11/15/2023 0 Comments Starship troopers warhaven![]() ![]() alien bug war, and you even root for our li'l fascist heroes, dumb as they are. Starship Troopers is action-packed, with great creature special effects and some gnarly gore. Only those who serve in the military are granted the right to vote (and also breed, which is a whole other layer of messed-up), so naturally, there are lots of hot young men and women who eagerly go along with the propaganda and sign up to have their arms and legs blown off fighting alien bugs on the other side of the galaxy. Earth is at war with an alien race of giant bugs. WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE? Starship Troopers was a bugged-out critique of fascismĪnd there is one big problem in Starship Troopers’ world: Bugs. That we don’t see much of the lower classes or of this society’s problems is clearly not a suggestion that they don’t exist - they’re just suppressed, out of sight, out of mind. For one thing, it’s all they’ve ever known, and they’re comfortable enough. But, none of the characters in Starship Troopers - especially Casper Van Dien’s Johnny Rico, a perfect jock idiot - realize they live in a dystopian world. Starship Troopers takes place in the 23rd century, in an era where Earth is ruled by a military government because foolish concepts like democracy and human rights had brought civilization to the brink (or so they claim) before iron-fisted fascists restored order. ![]() “All the way through I wanted the audience to be asking, 'Are these people crazy?” Verhoeven said. He and writer Ed Neumeier turned what were originally earnest endorsements of militarism and valor into something uncanny and over-the-top. ![]() Luckily, director Paul Verhoeven hated the book, which he told Empire he stopped reading after two chapters because it was “very boring,” “quite bad” and “very right-wing.” Verhoeven, the director of RoboCop who clearly knew a thing or two about gritty sci-fi satire, realized he could use the book to undermine itself. Heinlein’s 1959 novel of the same name, is indeed pretty fascistic. To be marginally fair to the many, many critics who took Starship Troopers’ satire at face value, the book that it’s based on, Robert A. Perhaps more importantly, we’ve recognized the film for what it is: a brilliant piece of satire that’s so overtly anti-fascist and militaristic that it’s truly a wonder that people missed the point when it first came out. Thank goodness that, a quarter-century later, society has come around and hailed Starship Troopers as a sci-fi classic. The ruins of Buenos Aries after the Bugs destroyed it have nothing compared to what a critical and commercial bomb Starship Troopers was. When Starship Trooperscame out 25 years ago today, it bombed at the box office. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |