The Starship Troopers Franchise

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Dthincrnte

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Mar 29, 2009
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Greetings all!

Today, a good friend of mine suggested I post this review I wrote a while ago and I agreed that it was a good idea. So here it is, enjoy!

For those of you out there in internet land who are die hard Starship Troopers fans; regardless of how many of you there are, I suggest you stop reading this review right... now. I say this because I can guarantee that my next few comments will surely offend; but first, a brief history lesson.

The Starship Troopers franchise began as a sci-fi novel written by former Navy Officer, Robert A. Heinlein. The book was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in the later months of 1959 and was soon after published as a hard cover novel the same year. The book is written in the first person narrative and follows the life and military career of Juan Rico, the blond-haired, blue-eyed (Hitler Youth anyone?) protagonist we know from the first and third films as Johnnie Rico. We are taken on an interstellar journey throughout mankind's struggle against a species of large alien arachnoids known to most as "the Bugs". With extreme overtones of what could only be called political and social abuse and violence being the solution to most if not all of life's problems, the novel sparked much controversy among critics and readers alike. As of late last year, the franchise has warranted three films (only one of which I think actually deserves to be called a film), a CGI television series and two video games, both decent in their own right.

I recently re-watched the first Starship Troopers film directed by Paul Verhoeven and I must say it's still as good as when I first saw the slightly boy band-ish Casper Van Dien jumping around in tight fitting pants and body armour that looks like it couldn't stop a French fry. This movie begins by hitting viewers with a barrage of overzealous recruitment advertisements, shortly after which we are introduced to the dashing young college student, 'Johnnie' Rico, his somewhat frigid tease of a girlfriend, Carmen Ibanez, and his best friend and resident smart-arse respectively; 'Dizzy' Flores and Carl Jenkins. It?s always up for debate but from my perspective, each of the characters brought something useful and interesting to the table; however Carmen rather got on my nerves. What really annoyed me about this character was she was so smug about having Rico wrapped around her ring finger (Gumby himself would suffer serious spinal re-adjustments had he been in Johnnie's place), that she barely showed even fake remorse for not returning his "I love you" as she was about to leave to join the Terran fleet. You see what you do to us, ladies? It's always so push and pull with you lot. Although I can't deny that women in cinema have had their fair share of being messed around. All the same, this particular big-lipped excuse for a woman is rather cruel in the way she treats our poor, pretty boy protagonist.

Can I just add as a side note; Denise Richards genuinely freaks me out. It's like someone was working on a pair of teleportation pods and when testing it with a fish, Denise Richards accidentally got into the same pod as the fish and when they came out of the other pod, the two had switched lips. So remember this dear readers, somewhere out there is a trout with woman's lips.

Anyway, getting back on topic; the other nerve-poking thing about the entire first half of the movie was Rico's outright refusal to believe that his long time friend and admirer, Dizzy, was a much better option for him than the aforementioned 'Fish-lips'. Not only was she beautiful, she was also tough, intelligent, and completely stark raving mad about 'Johnnie'. On a more chauvinistic note she was even willing to put out for him. Surely this isn't as important as her other qualities but at the same time it's ridiculously annoying to get jerked around by the girl you think you love and one hell of a relief to finally get a girl who knows what she wants.

So by now, 'Johnnie' and 'Dizzy' have signed up for the Mobile Infantry, Carl has gone off to become an officer for the Earth's psychic division and old 'Fish-lips' has gone off to become some form of metal space-birdie and eventually cheat on and leave 'Johnnie' Rico only to see her new 'fly-boy' boyfriend get his brains sucked out by a giant grub made almost entirely of stolen grey matter (And yes, I genuinely hate that girl). Despite my issues with Denise Richards' existence, I would definitely rate this movie highly for not only its surprisingly decent acting but also incredible special effects for it's time. Even the plot was much stronger than the franchise's later instalments. But hey, I'm not here to review the good film of the three. I'm here to review the one that was quite horrible but strangely enough the nearest adaptation of the novel in terms of political and social themes. As I am quite conscious of length with all of my writing I will keep this next plot synopsis as short as possible. Mainly because I don't remember much about the second film but also because I don't particularly want to.

