# 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:** 3
**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, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/41 "2005-11-01T16:58:21Z")
> [@scotandrsn](#): > > . . . 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 just not about suspension of disbelief. One of the targets of Verhoeven’s satire is the way Hollywood sells war. It’s about Hollywood PRODUCT. It’s a “meta” movie: it’s not about what you’re seeing on the screen, it’s about \*the way \*you’re seeing it. Verhoeven was absolutely revelling in the unrealism of the Hollywood propaganda film. To the extent that it IS about suspension of disbelief, it’s about how Hollywood doesn’t give a shit about the suspension of disbelief. ---
**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, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/42 "2005-11-01T17:01:09Z")
> [@Xploder](#): > > 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. . . . Exactly. Verhoeven didn’t give a fuck what the book was “about,” he only cared what his moive was about. ---
**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, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/43 "2005-11-01T17:13:10Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Exactly. Verhoeven didn’t give a fuck what the book was “about,” he only cared what his moive was about. Then he should have renamed it. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/44 "2005-11-01T18:28:26Z")
Over Macho Grande? ---
**Author:** ![jimpatro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b9e5f3/32.png) [@jimpatro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimpatro)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/45 "2005-11-01T18:33:34Z")
Propaganda as I see it is pretty much hyperbole. Exagerate the facts to raise an emotional response. I just don’t see where anything regarding the bug menace needed to be exagerated. In this case propaganda was an understatement. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/46 "2005-11-01T19:02:00Z")
> [@jimpatro](#): > > Propaganda as I see it is pretty much hyperbole. Exagerate the facts to raise an emotional response. I just don’t see where anything regarding the bug menace needed to be exagerated. In this case propaganda was an understatement. Nothing about the Nazi menace in WWII needed to be exagerrated, but the Allies pumped out a lot of propaganda all the same. I think to some extent lissener’s point is not being grasped - and I’m someone who thinks it really is a bad movie. But talking about “suspension of disbelief” really does miss the point. The battle scenes are not supposed to be realistic or logical. They’re supposed to be ridiculous. Now, that’s assuming this really was Verhoeven’s intent. I’m assuming it was, because the movie’s pretty much structured that way. Judging a movie by what the director says in the commentary track is kind of pointless. I note that many Verhoeven True Believers despite Steven Spielberg. But “Minority Report,” a Spielberg film, plays the same game as Starship Troopers is a far more adept and subtle manner, slipping in, with no outright acknowledgement, a dream sequence ending that directly plays to the audience’s expectations of how a movie should end (e.g. happily, with the bad guy defeated.) At the movie’s conclusion, Anderton/Cruise has taken the same perspective as the “pre-cogs,” narrating the movie to the audience as a dream of what he thinks, or wishes, will happen, just as the pre-cogs announced impending murders through the narration of their own dreams - a perspective that just happens to mirror a really cliched movie ending, one that’s way out of line with the rest of the film and even schlocky by the standards of the worst Speilberg films. Granted, Spielberg doesn’t say this on the commentary track, but on repeated viewing it’s really the only thematically consistent, or even logical, interpretation of the movie. I find it much more clever than “Starship Troopers.” ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/47 "2005-11-01T19:14:16Z")
I’ve noted since the film came out that Heinlein’s book refers at the beginning to a recruiting film, which the movie fairly shouts that it is – the entire opening few minutes are blatantly a piece of propaganda, and written that way, and it uses footage from the characters later in the film. Screenwriter Neiumeyer uses the “Internet” intercuts the same way he used the “news bulletins” in the earlier film **RoboCop** , as ways to give you brief slices of life in the world of the film, and to immerse you in its culture. None of this is at all subtle. Nevertheless, I don’t think you can rightly call the _entire_ film a propaganda piece – not if those parts are. Nor is it an “artifact from the future” – the film to too obvuiously broad and winking at its exagerrations. Verhoeven put out an interesting film, and I own a copy of it. I’m perfectly aware of these facets of the film, and, to tell the truth, I think it’s incredibly hard to miss them. None of this does anything to affect my criticisms of the film, which I still feel strongly about. Don’t think that those criticisms are the result of my being ignorant of Verhoeven’s satirical point. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/48 "2005-11-01T19:24:47Z")
Exactly, **Cal**! No one should viewed as stupid or blind because of their like or dislike of this movie. A person can get every single thing that Verhoevan’s fans have to say about the movie and still find themselves not liking it. On the other hand, a person can se every single bad thing about the movie and still enjoy it. Tatses vary. I would like to see this whole shithole of a debate be put to rest once and for all. ---
**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, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/49 "2005-11-01T20:47:21Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > . . . Judging a movie by what the director says in the commentary track is kind of pointless. . . . I agree. Well, maybe I don’t agree entirely with your wording. I agree that the author’s understanding of his own work–painting, poem, movie, whatever–is not the final word. Flannery O’Connor once wrote, “I won’t ever be able entirely to understand my own work or even my own motivations.” There is almost always a great deal expressed in an artwork that its own creator cannot be consciously aware of. To that extent, then, I agree with you. But an author’s understanding of his own work is not irrelevant, especially when it regards “dry,” factual things, like the movies Verhoeven and Neumeier watched in preparation. That’s what I try to draw from a director’s own words: a starting place for understanding a movie, or at least, a part of the overall system of understanding. So while Verhoeven’s commentary is neither conclusive nor exhaustive, neither is it irrelevant, which is what I take you meant by “pointless.” And that’s an interesting interpretation of the Spielberg movie, but frankly I (personally) don’t think Spielberg ever did anything that wasn’t about selling popcorn, so it’s my take on that that any thematic depth to be found in his work is secondary and possibly coincidental. YMMV, of course. ---
**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, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/50 "2005-11-01T20:54:22Z")
> [@NoClueBoy](#): > > . . . Tatses vary. . . . . . . is exactly why this will probably never happen: > [@NoClueBoy](#): > > I would like to see this whole shithole of a debate be put to rest once and for all. I gotta say I’m bewildered by why a healthy back and forth of opinions about what is universally acknowledged to be a controversial movie would be characterized as a “shithole of a debate.” It’s only a movie; it’s only a discussion about a movie. