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.
I guarantee it's spicier than the original Starship Troopers book. Every time I try to remember a scene, I'm actually remembering Joe Haldeman's The Forever War. That said, I do love the Starship Troopers movie so take my opinions with the appropriate salt.
That was Verhoeven's idea, but the whole movie is overshadowed by what happened later in history. The US went and lived Starship Troopers. At the time it was made, America somewhat mirrored the pre-Asteroid section of the movie. War with the "bugs" was much like news media regarding Saddam Hussein, and there was the lingering question of military spending in the post-soviet world. Then 9/11 happened and fiction/satire became real. French became "Freedom" and arabs were talked about like bugs from the movie. Hell I'm watching footage from Isn'treal today that would fit happily in Starship Troopers propaganda inserts. However Starship Troopers is locked in that post-9/11 stasis (post-
but before The Surge), so we never see what develops as the conflict plays out. The ending is a propaganda reel featuring the main characters, so the text of the movie would be how somebody would become a character in such a reel. This might leave you thirsty for some more material analysis.
In my mind this is where Haldeman's The Forever War shines; he goes through many of the Starship Troopers beats, but with some time dilation he paints a whole civilization's arc over the conflict right up to the conflict's conclusion.
Not to spoil the ending of Forever war, but...
...the end of the war (and the book) comes when the conflict forces Humanity to culturally and technologically develop to the point where (gasp!) they can understand and empathize with the other side and bring the war to a close.
Ridley Scott has supposedly been working on trying to make an adaptation of Forever War for the better part of a decade now and as excited as I was when that news first came out it has transformed to complete and comprehensive dread as the years have gone on given how much he is clearly not up to the task of doing it now (which lets be honest he probably never was). If anyone's gonna do it it should probably be Denis Villeneuve but it'll take another 10 years at least with how busy he is on Arrakis. Also: there's some aspects of the book, particularly with its views on homophobia that probably need some tweaking and updating.