Starship Troopers
A new kind of enemy. A new kind of war.
Set in the future, the story follows a young soldier named Johnny Rico and his exploits in the Mobile Infantry. Rico's military career progresses from recruit to non-commissioned officer and finally to officer against the backdrop of an interstellar war between mankind and an arachnoid species known as "the Bugs."
Wokeness: 0%
Overall Score: 100%
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Created: 02-09-2022
I did my duty and Reviewed!
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Created: 01-23-2023
One of the greatest satires ever made
Although the film DOES have strong socio-political messaging, it's most definitely not woke in any way. This film follows the misadventures of a young and hopeful group of people who join the military to fight an "intruding?" race of alien bugs. Lots of gore, lots of lewd jokes, and very black comedy, but absolutely not a shred of woke.
Created: 01-23-2023
A far more intelligent film than it appears to be.
This movie seems to be just a fun sci fi action flick at first glance. Human soldiers fight hordes of massive insects on distant worlds. But wait, there’s more!
Not only is the setting an over-the-top dystopia, but the entire film is laden with satire aiming at the eternal wars and the military industrial complex in the USA. It’s a truly brilliant film if viewed in its fullest context, but the greatness of it lies in the fact that despite its message, it is a truly enjoyable sci fi action movie as well. It works on both levels.
Created: 02-05-2023
Buenos Aires was a false flag!
The director, Verhoeven, was trying to make an anti-fascism statement. However, he winds up painting a picture of a clean, functional, and patriotic society. That world contrasts sharply with our 2020's Dystopian reality where we have witnessed "the failure of Democracy" and seen "our social scientists [bring] our world to the brink of chaos" and WWIII. As a result, the society in the film resonates with many today, but again, this was not the Leftist director's intent.
[Edit: Verhoeven said, "It is really quite a bad book... All the way through [the film] I wanted the audience to be asking, 'Are these people crazy?"]
Spoilers follow.
I'm sure Buenos Aires was a false flag. Here is why:
1. Motive: Fascism requires an enemy to unite the people behind the government, plus the film's director clearly had an anti-military-industrial-complex message.
2. Geography: "You are here." A newsreel diagram shows that the bugs are on the far side of our galaxy. (That is far!) There are hundreds of billions of stars in the galaxy. And yet the conflict starts when colonists from Earth land on a bug-inhabited world on the other side of the galaxy.
3. Physics: Bugs supposedly shoot asteroids at Earth almost 100,000 light-years away. (Light would take 100,000 years to travel that far.) The asteroids would have to somehow travel faster-than-light and then decelerate - all the way to a leisurely velocity that won't vaporize the Earth - and at a distance that allows plenty of time to react. (Granted, humans do have FTL drives here and in the book the bugs do too.)
4. Skill: This is the clincher. Remember how Carmen pulled the spaceship out of space dock with just inches to spare and a look of confident glee on her face? And then she lets an asteroid clip the spaceship she is piloting later, sheering off the communications array? Riiiight. The asteroid hits Buenos Aires weeks or months later, suggesting it is the very same asteroid. If you exert a small amount of force at a large distance (like the distance to Jupiter) on an asteroid, it would dramatically change the trajectory. This means the asteroid would not have hit Buenos Aires were it not for super-pilot Carmen's implausible "mistake".
5. "Doogie": Sweet Carmen wouldn't do that? She is kind of a bitch, actually, but maybe more of a heartbreaker than city smasher. However, "Doogie Howser" (Carl) has telepathy, with the ability to influence a ferret's actions, plus a particular telepathic connection with Carmen shown later in the film. He's marching around in a Nazi trenchcoat and torturing enemy prisoners while working for military intelligence, so something like the CIA. Doogie did it.
[Edit: on rewatch, I see that after Carl mind-controls the ferret, Rico says he hopes Carl can't do that to him, and Carl jokingly replies, "I can't do that to a human... yet." And the scene cuts to... Carmen. Also, Carl is later able to control Rico, who at first wanted to give up Carmen for dead but then somehow has a feeling that she is certainly alive. Later, Rico even asks Carl if he did that, and he replies, "That's classified." Remember, when Carl was testing Rico's ESP, he said they statistically should have had a random success, but they didn't, because Carl was planting the WRONG image in Rico's brain, I infer.]
6. Defenses: Earth has anti-meteor defenses shown in a newsreel. I think they mention detection systems too. So either these defenses were a fraud or they intentionally let the meteor crash into Earth.
[Edit:
7. Timing: There is just a couple of minutes between Rico being on the phone with his parents when they are cut off by the meteor and Rico walking outside to watch the news report about the devastation. In that time, their version of CNN already has infographics and a reporter allegedly on the scene interviewing a victim.
]
Created: 10-15-2023
Successful action flick, failed critique of conservatism
As action sci-fi, this works great.
As the devastating denunciation of the dangers of conservatism, which director Verhoeven intended, well, it's the usual leftist fail.
Mostly because Verhoeven is quite ignorant of European history. To his defense, he had been a European for barely 6 decades at the time of shooting.
Of course, as intended, I don't agree with the overly fascistic rhetoric and the obvious Nazi imagery.
And then I remember, Mussolini had been a top-dog Italian Socialist before he went off and founded his own party, and the Waffen-SS were literally the armed branch of the National Health bureaucracy of Germany's National Sozialismus.
So, prescriptive collectivism is the opposite of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Socialism bad? Not quite what Verhoeven intended to say, but what he ended up saying anyway. Pretty much like Showgirls denounced female exploitation by means of round-the-clock naked smokeshows...
Created: 01-06-2025
Fantastic, but...
It's a hard watch. The metaphors are heavy-handed and hit incredibly well, despite the comedy aspects. It's a satirical propaganda movie that understands what makes propaganda horrific, and especially if you have ties to the military, it'll make your stomach turn. They don't shy away from a single detail. Tragedies happen without warning or buildup and then the world keeps moving.
2/5 wokeness for NPH.
Created: 05-13-2025
