Slashdot Mirror
Critics Reassess Starship Troopers As a Misunderstood Masterpiece
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Calum Marsh writes in The Atlantic that when Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers hit theaters 16 years ago today, American critics slammed it as a 'crazed, lurid spectacle' featuring 'raunchiness tailor-made for teen-age boys' and 'a nonstop splatterfest so devoid of taste and logic that it makes even the most brainless summer blockbuster look intelligent.' But now the reputation of the movie based on Robert Heinlein's Hugo award winning novel is beginning to improve as critics begin to recognize the film as a critique of the military-industrial complex, the jingoism of American foreign policy, and a culture that privileges reactionary violence over sensitivity and reason. 'Starship Troopers is satire, a ruthlessly funny and keenly self-aware sendup of right-wing militarism,' writes Marsh. 'The fact that it was and continues to be taken at face value speaks to the very vapidity the movie skewers.' The movie has rightfully come to be appreciated by some as an unsung masterpiece. Coming in at number 20 on Slant Magazine's list of the 100 best films of the 1990s last year, the site's Phil Coldiron described it as 'one of the greatest of all anti-imperialist films,' a parody of Hollywood form whose superficial 'badness' is central to its critique. 'That concept is stiob, which I'll crudely define as a form of parody requiring such a degree of over-identification with the subject being parodied that it becomes impossible to tell where the love for that subject ends and the parody begins,' writes Coldiron. 'If you're prepared for the rigor and intensity of Verhoeven's approach—you'll get the joke Starship Troopers is telling,' says Marsh. 'And you'll laugh.'"
The Only Good Bug is a Dead Bug.
I was surprised how well the movie tried to follow the plot of the book. But, flying across the galaxy to fight bugs with assault rifles at 10 feet? Everyone in the army looking like members of the fashion club? Where are the armored suits? Skydiving from space? Hand held nukes? (OK, they had a little bit of that). The basic training parts of the book were critical. And why did they include Doogie Howser, Gestapo? For all the teenage blood and gore in the movie, it did portray the concepts of the book fairly well.
It really took Americans 16 years to work this out? To me, the satire was brazenly obvious the moment I watched it for the first time all those years ago.
Actually, the movie was created by people who didn't appreciate the original message in the book. (At least if the wikipedia article on the movie is to be believed.)
It's always a good thing by the governments to play the left against the right because in reality it has become more of a divide and conquer strategy to make people fight each other instead of fighting the government. Just look at what public officials can get away with these days.
This is not a new argument. It was made often at the time the film came out. Anyone following rec.arts.movies at the time is very familiar with the arguments that "it's a parody" and "you hate it because you just don't get it". (Check google groups for references.) This rang hollow at the time and it still does. There are several counter-arguments: If you followed the advance information while the film was being made, you know that aspects of the film were more expensive than originally thought, and the script kept getting simplified... and simplified again... and what ended up on screen were some pretty spectacular digital bug effects (for the time) coupled with unbelievably cheesy sets, costumes, and dialog, that being all they could afford with what was left. About that time the shift to "it's a parody! Really!" started.
I saw it for free (a company perk) and wanted my money back.
One could argue there's a reason this was Ed Neumeier's last big screen script, and why Verhoeven hasn't made a Hollywood film since the turn of the century.
So, no. Just no.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
That's what is so brilliant about the movie. Henlein was a good writer and wrote some great books, but his social theories were a little odd to say the least and reflected the chauvinism of the nationalist, technocratic exceptionalism of the '50s -better living through chemistry, etc that presaged the rise of the military industrial complex and corporatism masking itself as progress.
I avoided it for 15 years then saw it late night a few months ago and thought it was both spot-on and hilarious.
-I'm just sayin'
that can only mean one thing: That the current piss being pushed out by Hollywood is really bringing the standards down. And in comparison, even turds can shine.
Give it another decade and then let's take a look at Uwe Boll movies again.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Though a far-Left Socialist in his pre-war youth, Heinlein moved firmly to the near-Libertarian right by the end of 1940-ies (he was a big proponent of government's sponsorship of space-exploration, which does not make him quite a Libertarian).
His novel asked the question, that bothered him for years — why do we bestow the franchise on every born American? His argument was that between the king having full power in a monarchy to the power being shared by all in a democracy there is a middle ground of voting rights being held only by those, who have demonstrated — through personal sacrifice — their willingness to serve the humanity (as a civil servant or a soldier). Under his plan, you'd only get to vote after retiring from the service — something the protagonist forgoes for many years by deciding to become a career officer...
Very little of this is in a movie — and it was justly derided for the omission.
But to find satire on "jingoism" and "American militarism" — however much the Atlantic's Illiberals may want to scratch that particular itch — in that movie is to give it way too much credit.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Yeah, the book was serious, as was Heinlein. The movie wasn't.
While you're harping on everyone for not recognizing Heinlein for his strong support of the military, you're missing the director of the film Paul Verhoeven(Total Recall and Robocop). He's a big satire guy. So it's not surprising he made a satirical version of a a novel he never finished reading.
I find both the novel and movie great, but they have almost nothing to do with each other.
This is pretty much what I was going to post. This whole "critique of the military-industrial complex" view fails to take into account that the bugs were an actual threat to earth.
Also, the whole "misunderstood masterpiece" bit is absurd. What little satire exists was recognized by the most famous movie critic of all time:
It doesn't really matter, since the Bugs aren't important except as props for the interminable action scenes, and as an enemy to justify the film's quasi-fascist militarism. Heinlein was of course a right-wing saberrattler, but a charming and intelligent one who wrote some of the best science fiction ever. "Starship Troopers'' proposes a society in which citizenship is earned through military service, and values are learned on the battlefield.
Heinlein intended his story for young boys, but wrote it more or less seriously. The one redeeming merit for director Paul Verhoeven's film is that by remaining faithful to Heinlein's material and period, it adds an element of sly satire. This is like the squarest but most technically advanced sci-fi movie of the 1950s, a film in which the sets and costumes look like a cross between Buck Rogers and the Archie comic books, and the characters look like they stepped out of Pepsodent ads.
Ebert still gave the film a paltry 2 out of 4 stars. Whether the director was trying to satirize Heinlein or not, it was still a pretty shabby movie.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Like Stephen Colbert--the best parody of a ludicrous position is often to just embrace it and take it 3 steps further.
Heinlein's Starship Troopers is a masterful morality play. The movie can only be seen as such by someone desperately searching for meaning that isn't really there. The fun technical wizardry of the jump suits was written out of it so the obvious CG element was lost..
So why did they bother to call it Starship Troopers? A fun movie but no trace of what was special in the original remains.
I don't understand why everyone dislikes showgirls, It is a great erotic film. In my opinion it could only be compared to wild things, it is so good. the story is nothing special, if you compare it to normal films, but it is head and shoulders above even the best porno.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Robert Heinlein was entirely serious about the message that the story delivers. That only those who serve in the military and commit violence in the name of their country should truly be considered "citizens" of the country
Not quite. His core belief was, as he put it, there's no such thing as a free lunch. You don't get to live in a free society without being required to defend it.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Also, the whole "misunderstood masterpiece" bit is absurd. What little satire exists was recognized by Roger Ebert
I had just finished reading that review and no, Ebert really missed the boat. Yes he recognized some of the message, but then says this without a hint of irony:
We smile at the satirical asides, but where's the warmth of human nature? The spark of genius or rebellion? If "Star Wars'' is humanist, "Starship Troopers'' is totalitarian.
He got it on the nose, Starship Troopers is the embodiment of totalitarianism -- that's why there is no "spark of rebellion" no "warmth of human nature" its a totalitarian society that has squashed human nature -- and yet he didn't realize it even as he was writing it.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
They weren't a threat, until we incited them to attack. IIRC, that was only quietly suggested in the movie, and easy enough to miss, but it was there.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
ugh... who DIDN'T recognize that that was what verhoeven was going for?
but it's all so FACILE and obvious and redundant. his satire had the depth of insight attained by lampooning the fact that the sun is hot. :P
yes, it's satirical... but so on the nose and idiotically shallow that it gains no mileage from it. it could only be admired for "insight" (for fuck's sake) by children or imbecile.
i should sue the guy for my eye injury sustained when his film forced me to attempt eyerolling at speeds beyond which is possible for average human beings.
the critique of the movie back then was that it was stupid. and that's still goddamn right.
robocop - brilliant
total recall - awesome
but starship troopers is fucking garbage.
I find this to be somewhat laughable. Robert Heinlein was entirely serious about the message that the story delivers. That only those who serve in the military and commit violence in the name of their country should truly be considered "citizens" of the country.
That is absolutely mistaken. Committing violence was **not** required. What was required was to put the needs of your society ahead of your personal safety. Service was not required to be military in nature. It was absolutely clear that non-military construction and labor service also fully qualified a person for citizenship. It was also clear that such construction and labor service was also hazardous and that casualties occurred. That one risked their life in order to serve, both military and non-military service.
You are supposed to watch it in 15 minute intervals.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Niven's Law: "There is a technical, literary term for those who mistake the opinions and beliefs of characters in a novel for those of the author. The term is "idiot."
