[Just your average movie goer]

I watched this film a few years ago at the cinema and I thought it was pretty damn awful. I enjoyed the gratuitous nudity in the co-ed shower scenes but that was about it.

Starship Troopers is about.... what exactly.... um... a bunch of guys and girls sign up for Earth's army and navy to defend our world against... wait for it... some giant coachroaches incapable of space flight.

The movie starts in a South American country with a South American guy as our main character. For some reason, he has short blonde hair, blue eyes, a very square jaw and looks about as Aryan as you can get. I'll let that slide because the movie has enough problems already.

This guy goes to mobile infantry training while his girlfriend - all smiles and no lines Denise Richards - goes to the navy.

There is a really terrible scene in which our main character is found at fault for a fatal accident during training - never mind the fact that this was caused by the idiots in charge for setting up such dangerous training situations in the first place... the army isn't very safety conscious in this movie... anyway, the main character is brutally flogged for this. Flogged, I tell you!

Now I don't want to harp on about this too much but I can live quite happily without EVER seeing anothing flogging scene. If I see a flogging scene in something, I never view it again. It's that simple.

I also have this strange belief that if a movie is a science fiction movie, then I should be able to watch it, very secure in the knowledge that there is no possible way that my movie going experience will be tarnished by a flogging scene.

This isn't a movie about freakin' pirates or the English navy during the 1700s - whoever directed this bomb should learn a little bit more about science fiction.

But this is not the only way in which the armies of the future are backwards. The navy ships fire lasers and these ships can travel to very distant worlds. And the infantry.... still use freakin' machine guns. For crying out loud!

It makes me think the director has never even SEEN a science fiction movie.


Anyway, on with the story (or what subsitutes for one) - Earth's army goes to a distant planet where the ships are attacked by giant beetles that shoot enormous lasers out of their asses.

No, that was not a typing error. That was what actually happens in the movie.

Don't ask - there is no rhyme or reason in any of this.

Then we go to the adventures of the infantry on the planet's surface as they do battle with an endless supply of CGI coachroaches that were left over from Men In Black.

This is where we get to the most stupid parts of the movie. Every single soldier is dying, almost, being picked off at a rate of one a second - while they fire their short machine gun rounds at the endless supply of attackers.

However, every now and then, one of them sticks something called a nuke in a handheld cannon and just totally annihilates every coachroach in a 10 mile radius into oblivion.

It's fantastic.

But then for no reason (and there is NO reason given in the film), they don't use them when they are really getting their asses kicked.

On numerous occasions, we watch as Earth's soldiers are picked off one by one by an endless line of coachroaches and not once during any of these really hard times, does anybody think "Gee... now might be a really good time to use one of the nukes." Idiots.

We then watch as everyone except the main guy and Denise Richards are dismembered by bugs or have a hole drilled in their head by bugs or something else... by bugs... and then at the end of it, the main character's drill sergeant (who seems too much of an uneducated block head to do this).... captures a big bug...

... and hey, this is the end of the movie.

I don't know why but the writers seem to think this is as good enough end for the war as we're going to get. Well, if it stops a bunch of giant insects with no technology, who are incapable of space flight, from invading our planet... then that's fine with me.

Really, what a mess.

I heard sometime afterwards that apparently, this movie was meant to be a comedy. I did try to think about its merits in light of that fact, but I my mind still came up blank.

[looktothesky]

I watched this film a few years ago at the cinema and I thought it was pretty damn awful. I enjoyed the gratuitous nudity in the co-ed shower scenes but that was about it.

I stopped reading up to here.

Don't make "intelligent" comments about a movie when these scenes grabbed your MOST attention. I am not defending this movie, because I found it very awful as well, but writing entire movie summaries as a post just doesn't work for me...

[Rory]

Now I don't want to harp on about this too much but I can live quite happily without EVER seeing anothing flogging scene. If I see a flogging scene in something, I never view it again. It's that simple.

Actually, the thing that made the novel, Star Ship Troopers, so interesting and fun, was that it explored and fleshed out a world built around corporal punishment. The military's purpose was not for defense or for conquering the galaxy. Essentially, the military's main job was to "punish" other civilisations for not cooperating.

