"That vagina bug just capri-sun'd that man." Well. If that isn't the quote of 2021 then I don't know what is. I wish time travel were possible if only to go back in time and put that quote on the VHS cassette box.
omfg I just got to this line in the video and I am literally laughing/choking at the same time coming to the comments to see if anyone else loved her reaction.....best line ever!!!
Emily does it again. I sort of expected her to recognize that it was a WAP (Weird Arachnid P...). But she made Capri Sun into a verb too. Also, her Mormon theory checks out. I don't like it when they come around, but we are the same species so they get to live.
Yeah I aways notice that first time reactors think the boot camp is too harsh... but when you realize they can bring you from the brink of almost anything and heal you almost completely, it changes things a bit.
I always thought the entire training was weird, since they were supposed to be getting trained to fight bugs, but all they ever do is train how to fight other humans. The line especially about the button, I always wondered why nobody said "but sir, the enemy cannot push the button, regardless of if we disable their hand.... They don't have hands, or buttons. They're bugs, sir" One of the reasons I always loved the cartoon. They actually did train how to fight bugs, n it was mostly just Endurance training of killing a never ending wave of holographic bugs running straight at you, as fast as possible, for as long as you possibly can, n it was never ending, always making them try and beat their previous top score. Aka, actually useful training that kept most of the Roughnecks alive throughout the entire show.
@@Trojianmaru it's general military training, the bugs are a relatively new threat. In the book they initially weren't at war with anyone, but the federation is big. There's little issues and skirmishes or pirates or terrorists somewhere some of the time. The opening of the book is the mobile infantry doing a smash and run raid on a "Skinny" planet. The Skinnies are an alien race of extremely tall, extremely thin stature. The raid was a check on their aggression, a warning to back off. No open war, no genocide, no invasion, just a show of force to enforce the peace. Think seal team six.
The thing that a lot of reactions seem to miss out on is that this movie was deliberately written to be a high quality cheesy dialogue satire. It was not accidental. The actors were chosen because they were handsome and older than the characters. They were directed by Verhoven to perform the lines over the top.
"Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is"...Let's gather all our ships together in one nice tight group. I rooted for the bugs...
@@CosmicG777 I think the first has a better implied explanation that they're using the war with the bugs to burn off their industrial output, the ships are supposed to get shot down so they can employ people to build more ships. It's like the Floating Fortresses in _Nineteen Eighty-Four_ .
Yeah, if you look at a galactic view and then get shown Humanity's radioactivity out into space, we are like a small cube of local space compared to the whole of the galaxy. Space is insanely vast and insanely filled with billions and billions of stars with planets around them. So space war for planets will most likely never become needed beyond 'genocide attempt'.
"C'mon you apes, do you want to live forever?!" is a line that is tweaked from US Marine Dan Daly: "Come on you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?!" which Dan Daly stated to his company during WW1 before charging the Germans at the Battle of Belleau Wood. That line is powerful in this movie because Dan Daly is one of 19 people to have been awarded TWO Congressional Medals of Honor, the highest military decoration given in the United States.
The movie is goofy fun, but almost nothing like the book. I believe the book was one of the first American stories to use the idea of battle mechs/power armor. Plus, the way they drop from orbit to a planet is a lot cooler. Read it when you have the time, but try to put the move out of your mind when you do so.
There's a saying, "when it come to movies, the books don't matter". I guess it's true to an extent. This movie could simply 'inspired' by the book, and took its own direction. I haven't read the book and I'm a sucker for power armor and mechs so I might give it a go!
It is very much intentionally not like the books since the books are very politically opinionated meant to pass on messaging about tge fantasy of fascism as a good thing, not as satire like in this movie
_"I believe the book was one of the first American stories to use the idea of battle mechs/power armor."_ It's not the first but it was first to go into detail and bring it to the popular consciousness.
@@Songfugel The book does NOT advocate "fascism". It puts forward a free-market government in which franchise is limited to those who have performed some form of ->unpleasant
I don't know if people seeing this for the first time can truly appreciate how JARRING it was for first time watchers of this movie, seeing NPH in that get-up, especially since many of us hadn't seen him as ANYTHING but Doogie Howser, M.D. before that time. It was truly bizarre.
"Jurassic Park" came out in 1993, and Phil Tippett was the Visual Effects Supervisor on that film as well. "Starship Troopers" was nominated for an Oscar in 1998, but lost to a little movie that came out that year called "Titanic," which swept the awards in every category in which it was nominated.
The Lost World: Jurassic Park was nominated for an Oscar for best visual effects along with Starship Troopers and Titanic. May have been what he was thinking about.
Phil Tippett directed the Starship Troopers sequel, which has a bad rep because it tells a much smaller story and was made for about a buck fifty. But I think it's a cool little sci-fi horror film..
Fun fact: When Jurassic Park was in pre-production, at the time Tippet and the rest at ILM (Industrial light and magic) had only ever done practical effects. puppets, models, etc. CGI had been around, but no one had done animals with it (except disney on the pines of rome sequence of fantasia 2000, the bit with the cgi whales, but that had been done in secret) after test footage had convinced Spielberg to move to CGI dinos, the ilm team had to figure out how to get puppeteers to work with CGI puppets. they solved that by building the D.I.D, the Dinosaur Input Device. the D.I.D. was a little robot dino that could be animated like a stop motion puppet, but had sensors that the computer could read and could record the movement. so the dinos in JP were animated by hand, one frame at a time like a clay stop motion model. How this relates to starship troopers? when they were figuring out how to animate the bugs, they brought back the D.I.D, now called the Digital Input Device. but tech had advanced so much, they were able to redesign it so it no longer needed to be done a frame at a time. now instead of a stop motion model, it was a hand puppet. and could be animated in real time and record the movements. thats why they move so fluidly.
I love how Emily's brain works, now I'll never be able to rewatch this movie without seeing in my head the image of the 2 Mormon missionaries riding the bug's door bell. 😂🤣😂
11:44 This Sargent is Clancy Brown, the voice of MR KRABS on SPONGEBOB. He also recently had a part as a main character in the game Detroit: Become Human
30:14 Emily's shrieks and wails were hilarious but she just had the most phenomenal reaction on Earth. "That vagina bug just Capri Sun'd that man." Lmao!
No lie, this is one of my all-time favorite movies. It just does everything so well: the B-List acting, the over-the-top satire, tiddies =D - I don't always watch it, but when I do I always enjoy it.
In the book service could be anything from the military to being a public servant. You took a test to see where you fit best. One of the least desirable things was medical testing or reactor technician if I remember correctly.
This is one of those movies that I appreciated for different reasons as I got older. I always really enjoyed it; but when I first saw it I was probably in early highschool. I just liked it for the bugs and guns. The greater context of the film didn't really hit me until I got a bit older. That's when I had even more fun with it.
start by going back to the '50s and reading Heinlein science fiction stories to get the source of the flavor. gratifying to hear emily peg the best cgi shot in the film which I happen to think is one of the best in (my) science fiction film history: that ship blown into burning halves. as a reader of sci-fi from the '50s on, that moment was what I had been dreaming of seeing onscreen for a very long time. I'm going to continue to recommend that you please consider Robert Redford's "Jeremiah Johnson".
This movie has almost nothing to do with the book. They lifted some names, ignored everything else, and let Verhoeven smear his own fetish for Nazis all over it.
Definitely loved Dizzy, but I also loved the fact that Carmen and Xander were not depicted as flat-out villains (the BUGS remained the only antagonist). They WERE good together and I liked that the movie touched on their partnership as pilots rather than the romance. It was also good that Rico and Carmen don't get "back together" at the end. I seriously never understood why people didn't like Carmen. She's just as clear as Dizzy from with beginning with what she wants - she doesn't love Rico and refuses to pretend she does, even to the point where she doesn't want to tell him she loves him. He utterly ignores this and pressures her into saying the words anyway. Like dude, now you're just the guy who won't take a hint and move on with your life and who's now making this farewell awkward. He kept pushing her for meaningless words. She was clear that passion was for piloting.
If you check the deleted scenes there is one that shows that they actually only got together in that way after Carmen thought he was dead from the invasion. In the movie Carmen was never a villain and did care for him, she just wanted her life plans more.
Thank you for watching my Reccomendations. This is honestly one of the best films I've ever watched. As a teenager,I thought it was an underrated Alien Invasion film. As an adult,this is one of the most intelligently written Satires/Critiques of the American Military Complex ever made,and a really good Rorschach test type of of film to see what first time viewers interpret from the many subtle messages it leaves the viewers to interpret.
To this day it never ceases to amaze me when I meet people that honestly think this movie is pro-military. Or that the humans who invaded the bug's territory and then proceeded to try to xenocide them aren't the bad guys of the story.
