this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2024

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Casper Van Dien is loving the Starship Troopers renaissance but still finds it mind-boggling some take it at face value (www.pcgamer.com)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago (11 children)

The main arguments for it being a pro military and pro war movie is that the Bugs ARE attacking and that if humanity wants to survive, they will have to fight. Then, while most people do die, the movie ends with a major victory that looks like it may help save humanity.

I don't really think you can argue those points away to claim its an anti military/war movie. The movie would have needed for humanity to have attacked the bugs first, starting the war; or at the least having had most everyone die for no reason, without making a shred of progress in the war effort.

I mean, they were fighting to save our entire species, and the two most vocal people in the entire movie (Ricos parents) that were against the military machine were some of the first people to die in the movie.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 5 months ago (10 children)

Are the bugs really initiating the attacks? Because with the distance between Klendathu & Earth it seems pretty obvious the movie is trying to imply the bugs aren't the ones sending meteors at the humans.

When I rewatched the movie with a friend recently he was surprised that the movie ended with what felt like an anticlimactic resolution - because the war keeps going forever (or so it seems). I really like the interpretation that Starship Troopers (the movie itself) is an in-universe propaganda film used to recruit soldiers to feel important and make a difference in the war effort.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 5 months ago

My first viewing I did mostly take it at face value. But in my defense, I was a dumb 11 year old kid. It wasn't until Neil Patrick Haris came out in full SS uniform that I started asking questions.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (5 children)

Is it really that mind-boggling? ST has always seemed to me to read whichever way you are already predisposed to. How does everybody dying make it an anti-war movie? I would be shocked if the kind of person who believes in the good of a war machine were surprised that lots of people die in war.

Maybe my memory is a bit hazy, but the bugs actually annihilate a city, right? What is the human response supposed to be? The extreme nature of the government and military only come across as insane if you've already been educated about fascism. Desperate times do indeed call for desperate measures, which muddies the antifascist message in my opinion.

It's a great movie, but anyone who thinks it's going to change anyone's mind from their preconceptions is fooling themselves.

What am I missing?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Maybe my memory is a bit hazy, but the bugs actually annihilate a city, right?

The bugs were alleged to send an asteroid from another solar system and hit Earth. Logically, the bugs would have to know hundreds of years that they were going to get in a war with the Humans, know how to shoot an asteroid across the galaxy, and know exactly Earth was going to be for the asteroid to hit.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Is it surprising that people might miss that, though? Especially if they don't already agree with the antifascist message.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I missed it and wasn't brought to my attention years later that the movie was satire on fascism. I always took it as a dumb action movie.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Not an unreasonable interpretation!

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

"its afraid... Its afraid!!" cheering

Anyone who misses the satire is a dolt, but I do agree satire is ineffective in changing minds. It's a preaching to the choir sort of genre.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago

It's the same reason people thought Stephen Colbert was a champion of conservatism until he moved to the tonight show.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 5 months ago (8 children)

"I want to make a movie so painfully obvious in its satire that everyone who understands it lives in perpetual psychological torment inflicted on them by all the people who don't."

Paul Verhoeven, director of Starship Troopers

The movie makes it clear that:

The bugs were responding to human colonization
Humans fired the first shots
The government is lying to everyone claiming the bugs are mindless. They overjoyed shouts of the soldiers when they learn the opposite is true - is only because they learn that the bugs are terrified.
The endless over the top propaganda is supposed to be a pretty fuckin heavy clue that it's a fascist state.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago

One of the hallmarks of fascism is that the enemy are simultaneously too strong - so we must militarise - and too weak, because we are the superior race and destined to prevail.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

4 in particular I think is more open to interpretation based on ones existing biases than people seem to think. Being over the top doesn't necessarily have to be mockery and authorial intent is peanuts to a random personwatching a movie.

The other points IIRC are individual moments rather than recurring themes. It's not surprising to me that significant numbers of people overlook them.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

4 in particular I think is more open to interpretation based on ones existing biases than people seem to think

I mean yeah, people with fascist views obviously wouldn't see fascist propaganda as being ironic.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (2 children)

If I recall correctly, most things that the bugs did was fake news, just propaganda to justify the war that sustain the failed government.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

Lies !! The bug obviously launched that asteroid ! You're a traitor spreading lies it's all that i see !

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

We must have based humanity off the movie.

[–] [email protected] 65 points 5 months ago

There will always be morons that just don't get it. It is how Q Anon went from a 4chan joke to what it is now.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

NGL I'm still a little salty at OWI only making the Extermination game after the Troopers Mod for Squad took off so hard. No credit to the hard work on that mod that rekindled the interest at all.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Hang on, Troopers mod???

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Oh gosh yes! It's popularity has dropped a bit since OWI's little stunt, but you should check it out on Fridays when we try and get the OG's to come back and show us how to kill some BUGS.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2830905314&insideModal=0&requirelogin=1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7PAzNQNqG8

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Great, guess I know what I'm doing after my uni exam.... and possibly before (let's be honest).

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

I mean he's pretty much been on board with it all along. I'm pretty sure he's been involved in most of the sequels in some way.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (4 children)

“Mind bottling. You know, when things are so crazy it gets your thoughts all trapped, like in a bottle”

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

I mean he's right but god damn.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Gam*rs

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I’ve seen this a few times, ca you explain this to me? Is it a way of talking about people that consider themselves capital G gamers without having them come in and ruin the conversation with whining or gamergate bs?

[–] [email protected] 26 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It's a joke about writing slurs and censoring them with an asterisk, implying Gamer is a slur

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

Ah gotcha, thanks. I will say, I don’t like being called a gamer because I don’t want to get lumped in with the whiny chuds so I get it

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (2 children)

It's just pretending Gamer is a slur, that's it.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago (2 children)

It's not a slur, but I'm doing everything in my power to turn it into one

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago

Godspeed o7

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Gotcha, thanks!

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