'How We Made Starship Troopers' (theguardian.com) 589
The Guardian quotes Paul Verhoeven, the director of Starship Troopers:
Robert Heinlein's original 1959 science-fiction novel was militaristic, if not fascistic. So I decided to make a movie about fascists who aren't aware of their fascism... I was looking for the prototype of blond, white and arrogant, and Casper Van Dien was so close to the images I remembered from Leni Riefenstahl's films. I borrowed from Triumph of the Will in the parody propaganda reel that opens the film, too. I was using Riefenstahl to point out, or so I thought, that these heroes and heroines were straight out of Nazi propaganda...
With a title like Starship Troopers, people were expecting a new Star Wars. They got that, but not really: it stuck in your throat. It said: "Here are your heroes and your heroines, but by the way -- they're fascists."
The actors weren't even clear on what the giant arachnids would look like, since their "Bug" battles were filmed entirely with green screens, remembers one of the movie's stars, Denise Richards. Instead Verhoeven "would be there jumping up and down with a broom in the air so we would have a sense of how big they were."
Verhoeven told one interviewer that he never actually read Robert Heinlein's original book. "I stopped after two chapters because it was so boring. It is really quite a bad book."
With a title like Starship Troopers, people were expecting a new Star Wars. They got that, but not really: it stuck in your throat. It said: "Here are your heroes and your heroines, but by the way -- they're fascists."
The actors weren't even clear on what the giant arachnids would look like, since their "Bug" battles were filmed entirely with green screens, remembers one of the movie's stars, Denise Richards. Instead Verhoeven "would be there jumping up and down with a broom in the air so we would have a sense of how big they were."
Verhoeven told one interviewer that he never actually read Robert Heinlein's original book. "I stopped after two chapters because it was so boring. It is really quite a bad book."
I'm shocked, shocked! (Score:5, Funny)
"he never actually read Robert Heinlein's original book"
well not that shocked.
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Hollywood is pathologically incapable of making a movie that conveys a conservative message. I doubt we will ever see a faithful interpretation of any golden age Heinlein novel.
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Or: you completely forgot all the Action movies from the 80's and 90's. Possibly both are presently now true.
Re: I'm shocked, shocked! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is actually true, in the case of Hollywood at least. Unless you're already a big star like Harrison Ford or Bruce Willis, you absolutely can not even be associated with somebody who might express the slightest interest in not being a Democrat. If you do, you have to Scientology style disconnect from them, or else you'll have to forget about getting work there. I'm not making this shit up, I've seen it happen, somebody finds an outspoken relative on Facebook and then it snowballs.
Of course, if you have to go there to find work to begin with instead of the other way around, you're pretty much guaranteed to be poor anyways, and a lot of people go there thinking they have talent just to end up joining the homeless population, where they weren't homeless before they got there. That's because 99.9% of self proclaimed artists and actors don't have any actual talent.
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SJW is the new "Jew" for certain groups.
Re:I'm shocked, shocked! (Score:5, Interesting)
or maybe hollywood is too dumb to understand conservative messages.
To be fair most self proclaimed conservative doesn't understand conservative messages either.
There is nothing conservative about modern day Republicans. (Decreasing taxes while increasing the deficit is not conservative.)
The closest thing you will find to conservatives in modern US is a handful of moderate Democrats, but that is about it.
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And the only 'Liberals' you will find are Libertarians.
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Hollywood is pathologically incapable of making a movie that conveys a conservative message
Wall Street and The Wolf of Wall Street don't convey the conservative message of private industry championing over government interference, where free markets know best, where those who takes risks are rewarded, where personal responsibility takes hold?
Re: I'm shocked, shocked! (Score:3)
Don't be stupid. Nearly every "capitalist" portrayed in Hollywood movies - outside of annointed saints like Steve Jobs - is an eeeeevil caricature. Pointing this out is not a demand for "sharks" to be painted in a positive light.
Re: I'm shocked, shocked! (Score:5, Insightful)
Nice conflation of nothing. No one ever said socialism was better than a free market, yet for all the talk about free markets it is conservatives who consistently go out of their way to thwart and warp the free market.
If the free market is so good, why were trading collars instituted on the stock markets? Why not let the markets move as they wish instead of confining them?
If free markets are so good, why is it Republican-led towns and cities enact laws to prevent competition in broadband service?
If free markets are so good, why are we subsidizing multi-billion dollar companies such as Exxon with taxpayer money?
If free markets are so good, why are taxpayers being taken to the wash to the tune of $4 billion in Wisconsin to entice Foxconn to put in a plant?
If free markets are so good, why did George Bush hand over $700 billion of taxpayer money to J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, and a whole host of other Wall Street firms and banks so they could pay out their bonuses?
As to those companies you mentioned, they're the same ones who said raising the minimum wage would cripple them. And as for those $1,000 bonuses, yeah, work 20 years at WalMart and get the bonus. $1000/20 = $50 for each year worked. That's $4.16 per month. Around .15 cents for each day you worked for them. Wow. Just staggering how generous they are.
Tell us, how many times did those at the top get raises, bonuses, stock options and other perks during those same 20 years? Why weren't the employees getting similar treatment throughout that time? You know, trickle down.
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The only way to thwart and warp the free market is via Government regulation; that is the essence of fascism.
Sorry, but in a regulation free free market, the first group that attiains ht egoal of monopoly will eradicate teh free market.
Why this is impossible for some folks to believe is strange. If I have the desire to own an entire market, I will use my resources to destroy my competition.
Because in a competitive environment, the most competitive win, and want to win everything. It is the nature of Capitalism, where greed is the driving force.
And if it is harnessed, it works pretty well. But if not harn
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So do we need to regulate marketing? Sabotage is clearly illegal, as it tramples on the rights of others.