Describing it as the humans invading is very uncharitable. The bugs started the war, they threw an asteroid at earth. The whole point of the quarantine zone was to try to not provoke them. Imagine being critical of a country that is trying to stop missile attacks from its neighbours and calling them the bad guys. And remember, the bugs have an intelligence, they're not *just* mindless murderbots. The reason they're in nazi-esque uniforms is because the director is an idiot. He has no idea what the original book is, or what he's actually depicting. The Federation isn't a war machine, its not a military dictatorship, there's even an acknowledgement in the review portion that military service isn't the only way to become a citizen, its just that we're following soldiers during a war time so there's no focus on the other methods. For a satire, this movie is extremely poorly done. But for a popcorn flick its fucking great. I will agree that the movie isn't pro-military, but its not anti-military either.
@@pezdispencer113 The best part is that there's a theory the bugs didn't actually throw the asteroid, instead it was the asteroid Carmen bumps into that crashes into earth and the government uses it as a propaganda tool to invade another planet. Kinda like the U.S blamed the sinking of the U.S.S Maine to start the Spanish-American War. Or how the CIA planned to detonate bombs in malls, on military bases, or even sink a U.S ship to blame on Cuba in the 60's to justify an invasion. Or basically any war the U.S has been involved in since WW2. Let me ask you, in a world with flying ships and mechanized fighting suits how didn't this massive military not see a massive meteor flying to earth, supposedly launched from the other side of the galaxy, and not have time to evacuate Buenos Aires? A main point of the movie is that you're watching a fascist military states newsfeed, of course they're going to say that it was the bugs that sent the meteor to kickstart a massive war. They lie or spin half truths based on lies. The fact you didn't pick up that it's kinda weird the bugs sent a meteor *somehow* into earth that's never explained or questioned by the people of the federation tells me how you viewed this movie. An "attack" that galvanizes a military complex focused nation into invading a foreign place so far away from them it might as well be a different planet, crazy how something that came out in 1997 sounds so eerily predictive huh? It's a world where risking getting your legs blown off lets you vote. Nevermind the people in high positions of government who have an incentive to create states of war because if people need to serve to vote then you need to create a large service, but what's the point of a large service if they never go to war? In the book or in the movie service is seen as a noble act that guarantees you the rights you honestly should already have, which chiefly is to vote among other things. Let it be known the author of the book advocates wholeheartedly that if you fuck up in the line of duty you should be whipped or receive other capital punishments. Which is shown in it's horror fully in the movie. Robert Heinlein wrote a book showing what a society might look like (which is not even most of the book, most of the book are philosophical and political rambles) if it limits it's power only to a certain group of people, Paul Verhoeven saw what that looked like in the 40's and shows us what that really is through this film. It's terrifying and horrific. If the invasion of a planet literally on the other side of the fucking galaxy, in which young people are thrown into the meat grinder without actual training to fight the threat, (they practice laser tag and not fighting bugs, yes I know the war wasn't declared when they're training but you'd think with the propaganda of "bugs are the biggest threat to us" then the military would train for it) a direct reference to when a reporter leaked the time and date of a military operation causing a huge blunder, doesn't say "anti-military" then you just didn't get it and/or don't care because you already had a different opinion than what this movie was actually saying, which causes you bias and just go "this movie is dumb fun not actual satire." A guy who is friends with the main character is literally wearing an SS uniform, how is that not Anti-war.
@@pezdispencer113 carmen actually changed the trajectory of the asteroid when they clipped it with the ship so I'm not sure the bugs started the war to begin with.
@@pezdispencer113you fail to realize that you are being presented with propaganda. Of course the humans claim that the asteroid was sent by the bugs. But considering that the humans then proceeded to send a huge fleet to the bug homeworld without encountering any resistance on the way, strongly implies that the bugs had no idea the humans were coming, which in turn indicates they never sent that asteroid in the first place.
Casper Van Dien is still among my favorite actors today. And fun fact, he is a huge fan of the book, even expressing disappointment when they decided to cut the power suits out.
Yeah, the book is VERY different. It's sort of told as a memoir/diary of a soldier going from basic training all the way through the war. Also, the Mobile Infantry is so-called because they have exo-suits that let them do Iron-Man type things and do planetary landings by being fired out of the ships like torpedoes. The Mobile Infantry here are basically US Marines, soldiers deployed by ships.
"Capri sunned that man" might be the best grammatical conjugation I've heard in my life. I love Emily's gut reactions and articulation of her feelings. I love Matthews deep knowledge of cinema, and even going the extra mile to go back and read a Roger Ebert review. It makes this channel so different from so many other "What did you think?" "I had a great time, the bugs were gross be sure to subscribe" kinda thoughtless reaction channels.
Zim is my fav. Clancy Brown is best known for playing the Kurgin in Highlander. Also was in Buckaroo Banzai. Thought it was funny that Ironsides played in Highlander 2. Fun fact. Clancy Brown voices Mr Krabs.
There's a load of different elements of different militaristic regimes in this film; Not just Nazis, but Soviet commissars, mediaeval elites like Samurai and Templars... the Federation builds a cult of war and death to fuel their 'uptopia'. It's even implied by many that Buenos Ares was an inside job in order to justify the war. I'm not joking. :D
Because paul verhoeven didn't read the source material and instead made the film to mock the book (really good book by the way) in order to support his own political leanings.
Why put utopia in quotes? We're not shown any civil unrest, resource shortages, plague or famine, protests, etc. The only full obstacle to a Civilian seems to be voting, but we're never shown any negatives to not being able to vote. One person says it's "easier" to get a birth license if you are a Citizen, so even Citizens have a restriction on births and Civilians can have kids. We're not shown any other rights Civilians don't have. Not sure where it's implied Buenos Ares was an inside job. We literally see Carmen's crew tracking a rock from bug space towards earth but they can't report it. Humans use a real world impossible 'Stardrive' to cruise the galaxy. We are already accepting impossible travel modes. We see the bugs on different planets in different systems, thus they can and do travel through space across distance of light-years. We see bugs that can project large plasma bursts out of a planet's gravity. This implies some form of space combat, either just defending from space threats or possible bombarding a planet from it's moons. We see bugs that evolved to suck out brains of creatures and then (allegedly) process them into a usable data form for themselves. The bugs are never humanized. We all kill bugs. Doogie wears a Nazi inspired uniform but does nothing Nazi like. You're allowed to leave the volunteer military at any time. Civilians can own property and businesses and can leave the planet. Having to serve to vote is more fascist than everyone being able to vote. We don't know if there's a problem with that in-world. Rico's non-Citizen parents are successful and don't think voting is worth it. I think it's a great film but not a good satire.
"That vagina bug just Capri-Sunned that man!" Yet another sentence that I thought I'd never hear (and didn't know that I needed to hear). Thank you. You just made my entire day!
I am glad that you made that Conan connection and here is another. Both movies had same composer, Basil Poledouris. He is so underrated and sadly we lost him. Should have worked no more movies. He did the score for another Vehuven movie that you already saw, Robocop.
If you love this, I can only advise viewing the too-soon-cancelled Fox series, "Space: Above and Beyond." Dated CG effects, but great stories, characters and perfomances.
Loved your reaction and analysis on this, but I think y'all missed an important point about the group forces/aerial bombardment issue. There's several legitimate reasons they need to send in ground forces, in any war, and It's not just to prolong the war. First off, in order to hold ground, you must have troops actually on the ground, otherwise any gains you make via air strikes are just as quickly lost when the enemy regroups and returns. Secondly, resources for air strikes are generally far less available and can cover less ground than foot soldiers can. There are simply fewer planes, ships, bombs, whatever than there are soldiers. Third, in this particular example the bugs are largely underground. Air and orbital attacks would not be very effective at attacking a subterranean enemy, and even locating said enemy would be very difficult from orbital distances. Without the precise knowledge of where to strike effectively, there would be no point to air strikes. And finally, economics. Air forces are extremely pricy. The platforms AND the weapons they use are ridiculously expensive. Sad as it is to say it, human resources are far more economical to use than equipment. In conjunction with the above reasons as well, if you could have (for the same cost) 1000 human troops or 1 air strike platform (plane, missiles, etc) those human troops are far more effective for the cost. Even considering losses, you could lose 50% of your human forces and STILL have an effective fighting force even if their potency is diminished, whereas if your 1 air strike platform takes 50% damage it's no longer able to effectively fight. It's the horrible calculous of war. One thing I WILL fault the federation on though, is their lack of armored and artillery support. Even mortars would have made survival much more likely in both the battles they showed. This is one of the major differences between the original Heinlein book and the movie. In the book, the Mobile Infantry are basically walking tanks in and of themselves with extreme mobility, protection, and firepower available to them. Anyway, that's my 2 cents worth. :P I'm not really an expert on these topics, just well read and an armchair historian.
