A recent thread on special effects reminded me of a little Paul Verhoeven film called * Starship Troopers *. “Troopers” is one of my favourite films: personally, I think it’s a brilliant anti-fascist pamphlet, criticizing totalitarian and military regimes and the dangers of uninformed, stereotyped thinking and propaganda (The irony of the phrase “would you like to know more?” always triggers a sad little smile).
A lot of people, however, think the movie is “terminally stupid” or “all bang-bang and fireworks and little else”, as some reviewers stated it. It has always intrigued me how people can have very different opinions about something: in this case, some people think the movie is a brilliant, challenging masterpiece, others think it’s rubbish.
I haven’t read the book by Heinlein, so my question is: what did * you *think of the movie?
I love it and think it’s hilarious. I can certainly understand the opposite view, however. For the record, I also haven’t read the book and am not particularly interested in doing so.
Although Heinleins book is far more complex and subtle, Starship Troopers worked for me as a mindless action movie. I thought the ending of the movie was a big let-down, though. Remember those old Three Stooges films, where they simply ran out of ideas and would fade to black? The ending of Starship Troopers was like that. 
Wow…while this statement is true, it is a gross underexaggeration both ways.
I read the Heinlen book about a decade before seeing the movie. From what I remember, the book was short, to the point, and had one basic underlying theme (which the OP already pointed out).
I also liked the movie, which actually seemed to go a lot more in depth then the book in some places. I didn’t really see the underlying tone that was present in the movie, though. I did, however, see satire towards the establishment. Plus, I abolutely love Michael Ironside as a “tough as nails” kind of actor. I cheered when I saw his first scene.
So…altogether it is probably not a screenplay masterpiece. However, I give it a score well above average.
I thought it was incredibly dumb, poorly acted, with inane dialogue and a swiss-cheese plot. One of the few movies I regret seeing because it was such a waste of time.
So I vote for stupid. Unfortunately, not stupid in the brilliant sense, just stupid.
I think it’s a masterpiece of a movie (much better than anything else Verhoeven has ever done), and the fact that it completely turns Heinlein’s novel on its head is points in its favor. Many folks who are fans of the book (I liked the book, too, though ST is more thinly veiled than most of Heinlein’s political treatises) think that Verhoeven butchered it in his adaptation. I think he took a somewhat heavy-handed, problematic, though sincere, book and played it as a brilliant farce. Very nice. Plus he made all of the minor characters and romance pay off, and gave Johnny more convincing motivation.
I loved it to. Doogie Howser as jack booted facist? Brilliant!
Doogie’s good, but nowhere near the trembling horror of the giant ass-bug.
I loved the book and was sorely dissapointed by the film. However, I am able to keep them seperate in my mind, so I still love the book for reasons stated earlier while liking the film for its sheer open-handed brutality and sillyness.
My vote is also for “stupid” but I’m willing to be led.
Whew! That’s a load of meaning! Are you thinking that was the director’s intent or are you just taking it that way? Is this a “so stupid it’s brilliant” kind of thing?
The book is a (fairly) well written coming-of-age story with H’s usual rant about how sacrificing yourself for the greater good is a wonderful thing. It’s a fun read if you like a little growing up story with a bug hunt and some social philosophy.
I liked it, mostly. As far as themes, pretty much what toadspittle said.
I took off points for a different reason: The entire human army was armed with nothing but rifles. Fancy, high tech ones, yes, but no squad support weapons? No artillery, heavy machine guns, rocket launchers? Not so much as a hand grenade? Kinda stupid.
Still an enjoyable movie overall, though.
My take is that when the movie rights were up for grabs and Verhoeven got the offer, he read the book and though: “Jesus Christ - here is no way I can put this message on film and not be crucified.”
So he turned it around. Which I think his cowardly and the cowardice shows in the movie.
Didn’t see the movie.
Do I think that a military can work the way that the “Mobile Infantry” works? NO!
Do I have some contradictions I can find in the novel? Yep!
