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Review : Starship Troopers DVD
Last week I picked up a DVD of the movie Starship Troopers from Wal-mart for 10 bucks. This movie is not just a science fiction story about a war with giant bugs. This is a damn fine sci-fi action movie but the director and writer was making a profound social and political statement.
War makes fascists of us all.
The director Paul Verhoeven is Dutch and he was a young boy when the Nazis occupied his country. It was one of the main influences on him when making this movie. He starts the commentary track of the DVD stating that he was misunderstood by movie critics. He is overwhelmingly anti-fascist and the Nazi like imagery and thought in this movie is in no way an endorsement. The director says that some of his more liberal friends would call his previous sci-fi movies such as Robocop "fascist". So he wanted to make a movie that was blatantly fascist and comment on the mixture of entertainment and propaganda. The script was based on Robert Heinlein's controversial book Starship Troopers. The book was a Sci-fi commentary on war and the movie was designed speak to the post Cold War Americans as sole superpower of the world.
Paul Verhoeven's vision is influenced by war-time propaganda films of World War 2 from both the US and Germany. The story follows five high school seniors who join the military before war breaks out.
There is Johnny our hero who joins the Mobile Infantry to prove himself worthy to Carmen.
Carmen is Johnny's girlfriend who is a bit of a flirt and is hell bent of joining the Space Fleet.
Zander is the rival guy who is joining fleet and is hot to get it on with Carmen.
Dizzy is a very strong young woman who joins the Mobile Infantry so she can be with Johnny
Last but not least there is Doogie Houser.. I mean Niel Patrick Harris who joins Military Intel.
The kids are sort of listless in high school. Then they join the military after graduation for a number of reasons. Not all of them are logical. Johnny joins because Carmen is sort of pressuring him to join. She joins the Navy and he is sent to the Mobile Infantry Boot Camp. I don't want to give too much away about the plot because then it would totally ruin it for those who have not seen this movie.
It is set in a unified earth where the American culture dominated the world. The world is united under this iron fisted eagle rule of the military leaders. There is no Stars and Stripes in the entire movie nor is there any mention of existing countries but the dominant culture and racial break down is un-mistakingly American.
The society and military that they portray is totally gender and racially neutral including female combat troops, officers and unisex barracks with showers. The leader of the world is the Sky Marshall and a white male leader is replaced by a black female officer.
In the military run society there are two classes of people. Civilians and citizens. It is only after people have served in the military that they can become citizens and can vote and hold important offices. You need a permit to have kids and it is much easier to get the proper forms if you are a citizen. Only the very wealthy can survive in the culture without serving in the military. One does not have to serve to prove themselves to society if they have enough in the bank. Most of the citizens in this society who have done their duty in the Federal Services have been horribly scarred and are missing a limb or are injured in some way. The social structure is not laid out to the viewer in one long speech but it hits the ground running and the viewer learns more about the culture as the movie progresses. You really have to pay attention to pick up the nuances of this American like militaristic society. Damn this movie is subversive.
The director uses a fake government propaganda news network as a cinematic device to quickly educate the viewer about this world. It is a combination of "Why We Fight" and Fox News.
The enemy is a faceless insect enemy that is assumed that they will be easily defeated and there is no moral qualms about going into the bugs territory and killing each and every one of them.
The war started when Mormon extremists ventured into the bug quarantine zone and established a colony. The bugs killed the colonists and retaliated by sending a asteroid to earth destroying Buenos Aires the home of our heroes. ( They don't really explain why everyone is white and American in South America now but perhaps that is yet another message from the director. ) The similarities to September 11th are shocking and there is no way in hell that this movie would get air time today. I am actually surprised that this film has not been pulled by the movie companies. They wanted to show that despite the bug army being ferocious they are not pure evil and humanity takes some blame for the war. It is after the destruction of the city that the questionable genocidal war is justified by the world and to the audience.
God am I the only one who thinks that this is just a slightly freaky and prophetic?
The director is not saying that the US is currently a fascist society. He is saying that any society could easily become a fascist society and we pretend to be intellectually beyond the need for war but deep down we are a war loving nation. The director and writer shows the audience this bizarre neo fascist propaganda film that switches between gung ho and horrific and then once the film is over nudges the audience and asked if they should really be enjoying this.
This movie was made after Gulf War 1 but it has profound lessons for a post September 11th world. The jabs at militarism in our culture would never get made by a major director would never get away with from a Hollywood media conglomerate in the super reactive post September 11th world.