So, in that sense, the flogging scene was one of the most appropriate scenes in the entire movie. Now granted, they totally totally fucked it up by messing with the theme of the movie, and making what led up to the flogging scene really silly, but if the movie had been, say, a lot more like the book, the flogging scene would have fit nicely.

This isn't a movie about freakin' pirates or the English navy during the 1700s - whoever directed this bomb should learn a little bit more about science fiction.

I would really reccomend that you read Star Ship Troopers. It almost convinces you that corporal punishment is a good idea, and is definetly a good science fiction novel. And its a perfect justification for why there are still high tech soldiers who fly around in battle suits, blowing buildings up, and generally causing havock. (including really silly psychological warfare)

[Just your average movie goer]

I'll keep my eye out for the book.

Look to the Sky, if you don't like reading these posts so much, why do you bother replying to them? That's a waste of both our time.

[looktothesky]

Look to the Sky, if you don't like reading these posts so much, why do you bother replying to them? That's a waste of both our time.

But isn't wasting time fun?
I just was curious about this section since I haven't been here in a while, and this was the first post I looked at. The End. I'll stop bothering you... here at least. Mwaaa haha.

[Vwing]

Damn you Rory!! You said literally everything I was going to say to JYAMG about Starship Troopers. Nice to see another Heinlein fan though. Yeah, what was so great about him was that he could write a book like Stranger in a Strange Land, which was SO liberal, and then completely switch gears and write a military-state book like Starship Troopers, and yet in both cases, make what he was writing about seem right. That's showing a true intellectual, someone who is neither liberal nor conservative, but realizes that there is a time for each, a time for war and a time for peace. He really was great.

Oh and I never saw the movie, so I can't comment. But Rory's right, really good book, and from what I've heard, not anything like the movie. Also, read Stranger in a Strange Land if you haven't, and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

[Just your average movie goer]

Just wondering - is there anyone who's actually seen the movie and can give a convincing reason why the idiots didn't use their nukes when they actually really needed them?

[Just your average movie goer]

Okay, I was pretty disappointed by the lame response to this Grill a Move. [/I]Look to the Sky initially thought I was a unintelligent misogynist because I said the only thing enjoyable in the particular film was gratuitous nudity and a few of you responded by telling me about the merits of the book on which the film was based - whereas no-one has really mentioned the film, whether to defend it or grill it.

Disappointing... honestly speaking. If anyone would like to actually defend the FILM (not the book), then put your posts up and I'll gladly read them. Otherwise, I'm not going to bother with this particular thread any more.

The next [I]Grill a Movie thread will be a movie you have all seen and I think probably ALL of you will love this film and come rushing to defend it from me.... Terminator 2.

I look forward to a lively debate.

[civilian_number_two]

Two separate reasons why STARSHIP TROOPERS is not as lame as you make out:

1) Heinleins' novel was an anlogue to the Imperialism of the United States and the history of World War II. The movie begins, as you say, with a bunch of white Americans in Buenos Aires, much like WWII began for the US with an attack on a distant US protectorate in the middle of the Pacific. The goverment takes this as a pretext for war, launches a propoganda campaign, and advances its goal of militarizing space. Young punks sign up and die, and in the end new territories are captured for Earth. Which Heinlein meant to be the US. Why, in the future, is combact close-quartered and grizzly? Because that's what happened in WWII.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, incidentally, was modelled after the Revolutionary war, and Stranger in a Strange Land after the free love movement, the Moonies, every wet dream Heinlein ever had.

2) Unintentionally, STARSHIP TROOPERS is a perfect analogue to the adventures of Archie Andrews. Casper Van Dien is Archie, Denise Richards is Veronica, Dina Myer is Betty (in look and character, since she offers to fuck Rico, which the rich navy bitch never even considers, despite actually being his girlfriend). Jake Busey is Jughead, the guy who dies in training is Moose, and the girl who accidentally kills him is clearly an underused Midge. Rich navy brat who moves in on Rico's girlfriend is Reggie, and of course little Doogie Howser is Dilton Doiley. There is even a dance scene where a band plays a lame Bowie cover (they even change the lyrics), and this band is quite clearly Josie and the Pussycats.

