Anyone seen this movie? What are yalls thoughts on it. If you haven’t, please watch it.
Starship Troopers
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33
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@ILikePie5
I enjoyed the movie tremendously although it can't hold a candle to book. The book is mostly short snappy political treatise from a classic post-War consensus point of view. A lot of critics reject the ideals as fascist but Heinlein was writing about how nations (planets) survive, not democratic ideals. He was writing as a military man about citizenship, colonization, WMDs, and future tech. There's not as much plot as the movie- it is a lot of battle vignettes and flashbacks to a Moral Philosophy class taught by Sgt. Zim. The relationship between Rico and Zim is more central to the book than the movie.
Paul Verhoeven has stated that he intended for the movie to satirize the more exceptionalist aspects of the book but people who love the movie never love it as a satire so I'd call that aspect unsuccessful.
Importantly, the marines in the book fight in huge armored suits. They attack in long line formations spread across hundreds of miles, launching little nukes from their forearms as they make little 10 and 20 mile jumps across the continents. In the books, the bugs (and other enemy civilizations) are barely described- they are just distant enemies dying by the millions.
This book was a primary influence on the whole powered suit idea. Edge of Tomorrow, Iron Man, Anime- a lot of those ideas started with reading this book. Orson Scott Card's Ender series and Joe Haldeman's Forever series are direct replies to Heinlein's Troopers.
Haldeman's Forever War is a masterpiece of conservative reaction to the Vietnam War and the sexual revolution.
I would really like to see to see a movie that follows the book more closely but then I think everything Heinlein wrote should be made into a movie.
Heinlein was living in Colorado Springs when he wrote the book and I get a kick out of the idea of spaceships launching from a rail gun built up Pikes Peak.
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@oromagi
In terms of Movie Canon do you think the bugs can defeat the Federation or no?
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@ILikePie5
An important element of the book is that the bugs had no hope of winning but the movie bugs kept escalating their capabilities while the movie humans seemed unaware of basic military tactics like “don’t just stand around in bunches on enemy planets” or “take the high ground first”. So yes, the bugs had a shot at victory.
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@oromagi
I honestly think they could. Simply just a numbers game in my opinion.
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@ILikePie5
Heinlein’s Puppet Masters is an awesome, early entry in the Body snatchers genre.
Stranger in a Strange Land is Heinlein’s masterpiece, a kind sci-fi rewrite of the New Testament with more sex and cannibalism and Martians.
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@ILikePie5
have you seen any of the direct to video sequels? Are any of them any good?
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@ILikePie5
do you think of the movie Starship Troopers as a satire on fascism? (as the director said he intended?)
have you seen any of the direct to video sequels? Are any of them any good?
I’ve only seen the movies. The sequels weren’t as good as the first one.
do you think of the movie Starship Troopers as a satire on fascism? (as the director said he intended?)
I just see it as a Sci Fi movie that has amazing graphics and explores a race that debatably is superior both in intelligence and evolution. I do see the Fascism tho although I think it’s more visible in the third movie.
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@ILikePie5
Anyone seen this movie? What are yalls thoughts on it. If you haven’t, please watch it.
Fun movie. Ages really well, kinda becoming worse and better at the same time.
I really disliked the notion of the bugs throwing asteroids at the earth in an ongoing galactic war.
29 days later
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@oromagi
I enjoyed the movie tremendously although it can't hold a candle to book.
You will probably be unsurprised to hear that the guy that made the movie read the book, decided he didn't like it after the first chapter or so, then decided to make a parody movie of it. Explains a lot about how the movie turned out.
The comedy aspects of the movies were done pretty well in my opinion as well as to a lesser extent some of the overall storyline ideas. Just about every combat scene was trash though. Character building left a lot to be desired in many cases too.
80 days later
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@ILikePie5
I thought it was a fun, cheesy, action, comedy. Seems to me it's aged well. Vastly different than the book. Really only liked the first movie.
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@Lemming
I thought it was a fun, cheesy, action, comedy. Seems to me it's aged well. Vastly different than the book. Really only liked the first movie.
The CGI was amazing for that time imo. Plus it’s just interesting af
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@ILikePie5
I liked that the recruiter guy was missing both of his legs.
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@Lemming
For sure. Razak’s Roughnecks op
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@ILikePie5
I found the mercy killings interesting, I 'think I'd prefer to struggle and be eaten alive, but perhaps not, or perhaps I'd regret it.
