Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Image Of The Future: Imagine A Boot Crushing An Insect Forever...

Starship Troopers(1997)
by Paul Verhoeven

"You kill bugs good!" A few notes about the book this film is based on "Starship Troopers", has been accused by some in the sci-fi community of being a fascist manifesto of militarism, and praised by others like the "US military" who have it on their official reading lists of the navy, the marines, and the army, as well as at four out of the nations five milatary academies(thank you wiki), not to mention actual funded attempts to emulate the technology and combat strategy of the Mobile Infantry, all volunteer army, specific high tech weapons, exo-armor, etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers#Military_innovations
That being said the movie itself is one long propahganda commericial for the mobile infantry in their war against "the bugs".
It's ads and info spots serving as comic timers, in between the explosions and limb removals.
The satire get's lost in the run of the mill dialogue (but suprissingly long if inconsequential character development).
Still a fun, gorey, balls to the wall, action satire, and a strangely oddly important artifact of American culture.
Anti-war films generally don't work because "action argues for itself", but Starship Troopers does mock it's celebratory slaughter (which perhaps the book took seriously, or perhaps not), by immersing itself so heavily in B-Movie shlock,it's almost impossible to imagine anyone taking this seriously.
But the satire is really a loose excuse for me being a sucker for the kind of mindless violence than one is only really free to express when...squashing insects...a small violence we all do, often, without even considering it as a life, just a pest, a problem, or as these characters would say "the only good bug is a dead bug".
Big special effects, but mocks itself inplaces, where "300" screamed "This is Sparta" in loinclothes, while refering to the Atheneans as (pacificst) "Boy lovers and philosophers". So take it with a grain of salt. WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE

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