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Linux Based HD DDR used on Starship Troopers 2
Psinatmium writes "LinuxDevices is currently running a story about a Linux based, uncompressed high definition video DDR/Editor that I have been working on called RaveHD. The article also goes on to talk a little about how it was used at Tippett Studio in the upcoming feature "Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation"."
Heinlein waxes enthusiastically about "earning citizenship" and everyone in the book has an unquestioning loyalty to the (slightly Fascist) cause.
A defining aspect of Fascism is the close cooperation between government and business that it engenders. The extreme example us Hitler supplying slave laborers to German industry, but it's also seen in Hitler's crackdown on the unions (ironically the day labor's traditional celebration, May Day, in 1934), and big business support of Nazism in the early thirties, through contacts of Goring and von Papen.
Heinlein, in the Starship Troopers novel, makes it clear that there's no real coordination between business and government: the main character, Juan Rico, comes from a wealthy, big-business owning family, which family, Juan's father makes clear has long prided itself on staying out of politics and the military. (Although after Juan Rico has joined the military and after losing his wife in an enemy attack, Juan's father will eventually join up too.)
If you must see the book as reflective of the times in which it was written, a better analogy is to America's fight against Japan in the Second World War. During the war, U.S. propaganda depicted the Japanese as an "insect-like" society with a rigid hierarchical system, with soldiers, like the Bug worker and soldier classes, who couldn't or wouldn't surrender. (and in fact, few Japanese soldiers did surrender -- and even Japanese civilians on Okinawa preferred suicide to surrender.)
The Mobile Infantry's landings and relatively brief firefights on various planets as they move steadily closer to Klendathu, the Bugs' home planet, is strongly reminiscent of the Marines' and Army's island and atoll-hopping campaign against the Japanese in that War.
Finally, the apathy shown about the military by Juan Rico's family reflects U.S. feeling about its all-volunteer army between the wars, an army that w, in the interwar years, considered essentially the preserve of people who couldn't succeed in the civilian world. (Read James Jones's From Here to Eternity for a good portrait of the U.S. Army immediately prior to WWII.)
The change in the Ricos', father and son, opinions is in accordance with the change in opinion in America as a result of the widespread American military servce required by the Second World War. With their service, americans had indeed earned their citizenship, had realized what "refresh[ing] the tree of liberty with the blood... of patriots" really is all about.
Heinlein, while respectful of the military, was consistently suspicious of government, so it's very difficult for me to see any Fascism in his works.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Doc -
I'm commenting on this topic late, so no one will ever read this except maybe you. But it is gratifying to know that at least one other person can look at the movie and say "Taken at face value, it sucks. Oh, it's satire, you say? Well as satire, it *also* sucks."
It has been noted many times that a work of satire cannot be too close to the thing it is satirizing, or it will simple *become* that thing. As far as I am concerned, Exhibit A would be this movie.
In fact, the last time I saw it, I remember thinking "I honestly cannot remember a movie that was more of a sneering insult from the director to his audience."
- Alaska Jack