BTW: The MI is the USMC squared. Given that Heinlein went to `` Canoe U. ‘’ that is logical,
Terminally stupid. Anyone who thinks this is satire need to look up the term in the dictionary (or read “A Modest Proposal”). It was clearly meant to be taken as a serious war picture and, after it failed, they suddenly started spreading the myth it was satire. (Take away the Nazi uniforms and there isn’t a single satirical moment in it.)
But Red Mike said it all much better than I could.
Beyond stupid. Excreble. The question of what Verhoeven MEANT to do aside, even if the movie is supposed to be a satire it’s a damned poor one. The acting is horrible, the dialogue seems to have been written by a 12 year old, the plot lacks any sort of logic or consistency and the technical errors are beyond the pale of WSOD.
Frankly, if Verhoeven wanted to make an anti-military satire of a Nazi propoganda film, he should have renamed it something else.
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Stupid.
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So people travel all over space, amazing tech, and they fight giant insects with handheld weapons. Yeah, right.
The “anti-fascism” part was done so pathetically I assume it was intended to be pro-fascist.
Not a single likeable character in the whole movie except Doogie Howser. (Which is more than a little weird.)
Taking into account the respective merits of the arguments of both sides in this debate, there is one important facet to Starship Troopers that both the Heinlein purists who loathe the film’s butchery of the book’s social philosophy and the Verhoeven fans who see the film as a satire of militarism have failed to take into account:
Caspar van Dien’s sweet, nekkid backside! DAMN, but that man is fine!
Wel, while it was far from my favourite movie, and the acting was indeed awful, i did like the spoof on wartime propaganda films. But really, i just saw it as little more than a blood ‘n’ guts flick.
And there’s no way in the world that this is Verhoeven’s best film, IMO. My favourite, so far, is The Fourth Man, although i did quite enjoy Total Recall. I’ve never seen Robocop, which my girlfriend keeps insisting is a great film.
You know, gobear, I think Caspar van Dien has a clause in his contract that states he must show his ass in at least every other film he appears in. Even his James Dean biopic, he shoves his bum through a window. Not that I mind. And I’ve sat through that heinous Tarzan movie just to see him in a loincloth.
I’m the one who said “terminally stupid”, and I stand by it. I have to say that I love the film, nonetheless, and own a copy of it. It was clearly meant as satire, and the guy who wrote the screenplay (who also co-authored the script for Verhoeven’s Robocope) knew what he was doing.
But since the philosophy of the movie is 180 degrees from that of the book, and contains (possibly deliberately) incredible inanities and scientific errors, I still have to say it’s terminally stupid.
Let me put it this way – if someone made a movie out of C.S, Forester’s “Horatio Hornblower” novels, and used the title of one of Forester’s books – “Beat to Quarters”, say – yet had Hornblower sailing a submarine through an ammonia ocean while fighting the Roman navy in triremes during the time of the American Civil War, you’d be pissed. Justifiably, too.
The scientific erors, first o all, are astounding, and in the casse of a godd, no, GREAT, hard sf-author like Heinlein, are particularly galling. Technology-free bugs throwing rocks at earth from the other side of the galaxy? Our great to the zillionth grandchildren might have to worry about it. Colonies of bugs on apparently barren worlds with no vegetation? What are they eating? Space Ships that are almost hit by asteroids coming at them? Where is this stupidity from? Heinlein wrote about exactly this situation, and how easy it is to avoid.
Military leaders sending in expensively-armed highly-trained troops against vastly superior brainless insects? Whose stupid idea was that? Ships that can’t avoid plasma bursts from bugs? That are crowded like that in orbit? Forts built in the middle of nowhere, for no obvious purpose, and with key structural elements on the outside? A commander leading a squad through a valley in enemy-held territory with no scouts, intelligence, or air/satellite cover? What the hell were they trying to accomplish?
Downright fascist leaders with Gestapo-like uniforms? Where are Heinlein’s political arguments and his built-in safeguards?
Heinlein would’ve been spinning in his grave. I wonder if anyone ever asked Virginia what she thought of it.