They actually did have some form of mortars on the drop ships if you look when the troops are disembarking from them, they are firing them at quite a rate of fire. I love the book this is (very) loosely based on. And the politics are explained a LOT better, but the director was not trying to film the book(as he had never read it), but make a satire and a political statement. Even I find it amazing how much I love this movie, given how much it butchers one of my favorite books, but I do. I would LOVE to see an accurate version made sometime though...
The actual reason why you never see ground vehicles and it's always just tons of people thrown into the meat grinder is because the movie is a satire of fascism. Fascism, known for their brainwashing of youths, has blinded the infantrymen to their own destruction. This is why you don't have PTSD in this satire universe. This is why the main characters are able to laugh and joke with each other in high spirits literally the day after their whole platoon gets torn apart. It's because they believe in their government and in the whole idea of service gives you citizenship.
I always mention this when this movie is brought up, but I have TWO UNCLES who worked on this movie. My Uncle David on my Brother's side of the family is a now-retired Hollywood Model Maker who worked for decades in special effects and also worked on the first Star Wars Movie, Alien 3, Close Encounter of the Third Kind, and Air Force One. My Uncle Jay (my mom's brother) is a now-retired carpenter/handyman from Wyoming who was one of the people hired to help build the alien world sets in Wyoming and was one of two SAG Accredited Carpenters in the state at the time (The other one being Harrison Ford)
Always enjoyed this I was 15 when I saw this. Loved Dizzy more than Carmen don't get me wrong Denise Richards not bad at all. But Dizzy know what she wanted and got it 👍
The recruiter having no legs and missing an arm is intentional in the book, he’s there specifically to put people off. The book has his shift end and him put on perfectly normal prosthetics and walk off.
Smart. Make sure they only recruit soldiers that won't piss their pants and drop their gun as soon as they see a squaddie lose a limb or 4 like it's no big deal.
Yeah. The prosthetics in the book looked like real arms and legs. Because the Federation takes care of its citizens. I bet the erector set junk prosthetics in the movie were just another Verhoven "Funny idea".
Clearly civilians have some rights, including being able to have kids and living in a very nice house. I assume Rico's parents were both civilians given their opposition to him signing up. Although they have elections, I've always imagined it would like a choice between voting for Joe from the Military Party, Bob from the Military Party, and Frank from the Military Party.
I've always thought it was modeled on ancient rome, where you could live in rome as a free man, enjoy all the benefits of rome ( run a business, have a family, own property etc) ie a civilian but not a citizen. If you become a citizen or are born a citizen , you get all the civilians benefits and can vote/legislate, plus the you have a responsibility to defend the country.
They were civilians, but they were also rich, which is why they could afford the license to have a child. For lower class civilians, the only way to guarantee getting a license to have a child is by serving and becoming a citizen. Like it said in the military ad “service guarantees citizenship”. They point it out in the shower scene when everyone is saying why they joined, one of the girls said she joined because she wanted to have kids.
@@macolmcampbell I would also think citizens would be allowed to have certain jobs, or companies have a particular contract. For example a civilian could own Gulfstream aerospace corporation, but they might not get the clearance for military contracts. OR it might be harder to get a license, or approval for some things. It's a merit based society, but there is still a bias. Another example would be a Citizen would be running, and working at the federal postal service, but a civilian could own, and work for, FedEx. Then if the federal postal service has a disaster, mistake, or corruption, the citizen is held directly responsible. They would be punished, and maybe replaced. However a civilian postal service might get crushed and sold off.
In the book there are many ways to become a citizen besides military service. And non-citizens do not have all the rights and responsibilities of citizens, but they do have some rights. It's like a convicted felon cannot do some things unless they get their rights restored through the courts. But they still have legal protection under the Constitution and the laws of society.
Most of the ships are miniatures and are extremely valuable if you find them, especially the ones with battle damage. I watched this movie when I was in elementary school when my sisters and I were at my aunt's condo when she was babysitting us. She rented this, along with Tales From The Crypt: Demon Knight for us to watch.
Interesting fact. - the workshop that did all the bug animation, was started by Phil Tippett. Who was doing all the movement animation on Jurassic Park.
Mobile Infantry in the book is more like small Gundam units. (the book is amazing) Like you said infantry just doesn't make sense in the movie. No armored units, no air cover, no artillery, completely stupid because it's like the Gov threw away 100 years of lessons learned on real battlefields. Also in the book the bugs didn't know where Earth was, thus the reason why they were sucking the brains out of officers and more importantly starship pilots. In the book all pilots had poison teeth (?) to make sure they died before they could reveal Earth's location. The pilots were the only people who knew how to locate Earth.
@@douglascampbell9809 LOL yeah, but what I loved was the dual-nature: The chunks flew off and spread out, and thus created a whole lot of random flying and falling objects, which overcame the enemy RADAR or whatever ...making defensive guns highly unlikely to target an actual soldier..
@@douglascampbell9809 Hey have you had the chance to read any sci-fi works by Allistair Reynolds? I'd characterize it as "Like Starship Troopers...but more scientific than military.' and maybe also more scientific than ..mmm..realistic? Dramatic? I dunno, he's got great stories, but somehow his characters do not seem diverse, as much as self-inserts: How would I be, in that position?" with a failing to recognise that some folks just act contrary to rationality, for the sake of muddling things up.
@@jean-paulaudette9246 I'll have to take a look at his stuff. I will suggest my favorite book in case you haven't read it. Voice of the Whirlwind by Walter Jon Williams.
Fun fact: Zim (the drill instructor and later private who catches the Brain Bug) is portrayed by Clancy Brown, who is the voice of characters such as Head Paladin Rhombus in Fallout 1, and Mr. Krabs on SpongeBob SquarePants.
"That vagina bug just capri-sunned that man" is fucking hilarious and I had to stop and laugh for a few minutes. Thank you for this wonderful sentence. You truly made my day.
Heinlein's original book was critcized for it's facistic themes. So, Verhoeven played that up with the Nazi imagery. Phil Tippet, stop-motion artist for the original Star Wars trilogy and Robocop films, was the special effects supervisor for this film. There's a cool animated TV series called Roughnecks: Starship Troopers that really fills out the plot and answers questions like how the bugs travel to other planets.
About your question about why not drop bombs instead of sending troops, will answer that with a quote from Braveheart. "Arrows cost money, the dead cost nothing"
When you guys were talking about Starfleet being more war driven I was thinking of the Voyager episode "Living Witness" were it is 700 years in the future and Voyager was helping two alien species come to an agreement. One species treated Voyage like a warship and all the crew members were all war-like in their behavior.
The BIG unspoken fact of the movie is that the bugs DON'T HAVE STARSHIPS. They deliberately showed the bug's system is on the opposite side the galaxy- so there's no way the bugs sent that rock to wipe out earth....and you'll notice the moon had a huge ring of guns all around it- but they were never used. It's all to keep the populace engaged and unquestioning. Productive but complacent. You mentioned the FOX News comparison and that's very apt- keeping the viewers outraged but tuned in.
Bugs do have starships...that is how they get from planet to planet...Verhoeven left that fact out of the movie so that he could preserve the story he wanted to tell. Just like he left out the fact that the Federation tried to make peace with the Bugs, and the fact that the Federation tried to stop the religious nuts from setting up their colony...but did not have the power to force the settlers not to settle there.
Emily! So, the book "Forever War" by Joe Haldeman is an anti-war response to "Starship Troopers" by Robert Heinlein, both of them are veterans.....the former was a book where the war is so distant that you have to go at nearly light speed to get there, and Einstein's time dilation principle means that only a few weeks pass for the soldiers in transit, but decades pass on Earth. So this war goes on for hundreds of years. It was a book promoting the idea of avoiding war whenever possible. Basically a commentary on Vietnam (in which Haldeman served). I don't think Forever War has been made into a movie yet. If they do, I hope they keep the "Hard Science Fiction" aspect of it, where they can't go faster than light -- in real life you can't go faster than the speed of light! But, if you maintain 9.81 m/s acceleration, it feels like standing on Earth, and it makes time pass by very slowly on the ship, so you age very slow -- and I hope they keep the "anti-war" aspect of it. It's a really good book, I highly reccomend it! Also the book version of Starship Troopers is good too. 🙂
Civilian = non-military/-service folk. Citizen = Military/Service completed folk. Based around the concept of only those that has been willing to sacrifice all they have for the state should have the right to vote and be involved with politics. If you read the book, the concept makes sense form that POV. And the reason it hasn't been replaced is cuz IT WORKS. and nothing else so far has shown itself to be anywhere near as efficient.
The background of the story as written by Heinlein had the veterans rising up against a corrupt government. That's what led to the militarization of the concept of citizenship. Also, you nailed it; it was depicting a form of fascism. This movie remains a guilty pleasure of mine- mostly for Dizz and the soundtrack.
