Starship Troopers: Crap Satire or Just a Crap Movie?

[losingmydignity]

I'm not into satire (I prefer parody) but the obvious thing here is that satire should at least be clever.....

[oinker]

Ok yeah it sorta is, but my biggest problem is that it seems like events that span decades is condensed into a few days/weeks.  It seems like Rico graduates secondary school, enlists, go through boot, gets into a battle, gets recruited to another squad and becomes leader of that squad all inside of a few weeks!

The movie starts with their first big battle, and then when it changes to the kids in highschool there's an on-screen title saying the story is jumping backwards one year.

[Trekker4747]

Ok yeah it sorta is, but my biggest problem is that it seems like events that span decades is condensed into a few days/weeks.  It seems like Rico graduates secondary school, enlists, go through boot, gets into a battle, gets recruited to another squad and becomes leader of that squad all inside of a few weeks!

The movie starts with their first big battle, and then when it changes to the kids in highschool there's an on-screen title saying the story is jumping backwards one year.

One year is still hardly enough time at all for everything that happens (particularly career advancement) to take place and to make sense.  Richards goes from high school student to starship co-pilot inside of a year? (Not to mention Space Arena Football dude goes FASTER than that to her trainee in the same span.) Please.  Rico goes from high school student to leader of an elite gang of infantrymen in a year? Then there's the "they're just a bunch of kids" line.  I really seems like several years should have taken place during all of this.

[TheUnabeefer]

Ok yeah it sorta is, but my biggest problem is that it seems like events that span decades is condensed into a few days/weeks.  It seems like Rico graduates secondary school, enlists, go through boot, gets into a battle, gets recruited to another squad and becomes leader of that squad all inside of a few weeks!

The movie starts with their first big battle, and then when it changes to the kids in highschool there's an on-screen title saying the story is jumping backwards one year.

One year is still hardly enough time at all for everything that happens (particularly career advancement) to take place and to make sense.  Richards goes from high school student to starship co-pilot inside of a year? (Not to mention Space Arena Football dude goes FASTER than that to her trainee in the same span.) Please.  Rico goes from high school student to leader of an elite gang of infantrymen in a year? Then there's the "they're just a bunch of kids" line.  I really seems like several years should have taken place during all of this.

I think that all (including the line) were to kind of imply at how fast a person is forced to "grow up" in a war situation. They get thrown into it all without real "hands on" training (just a bunch of simulations) and the BAM... harsh reality.... and before they know it THEY are the seasoned veterans who have seen more than anyone should, and these newbies (who are in the same situation they were not so long ago) just seem like inexperienced baby-faced little kids to them now.  And now here he is saying the exact same thing to these kids that the "big bad-ass adult who's seen it all" had said to them hardly even a year prior, and all these newbies are probably seeing him in the same light he saw HIS commander.

If the movie actually had ANY statement, I'd probably say it was that.

[losingmydignity]

The aesthetic of fascism is one that makes a fetish of war, pageantry, corporal punishment (Hitler would have loved Casper's whipping scene), etc. Susan Sontag wrote that this aesthetic also contains: "the cult of beauty, the fetishism of courage, the dissolution of alienation in ecstatic feelings of community; the repudiation of the intellect; the family of man (under the parenthood of leaders)" not to mention propaganda as mentioned by someone in an earlier post.
The film does contain all these elements (in fact sounds like some contemporary Hollywood films I could think of) but to what affect?
Did I miss something? They go to war against the bugs because they invaded Buenos Aires, right? I'll be honest I almost never follow the mechanics of plot in any movie, esp. when riffed.
They were at war with the bugs because they were going to destroy the earth, right?

[RoninFox]

Has anyone read the original novel?  I've been led to understand that it was a great example of satire, and considering what I know of Robert Heinlein I don't doubt it.  This could just be filmmakers failing to deliver on the message that was already there.

That said, I always kind of liked the movie.  Never went nuts over it, just remember it being an enjoyable action flick.  After seeing the live show, I like it BETTER with riffs, but I could probably enjoy it on its own too.

[Trekker4747]

The aesthetic of fascism is one that makes a fetish of war, pageantry, corporal punishment (Hitler would have loved Casper's whipping scene), etc. Susan Sontag wrote that this aesthetic also contains: "the cult of beauty, the fetishism of courage, the dissolution of alienation in ecstatic feelings of community; the repudiation of the intellect; the family of man (under the parenthood of leaders)" not to mention propaganda as mentioned by someone in an earlier post.
The film does contain all these elements (in fact sounds like some contemporary Hollywood films I could think of) but to what affect?
Did I miss something? They go to war against the bugs because they invaded Buenos Aires, right? I'll be honest I almost never follow the mechanics of plot in any movie, esp. when riffed.
They were at war with the bugs because they were going to destroy the earth, right?

