" in 50s propaganda style. But that's ruined by...again the attempts to make it somewhat faithful to seriousness of the novel.
that said. i still watch the movie if i have the chance. if only to watch the wicked fx and...gratuitous nudity.
-------------------- "Tragedy is when I cut my finger, Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die."-Mel Brooks
posted
Actually, I think the whole point of movie as it was shown by Verhoeven (the director, probably spelled wrong) was that humanity were the bad guys and had started the conflict by invading the Arachnids territory. The novel was considered by a lot of people as quite facists. Not that I would know since I haven't read it but that idea was amplified in the movie.
Remember that Mormon colony mentionned in one of the news break? They colonized an Arachnid planet, the bugs fought back and now humanity wants nothing more than to exterminate them all in revenge.
Starship Troopers: The Roughnecks (the CGI animated series) was based more on the book or so they say. Humans are clearly shown as being superior to the bugs. They have lots of weapons (machines guns, laser canons, tactical nukes (oh wait, they had those in the movie ) and vehicules such as air fighters, water speeders and the likes. And nobody ever dies . Well, what do you expect from a kids show ?
Of course, the real reasons humans get it so hard si because Verhoeven was heavly traumatised in WWII and likes to show lots of blood and guts in his movies. For examples:
Robocop: See the special edition when Murphy gets slaughtered at the beginning of the movie. Especially the "exploding" hand...
Total Recall: Knife and axe wounds, perforated neck, arms ripped from torso, and more...
Starship Troopers: Well, no moment in particular, the whole movie is a giant blood fest...
posted
Oh yeah! Thanks for reminding me USS Vanguard! I competely forgot about the SS uniforms. When I saw Doogie Howser in that uniform, the first thing that popped into my mind was "Has Doogie become a Nazi?"
posted
You can see at the end of the film that they've obviously figured out that little machine-guns don't cut it, and they're starting to use heavier weapons.
posted
But the problem is that you'd think those chunk headed troopers would have relized that by just looking at one of those bugs. Lord knows if it were me, I'd be pulling out a bazooka if I saw one of those things. They just had to have lost most of thier military forces before they would say, "You know what? These dinky machine guns don't cut it. We should use heavier weapons!" Then my responce to them would be, "No shit, Sherlock!"
posted
Trust me - read the novel. And no, it is not about a fascist state. It is about ANY person who wants a voting franchise earning it, instead of 'bread and circuses'.
And it is easily 100 times better than that awful movie.
- Heinlein Fan.
-------------------- 'One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.' - Lazarus Long
posted
You forget, Trekno, that there are those out there to whom the very IDEA of 'earning' rights is a fascist concept... but that's a topic for the flameboard.
The book is so much better than the movie that they haven't named a number high enough yet to describe the percentage by which it is better.
Plus in the book the soldiers have battlesuits and portable tactical low-yield nukes.. hardly outclassed.
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
posted
Pos-Def. I believe that this book introduced (I won't say invented) the concept of "powered exoskeletal armor". As well as a practical system of democracy.
A movie based CLOSELY on this novel would be absolutely awesome. Better action. Better effects. Better characters. Far superior storyline.
-------------------- 'One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.' - Lazarus Long
posted
Well, Verhoeven makes fun movies, not good ones. RoboCop is my favourite of his.
About the gore he is notorious for; it's called entertainment violence, and this is in one of its purest forms. Have you ever seen splattermovies? Braindead is "right cool", as they say.
Well, it's 21:30 hours and I've only used up 21 out of my daily 30 weightwatcher points, so I have to eat about 1/3 bag of chips/crisps and two glasses of Coke now to make ends meet. Yay me!
-------------------- "I'm nigh-invulnerable when I'm blasting!" Mel Gibson, X-Men
posted
Back in the 1980s, I think, there was a Japanese anime adaptation of Starship Troopers. I've never watched it, but it does include troopers with jumping power armor, which resembles that in the SF3D line of Japanese science fiction model kits.
Supposedly, the idea of "bugs with guns" was dismissed as ludicrous by Verhoven. Of course, the movie then comes down to fighting an interstellar war against animals, which is even more ludicrous.
I've mentioned this before, but I recommend reading "The Forever War" by Joe Haldeman. It was written in response to Starship Troopers and is an allegory of the Vietnam War. Also has cool power armor and big nasty ships. Has anyone else read this book?
-------------------- When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum
posted
In the book, the "brain bugs" are as small as those little runners that surround the movie "brain bug". I seem to remember a mobile infantry soldier (in the book) that fell down into a hive and picked up one of the little brain bugs and held it to his chest so the soldier bugs wouldn't attack him.
-------------------- "I'm nigh-invulnerable when I'm blasting!" Mel Gibson, X-Men
Registered: Aug 1999
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quote:I've mentioned this before, but I recommend reading "The Forever War" by Joe Haldeman. It was written in response to Starship Troopers and is an allegory of the Vietnam War. Also has cool power armor and big nasty ships. Has anyone else read this book?
Yes, we actually recorded it at the Books on Tape recording studio where I work. I liked it very much (although it was kind of wierd that Haldeman decided to remain true to his original manuscript and have the war and interstellar travel take place not long after the Vietnam war ended).
-------------------- "A film made in 2008 isn't going to look like a TV series from 1966 if it wants to make any money. As long as the characters act the same way, and the spirit of the story remains the same then it's "real" Star Trek. Everything else is window dressing." -StCoop
. Well, what do you expect from a kids show ? 
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