
How “Starship Troopers” Aligns with Our Moment of American Defeat - AndrewBissell
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/how-starship-troopers-aligns-with-our-moment-of-american-defeat
======
godelski
For those wondering, it is talking about the movie, not the book. For those
that are confused about this comment, the book and movie are very different
stories though the movie takes place in essentially the same universe. The
director, Verhoeven, claimed "the book was too boring to finish." The movie
has a lot of Nazi symbolism.

As a sci-fi enthusiast I love the book. As a lover of bad movies, I love the
movie. I recommend both, but for completely different reasons.

Edit: If you're leaving a downvote care to explain? Do you want me to cite
that Verhoeven didn't finish the book? (which is in the article here!) That
the book and movie aren't different? Or what? I'm very confused. I'm just
trying to say that the article is talking about the movie and not the book.

~~~
pram
Starship Troopers isn’t a bad movie.

~~~
memexy
What's good about it? I don't know much about movies I'm just curious why it's
good.

~~~
chongli
The movie is a brilliant, satire of an over-the-top fascistic, militaristic
society. It takes a similar tack to Huxley’s Brave New World but puts the
focus on glorifying strength and violence against the enemy instead. It
illustrates a society completely saturated in war propaganda, with all of the
negatives of war being instantly dismissed. The pace at which the fictional
society switches its media-directed gaze is frenetic. It’s like orgy-porgy
meets Triumph of the Will.

~~~
memexy
That's a pretty good analysis.

------
jacknews
I thought it was a parody of the first Iraq war.

I seem to remember the irony being completely missed at the time, and it
simply being panned as a not-very-good action movie.

------
antidaily
Or did it just happen to be released a few years before 9/11?

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
Am I the only one who thinks it is a circular waste of time to try do
explicitly draw lessons from movies and books. Of course the universe the
author created generally comports with their beliefs or the point they are
trying to make. It would be like trying to convert a skeptic to Christianity
by citing The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis. Lewis's Christianity had a
large influence in how he crafted the literary universe, and thus trying to
use events from that literary universe to convince people of the truth of
Christianity is circular logic at best.

But I have seen it done so many times. Writers take a work of fiction such as
a book or movie where the author generally has a similar outlook and use that
to draw lessons. You see that a lot on the left, as well as on the right with
Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. I don't think it is convincing anyone. Anybody can
write a book where the people they admire become heroes and the policy they
espouse has a good outcome, or the people they despise become villains and the
policy they are against leads to bad outcomes. How close the book universe is
to the real universe is a different story.

~~~
dragontamer
I agree with you that its circular logic, but I disagree that its a waste of
time.

Books, movies, and other consumable media (songs, poems, etc. etc.) present
perhaps the strongest arguments from various "camps". They are strongly
representative of the ideals and ideas of large groups of people.

~~~
rbecker
Strongest in terms of persuasive power, but rarely (if ever) in terms of any
kind of reasoned or scientific approach.

~~~
dragontamer
There are three kinds of arguments: Ethos, Logos, and Pathos.

Just because Logos is effective on you, doesn't mean its the best methodology
in general. Arguments towards authority and emotion must be understood as
such, and provide greater insight to the crowds you're discussing with.

If you're going Logos-only into a discussion, you've effectively disarmed
yourself. Your debate opponent will use Ethos, Logos, and Pathos to get a
rhetorical advantage against you.

Therefore, its important to learn the Ethos-based and Pathos-based arguments
that members of a crowd will make, in preparation before you discuss matters
with them.

------
nordsieck
I have a hard time taking an essay that discusses the philosophy of the movie
starship trooper seriously when the book of the same name was so much better
developed.

It's a bit like dunking on libertarian idiots on facebook, but refusing to
engage with Richard Epstein[1]. Sure, it's a thing one can do, and it's good
for laughs from time to time, but ultimately, engaging with a weaker version
of an idea betrays a weakness in the interlocutor, not the subject.

___

1\.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhqXIc5CEpU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhqXIc5CEpU)

~~~
godelski
The book and movie are completely different stories. Verhoeven prides himself
on that he didn't even finish the book and if you watched the movie it is
pretty clear he read less than half and then wanted to write a movie that was
a satirical take on the book (which he claims was promoting fascism, but
readers are confused by that take).

~~~
dragonwriter
> if you watched the movie it is pretty clear he read less than half and then
> wanted to write a movie

No, the movie was written before someone noticed some superficial similarities
and suggested seeking the rights to the book for marketing purposes.
Veerhoeven read less than half of the book, sure, and thought it was
advocating fascism and incorporated some cosmetic elements from that portion
of the book into the film, but the book wasn't the basis of the film, even in
a hostile response kind of way, just a bystander that got dragged into a
canned rant by a ranter who didn’t read it before deciding it was promoting
what he was already ranting about, an all too familiar phenomenon to anyone
who has spent much time in lightly moderated online discussion groups, if not
the most familiar origin story for a licensed film “adaptation” of a book.

~~~
kinghajj
> No, the movie was written before someone noticed some superficial
> similarities and suggested seeking the rights to the book for marketing
> purposes.

Source? The Wikipedia article states that the screenwriter was a fan of the
book.

------
js2
I remember it being a not very good film, mostly because it's way too on the
nose. I like my irony with a little subtlety. But since our current POTUS has
killed irony[1], maybe it works better now. I haven't seen it in years. I'm
willing to give it a rewatch.

[1] "We will not allow anyone to divide our citizens by race or background. We
will not allow them to foment hate, discord and distrust" as just one recent
example.

~~~
godelski
This is why people put it in the "bad movie" category. It is very campy. But
if you like bad movies, Starship Troopers is great. That said, I also love The
Room and Birdemic.

~~~
free_rms
If you were told the gag before you watched it, it might seem too on the nose.

But check the reviews when it came out -- most of our enlightened, educated
cultural critics missed the gag.

~~~
xsmasher
I'll admit I came in expecting "Aliens" and was deeply disappointed. Even in
retrospect, the movie might be good commentary, but it doesn't have good
characters or good storytelling.

~~~
free_rms
The bad characters are part of the gag. Mindless attractive teens in this
horrific society.

You even wind up with the two most vapid characters, after having found love
elsewhere, winding up together because why not, those other, better people
died. It actually works really well as an unconventional character arc that
the actors may or may not have been in on.

~~~
godelski
> The bad characters are part of the gag.

This is why I like the movie. This is also why I call it a "bad movie" too. It
can be bad and good. I'm learning that a lot of HN users don't know what the
bad movie genre is. See
[https://www.reddit.com/r/badMovies/](https://www.reddit.com/r/badMovies/)

