I FORGOT TO SHILL THE SHIRTS. 😭

“If you paint a beautiful picture of flowers because you think it displays how ugly they are but everyone agrees the flowers are beautiful then you have failed”

The Starship Troopers movie might be one of the only examples of a spiteful deliberate mistranslation of the source material that not only was actually accepted but became the most widely recognized version of the franchise. Anime localizers wish they were this good

In the movie, the federation leader recognized his military failure and voluntarily stepped down. That is more accountability and respect for the people than any of democracies we have today.

All I know is that between humanity and bugs that want to eat my face... I'll choose my own species.

Kind of funny how both Tolkien and Heinlen were both military Veterans and responsible for creating basically the bedrock for most modern day interpretations of their respective genres, those being Fantasy and Sci-Fi.

“The only good bug is a dead bug!”

Remember: violence is the supreme authority from which all other authority derives.

The book is still a favorite read of mine. People give it grief for being a vehicle for Heinlein's philosophy and call it fascist, but then seem to ignore all the clear allusions to it being a generally free liberal society outside of voting privilege's that are open to anyone to pursue if they want.

I love the movie but I don't think the intended satire was even effective, society in the movie seems far more cohesive than the real world

"Noooo, the attractive, fit people selflessly sacrificing their lives in heroic combat with alien insects in service to their people are meant to make fun of you!!!!"

"Frankly, I find the idea of a bug that thinks offensive"

Starship troopers A film about facism by a man who doesn't understand facism based on a book he didn't read that wasn't about facism

Power Rangers Lost Galaxy uses the Starship Troopers uniforms for the space colony soldiers, and the overarching villains are insectoid beings, even the foot soldiers they use are bugs. Just a fun fact for those who are curious.

Loli did not mention Earth Defense Force, the Japanese BLATANT parody that's fun as hell.

Broke: “the starship troopers movie is making fun of fascism because it shows the people having no thoughts and just following the military” Woke: “the starship troopers movie is making fun of fascism because the main characters are Argentinian and we all know what their ancestors did in the 1940s”

“The most noble fate one can endure is to place his mortal body between war’s desolation and his loved home.” -Starship Troopers.

Regarding Heinlien, people also casually forget that Heinlien was a Roosevelt democrat in the 30s/40s who ended up drifting more to libertarianism and why he stressed how his big three books, Starship Troopers, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and Stranger in a Strange Land were for understanding his perspective, all of them are basically 'liberatianism with a focus on social responsibility', most of the people who decry SST as 'muh bascism' only engaged with the setting through the movie or worse a video essay about the movie.

A few years ago I downloaded the Starship Troopers audio book just to have something to listen at the gym. I thought I would hear something along the lines of the movie, but what I instead found is an amazing story of selfless service, personal growth, and the bonds between father and son. It is my personal favorite book and I would recommend it to anyone remotely interested.

Their intent of parodying facism failed since that society seemed more cohesive and transparent than ours. Anyways i am doing my part

I'M DOING MY PART!

"Violence doesn't solve anything!" Oh yeah? How about we ask the Carthaginians how their war with Rome went? Oh, we can't because violence solved that problem.

As much as I enjoy Paul Verhoeven works, I can't help but chuckle at the ironic "Death of the Author" moment Starship troopers (The movie) represents for him. Just as he DotA'd the book to twist this movie into his Anti-Facist satire the viewing audience ended up twisting it back into its pro-militaristic roots. The ones he made the movie to satire ended up loving the Mobile Infantry and got hyped up by the world spreading that hype to others enjyoing it despite the satire And the ones he assumed would understand its satire the "Educated" Film critic instead lambasted his movie as the very thing he set to satire calling him a "Pro-Facist"

The book is pretty different, for example the bugs are described as having plasma cannon, satellites, and cybernetic augmentations, basically the brain bugs have satellite relays installed directly into their brains so they can give commands directly to the workers

When you revealed Broomstick Cowboy as the opening theme for this review, I gave it a listen. Damn that's one of the few times a song alone has brought tears to my eyes.

So here’s the thing about Veerhoven trying to make the ST film a satire of fascism: He may have not read the book because he hated it, but the screenwriters for the film DID read the book and they loved it. It’s why, despite Veerhoven’s best efforts, his “fascistic” elements of the Federation are undercut several times by the screenwriters sneaking in Heinlein’s philosophy. The biggest example of this is the Sky Marshal scenes in the movie; after the failure of the Klendaathu assault after the declaration of war, Sky Marshal Dienes accepts responsibility for the failure and resigns, ceding his post to Sky Marshal Tahat Maru. In a fascistic dystopia, Dienes would refuse to take responsibility and likely be shot for his incompetence by the government. Instead, he’s allowed to resign and continue serving the Federation military under Tahat Maru. That’s meritocracy, not fascism.

