Starship Troopers: Terran Command

[Huw the Poo]

It would be disappointing if this mechanic is limited to leaders. Since mobile infantry units will be heavily outnumbered, they are extremely valuable to begin with. Granting them bonuses and perks due to experience will drastically add to their value and the loss of a particularly experienced unit could be devastating...I remember the good old days with Ground Control. You really got attached to those unique squads.

Well, my guess is the leaders will do just that.  It says that you attach them to units.

[Rayfer]

LOL....actually, yes.  I thought it was a ridiculous, poorly acted train-wreck ranking right down there with the first Dune movie with Sting.  But who knows, maybe it will make for a compelling game.

That was sort of the entire point of the film.  Paul Veerhoven was being as brutally insulting to the source material as he possibly could, and turning it into a self aware satire. 

Veerhoven initially threw the script in the trash when he got it, but his wife convinced him to take the film up and utterly eviscerate Heinlein on screen, betting the studio would be too dumb to even get what he was doing.  She was right.

Very interesting, I was totally unaware of any of that about the movie.

[SirAndrewD]

Very interesting, I was totally unaware of any of that about the movie.

It's sometimes something easily missed with Verhoeven as he plays a lot of his movies very straight.   Starship Troopers is to his anti-military and anti-fascist ideals as Robocop is to his anti-capitalist ideals.  He demonstrates absurdity with straight laced absurdity.

There are a lot of little touches Verhoeven put in Starship Troopers that you can miss, like how he lifts camera and shot construction from Triumph of the Will, to how a lot of the dialogue is reworked from statements by Goebbles and Speer, to the very intentional use of Italian Fascist and Nazi uniforming to inspire the look of the Mobile Infantry. 

He also did a lot of work to make sure the cast was as ridiculously beautiful and Aryan as possible, regardless of acting ability. 

Verhoeven speaks for himself here, "If I tell the world that a right-wing, fascist way of doing things doesn't work, no one will listen to me. So I'm going to make a perfect fascist world: everyone is beautiful, everything is shiny, everything has big guns and fancy ships, but it's only good for killing fu***** Bugs!"

[Rayfer]

Very interesting, I was totally unaware of any of that about the movie.

It's sometimes something easily missed with Verhoeven as he plays a lot of his movies very straight.   Starship Troopers is to his anti-military and anti-fascist ideals as Robocop is to his anti-capitalist ideals.  He demonstrates absurdity with straight laced absurdity.

There are a lot of little touches Verhoeven put in Starship Troopers that you can miss, like how he lifts camera and shot construction from Triumph of the Will, to how a lot of the dialogue is reworked from statements by Goebbles and Speer, to the very intentional use of Italian Fascist and Nazi uniforming to inspire the look of the Mobile Infantry. 

He also did a lot of work to make sure the cast was as ridiculously beautiful and Aryan as possible, regardless of acting ability. 

Verhoeven speaks for himself here, "If I tell the world that a right-wing, fascist way of doing things doesn't work, no one will listen to me. So I'm going to make a perfect fascist world: everyone is beautiful, everything is shiny, everything has big guns and fancy ships, but it's only good for killing fu***** Bugs!"

LOL....you got me wanting to watch the movie again. I'll have to search Netflix and Amazon to see if they have it.

[Jarhead0331]

You know, I always thought the book was satire too, but in researching the issue now, I see it didn't appear to be Heinlein's intention.

"Congrats, son! Mobile Infantry made me into the man I am today..." Says the recruiting Sergeant with no legs and prosthetic arm. 

[SirAndrewD]

Yeah, the book isn't satire.   Heinlein waffled a lot on what he was trying to say in the book, and had denied it was actively pro-fascist, but it is advocating for military governance.

There's been a lot of fighting over the book in scholarship.   Most outsiders consider it equating fascism and utopianism, but there's some counter argument that it's more advocating for the concept of selective service enhancing the franchise. 

Either way, it should be read literally, not tongue in cheek.

[al_infierno]

Recently I realized that the footage they briefly show of "massacred civilians" at the Mormon colony (or whatever it was) early in the film is intentionally cheesy and fake looking, like they spattered a bunch of mannequins with ketchup, because the scene is part of propaganda the Federation is showing on their network to get people to join up.  The SFX in the other death scenes are cheesy too, but this scene really stood out upon rewatching the film for the umpteenth time as being *extraordinarily* cheesy.  Makes me think it was some kinda false flag type of thing the Federation cooked up to get more recruits.  Cool little detail.

[Gusington]

I didn't realize he did both Starship Troopers and RoboCop. I love RoboCop.

[SirAndrewD]

Yeah, the false flag thing is another small easily missed detail.   

It's not that the Mormons were fake.  There's a throwaway line that they had actually intruded on bug space first, despite warning.  So they were actually the invaders.

The thing you're supposed to sorta miss and not miss is how impossible it was to fly an Asteroid across the galaxy to hit Earth.   That was meant to be so absurd as to get you thinking, "what evidence do we really have that the bugs did that?"   There's a strong implication that it's a false flag and it's another point where Verhoeven is trying to make you think. 

He's a pretty subversive director in not spelling things out.   For instance, he constructed Total Recall in such a way that it's entirely valid reading that the entire movie is the dream he paid for, including the end where it fades to white, not black, which is a directorial trick for someone waking up.

[al_infierno]

Yeah I think you're right, it's not that the Mormons were fake, but the footage they show of "dead civilians" looks like it's hoaxed/overblown to get people joining up.

[SirAndrewD]

Oh indeed.  The propaganda aspect is a big deal.   

I love the movie when it's taken for what it is, just like I love Robocop and Total Recall in the same way. 

I'm less keen on his other satire, Showgirls.  There's a point where he goes a bit too far and turns out a stinker in every way, and boy was that movie it.   Exaggerating things to the point of intentional comedy worked with violence and politics, but not sex and drama.

[MOS:96B2P]

Very interesting, I was totally unaware of any of that about the movie.

It's sometimes something easily missed with Verhoeven as he plays a lot of his movies very straight.   Starship Troopers is to his anti-military and anti-fascist ideals as Robocop is to his anti-capitalist ideals.  He demonstrates absurdity with straight laced absurdity.

There are a lot of little touches Verhoeven put in Starship Troopers that you can miss, like how he lifts camera and shot construction from Triumph of the Will, to how a lot of the dialogue is reworked from statements by Goebbles and Speer, to the very intentional use of Italian Fascist and Nazi uniforming to inspire the look of the Mobile Infantry. 

He also did a lot of work to make sure the cast was as ridiculously beautiful and Aryan as possible, regardless of acting ability. 

Verhoeven speaks for himself here, "If I tell the world that a right-wing, fascist way of doing things doesn't work, no one will listen to me. So I'm going to make a perfect fascist world: everyone is beautiful, everything is shiny, everything has big guns and fancy ships, but it's only good for killing fu***** Bugs!"

Then I suspect this may not have worked out as Verhoeven intended...........

The bugs he created were not insignificant little bugs but huge, terrible, scary, aggressors that were trying to destroy humanity.  The mobile infantry were heroes that sacrificed all to save everything good.  Since they were able to defeat those huge monsters, against all odds, it is obvious the mobile infantry and the political system that supported them could surely do many additional great, noble things (not that they needed to do more.  They were already heroic enough).

He created the heroic mobile infantry which has enough of a following that all these years later a PC game is going to add to and expand their legacy and tell the story for yet another generation.  I wonder if Verhoeven was intellectually honest enough to consider the possibility that the movie did not accomplish what he intended and maybe did just a little of the opposite?   

Interesting, ironic and a little funny.

[al_infierno]

aggressors that were trying to destroy humanity.

I think you need to rewatch the movie my dude, it's pretty clearly hinted that the humans were the aggressors and the bugs were retaliating.  Then again, based on the rest of your post, it sounds to me like you would prefer the book over the movie.

[MOS:96B2P]

aggressors that were trying to destroy humanity.

I think you need to rewatch the movie my dude, it's pretty clearly hinted that the humans were the aggressors and the bugs were retaliating.  Then again, based on the rest of your post, it sounds to me like you would prefer the book over the movie.

Thanks.  I never read the book.  I'll put it on my list.  Did you like the book?

I admit I was cheering for humanity during the movie.   

[Huw the Poo]

Yeah that was a very odd reflection on the film.  The mobile infantry were hardly heroes - witness their flagrant disregard for life in general for example (knife in the hand just to make a point, anyone?).  Add to that the fact that to be a citizen you're kind of expected to serve, and it's almost a requirement just to be able to have a baby.

My money is also on intelligent - and successful - satire, just as Robocop was.