_"The background of the story as written by Heinlein had the veterans rising up against a corrupt government."_ Oh, so like Judge Dredd which led to a fascist all-out police state.
It is just too bad that Verhoeven never read the book...he could not get past the first few pages...so he made up his own story that satirizes some stuff he made up in his head.
Fascism does not have fair elections, and voluntary service. Nor does the leadership take responsibility for disasters and resign, allowing a new leader to be chosen. While this society did have conflict with other human societies, it did not discriminate with in it's own members. That is any one could volinteer for citizenship. Even a crippled person. Which would have been taken care of either way.
What Phil Tippett is mostly known for in the wider public is his work on the Jurassic Park movies, where he was credited as "Dinosaur Supervisor", as his role was supervising the special effects work on the dinosaurs from both his own effects studio and ILM. This has led to a number of memes calling him out for his shoddy work on supervising the actual dinosaurs themselves. "People died because of your lack of supervision. There were raptors all up in the kitchen, Phil. In the goddamn kitchen!"
The original book was pretty genuine in being pro-military/jingoiatic. For a long time it was on the admirals recommended reading list for the navy. Taking its idea and turning it into a satire of itself was brilliant.
I don't find the book to be nearly as pro-military as critical reviewers claim. For one thing, Johnny winds up in the MI because he's flunked out of all of the other jobs he tried to get, and they make it clear that if he doesn't make it in a military position, he'd be sent to complete some other arduous job for his term of service before being a citizen. It was civil service that was required, not military service, and it was arduous so that those who became citizens were a group who had chosen to put "the welfare of the group ahead of personal advantage." Others claim that it doesn't show the negative side of military service, even though it includes numerous pointless deaths of Johnny's comrades and clearly discusses the tiny fraction of the time that a soldier actually spends fighting (as compared to cleaning and maintaining equipment, etc). The MI soldiers are critiqued for all being intelligent and diligent soldiers, when the book takes great pains to explain how few recruits actually get to be MI in the end BECAUSE they're only interested in the most intelligent and diligent soldiers.
I'm always amazed how many people didn't get this was satire. Also - and this may be heresy to some - the more old Roger Ebert reviews I come across, the more I doubt he actually watched/paid attention to the movies.
@@ThreadBomb Seriously. I recently watched 'Disclosure' (the thriller with Michael Douglas and Demi Moore) and then read about Ebert calling it a 'launch pad for sex scenes'. That film has exactly one sex scene in it, and it happens to be pivotal to the plot.
If you have concerns about the terminology, read the book. It's significantly different and explained in far more depth than it is in this movie. Not saying I dislike the movie but it is not representative of the book.
You guys should read Heinlein's books to get what that civilian/citizenship and rights stuff is about. It actually does make sense and is to be taken seriously, especially in our day and age where these things mean nothing. This movie is widely regarded to have gone far too much nazigoonish compared to the book and Heinlein's mental landscape.
@@edwardsummey8843 I wouldn’t say he found the Nazis exciting - he explicitly meant the movie as a satire of fascism and used the biggest example he knew.
@@tysoncram2104 he was a child in WW2 France He actually said in an interview that he used the German soldiers from the war as inspiration because they were exciting.
All those bugs coming at them at once in the base. "Sir! We're surrounded!" "Well that simplifies the problem!" "Sir, we're surrounded!" "I prefer to think of it as a 'target rich environment', Private."
I was wondering why I loved Emily so much, until Matthew pointed out that her laugh is a bit like Rich Evans'. Totally makes sense now. Come to think of it, Matthew reminds me of Jay.
Roughnecks: The Starship Troopers Chronicles is a CG animated series that came on TV for a few years. It's basically the Starship Troopers story, just stretched out over a multi-episode show over multiple "campaigns". It has fewer members of the squad that Rico and Dizzy are in led by Razak. Very entertaining. The CG is a bit dated now, but the story was very well done. I highly recommend giving it a watch. It's broken up into 4 or 5 "movies" with each movie being the entirety of a "season".
I'm so glad you guys reacted to this awesome film! Rico had a hell of a year. Highschool graduate to recruit. Recruit to washout. Washout to Private. Private to Corporal. Corporal to acting Sargent. Acting Sargent to an actual Sargent. Sargent to Lieutenant by the end of the movie
"That vagina bug just capri-sun'd that man." Well. If that isn't the quote of 2021 then I don't know what is. I wish time travel were possible if only to go back in time and put that quote on the VHS cassette box.
omfg I just got to this line in the video and I am literally laughing/choking at the same time coming to the comments to see if anyone else loved her reaction.....best line ever!!!
She had me crying with that quote. LOL!
This must have been the best review quote...Ever...
Absolutely remarkable comment! I'm dying here! LOL - Keep it going!!
Just that line was worth watching the review
Best Starship Troopers review quote of all time: "That vagina bug just Capri Sun'd that man!"
"Not to self, get suspenders."
Me: Oh you've got yourself a real one buddy. Never let her go.
"That vagina bug just Capri sunned that man!" That has got to be the most hilarious thing Em has ever said! I want that on a t-shirt.
Emily does it again.
I sort of expected her to recognize that it was a WAP (Weird Arachnid P...). But she made Capri Sun into a verb too.
Also, her Mormon theory checks out. I don't like it when they come around, but we are the same species so they get to live.
omg I laughed so hard on that one XD
They REALLY need their own merch site. Matthew get on that!!
So do I 😁
That brain bugs mouth looked like a human stink star
"The enemy cannot push the button if you disable his hand. MEDIC!"
Best. Drill. Sergeant. Ever.
Yeah I aways notice that first time reactors think the boot camp is too harsh... but when you realize they can bring you from the brink of almost anything and heal you almost completely, it changes things a bit.
@@ravissary79 And that's why they yell "Medic!" after a guy has half his head blown off.
@@ThreadBomb true, though obviously that was treated with more seriousness since it wasn't salvageable.
I always thought the entire training was weird, since they were supposed to be getting trained to fight bugs, but all they ever do is train how to fight other humans.
The line especially about the button, I always wondered why nobody said "but sir, the enemy cannot push the button, regardless of if we disable their hand.... They don't have hands, or buttons. They're bugs, sir"
One of the reasons I always loved the cartoon. They actually did train how to fight bugs, n it was mostly just Endurance training of killing a never ending wave of holographic bugs running straight at you, as fast as possible, for as long as you possibly can, n it was never ending, always making them try and beat their previous top score. Aka, actually useful training that kept most of the Roughnecks alive throughout the entire show.
@@Trojianmaru it's general military training, the bugs are a relatively new threat.
In the book they initially weren't at war with anyone, but the federation is big. There's little issues and skirmishes or pirates or terrorists somewhere some of the time.
The opening of the book is the mobile infantry doing a smash and run raid on a "Skinny" planet. The Skinnies are an alien race of extremely tall, extremely thin stature. The raid was a check on their aggression, a warning to back off. No open war, no genocide, no invasion, just a show of force to enforce the peace. Think seal team six.
1. Dizzy.
2. The Soundtrack to this movie DOES live forever.
3. Dizzy (Dina Meyer - she still looks great btw)
She was in The Magicians as well, and damn she looks good
Dina Meyer is my 90s/early-2000s crush.
Don't forget Johnny Mnemonic.
you got that right , I watched her in a life time film 2 yrs ago and wow, she is still stunning
The thing that a lot of reactions seem to miss out on is that this movie was deliberately written to be a high quality cheesy dialogue satire. It was not accidental. The actors were chosen because they were handsome and older than the characters. They were directed by Verhoven to perform the lines over the top.
and mus be Tall Blonde and look like Hitler dream Race :D
"That vagina bug just Capri-Sunned that man"!"
One of the great all-time quotes on this channel.
Of the internet in general.
I agree completely awesome!!!!!!!
I was going to say that as my favorite line, but ya beat me to it! LOL!
"Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is"...Let's gather all our ships together in one nice tight group.
I rooted for the bugs...
That's the point.
I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
Actually, I think the 3rd Starship Troopers explains that. The bugs had sympathizers and puppets at certain high levels in command.
@@CosmicG777
I think the first has a better implied explanation that they're using the war with the bugs to burn off their industrial output, the ships are supposed to get shot down so they can employ people to build more ships. It's like the Floating Fortresses in _Nineteen Eighty-Four_ .
Yeah, if you look at a galactic view and then get shown Humanity's radioactivity out into space, we are like a small cube of local space compared to the whole of the galaxy.
Space is insanely vast and insanely filled with billions and billions of stars with planets around them. So space war for planets will most likely never become needed beyond 'genocide attempt'.
"C'mon you apes, do you want to live forever?!" is a line that is tweaked from US Marine Dan Daly: "Come on you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?!" which Dan Daly stated to his company during WW1 before charging the Germans at the Battle of Belleau Wood. That line is powerful in this movie because Dan Daly is one of 19 people to have been awarded TWO Congressional Medals of Honor, the highest military decoration given in the United States.