Well of course it is illegal. But business engages in many illegal activities already. This is just a human nature issue. Price fixing, insider trading industrial espionage, bribery. human's competitive nature added to greed and some people are basically dishonest.
But mergers? Advertising? That needs to be regulated?
Mergers are one of the most efficient ways of creating monopolies. They also have the advantage of being legal. But they are also a tool that can end up with only one player in a market. Advertising? I guess it depends on how you are advertising.
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Re:I'm shocked, shocked! (Score:5, Insightful)
I know it's popular to assume Heinlein was conservative, but that's usually coming from people like Verhoeven who couldn't get through the set up chapters and get to the philosophical pay off. Stranger in A Strange Land and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress include themes of strong secular humanism, anti-authoritarianism, and ecological responsibility along with libertarian economic concepts. I don't think it's correct to assume Heinlein advocates extraordinary conservative views in Starship Troopers (i.e. flogging as punishment) when you could more easily interpret those passages as critical when put in context of his other books.
It's unfortunate that Verhoeven didn't read the book, and that no one associated with the movie seems to have read any serious critics of the book either. One way you know Heinlein wrote a great book is that there are so many interesting critical insights linked to 20th century culture from wildly different perspectives. The movie lacks the exploration of asexual masculinity, elitism, and technology that give the book depth and complexity. Why is the power armor both so appealing to us and horribly savage? Why does (book) Rico find women "fascinating" but never express a desire for any kind of relationship? The quintessentially American ideal that freedom requires sacrifice is tested in an extreme case, raising questions about what "freedom" and "sacrifice" mean. This is what science fiction should do.
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Flogging was a legal punishment in the u.s. as late as 1972.
Flogging isn't a conservative or liberal issue in my opinion. When I was a boy, very strong spanking was still a permitted punishment in junior high school.
Corporal punishment is more of an anacronism/holdover from medieval times. It's also an outcome of needing to discourage behavior but being unable to afford to take people out of production for days, weeks, months, or years. Corporal punishment is a lot cheaper than putting someone in jail.
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You make some good points about flogging. The reason it is now conservative is the idea that things were better in the old days and those things included corporal punishment. Along with the conservative mindset of punishment rather then rehabilitation.
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I think Hollywood is incapable of intentionally making movies that might offend people it needs to watch them.
Hollywood is basically squishy. It'll appeal to non-controversial middle-of-the road sentiments, like patriotism or respect for minorities, but don't expect it to challenge its audiences.
Re:I'm shocked, shocked! (Score:4, Interesting)
Hollywood is pathologically incapable of making a movie that conveys a conservative message. I doubt we will ever see a faithful interpretation of any golden age Heinlein novel.
Hollywood could almost make Stranger. It's mostly hippie nonsense after all. I say almost because they'd never convey how Heinlein despised new reporters - literal "newsclowns",
Re:I'm shocked, shocked! (Score:4, Interesting)
Hollywood is pathologically incapable of making a movie that conveys a conservative message. I doubt we will ever see a faithful interpretation of any golden age Heinlein novel.
Given the current socio-poltiical climate in Hollywood, I would think they could make "I Will Fear No Evil" quite handily.
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Batman: The Dark Knight - a movie that tells us how spying after people is good when it is done to FIGHT TERRORISM, and how we can always trust private enterprises with power to do the right thing and not abuse this survelliance technology. The whole movie tries to tell us that there are absolute good and evil, and in face absolute evil, absolute good should be allowed to violate some rights. This sounds like many right wingers I got to talk with lately.
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The book was infinitely better than the film.
Their society is elitist liberal not facscist (Score:5, Informative)
"he never actually read Robert Heinlein's original book" well not that shocked.
Verhoeven had an agenda and searched for a vehicle to present that agenda it just so happened the name of the book seemed a good vehicle for him.
From wiki: "Ken Macleod argues that the book does not actually advocate fascism because anybody capable of understanding the oath of Federal Service is able to enlist and thereby obtain political power. Macleod states that Heinlein's books are consistently liberal, but cover a spectrum from democratic to elitist forms of liberalism, Starship Troopers being on the latter end of the spectrum. It has been argued that Heinlein's militarism is more libertarian than fascist, and that this trend is also present in Heinlein's other popular books of the period, such as Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966)."
*** Spoler Alert *** Verhoeven also injects racism where there is none, again part of his agenda that has nothing to do with the actual book. John Rico, aka Juan Rico, is not white, not an "aryan", he is of Philippine descent if I remember correct. He is obviously portrayed as Hispanic on the book cover in pre-movie printings.
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Don't you have to complete your enlistment to obtain political power? If so, then anyone can enlist but only those who conform are enfranchised.
Re:Their society is elitist liberal not facscist (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't you have to complete your enlistment to obtain political power? If so, then anyone can enlist but only those who conform are enfranchised.
Conformance was only required during service. After service no conformance was required, an enfranchised citizen was free to believe and vote however they cared to. And society would go in whatever direction the majority of the enfranchised citizens believed to be best. The voters were in control. That fact that voters had to demonstrate they would risk their lives for others, through military or hazardous construction service, is not evidence of fascism. Elitist is really a far better description. Fascism dictates what is proper to believe, what direction government will go. The enfranchised elite were under no such limitations, they had "earned" the right to believe whatever they chose to, their majority had "earned" the right to direct the government.
Re: Their society is elitist liberal not facscist (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep. Moreover, IIRC, you didn't get your franchise until after releasing from the service, which is the exact opposite of what the movie suggested. In the movie, society is run by the "sky marshals" - active military leaders - whereas in the book the military doesn't get a say at all; the direction of their society is determined by voting citizens.
