# Another question about interpreting Verhoeven's Starship Troopers **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 27, 2005, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094 "2005-10-27T00:55:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/21 "2005-11-01T01:21:23Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Ok, I have heard yet another interpretation of what Paul Verhoeven intended when he made **Starship Troopers**. This version goes that the whole movie is intended to be a 23rd-century equivalent of the gung-ho war movies that audiences viewed during World War Two. Verhoeven specifically said that is the case in many of the “making of” shows I’ve seen. The style of the Federation Network clips is pulled directly from WWII combat newsreels and redone as a full color hyperlink Web interface. [Want to know more?](http://www.dvdjournal.com/quickreviews/s/starshiptroopers_se.q.shtml) Watch Robocop or Total Recall. ST is typical of Verhoeven’s style of over the top graphic violence mixed with social satire. ST’s blend of cheese and gore is brilliant. Most movies go one way or the other, but in ST, Verhoeven combines an almost childlike idealized view of war - glory, honor, sharp uniforms - with the reality - pointless death and mindless destruction. If it was all bloodless cheese, it would have basically been a kids cartoon. If it was all serious, it would have been just another Aliens knockoff. As it stands, I find that juxtaposing the cornball, happy go lucky characters and dialogue over the horrific imagery - cities blown to shit, soldiers ripped apart in bloody piles, chared hulks of massive spaceships - had far more of an impact. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/22 "2005-11-01T01:28:48Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Oh and, from a previous thread, this post by Cervaise is a lot clearer than anything I could write on the subject: –and Cervaise goes on to add: > [@Cervaise](#): > > it’s also true, as I mention above re Starship Troopers, that not a single major critic at the time Showgirls was released went on record as reading the film as anything other than a mess, an artistic and financial catastrophe of Biblical mien. They’re the ones who are supposed to be the sophisticated viewers; they’re the ones whose experience is supposed to guide them in a subtle and thoughtfully contextual analysis of a film’s intent and its success or failure at meeting its goals. And yet, they all missed the point, perhaps because they resented the mainstream financial success of the cheerfully skanky Basic Instinct and wanted payback, or maybe because they wanted to teach a lesson to a filmmaker who had taken on what appeared to be a pointlessly and hubristically sensational bit of exploitation. > > Or maybe there are as many motivations as there are critics. Who knows? The important fact is, the people who should have known better didn’t get it (and I include myself in this; it was only on a second viewing that the film’s actual agenda began to dawn on me). So if the supposedly knowledgeable critics didn’t get it, what was the studio supposed to do? > > Instead, they rolled the dice that the controversy would be enough to sell the movie, which is sometimes true but sometimes not; the public is nothing if not notoriously fickle. > > And further than that, if the film is truly intended as a thematic hand grenade, as I suggest above, why wouldn’t the director want to roll it into the heart of the mainstream and cackle with glee to see the people scatter? Doesn’t that fit right in with what the movie is about? If you consider the film not a piece of entertainment but an act of artistic terrorism that’s intended to infect the audience’s psyche like an anthrax letter, isn’t a wide release the only way to do it? > > Heck, if the film were nothing but a failure, it would have been forgotten long ago, holding no interest for anyone; consider something like Stallone’s Judge Dredd, which disappeared into the black hole of cinematic history. But Showgirls still has an allure, and a hold on our imagination; it seems to be nothing but a bad film, but it nags at us, and stays under our skin. Why would that be? ---
**Author:** ![AveDementia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bc8723/32.png) [@AveDementia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AveDementia)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/23 "2005-11-01T01:31:33Z")
> [@vibrotronica](#): > > The movie is a failure as an adaptation of the book, and it’s a failure as a satire, if for no other reason than the fact that it’s not funny. At least _Showgirls_ is funny. I have to respectfully disagree. Just because it’s not funny to you doesn’t mean it’s not funny, period. It may just be not to your taste, or not your kind of humor. Aveguy and I, along with many of our friends, think it’s hysterical. I’m not going to sit here and try to convince you of that, though, because there are a lot of things other people think are hilarious that just make me groan inside. As for it being a failure as a satire, I can’t really agree with that either, but I will admit I’ve always seen it as a satire of humanity in general, and not of any specific part of the culture of war. I’ve always thought that the future of humanity as portrayed in ST is that we are doomed by our own stupidity and blindness, and I’ve wondered if this is what turns people off of it so forcefully. It’s kind of hard for some people to joke about skipping merrily towards total destruction. Dr. Strangelove is comparable, IMO, but perhaps its characters were more estranged from the audience than the young, pretty Hollywood types that populated ST and it made the emminent destruction more laughable. I don’t know. I’ve never taken part in a ST discussion here, as far as I recall, since it seems to be a minefield of strong emotions, but I just wanted to respond to your post. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/24 "2005-11-01T01:36:20Z")
