# Open Spoilers - How does the Starship Troopers movie diverge from the book? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 28, 2008, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-spoilers-how-does-the-starship-troopers-movie-diverge-from-the-book/465596 "2008-09-28T18:23:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-spoilers-how-does-the-starship-troopers-movie-diverge-from-the-book/465596/81 "2008-09-30T16:45:43Z")
> [@mazinger\_z](#): > > The problem you’re missing, it seems, is that the government in SS really wanted people to voluntarily join Federal Service. It had to be strictly voluntary, because as they are trained, and after they retire, they realize to vote for what is best for the country/planet, rather than just for themselves. Quite the opposite, as I recall. Though they couldn’t deny anyone a chance to put in their two years and gain citizenship, the powers-that-be had no problem putting in little discouragements to enlistment i.e. the amputee recruiting sergeant and the little beaurocratic wrinkle that if you sign up but have second thoughts in the first 24 hours, you (stressed) never ever ever get to try again. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Scrivener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-spoilers-how-does-the-starship-troopers-movie-diverge-from-the-book/465596/82 "2008-09-30T21:15:00Z")
How realistic is the novel’s assertion that the alien bugs are intelligent and tech-savvy? Are they capable of complex language? Symbolic thought? Writing? Opposable digits of some sort? Re. the big bugs shooting ballistic jets of hot plasma out their asses at densely-populated cities on planet Earth (“Look, Ma! No hands…” or telemetry or apparent understanding of astronomy), please tell me that’s just something that the screenwriter Neumeier pulled out of his ass. ---
**Author:** ![A\_shameful\_cracka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ebca7d/32.png) [@A\_shameful\_cracka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_shameful_cracka)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-spoilers-how-does-the-starship-troopers-movie-diverge-from-the-book/465596/83 "2008-09-30T21:19:22Z")
> [@The\_Scrivener](#): > > How realistic is the novel’s assertion that the alien bugs are intelligent and tech-savvy? Are they capable of complex language? Symbolic thought? Writing? Opposable digits of some sort? > > Re. the big bugs shooting ballistic jets of hot plasma out their asses at densely-populated cities on planet Earth (“Look, Ma! No hands…” or telemetry or apparent understanding of astronomy), please tell me that’s just something that the screenwriter Neumeier pulled out of his ass. The novel has the bugs building cities not totally unlike human cities (a portion of one battle takes place in a subway tunnel on a bug planet), building starships and nuclear weapons, and making allies with other alien races. They are just another insect-like alien race, not some kind of creature with purely biological powers. They do have castes, but they aren’t dumb animals. ---
**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:** [September 30, 2008, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-spoilers-how-does-the-starship-troopers-movie-diverge-from-the-book/465596/84 "2008-09-30T21:27:15Z")
> [@](#): > > How realistic is the novel’s assertion that the alien bugs are intelligent and tech-savvy? Are they capable of complex language? Symbolic thought? Writing? Opposable digits of some sort? > > Re. the big bugs shooting ballistic jets of hot plasma out their asses at densely-populated cities on planet Earth (“Look, Ma! No hands…” or telemetry or apparent understanding of astronomy), please tell me that’s just something that the screenwriter Neumeier pulled out of his ass. The bugs shooting plasma seems to be Ed Neuemeier’s own inventiobn. He’s re-imagined the bugs as having no technology, but having all their weapons “natural” (or, I suppose, possibly genetically engineered, like in Harry Harrison’s “West of Eden” series) – slashing soldiers, plasma-farting bugs, acid-squirting beetles. God knows how they traveled interplanetary. This is at odds with the book, in which the Bugs undoubtedly have high tech. That HAS to be vthe case if they’re going to be a threat to a high-tech mankind. Otherwise they could shoot killer asteroids at us all they want from the other side of the galaxy, and they’d effectively never get here. Heinlein is (deliberately) vague about Bug organization and capabilities, since his characters don’t know these, either. They seem to be “hive minds” to the extent that each Brain Bug controls a lot of soldiers and workers by some sort of telepathy, but whether the Brain Bugs are all linked together themselves, and how the queens fit into this (are they even sentient? who knows? We never see a live one.) isn’t clear. How likely is it? Again, who knows? Ask me when we have a few concrete examples of xenobiology to extrapolate from. I’d guess that building a civilization from Heinlein’s bugs would be a tricky business, and seems unlikely. But Heinlein loved systems and aliens that challenged your expectations (like the liquid oxygen-generating Venusians in **Space Cadet** ), so this might have been wholly intentional. ---