That shot of the ship getting shot in half, is of a practical real model. They made an 18 foot long model for the movie.
FINALLY!!! Been checking every day for a new video! So glad you guys are finally back! You've been missed!!! 😊😊😊
"I'd keep that helmet on." 😂
I see you learned that all successes in this movie come from the earlier football scenes.
The movie is goofy fun, but almost nothing like the book. I believe the book was one of the first American stories to use the idea of battle mechs/power armor. Plus, the way they drop from orbit to a planet is a lot cooler. Read it when you have the time, but try to put the move out of your mind when you do so.
There's a saying, "when it come to movies, the books don't matter". I guess it's true to an extent. This movie could simply 'inspired' by the book, and took its own direction.
I haven't read the book and I'm a sucker for power armor and mechs so I might give it a go!
It is very much intentionally not like the books since the books are very politically opinionated meant to pass on messaging about tge fantasy of fascism as a good thing, not as satire like in this movie
_"I believe the book was one of the first American stories to use the idea of battle mechs/power armor."_
It's not the first but it was first to go into detail and bring it to the popular consciousness.
@@Songfugel The book does NOT advocate "fascism". It puts forward a free-market government in which franchise is limited to those who have performed some form of ->unpleasant
The book is also fascist propaganda. I’m glad the movie dunks on the original content a bit. The original book idealizes fascism too much.
I don't know if people seeing this for the first time can truly appreciate how JARRING it was for first time watchers of this movie, seeing NPH in that get-up, especially since many of us hadn't seen him as ANYTHING but Doogie Howser, M.D. before that time. It was truly bizarre.
Dina Meyer "Dizzy Flores" played in another memorable future sci-fi film, "Johnnie Mnemonic," opposite Keanu Reeves.
Massively under rated film
@@Mauther Agreed! You know William Gibson wrote that story? Before he wrote "Neuromancer." He was one of about three "Fathers of Cyberpunk."
@@jean-paulaudette9246 I actually prefer Strange Days, but that movie kind of got lost in the shuffle
And she played female lead in Dragonheart. (OK, Fantasy not SciFi, but still...)
@@Mauther Loved Strange Days, and, I also felt that Freejack was an unsung Cyperpunk film.
The biology teacher in the dissection scene at 07:28 is Rue McClanahan, also known as Blanche Devereaux from The Golden Girls.
30:34 Now I want a T-shirt with the image of Zander's brains being sucked out and Emily's quote as the caption.
Absolutely!
Anytime Micheal Ironside is in a movie someone always eventually says “AH EEH AH!” It’s inevitable.
"See you at da party, Richter!"
He even did it in Turbo Kid lol
I love how the shot of Buenos Aires shows stock footage of a few things on fire as opposed to a giant crater in the ground.
"Jurassic Park" came out in 1993, and Phil Tippett was the Visual Effects Supervisor on that film as well. "Starship Troopers" was nominated for an Oscar in 1998, but lost to a little movie that came out that year called "Titanic," which swept the awards in every category in which it was nominated.
The Lost World: Jurassic Park was nominated for an Oscar for best visual effects along with Starship Troopers and Titanic. May have been what he was thinking about.
Phil Tippett directed the Starship Troopers sequel, which has a bad rep because it tells a much smaller story and was made for about a buck fifty. But I think it's a cool little sci-fi horror film..
Fun fact: When Jurassic Park was in pre-production, at the time Tippet and the rest at ILM (Industrial light and magic) had only ever done practical effects. puppets, models, etc. CGI had been around, but no one had done animals with it (except disney on the pines of rome sequence of fantasia 2000, the bit with the cgi whales, but that had been done in secret) after test footage had convinced Spielberg to move to CGI dinos, the ilm team had to figure out how to get puppeteers to work with CGI puppets. they solved that by building the D.I.D, the Dinosaur Input Device.
the D.I.D. was a little robot dino that could be animated like a stop motion puppet, but had sensors that the computer could read and could record the movement. so the dinos in JP were animated by hand, one frame at a time like a clay stop motion model.
How this relates to starship troopers? when they were figuring out how to animate the bugs, they brought back the D.I.D, now called the Digital Input Device. but tech had advanced so much, they were able to redesign it so it no longer needed to be done a frame at a time. now instead of a stop motion model, it was a hand puppet. and could be animated in real time and record the movements. thats why they move so fluidly.
I love how Emily's brain works, now I'll never be able to rewatch this movie without seeing in my head the image of the 2 Mormon missionaries riding the bug's door bell. 😂🤣😂
I think what she's trying to say is "Nuke the site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure".
"Whoa, just hold on a second. This installation has a substantial dollar-value attached to it."
"Well they can bill me!"
She went full Exterminatus - I'm proud of her ^^
"You kill bugs good."
Emily, "Well, you kill bugs well."
Me: THANK YOU.
"Do you still love me?"
"Yea, sure"
"Ok, Cool"
"Maybe a lil bit more."
That's sweet.
11:44 This Sargent is Clancy Brown, the voice of MR KRABS on SPONGEBOB. He also recently had a part as a main character in the game Detroit: Become Human
And the best luthor
I love how in this movie you graduate high school and immediately and with minimal training are able to be the second in command of a giant space ship
"After that ripped your heart they always be your friend" damn it so true
30:14 Emily's shrieks and wails were hilarious but she just had the most phenomenal reaction on Earth.
"That vagina bug just Capri Sun'd that man." Lmao!
Dina Meyer ( Dizzy ) played the romulan commander in Star Trek nemesis that helps the enterprise versus scimitar. Picard owes her a romulan ale
No lie, this is one of my all-time favorite movies. It just does everything so well: the B-List acting, the over-the-top satire, tiddies =D - I don't always watch it, but when I do I always enjoy it.
Some movies aren't really much of anything, but this one is definitely an experience!
It is a perfect beer and curry night film with the lads & ladettes :)
In the book service could be anything from the military to being a public servant. You took a test to see where you fit best. One of the least desirable things was medical testing or reactor technician if I remember correctly.
I always liked the idea of the Neo-Dog handlers.
remember what Q said in skyfall "sometimes a trigger needs to be pulled" ...007 "or not pulled as the case may be"
This is one of those movies that I appreciated for different reasons as I got older. I always really enjoyed it; but when I first saw it I was probably in early highschool. I just liked it for the bugs and guns. The greater context of the film didn't really hit me until I got a bit older. That's when I had even more fun with it.
"Revengence!" You're a treasure Emily.
You definitely need to watch Showgirls. It is a trip!
Yes Show Girls I remember that one, she'll love it 👍🍻😁
I thought I was the only person who made up that word.
I'm sure she'll love it. 90% of the commentary will be Emily going "Tiddies!" 😂😂
For those of us who watched Saved by the Bell in high-school. Yes, yes it was a trip.
Showgirls is awful. Even being full of tiddies can't save it.
start by going back to the '50s and reading Heinlein science fiction stories to get the source of the flavor.
gratifying to hear emily peg the best cgi shot in the film which I happen to think is one of the best in (my) science fiction film history: that ship blown into burning halves. as a reader of sci-fi from the '50s on, that moment was what I had been dreaming of seeing onscreen for a very long time.
I'm going to continue to recommend that you please consider Robert Redford's "Jeremiah Johnson".
My favorite book by Heinlein. Though I admittedly did not read many of them.
I think that was actually a practical effect model.
@@Kainlarsen combo?
This movie has almost nothing to do with the book. They lifted some names, ignored everything else, and let Verhoeven smear his own fetish for Nazis all over it.
Start by no longer assigning homework to strangers.
Definitely loved Dizzy, but I also loved the fact that Carmen and Xander were not depicted as flat-out villains (the BUGS remained the only antagonist). They WERE good together and I liked that the movie touched on their partnership as pilots rather than the romance. It was also good that Rico and Carmen don't get "back together" at the end.
I seriously never understood why people didn't like Carmen. She's just as clear as Dizzy from with beginning with what she wants - she doesn't love Rico and refuses to pretend she does, even to the point where she doesn't want to tell him she loves him. He utterly ignores this and pressures her into saying the words anyway. Like dude, now you're just the guy who won't take a hint and move on with your life and who's now making this farewell awkward. He kept pushing her for meaningless words. She was clear that passion was for piloting.
If you check the deleted scenes there is one that shows that they actually only got together in that way after Carmen thought he was dead from the invasion. In the movie Carmen was never a villain and did care for him, she just wanted her life plans more.
Thank you for watching my Reccomendations.
This is honestly one of the best films I've ever watched.
As a teenager,I thought it was an underrated Alien Invasion film.