> [@AveDementia](#): > > . . . I’ve always seen it as a satire of humanity in general, and not of any specific part of the culture of war. . . . I agree; the focusing on the “culture of war” and propaganda is really a discussion of how Verhoeven presents the movie: the surface/pomo/parody aspects address, specifically, Hollywood’s relationship with war. The underlying themes, however, are as broad as you suggest, Ave. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/25 "2005-11-01T01:43:14Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Hey, [says here](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0475402/combined) there’s a videogame coming out! Are you sure it’s just not an old site that wasn’t updated? [They already made a video game several years ago, and I’ve not heard anything about a second.](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00004RDUI/qid=1130809298/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-2245973-4195310?v=glance&s=software) ---
**Author:** ![Menocchio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@Menocchio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Menocchio)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/26 "2005-11-01T01:47:34Z")
I think Cervaise neatly summed up why I dislike Verhoeven’s films so very much. He makes dumb movies. He intentionally directs in a style and using elements below his normal intellectual level. Now, this in and of itself, while not admirable, isn’t terribly uncommon. Lots of movies, perhaps most action and comedy movies, are patterned to the lowest common denominator and dumbed down. But, most of this dumbening is done in the spirit of good brainless fun, or in a cynical attempt to increase audience accessibility. Verhoven, in contrast, is mean-spirited in his treatment of his material. This contempt for the characters, plot, and surface themes permeates his films. There’s no doubt that he has absolutely no respect for Heinlein’s book or his intentions when writing it. By extension, the contempt comes through to the audience. One gets the impression that Verhoeven isn’t trying to entertain or enlighten the viewer. He’s laughing at us. We’re still talking about Showgirls, true, but we’re also still talking about Plan 9 From Outer Space. And at least Ed Wood didn’t do it on purpose to demonstrate his intellectual superiority. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/27 "2005-11-01T01:50:14Z")
I don’t think there is any doubt Verhoeven meant ST as a satire. The problem is, it was a HORRIBLY MADE satire. It didn’t work, mostly because the man is a hack. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/28 "2005-11-01T01:53:45Z")
Whoops, I didn’t notice that it’d been updated in 2005. After a quick bit of google-fu, I found [this.](http://pc.ign.com/objects/568/568303.html) ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/29 "2005-11-01T02:24:04Z")
Art or not…if the audience doesn’t get it, it’s a failure and the artist, in this instance, is a failure as well. Art for the sake of the artist is masturbation…best done in private, so it doesn’t disturb the rest of us. Loved _RoboCop_, though. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/30 "2005-11-01T03:29:34Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Note: I have a pretty specific question here, so please let’s not make this a GD about how he savaged Heinlein’s novel. > > Ok, I have heard yet another interpretation of what Paul Verhoeven intended when he made **Starship Troopers**. This version goes that the whole movie is intended to be a 23rd-century equivalent of the gung-ho war movies that audiences viewed during World War Two. In other words, that the movie as we saw it in real life is missing a 30 second prolog where we watch the future audience file into the movie house and see the title and credits of _Starship Troopers_ roll. > > Is this a legitimate interpretation? Not really. It’s simply impossible to square such a “frame store” with all the scenes of Terra’s Finest displaying painfully obvious ineptitude. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/31 "2005-11-01T03:59:05Z")
> [@Steve MB](#): > > Not really. It’s simply impossible to square such a “frame store” with all the scenes of Terra’s Finest displaying painfully obvious ineptitude. Assuming you meant “frame story”? In any case, the apparent ineptitude is part of the point Verhoeven is trying to make. If all of the action were straightforward, serious, skillfully accomplished and “realistic” in the sense that it would be what would make sense in such a future society, that would be antithetical to the perspective that Verhoeven is working from. It’s supposed to Hollywoody, fakey; it’s supposed to be a romantic glorification of war, and therefore artificial; it is NOT supposed to be a realistic immersion in the minutiae of armed combat. The characters are supposed to ACT like they think heroes act; to THINK they’re heroes; but really they’re fools. ---
