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137 of 174 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
'War makes fascists of us all.', January 3, 2004
So says Paul Verhoeven, who has said (and says again in the commentary on this DVD release) that it's one of the statements made by this morally complex film.
I love listening to Verhoeven's commentaries (especially the one he does with Arnold Schwarzenegger on _Total Recall_). Here he shares the task with screenwriter Ed Neumeier, and putting the two of them together was an excellent choice. The commentary is one of the best features of the special edition.
The film itself is hard to evaluate. Because it's Verhoeven, it's got sex, gore, and social satire. What it's also got -- and something that was arguably missing from the Robert A. Heinlein novel on which the film is based -- is a high level of moral complexity that doesn't divide everyone neatly into Good Guys and Bad Guys.
The effect is odd, and oddly disturbing. On one hand, the film succeeds quite well as a combat shoot-'em-up in the style of the great World War II films. At that level, if we like, we can take the 'bugs' of Klendathu, playing as they do into our 'natural' loathing of insects, as a politically correct version of the sort of enemy Heinlein probably intended. (As long as we don't take the film's incompetent 'military action' too seriously.)
On the other hand, the film also contains lots of sly references to the Third Reich, lots of little clues that suggest the 'bugs' didn't start the war, and lots of opportunities for the characters _and_ the audience to conclude that war may not be the best way to approach the problem here at issue.
Okay, this latter stuff is a huge departure from Heinlein's novel, which was primarily focused on what makes military folks tick and what it means to be a responsible citizen. Heinlein's civics lesson is duly incorporated into the film, of course: a 'citizen' is one who takes personal responsibility for the safety and well-being of the body politic. But the film doesn't stop there.
In fact, it incorporates elements that could have come from two other SF novels that have been read as responses to _Starship Troopers_, namely, Joe Haldeman's _The Forever War_ and Orson Scott Card's _Ender's Game_. I don't _know_ that Neumeier had either of these novels in mind, but there's an important reference to Mormons in the screenplay that in this context might suggest Card. Be that as it may, Heinlein's civics lesson is here subjected to severe scrutiny and even dark satire.
That's okay by me. I regard _Starship Troopers_ as one of RAH's better novels (and as a success in its exploration of the military-man-coming-of-age mindset; I can see why military readers like it so well). Nevertheless there are problems with it that a straightforward screen adaptation wouldn't have been able to address. Neumeier and Verhoeven address those problems precisely by exaggerating them and sometimes openly ridiculing them -- while still managing to remain sensitive to the integrity of the military outlook.
Such nuance may unfortunately be lost on much of the film's audience. Heinlein fans may either disapprove of Verhoeven's approach or miss it altogether; viewers who haven't read their Heinlein may not even be aware that there's an argument going on (and mistake this gorefest for nothing more than an earlier version of _Independence Day_).
That's too bad, because this well-scripted, special-effects-laden film is a cinematic triumph on several levels -- only one of which is the gut-wrenching battle between humans and bugs. Verhoeven has long been clear that this film is _not_ an endorsement of either war itself or the fascistic society it tends to promote; that this isn't just obvious is a testament to Verhoeven's subtlety and, indeed, his _refusal_ to engage in 'propaganda' of the sort he satirizes.
It's an odd film in the sense that, in order to like it properly, you have to dislike it. If you enjoy it too much, you're missing the point its director wanted it to make.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Incredible special effects and yes, there is a story., October 20, 1999
By A Customer
Imagine being trapped on a barren planet with thousands of fiteen-foot tall ants swarming towards you. You'd better have plenty of fire-power. And lots of friends with the same. This is an exciting, visually spectacular war movie with a relentlesss foe that few could feel remorse at killing. The movie introduces a number of insect species whose combined strength is social as well as biological. We get to see a number of insect types, each terrifying in their own way. The film only hints that there are others. What kind of bug can send a meteor all the way across a galaxy? The movie's plot also hints at a lot of ideas, obviously remnants of Heinlein's orginal book. The principal characters, all teenagers, live in an idyllic, yet fascist society that promotes violence as strength. That violence is directed outward, towards a common foe. The story follows the naive adolescents as they go through military training and then find themselves at war with giant bugs from space. Civil rights are granted only to those that survive their military service. The parallel with the insect society can't be a coincidence. Okay, okay, it's just a movie. Like any science fiction film, it can't do justice to the original material. If you want an exciting war film with lots of great special effects, see this movie. If you really want to think, READ A BOOK!
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26 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
A horrible disappointment, October 7, 2003
OK. Movies are a director's medium, and occasionally you find a forgettable book turned into a worthwhile film. But there are even more wonderful stories butchered into horrible movies.Paul Verhoeven's treatment of Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers is such a case. If he wanted to make a campy, overblown, anti-military statement of a film, he should have had the courtesy not to pretend it bore any resemblance to an award-winning story from a respected author like Robert Heinlein. I will grant that there are portions of the film that are worthwhile. Some of the special effects are very good (not the bugs, however), and some of the actors are quite attractive, especially when less than fully clothed, and, OK, the good guys appear to win in the end. But Verhoeven apparently doesn't understand science fiction in the slightest. Armageddon or Godzilla are not remotely genuine science fiction, but Plato's Republic -- an example of early fiction set in alternative times or places to avoid directly criticizing the status quo in his own society -- perhaps was. In Starship Troopers, Heinlein presented an alternative form of government where voting and political leadership were limited to those who have first risked their own lives _protecting_ the nation. In today's world, where most eligible voters are too apathetic to participate at all, and those who do vote aren't capable of rationally exercising their franchise, such a story is a reasonable manner of causing readers to confront the problem for themselves. Verhoeven, however, belittles Heinlein's respect for military service by turning Heinlein's vision into a campy Nazi lookalike. The film's other failings are too numerous to mention here, but include aliens killed by only a few rounds in one instance yet surviving hundreds of rounds from dozens of soldiers when in battle. There are also numerous troop movements that would get a totally inexperienced 2nd lieutenant cashiered for not listening to his senior non-coms. I'm sure that producers wouldn't have been able to raise the money to produce a flick based directly on Heinlein's story -- lots of special effects, shooting, blood, and [more] would be necessary -- but what emerged under Verhoeven's direction was simply a travesty.
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