As an adult,this is one of the most intelligently written Satires/Critiques of the American Military Complex ever made,and a really good Rorschach test type of of film to see what first time viewers interpret from the many subtle messages it leaves the viewers to interpret.
Saw this movie in the cinema when it came out, was fantastic, it really needs to be seen on a big screen with speakers booming.
Saw this in the theater. Sooo many parents brought kids. The shower scene was an epic reaction.
Yeah, my parents took my friends and me. It was... awkward. LOL
"Thats vagina bug just capri-sunned that man!"
I'd never imagine hearing that in my life. Thank you Emily😂🤣💀
To this day it never ceases to amaze me when I meet people that honestly think this movie is pro-military. Or that the humans who invaded the bug's territory and then proceeded to try to xenocide them aren't the bad guys of the story.
I know rite.
When the old friend walks out in a fucking SS uniform you’re supposed to be like “wait…are we the baddies?”
Describing it as the humans invading is very uncharitable. The bugs started the war, they threw an asteroid at earth. The whole point of the quarantine zone was to try to not provoke them. Imagine being critical of a country that is trying to stop missile attacks from its neighbours and calling them the bad guys. And remember, the bugs have an intelligence, they're not *just* mindless murderbots.
The reason they're in nazi-esque uniforms is because the director is an idiot. He has no idea what the original book is, or what he's actually depicting. The Federation isn't a war machine, its not a military dictatorship, there's even an acknowledgement in the review portion that military service isn't the only way to become a citizen, its just that we're following soldiers during a war time so there's no focus on the other methods.
For a satire, this movie is extremely poorly done. But for a popcorn flick its fucking great. I will agree that the movie isn't pro-military, but its not anti-military either.
@@pezdispencer113 The best part is that there's a theory the bugs didn't actually throw the asteroid, instead it was the asteroid Carmen bumps into that crashes into earth and the government uses it as a propaganda tool to invade another planet. Kinda like the U.S blamed the sinking of the U.S.S Maine to start the Spanish-American War. Or how the CIA planned to detonate bombs in malls, on military bases, or even sink a U.S ship to blame on Cuba in the 60's to justify an invasion. Or basically any war the U.S has been involved in since WW2. Let me ask you, in a world with flying ships and mechanized fighting suits how didn't this massive military not see a massive meteor flying to earth, supposedly launched from the other side of the galaxy, and not have time to evacuate Buenos Aires? A main point of the movie is that you're watching a fascist military states newsfeed, of course they're going to say that it was the bugs that sent the meteor to kickstart a massive war. They lie or spin half truths based on lies. The fact you didn't pick up that it's kinda weird the bugs sent a meteor *somehow* into earth that's never explained or questioned by the people of the federation tells me how you viewed this movie.
An "attack" that galvanizes a military complex focused nation into invading a foreign place so far away from them it might as well be a different planet, crazy how something that came out in 1997 sounds so eerily predictive huh? It's a world where risking getting your legs blown off lets you vote. Nevermind the people in high positions of government who have an incentive to create states of war because if people need to serve to vote then you need to create a large service, but what's the point of a large service if they never go to war? In the book or in the movie service is seen as a noble act that guarantees you the rights you honestly should already have, which chiefly is to vote among other things.
Let it be known the author of the book advocates wholeheartedly that if you fuck up in the line of duty you should be whipped or receive other capital punishments. Which is shown in it's horror fully in the movie. Robert Heinlein wrote a book showing what a society might look like (which is not even most of the book, most of the book are philosophical and political rambles) if it limits it's power only to a certain group of people, Paul Verhoeven saw what that looked like in the 40's and shows us what that really is through this film. It's terrifying and horrific.
If the invasion of a planet literally on the other side of the fucking galaxy, in which young people are thrown into the meat grinder without actual training to fight the threat, (they practice laser tag and not fighting bugs, yes I know the war wasn't declared when they're training but you'd think with the propaganda of "bugs are the biggest threat to us" then the military would train for it) a direct reference to when a reporter leaked the time and date of a military operation causing a huge blunder, doesn't say "anti-military" then you just didn't get it and/or don't care because you already had a different opinion than what this movie was actually saying, which causes you bias and just go "this movie is dumb fun not actual satire." A guy who is friends with the main character is literally wearing an SS uniform, how is that not Anti-war.
@@pezdispencer113 carmen actually changed the trajectory of the asteroid when they clipped it with the ship so I'm not sure the bugs started the war to begin with.
@@pezdispencer113you fail to realize that you are being presented with propaganda. Of course the humans claim that the asteroid was sent by the bugs. But considering that the humans then proceeded to send a huge fleet to the bug homeworld without encountering any resistance on the way, strongly implies that the bugs had no idea the humans were coming, which in turn indicates they never sent that asteroid in the first place.
Casper Van Dien is still among my favorite actors today. And fun fact, he is a huge fan of the book, even expressing disappointment when they decided to cut the power suits out.
Yeah, the book is VERY different. It's sort of told as a memoir/diary of a soldier going from basic training all the way through the war. Also, the Mobile Infantry is so-called because they have exo-suits that let them do Iron-Man type things and do planetary landings by being fired out of the ships like torpedoes. The Mobile Infantry here are basically US Marines, soldiers deployed by ships.
"That vagina bug just Capri Sunned that man" might be the greatest line I've ever heard in my life...😁. Well done!!
"Capri sunned that man" might be the best grammatical conjugation I've heard in my life. I love Emily's gut reactions and articulation of her feelings. I love Matthews deep knowledge of cinema, and even going the extra mile to go back and read a Roger Ebert review. It makes this channel so different from so many other "What did you think?" "I had a great time, the bugs were gross be sure to subscribe" kinda thoughtless reaction channels.
Zim is my fav. Clancy Brown is best known for playing the Kurgin in Highlander. Also was in Buckaroo Banzai. Thought it was funny that Ironsides played in Highlander 2. Fun fact. Clancy Brown voices Mr Krabs.
There's a load of different elements of different militaristic regimes in this film; Not just Nazis, but Soviet commissars, mediaeval elites like Samurai and Templars... the Federation builds a cult of war and death to fuel their 'uptopia'.
It's even implied by many that Buenos Ares was an inside job in order to justify the war. I'm not joking. :D
It’s pretty explicitly about fascism
Because paul verhoeven didn't read the source material and instead made the film to mock the book (really good book by the way) in order to support his own political leanings.
Why put utopia in quotes?
We're not shown any civil unrest, resource shortages, plague or famine, protests, etc. The only full obstacle to a Civilian seems to be voting, but we're never shown any negatives to not being able to vote. One person says it's "easier" to get a birth license if you are a Citizen, so even Citizens have a restriction on births and Civilians can have kids.
We're not shown any other rights Civilians don't have.
Not sure where it's implied Buenos Ares was an inside job. We literally see Carmen's crew tracking a rock from bug space towards earth but they can't report it.
Humans use a real world impossible 'Stardrive' to cruise the galaxy. We are already accepting impossible travel modes.
We see the bugs on different planets in different systems, thus they can and do travel through space across distance of light-years.
We see bugs that can project large plasma bursts out of a planet's gravity. This implies some form of space combat, either just defending from space threats or possible bombarding a planet from it's moons.
We see bugs that evolved to suck out brains of creatures and then (allegedly) process them into a usable data form for themselves.
The bugs are never humanized. We all kill bugs.
Doogie wears a Nazi inspired uniform but does nothing Nazi like.
You're allowed to leave the volunteer military at any time.
Civilians can own property and businesses and can leave the planet.
Having to serve to vote is more fascist than everyone being able to vote.
We don't know if there's a problem with that in-world.
Rico's non-Citizen parents are successful and don't think voting is worth it.
I think it's a great film but not a good satire.
The type of government of the federation is a Representative Democratic Stratocracy.
@@Oldandcynical I do not think his intention was to mock the book, he was lightly inspired by it, but made his own movie.
The greatest sci-fi movie ever, the fiction being somebody not interested in Dina Meyer.
"That vagina bug just Capri-Sunned that man!" Yet another sentence that I thought I'd never hear (and didn't know that I needed to hear). Thank you. You just made my entire day!
Fact that Denise survives in this movie and Dina dies has always f***** with me
I am glad that you made that Conan connection and here is another. Both movies had same composer, Basil Poledouris. He is so underrated and sadly we lost him. Should have worked no more movies. He did the score for another Vehuven movie that you already saw, Robocop.
If only he had got to work on more genre movies, he could have been another Jerry Goldsmith.
Pretty sure the original quote was by a US soldier during the battle of the Legates in China at the beginning of the 20th Century
"Verjina Bug"......
I can't stop laughing!
If you love this, I can only advise viewing the too-soon-cancelled Fox series, "Space: Above and Beyond." Dated CG effects, but great stories, characters and perfomances.
And the other too soon canceled Firefly.