**Author:** ![QuizCustodet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ba0ec/32.png) [@QuizCustodet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuizCustodet)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/32 "2005-11-01T08:43:43Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Assuming you meant “frame story”? > > In any case, the apparent ineptitude is part of the point Verhoeven is trying to make. If all of the action were straightforward, serious, skillfully accomplished and “realistic” in the sense that it would be what would make sense in such a future society, that would be antithetical to the perspective that Verhoeven is working from. It’s supposed to Hollywoody, fakey; it’s supposed to be a romantic glorification of war, and therefore artificial; it is NOT supposed to be a realistic immersion in the minutiae of armed combat. The characters are supposed to ACT like they think heroes act; to THINK they’re heroes; but really they’re fools. I don’t think this quite addresses the question: I think **SteveMB** is quite correct that if ST were intended to _be_ a propaganda film, it shouldn’t contain horrendous mistakes like the massive fleet casualties caused by collisions. That’s exactly the sort of crap that fits as a realistic immersion in the minutiae of armed combat but not as a romanticization. The ST as propaganda film interpretation also, IMHO, struggles to explain the recurring ‘do you want to know more?’ segments. I think the approach is actually a little more complex, perhaps because this allows a more thorough commentary: the characters are such as would be found in a propaganda film, but what we’re watching is not actually meant to be a propaganda film. The infomercial segments are in there as an explicit comparison with the romanticized bits of the combat, while the horrendously realistic bits of the combat are a more subtle comparison. So, IMHO: ST does not make sense considered _only_ as a propaganda film from the future, but this doesn’t (for me) decrease its impact as an exploration of media and war. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/33 "2005-11-01T09:08:28Z")
**QuizCustodet** , those points have been addressed pretty exhaustively during the course of this thread. ---
**Author:** ![QuizCustodet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ba0ec/32.png) [@QuizCustodet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuizCustodet)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/34 "2005-11-01T09:40:30Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > **QuizCustodet** , those points have been addressed pretty exhaustively during the course of this thread. I read the whole thread. Three times now, in fact. I was perhaps being too circumspect, as these discussions have gone wrong before. > [@lissener](#): > > It’s the explanation that Verhoeven and Edward Neumeier, the screenwriter, give on the commentary track. The film itself is an “artifact of the future.” Fine. That was their intention. It was not executed competently, in my opinion - propaganda films are not made to illustrate catastrophic losses. Yes, war does involve catastrophic losses, and to a large extent the more propaganda films you’re seeing the more likely it is that your side is suffering catastrophic losses - to paraphrase a quote I’ve forgotten from a German during WWII ‘Somehow our stunning victories kept marching closer and closer to Berlin’. In order to show up the problems with propaganda films, it’s a very appropriate choice to superimpose elements of propaganda films with elements of realism. This is the level that I think ST hits, and I very much enjoy it. You cannot then claim to be imitating a propaganda film, as the defining feature of a propaganda film is the lack of realism. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/35 "2005-11-01T10:00:01Z")
> [@QuizCustodet](#): > > . . . That was their intention. . … THat was their starting point, not a goal in itself. It’s not (to repeat myself) an exercise in consistency for consistency’s sake. In Verhoeven films, expectations are set up, the audience is drawn along, and then the rug is pulled out from underneath. For Verhoeven to say, at that point in the film, “Wait, we can’t do it that way, because that’s not how an actual literal propaganda film would be made,” would be elevating a technicality of consistency to a level of priority over and above the themes he was actually attempting to address, thus severely limiting his film and making it about very little, instead of about a great deal. The cliches of propaganda filmmaking were the tools, the vocabulary he used to address his larger theme; they were not the goals of the exercise in themselves. Verhoeven’s intention,\* as I understand it\*, was not “let’s make a film that’s _nothing more_ than a minutely accurate pastiche of a propaganda film.” It was “let’s make a film about the inherent fascism of a warmongering society, and let’s watch a bunch of Hollywood propaganda films like _Twelve O’Clock High_, and Leni Riefenstahl documentaries, for inspirations of tone and characterization.” When I say that it’s helpful in understanding \*ST \*to approach it like it’s an artifact of the future, I’m not saying that’s ALL it is. I’m just saying it’s helpful in understanding the film to approach it with that in mind. But there’s more to it than that. I’m not saying that there’s any “right” or “wrong” here, I’m just saying that your objections seem irrelevant and hypertechnical to me, and my understanding of the film as a whole very easily reconciles them. YMMV, of course. I’m not defending the film so much as I’m trying to clarify my experience of it. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/36 "2005-11-01T10:07:31Z")