Seen in this light you'll have to agree that STARSHIP TROOPERS is one of the greatest films ever made.

[Just your average movie goer]

Archie in Space, hey? Interesting point you raised... still not sure if it can save the movie.

And the novel? I appreciate that the novel may be great but that's not the point. The movie has to stand on its own two legs and frankly, it doesn't do a good job of it.

[Jordan]

When was the novel written?

This movie is EXACTLY like the hit bilzzard production of STARCRAFT http://www.blizzard.com/starcraft/


Minus the protoss alien race, the bugs are the zerg, and the humans are like the terrans.

Even the videos between campaigns for the humans are identical to those commerial breaks that apper in the movie.

The brain bug is called the overmind in the game etc etc....


It was a great game, it came out in 1995 I think.

[civilian_number_two]

Agreed, agreed, jyamg. Maybe my sarcasm wasn't obvious. I found ST a bore, a giant Clearasil commercial with explosions and boobies.

The chief reason not to have made STARSHIP TROOPERS is that everything that was good about it had already been cribbed by James Cameron for ALIENS.

[barend]

When was the novel written?

This movie is EXACTLY like the hit bilzzard production of STARCRAFT http://www.blizzard.com/starcraft/


Minus the protoss alien race, the bugs are the zerg, and the humans are like the terrans.

Even the videos between campaigns for the humans are identical to those commerial breaks that apper in the movie.

The brain bug is called the overmind in the game etc etc....


It was a great game, it came out in 1995 I think.

i'm glad someone else finnally noticed this... I've been pushing this for a while.

i also thought in AOTC, one of the creatures was a little zergesque, and the other looked like diablo. a total blizzardfest!!!

and Event Horizon is pretty much the story leading up to DOOM and QUAKE.

[Heccubus]

I enjoyed Starship Troopers. I also enjoyed "Roughnecks" the CGI cartoon based on it. I don't know why, they just entertain me. And since the first time I saw the movie was on TV with the nudity cut out, I'm pretty sure that wasn't it. I just heard there was nudity, so I rented it shortly thereafter.

[Jordan]

i'm glad someone else finnally noticed this... I've been pushing this for a while.

i also thought in AOTC, one of the creatures was a little zergesque, and the other looked like diablo. a total blizzardfest!!!

and Event Horizon is pretty much the story leading up to DOOM and QUAKE.

Could it be that movies nowadays are adaptations from Video games? Oh for the love of ...

I found ST a bore, a giant Clearasil commercial with explosions and boobies.

If you're refering to the near perfect facial complextions of the cast members, then yes I fully agree. The smears of blood and ash on their faces even look sqeaky clean.

And as for the boobies comment. The only tits I saw were DIZZIES. And I must say, they were really unattractive looking. Rico's butt in the shower scene was also a good laugh. It looked as if Rico's ass was buffed and polished with diamond paste, then finally sanded over with 120 grit paper to give it that shiny plastic coating appeal. Not to mention his walk was so unatural, it just screamed "look at my tight ass".

The movie was kind of fun, but more stupid than anything. The bugs tore people apart in a comical fashion, and the end scene were reggie gets his brains sucked out was just plane dumb.

Doogie Howser could have not been worse for that role. DIZZIE was a terrible actress. And that stupid line they hollar prior to combat "do you guys wanna live for ever?????" No Rico, we want to be torn limb from limb in a hysterical fashion, by a stupid CG bug that was pilfered from a hit computer game.

This movie ranks next to Fast and the Furious, Boiler Room, and Romeo Must Die.

These movies make me sick, and it saddens me to see such filth be graced upon the silver screen when more deserving scripts (and you know they're out there) or over looked.

I liken it to William Hung getting a record deal. Makes me sick

This post has been edited by Jordan: 18 May 2004 - 01:24 AM