@@ajclements4627 Different animals entirely...but yes, can't stop the signal.
Who knew that Michael Ironside (best name in the biz) would be the BEST wingman in cinema?!?!
❤
You couldn’t have picked a more perfect time to watch this film.
All the looks he gives knowing what's coming up is amazing.
Loved your reaction and analysis on this, but I think y'all missed an important point about the group forces/aerial bombardment issue. There's several legitimate reasons they need to send in ground forces, in any war, and It's not just to prolong the war.
First off, in order to hold ground, you must have troops actually on the ground, otherwise any gains you make via air strikes are just as quickly lost when the enemy regroups and returns.
Secondly, resources for air strikes are generally far less available and can cover less ground than foot soldiers can. There are simply fewer planes, ships, bombs, whatever than there are soldiers.
Third, in this particular example the bugs are largely underground. Air and orbital attacks would not be very effective at attacking a subterranean enemy, and even locating said enemy would be very difficult from orbital distances. Without the precise knowledge of where to strike effectively, there would be no point to air strikes.
And finally, economics. Air forces are extremely pricy. The platforms AND the weapons they use are ridiculously expensive. Sad as it is to say it, human resources are far more economical to use than equipment. In conjunction with the above reasons as well, if you could have (for the same cost) 1000 human troops or 1 air strike platform (plane, missiles, etc) those human troops are far more effective for the cost. Even considering losses, you could lose 50% of your human forces and STILL have an effective fighting force even if their potency is diminished, whereas if your 1 air strike platform takes 50% damage it's no longer able to effectively fight. It's the horrible calculous of war.
One thing I WILL fault the federation on though, is their lack of armored and artillery support. Even mortars would have made survival much more likely in both the battles they showed. This is one of the major differences between the original Heinlein book and the movie. In the book, the Mobile Infantry are basically walking tanks in and of themselves with extreme mobility, protection, and firepower available to them.
Anyway, that's my 2 cents worth. :P I'm not really an expert on these topics, just well read and an armchair historian.
In the tv show Roughnecks, the infantry get their advanced combat armour and are, like you said, practically walking tanks.
They actually did have some form of mortars on the drop ships if you look when the troops are disembarking from them, they are firing them at quite a rate of fire.
I love the book this is (very) loosely based on. And the politics are explained a LOT better, but the director was not trying to film the book(as he had never read it), but make a satire and a political statement. Even I find it amazing how much I love this movie, given how much it butchers one of my favorite books, but I do.
I would LOVE to see an accurate version made sometime though...
@@loomick Roughnecks was one of the best animated shows ever made, it is just sad that they never got to film the final 'campaign'...
@@jamesraykenney totally agreed
The actual reason why you never see ground vehicles and it's always just tons of people thrown into the meat grinder is because the movie is a satire of fascism.
Fascism, known for their brainwashing of youths, has blinded the infantrymen to their own destruction. This is why you don't have PTSD in this satire universe. This is why the main characters are able to laugh and joke with each other in high spirits literally the day after their whole platoon gets torn apart. It's because they believe in their government and in the whole idea of service gives you citizenship.
Test Audiences hated that Carmen survived and Dizzy died.
This movie should've been called Halo: The Friend Zone.
“Put your hand on that wall!!!”
“Medic!!”
😂😂😂😂
Emily when she sees a cow: Cow!
Emily sees fake cow in Top Secret: Cow?
Emily when cow dies in Starship Troopers: (Whimpering.) Cow…
Dying. 😆
I always mention this when this movie is brought up, but I have TWO UNCLES who worked on this movie.
My Uncle David on my Brother's side of the family is a now-retired Hollywood Model Maker who worked for decades in special effects and also worked on the first Star Wars Movie, Alien 3, Close Encounter of the Third Kind, and Air Force One.
My Uncle Jay (my mom's brother) is a now-retired carpenter/handyman from Wyoming who was one of the people hired to help build the alien world sets in Wyoming and was one of two SAG Accredited Carpenters in the state at the time (The other one being Harrison Ford)
Always enjoyed this I was 15 when I saw this. Loved Dizzy more than Carmen don't get me wrong Denise Richards not bad at all. But Dizzy know what she wanted and got it 👍
The recruiter having no legs and missing an arm is intentional in the book, he’s there specifically to put people off. The book has his shift end and him put on perfectly normal prosthetics and walk off.
Smart. Make sure they only recruit soldiers that won't piss their pants and drop their gun as soon as they see a squaddie lose a limb or 4 like it's no big deal.
That actor is the CSI autopsy doctor, and is genuinely a double amputee.
Yeah. The prosthetics in the book looked like real arms and legs. Because the Federation takes care of its citizens. I bet the erector set junk prosthetics in the movie were just another Verhoven "Funny idea".
Clearly civilians have some rights, including being able to have kids and living in a very nice house. I assume Rico's parents were both civilians given their opposition to him signing up. Although they have elections, I've always imagined it would like a choice between voting for Joe from the Military Party, Bob from the Military Party, and Frank from the Military Party.
I've always thought it was modeled on ancient rome, where you could live in rome as a free man, enjoy all the benefits of rome ( run a business, have a family, own property etc) ie a civilian but not a citizen. If you become a citizen or are born a citizen , you get all the civilians benefits and can vote/legislate, plus the you have a responsibility to defend the country.
They were civilians, but they were also rich, which is why they could afford the license to have a child.
For lower class civilians, the only way to guarantee getting a license to have a child is by serving and becoming a citizen. Like it said in the military ad “service guarantees citizenship”. They point it out in the shower scene when everyone is saying why they joined, one of the girls said she joined because she wanted to have kids.
I suspect most civilians would be wealthy since the poor would line up to serve.
@@macolmcampbell I would also think citizens would be allowed to have certain jobs, or companies have a particular contract.
For example a civilian could own Gulfstream aerospace corporation, but they might not get the clearance for military contracts. OR it might be harder to get a license, or approval for some things. It's a merit based society, but there is still a bias. Another example would be a Citizen would be running, and working at the federal postal service, but a civilian could own, and work for, FedEx. Then if the federal postal service has a disaster, mistake, or corruption, the citizen is held directly responsible. They would be punished, and maybe replaced. However a civilian postal service might get crushed and sold off.
In the book there are many ways to become a citizen besides military service. And non-citizens do not have all the rights and responsibilities of citizens, but they do have some rights. It's like a convicted felon cannot do some things unless they get their rights restored through the courts. But they still have legal protection under the Constitution and the laws of society.
Most of the ships are miniatures and are extremely valuable if you find them, especially the ones with battle damage. I watched this movie when I was in elementary school when my sisters and I were at my aunt's condo when she was babysitting us. She rented this, along with Tales From The Crypt: Demon Knight for us to watch.
I love Dina Meyer
Interesting fact. - the workshop that did all the bug animation, was started by Phil Tippett. Who was doing all the movement animation on Jurassic Park.
Mobile Infantry in the book is more like small Gundam units. (the book is amazing)
Like you said infantry just doesn't make sense in the movie. No armored units, no air cover, no artillery, completely stupid because it's like the Gov threw away 100 years of lessons learned on real battlefields.
Also in the book the bugs didn't know where Earth was, thus the reason why they were sucking the brains out of officers and more importantly starship pilots. In the book all pilots had poison teeth (?) to make sure they died before they could reveal Earth's location. The pilots were the only people who knew how to locate Earth.
Yeah, I love the descriptions of the powered armor, with their ablative atmospheric-entry shielding and all.
@@jean-paulaudette9246My friends and I likened it to being dropped in heat resistant packing foam.
@@douglascampbell9809 LOL yeah, but what I loved was the dual-nature: The chunks flew off and spread out, and thus created a whole lot of random flying and falling objects, which overcame the enemy RADAR or whatever ...making defensive guns highly unlikely to target an actual soldier..
@@douglascampbell9809 Hey have you had the chance to read any sci-fi works by Allistair Reynolds? I'd characterize it as "Like Starship Troopers...but more scientific than military.' and maybe also more scientific than ..mmm..realistic? Dramatic? I dunno, he's got great stories, but somehow his characters do not seem diverse, as much as self-inserts: How would I be, in that position?" with a failing to recognise that some folks just act contrary to rationality, for the sake of muddling things up.
@@jean-paulaudette9246 I'll have to take a look at his stuff.
I will suggest my favorite book in case you haven't read it.
Voice of the Whirlwind by Walter Jon Williams.
Fun fact: Zim (the drill instructor and later private who catches the Brain Bug) is portrayed by Clancy Brown, who is the voice of characters such as Head Paladin Rhombus in Fallout 1, and Mr. Krabs on SpongeBob SquarePants.
"That vagina bug just capri-sunned that man" is fucking hilarious and I had to stop and laugh for a few minutes. Thank you for this wonderful sentence. You truly made my day.