Hm. I think most places where I used the word “consistency” I’d rather’ve used the word “literality.” ---
**Author:** ![QuizCustodet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ba0ec/32.png) [@QuizCustodet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuizCustodet)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/37 "2005-11-01T10:20:43Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > THat was their starting point, not a goal in itself. Ok, now that I understand your views better I think I agree with them - I was perhaps being overly literal, but your previous posts had not indicated to me that you didn’t consider it all as an artifact of the future. The main thing I was aiming to clarify was that, per the OP: > [@lumpy](#): > > Ok, I have heard yet another interpretation of what Paul Verhoeven intended when he made Starship Troopers. This version goes that the whole movie is intended to be a 23rd-century equivalent of the gung-ho war movies that audiences viewed during World War Two. > … > Is this a legitimate interpretation? that the answer is not ‘yes’, but as you say in your post above ‘that’s a good starting point’. ---
**Author:** ![Xploder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/a183cd/32.png) [@Xploder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xploder)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/38 "2005-11-01T12:13:56Z")
I’ve followed these discussions for quite some time but what I believe really happened with this film is that Verhoeven skimmed the book, didn’t understand a damn thing he was reading and then proceeded to make a movie based on what he **thought** it was about. When the movie tanked and people started bitching about how the movie was so far removed from the premise of the book, he made up some crap about it being a takeoff on propaganda films. Because he’s a hack. Face it, he makes hack films. He’s never made anything that **wasn’t** a hack film. I did like Robocop and Total Recall, but Starship Troopers belongs right up there with It Conquered The World and films of that sort. It’s an okay movie if you just want to watch mindless drivel, sort of like Showgirls, but it completely fails as a parody of anything. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/39 "2005-11-01T12:16:00Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > **QuizCustodet** , those points have been addressed pretty exhaustively during the course of this thread. Actually, it’s more like they’ve been rationalized away by fans of the movie. ---
**Author:** ![scotandrsn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@scotandrsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotandrsn)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/40 "2005-11-01T13:29:10Z")
I’ll start by saying that I’m not a huge fan of either the book or the movie. The source material is rather thin, after all. It works as a compelling sci-fi war timeline, with the narrating character’s occasional flashbacks to a weirdly brutal upbringing. The protagonist is drawn as more or less emotionless, completely pragmatic. And hey, speaking of “frame story”, the whole Bug War that forms the main plot is the character’s flashback during the war with the Skinnies. When you think about war after war with one alien race after another, you begin to think maybe the story is about a totalitarian, imperialistic interstellar society. And from this you’re going to make a film, with characters an audience can be interested in following, and enough of a sympathetic human story to make it compelling to watch on screen? Doomed to be a failure from the start, IMO. I don’t necessariy object to the screenwriter’s and director’s approach to it as an over-the-top piece of propaganda, because the book doesn’t read much different from that. I agree, however that it was rather ham-handed. Certainly it’s made clear that the higher-ups have no concern whatsoever for the grunts on the ground. But that’s stock-in-trade for war movies of any stripe, and certainly permeated the book as well. What bugged (heh) me was the first time we see soldiers fighting a Bug. It takes at least 2 or 3 soldiers, firing boatloads of ammo each, to bring down one bug, and it takes 10-20 seconds to do so. And there are approximately 14,000 bugs per attack. This aspect of the visual is purely in Verhoeven’s hands. It completely removes any suspension of disbelief. What happened to softening up a target with an aerial assault first? The whole thing just doesn’t read as a remotely plausible scenario. It’s one thing to try and show the futility of war and the lies of the government, it’s another to try and convince us that any commanding officer would go in with ground troops under these circumstances. If the military command structure is really that incompetent in this world, then there’s really no explanation for why the front lines are as far off from Earth as they are. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094.md?page=3)