It takes an incredibly thoughtless person to read "fascism" into that.
The only obstacle to service was volunteering (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree it isn't a single fascist leader, but the military effectively gets to decide who can vote.
No. The only obstacle to service was volunteering. Service is not required to be military in nature, there are also those doing hazardous construction (on moons/asteroids/etc). No one volunteering was considered "unfit" for service. If a person had a disability there were to be somehow accommodated and allowed to contribute and serve, and of course be at risk. The military could decide who could serve in the infantry, who could serve as ship's crew, etc ... but they could not deny all types of service to a volunteer, they had to find some accommodating role somewhere.
Those are people who have gone through training where they are taught to follow orders without question (for the safety of themselves and others), that their enemies (militarily or politically) are not people, and that the military is important. Anyone who doesn't learn these lessons is unlikely to survive. This makes for something very similar to having a society run by the military.
No. These people are free to believe whatever they chose and free to vote accordingly once discharged from service. Following orders in a chain of command is not something that continues after service. Look at the real world, there is no shortage of people who served honorably and well that were quite critical of the military after discharge, there is no shortage of veterans on the political left or right. Military service does not turn people into mindless robots, it generally teaches several things. People can accomplish far more than they think they can. A group coordinating their actions can accomplish more than a group of people acting individually. Bad sh*t happens and you just have to work your way through it.
Re: Their society is elitist liberal not facscist (Score:4, Insightful)
Those are people who have gone through training where they are taught to follow orders without question
This is a caricature used by those who have never served. Every western nations puts great emphasis on the difference between lawful and unlawful orders, and makes it clear in no uncertain terms that a soldiers duty is to follow all lawful orders, as well as to reject all unlawful ones. If you are given an unlawful order not only is it your duty to refuse to obey, it is also your duty to report the person who issued it.
As far as the book goes, the oath of the terran federation specifically stated that the members vows to follow "all lawful orders". Heinlein did not include that word by accident.
that their enemies (militarily or politically) are not people
In the book the enemy quite literally are not people. But it doesn't matter, since the purpose of the war was never extermination, or enslavement, or any form of subjugation; it was self defence. The enemy attacked, and the mobile infantry responded.
I seriously hope that this part of your comment only applied to the book, because if you think it plays any relevance to how modern armies operate you are seriously misinformed.
and that the military is important.
Isn't it?
Anyone who doesn't learn these lessons is unlikely to survive. This makes for something very similar to having a society run by the military.
If you caricature of the military were at all accurate, I suppose there might be some truth to that. But if that were the case, we wouldn't be a having this discussion; you would already be living under a military dictatorship supported by the millions of men and women who are serving or have served in your armed forces.
Re: Their society is elitist liberal not facscist (Score:3, Informative)
Which half of that receives more emphasis in training?
Explicitly, refusing orders; implicitly, obeying orders.
ie. while I was serving nobody ever told me I had to follow orders; I took an oath to do it when I first joined, and knew it was expected of me. Whereas we had numerous fancy presentations complete with videos and power point slides talking about our duty to refuse unlawful orders, to follow the various laws governing armed conflicts, to report harassment and abuse, including abuse of power by superiors, etc.
I know that's not a clear cut answer, but
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"Libertarian" \= Liberal.
Yes, the quote is saying the book has elements of both, has portions that can be described as either. That both these labels, elitist liberal and libertarian, are more accurate than the third label of fascist.
Re:Their society is elitist liberal not facscist (Score:5, Informative)
You do remember correctly. Juan explicitly said he spoke Tagalog, which is a native language of Luzon in the Philippines.
Note that absolutely nowhere in the book was it suggested that Rico was American. For that matter, I can't think of any particular character that was American.
Re:Their society is elitist liberal not facscist (Score:5, Funny)
Note that absolutely nowhere in the book was it suggested that Rico was American. For that matter, I can't think of any particular character that was American.
Verhoeven might be confused about the location of Buenos Aires. :-)
Voting an "earned" right not a "birth" right (Score:5, Informative)
In Heinlein's Starship Trooper universe voting is an "earned" right, not a "birth" right. It is earned by volunteering and completing service that is hazardous, military or construction. Anyone may serve and ultimately attain the right to vote, accommodations are made for those with disabilities so that they may serve. The only obstacle to service is volunteering. The core idea is that through service you risked your life for others, this "earns" you the right to vote.
Once honorably discharged from service a person now has the right to vote. They are free to vote in any manner they chose. The government will follow the majority of the voters. There is no fascist dictate from government. The enfranchised elite have "earned" the right to believe whatever they chose to in a political power sense, their majority has "earned" the right to direct the government. The voters are in control.
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Yes, nevermind the indoctrination they would have went through in said service, which starts out by deliberately breaking them down as individuals and rebuilding them into literal tools. So what if a handful of them become peacenicks after their service - not only will they be in a minority, they'll have a reflexive desire to "support the troops" since they were one.
Reality shows that veterans hold a wide variety of opinions and political beliefs after service. Service is not some sort of lifelong brainwashing. "Supporting the troops" is not synonymous with "supporting the war". A WW2 veteran family member (combat infantryman badge, purple heart, bronze star, presidential unit citation) opposed the Vietnam war and supported the Vietnam troops and veterans. During the Persian Gulf war he thought we shouldn't be fighting over oil, and supported the troops. The villains i
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It's not a racist movie. It's a movie made by a schmuck who wanted to make a movie warning of the dangers of racism and fascism and chose as source material (which he didn't bother reading) a book that is explicitly anti-racist (shockingly so when and where the book was written).
Re:Their society is elitist liberal not facscist (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll admit that I haven't read Starship Troopers, but I've read other Heinlein books, and he has a fair amount of overt racism and sexism in every book of his that I have read.
