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Starship Troopers: one of the most misunderstood movies ever

I mean ffs:

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Critics who were on the ball and who were familiar with Verhoeven's brand of subversion understood the film at the time and it got good reviews from them. For those who didn't get it, he actually explains it all on the DVD commentary which is well worth listening to and I'm sure word must have gotten out since then. One thing which throws people off is that he doesn't cast actors who do comedy. We know that Dr Strangelove is a satire because Kubrick let Sellers do his thing. Verhoeven casts actors who are like something out of US daytime soaps, bland and blandly good looking. We aren't seriously supposed to identify with them because they really are the bad guys but this also happens to work as a joke on eugenics.
 
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i remember being in the cinema for this and me and my mate were laughing our tits off and people in front of us were giving us evils, loads of people walked out because they didn't get it - so so funny
 
the title alone put me off ever watching it, I assumed it was just a star trek/stargate kind of film.

Its amazing, seriously.

edit: Actually its a bit disturbing looking back, you know how Verhoeven basically predicted modern life and corporate shitness back with Robocop? Well he did the same with Starship Troopers and modern jingoism and military fetishism. Guys a fucking seer.
 
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heinlens worth it for the journey but Moon is A Harsh Mistress is the better book. No doubt that he can write but then so can orson scott card and he's another one whose dodgy as fuck in many regards

Yeah; I got the book for 50p ages back but never got round to reading it. I do like the movie a lot.
 
heinlens worth it for the journey but Moon is A Harsh Mistress is the better book. No doubt that he can write but then so can orson scott card and he's another one whose dodgy as fuck in many regards

Aimed at young readers wasn't it. Certainly made an impression on me at a young age.

I also remember trying to describe The Iron Dream by Norman Spinrad in English in Y10.
 
INCEST - incest everywhere
with Orson 'marked' Cards its more his rampant homophobia

also Enders Game itself is like a right wing onanist lickig his hands clean and then all the little mil sci fi clowns gather round to hear his verdict on the taste. A book that truly enjoys the smell of its own farts, praised as a hard headed examination of war asking deep questions. Load of shit. Joe Haldeman does mil sci fi perfectly in Forever War. The sense of dislocation and loss
 
Its amazing, seriously.

edit: Actually its a bit disturbing looking back, you know how Verhoeven basically predicted modern life and corporate shitness back with Robocop? Well he did the same with Starship Troopers and modern jingoism and military fetishism. Guys a fucking seer.

Robocop wasn't predicting anything, it was a satire of what what going on in right then in the 80s with corporations and the privatisation of public services. The intention of Starship Troopers was never to predict anything. It was a satire of totalitarian regimes informed by Verhoeven's experience of growing up in Holland under Nazi occupation. It was projecting the past into the future.
 
Is it worth reading?
All Heinlein is worth reading. The man was one of the greatest storytellers of all time, even if he was dodgy and weird as fuck.

I have a whole shelf of Heinlein at home, most of it out of print. Even his throwaway pulp fiction is so beautifully written it makes you want to frame it.

Time Enough for Love is probably my favourite -- an epic ode of joy to life spanning hundreds of years. But I also have a love for The Door Into Summer -- a book named after the fact that the protagonist's cat is convinced that its owner controls the weather and so if it can just get him to open enough exits from the house, eventually it will find the door into summer.
 
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Here you go. If you don't like this, you won't like Heinlein. But then, if you don't like this, I think there is something wrong with you:

I have spent too much of my life opening doors for cats. I once calculated that, since the dawn of civilization, nine hundred and seventy-eight man-centuries have been used up that way. I could show you figures.

Pete usually used his own door except when he could bully me into opening a people door for him, which he preferred. But he would not use his door when there was snow on the ground.

While still a kitten, all fluff and buzzes, Pete had worked out a simple philosophy. I was in charge of quarters, rations, and weather; he was in charge of everything else. But he held me especially responsible for weather. Connecticut winters are good only for Christmas cards; regularly that winter Pete would check his own door, refuse to go out it because of that unpleasant white stuff beyond it (he was no fool), then badger me to open a people door.

He had a fixed conviction that at least one of them must lead into summer weather. Each time this meant that I had to go around with him to each of eleven doors, held it open while he satisfied himself that it was winter out that way, too, then go on to the next door, while his criticisms of my mismanagement grew more bitter with each disappointment.

Then he would stay indoors until hydraulic pressure utterly forced him outside. When he returned the ice in his pads would sound like little clogs on the wooden floor and he would glare at me and refuse to purr until he had chewed it all out... whereupon he would forgive me until the next time.

But he never gave up his search for the Door into Summer.
 
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