Starship Troopers: One of the Most Misunderstood Movies Ever

The Atlantic ^ | November 7, 2013 | Calum Marsh

[EveningStar]

When Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers hit theaters 16 years ago today, most American critics slammed it. In the New York Times, Janet Maslin panned the “crazed, lurid spectacle,” as featuring “raunchiness tailor-made for teen-age boys.” Jeff Vice, in the Deseret News, called it “a nonstop splatterfest so devoid of taste and logic that it makes even the most brainless summer blockbuster look intelligent.” Roger Ebert, who had praised the “pointed social satire” of Verhoeven’s Robocop, found the film “one-dimensional,” a trivial nothing “pitched at 11-year-old science-fiction fans.”

But those critics had missed the point. Starship Troopers is satire, a ruthlessly funny and keenly self-aware sendup of right-wing militarism. The fact that it was and continues to be taken at face value speaks to the very vapidity the movie skewers.

[Ronin]

Not even going to read that.

One of the greatest military science fiction books of all time, and the movie was a total eye-candy charle-foxtrot.

Any opinion by anyone who writes for the Atlantic is less than swill to me.

[ontap]

Only the leftist are stupid enough to believe real warriors love war....my wife and I watch this movie because the premise and corny lines are so absurd.

[EEGator]

LOL. I had to post before someone bashed me.

[Prospero]

What an asshat.

[bigheadfred]

not for me a want to be a bash turd and in this day when the fiction of glow ball warming is science and obamas fantasy is reality i want you yes you to be you well

[null and void]

Oh. NOW you tell me!

[fremont_steve]

That was obvious from the Nazi like uniforms he used. The movie is an abortion while the book is a marvel. I’ve read it multiple times even as an adult.

There is also the Moon is a Harsh Mistress to balance things out.

[RichInOC]

That would have worked, too.

[logic101.net]

Good book, but the movie sucked.

No, it was a great book. However the movie gutted the philosophy of the book.

[Bender2]

Re: Starship Troopers: One of the Most Misunderstood Movies Ever

Well, then let us have the novel speak for itself:

“Under our system every voter and officeholder is a man who has demonstrated through voluntary and difficult service that he places the welfare of the group ahead of personal advantage.”

—

“Citizenship is an attitude, a state of mind, an emotional conviction that the whole is greater than the part...and that the part should be humbly proud to sacrifice itself that the whole may live.”

—

“Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms”

—

“To permit irresponsible authority is to sell disaster.”

—

“When you vote, you are exercising political authority, you're using force. And force, my friends, is violence. The supreme authority from which all other authorities are derived.”

—

“Man has no moral instinct. He is not born with moral sense. You were not born with it, I was not - and a puppy has none. We acquire moral sense, when we do, through training, experience, and hard sweat of the mind.”

—

Cast me into a dungeon;, burn me at the state, crown me king of kings, I can ‘pursue happiness’ as long as my brain lives — but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can insure that I will catch it.”

—

“If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cut its head off?”

—

“Social responsibility above the level of family, or at most of tribe, requires imagination— devotion, loyalty, all the higher virtues — which a man must develop himself; if he has them forced down him, he will vomit them out.”

—

“The instinct to survive is human nature itself, and every aspect of our personalities derives from it. Anything that conflicts with the survival instinct acts sooner or later to eliminate the individual and thereby fails to show up in future generations. . . . A scientifically verifiable theory of morals must be rooted in the individual’s instinct to survive—and nowhere else!—and must correctly describe the hierarchy of survival, note the motivations at each level, and resolve all conflicts.
We have such a theory now; we can solve any moral problem, on any level. Self-interest, love of family, duty to country, responsibility toward the human race . . . .
The basis of all morality is duty, a concept with the same relation to group that self-interest has to individual.”

—

“Our behavior is different. How often have you seen a headline like this?—TWO DIE ATTEMPTING RESCUE OF DROWNING CHILD. If a man gets lost in the mountains, hundreds will search and often two or three searchers are killed. But the next time somebody gets lost just as many volunteers turn out.
Poor arithmetic, but very human. It runs through all our folklore, all human religions, all our literature—a racial conviction that when one human needs rescue, others should not count the price.”

—

“Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost.”

—

“There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men.”

—

“If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cut its head off?”

—

“Girls are simply wonderful. Just to stand on a corner and watch them going past is delightful. They don't walk. At least not what we do when we walk. I don't know how to describe it, but it's much more complex and utterly delightful. They don't move just their feet; everything moves and in different directions . . . and all of it graceful.”

Gadzooks! Need Bob Heinlein... say more?

[Liberty Valance]

Will they tell us what to think about ‘1984’ next?
Can’t wait.
;o)

[Liberty Valance]

Amazing.

[Old Sarge]

That gets a rare dual-approval by both the Captain, and the Chief Medical Officer:

[ctdonath2]

Starship Troopers: based on the back cover of a novel by Robert Heinlein.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I guess I’m secure enough in my ‘womanhood’ (whatever!) to take his quotes at face value.

Conservative women of my era ARE different. We’re self-sufficient, hard working and we stand up for ourselves...and we’ve waded through all of the BS from every quarter - ESPECIALLY the FemiNazis!

But, I’m from Wisconsin, so we will do this in the nicest, most unobtrusive ways possible; but don’t ever underestimate us. :)

IOW, we’re gonna do what we’re gonna do whether you care/notice or not - and you will THANK us for it later. ;)

[big'ol_freeper]

http://laurenoutloud.com/main/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/bestie_beer_bender-homer.jpg

[Bender2]

Re: That gets a rare dual-approval by both the Captain... and the Chief Medical Officer:

Not that I don't appreciate it, Sarge... but this is just hollow without Spock's nod.

Bender, have you forgotten, Vuclans do not... nod--

Look, Bones. It is that 'Vulcans don't nod' crap... again?

[Bender2]

Re" Look, Bones. It is that 'Vulcans don't nod' crap... again?

Okay, what the... hell--

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks EveningStar.

Starship Troopers is satire, a ruthlessly funny and keenly self-aware sendup of right-wing militarism.

No, the movie was just a piece of garbage. Oh, but that's the same thing.

[Liberty Valance]

Got any beers left Bender?