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| Starship Troopers (1997) - Gif created by Mike at Moviesludge |
I'm always surprised by how much I labor over selecting movies for the Movies At Dog Farm live events. Moreover, I'm always surprised by how circuitous the thought process usually is that leads me to the titles I ultimately select. I start with a particular title (this year it was Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls), that title suggests an organizing principle (this year it was "guilty pleasures" about which I refuse to feel guilt), and then the rest of the titles just fall into place - except they don't.
I'll try on title after title like I'm trying on pretty dresses in front of a dressing room mirror. One title may momentarily catch my fancy only to become less attractive the longer I think about it. Another title may seem like a dark horse and then gradually build momentum. Sometimes, though, all of this back-and-forth will finally lead to an "A-ha!" moment, a title that's such an obvious fit that I can't even imagine why it took me so long to come up with it. Such is the case with director Paul Verhoeven's much maligned Starship Troopers (1997).
I can already hear the groaning. Stop it, or you'll get Verhoeven's Showgirls (1995) instead.
I've never understood the hatred Starship Troopers so often elicits. And it is hatred. It's never just "I didn't particularly care for that" or "Meh - I've seen better". It's always pop-eyed, teeth-baring hatred. The two most common justifications are as follows:
1) The acting is bad. No-one in Starship Troopers could act their way out of a damp paper bag.
- Get over yourself. Starship Troopers was clearly never intended to be an actor's showcase. It's an old-school war movie. The youngsters in the movie are supposed to be shallow, vapid cardboard cutouts. The entire movie is fashioned as a lampoon of wartime propaganda. Propaganda isn't intended to show the ugly truth, it's intended to win converts to the agenda the propaganda is promoting. You don't win converts by suggesting, "Hey, you should join our cause, because that's what all of the old, unattractive people are doing." The performances in Starship Troopers are entirely adequate, and the performers uniformly convey exactly the callow, jingoistic characterizations the material demands.
2) Starship Troopers is a bastardization of the Robert A. Heinlein novel upon which it is based.
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| Why have I never read Starship Troopers? Not enough Clancy Brown. |
Verhoeven intended Starship Troopers to be a satirical jab at military rule and fascism, things that - as I understand it - author Heinlein's book has often been accused of promoting. Verhoeven made exactly the movie he intended to make. I'll concede that perhaps it was a bit of a bait-and-switch to call it Starship Troopers since Verhoeven's agenda seems to be the exact opposite of the agenda reportedly promoted in Heinlein's novel, but viewers would do well to judge the movie for what it is rather than what they might have hoped it would be. As a satire of militarism, the movie Starship Troopers succeeds.
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| I haz a big brain! I can haz cheezburger now? |
It occurs to me, though, that Starship Troopers and Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls are both parodies of the properties they sprang from. Is it possible that some of the hatred directed toward Starship Troopers is born less of its failure as a faithful adaptation than the fact that the book's fans just don't like seeing it made fun of? I can understand that. Doesn't mean I'll stop defending Verhoeven's accomplishment, though. Starship Troopers is deserving of reappraisal. In the interest of advancing that goal, I've chosen Starship Troopers as the second confirmed title for Movies At Dog Farm III.
Why do I feel as though I'm about to be savaged in the Comments section like that unfortunate cow in the gif above?