For the book, it was described as Heinlein's ideal government with included expected failings. The man was a Libertarian with a deep respect of the military; even serving during WW2, I believe. The government in Starship Troopers is largely based on both Choice and Service in a very Roman Republic kind of way: You choose to serve in the Terran armed forces to get citizenship, because you chose to be a citizen. And to be a citizen, you have to show you're willing to fight and risk your life for it. You can easily choose NOT to enlist as the Civilians of the Federation can still have rights without being able to vote or serve in office. Though, given Verhoeven's political views, I can see how he'd think this was Fascist. Because to Communists or Socialists, anyone that doesn't fall into line is a Fascist threat to the Greater Good. Especially since Heinlein was a Military-respecting Libertarian that was part of the Free Love moment; basically the diametric opposite of Communist or Socialist beliefs.

Helldivers 1 & 2 is closer to what Verhoeven wanted Starship Troopers the movie to be more than what the movie actually turned out as.

Starship Troopers : Extermination is a fucking wild ride. The comradery of people who just love the movie is insane. At the extraction section of a mission I once got lost. The entire team charged out to get me. Shouting quotes from the movie like "Remember your training!" while they where picking me up and getting to the evac zone, while Bugs just charged in on all of us. It was beautiful.

What always surprised me was how prophetic Heinlein's view of the future was. The moral decay of western democracies. Gangs of youth committing crime without punishment. Adults that are to immature to hold authority. “The junior hoodlums who roamed their streets were symptoms of a greater sickness; their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of ‘rights’ . . . and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure.” Heinlein wrote a lot about Individuality, independence, self betterment, patriotism and duty. Plus he wrote some of the best female characters in sci-fi.

Paul Verhoeven's greatest gift as a director is making anything he's attempting to critique seem super awesome and badass.

Even if you pretend the book doesn't exists, the film fails as satire. At no point do we see the bugs doing anything other than killing humans. While the Terran Federation might be bombastic and clumsy propoganists, they aren't wrong. That contrasts with Robocop, where the corporation is seen as evil from the get go and the satire works perfectly.

I find it funny how people give Zack Snyder shit for missing the point of Watchmen, and then at the same time, praising the Starship Troopers film for being a "critique on fascism" even though the director is like the biggest example of "missing the point" when it comes to dissecting the original book.

The idea that Verhoeven got the idea that Starship Troopers was fascist from the first couple of pages is funny to me because the first couple of pages has Rico describe how diverse the mobile infantry is

Good film, awful adaptation.

"Brain? Bugs? Frankly, I find the idea of a bug that thinks offensive!" 🎩 🐍 no step on snek! 🇺🇸🇭🇰

Luminous-yellow space-fiddles are peak fascism.

Holy fuck, youtube censoring my "im from Buenos Aries" quote...

"All You Need is Kill" mentioned? Today is a good day.

Paul Veerhoven amd Alan Moore are perhaps the two biggest examples of why being a talented creator does not exactly make you an intelligent person.

Not just power armor, but it was verifiably the first instance of 'cap' or 'capsule' troopers along the lines of the ODST, Space Marines and, most recently, Hell Divers. Also people can say that he hated the book all he wants, but Verhoven explicitly didn't read it. Yes you mentioned it. It's still the hill I'm going to die on.

I find all of this uproar over the book/movie hilarious. The book was controversial when it was first published, but the controversy wasn't about politics. Heinlein postulated that morality was a learned trait, not an innate state of being. To illustrate this, he compared aspects of raising a child to that of raising a puppy... ... and the crowd went wild! Popular parenting ideas of the time were to be very hands-off; to let "the inner goodness" of the child blossom and grow. Heinlein stated that if parents didn't take a hands-on approach, teaching morality and discipline, they would end up raising, in effect, a two-legged, hairless wild animal. The book Starship Troopers was about far more than politics: it was a look at the human condition.

My Part is being a Breeder. Doing my part. I'm not very good at my job

*"Would you like to know more?" Intensifies* P.S. : since you did a video on Conan, can you make a video on Tarzan or his author Edgar Rice Burroughs? If Conan is Berserk's grandad, than Tarzan is Conan's grandad. What Edgar Rice Burroughs contributed to literature of various genres is incredible

Anyone that sees this movie as some critique instead of an awesome movie about minecrafting evil bugs is a bug lover. They are worse than that guy from space pocahontas, because those blue aliens atleast somewhat looked human.