Sexist? In this 1950s book Starship Trooper he had women serve in combat and argued that the number of pull-ups and pushups one could do does not define one's worth in the military. That many roles do not require brute strength and that women can excel in military leadership and in some military roles their physical differences made them, on average, superior to men (for example combat pilots).
Racist? The central character and hero of this 1950s book Starship Trooper is Juan "Johnny" Rico. A resident of Buenos Aires, Argentina of Philippine descent.
Re:I'm shocked, shocked! (Score:4)
"I stopped after two chapters because it was so boring. It is really quite a bad book."
Given this comment and the resulting film it is quite clear that he didn't understand the material he was working with ether.
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If Veerhoeven thinks "Starshiop Troopers" is about Fascism, then I contend that he probably can't tell the difference between Fascism and a funnel.
After seeing the movie, I decided to read the book again; something I hadn't done since the '70's. Although I had read all of Heinlein's books a number of times, I had forgotten how controversial this book was when it first came out. It was a strongly worded allegory exploring the duties of a citizen to the nation that he belonged to, and the only nod to that con
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"An armed society is a society of cows"?
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"An armed society is a society of cows"?
Yes. Cows with guns [youtube.com].
Re: I'm shocked, shocked! (Score:4, Funny)
Cartoon birds tend to hold things with remarkably prehensile feathers. In the furry community, we call those 'fwingers.'
Re: I'm shocked, shocked! (Score:5, Insightful)
From what you write, you have either not read his books or you have read them but didn't understand the messages in them.
Many science fiction authors used a future setting to talk about current topics, drawing them to extremes. Believing that a setting somehow shows the true essence of an authors beliefs are laughable. You can write about something as a cautionary tale, and in fact advocating the total opposite of what you write about.
Re: I'm shocked, shocked! (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of conservative fuckwits love him. Not because he's any good, but that he wrote in fiction the most quoted for fact fiction line I see on Slashdot, "An armed society is a polite society." America proves him wrong.
You're doubly wrong. TANSTAAFL is, by far, more quoted than that.
And Americans are exceedingly polite. When you meet Americans, they will smile at you, eyeball you, and ask how you are. And expect you to be polite enough to not respond with truth. It's a society built on polite fiction. That doesn't stop them from stepping on your body to make a buck. But they'll smile at you while doing so.
Re: I'm shocked, shocked! (Score:5, Funny)
Yep, you can go to any country in the world and ask who the politest tourists are and they'll always answer Americans. Shit, us Canadians have to put a stars and stripes flag on our stuff to avoid being considered unpolite people because everyone knows that not being heavily armed makes Canadians one of most unpolite societies in the world.
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well, at that point I suspect the Americans believe themselves to no longer being in an armed society, are therefore no longer required to be polite.
sadly...
Greed always trumps fear. (Score:3)
Haha. True that. But it's not guns I think. Its tips.
Tips for everything, tips for everyone. For eating out, drinking out, buying groceries, taxis, tour bus drivers, odd job men. Americans are always showering extra dollars like so much confetti around daily chores, and it all depends on the wattage of your smile. I'd rather know if you had a bad days, so I could help you; perhaps by simply not being in your way.
Re: I'm shocked, shocked! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: I'm shocked, shocked! (Score:2)
Pretty sure they also hate his views on things like religion, sexual liberty, incest, and so on ...
Re: I'm shocked, shocked! (Score:4, Informative)
Really THAT's the 'most quoted Heinlein line'? I highly doubt it....here let me give you some help:
TANSTAAFL
TANSTAAFL
TANSTAAFL
TANSTAAFL
O in full...There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
Or better yet...how about 'grok'. Not a line, but likely the most used term from any of his novel's. Of course people who use it probably have NO idea where it came from.
Heinlein should be liberal's or "progressives" wet dream. Stranger in a Strange land alone delves in to 'acceptance of diversity' to a far deeper level then anyone actually in society today. For crying out loud, that book promotes sex between consenting adults regardless of sex, color, etc.
I don't recall which book it was, maybe The Cat Who Walked Through Walls or maybe Tuesday, but he introduced UBI in a LIBERTARIAN society. Not a deep theme in the book in so much as it was 'incidental'/background to the society in the book though it was important (the book itself in terms of the driving theme for the protagonists isn't one of my favorites by far, Heinlein was human not a god, not everything he wrote was good).
Of course the reason liberals and 'progressives' hate him is that his most common underlying theme is that you are responsible for your own fucking life & don't go crying to others because you're different or can't handle 'reality'.
Since you are unlikely to be able to distinguish between 'libertarian' & 'conservative' however it's no wonder you didn't like his writing or attribute a group's ('conservatives') "love" of him incorrectly. Go back to your tidy little 'safe space' where mommy & daddy take care of all your worries.
Re: I'm shocked, shocked! (Score:4, Insightful)
No, the better comment (a long one), and very appropriate to today's society, comes from The Cat Who Walks Through Walls:
Re: I'm shocked, shocked! (Score:4, Insightful)
No the proper form should be "A civilized society is a polite society"
Oh yeah? Then explain France.
Simple answer (Score:2, Informative)
How did we make Starship Troopers?
Like a piece of shit.
Paul Verhoeven and Ed Neumeier (Score:5, Informative)
What a team, back in the day. Ed Neumeier was also scripitwriter on the Verhoeven-directed RoboCop and a lot of the tone in both movies can be attributed to him. I can definitely feel the same style of humour in both movies.
Neumeier did not work on the RoboCop sequels, and I think a lot of that is why they were so different, without the same edge.
And now there are rumours that Neumeier would be working on a stand-alone sequel to the original RoboCop, based off an outline that he wrote decades ago. We'll see...
