Author Topic: Starship Troopers  (Read 13842 times)

Re: Starship Troopers
« Reply #50 on: 01 June, 2008, 03:00:21 am »
The film is just a shoot em up, albeit a highly enjoyable shoot em up. Any resemble to the book is co-incidental.

Hardly surprising, considering that Paul Verhoeven admitted to not even reading the book in it's entirety...
"He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." ~ Freidrich Neitzsche

Hummers

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Re: Starship Troopers
« Reply #51 on: 01 June, 2008, 02:53:24 pm »
I never really got this film.

And at the end, aren't they just poking a giant vagina with a stick?

No, passed me by.

H

Re: Starship Troopers
« Reply #52 on: 02 June, 2008, 09:29:40 am »
I never really got this film.

And at the end, aren't they just poking a giant vagina with a stick?

No, passed me by.

H

No, I think you got the essence of the film. Don't forget the soapy boobs in the shower. Very highbrow.  ::-)
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Jakob

Re: Starship Troopers
« Reply #53 on: 02 June, 2008, 12:33:38 pm »
I actually think he totally got the book. I know many Heinlein fans who look at the system in ST as some kind of perfect utopia and Verhooven (or his scriptwriter) twisted it slightly and suddenly it was not so nice. Sure, it's mainly just a standard shoot'm'up, but the twist on the whole federal system is very nice.

Flying_Monkey

Re: Starship Troopers
« Reply #54 on: 02 June, 2008, 01:39:41 pm »
I never really got this film.

And at the end, aren't they just poking a giant vagina with a stick?

No, passed me by.

H

No, I think you got the essence of the film. Don't forget the soapy boobs in the shower. Very highbrow.  ::-)

Satire doesn't have to be highbrow - in fact it is often very broad, and highbrow doesn't necessarily mean good or enjoyable.

And honestly, who cares if he never read the book. The book is realy not very interesting... it's hardly even that great by Heinlein's churn-em-out standards.

Really Ancien

Re: Starship Troopers
« Reply #55 on: 02 June, 2008, 01:59:56 pm »
I managed to get from Robert Heinlein to the Woodcraft Folk in two clicks via Social Credit and Kibbo Kift, two strange backwaters of 20th century history. Most educational.
As usual there is a film, in this case a 6 minute pitch for a documentary on Kibbo Kift. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/VXEt7SV1jbA&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/VXEt7SV1jbA&rel=1</a>

Damon.

Tourist Tony

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Re: Starship Troopers
« Reply #56 on: 02 June, 2008, 03:09:40 pm »
Quote
SF satire is a fairly niche genre

Orwell's '1984'?

1984 is a brilliant vison of dystopia, but I would not classify it as SF or satire.  It is surely closer to Brave New World by Aldous Huxley than Starship Troopers.
Ah, I do love the attitude exemplified by my mate Jim:
SF isn't literature. So if it's literature, it can't be SF.
Both the Huxley and the Orwell are SF.

"Iain Banks' first novel.....as 'Iain M Banks', he has also written a number of Science Fiction books"
As for Starship T, the book is excellent and Verhoeven didn't read it. Heinlein's deconstruction of the phrase "juvenile delinquent" is a classic, as well as his reply to "violence never settles anything".
The twist in the book, totally ignored by Verhoeven, is that the All-American-Blue-Eyed-Boy Johnny Rico is actually a Filipino.

Re: Starship Troopers
« Reply #57 on: 03 June, 2008, 04:38:06 pm »
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/VXEt7SV1jbA&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/VXEt7SV1jbA&rel=1</a>

Odd--the "Related Videos" on that page start with "QPawn Social Credit Party Ad," "Charging water with a singing bowl part 2" (what the...???), and "popping Christopher's cyst part 2." Who says we lack for entertainment?

The Kibbo Kift video is interesting--I've been interested in non-military alternatives to Scouting for a while now. But the video seems like another example of the problems--and ironies--you get into whenever you follow the random dictates of a Leader. (Reminds of recent online history for many of us....  :-\ )
scottclark.photoshelter.com

Re: Starship Troopers
« Reply #58 on: 04 June, 2008, 12:06:18 am »
Going slightly askew, but in a broadly similar military SF theme, has anyone else here read Gordon R. Dickson's Dorsai books (otherwise known as the Childe Cycle)?
"He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." ~ Freidrich Neitzsche