I really liked Starship Troopers as a kid. Pretty sure I said it was my favorite movie for a time. Last year or so, I had the chance to watch it again with some friends, and I was excited because now I could watch it with my Adult Knowledge that it's actually a satire of fascism. I was honestly bored out of my mind, and I wanted to turn it off halfway through.
Because it's not really a typical satire, right? It's an example of a movie that a fascist society would make. This kind of necessarily means that the movie needs to be trite and shallow. Neither the characters nor plot is compelling. Because of this, the action sequences fall flat to me, too.
I watched robocop the day before, and I actually liked it way more than when I was younger. I can also enjoy other satire of fascism like Warhammer 40k which I think is ridiculous enough to be fun.
I don't know, it sucks for the people who genuinely uphold it as a fascist piece of art because... Damn, it's really childish and boring when taken at face value.
Anyone with me on this? I honestly found it disappointing.
Everyone getting hung up on themes but the best thing about ST is the look and feel, aided by the blend of practical effects and surprisingly solid early era CGI. The behind the scenes stuff on how they did it is worth checking out, though not as amazing a technical/budgetary achievement as Robocop. Verhoeven is/was a whiz at keeping his spectacles visually coherent.
This was one of the first movies to do the "react and we'll add the thing you're reacting to in post" thing to its actors, and the fact that Verhoeven got decent performances out of them despite that is a testament to his understanding of film. Compare to the Star Wars prequels, which have a lot of scenes where the real actors don't react at all to something digital happening in the same scene.
My favorite part is the General Grievous Lightsaber Helicopter scene where he's throwing bits of superheated slag in Obi-wans eyes but Ewan McGregor has absolutely no idea and his body does not react in any way, he just stands there blankly