I have seen no evidence that Heinlein believed that the idea of Citizenship in ST should be realized. If you can cite some credible, non-fiction source where Heinlein advocates the realization of the governmental form for found in ST, I would be most interested. I believe Heinlein was a strong believer in one realizing the existence of, and paying one's debts to society, and nothing more.
Secondly, you err in your statement re: ST "That only those who serve in the military and commit violence...." Full-Citizenship afforded one the opportunity to vote, hold elected office, and teach the high school History and Moral Philosophy course. Obtaining this required NATIONAL SERVICE of some sort, the form of which was based upon the needs of society and the aptitude and skills of the individual in question. There was ABSOLUTELY NO requirement that one serve in the military nor participate in some form of violence (war?) in the name of their country. You are incorrectly trying to tie the requirement of jingoistic beliefs with citizenship requirements in Starship Troopers. Perhaps you should go back and read it again.
Thirdly, the article is about the MOVIE by Paul Verhoeven, not Heinlein novel. The movie does indeed poke fun at jingoistic ideals, portrays a fascist government, etc. whose military intelligence service wears SS-like uniforms, has a national news service that uses heavy-handed propaganda techniques. I had not read any of the critiques of the movie upon its release, and am surprised that these obvious themes and messages weren't remarked upon.
I guess by my 'nick you can guess I'm a bit of a Heinlein fan. :-)
Maybe you too should watch the movie again then, because this point clearly open to discussion. One of the subtleties of the movie is that it doesn't directly criticize the idea of a democracy where only people who do service get to vote. If it had simply painted this system as a "bad bad dystopian" one the movie would have been a lot more black and white, and a lot more movie critics would have understood it.
Instead the authors do not make a judgement on the political system they depict. Sure there are some more or less fascist like images here and there, maybe in an effort to confuse the critics. But the system seems to work. The people who don't vote (Rico's parents) look quite well off, happy and not especially oppressed. The character who embodies the system the most - Racszak (Michael Ironside) - is arguably one of the most human and likable.
Instead the real human failure in the story is that first we start the war with the "bugs" (it's a shot that only lasts a few seconds so you have to watch carefully, when religious extremists cross the border and colonize a planet in their territory), and then we paint them as the bad guys anyway. And from the moment we are at war with them, we totally "de-humanize" them and act towards them in a quite psychopathic and sadistic way. I'd argue it would happen the exact same way in a nice non-fascist non-military-dominated universal suffrage democracy like we are supposed to have currently.
Close. You don't get to live in a free society without being required to contribute something to it. As I said elsewhere, the book was explicit about *Federal* service being a requirement for citizenship, not *military* service. He did make the distinction. He also made the distinction that the only real benefit to citizenship over being a civilian was being able to vote. The main character's father was a very successful businessman, but he was not a citizen.
Considering the way people on /. routinely blast voting it's pretty damn hypocritical to now use that as an excuse to attack the author and his book.
I must strongly disagree with the use of the word "fascist" with respect to the society portrayed in the novel Starship Troopers.
Let's look at how Wikipedia defines fascism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
None of these apply to the society portrayed in the book.
The first item: the sole means by which the government attempted to impart any point of view on the citizens was a high-school class called "History and Moral Philosophy" that was always taught by a full citizen, but which the student was not required to pass. The examples from when the protagonist took the class did debunk some of the tenets of communism, though. (Labor does not always add value. An unskilled cook can take pie dough and apples and produce a burned mess, where a skilled cook can produce a delicious dessert, so the "labor theory of value" in its simplest form is disproven by example.)
The second item: the government did not run businesses. The society operated in a free market. The amount of regulations imposed by the government was never explicitly spelled out, but my impression is that the amount of regulation was low, as discussions of business did not tend to rants about permits or bureaucratic interference.
The third one at first seems plausible, as the book is (in Heinlein's own words) intended to present lowly soldiers in a good light (as opposed to senior generals, Presidents, etc.). However, the government in the book did not promote such ideas. Instead, the government took steps to scare people off from becoming soldiers. For example, having a maimed military veteran sit outside the recruiting station and warn young people that they could get maimed like he had been. (Later, the protagonist meets this veteran again, and he is off-duty and wearing artificial limbs that look real and work about like the real thing, and the veteran's manner is completely changed; he congratulates the protagonist for choosing to serve in the infantry.)
My opinion could be slanted, as I am politically a minarchist libertarian, but the society in Starship Troopers appears to be a minarchist libertarian government. The government is relatively small and does relatively little, and what it does do seems to be mostly confined to defense and police. The common attitude among most of the population is that they want nothing to do with government, which seems unlikely if government was a major force in peoples' lives. (The protagonist's father has not earned the right to vote, and proudly tells the protagonist at one point that he is a third generation non-voter; why would he want to earn a vote? No profit in that, the time is better spent building the business.)
