Subject: Retrospective: Starship Troopers (1997)

From: [email-masked] (Ram Samudrala)
Date: 4 Feb 1999 19:20:13 GMT

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Starship Troopers
http://www.ram.org/ramblings/movies/starship_troopers.html

Buried within /Starship Troopers/ is some semblance of satire and
social commentary, but trying to eke out intellectual content amidst
cheesy effects, groan-inducing dialogue, and terrible acting is a
thankless task.

Based on the novel by Robert A. Heinlein, the setting for the movie is
in a future where man is fighting a war for survival with giant bugs
from the planet Klandathu.  Given the weapons and the intelligence of
the human characters I would've loved to have seen the bugs win, but
unfortunately this is Hollywood: The standard scenario for killing a
bug involves firing several machine gun (!) rounds at the bug, and
then, as the bug keeps going and going and decapitates a few soldiers,
someone with a slightly higher IQ figures out grenades or bazookas
work better. Of course, the humans don't learn and repeat the same
modus operandi each time.  And they call the bugs stupid.

The focus of the movie is on a group of high-school friends: Johnny
Rico (Casper Van Dien), a Good Citizen, Carmen Ibanez (Denise
Richards), his love interest, Dizzy Flores (Dina Meyer) who is
interested in Johnny, and Carl Jenkins (Neil Patrick Harris) who is
interested in Dizzy. All of them are patriotic and want to do their
duty to the human race and so after graduating from high school, they
join the Federal Service: Johnny and Dizzy end up joining the mobile
infantry, Carl ends up in military intelligence ("two words combined
that don't make sense"), and Carmen becomes a pilot.  The motivation
for the battles between the bugs and our band of losers tenuously
involves the capture of a "brain bug" so they can figure out how these
bugs think.

The effects, particularly those involving the space ships, are
incredibly underwhelming for the most part. It amazes me how so much
money could've been spent making this film (~$100 million) and produce
scenes that look like they were made with cardboard. The bugs are done
really well, however, though the green goo is overused.  The ditziness
of Carmen (the constant smile) gets tiresome after a while.  There is
lots of gratuitous nudity.

Oh yeah, with respect to the intellectual depth: in many ways
/Starship Troopers/ exemplifies what a joke the notion of a military
state is, particularly with the newsreel clips and recruitment ads
that are interspersed through the film. The newsreel clips also
illustrate how the art of the sound byte can be used to manipulate the
masses.  Unfortunately the commentary takes a second place to the
cheesy effects.  /Starship Troopers/ has its moments, but I recommend
skipping it.

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