**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:** [October 1, 2008, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-spoilers-how-does-the-starship-troopers-movie-diverge-from-the-book/465596/85 "2008-10-01T23:45:18Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > The world has enough stupid in it already. What we need is more smart. Exactly. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2008, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-spoilers-how-does-the-starship-troopers-movie-diverge-from-the-book/465596/86 "2008-10-02T01:32:21Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > As I’ve said before, when you identify the stupid in a Verhoeven movie, you’ve probably indentified Verhoeven’s point. Honestly, while that might be true, the world is full of stupid people who’d like to get credit for their idiocy being actually something clever. So I’m predisposed not to believe it without consdierable evidence. Also, there’s a Sarah Palin joke somewhere in this line of thinking. Sailboat ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2008, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-spoilers-how-does-the-starship-troopers-movie-diverge-from-the-book/465596/87 "2008-10-02T02:13:13Z")
> [@SirRay](#): > > I always wondered why the military just didn’t wait a few months, and equip every MI solider w/ that mountain-blasting plasma weapon they show the solider using in the military recruitment ad they show in the last scene of the movie… 'cause you go to war with the Army you have, not the one you want:D The movie didn’t have battle armor for cost reasons. I don’t think Starship Troopers was supposed to be a training film on future interplanetary combat tactics and strategy. We are supposed to be left with a sense that the Mobile Infantry is a brutal, ill equiped and more or less incompetant organization. Besides, no one complains about the Space Marines from Aliens. I mean they fly halfway across the galaxy in a spaceship the size of an aircraft carrier to deploy a single squad of a dozen Marines and their APC? There’s no crew or reserve squad in orbit so this empty ship just orbits around the planet impotently with no way to provide assistance. No one is even going to think about looking for the mission for like 3 weeks. And pretty much all they are armed with is some flamethrowers, a couple of heavy machineguns and a bunch of modified Tommyguns. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2008, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-spoilers-how-does-the-starship-troopers-movie-diverge-from-the-book/465596/88 "2008-10-02T02:21:50Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > And pretty much all they are armed with is some flamethrowers, a couple of heavy machineguns and a bunch of modified Tommyguns. Well, they also knives and sharp sticks. And nukes. They had a pretty cool-looking APC, too, albeit with a fragile transaxle. Frankly, the colonial marines should able to smoke the mobile infantry with ease. Their undoing was no real understanding of what the mission entailed. ---
**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:** [October 2, 2008, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-spoilers-how-does-the-starship-troopers-movie-diverge-from-the-book/465596/89 "2008-10-02T02:26:39Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > Honestly, while that might be true, the world is full of stupid people who’d like to get credit for their idiocy being actually something clever. So I’m predisposed not to believe it without consdierable evidence. > > Also, there’s a Sarah Palin joke somewhere in this line of thinking. > > Sailboat My point being that when you find something in a Verhoeven movie that is being presented as ridiculous–worthy of ridicule–it’s silly to imagine that you see through that better than Verhoeven did. In other words, he’s more than likely presenting it as ridiculous because he agrees that it’s worthy of ridicule. ---
**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:** [October 2, 2008, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-spoilers-how-does-the-starship-troopers-movie-diverge-from-the-book/465596/90 "2008-10-02T02:32:00Z")
Or he’s just a crap director with no sense of anything. 50-50, call 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:** [October 2, 2008, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-spoilers-how-does-the-starship-troopers-movie-diverge-from-the-book/465596/91 "2008-10-02T02:36:36Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > Indeed. The Mobile Infantry as depicted would have had a hard time fighting off Pickett’s Charge. A WWII mechanized brigade would have rolled over them without even noticing the speedbump. This is the real problem with **lissener** ’s contention that it’s a good movie if you let it stand apart from the book. Not really; I’ve acknowledged multiple times that the “science” is not to be taken seriously in the movie. If that kind of thing bugs you, then the movie will always bug you. If, on the other hand, you can judge the movie by what it is (a political satire) rather than by what it isn’t (a textbook exercise in practical science), you might enjoy it. Insisting it work on a level on which it was never intended will only lead to disappointment. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2008, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-spoilers-how-does-the-starship-troopers-movie-diverge-from-the-book/465596/92 "2008-10-02T02:37:26Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Or he’s just a crap director with no sense of anything. > 50-50, call it. 90-10 in favor of dumb as a post. (and that’s giving credit for bare boobies) ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2008, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-spoilers-how-does-the-starship-troopers-movie-diverge-from-the-book/465596/93 "2008-10-02T02:45:40Z")