So just briefly, the second movie, Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation was really nothing special. I was also slightly disturbed when I saw an actress who had played the captain of a ship in the previous film and who was crushed to death by a giant steel door, now playing a completely different character. Aside from the fact that this film had nothing to do with the story or characters of the first one, it was still bearable to watch. This sequel is set on some barren wasteland of a planet abandoned by the Terran Forces long ago because of a devastating infestation of Bugs. We follow a group of soldiers, pilots and technicians as they attempt to get one of the planet's research stations up and running in order to find out what really happened at the time of the Bug invasion. The one thing that caught my eye about this film was the introduction of the Mind Control Bugs only ever seen (to the best of my recollection) in the 1999 CGI television series.

Anyway, the Arachnid menace attempts to take the base back by first sending wave after wave of Warrior Bugs at the humans. When this fails they resort to ninja-like tactics, sending in the Mind Control Bugs to go to work on their unsuspecting victims. Those who are 'mind-jacked' by these nasty little critters turn black at the fingertips and take an extreme liking to sugar cubes and sex. You would think this kind of behavioural alteration would be easily noticeable but maybe this particular party undertakes rituals during which people dip their fingers in dry ice and have sweet, sugary orgies and all of this is seen as common behaviour. More or less all of the characters die save the protagonist and some tough guy who was locked up for killing his entire unit when they were stationed at the research centre before the first Bug attack. Regardless of all his efforts to survive, he ends up sacrificing himself to allow the protagonist time to escape on a drop ship conveniently only spacious enough for one more passenger.

The third instalment in this series, Starship Troopers 3: Marauder is a completely different batch of Bug droppings and I mean this in the most literal way. The film seems in some respects to carry on from the first film. It is something like 15-20 years later and 'Johnnie' Rico has now worked his way up to being a General. The movie doesn't put so much focus into having a solid plot as it does emphasising that the human race is now a bunch of morally retarded, suicidal, serial fascists to say the least. Said 'lack of plot' also saves me from ranting on about how predictable yet shockingly unexpected the various plot developments are. All I'll say is that if you're merely a casual Starship Troopers fan, then you may want to stay away from this film (unless you like being bible bashed). However, die-hard fans of the series may enjoy it quite a bit considering its similarity to the original novel.

Unfortunately it's much less provocative than the book, mostly thanks to the obviously minuscule budget and fatal deficiency of support from the film industry and its public. There are some things I would like to make clear regarding a couple of the themes of this film. Point number one; this movie was so sickeningly filled with religious content that the pope himself would sooner slit his wrists and send himself to H.E. double hockey sticks than grant it a second viewing. Punto número dos; this movie was so sickeningly filled with extreme American patriotism in a kind of "we'll hang you on national television if you protest our God-given right to blow shit up" kind of way that Dick Cheney would sooner move to fund Al Qaeda than... never mind.

In summary, let me again mention that the first film still remains at the top of the pile for special effects, acting quality and consistency of plot. I must admit that there were some interesting aspects to the third film such as the introduction of the new breeds of bugs and the use of the hardly-touched-on marauder suits. Unfortunately for this film's reputation (non-existent though it seemed being a straight-to-DVD release) there were some rather morale-breaking properties within that made me want to track down the people who made it, break into their rooms in the middle of the night and proceed to rape their brains out through their eye sockets with a rusty blade screaming "what the hell were you thinking?" over and over. This film is by far the worst of the three (and that includes the television series which was actually pretty decent) and deserves a one out of five for making me laugh so hard I jarred my knees when I fell to the floor in an uncontrollable seizure.

Yours sincerely,

Dthincrnte.
 

scnj

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Nov 10, 2008
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Starship Troopers is one of my top ten films of all time. The other two are non-existent to me. Absolutely tragic.
 

aakibar

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Apr 14, 2009
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so i have read the book only and its good but to be honest im not that big a fan i like the moon is a harsh mistress better. the post is well written.
 

Casual Shinji

Should've gone before we left.
Legacy
Jul 18, 2009
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Nice review.

Starship troopers is probably the most fantastic bad movie ever. I remember the first time seeing it at the theatre with some friends. The opening with that poor anchor man being massacred by that bug. It seems Paul Verhoeven always starts his movies off with something ultra-violent.

Never saw the other two movies though. I could see their crappyness coming a mile a way.
 

TimeLord

For the Emperor!
Legacy
Aug 15, 2008
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First Starship Troopers film was brilliant,
Second could have worked if it hadn't tied itself to the first.
Third one should burn.
 

