Starship Troopers - Deceptively Smart Satire

wow i guess time really does make fools of us all it's amazing the stuff we simply don't pick up on when we're young and it's only with the benefit of age and experience that we're able to see things from a whole new perspective and truly there's no better example of this for me than starship troopers the 1997 paul verhoeven sci-fi action movie about a war between humanity and a race of giant alien insects known as arachnids with its paper-thin plots wooden acting overblown action scenes and one-dimensional characters it was the kind of movie that i watched a couple of times as a teenager and then promptly dismissed as a big dumb slice of late 90s schlock the kind of thing you could channel hop to late at night when you're drunk or high and literally not employ a single brain cell for the next two hours it wasn't until later that renewed interest online prompted me to take another look at it through fresh eyes and damn what a difference it made much like robocop from a decade earlier starship troopers functions just fine as a surface level action movie goofy and gory and unapologetically over the top they sucked his brains out but just beneath the surface lies a surprisingly clever satire of the military-industrial complex warmongering governments manipulative propaganda and the eager young people that get churned up by the meat grinder of endless war it's a movie i've been wanting to review for ages now and since i finally have time to take a look at it let's get right into this [ __ ] would you like to know more the movie begins in the 23rd century but pretty quickly we realized this isn't the utopian future of shows like star trek humanity's ruled over by the united citizen federation a heavily militarized government with distinctly fascist overtones who manipulate and direct public opinion by controlling all news and mass media average citizens don't even get the right to vote unless they complete military service anyway humanity has begun to spread out and colonize the galaxy but along the way they've encountered a hostile alien species known as arachnids they're basically giant armored spiders dangerous in close combat but otherwise dumb and pretty disorganized or so it seems but a news report detailing the human invasion of their home world quickly descends into chaos and carnage and it becomes obvious that we've badly underestimated these things the movie then jumps back in time to introduce main character johnny rico a typical high school jock that's good looking and great sport and not much else but damn his girlfriend carmen is played by denise richards so he must be doing something right he also has a best friend named carl that's beginning to manifest latent psychic abilities because apparently that's the thing in this universe anyway the three of them graduate high school and decide to enlist for military service so they can become citizens and they're each allocated to different branches based on their test scores carmen's academic ability lands her a job piloting worships for the fleet while carl's psychic gifts see him drafted into the shadowy military intelligence johnny on the other hand ends up in the mobile infantry with the rest of the dummies where he's trained by the [ __ ] kurgan from highlander you all right son sir yesterday damn this guy really doesn't [ __ ] around anyway after a live fire incident gets one of his squad mates killed johnny suffers a crisis of confidence he's all set to quit when an asteroid suddenly hits earth obliterates his hometown and kills his parents an asteroid that originated on the arachnids homeworld needless to say johnny wants some payback so before you know it he's back in the infantry and heading off to war with the rest of his buddies spirits are high and everyone's convinced they're gonna kick some arachnid ass unfortunately the bugs proved to be a lot smarter and better prepared than expected and the invasion quickly turns into the biggest military disaster in history i like the way this scene dovetails neatly with the news report at the start rico barely survives the encounter and soon finds himself drafted into a new unit run by his former high school teacher who turns out to be a secret badass i mean if you're played by michael [ __ ] ironside would you really be anything else so the rest of the movie becomes a kind of epic war story following the human soldiers as they gradually adapt to a new kind of warfare forced to fight smarter and more tactically as they look for ways to overcome the alien threats there's everything you'd expect in a war movie like this recon missions behind enemy lines deadly ambushes desperate last stands comrades getting tragically killed to save other people's lives and of course a climactic battle that sees the three high school friends reunited in victory like i say it seems like a pretty standard sci-fi action movie with pretensions of being an epic war flick but the thing that really sets starship troopers apart is the little breadcrumbs of satire and subversion scattered all throughout the movie like the deceptively cheerful and upbeat propaganda videos that come up every so often encouraging people to enlist in the military stoking outrage and hatred