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@Lemming
I liked that the recruiter guy was missing both of his legs.
It's a neat detail they allude to in the movie, that is highlighted in the book. As a society they play up stuff like that to make people second-guess joining and becoming citizens, when in fact recruiters like that have amazing cybernetics they wear whenever not serving in that role.
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@Lemming
I found the mercy killings interesting, I 'think I'd prefer to struggle and be eaten alive, but perhaps not, or perhaps I'd regret it.
I’d prefer a quick painless death. The bugs were smart af tho. I’d genuinely be scared if we had to fight them rn
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@Barney
@ILikePie5
I remember in the book though, that the path to citizenship was open to 'anybody though, Did seem in the movie like an intentional attempt to weed out the people mentally unfit/unprepared for the infantry though.
I forget if there was such a scene in the book or not.
"The Federation makes the opportunity of Federal Service open to everyone, able-bodied or not. A doctor giving a medical examination says "if you came in here in a wheelchair and blind in both eyes and were silly enough to insist on enrolling, they would find you something silly to match. Counting the fuzz on a caterpillar by touch, maybe." The only impediment that can render one ineligible for federal service is if a psychiatrist determines that one cannot understand the oath of service." - Wikipedia, Terran Federation (Starship Troopers)
I'd be scared of fighting in the movie, following those strategies and tactics.
A lot of people have the theory the movie Bugs are a fake threat, and are used by the government as a means of controlling the population and giving everyone an enemy to rally against.
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@Lemming
...fake threat, and are used by the government as a means of controlling the population and giving everyone an enemy to rally against.
I had not heard that before, but it makes sense. Kinda like the "Death Star" in Star Wars.
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@Lemming
A lot of people have the theory the movie Bugs are a fake threat, and are used by the government as a means of controlling the population and giving everyone an enemy to rally against.
Bugs were high iq. Purposefully letting a brain bug get captured so it can brainwash the Sky Marshall to allow the bugs to easily win. Sends shivers down my spine
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@Barney
@ILikePie5
Might have been the book Armor by John Steakley, but I think it's just an idea that pops into people's heads a lot in science fiction.
Pretty sure the Terrans in StarCraft has the same plan to use the Zerg as a threat that way, until the Zerg started killing everyone.
I mean with no technology ever shown being used, easy to view them as something easy to take advantage of, as little threat on a galactic scale.
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@ILikePie5
Bugs were high iq. Purposefully letting a brain bug get captured so it can brainwash the Sky Marshall to allow the bugs to easily win. Sends shivers down my spine
Just sent tendrils down mine!
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@Lemming
I mean with no technology ever shown being used, easy to view them as something easy to take advantage of, as little threat on a galactic scale.
Them launching asteroids at the Earth, from light years away, was just too much. I mean maybe they could aim as an asteroid already close to the Earth and nudge it, but if doing that, why not just target the Earth directly?
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@Barney
What, you mean nudge the Earth?
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@Lemming
If they were blasting asteroids near the Earth to knock them into a collision course, then I would expect they could shoot the planet directly. Even if those blasts themselves could not do the usual harm, they could knock the planet off its axis with enough of them at the right times.
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@Barney
A man can lift a rock easily, but what about a mountain.
There's also the case that maybe the asteroid tossing blasting method, needed something massive to be built in a fixed location to throws the asteroids. For instance a gigantic rail gun in space, I assume wouldn't have to be a literal giant gun, but a bunch of accelerators placed at different distances from one another, in the direction of their target.
I suppose I can understand the Bugs being able to watch the stars and track Earths path where it would be exactly.
Though it sounds like it'd take a long time for an asteroid to travel space, I'd think.
Maybe their biological computer brains could make accurate enough predictions for how much force exactly to launch an asteroid of X shape/weight and so on.
And maybe could calculate a biological blast close enough.
But distance is such a problem. A person can predicate a golf put or a pool ball, from short distance, but not so well long distances.
Tiny variables in the long term, effecting performance.
But then again, snipers seem to shoot their bullets accurately enough.
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@Lemming
For instance a gigantic rail gun in space
If they're doing that from light years away to send asteroids to the earth, it would either take light years to reach the earth, or would hit the earth faster than the speed of light.
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@Barney
Well, makes the asteroid part a suspension of disbelief I suppose.
That or it really was the human government, who launched asteroids that were closer to Earth, and blamed the Bugs.