'How We Made Starship Troopers' (theguardian.com)

The Guardian quotes Paul Verhoeven, the director of Starship Troopers: Robert Heinlein's original 1959 science-fiction novel was militaristic, if not fascistic. So I decided to make a movie about fascists who aren't aware of their fascism... I was looking for the prototype of blond, white and arrogant, and Casper Van Dien was so close to the images I remembered from Leni Riefenstahl's films. I borrowed from Triumph of the Will in the parody propaganda reel that opens the film, too. I was using Riefenstahl to point out, or so I thought, that these heroes and heroines were straight out of Nazi propaganda...

With a title like Starship Troopers, people were expecting a new Star Wars. They got that, but not really: it stuck in your throat. It said: "Here are your heroes and your heroines, but by the way -- they're fascists."
The actors weren't even clear on what the giant arachnids would look like, since their "Bug" battles were filmed entirely with green screens, remembers one of the movie's stars, Denise Richards. Instead Verhoeven "would be there jumping up and down with a broom in the air so we would have a sense of how big they were."

Verhoeven told one interviewer that he never actually read Robert Heinlein's original book. "I stopped after two chapters because it was so boring. It is really quite a bad book."

Comments

Oh... Verhoeven conveyed it JUST FINE.

[denzacar]

Particularly the fascist parts.

Major Reid paused to touch the face of an old-fashioned watch, "reading" its hands.
"The period is almost over and we have yet to determine the moral reason for our success in governing ourselves.
Now continued success is never a matter of chance. Bear in mind that this is science, not wishful thinking; the universe is what it is, not what we want it to be.
To vote is to wield authority; it is the supreme authority from which all other authority derives - such as mine to make your lives miserable once a day.
Force, if you will! - the franchise is force, naked and raw, the Power of the Rods and the Ax. Whether it is exerted by ten men or by ten billion, political authority is force."

"But this universe consists of paired dualities. What is the converse of authority? Mr. Rico."
He had picked one I could answer. "Responsibility, sir."

"Applause. Both for practical reasons and for mathematically verifiable moral reasons, authority and responsibility must be equal - else a balancing takes place as surely as current flows between points of unequal potential.
To permit irresponsible authority is to sow disaster; to hold a man responsible for anything he does not control is to behave with blind idiocy.
The unlimited democracies were unstable because their citizens were not responsible for the fashion in which they exerted their sovereign authority... other than through the tragic logic of history.
The unique 'poll tax' that we must pay was unheard of.
No attempt was made to determine whether a voter was socially responsible to the extent of his literally unlimited authority.
If he voted the impossible, the disastrous possible happened instead - and responsibility was then forced on him willy-nilly and destroyed both him and his foundationless temple."

It's a militarist-fascist masturbatory fantasy where uniform and a gun will give you a new family, make you a "real man", earn you the love and respect of both your father AND your superiors and even give you a new, bigger, stronger body.
It's almost as if Heinlein was being groomed for the military "glory" but "washed out" cause he was "weak" and had to ride a desk when the war finally came.

Re:Oh... Verhoeven conveyed it JUST FINE.

[denzacar]

Oh look!
Snowflakes who can't bother reading their fascist jerkoff material get upset when faced with actual fascist lines from said material. Boohoo. Saddey. Cryye. :''(
So they try to block the reality. Poor snowflakes. So stupid and pathetic.
Losing their cool over a line of text cause they only like BEING FASCIST - not being called fascist.

Anyway... through the power of copy and paste the balance is restored yet again. BEHOLD!

Oh... Verhoeven conveyed it JUST FINE. Particularly the fascist parts.

Major Reid paused to touch the face of an old-fashioned watch, "reading" its hands.
"The period is almost over and we have yet to determine the moral reason for our success in governing ourselves.
Now continued success is never a matter of chance. Bear in mind that this is science, not wishful thinking; the universe is what it is, not what we want it to be.
To vote is to wield authority; it is the supreme authority from which all other authority derives - such as mine to make your lives miserable once a day.
Force, if you will! - the franchise is force, naked and raw, the Power of the Rods and the Ax. Whether it is exerted by ten men or by ten billion, political authority is force."

"But this universe consists of paired dualities. What is the converse of authority? Mr. Rico."
He had picked one I could answer. "Responsibility, sir."

"Applause. Both for practical reasons and for mathematically verifiable moral reasons, authority and responsibility must be equal - else a balancing takes place as surely as current flows between points of unequal potential.
To permit irresponsible authority is to sow disaster; to hold a man responsible for anything he does not control is to behave with blind idiocy.
The unlimited democracies were unstable because their citizens were not responsible for the fashion in which they exerted their sovereign authority... other than through the tragic logic of history.
The unique 'poll tax' that we must pay was unheard of.
No attempt was made to determine whether a voter was socially responsible to the extent of his literally unlimited authority.
If he voted the impossible, the disastrous possible happened instead - and responsibility was then forced on him willy-nilly and destroyed both him and his foundationless temple."

It's a militarist-fascist masturbatory fantasy where uniform and a gun will give you a new family, make you a "real man", earn you the love and respect of both your father AND your superiors and even give you a new, bigger, stronger body.
It's almost as if Heinlein was being groomed for the military "glory" but "washed out" cause he was "weak" and had to ride a desk when the war finally came.

Re:Their society is elitist liberal not facscist

[Uberbah]

Conformance was only required during service. After service no conformance was required, an enfranchised citizen was free to believe and vote however they cared to.

Yes, nevermind the indoctrination they would have went through in said service, which starts out by deliberately breaking them down as individuals and rebuilding them into literal tools. So what if a handful of them become peacenicks after their service - not only will they be in a minority, they'll have a reflexive desire to "support the troops" since they were one.

Verhoeven also injects racism where there is none, again part of his agenda that has nothing to do with the actual book. John Rico, aka Juan Rico, is not white, not an "aryan", he is of Philippine descent if I remember correct.

That's not racism. And the United States was perfectly happy to draft minorities to fight and die in Korea and Vietnam, only for them to return home to a viciously racist society.

Re: Back to full fascism with the Dims

[mapkinase]

No. Thay is not how we get Hitler. We got Hitler by humiliating the proud country with a great history by post war robbery.

That's how you got Hitler.