Yeah, I am really surprised Starship Troopers is rated so low too.
Starship Troops had some legit visual effects for its time. It’s fascinating and entertaining to stumble across someone who’s seen it and didn’t catch on that it was satire. It’s quotable and memorable. There were co-ed showers and grav-boosted football and psychic connections with a ferret. Do you want to know more?
I saw Napoleon and the details faded from my memory within days.
Everyone always says that it was satire, but after numerous viewings, I have never been able to figure out exactly what it is satirizing.
Propaganda, nationalism, xenophobia, the glorification of the military and of violence, fascism.
Not to mention military industrial complex and how disposable enlistees are in a war that they may have been the aggressors for, but are told they are being righteous. They make sure to show the casualties and maimings too.
See Israel/Palestine and Russia/Ukraine for current context.
It has been a bit since I last watched. Was the outpost on Planet P not founded by a religious group that insisted on colonizing the planet despite government warnings?
And then showing the terrorist bugs sucking brains for intel, only to turn around and torture the brain bug for the same. Bad when “they” do it, good and righteous when “we” do it. And the torturer of the brain bug is wearing a Nazi SS wannabe uniform.
Yeah, no satirical commentary here. /s I think we could write hundreds of lines picking out more.
Paul vehoeven, the director, was born in 1938 and witnessed the Nazis come, albeit as a child.
Off the top of my head, a big one is that most of the people living in Buenos Aires, Argentina, are blond haired and blue eyed. Argentina, being a famous refuge for Nazis post-WWII. Almost like they won in the end.
The book of the same name by Robert Heinlein, which makes the case for a “just and fair” fascist state.
Heinlein himself wasent a fascist, just a space cadet 60/70s scifi writer, but that is a theme of the book.
That isn’t the theme, and it wasn’t a fascist state in the novel. Or at least that wasn’t the intention, and we see no particularly damning evidence otherwise. Don’t get your literary interpretations from Reddit.
That said, this is a pretty good write up on it.
What it ignores is that “Johnny” Rico is actually Juan Rico, a child of Filipino immigrants to Buenes Aires. Heinlein would often write his characters to be racially ambiguous until a reveal at the end. Not that big a deal today, but consider the impact on a reader from 1960.
The “service guarantees citizenship” isn’t great, but it also is much better in the novel than the movie. The movie portrays it as control method for a military controlled society, in the novel “service” is public service.
Social workers, teachers, librarians, civil servants of all types, doctors, nurses, all earned citizenship as well, it wasn’t a facade for a military junta. Not the best (fuck the state) but there was a program like modern Germany’s year of service for people that didn’t want to go into the military.
The best way to consider Heinlein at the time was a liberal hawk. One scared of the R E D S and deeply concerned that losing the arms race would lead to the Soviets conquering the world.
If you want to speculate on what Heinlein would have been if he was born German instead, or even what would happen if you cut his liberal skin, fair enough, but he was also an anti-racist who strongly believed in democracy and was a product of a world where the threats to that democracy were Hitler and Stalin.
Yeah dude I read the book, but way to whip out “dont get your summation from reddit” to try to minimize someone’s critique of an old, and generally poor, scifi novel. A novel that did, very clearly, attempt to make a “justification” for a facist state. Was it a though experiment for Heinlein? You bet, but it still is what it is. His writing is what the movie is satirizing.
I called Heinlein a space cadet, not a fascist. If I thought he was a fascist, I would have called him one. As to the “space cadet,” aint no one writing “stranger in a strange land” without walking on moonbeams first.
Some people really need fascist states to be pinky promise not actually fascist. Or for fascist states to be good actually.
It’s too bad stuff like starship troopers and helldivers brings em out, kinda sucks the fun out of laughing at rico and co.
I understood that reference
Starship Troopers just got a massive viewership bump with the launch of Helldivers 2.
