No, Starship Troopers Is Not Brilliant Satire
 

The comments thread for No, Starship Troopers Is Not Brilliant Satire.

Re: No, Starship Troopers Is Not Brilliant Satire
 

I'll watch Starship Troopers this week and read the essay then.

I liked your former essays a whole lot, so I'm looking forward to reading it!

Re: No, Starship Troopers Is Not Brilliant Satire
 

Thanks. :) Looking forward to your thoughts.

And to the inevitable backlash.

Re: No, Starship Troopers Is Not Brilliant Satire
 

I dislike Starship Troopers with a passion.... I think its one of the worse films out there.... I dont see how many people can actually like it... the main bug looks like a *****.... and its so dumb....

btw... I did leave out a word before the ***** which would give it a greater detail of what I meant.. if anyone wants to know... let me know and I will place it in a separate post....

Re: No, Starship Troopers Is Not Brilliant Satire
 

It never occurred to me that Starship Troopers could be construed as satire. I watched it many years ago, and possibly vapidly (per one quote in the essay), took it at face value.

To me, assigning meaning decades after the fact is like English class where the teacher wants you to find 'symbolism' in Huckleberry Finn (or the like). Twain wasn't coming up with hidden meanings and planting them in the book for future readers to dig up and delight in. Much the same here, IMO.

Re: No, Starship Troopers Is Not Brilliant Satire
 

Not brilliant satire. But still satire.
Not sure if I've ever said the satire was brilliant or ground-breaking though.


Brilliant movie though. Along with Jurassic Park, it's one of the best CGI movies of all time.

I think anyone calling the satire brilliant is wrong. After all, how often is satire brilliant? Well thought out, intelligent and thoughtful? Sure. but it needs to be more than that, doesn't it? Starship Troopers certainly isn't that. Nor's Dr. Stranglove, though you'll hear plenty of others say otherwise. I love Starship Troopers because it's fun. That it has other qualities is good, but not why I love it. One of the reasons I don't like Strangelove is because it isn't fun. That it has other qualities is good, but they mean nothing to me.

*More fist shaking*

Re: No, Starship Troopers Is Not Brilliant Satire
 

I remember when this film first hit DVD. I wanted to watch it and the girl at blockbuster told my mom it's not for kids. So she made my dad watch it first to see if it's okay. He said no.

So my anticipation to see it grew over the years till I was "older".

So my thoughts?

It IS fun. Brilliant? Of course not, but highly enjoyable.

"He had his brains sucked out!"

Too funny.

:facepalm:

Re: No, Starship Troopers Is Not Brilliant Satire
 

I'm not a fan of Strangelove either. You're not alone Honeykid.

Re: No, Starship Troopers Is Not Brilliant Satire
 

Me as well, Stranglelove ain't funny.

Re: No, Starship Troopers Is Not Brilliant Satire
 

Anyway, I read the essay (I couldn't resist) and I feel like I understand the points you're making without seeing the actual film, Yoda.

I'll respond in a bit after I wrapped my head around the whole thing.

Re: No, Starship Troopers Is Not Brilliant Satire
 

You know you're wrong when you side with honeykid on almost anything movies. Should be a sign that you need to rewatch the film.

Also, great essay, Yoda.

Re: No, Starship Troopers Is Not Brilliant Satire
 

Just when this couldn't get any worse, three people in a row trash Strangelove...

http://i.imgur.com/6bZMF.png

Re: No, Starship Troopers Is Not Brilliant Satire
 

Make it four.

I pay no heed to the status qua: I don't find Dr Strangelove all that funny...As far as Starship Troopers being brilliant satire, here you go....

http://www.movieforums.com/community...87#post1197687

...enough said;)

Re: No, Starship Troopers Is Not Brilliant Satire
 

You all have terrible taste.

Ah! My people! :cool: It's nice to see not everyone drank the kool aid.

Nice commentary, Yoda. If Paul Verhoeven was going for some sort of brilliant satire, I didn't know it when I plunked down my bucks to watch the film twice at evening showings. I just loved it as a giant bug killing, gun shooting, Dina Meyer nude body-showing, spaceship blowing up, fun popcorn-eating-while-watching goofy good time (yes, I like hyphens).

A few years later, I bought the "special edition" DVD and listened to Verhoeven talk about some of the things he was trying to show, such as "Doogie Howser in a Nazi Uniform," which Verhoeven laughed heartily about. I will admit that it partly registered in some unknown region of my brain that Neil Patrick Harris looked odd wearing an over-sized military outfit, but I didn't immediately assign the "Nazi" label to it. The director went on to talk about fascism being one of the themes he sneaked into the movie, but I think, unless you're making a film explicitly about fascism, then it's all too easy to assign that label to characters or themes in your movie after the fact.

In fairness to Verhoeven, here's something from Wikipedia (I know, not the most reliable source of facts---I don't think they lie outright but it's best to double-check these "facts" at other sites) that maybe informs Verhoeven's take on Nazism and fascism:

"In 1943 the family moved to The Hague, the location of the German headquarters in the Netherlands during World War II. The Verhoeven house was near a German military base with V1 and V2-rocket launchers, which was repeatedly bombed by allied forces. Their neighbours' house was hit and Verhoeven's parents were almost killed when bombs fell on a street crossing. From this period, Verhoeven mentioned in interviews, he remembers images of violence, burning houses, dead bodies on the street, and continuous danger. As a small child he experienced the war as an exciting adventure and compares himself with the character Bill Rowan in Hope and Glory (1987)"

This seems to fly in the face of what Verhoeven's mood was on the commentary on the DVD, where he seemed to recall the German presence as horrible, as opposed to what he's supposedly said in the paragraph above.

Whatever his frame of mind about the story, I mostly find his sick sense of humor funny, both in "Starship Troopers" and "Robocop" especially. While watching the film, I never got the sense that he was making a satire (and like Yoda said, good satire is something that sneaks up on you and you realize after the fact) and started applying that label after critics assigned it once the movie was out, and some several years later. Hindsight is 20/20 or so they say.

I think mainly that Verhoeven, when he's on his game, is a fun showman, providing bloody, funny, off-color entertainment. When he's off, you wonder what the hell he was thinking.

Despite all the proclamations about the movie being biting satire, I again agree that most of these are after the fact, making the critics who say so seem intelligent in their own eyes. For my own part, "Starship Troopers" is great, action-packed fun with a bloody sense of humor, the same thing I thought upon first and second viewings. I tend to not even think about the "satire" in the piece. If it's there, fine, but I still call foul.

If he intended to seriously comment on the Nazi presence in his homeland, then more power to him. Not to get political, but given the fact that the Allies helped save his people from the Axis powers, he should have a more grateful outlook towards them. That's why I'm not sure that he's railing against "right wing" factions.

Finally, if you listen to the guy, he's frantic, animated, and fairly kooky, shouting and laughing and acting like he's missed taking his meds that morning.

In my last analysis, I have but to say that, even now after hearing all the supposed satire and and irony, I still view "Starship Troopers" as nothing more than a rollicking ride of action, monsters, pretty babes, and explosions. And that's all I expected.