A questionable war they are fighting over several desolate rocks in space. But is the war in Starship Troopers a justified genocide? The human armies are going into the native worlds of the bugs and attempting to wipe them all out. The idea that "Live and let live" is shouted down and replaced by "Kill Them Al"l!!
The acting is sort of intentionally bad in places as they quote the party line at the end. It is a bit far fetched and sappy at times but it is good in a popcorn eating action movie kind of way. Think of it as B-movie acting with A-movie special effects.
Ah yes then there is Carmen the slut. There is a feminist love triangle that contained a mature strong female who could date these two guys and follow her career and ultimately she is hated universally by the audience. The director did not expect that the act of her not remaining true to the hero was a fatal flaw and in test screenings men and women from all walks of life started to hate this character.
After test screening there was a lot of viewer feedback that was simply "The slut should have died"!
The action is gory leaves you awestruck. The viewer is quickly flipped from enjoying the good Hollywood action and then horrified by the surreal amount of gore and violence that would make Stanley Kurbrick a little queasy. The special effects are on par with any computer graphic heavy action pop corn movie. The arachnid army is just as impressive as anything from George Lucas.
Why this movie did not do well?
People did not expect the gore and did not understand the social political commentary. The really dark black comedy did not get absorbed my the crowd who was expecting a brainless action movie and people hated the female lead Carmen for the fact that she did not remain true to our hero. The social intellectuals snubbed it because it was too much a action movie and critics did not get the fact that they were making an anti-fascist statement. It broke even on video and DVD but it lost 50 mil at the theater when the ticket sales dropped off after the bad reviews.
This was the normal one disk DVD and it had a very animated director commentary track and the picture and sounds quality was perfect.
If you like action movies and you don't want to think than this is a good DVD for you. If you like to think about the deeper profound social political intentions of the film maker than this is a DVD for you. But if you like to see armies of Space Nazis fight giant computer generated killer insects creatures than this is a DVD for you.
Jake at June 16, 2003 
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Comments
Just reading your review and the comments about a questionable war and the questions that raises bought to my mind a book I read a while back.
The book is called 'Enders Game' by Orson Scott Card. In it Ender is the earths last chance at a defence against an invading force of 'buggers' (The aliens).
Thats all I can say without ruining the ending, but its a nice parallel to Starship Troopers once you get into it and think about the last quarter of the book, bearing in mind Im talking about questionable wars.
Anyway, good read, sort of related to this. If you havnt read it yet, I suggest you do. Even if you have I suggest you read it again because you'll pick up on a lot more. I know I did.
Posted by: Cydewinder at June 16, 2003 3:22 AM
I agree this is an overlooked gem and I couldn't understand why critics misunderstood the obvious message of this film.
As far as Carmen goes...yes, I agree. I hated her character when I saw this movie the first time but when I saw the deleted scenes on the DVD, it totally changes your mind about her and makes you realize a little more why she acts the way she does and she doesn't come off like such a cold hearted bitch. It shows why she is has such tunnel vision about joining the military because that's the only way she can get citizenship. And also, she is shown to have more feeling for Johnny than is shown in the regular cut of the move.
I don't understand why the scenes were deleted as it would have humanized her a lot more. Maybe she pissed off the director or something.
Posted by: G at June 16, 2003 5:30 AM
The movie blew bubbling chunks of green pus compared to the book. The political commentary in the movie was horribly washed-over compared to the book. One day, somebody will make the "real" version of Starship Troopers. Until then, we're stuck with something akin to the Rankin-Bass rendition of "Lord of the Rings"
And, Cydewinder, yes, "Ender's Game" rocked (the follow-on books in that series, however, also blew green chunks)
Posted by: David Weller at June 18, 2003 10:56 PM
If you post a URL your email is not displayed on the site and goes directly into my database. If you don't want to use a real one use a hotmail account.
Every time a movie is made that is based on a sci-fi book, TV show, comic book or video game there are fans who are upset that it does not match their vision of the material. I know that Bladerunner is not Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep but I love both of them. I love the Lord of the Ring movie even though there is no Tom Barbadil.
Posted by: Jake at June 19, 2003 12:54 AM
Excuse me, that's Tom BarbaSOL. He was named after the shaving cream, a curious bit of unoriginality on Tolkien's part. He was also keen to keep the character's true meaning a secret; when someone once asked him who Tom Barbasol was supposed to be, Tolkien merely looked at the man quizically and said, "Huh?"
And David, someone already made the "real" version of Starship Troopers, based more closely on the book; it was a short-lived CG animation series on Sci-Fi with really cool theme music. Maybe someone's got the episodes on Kazaa, or something.
Posted by: Evilninja at June 19, 2003 3:09 PM