The Starship Troopers sequels weren't very good IMHO so I'm afraid that he could have lost it.
As a German, ... (Score:5, Interesting)
... it's always kinda funny, to see superhero movies being so popular in US culture...
When they were literally invented as the US version of the German Übersoldat Nazi propaganda movies, and for precisely same reason.
The Übersoldat (super soldier) was the image of the perfect, augmented through eugenics, soldier. The typical blond blue-eyed brainwashed monstrosity.
My grandma actually met the real deal before the end of the war: SS soldiers from the Hitler Youth. She said, they weren't humans anymore. Their behavior and mannerism were inhuman, psychopathic, strange, and hence super-creepy. Kinda like real-life Daleks, without the theatricals, in human skins, with a friendly smile on their faces.
In Germany, we would never dare to make movies glorifying anything even remotely close to something like that, given everything it implies.
I guess that's the difference in perspective on war and augmented "master race" humans, between the losing and the winning side... *tips hat to congratulate you*
Just... be careful, America.
Your culture's vibe right now is just waaay to close to how it started over here, back then.
Safety tips from a German: Make sure the jobs are safe, the pride in your country is healthy, and there's no scapegoat group, nor a feel that one is needed.
And don't elect somebody who is good at rhetorics and tells you he'll make you great again, but has fucked-up plans. (That's precisely what Hitler did.)
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In Germany, we would never dare to make movies glorifying anything even remotely close to something like that, given everything it implies.
We don't do that here, either. Movies about that stuff are pretty much always cautionary tales. Hell, it's even a core plot of Star Trek, and they made an entire Wrathful movie about it. You have have heard about it... KHAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!
Safety tips from a German: Make sure the jobs are safe, the pride in your country is healthy, and there's no scapegoat group, nor a feel that one is needed.
BOHICA!
Re: As a German, ... (Score:2)
Re:As a German, ... (Score:5, Funny)
In Germany, we would never dare to make movies glorifying anything even remotely close to something like that, given everything it implies.
Uwe Boll...
Re:As a German, ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see fantasy as being intrinsically toxic; it's mixing up fantasy with reality that's dangerous.
That includes de-humanizing the SS. The problem is that the SS were all too human. We call them "inhuman" because they violate our ideals about what humans are supposed to be like. But in fact what they did was far from historically unprecedented, except for the way in which modern organization and technology gave scope to their behavior, something that should give all of us a shudder of horror.
Still, those ideals, while historically false, are important. As Terry Pratchett said, "Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape."
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A conservative supreme court for your lifetime...
Interesting experiment (Score:5, Interesting)
Verhoeven grew up in German occupied Netherlands during WWII.
How did the studio think he was going to adapt a movie based on a book that glorified a militaristic society?
Though it is a kind of fun concept. Now I'm kinda interested to see Romeo and Juliet from a director going through a nasty divorce or an SF thriller directed by a technophobe.
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> a book that glorified a militaristic society?
The original novel did not glorify the arachnids, at all.
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Here is the problem I have with both those ideas.
From a militaristic view, In the novel.
1) Military service is, like you point out, highly discouraged.
2) Only taken up by the incredibly smallest minority, basically the society has the smallest military ever assembled in any society weather real or imagined.
3) The only group of people entirly disenfranchised in the this society are the military.
The novel revolved around a person in this military, but the society it selves has relegated them to an unimportant
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We can stop there. You probably don't realize the entire conflict started with attacks by the bugs. The humans were never interested in occupying the bugs. They were interested in survival.
Re: Interesting experiment (Score:3)
But it justified a militaristic society by arguing that the best and most noble members of that society were in the military, implying non-military were less noble and dedicated (else they'd have joined the military).
It did no such thing. Many of the characters were brutish and rather cruel, and the novel even included a military member committing a serious crime against a civilian, for which he was executed. There was nothing "noble" about the soldiers apart from their willingness to sacrifice in defense of society as a whole; in all other respects they were very much regular human beings, with all their wrinkles and warts, just trying to get through another day of living.
If you're arguing that the book encourages th
Originally said "US soldiers were like ... Nazis" (Score:5, Informative)
The original article [archive.org], as saved by the Internet Archive, had a slightly different subtitle:
‘I borrowed from the films of Leni Riefenstahl to show that these US soldiers were like something out of Nazi propaganda. I even put one in an SS uniform. But no one noticed’
(Emphasis added to highlight the text that was removed).
The current version has a note at the bottom saying:
The subheading of this article was amended on 23 January 2018 to remove a reference to US soldiers.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The original article [archive.org], as saved by the Internet Archive, had a slightly different subtitle:
‘I borrowed from the films of Leni Riefenstahl to show that these US soldiers were like something out of Nazi propaganda. I even put one in an SS uniform. But no one noticed’
(Emphasis added to highlight the text that was removed).
The current version has a note at the bottom saying:
The subheading of this article was amended on 23 January 2018 to remove a reference to US soldiers.
Given that the characters were from Buenos Aires in the movie that does seem like a reasonable edit. Admittedly they did speak English but, well, it doesn't seem a bit unlikely that the soldiers in the movie were specifically supposed to be US soldiers.
Counterpoint (Score:2)
I quite liked the movie (Score:2)
The circle of fascism (Score:4, Interesting)
Paul Verhoeven misinterpets Heinlen's work as fascist and makes a movie that satirizes fascism, which in turn gets many people upset at Verhoeven for glorifying fascism.