Trace2010

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Aug 10, 2008
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Every time I watch a Peter Veerhoven film, I admire his vision and understanding of social and societal change. Everyone laughed at him when he gave a corporation the right to reanimate and outfit a corpse- a prelude to the giant fear of nameless corporations. Everyone laughed even louder when he basically made a film about propaganda and war--but both sets of films are masterpieces in and of the fact that they explore the dynamics of societal change. This makes them inherently timeless. Don't believe me? Watch Robocop again- it is done in 1986 with top of the line SFX (for the time) and it is STILL AWESOME. Why? Because the movie is an outwardly (and admittedly dated) sci-fi action film with a higher moral discussion underneath that makes the movie TIMELESS. Starship Troopers is no different.

That being said, I don't understand the complete hate behind the third film. Granted, Marauder was as stupid and useless a program as it was a subtitle for the film, but all in all I thought that the afformentioned "religious affrontage" in the film only helped to generate the particular message Veerhoven was trying to communicate.

Each of the three Starship Troopers films displays the similar message. Number 1 is the immediate reaction to a bug attack on earth, the overestimation of tactical ability, the subsequent casualties that follow, the changing of the guard, and the imposition of a new strategy to win the war (anybody feel how closely the war in Iraq followed along these guidelines). The message ends with "They'll keep fighting! and they'll win!!", which was the whole point- the media telling the masses what to think, but not always telling the truth.

By the second film- "Hero of the Federation"- people now know that the war is going to drag on, and thousands of more body bags will pile up. What do they need? A media trumped fictitious story that empowers the noble and excites the brave (never mind if it is really true or not)! The "you provide the pictures, and I'll provide the war" mentality of the media in the first film closely resemble that of the second.

So how do you top that? Simple...add religion into the mix! People no longer wish to fight the war...many object on the basis of organized religion that has been prohibited on Federation controlled territories (simply because many practitioners are against the war, which is against the government, blah, blah, blah).

The whole moral of this story is what happens when religion is re-introduced into (presumably) a non-religious society, is hijacked by false dogma combined with propaganda and popularity, and then later re-instituted at the behest of government for the sake of accomplishing the purposes of government. The sacred is played up ad nauseum and in your face because that is what Veerhoven wants you to see (no more or less offensive than having the new Sky Marshall go from being a masculine form of a pop diva, to being a rendition of the Dahli Lama).

Granted, Troopers 2 and 3 left much to be desired in the realm of the mindless "action movie", but they too will eventually join RoboCop 2 and 3 as an interesting look of twenty-first century societal conflicts.
 

Trace2010

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Aug 10, 2008
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Pararaptor said:
RIGHT ON!

This is exactly how I view the three films, it feels odd that both my favourite & most hated films come from the same series. My biggest agreement, however, is with Rico's choice of Ibanez over Dizzy. What the fuck was he thinking? But the other side of this is how Ibanez choses that other, black-haired guy over Rice. WHAT THE FUCK WAS SHE THINKING?! Not only is Rico NOT a jerk, he is more than a billion times hotter. Vastly more so than Ibanez over Dizzy, a part where I disagree with you. Ibanez is more physically attractive than Dizzy, but less so in every other respect.
To quote Hollywood Squares-- I agree.
 

LongAndShort

I'm pretty good. Yourself?
May 11, 2009
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When I was a kid I loved the CGI series. I think I might try and find it. The games were good as well, so was the first movie. The other two on the other hand....
 

AvsJoe

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May 28, 2009
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I do love a film series that redeems itself from a bad sequel and Starship Troopers deserves a mention. The first movie was great, just short of amazing, and very thought-provoking. I should go out and hunt down the book. Anyway, the second film was quite terrible. I love it in a 'so bad it's good' kind of way, but I tell people to avoid it if they loved the first one. The third movie rebounded decently, nowhere near as good as the first, but much better than the second. As a side note, I also enjoyed the TV series as a kid.
 

VitusPrime

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Sep 26, 2008
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I first saw the tv series which for the record was never finnished (they didnt make the last 5 episodes) after wards i saw the movies,
2 was god awful BUDGET MOVIE (boo!) which may as well have been a sitcom and the third one was attempting to go back to the old glory, but not enough.

MAKE THE LAST FIVE EPISODES!!

Oh and i have played the FPS starship troopers, not that bad in my opinion

If you like god mode.