Just curious, as someone who hasn’t looked up much about it, does Helldivers 2 have the satirical themes as Starship Troopers, too? Or is it just about fighting bugs in space?
The game is about spreading Managed Democracy to protect our way of life, with tip screens like “If an alien ever attempts to engage in negotiation, SHOOT THEM. We mustn’t believe their lies,” and “Helldivers who fail an objective do not get sent to freedom camps. This is merely a dissident rumor,” and “Remember: FREEDOM!”
There’s an entire mission objective based on raising a flag while you salute it, with cameras recording it for the millions of innocent civilians back home you’re protecting with the gentle outreach of an iron fist.
While spreading peace through the galaxy, your character will shout things like “Say hello to democracy!”, “Freedom never sleeps!”, “How about a nice cup of liber-tea?!”, “How do you like the taste of FREEDOM?!”, and “You’ll never destroy our way of life!”
The PA on the ship announces things like “Every bullet fired is a freedom seed planted in the hearts of our enemies,” and “Do not think of rebels as human. If our views are alien to them, they are alien to us.”
That summary and game trailer is beautiful and hilarious lol. It totally brings me back to Starship Troopers. I want to play it even more now lol.
Yep, it’s heavily inspired by starship troopers.
Oh yeah. And you need to lean it to it. Democracy and Freedom are practically deities in the game. You’ll hear young men and women shout about democracy while commiting interplanetary war crimes, and pleading for liberty to save them when one of their limbs get blown to hell.
Omg this sounds amazing actually. I kind of want to play it now lol.
It’s excellent. Easily worth the 40 or so bucks. The community is pretty solid, although there are a lot of whiners who complain non-stop about how they can’t solo the hardest objectives on the toughest difficulty in a game designed around 4 person co-op. Honestly, the dev has been doing a great job of making all the tools viable and rewarding under the right circumstances. I find myself trying to equip for the mission and my team instead of just take “the best meta loadout”.
Starship Troopers is a good rewatch every few years. I don’t see myself ever having the desire to watch Napoleon again.
The directors cut might make it a decent movie though, just like with Kingdom of Heaven. Why they don’t just chop the movie into two parts but elect to bring out a turd followed by the complete movie a year later is anyone’s guess.
Money?
I’m so sick of this. I’m not giving you money twice just because you feel like releasing a bad version first. In fact, I’m not giving you any money if you do that.
I thought Napoleon had some hilarious shit in it. I want to drunk watch it one day
Having watched Napoleon yesterday, I’m not surprised at all. Starship Troopers is the better movie by a good margin.
honestly, i didnt like phoenix in naploeon. i seem to be in a minority with that opinion though.
why does a frenchman have an american accent?
especially when everyone else had british accents. the inconsistency bugged me throughout the film
why does a frenchman have an american accent?
Because a bad impersonation would be worse?
i would prefer better casting. there are 32 million frenchmen
Yeah, House of Gucci would like to have a word. Couldn’t even finish that movie because of the ridiculous accents.
For me the awful accents is what made the movie fun to watch
Napoleon’s first language was Italian, and he spoke French with a Corsican accent. France conquered the Corsican Republic in 1768, Napoleon was born in 1769 to a line of minor Italian nobles (not that Italy was an actual thing yet)
TL;Dr he shouldn’t have a French accent because he didn’t have one
Was the Corsican accent closer to an American accept though? Otherwise the point still stands
Then the chuckleheads would complain that they got some Italian guy to play him.
That bothered me severely in the first Wonder Woman movie. Wonder Woman and her actor friend can speak like every language, which is demonstrated on screen, but the Germans speak English. There was not so much German talk in the movie that it could not have been in German.
Sweet liberty! I would like to know more
Just as a warning, don’t watch Irish Wish.
It’s fucking awful.
A Netflix seasonal Romcom is awful?! It cannot be! (Lol, I appreciate the warning, friend!)
My wife thought it would be funny to watch Lindsey Lohan. There was only pain.
😂 😭