Didn't read the book? (Score:5, Interesting)
Paul Verhoeven; Robert Heinlein has a body of work that will always exceed Verhoeven's. Genre. Robert Heinlein was writing to teen boys to give them a vision of tomorrow taking many paths; some good some not so good. Read 5th Column for example. Or Stranger in a Strange Land. Not reading the book, then assuming the society Heinlein built was one where service to the state gave you a vote, was a concept for fascism? Funny. That was akin to the first thoughts of the 'Founding Fathers' of the United States. Landowners and white men only club. Was that fascist? No. They assumed education was the hallmark of a good society. They also built an adaptive structure.
The underlining principle was 'put up or shut up.' Civilians could step up to the line and if they wouldn't, shut up. Even in the book no one was denied a chance to serve. Even a paraplegic could serve in some way, could earn their citizenship. That is fascist? They would find you a task to serve your people, so earn what you wanted. A vote.
It was also why I found the movie so boring. The book was more interesting. Too bad he could not take a day or two in the preproduction schedule and read the material. Perhaps read a few more of Heinlein's works to get a better viewpoint. If I was his employer I would have fired him for lack of due diligence. I am sure there were other good producer ready and waiting.
No one noticed? (Score:3)
"I even put one in an SS uniform. But no one noticed."
In the Hollywood press maybe. In the theater, my friend turned to me and exclaimed, "It's Doogie Himmler!"
Paul Verhoeven raped the book (Score:4, Insightful)
Considered the last of Heinlein's juveniles, Starship Trooper is a Hugo winner and a true classic. Paul Verhoeven's movie is a travesty, raped the book, and doesn't deserve to carry the title.
If you want crypto-fascist military sci-fi, (Score:5, Insightful)
... read Gordie Dickson's Dorsai!. Starship Troopers is something very, very different, and more difficult to dismiss. You can't put Heinlein in a neat box because he challenges you, and himself. That's what makes Heinlein a great writer where Dickson is merely an entertaining one.
Don't get me wrong, I really like Dickson, he's just not on Heinlein's level.
Now is Starship Troopers militaristic? Absolutely. Is it fascist? I think not, although I can see the appeal for the simple-minded fascist. It is a militaristic novel that questions the concept of fundamental individual rights.
But I don't think Heinlein was a fascist, I think he was a ferocious skeptic. What if you organized a society around something other than inherent an inalienable individual rights? What's telling is the Heinlein makes this world neither a dystopia nor a utopia; it's just workable. Fascists are always selling a formula for establishing a kind of golden age.
It took 2 more movies (Score:2)
Before we got to see Power Armor.
The second movie reminded me of Screamers.
The third movie wasn't bad, but I loved the line:
"It's the wrong god."
I saw the 4th one, I don't remember it...
Heinlein meant well, but it is disturbing (Score:5, Insightful)
The book should probably come with a warning that it may be too intense for adults.
I read it as a kid, and devoured all the ideas, though, oddly, I did't become militaristic or in any way right-wing. Vietnam was going on, and you could see where real wars end up.
The review by James Davis Nicol highlights the stuff that I thought was cooool as a kid, and gagged at as a grownup:
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/r... [jamesdavisnicoll.com] ...Rico is a very young war criminal in scenes where the "demonstration of firepower and frightfulness" (heh: now, "shock and awe") includes toasting a church congregation of the "Skinnies" with his flamethrower, and looking for the town's water treatment plant with his micro-nuke. (After a 25-year career with the local waterworks, I know that's germ warfare...)
And it sinks in that the basic philosophy is that humanity must grow, must colonize forever, to live, constantly expanding through the galaxy, and that any species also wanting the same "real estate" must be fought. The word "liebensraum" does come into the mind.
Heinlein had a few philosophies to expound, of course, and the whole rest of the book is built around having some reason to have a busy military with occasional heavy losses and routine light losses. Oh, and a need to assault planets from space with anything smaller than nukes.
He wanted to look right inside the mind of a military volunteer who understands that this will likely enough cost his life or at least limbs, and accepts it as the noble thing to do, to sacrifice the, ah, One for the Many. It is made clear what the movie did even better, that Rico, while well-indoctrinated with the understanding of this nobility, that only those who have done this are worthy of voting rights, really joins to impress a girl. (In the promo book for the movie, writers said they asked actual Soldiers and vets if that was corny. They were told with grins that it is still common.)
The key to the training section (classic military book structure: first bit is training camp, then on to the story of actual battles; see Full Metal Jacket, Dirty Dozen, etc) is that when Rico internalizes and accepts the noble reason rather than the girl reason, "The noblest fate a man can endure is to place his mortal body between his beloved home and war's desolation" (I just typed that from memory...jeez.), then the torturous training camp is suddenly almost easy.
Heinlein's defense in "Expanded Universe" noted the book is "militaristic" specifically to the Army/Marines, rival services to his beloved Navy, where at least you usually die with a full belly and not frozen in a trench; that it's a love letter to the heroic sufferings of "the doughboy, the duckfoot....the thin red line of heroes". This is hardly more militaristic than the displays at most American parades and football games, and obviously, Veteran's Day. That's fine.
It's setting up that story in a world where human expansion makes war with aliens inevitable, that's the problem. And the war-crime stuff. He could have set up his war-needing-environment with a need for pure defense of home, and outlined some rules of war descended from Geneva Conventions rather than the chapter "Caesar Chastens Gaul" of his memoir.
That he was pushing out the endless-expansion thing instead is all the more problematic in that the Bugs were a pure Communism by nature, oddly enough, and the real geopolitical concern of the time was that the First World (us) was in a game of Risk with the Second World (communist countries) fighting over the rest of the global real estate. Tends to make anybody even faintly left look askance. I was mercifully unaware of all this, enjoying it at 11. (1970) And on re-reads though teen years. I missed Vietnam by both nationality (Canadian) and a few years of time; Boomer Americans were probably clearer on it.