ST is one of my favorite books of all time . The issue with the book is that there are people out there who will just outright make shit up about the book, trick themselves into believing that what they just made up is in the book, and then get mad that it is in the book and claim that anyone who likes the book is fascist. Starship Troopers is an example of a classic people want to have read but no one actually wants to read, which is a shame because it has led to a lot of bullshit being spread about the book from people who only watched the movie. It's frustrating as all hell. The book is a right-wing libertarian power fantasy of a multi ethic, peaceful Earth united by ideas of liberty, self determination and responsibility by an author who was rejecting an ever growing leftist and collectivist world who wanted to point out that the systems of power we have are based at their core on violence, and thus that violence must have as many checks and balances in place to protect the people. Otherwise you get nightmares of secret police and individual destruction as in Communism and Fascism. Its not a perfect book. The system of government is very open to corruption, It slows down in the latter half and not as action heavy as people would like it to be, but it at least has an interesting message that you will never see again without 1000 layers of irony on top. Shines the name, shines the name, Roger Young.

I can't believe they finally made a video game adaptation of Helldivers 2!

The irony is the 'satire' backfired so hard that it came back around to glorification

he directed a movie on a book he never fucking read?

Also in the book, the bugs were constantly being policed (basically being kept from expanding as much as possible). But the asteroid was the final straw that led to war. Thats why they get power armored troops with nukes dropped on them.

I wouldn't necessarily say that Heinlein was describing his ideal society with SST. He was quite fond of envisioning unusual future societies and having them described in borderline-polemic fashion with the narrative serving as greater or lesser stage dressing. Like, there's little comparison between the Federation in SST and Luna in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress beyond a handful of things - voluntaryism, racial egalitarianism, equality between the sexes (even recognition that there are serious duties women might be naturally better at than men, not exactly a popular notion when he wrote SST).

The third movie did solve the FTL issue with the literal bug gods, but people ignore it in these discussions.

So one thing to bear in mind with Japan and Starship Troopers is that a lot of classic pulp stories got reprinted in magazines over there. They didn't just get lazy straight to bargin bin prints either, they got illustrated prints in popular literary magazines. It's a major reason why a lot of anime and manga from the 70s and 80s feels so much like classic sci-fi and fantasy, it's what they would of been reading at the time.

Probably worth pointing out that in the book the Skinnies had the opposite position to what you mentioned. They were allies to Humanity, but then betrayed the Humans to the Bugs

HUMANITY FIRST!

*_I am an avid fan of lots of HFY Sci-Fi, so movie or book, I enjoy it, any political stuff is just seasoning (usually)._* *_Note: For those unfamiliar, HFY stands for "Humanity Fuck-Yeah." Would you like to know more?_*

Starship troopers traitor on Mars is honestly my favorite since it introduce the power armor in to the series and the narrative is also pretty good.😺

Earlier literature often has troubling subtexts that I think are worth being aware of and discussing, but that shouldn't mean we can't enjoy them. Cancelling older genre fiction is not the answer, but having an honest discussion and acknowledging where it is coming from is just healthy and honest. All media is a product of a certain time and place. Also, the Internet just seems to have problems grasping satire.

Hollywood betrayal of a great book.

I could have saved Dizz

Former Marine speaking...You NAILED IT, dude! "Starship Troopers was on our "Commanders Reading List" in 2003-2005. Excellent video and commentary!

Handsome military chads makes space bugs go boom! *Internet Communists REEEEE!

I'M DOING MY PART

This is a good take for the most part. Well done. Individual choice is a theme that stuck with me and saved me from brain aids later in life.

There’s a lot of videos on Starship Troopers, but this is a pretty damn good. Still pissed there were no Neo Dogs in any adaptation.

Doing my part

I think one of the most hilarious aspects of starship troopers and properties like it are the number of people on Twitter, usually those with certain flags next to their names, that openly sympathize with the genocidal bugs.

The Alliance trooper uniforms in Firefly/Serenity are almost 1:1 recreations of the armor in the film. Not sure if that was intentional or what, but it's almost uncanny.

3:31 I can see Gundam being inspired by starship troopers, hell the Visual Novel "Muv Luv alternative" is basically the author going "I am making my own starship troopers, with mechas and waifus" (its a great VN btw)

Liberal director labels right-wing book as fascist without reading it. Sounds familiar

I think the cartoon did a good job blending elements from the book and the movie together and if you can deal with outdated cgi a good show to watch.

NGL all i can see in the lecture is fuckin Sam Fisher talking to students

The differences between the book, animated series and movie are pretty interesting to think about, but I do think the anime OVA is the best adaptation of the book to date, and is incidentally where Rico being a white Argentinian came from most likely due to a mistake in translation.

I love how Verhoeven made some of the coolest, most badass films of all time because he wanted to make satire and ended up backfiring. He's so bad at it that he became great unintentionally.

oh wow an actually good video on starship troopers

Truly the best film for good loyal citizens of Super Earth and the brave Hell Divers

The movie is good despite veerhoven, not because of him. The book is great and veerhoven is a commie hack. On the bounce trooper.