It's not entirely clear in the movie why there's any problem at all between the bugs (sometimes called arachnids, sometimes insects as if the two are interchangable) as we seem to live on opposites sides of the galaxy. I'd think there'd be A LOT of planets to invade and/or habitate in that area.

The main conflict in the movie, however, begins when the bugs send an asteroid to hit earth (I'm guessing through a wormhole or something rather than flinging a rock and letting gravity do the work for the next several eons), the asteroid hits in Buenos Aries resulting in millions (!) of deaths. Thus launching the primary  conflict in the movie.  How it all actually began (we were at "war" with them from the beginning enough to the point that education about them is taught in high school!) is not revealed, at least not clearly.

The fascism angle in the movie is one aspect I've actually liked about this movie it was well handled/done if, okay, over the top when it came to NPH and his jack-booted Nazi/SS soldier getup at the end.

[losingmydignity]

hmmmm....so battling insects turns between into fascists? Still not getting it. Maybe this is one thing I should stop thinking about.

[Raven]

There's nothing in the film that actually proves the bugs threw the asteroid in the first place, except that the propaganda movie you're watching says so.  Never read the book so I'm not sure if it was made clear that the bugs were an actual or a manufactured threat. 

I did watch this unriffed the day before the show to see what all the negative feedback on the title choice was about before hand.   Yes, it is a satire but I wouldn't say an over the top one that completely excluded it from being riffable.  Clearly that was not the case.  The end product was hilarious.

However, when you're cracking jokes the whole time the point of the original film is completely lost and trying to analyze the movie on it's own merit from watching the Rifftrax screening probably doesn't work to well in almost any case.  It's much like riffing on horror movies completely shatters any tension and almost universally makes them not scary. 

[Trekker4747]

Actually, I believe the computers on the ship almost hit by asteroid tell us where the asteroid came from not the "propaganda" reels which, by the way, are supposed to be exposition for the audience's sake so we should take them for their word.

[Raven]

I was saying that the entire movie is supposed to be a propaganda film, not just the obvious scene transitions.  The film Paul Verhoven was trying to make was basically this, using Nazi Germany as a template - Starship Troopers is a pro-war film, produced by the Nazi government.  You the viewer, is supposed to be a citizen of Germany at that time.   The propaganda's goal is to get you to join the military and attack another country and it's inhabitants.  Being a government produced film, the reason for wanting to attack the other country (they sent the asteroid) may or may not even exist.

Again, I'm not saying Paul Verhoven did this well, but that's the point he was trying to make.

[Darth Geek]

I was saying that the entire movie is supposed to be a propaganda film, not just the obvious scene transitions.  The film Paul Verhoven was trying to make was basically this, using Nazi Germany as a template - Starship Troopers is a pro-war film, produced by the Nazi government.  You the viewer, is supposed to be a citizen of Germany at that time.   The propaganda's goal is to get you to join the military and attack another country and it's inhabitants.  Being a government produced film, the reason for wanting to attack the other country (they sent the asteroid) may or may not even exist.

Again, I'm not saying Paul Verhoven did this well, but that's the point he was trying to make.

Yeah, I agree, the whole movie is the propaganda film.

Is it specified in the book whether the bugs actually sent out the asteroid that crashed into Buenos Ares?

And why couldn't a country with an intergalactic spaceforce blow up an asteroid headed for Earth before it hits?

[Raven]

And why couldn't a country with an intergalactic spaceforce blow up an asteroid headed for Earth before it hits?

No Bruce Willis?

[TheUnabeefer]

And why couldn't a country with an intergalactic spaceforce blow up an asteroid headed for Earth before it hits?

No Bruce Willis?

Janelle guffawed loudly at how stupid the asteroid looked. We agreed that the one in Armageddon looked better.

[Trekker4747]

And why couldn't a country with an intergalactic spaceforce blow up an asteroid headed for Earth before it hits?

Hey, if we use our space ships to blow up asteroids what will all of our precocious teenagers drive?

Not sure I buy into idea that the whole movie is supposed to be a "propaganda film" as I'm not sure that holds up. I only really latched onto the "Would You Like to Know More?" segments as the "propaganda."  Verhoven is a decent film maker (well, sorta) so if this was his idea I suspect it would have came across better.  If it WAS his plan, yeesh, he fumbled that space football big-time.

And, Arena Football, future. Really?!