Salon.com seems to have lost the 1997 review that nailed the movie's total fa
Re: (Score:3)
This Nicoll guy is a lively and interesting writer. His writing is opinionated (IMHO that's a plus). But he gets the facts of Starship Troopers unforgivably wrong.
Rico is a very young war criminal in scenes where the "demonstration of firepower and frightfulness" (heh: now, "shock and awe") includes toasting a church congregation of the "Skinnies" with his flamethrower
Nope. Some quotes from the book:
I Really Have to Wonder About Verhoeven (Score:2)
He makes a movie where the heros are fascists, the problem is that they are still very clearly heros. So the movie is basically just nazi propaganda with "Slavs" replaced by "Arachnids", and "Jews" replaced by "non-citizens", and "Aryans" replaced by "Citizens". Their is nothing antifascist about that.
I always thought it was a great film, and in particular complimented the novel well. While Heinleine's novel featured a society that was incredibly anti-militaristic, and anti-fascist these were not important
How does the book feature a fascist society? (Score:5, Interesting)
From Merriam-Webster:
1 often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
2 : a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control
- https://www.merriam-webster.co... [merriam-webster.com]
I keep hearing/reading about people who think the book Starship Troopers is about a fascistic society and I don't get it, especially when I compare the society expressed in the book to definitions of fascism.
Juan Rico, who is revealed to be Filipino at the end of the book and we don't know where he grew up, joins up to win the ability to vote and is trained in a melting pot camp in Western Canada (I'm presuming that because of the name of the camp, Arthur Currie). There is no discussion, let alone glorification of a central "leader", nor is there any apparent racism.
There is what we would consider brutal corporal punishment rather than incarceration, but this is a result of the society's "superior" (from the perspective of the book's characters) understanding of psychology. When the book was written, hanging was still a common form of capital punishment and public hangings had only ended about 25 years before.
I've always read in the book as being set in a society that resulted after a terrible war and is presented by people who had that experience and perspective.
Re: (Score:3)
Uh, what? To become a citizen you had to volunteer for service (which could be military, or otherwise). If you volunteered, you explicitly had to be allowed to serve in an appropriate capacity, and thus become a citizen, no matter your ability or disability.
There was no approval required.
TERRIBLE MOVIE!!! TERRIBLE MOVIE!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a big Heinlein fan, and "Starship Troopers" is a GREAT book.
The book is more philosophical than militaristic, the lead character was Juan Rico, a Filipino from Luzon. To cast Van Diem in the role simply proves that Verhoeven had never actually READ the book. In the book, all of the "Mobile Infantry" are men, but all of the starship pilots are women.
The movie of "Starship Troopers" was a horrible movie. No "Mobile INfantry", no drop capsules coming in from orbit, no philosophy, no morals. Just guts and core. There;s one scene in which the M.I. troopers on the ship are having a mass, co-ed, naked shower scene, This was, frankly, the ONLY redeeming value in the entire movie.
Yep, the usual. (Score:3)
The fundamental problem people have with Heinlein is a mental defect that renders them unable to appreciate the difference between someone extrapolating a "what if" and someone declaiming a "we should".
If you make them confront the fact that the same guy wrote (for example) Double Star, Starship Troopers, and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, they suffer serious cognitive dissonance, which they can only resolve by retreating from reality into a fantasy simple enough for them to comprehend.
From that safe fantasy world they then lash out at the scary author they cannot comprehend.
Re:Did not read the book (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Did not read the book (Score:5, Interesting)
I thought it was a great book, but I actually liked the movie a lot. I didn't think it necessarily needed to be called Starship Troopers, but I did feel that it perfectly captured the atmosphere of fascism in the original book, which was its most important aspect. I saw it in the theater, and the first time they said... actually, it's been so long I don't remember exactly what they said, but it was (jingoistic statement) click here to learn more! Touch? Select? Anyway, I laughed out loud. The obvious parallel between what the citizens were seeing on TV with various existing propaganda films here in the real world was apparently too subtle for a lot of people, which is shocking because it was done in Verhoeven's typical ham-handed style.
I loved Total Recall, too. And yeah, I read the book. Movies should be fun! They don't need to be exactly like the book in every case, the mission is to convey the idea while putting asses in seats.
Re: (Score:3)
I read the book many years after I saw the film, so I was expecting it to be an outlier from the other Heinlein stories I read given the propaganda surrounding it, but I honestly didn't see any of this so-called fascist stuff in the original Klingon.
The only place I can guess it comes from is the protagonists line somewhere toward the end about humanity and the bugs being locked in natural competition to sort out who's the superior species. I read that as a statement about Darwinia
Re:Did not read the book (Score:5, Insightful)
drinkypoo opined:
I thought it was a great book, but I actually liked the movie a lot. I didn't think it necessarily needed to be called Starship Troopers, but I did feel that it perfectly captured the atmosphere of fascism in the original book, which was its most important aspect.
I think you misremember the book.
The society Heinlein depicted in Starship Troopers bore no meaningful resemblence to the one in Verhoeven's movie. In interviews after the book was published, RAH stressed that military service was not the only path to the sovereign franchise in the Starship Troopers world. He envisioned any number of public service paths - specifically including something very much like the Peace Corps - as routes to voting status. The point of the model he created was not worship of the military, per se, but rather earning the franchise through service to society (as opposed to "the State" - of which he had a notorious distrust).
It wasn't fascistic - it was pragmatic (at least in Heinlein's view). And the Dean himself was a personality of considerable complexity: equal parts civil- and economic-libertarian, with a strong anti-Soviet bias (although, as evidenced by Stranger in a Strange Land, not necessarily an anti-communist one), and a passionate advocate of the goal of becoming a Renaissance man; he advocated suspicion of altruism, all while being selflessly generous with his time to Red Cross blood drives, and his mentorship to younger writers, such as Spider Robinson. I've seen the man spend hours being patiently courteous to a seemingly-endless line of fans seeking his autograph, yet turn coldly dismissive of one who casually admitted violating the terms on which he offered those autographs (either donate blood, or be rejected as a donor).
