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Originally Posted by mores
Sounds good, even if I don't understand the relevance to Flash Gordon, must use google and wiki  |
If I may; "Flash Gordon stuff" is an old-time catch-all expression for "Sci-Fi adventure". Stories where the focus is on the ride, as it were; not the scenery or the destination. Good guys kick bad guy rears and have fun along the way.
STARSHIP TROOPERS, the book, is plotwise, about people caught in an interstellar war. Go a bit deeper, and it also includes a commentary about citizens' roles in their native society, the price of freedom and affluence, the role of soldiers in a society, and what kind of people voluntarily put their life at risk for their society. Its trying to get us to contrast that world, that society, to ours and wonder how would *we* react. Would we be Johnny Rico? Could we?
Now, Heinlein's politics tended to be on the right side of the spectrum by today's standards, but JFK's "Ask not what your country can do for you..." line is right in line with what STARSHIPS TROOPERS is all about.
In many ways the movie is a parody of the book. And in fact hardly anything in the movie comes from the book. One big hint: no powered armor.
(Understand: Having read the book several times before seeing the movie, I *loathed* the movie. It smacked too much of "nazis in space." Just me, okay?)
The Animated ROUGHNECKS, on the other hand, I really liked. (Yay! Power armor!)
It was closer to the world of the book.
If you're looking for a SF novel that is more of a space combat romp, with lots of tongue in cheek humor, check out the *free* sample chapter of THE LOOKING GLASS WAR over at BAEN.
As for Apple's censoring ways, I think they would be doing themselves a favor if they would just publish their guidelines and simply say "Yes, we're prudes!" instead of creatig these tempests in a teapot twice-weekly.
Apple's problem is they want the hip marketting image to disguise their fuddy-duddy puritanical ways. What they've forgotten is that its okay to be puritanical; WalMart is not terribly different in their unwillingness to carry explicit content but since everybody knows it, nobody makes a fuss anymore.