If it is a political satire, it’s not an especially original or insightful one. Sure, there’s some laughs to be had in the mock propaganda “Would you like to know more?” sequences (I coulda swore the narrator was Kurtwood Smith) but the rest of the movie is pure braindead popcorn-munching fun. At best, it’s in the same league as _Robocop_, and even that’s being generous. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2008, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-spoilers-how-does-the-starship-troopers-movie-diverge-from-the-book/465596/94 "2008-10-02T04:43:34Z")
> [@mazinger\_z](#): > > It’s been a while since I read the book, but yes, I believe there are civilian contractors. The problem you’re missing, it seems, is that the government in SS really wanted people to voluntarily join Federal Service. It had to be strictly voluntary, because as they are trained, and after they retire, they realize to vote for what is best for the country/planet, rather than just for themselves. I always got the impression that the service did not have to be military, but it did have to be a _sacrifice_. It had to be something you were clearly doing out of civic-mindedness, and not just an optional career path. You didn’t qualify by becoming a bureaucrat or a generic government employee with a salary and a pension. You qualified by volunteering to do the crappiest jobs that no one else wants to do. That was the whole point - to give the franchise only to those who had shown the willingness to put the good of the people over his or her own interests. But there’s another aspect to Heinlein’s novel which disproves the ‘fascist’ label. The society depicted within is very libertarian. There are whole classes of people who are proud of the fact that they stay as far away from government as they can. Businesspeople contract to the government, but I never got the sense that government was heavy-handed at all. The one thing that would argue against this is the corporal punishment in the penal code, that is. They kept the law pretty harshly, with floggings and executions when need be, and the citizens seemed to approve. I guess that might be seen by some as being fascistic in the elemental sense, if not by the strict definition of the word. I think the best description is a fairly libertarian society in a hostile universe, protected by a strong, voluntary, elite military force and governed lightly by a small group of citizens with a demonstrated desire to do the best for their society. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2008, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-spoilers-how-does-the-starship-troopers-movie-diverge-from-the-book/465596/95 "2008-10-02T06:13:47Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The one thing that would argue against this is the corporal punishment in the penal code, that is. They kept the law pretty harshly, with floggings and executions when need be, and the citizens seemed to approve. I guess that might be seen by some as being fascistic in the elemental sense, if not by the strict definition of the word. Although the punishments were arguably harsh, I don’t recall anything to suggest that the things that were subject to punishment were excessively sweeping or heavy handed. It seemed that people were flogged for things like drunk driving and hanged for things like kidnapping and murder; granted, we might not punish those offenses in quite the same way, but we do punish them. I’m pretty sure the Terran Federation wasn’t going around flogging or hanging people for criticizing the government or anti-state agitation or anything like that, regardless of whether they had secured the right to vote or not. (I’m speaking here of ordinary civilian law; military law was pretty harsh, in a Hornbloweresque sort of way, with striking a superior officer being in theory punishable by death. However, even in the 21st century United States, military law really is, of necessity, somewhat harsh–in fact, in time of war, [assaulting a superior officer](http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode10/usc_sec_10_00000890----000-.html) is _still_ subject to the death penalty as a maximum punishment–and, whereas in theory the United States could still reinstitute the draft, in the Terran Federation everyone subject to military law has volunteered for it.) ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2008, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-spoilers-how-does-the-starship-troopers-movie-diverge-from-the-book/465596/96 "2008-10-02T06:32:29Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Well, they also knives and sharp sticks. And nukes. > > They had a pretty cool-looking APC, too, albeit with a fragile transaxle. Frankly, the colonial marines should able to smoke the mobile infantry with ease. Their undoing was no real understanding of what the mission entailed. Not to mention having the first battle in an environment extremely unfavorable to the marines. No guns because gunfire damages the reactor cooling equipment and the fact the aliens could blend in the with walls(which the marines didn’t seem to count on). Losing all their ammo in the fire, the death of their best NCO and being left with a green JO didn’t help either. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2008, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-spoilers-how-does-the-starship-troopers-movie-diverge-from-the-book/465596/97 "2008-10-02T12:08:45Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Well, they also knives and sharp sticks. And nukes. > > They had a pretty cool-looking APC, too, albeit with a fragile transaxle. Frankly, the colonial marines should able to smoke the mobile infantry with ease. Their undoing was no real understanding of what the mission entailed. Mobile Infantry had nukes too. Except they carried them with them instead of leaving them in orbit. And it wasn’t like Lt Gorman was a tactical genius or anything. And for the record, Mobile Infantry in the movie did have air support. Not to defend the battle tactics (or lack thereof) portrayed in the film, but there could have been a grander strategy than “deploy half a million infantry from orbit via dropships and have them kill anything with more than two legs”. It’s not effectively communicated to the audience though. By impression, however, is that whatever the plan was, it has gone to shit and everything is chaotic and disorganized. Kind of comparable to the Airborne drops on D-Day. Like D-Day, half the dropships were probably thrown off course from the unexpected bug shit antiaircraft fire so the effect we see from the perspective of Johnny Rico & co is a binch of infantry running around like maniacs with no idea. And it’s pretty clear to me that their weapons and tactics and training are designed for fighting other humanoids, not endless swarms of nearly indestructable giant bugs. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2008, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-spoilers-how-does-the-starship-troopers-movie-diverge-from-the-book/465596/98 "2008-10-02T13:55:44Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Not to defend the battle tactics (or lack thereof) portrayed in the film, but there could have been a grander strategy than “deploy half a million infantry from orbit via dropships and have them kill anything with more than two legs”. It’s not effectively communicated to the audience though. By impression, however, is that whatever the plan was, it has gone to shit and everything is chaotic and disorganized. Kind of comparable to the Airborne drops on D-Day. Like D-Day, half the dropships were probably thrown off course from the unexpected bug shit antiaircraft fire so the effect we see from the perspective of Johnny Rico & co is a binch of infantry running around like maniacs with no idea. The D-Day invaders had objectives, though - taking critical towns and bridges and whatnot. The bugs in the ST movie don’t have any infrastructure at all, though, which makes a mass infantry attack even more pointless because why try to take ground that’s just the same as all the other ground? Sure, the D-Day paratroopers got scattered and lost, but they were just the first wave. The real punch of the invasion was landing on the beaches with maps and objectives, both absent in ST. > [@](#): > > And it’s pretty clear to me that their weapons and tactics and training are designed for fighting other humanoids, not endless swarms of nearly indestructable giant bugs. And supposedly it was the failure at Klendathu that forces the resignation and replacement of the Sky Marshall, with his successor implying a new way of thinking was required. And then they went to Planet P and did the exact same thing anyway. In any case, if there’s political satire to be found in any of the Rico/Carmen/Dizzy scenes, I’m not seeing it. ---
**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:** [October 2, 2008, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-spoilers-how-does-the-starship-troopers-movie-diverge-from-the-book/465596/99 "2008-10-02T14:03:36Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > In any case, if there’s political satire to be found in any of the Rico/Carmen/Dizzy scenes, I’m not seeing it. Well, if you regard Johnnie as “Everyman,” and let Carmen and Dizzy represent “Free Silver” and the “Gold Standard,” respectively, it does serve as a scathing indictment of Eastern Monied Interests in favor of a more Populist ideology. Or I could be projecting my own ideas onto a movie with absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever outside of a few scant scenes of mid-grade boobies. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2008, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-spoilers-how-does-the-starship-troopers-movie-diverge-from-the-book/465596/100 "2008-10-02T14:46:46Z")
Even the best laid plans looks like a clusterfuck to the grunts. It’s possible that there appears to be no advanced strategy, because the movie is about Rico (or “as seen through his eyes”), not about the Sky Marshall. I read the book about 30 years ago, so I remember very little about it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-spoilers-how-does-the-starship-troopers-movie-diverge-from-the-book/465596.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-spoilers-how-does-the-starship-troopers-movie-diverge-from-the-book/465596.md?page=6)