at human defeats and pushing them along towards the prospect of ultimate victory i love how they even use children to portray the military as wholesome and light-hearted yeah i'm pretty sure handing out live ammunition to young kids isn't a great idea and all throughout these broadcasts there's little hints about the brutal unforgiving society that actually runs the whole thing a world of starships and hyperspace travel that still relies on brutal corporal punishment to maintain discipline a criminal justice system that tries convicts and sentences people in a matter of hours a society where people are forced to volunteer for military service just to earn the rights and freedoms we take for granted today damn you even need a licence to get pregnant now all of this stuff whether it's anger or personal ambition or just a desire for a better life is designed specifically to funnel young people into the giant industrial meat grinder of the military and the results are pretty [ __ ] clear to see throughout the film the older generations are scarred maimed and mutilated by past conflicts and yet nobody ever thinks to question it good for you mobile infantry made me the man i am today i actually thought it'd be even more interesting if the asteroid impact that triggers the main conflict of the movie turned out to be a false flag operation staged by the government as an excuse to go to war wouldn't that be exactly the kind of thing they would do either way rico and his fellow recruits head off to war full of high spirits and excitement only to run headfirst into the harsh reality of actual conflict it kind of reminds me of world war one where human wave attacks were the best that the military minds of the day could come up with the mobile infantry charge headlong into battle with no air cover armored support or even artillery to pave the way for them relying instead on sheer firepower and weight of numbers to bring them victory even the [ __ ] starships fly in close formation so that when one gets hit it starts a domino effect that destroys several others damn this is last jedi levels of military incompetence that being said i love the fact that the military of the future has got communal mixed showers yeah i'm sure nothing bad would happen if you stuck a bunch of horny young men and women together and told them to get naked apparently the cast were reluctant to shoot this scene for obvious reasons and only agreed to do it on the condition that paul varjovan directed the scene naked he's a [ __ ] dutchman as if he's gonna have a problem stripping off the idea that this whole movie is essentially one long propaganda video is carried over to the main characters as well all of whom come across as simplistic caricatures of real human beings and when you actually step back and look at them honestly you realize that none of them are particularly sympathetic or likable carl quickly devolves into a ruthless and uncaring intelligence officer willingly sending thousands of soldiers off to their deaths and trust me it's no coincidence that his uniform bears an uncanny resemblance to a certain group of naughty german people from the mid-20th century carmen is a shallow arrogant self-centered [ __ ] quickly ditching rico and cosying up to a superior officer to advance her career she doesn't care much when other people get killed around her or even acts particularly grateful when rico saves her life on that subject johnny himself is kind of dumb and directionless enlisting because he doesn't know what else to do with his life and the closing montage makes it pretty [ __ ] clear that instead of realizing the pointless life of endless war he's caught up in he's become just another cog in the machine a poster boy for a fascist regime that will keep dutifully fighting and killing until eventually he bites the dust as well what's particularly interesting to note is that none of the main characters are actually responsible for capturing the alien queen that helps to turn the tide of war in humanity's favor but they are the ones who get celebrated and marketed to the world as war heroes why simple because they're young and good looking and those are the kinds of people that human beings respond to and if the rumors are to be believed verhoeven specifically cast main actors who looked great but didn't have much actual acting talent to really drive home the fake propaganda nature of the movie and if that's true then [ __ ] hats off to you sir talk about a baller move overall starship troopers is one of those rare movies that actually improved with age and genuinely holds up to repeated viewings because every time you watch it there's some little throwaway line or nugget of subversive humor that you didn't pick up on before it's a film that's way smarter than people gave it credit for at the time and considering the subsequent generations of young people that are still getting pulled into endless new conflicts it's just as relevant a piece of satire as it was back in 1997. anyway that's all i've got for today go away now

Channel: The Critical Drinker

Views: 2,630,841

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Id: S8nM5N4ptkw

Length: 10min 20sec (620 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 19 2021