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Comment by simonh | Hacker News Reader

Then there's Starship Troopers, another Verhoeven masterpiece of layered meaning and interpretation. On the surface it's a jingoistic pro-military recruitment poster as movie, full of shallow facile characters. But oh boy, if you read between the lines there's no bottom to how deep that movie goes.

Also both movies have Michael Ironside, which is always a plus.

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I watched it as a child and I wanted to kill bugs too. Then I watched it again as an adult and realized “holy shit, I would have been a fascist. Like all people, I too have that capacity.”

It was a seriously enlightening moment. A satire subtle enough that I could see both sides of it at different periods of my life.

I loved Ender's Game[0] for the tight story line coupled with well place special effects and the crucial moment of empathy Ender Wiggin shows for the Formics. Its a pity that chances of a sequel are pretty low.

[0]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1731141/

If you've read the book, the movie is a supreme disappointment. Such good stuff in the book that disappears in the movie.

Book is masterpiece! So many things, plot twists and characters.

Movie is cut-down version of book to fill in 90 mins.

Another example of supreme disappointment is "Battlefield Earth" movie. If you're fan of a book - don't watch it!

And Ender’s Shadow, a different perspective of what happened in the first book

There is a book by Norman Spinrad called « The iron dream » which can make everyone realizes how easy it can be to not spot extremist and fascist views. For those who don’t know it, it is basically a book within a book, as if in a parallel universe, Hitler had emigrated to the US and become a fantasy writer instead of what happened in our timeline. But of course, his ideas still are present in his novel you read and you read that from the perspective of the hero of the book as he slaughters and « defends » himself and the civilisation from what he feels are attacks from inferior species. The kind of books that forces you to question yourself and how you receive entertainement, News, and how you filter and analyze that, or not, before being influenced by it.

I'd recommend another Verhoeven film, Robocop, over Starship Troopers.

And as far as sci-fi movies which are deeper than one might expect, I'd also recommend the original Planet of the Apes and its early sequels.

I read an internet review of Starship Troopers so good that it made me go and watch that (terrible) film again.

Took me a few minutes on DDG, but enjoy: https://agapow.net/misc/humour/starship-troopers-a-review/

That's awesome, you can lead a horse to water...

Since the reviewer mentioned it, the fact the characters all come from Buenos Aires is one of my favourite things about the movie. I've mentioned this a few times in conversation with people about the move, and they flat out didn't believe me. Their brains just didn't parse it, or what the implications are at all, because it's just there. It's never called out, or explained, or made a point.

There are two sequels and the first is really bad. None of the implied critique, just a straight cheesy SF action C-grade. The third film is actually worth a watch IMHO. It's still nowhere near the level of the original, but it's fun to see Van Dien kicking ass and taking names.

What's the implication if Buenos Aires?

It's completely indistinguishable from a generic Californian city. The language, culture, it's all utterly homogenous and generic. Not even a trace of anything that made Latin America distinctive is left. That's just how the world is, everything that makes a place or culture unique has been paved over

How did that happen? Why? No explanation, no hidden references, no hand-holding to any possible conclusion, no reference to the cost of a social change so complete. Unless you actively engage and critically think through what you are seeing and it's implications, you would never know.

In the hands of any other director it could just be laziness. Oh look, he's set it in Argentina, but they're all just like American kids. He couldn't even be bothered to include any local references. He could have at least hired local talent right? Taken advantage of the setting? But no, the fact the setting is this way is the actual point.

Ok, that's what I figured. Wasn't sure if there was something deeper and yet obvious that I was missing.

I always assumed the Federation is a future fascist America which had taken over the world and homogenized it.

That's one possibility, another I've considered is it's just a linear extrapolation of the trend towards global homogenisation, extended arbitrarily into the future. So either it's a critique of their political system (very likely) or it's a pessimistic take on our innate laziness and tendency to conformity. Or both. Overall it another marker for how unutterably shallow and awful all these people and their society are.

Then you'd read Verhoeven's intent correctly. Heinlein was an unabashed fascist and nationalist, and Verhoeven gave him his future fantasy exactly as he intended it (military glorification, unification, responsibility to the state as the highest virtue), and white-washing away any implications of that life.

A fascist? "Responsibility to the state as the highest virtue"? Are you sure you're thinking of the right guy?

I don't believe Heinlein was a fascist at all, but he's hard to pigeon hole. He was a radical libertarian, yet believed that a benign military world government was possible and even desirable. Well, a military world government sounds petty close to fascism, but he somehow thought that this would be the best way to guarantee individual liberties.

So his goals were libertarian, but I can't help thinking his intended means to achieve them would wind up, er, not doing so at all even slightly.

I think the backlash to describing Heinlein as "fascist" says more about the average person's understanding of real-life fascism than anything. I get the impression most people just replace the word with "evil" in their head rather than considering it on its merits and understanding what his thoughts on it were. There's often an implicit unstated argument there, like "X author is fascist, fascism is evil, therefore X author is evil, therefore you should not read their books", which seems a little more extreme than is warranted.

On that note, Heinlein wrote all sorts of weird, contrarian themes into his books. Many of them pushed against the prevailing social norms and beliefs of the time, from sexual norms to ethics to race relations. Trying to pin down his actual beliefs is difficult because he would often write one book taking one stance on an issue, and another later with a totally contrary stance. Often when I read Heinlein I find myself strongly disagreeing with what he's putting down, but fascinated with the question or angle being posed/presented.

You and I (as an uncle reply) overlapped in flight. I agree with what you're saying, but I think that even before getting to that, the word "fascism" has lost any precise definition. As far as I can tell, it can no longer be interpreted to mean anything more specific than "politics that I disagree with".

And then, of course, your comment about people being unwilling to even consider the thoughts of those they disagree with steps in.

Sometime over the past several years we seem to have discarded any specific definition of the word "fascist". All we're left with is just "somebody whose politics I disagree with".

You might not be aware Verhoeven never read the book. Have you?

I think it's unrealistic to suggest Verhoeven had anything subtle in mind. He had a line he wanted to spout, and he did it.

I've always thought about it like the Giant Spider: https://www.theringer.com/movies/2019/6/28/18761548/wild-wil...

Director wanted a thing, and the subject matter fit was irrelevant. shrug. I call it "Bug Wars", and as such it's a well animated B movie.

That’s a pretty dismissive critique of Heinlein. He was a complex individual who went through an evolution of sorts during an interesting period of history. We’re not talking some circa 2020 Facebook political figure.

There are alot of people who made the transition from a socialist to a more right wing position. It’s important context that many of the thinkers of that day didn’t have the benefit of seeing the future… the prospect of nuclear conflict was very real and had an outsized impact on people who were aware of what was actually going on.

His isn’t necessarily a worldview I subscribe to, but isn’t worthy of being dismissive about.

I think you're reading too much into it. They're from Buenos Aires because in the novel Rico is a Latino guy from Buenos Aires and the movie wanted all the characters to have gone to school together, therefore they're all from Buenos Aires. Verhoeven is not a Heinlein fan and says he didn't even read the book before making the movie.

This is the kind of thing I think of 80% of movie rabbit holes people get into… Often the explanations are plain and unglamorous. But of course everyone is free to interpret what they want from the end result - just maybe not adscribe it to the creator’s original intent.

Fortunately the creators have been asked what their intent was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QotxGy4CKk

Thanks! Here's where they talk about Buenos Aires (10m): https://youtu.be/0QotxGy4CKk?t=600

It's not totally clear to me what their purpose was. Did they just use Buenos Aires because that's where the book was set, without any deeper motivation?

On that specific point no they don't go in depth, but then it's a short interview. He does say it's a comment on contemporary American culture, as with the rest of the movie you interpret it your own way. Clearly though from the interview he makes it clear the intent was political satire, and a deliberate critique of fascism and kind of world and people it might produce. That's the lens to look at these things through. But there is no one way to read it all, that's why I find it so re-watchable.

If you want to read it that all the other cultures were wiped out in the war and only one culture survived, sure.

If you think the one world government imposed a monoculture, maybe.

If you think humans are herd creatures that naturally converge on group-think consensus and globalisation is just going to go that way, fine.

Or maybe it was lazy film making cutting corners for budget and convenience reasons. OK. But in rebuttal to that possibility I submit in evidence the entire back catalogue of Paul Verhoeven movies.

In the novel, Rico is Filipino.

I'd also add the maybe not so subtle reference that many Nazi leaders post-WWII fled to Argentina.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Argentines

Starship troopers gets a lot of flack -- "Based on the back cover of the book by Robert A. Heinlein" was a popular critique, "90210 in outer space" was another, and Doogie Howser (as NPH was them known) wasn't a great casting choice IMO -- but the special effects are flawless and Peter Venhousen really nails underlying themes of the book and the anti-bug propaganda. I don't know anyone who saw the film and didn't want to go fight the bugs - thank goodness he wasn't remaking Triumph of the Will.

> I don't know anyone who saw the film and didn't want to go fight the bugs

About as likely as someone watching Hanger Games and not getting lost on the reality show history, instead of being annoyed that the movie's history didn't progress.

Goes to prove that propaganda works. At least for short periods.

One of the few movies I've walked out of.

I can believe that. I think it helps to understand where Verhoeven is coming from. He grew up in Holland during the German occupation, and it's liberation by the allies in the 1940s. He's seen the Nazi propaganda, the show and heroic aura of fascism right up close. He lived inside it. He also saw the bodies from summary executions of civilians lying by the side of the road. They're two very different sides of the same coin of fascism, one shiny and seductive, the other a twisted mirror image of ugliness.

A lot of his movies show you the heroic, seductive face of fascism for most of the movie, but every now and then through the movie he twists the coin just a little bit. You get a glimpse of what's on the other side, hinting at how what you think you're seeing isn't at all the whole story. But he leaves you to figure that out, the same way he did.

I totally get that. But.

He could have picked a different franchise (or created a new one) instead of hitching the movie's title to a book with a totally different message and atmosphere.

I wanted to see something darker, something about a kid growing up into an officer. I wanted to see Jonnie realize how much trouble he was in and feel lucky for only getting a few lashes, and I wanted to see Zim give him a microscopic bit of comfort just before that sentence. I wanted to see a father and son reunite for 45 minutes at the starport, and the proud father bounce off to his new ship. I wanted an exploration of morality in military service as a mirror for how we guide our own lives in the real world. I wanted to see the stupid powered suits, okay?

Instead I got a terrible political commentary with bad acting. He could have done that with his own story (wait, he did).

I don't know why the film was called Starship Troopers. Oh wait, I do; it was a money grab. Verhoeven didn't even finish reading the book.

Movie theory (not mine): the bad acting is intentional on the director's part. He may have intentionally cast pretty faces with little talent as a shoutout to fascist films who did similar.

Yep that's fair, a faithful adaptation would have turned out very different. However this is the script the studio green-lit, and Verhoeven worked very closely with the writer to realise his (the writer's) vision. I love it, I think it has merit in it's own right, but sure it's not at all what an actual Heinlein fan would want or expect. It's really more of a satirical commentary on the book.

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