No, Starship Troopers Is Not Brilliant Satire

VFN I read that entire article, very interesting...thanks for posting the link. What Jon Zelazny said about Starship Troopers was inline with what I had said in my review.

Starship Troopers is to film, what Orson Welles' War of the Worlds broadcast was to radio. I wonder if anyone knows what I mean by that?

If your interested, a short but pointed reply was given to Zelazny at the time. In part:

"I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that Jon Zelazny, described as a "director's assistant," would come to the defense of director Paul Verhoeven's exceedingly lame satire, "Starship Troopers" ("Amid 'Troopers' Gore, It's Easy to Miss the Message," Counterpunch, Dec. 1).

"Pity the poor, misunderstood filmmaker, who had to actually live under Nazi occupation as a child, yet who somehow fails to clearly present the satiric focus of his movie in a manner that the masses can appreciate and understand. When did it become the responsibility of the moviegoer to ferret out the hidden meaning of such broad satire? Is it no longer the director's task to ingratiate his audience, to bring meaning to them, rather than the other way around?

"Yet I would argue that Zelazny missed something when he chose to pick on a few selected reviewers to suggest that "99.9%" of moviegoers missed the point. I find it incredible that Verhoeven, who took satire to new entertainment heights with his first American film, "Robocop," manages to bring such dullness to the propaganda genre."

Thanks, I just read it. The writer of that article Michael Voss, tips his hand in this paragraph.

I'd say Voss is upset that the director of Starship Troopers dare have Nazi like characters as the protangist and let them go unpunished.

Is he joking? Good literature or film will let the individual find their own truth on their own.

To quote an 1980's band Devo: "Freedom of choice is what you got...Freedom from choice is what you want."

Apparently Michael Voss was upset he wasn't told what to think.

Fun stupidity this one is. While the bugs do look good, I can't stand to look at whatever the hell that "brain" bug is at the end.

If the artist has intent, but that intent is missed by so many, is that a reflection of the artist or the audience? Old question and not sure I've ever heard a satisfying answer.

And not sure Voss is upset with the use of Nazis but rather his belief that Zelazny was asking for leniency through sympathy.

Of course I can't read Voss's mind, but the condentation of his words suggest to me that he's having a knee-jerk reaction to Nazi images in the film. Oh sure there's Nazis up the ying yang in many movies, but they're always the bad guys. In Starship Troopers they're also the bad guys...but only if you don't listen to the movie. Know what a mean.

I don't know exactly what Voss means when he talks about the use of Nazis in ST, but I believe that when Yoda was talking about the use of Nazis in satire he meant more that using Nazi imagery tends to be a rather brazen and ham-fisted way to make your point; when he thinks satire needs a little subtlety. (Correct me if I'm wrong)

Having not seen the movie, are the "good guys" dressed like Nazis? If so, isn't that a somewhat obvious sign that there's a particular subtext going on?

Want to add that Yoda should write more.

Want to add that Yoda should write more.

I agree...When I first arrived at MoFo I read all of Yoda's essays from the link at the bottom of the site. I enjoyed them.

The writing style was fresh and entertaining. The thoughts were laid out in an easily accessible and logical manner...and without using excessive fancy verbiage. The essays are just the right length, not to long, not to short. The last one was well written too, I just disagree with his opinion of Starship Troopers. I'm sure as a writer Yoda appreciates honest critiques and adult debate on the premise put forth in his essays.

These are the good guys. Well, they're on 'our' side. In the film that they're military intelligence/Gestapo.



The good honest infantry/grunts are the biggest heroes, as they're most of the main protagonists, the air force are intelligent and flashy, who think they're better than infantry/infantry think they think they are and military intel are slightly shadowy, know more than they let on and don't mind sacrificing everyone else to get the job done. As I said before, it's certainly not subtle.

Also, the population are constantly told in the propoganda ads "Service guarantees citizenship".

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I love that video clip!....It's intentionally hokey with the little kid saying 'I'm doing my part too'. The light heartiness of the kid and the laughing soldiers, throws us off our guard to the real subversive nature of the film.

That one clip tells us what we need to know. The militaristic 'Federal' government is full of baloney. In their own propaganda clip the Federal government shows their heroic military invasion of the bug planet going horrible wrong.

Notice the words during the clip WHY WE FIGHT...that's a nod to a series of U.S. WWII Propaganda films.

Bugs are bad!

Thanks for the clips and replies. From what I see, this movie is camp. It's to be expected that kids missed this, but the majority of critics? Something seems amiss here.

I think you're over analyzing that clip a bit Citizen. The acting on that kid's part is hokey because the acting in all of those videos within the movie are hokey. And they are all hokey because they're making it more obvious that they are acting, because they are videos within a movie. The movie itself in general is not cheesy at all, it's just perfectly average. It's an average movie that's greatest strength is in it's content. For one example the scene where Dina Meyer's character...



...actually has a pretty strong performance by Dina Meyer and Casper Van Dien, although Denise Richards character didn't react the way she should have, that's due to the directing not the acting.

I enjoyed your essay Yoda. It was very well written, and I think it's pretty fair. I'd agree that the satire is pretty superficial, but I don't really get how most people miss it. It's pretty obvious to me, but it's certainly no grounds for saying Starship Troopers is much above average.

So the camp is exclusive to the ads and news spots?

Yes I would say so. But the rest of the acting is still only average. Some good and some bad, but nothing special.

VFN, I wouldn't call it exactly camp (a subversive trick is more like it). I do disagree that it's limited to the video news spots. The entire movie has the same agenda as the news spots, in a way that is.

Between you two, I'm going to have to watch it for myself.

Yeah, just watch it for yourself. You should watch it regardless because it's a really fun movie.

First off, very well written Master Yoda.

And I'm in agreement with parts of it, especially your introduction. I was young (not quite a teenager) when I first watched Starship Troopers and I loved the big explosions, CGI bugs, alien invasion story and all the cool weapons and ships. It was big, dumb, fun and I wouldn't have it any other way.

However, years later, I was told that Troopers was actually a satire, a send up of the American military complex so I watched the movie again, enjoyed it again and in all honesty, I did see where the argument for it being a satire comes from. Yes, some of it, if not a lot, is lost in the big, in your face action but there's a clear line being drawn and a greater story being told. War is futile, soldiers, to be made part of the military complex have to be dumbed down and shocked with bat **** propaganda.

Is it brilliant? I don't know, I did once rank it among my top 20 war movies ever and I think I'll keep it there. Does it rank alongside the brilliant Dr Strangelove? No, I don't think so. Is it just big, dumb fun? Most definitely not.

But hey, as long as we enjoyed it, does all this pseudo-intellectual debate on the movie really matter?

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I kinda think that an answer is nested in your question. Does it matter? If it doesn't, then there's no need to classify it as satire or not. It's odd that you'd finish with this thought after making an argument.

Also I don't think that what's going on is "pseudo-intellectual", there's probably a lot of jargon, but I think most people are using it to clarify their point of view, rather than obscure it (which is what I'd consider to be a "pseudo-intellectual" act).

I will say one thing that is certainly positive about Starship Troopers, for movies about attacking Alien-Bug-Homeworlds, I'd rather watch it than Ender's Game. Which was a satire about tricking me out of my money by dangling nostalgia and Harrison Ford in front of me.