The Song Fight Bulletin Board

discuss.

A-

You can't have your cake and eat it, too. Great book, bad movie.

Great movie. If this were a faithful translation of the novel, I would want to read it, instead of not wanting to read it like I do now.

Brilliant film. The parody elements aren't as clever as they think they are but damn those battle scenes with the bugs are fantastic.

A- or B++ at the least.

j$

I would probably rate the movie as a B+ if I hadn't read the book and seen how the whole point of the book was misrepesented.

It's like if they made Saving Private Ryan, only instead of a small squad fighting to save one man it was about the whole 101st airborn fighting a robotic Hitler. And then the Americans embraced Nazism.

Meh, battle scenes: A; rest of the movie: D-.

Verhoeven didn't even read the book before making the movie. If they (him, Davidson, Neumeier) were doing this for the sake of some artistic vision, they should have changed the title, changed the characters' names, and said "inspired by" instead of "based on", but that woudn't have made them as much money.

I like the analysis done here by some random dude named Chris Weuve. Very thorough.

Chris Weuve wrote:Verhoeven appears to have thought he was making a satire. In reality, though, it was closer to a comedy. I, for one, was laughing at him, not with him.

Chris Weuve seems to think that the movie wasn't supposed to be funny, as if casting Doogie Howser and telling him to play the role like a metrosexual Nazi just happened by accident. The movie is equal parts satire, comedy and action, often trying to be 2 or 3 things at once.

I don't think that a significant amount of revenue came from people who were duped into seeing the film under the pretense that it was a faithful representation of the book that shares its title. Some booklovers may have gone to see it just to see how bad it was, but the fact that the movie was nothing like the book was hardly a secret.

MalachiConstant wrote:It's like if they made Saving Private Ryan, only instead of a small squad fighting to save one man it was about the whole 101st airborn fighting a robotic Hitler. And then the Americans embraced Nazism.

giggle.

I remember enjoying the film. I don't know if I still would enjoy it. It had titties and was funny and had battle scenes and Doogie Howser, which is good by me.

Here's what I have a problem with: they (director/producer/writers) made a gratuitous, shallow movie that many people will go and see, but tried to excuse themselves by hinting that it's satirical, and they aren't just shoveling another load of crap at us, so they actually have integrity. But the fact remains that it's a gratuitous, shallow movie that was made for the sake of making money, and no matter how much deeper meaning you read into it, that's not going to change.

It's like if Michael Bolton claimed that his music was actually a tongue-in-cheek satire of Kenny G's music. You can't have it both ways.

There's nothing in Michael Bolton's music that even suggests that his music is tongue-in-cheek. There's more than enough in Starship Troopers to make it obvious. It's a gratiutous, shallow, comedy satire action movie.

It's always seemed to me to be about how people will accept any kind of message as long as it's drenched in blood and tits and feel-good rah-rah. I take the movie as extremely sarcastic social commentary, and I enjoy it a lot.

Does anyone else see the irony here or am I just fucking nuts?

It's only ironic if you think it's a bad movie. Clearly, several people (in this thread) do not.

i'll have to watch it again before i vote.

I think I saw this when I was younger. Something tells me I really liked it. I can't remember if I did or not though. Hm, wonder if we have it at home...

the Jazz wrote: they tried to excuse themselves by hinting that it's satirical.

Sorry I missed this conversation ... it does more than hint that it's not meant to be taken at face value. Think of the cut-away 'Do you want to know more' sections, where they feed a cow to the bugs and later on, stick a machine gun up a bug and press fire. Maybe you don't find it funny but that's a different point ...

Anyway I think of this film like a four-colour comic book, exciting and amusing and visually thrilling. I always thought the whole 'it's a satire' was angst from the writers/marketing department who thought that we couldn't enjoy an updated Boys Own Adventure that knew what it was. Looks like they were right.

Has anyone seen the sequel? It's just turned up in my DVD store and I am dubious.

There was a sequel?! Did it go straight to video, or what?
-bill

HeuristicsInc wrote:There was a sequel?! Did it go straight to video, or what?
-bill

Yes. It's low-budget standard direct-to-video crap. Don't bother.

jb wrote:

HeuristicsInc wrote:There was a sequel?! Did it go straight to video, or what?
-bill

Yes. It's low-budget standard direct-to-video crap. Don't bother.

Not only that, I don't think they even made any new footage of the bugs, they just used footage from the first movie and put the actors in front of a blue screen.

Another minor rant: The Troopers in the book were highly trained and wore power armor with all kinds of weapons built into it (including tactical nukes). Wouldn't that have been cooler than a bunch of high-school idiots standing in a circle and firing at bugs in the middle?

MalachiConstant wrote: Another minor rant: The Troopers in the book were highly trained and wore power armor with all kinds of weapons built into it (including tactical nukes). Wouldn't that have been cooler than a bunch of high-school idiots standing in a circle and firing at bugs in the middle?

No! Absolutely not! That is one of the best things about the film! Cool and hilarious. I guess maybe that sums up the love it or loathe it aspect of this film ...

j$

i voted for the second one... the fight scenes and all that were awesome... but yea the storyline was pretty lacking... and if it was meant to be funny...
i didn't get the memo...
it was worth watchin'... just not somethin' that i would put in the 'great' movie catagory
it'd be more like... 'watch if there is nothing else to watch' catagory...