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.

[justa-hairyape]

Military is military. There was no difference between the Soviet Military and the Ole US Military. One was left. One was right. If anything, the movie is making fun of totalitarianism. But those of us with any wisdom, expect juvenile subtleties in anything Hollywood produces. We just ignore it or laugh at it. Squash them bugs !

[max americana]

“The movie was only tangentially based on the book... there is a Johnny Rico (from the Philippines in the book, not Buenos Aires)”

Correct. And just like Ender’s Game, there are novels that cannot be correctly translated unto the big screen. In hindsight, if people knew how much The Natural was in the novel (full of incest, child molestation), you’d never think it was a baseball movie.

[Captainpaintball]

According to Heinlein, his desire to write Starship Troopers was sparked by the publication of a newspaper advertisement placed by the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy on April 5, 1958 calling for a unilateral suspension of nuclear weapon testing by the United States. In response, Robert and Virginia Heinlein created the small "Patrick Henry League" in an attempt to create support for the U.S. nuclear testing program. Heinlein found himself under attack both from within and outside the science fiction community for his views. Heinlein used the novel to clarify and defend his military and political views at the time."

And THIS is why they precisely picked Paul Verhoeven to direct that movie. To take a pro war message, isolate it, mock it, twist it, and claim that steaming pile of crap as their own. THIS is how most people now think of Starship Troopers, not the book...

History is not written by those that win wars...
History is written by those that win the war for the history department.

[bramps]

I suspect that Mr. March smokes mucho potto before viewing a movie.

[VRW Conspirator]

Mr. Marsh did not read the book and obviously did not read other fantastic Sci-Fi novels by Heinlein. The movie was a shadow.

[dangus]

This is why the critics were fooled: the source material was “notoriously” “right-wing,” so they were expecting “right-wing,” and found it. The “problem” was that movie critics tend to at least have some familiarity with literature, having been English majors, themselves. It took the sociology majors, completely ignorant in literature, to “understand” the movie.

That said, given Voehrhoven’s corpus, I find it difficult to reject the notion that he was mocking Heinlein’s work; it was a movie designed to invite MST3K fans to make fun of as they watched it.

[Libloather]

I understood it.

[muir_redwoods]

“A man held a makework political job, polishing the cannon in front of the county courthouse. It kept him fed and let him put a little money aside, but he wasn’t getting ahead in the world. So one day he withdrew his life’s savings, bought a brass cannon —and went into business for himself.” — Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

[EEGator]

[max americana]

“The director admitted that he despised the philosophy espoused in the original book by Heinlein”

Then you should watch part 2 and especially, number 3 (it’s a trilogy). The third part gist? The actual but subtle notion that Christianity is the solution vs the bugs, I kid you not.

[blueunicorn6]

The Atlantic is full of garbage, crabs and sewage. It’s also the name of an ocean.

[newnhdad]

presumed not guilty but further questioning required.

[Kip Russell]

When in doubt, quote Heinlein, and you’ll rarely (if ever) go wrong.

[whinecountry]

Humina, humina ...

[Bratch]

[central_va]

There was no difference between the Soviet Military and the Ole US Military.

You really believe that?

[Vaquero]

It was a caricature of Heinlein’s great sci fi novel. I liked it anyway but it could have been great.

[cripplecreek]

I like Robert Forward’s free market vision of space as well.

There is something refreshing about reading about explorers getting paid big bucks for taking the big risks and looking for commercial viability.

Forward was a physicist and free marketeer. The space centric company he co founded exists today.

http://www.tethers.com/index.html

[EEGator]

[MarkL]

I'll bet this "critic" also thinks "Triumph of the Will" was misunderstood and a timeless classic.

old-fashioned science-fiction framework of Robert A. Heinlein’s notoriously militaristic novel with archetypes on loan from teen soaps and young adult-fiction, undermining the self-serious saber-rattling of the source text.

Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" was more a political commentary than just "science fiction." And it deviated from the original book by such a great distance that Virginia Heinlein demanded that RAH's name be removed from the movie.

Frankly, it's a bad movie, but like "The Fifth Element," another classic, bad science fiction movie, it's still a lot of fun to watch.

Was Verhoven trying to "make a statement?" Maybe, but he certainly wasn't very good at it.

Mark