While I disagreed with much of his politics, I admired RAH enormously as a man, and even moreso as a writer. He played devil's advocate for many positions he, himself did not hold - but fascism definitely was not one of them ...
Re: Did not read the book (Score:5, Insightful)
What's there to wave away? Let consenting adults do what they want in the privacy of their own bedroom. You would think that "progressives" would be all over that.
Re: (Score:3)
Daemonik gibed:
Ooo ooo! Now wave away his advocacy of incest and group marriage..
Why would I want to do that? Because it apparently offends your sense of morality?
I'm with RAH (and c6gunner, below) on this topic. Adults who wish to engage in mutually-consensual sexual relations and/or marriage contracts should be free to do so, regardless of genetic relationship or number of participants. In western countries, the state has no legitimate interest in the former and currently acts in an indefensibly prejudiced manner in the latter.
Note the terms "adult" and "
Re: (Score:3)
https://slashdot.org/~Boronx responded:
I don't think anyone believes RAH was a Nazi sympathizer, but the system of government in SST is fatally flawed. Anyone can enlist in a service, but not anyone can complete service. Severe corporal punishment, and even capital punishment, can be enforced with the thinnest veneer of a trial that has no independence from the chain of command. Despite the promise of universal enlistment, the government has strong control over who gets the franchise.
"Severe corporal punishment" is a feature of many current military justice systems, albeit not that of the USA - or, at least not formally (see: blanket party). However, it is worth noting that the execution that's carried out during Pvt. Rico's basic training is of a deserter during wartime. And not some phony-baloney Iraq/Vietnam-esque war of empire-building based on false premises and PR manipulation, but an actual existential war in which a genocidal alie
Re:Did not read the book (Score:5, Informative)
aixylinux opined:
It was a great book. Now I know why the movies stank.
I'm not sure I'd call it a "great" book. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is a great book. Starship Troopers is more good than great. I say that because it's far and away the most polemical of Heinlein's juvenile books, and polemics and juveniles make for an awkward mix.
Not coincidentally, it was the last book he ever offered Scribners & Sons. (After Scribner's rejected it on the grounds that its subject matter was "too controversial" and inappropriate for a juvenile audience, he terminated his til-then-exclusive relationship with S&S, directed his agent to seek another publisher for the book - which was quickly snapped up by Putnam's - and re-focused his writing on an adult marketplace. Stranger in a Strange Land and The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, as well as lesser works such as Farnham's Freehold and Glory Road, swiftly followed.)
I read every one of Heinlein's juveniles as a kid growing up in the 1950's and 60's, and I thought Starship Troopers was great stuff. But, even then, I realized that, although it was cast as a juvenile novel, it was a good deal more adult in both theme and tone than most of his other books aimed at "young adults" - although, admittedly, other juvenile works, such as Between Planets and Citizen of the Galaxy put their protagonists in fairly adult situations and were also discursive on political and social issues. But The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress achieved a whole new level of artistry for Heinlein from my perspective. A masterful blend of revolutionary theory, applied low-gravity physics, societal adaptation to significant, chronic male-female population imbalance, inherited physiological exile from mainstream society, and the high-stakes politics of resistance to colonialism (along with a mickle bit of romance and the first fictional depiction of a superintelligent AI from a sympathetic perspective), it utterly captivated me as a teenager, when I first read it in serial form in Galaxy Magazine. I still consider it Heinlein's best novel, and I've read 'em all - including his blecherous first effort For Us, the Living and his posthumous juvenile "collaboration" with Spider Robinson, Variable Star.
FWIW, my second favorite Heinlein novel is Double Star, which also (and deservedly) won him his first Hugo ...
Re: (Score:2)
I tend to refer to the Starship Troopers movie as the 'Nutri-Matic tea' version of the book -- something almost, but not quite, completely unlike the original source.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I guess the propaganda machine works well if you think real journalism is fake news (aka Lügenpresse) and that the dems are fascists.
A few key signs of fascism:
- cult of authority (leader, police, army) : ever heard Trump talking about police and army ?
- belief in a national golden age and wanting to go back to it : MAGA
- the elites are destroying the country : traditional politicians, journalists, Hollywood, deep state (aka all the people in the administration)
- loyalty over truth and competency : loy
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Fascist is a useless word at this point. It means 'anything a leftist doesn't like'. As demonstrated by the definition you pulled out of your ass.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I was very disappointed when Merriam-Webster changed their definition of fascism. The former definition based on political philosophy was replaced by vague set of characteristics and hand waving. Many problems in our societies and public discussions could be solved if people used more precise language.
Re: (Score:2)
That's just ignorance of history. Almost all presidents have stretched their powers. It's simple idiocy to expect any president to rein in their own powers. That's the role of congress and the courts, and the American people.
The question to ask is not whether a president issues too many executive orders. Ask how will he behave should the order be struck down in the courts? A similar question: how would he behave should he lose an election? How far would he go to win an election? If investigated, ho
Re: Back to full fascism with the Dims (Score:5, Insightful)
Given what liberals have done to the country, who can blame them? If I have to choose between liberals and Nazis, give me the Nazis.
And this is how we get a Hitler, ladies and gentlemen.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Both of you are wrong about the book. Heinlein defended it quite well, so I don't need to.
Anyway Verhoeven didn't read it, and I suspect you didn't as well.
But thanks for jumping on some internet meme bandwagon.
Re: (Score:3)
I think he got the point