Have been watching your vids the past couple years. Love the philosophical view you bring to media without being pretentious

The problem with the idea of two sides trying to claim it as “theirs” is that it’s only true for ONE side; the left. Those on the right aren’t trying to claim for themselves, but call out that the “fascism” argument fails in every way. “But the Hugo Boss unifo-“ Fascism isn’t when you give your characters mad drip, people.

its sad how many people just dont know what Fascism actually is and if they ever return people will not actually stand up to it since everything and its grandmother has been called fascists and nazi. You are doing a really good job here pointing out a lot of facts and actually discussing them not just say fact move on

Big fan of Starship Troopers (the book) here, and I want to add some perspective on Heinlein's point in ST. For a start, Heinlein was a right-libertarian, which is very apparent in another one of his novels, "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress". He typically refers to himself as an anarchist. I don't think Starship Troopers is "the perfect government" to Heinlein, that's found in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and those societies are very different. Instead, I think Starship Troopers is about what makes a good man, and what kind of man it would take for a government to even work. It's "the best *possible* government" and how to create a man that would be fit to rule over others. It's also not specifically about the military, although that is what the book focuses on. In the book, it is made extremely clear that the service is two years of something grueling, dangerous, and unrewarding, but it's explicitely said that it's not all military. I think the other example is "test subject for experimental medicine", but that would make an entirely different book.

Robert A. Heinlein is one of my favorite golden age scifi writers. He was very avant-garde and a bit of a perv. Certain ideas like, the importance of individual liberty and self-reliance, the nature of sexual relationships, the obligation individuals owe to their societies, the influence of organized religion on culture and government, the danger of cult of personalities and ideologues, are recurring themes throughout his work.

I just watched this a couple days ago. Micheal Ironside is great in any movie Ive seen hum in

Pro militarism does not equal Fascism.

Halo ripped off a very specific adaptation of Starship Troopers - the Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles TV show from which you get your pictures of the "Skinnies". Someone, I think Fil Barlow, who worked on the show, went as far as to say they had execs touring the Foundation Imaging studios while the show was in development. And the influence is obvious and deep, from Master Chief's armor to some of the human vehicles and the Covenant architecture (rather close to that of the Skinnies.)

That movie was my childhood

You're churning them out lately dude, good on you!

That guy who runs the channel Quinn's ideas got so mad at me when I pointed out that he didn't read Starship Troopers. LOL

The book Bugs are completely different. For starters, it mentioned the bugs having beam weapons and ships...and the Skinnies? Yeah, the Skinnies sided with the Arachnids or at least told the Bugs where Earth is and then joined the Federation side after the Federation raided some of their worlds (we only read about one, Rico and the Roughnecks drop in the beginning of the book but I'm guessing there's more than one raid) Oh and the MI wore power armor hence no tanks.

Star ship troopers managed to become a cult classic despite having like D list actors. They are all very memorable tho

It's not that we're denying the satire. It's that he tried to make it be a satire of fascism, but then failed so hard they never included any fascism. He was trying, but he failed.

I put Starship Troopers in the same category of films as John Wick; that it's a dumb action movie and trying to think too much about it spoils the enjoyment for me and for everyone else. So pop some popcorn, shut up, and enjoy the spectacle.

Today is a good day to Watch

Not gonna lie, I was afraid to click due to all the brain rot surrounding the discussion of the franchise, but this? This is some pretty well thought out shit. Liked and subscribed baby.

Phenomenal taste in music, I always get good songs to listen to from your vids

Kinda Surprised their was no Mention of the CGI Starship troopers TV Series "Roughnecks" Heck ya used footage from the series for the Skinnies. Personally I love the TV series more then the Movies, yeah its JANK AS ALL HELL but remember this was the Era of Reboot and Beast Wars, CGI TV Sereies was a new concept that didnt age well. I do like the series jank and all 1 of the bigger reasons is they combinded MORE elements from the book while staying SOMEWHAT loyal to Movie. It dosent focus on the Political BS very much and the most we get from Earth is "Earth MONSTEROUSLY Underestimates how dangerous the Bugs are" meanwhile the Bugs get a massive overhaul and are more straight up a Evil Hivemind that just want to consume the Galaxy, Think the Zerg from Starcraft or the Tyrannids from 40k and your in the ballpark.

Fascist govt that allows a minority religious order to go on their own, separate from the influence and control of the central govt. that’s not very fascist Paul. Arch and Sargon have a very good video on this…

I don't entirely disagree with the premise in the book that not everyone gets to vote. Absolutely worthless people being able to influence a nation is exactly how we got here.

Which Gundam footage was used in the beginning?

Shoulda shouted out Roughnecks when you used a couple of clips from it. I swear I have never met another human being that knows that show exists, and despite its CGI aging preeeeetty poorly I think the show is still pretty good overall.