Heinlein's original book was critcized for it's facistic themes. So, Verhoeven played that up with the Nazi imagery.
Phil Tippet, stop-motion artist for the original Star Wars trilogy and Robocop films, was the special effects supervisor for this film.
There's a cool animated TV series called Roughnecks: Starship Troopers that really fills out the plot and answers questions like how the bugs travel to other planets.
“That vagina bug just Capri Sunned that man”. Best description I’ve ever heard about that scene 🤣🤣
About your question about why not drop bombs instead of sending troops, will answer that with a quote from Braveheart.
"Arrows cost money, the dead cost nothing"
Whether he was born with or changed his name "Ironside" is a hell of a name 👍👍
"Revengance" is my new favourite word!
When you guys were talking about Starfleet being more war driven I was thinking of the Voyager episode "Living Witness" were it is 700 years in the future and Voyager was helping two alien species come to an agreement. One species treated Voyage like a warship and all the crew members were all war-like in their behavior.
I would gladly watch an entire series with Kate Mulgrew playing Evil Janeway from that episode.
The BIG unspoken fact of the movie is that the bugs DON'T HAVE STARSHIPS. They deliberately showed the bug's system is on the opposite side the galaxy- so there's no way the bugs sent that rock to wipe out earth....and you'll notice the moon had a huge ring of guns all around it- but they were never used.
It's all to keep the populace engaged and unquestioning. Productive but complacent.
You mentioned the FOX News comparison and that's very apt- keeping the viewers outraged but tuned in.
Bugs do have starships...that is how they get from planet to planet...Verhoeven left that fact out of the movie so that he could preserve the story he wanted to tell. Just like he left out the fact that the Federation tried to make peace with the Bugs, and the fact that the Federation tried to stop the religious nuts from setting up their colony...but did not have the power to force the settlers not to settle there.
"They sucked his brains out" best movie line and delivery of all time!
I was 12 when this came out and my parents bought it when it came out on VHS. They had no problem with me watching the movie
I'm doing my part! Cinema Sargent would have been good for this one. Great film yall.
Emily! So, the book "Forever War" by Joe Haldeman is an anti-war response to "Starship Troopers" by Robert Heinlein, both of them are veterans.....the former was a book where the war is so distant that you have to go at nearly light speed to get there, and Einstein's time dilation principle means that only a few weeks pass for the soldiers in transit, but decades pass on Earth. So this war goes on for hundreds of years. It was a book promoting the idea of avoiding war whenever possible. Basically a commentary on Vietnam (in which Haldeman served).
I don't think Forever War has been made into a movie yet. If they do, I hope they keep the "Hard Science Fiction" aspect of it, where they can't go faster than light -- in real life you can't go faster than the speed of light! But, if you maintain 9.81 m/s acceleration, it feels like standing on Earth, and it makes time pass by very slowly on the ship, so you age very slow -- and I hope they keep the "anti-war" aspect of it.
It's a really good book, I highly reccomend it! Also the book version of Starship Troopers is good too. 🙂
Can we do Highlander next with Clancy Brown???
Civilian = non-military/-service folk. Citizen = Military/Service completed folk. Based around the concept of only those that has been willing to sacrifice all they have for the state should have the right to vote and be involved with politics. If you read the book, the concept makes sense form that POV.
And the reason it hasn't been replaced is cuz IT WORKS. and nothing else so far has shown itself to be anywhere near as efficient.
The background of the story as written by Heinlein had the veterans rising up against a corrupt government. That's what led to the militarization of the concept of citizenship. Also, you nailed it; it was depicting a form of fascism. This movie remains a guilty pleasure of mine- mostly for Dizz and the soundtrack.
_"The background of the story as written by Heinlein had the veterans rising up against a corrupt government."_
Oh, so like Judge Dredd which led to a fascist all-out police state.
It is just too bad that Verhoeven never read the book...he could not get past the first few pages...so he made up his own story that satirizes some stuff he made up in his head.
@@Mansplainer2099-jy8ps Exactly like Judge Dredd. I had never considered that.
@@iKvetch558 That explains so much.
Fascism does not have fair elections, and voluntary service. Nor does the leadership take responsibility for disasters and resign, allowing a new leader to be chosen. While this society did have conflict with other human societies, it did not discriminate with in it's own members. That is any one could volinteer for citizenship. Even a crippled person. Which would have been taken care of either way.
What Phil Tippett is mostly known for in the wider public is his work on the Jurassic Park movies, where he was credited as "Dinosaur Supervisor", as his role was supervising the special effects work on the dinosaurs from both his own effects studio and ILM. This has led to a number of memes calling him out for his shoddy work on supervising the actual dinosaurs themselves. "People died because of your lack of supervision. There were raptors all up in the kitchen, Phil. In the goddamn kitchen!"
The original book was pretty genuine in being pro-military/jingoiatic. For a long time it was on the admirals recommended reading list for the navy. Taking its idea and turning it into a satire of itself was brilliant.
I don't find the book to be nearly as pro-military as critical reviewers claim. For one thing, Johnny winds up in the MI because he's flunked out of all of the other jobs he tried to get, and they make it clear that if he doesn't make it in a military position, he'd be sent to complete some other arduous job for his term of service before being a citizen. It was civil service that was required, not military service, and it was arduous so that those who became citizens were a group who had chosen to put "the
welfare of the group ahead of personal advantage." Others claim that it doesn't show the negative side of military service, even though it includes numerous pointless deaths of Johnny's comrades and clearly discusses the tiny fraction of the time that a soldier actually spends fighting (as compared to cleaning and maintaining equipment, etc). The MI soldiers are critiqued for all being intelligent and diligent soldiers, when the book takes great pains to explain how few recruits actually get to be MI in the end BECAUSE they're only interested in the most intelligent and diligent soldiers.
RIP Dizzy. Rico second choiced her twice but she seemed very nice
I'm always amazed how many people didn't get this was satire.
Also - and this may be heresy to some - the more old Roger Ebert reviews I come across, the more I doubt he actually watched/paid attention to the movies.
Yeah, both Siskel and Ebert obviously came to see movie reviewing as a job rather than a passion, and half-assed it a lot of the time.
@@ThreadBomb Seriously. I recently watched 'Disclosure' (the thriller with Michael Douglas and Demi Moore) and then read about Ebert calling it a 'launch pad for sex scenes'. That film has exactly one sex scene in it, and it happens to be pivotal to the plot.
@@ThreadBomb That's why I always thought Leonard Maltin was a better critic than S&E. Maltin actually LIKES movies.
Overrated for sure!
If you have concerns about the terminology, read the book. It's significantly different and explained in far more depth than it is in this movie. Not saying I dislike the movie but it is not representative of the book.
You guys should read Heinlein's books to get what that civilian/citizenship and rights stuff is about. It actually does make sense and is to be taken seriously, especially in our day and age where these things mean nothing. This movie is widely regarded to have gone far too much nazigoonish compared to the book and Heinlein's mental landscape.
Well, the director thought the Nazis of his youth were more exciting, so used that instead of the book (which he never even read) as a source.
@@edwardsummey8843 I wouldn’t say he found the Nazis exciting - he explicitly meant the movie as a satire of fascism and used the biggest example he knew.
@@tysoncram2104 he was a child in WW2 France He actually said in an interview that he used the German soldiers from the war as inspiration because they were exciting.
Nice to see you spot the satire for what it was! You'd be surprised how many people miss it on the first viewing.
I like the colour of your hair Emily, very cool.
Nice work as always, guys😁👍
All those bugs coming at them at once in the base.
"Sir! We're surrounded!"
"Well that simplifies the problem!"
"Sir, we're surrounded!"
"I prefer to think of it as a 'target rich environment', Private."
All they really needed were planes that dropped giant explosive cans of Raid.
I was wondering why I loved Emily so much, until Matthew pointed out that her laugh is a bit like Rich Evans'. Totally makes sense now. Come to think of it, Matthew reminds me of Jay.
Such a great flick, stands the test of time! So suggestion, I'm sure you've already seen it, but "John Wick"?
Roughnecks: The Starship Troopers Chronicles is a CG animated series that came on TV for a few years. It's basically the Starship Troopers story, just stretched out over a multi-episode show over multiple "campaigns". It has fewer members of the squad that Rico and Dizzy are in led by Razak. Very entertaining.
The CG is a bit dated now, but the story was very well done. I highly recommend giving it a watch. It's broken up into 4 or 5 "movies" with each movie being the entirety of a "season".
Yesss! As soon as I saw this video, I wanted to know more!
I'm so glad you guys reacted to this awesome film! Rico had a hell of a year. Highschool graduate to recruit. Recruit to washout. Washout to Private. Private to Corporal. Corporal to acting Sargent. Acting Sargent to an actual Sargent. Sargent to Lieutenant by the end of the movie