The described history in Starship Troopers went like this: During a time of wide-spread social upheaval, the old governments disintegrated and new ones formed. One of the new governments, mentioned as an example, used "scientific" techniques to pick who would be in charge; it failed. Eventually a bunch of military veterans banded together and began keeping some sort of peace within the area they were able to patrol, and this expanded to become a new system of government. Voting was limited to people who had served at least one term of service in the government. Service could be military but could also be anything else the government needed to have done, such as scientific research. Also, according to their laws, the government had to
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
You cannot understand the Starship Troopers movie until you realise it is all a propaganda piece.
If you think the Bugs are a threat, you have missed everything.
To understand the movie Starship Troopers it is crucial that you realise the _entire_ movie is propaganda for the Earth's military government. It is clear at the start, and the finish, but it never stops being that a propaganda show.
So nothing can be accepted at face value. Here's what we know:
1. Earth is under control of a military government (a junta)
2. Life is tough: food is rationed, the world is overpopulated
3. You can't have children (or vote) without serving in the military
4. There are dissidents / rebels / those who oppose the one-world order
To keep the population under control, the military leaders need a war. The population will accept hardships, and the excess population can be whittled down. People can be kept busy with work creating disposable goods (bombs, spaceships, uniforms), so they don't have time to think or rebel.
The Bugs are not a threat to humans. They defend themselves. They have no space flight capability. They have no means of attacking Earth. They are a manufactured threat.
Their purpose is to kill as many young people as possible. Young people are a threat to the established order (notice how _old_ the military leaders are). That is why the military strategy is so stupid. The purpose is to get people killed. Population control.
And then grieving relatives at home will continue to support the war.
Because the carnage is so great, people get promoted very quickly. Ignorant, naive young things in command, who will just follow orders.
Finally, we have the giant rocks hurled onto Earth. Bugs? Nah. That's the Earth government. Notice how the rock impacted _directly_ on to the area that was rising up against the military government on Earth?
Multiple birds killed with one (big) stone. Dissidents: vaporised. Support for war: raised amongst survivors. Population: culled. GDP boost: keep people busy rebuilding infrastructure
And THAT'S why the female 'heroine' got such a bollocking for changing course without orders. They nearly got in the way of the rock, and the ship sensors could (did!) log the source. Not the bugs. Humans.
So the sequel is the three friends: one a grunt, one an office, one an 'intellectual'. The first two miraculously survive to figure out what is really going on, go to scientist friend, who betrays them. They go on the run. Carbonite may be involved.
But in the third part, the scientist turns out to be working for them on the inside. he had to betray them to save them. But he's been collecting enough info to blow the whole conspiracy wide open.
And together the three of them overthrow the junta, bring peace and democracy, and an uneasy truce with the bugs. Maybe start some colonies. They all live happily ever after.
(Until the Bell Riots)
Recycle PCs and build a wireless community network www.hillsborough.org.nz
reflected the chauvinism of the nationalist, technocratic exceptionalism of the '50s -better living through chemistry, etc that presaged the rise of the military industrial complex and corporatism masking itself as progress.
Oh, yeah, that's Heinlein, all right, as exemplified by his very next book, Stranger in a Strange Land.
Look, Robert Heinlein was a writer of speculative fiction. The whole damn point was to extrapolate, odd consequences included. Which is why you get such radically different results (Double Star, Starship Troopers, Stranger in a Strange Land, and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, for example, all having completely incompatible takes on modern democracy) depending on what premises Heinlein was playing with at the time.
Ideally making the point to the thoughtful reader that the reader's society and that society's accepted theories, conscious and unconscious, are just as guilty of absurdities as those explored in the books. But some readers are too dense to notice that, and some are so invested in the propriety of their absurdities that they abandon all rational thought in their defensive denouncements.
Being a J1 and being a soldier and getting shot at are worlds apart when it comes to risk and sacrifice. Not in the same league in the slightest.
Being a Peace Corps volunteer serving in Afghanistan or Madagascar (I personally know people who have done both) where you are running around in places of extreme poverty and risking the potential to be shot simply by being an American.... and only armed with a stack of pamplets or the Voice of America radio broadcasts is definitely worlds apart from a soldier who has a bunch of people at his back and an arsenal of weapons at their disposal to be able to shoot back.
Which one risks their life more? Seriously?
In the movie, the instructor throws a knife through the recruit's hand, and says, "Hard to push a button now, eh?"
I get that the movie is satire. I even get that there's a lot in the book that can be fairly satirized. The problem is, the movie is lazy, unfair, incompetent satire.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!