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/51 "2005-11-01T21:10:47Z")
I think **NoClueBoy** ’s statement has to be taken in light of this considerable history of this debate on this Board. It’s come up more than once, and the same points keep being raised on both sides, to no obvious point. Raising it again simply brings those same highly charged arguments back to the surface again without establishing anything new – you just raise tempers again. I’ve been careful to avoid trying to make the arguments again for precisely this reason. But i do want it to go on record that I disagree with you about the relative worth of this film, and about its merits. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/52 "2005-11-01T21:19:37Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > It’s only a movie; it’s only a discussion about a movie. But look at the past, including your own involvement, in continuing the debate. Sure, let every side be heard, all opinions be aired… But, since that’s already been done to a superlative degree, why continue it? There is no moral or intellectual high ground to be gained for either side. The same arguments end up being being rehashed over and again, just with slightly different wording. The underlying tension I sense whenever certain things are brought up on the Dope take away from other meaningful discussion which might have existed otherwise. This director’s movies are simply one aspect of this. Considering the volitile history of this particular subject, and the fact that it has already been argued to death is why I made my statement of opinion. Obviously, other’s milage may vary. And please, everyone, no use in ‘encouraging’ me to stay out of such threads. With the exception of this one (and perhaps one or more others), one never knows just when a movie discussion thread is going to take a nosedive due to a hijack (intentional or not) in this direction. Anyways, that’s my take. Agree or not. And I look forward to your participation, **Lissener** , in other threads. ---
**Author:** ![Grendel\_s\_Father](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grendel\_s\_Father](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grendel_s_Father)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/53 "2005-11-01T21:29:39Z")
I like **Cervaise** ’s interpretation of ST, and it would be nice if that were true, but… I also have to agree with **RikWriter** that it’s all just elaborate fanwanking. For Cervaise’s theory to be true you hae to start with the assumption that Verhoeven is some kind of evil genious who intentionally inserted these subtexts. I don’t think there’s any evidence of this. Using the same logic you could argue that the Star Wars prequels were some kind of elaborate farce at the expense of die-hard fans. Again, that would be giving the director too much credit. I like Starship Troopers by the way, it’s kinda funny. 😃 ---
**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, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/54 "2005-11-01T21:32:35Z")
I didn’t start this thread. But I enjoy discussing this movie, as well as MANY others, so as long as the discussion continues I’ll continue to enjoy participating. This is the kind of subject that’s not subject to a final disposition; there’s no final conclusion to be reached. I remain bewildered. I don’t even see this as a “debate.” It’s a round-robin discussion about a particular work of art, its author, its cultural context, and its effectiveness. The fact that the discussion continues to have legs is indication enough that there’s still, to some people, something to read about. I don’t see the point in objecting to a friendly conversation that you have no interest in. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/55 "2005-11-01T21:40:47Z")
:d ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/56 "2005-11-01T21:42:02Z")
> [@NoClueBoy](#): > > :d Pretty interesting smiley, isn’t it? Was supposed to be: 😃 Later ---
**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, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/57 "2005-11-01T21:45:16Z")
Must perview. > [@lissener](#): > > . . . something to [del]read[/del] \*\*\*talk \*\*\*about. . . . ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/58 "2005-11-02T00:12:12Z")
Not speaking as Moderator, but as regular poster: Y’know, it seems to me that this horse has been dead for a long, long, lonnnnnnng time. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/59 "2005-11-02T00:54:16Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Exactly. Verhoeven didn’t give a fuck what the book was “about,” he only cared what his moive was about. Which is a big reason why people dislike him so much. Well, some people. Like you, I believe that a director should interpret a book and produce a movie with his own slant. That’s not the same thing as shitting all over the source material though. Marc ---
**Author:** ![Xploder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/a183cd/32.png) [@Xploder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xploder)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094/60 "2005-11-02T00:58:45Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Exactly. Verhoeven didn’t give a fuck what the book was “about,” he only cared what his moive was about. No, no, no, **no** , **NO**. You misread. As usual. Verhoeven is a **HACK**. he did not **UNDERSTAND** the book. Being himself, he was given blurbs saying, this is what this book is, he then proceeded to make a ridiciulous movie about what the book was **NOT** about ane then here we are. As usual. Another Verhoeven thread about what an assbag he is and about how he can’t produce his way out of a movie. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-question-about-interpreting-verhoevens-starship-troopers/328094.md?page=4)