Quote:
Originally Posted by Moejoe
There a quite a few interviews with Paul Verhoeven, the director of Starship Troopers, where he explains that at least one motivation of his was to rub away the veneer of the Heinlein book and show the pro-fascist ideology that lay beneath the novel (deference to power, unquestioning patriotism and the like). Whilst doing this he also wanted to bring in the audience with lots of violence, gratutitous nudity and fast action so that by the end you were cheering for exactly the wrong side. It was, in a roundabout way, a statement on how easy it is to fall into the mindset of the fascist. It's understandable when you learn that Verheoven was a child during the occupation of Holland. . .
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I think that's a lot of hooey on his part; an after the fact rationalization trying to explain a bad movie. There was nothing remotely fascist about the film aside from Doogie Howser's uniform. No one could have gotten that from the plot line. The bugs were fascists themselves (or possibly communists - certainly they were an authoritarian group with very centralized planning) for crying out loud, and bent on eating all humans. Kind of hard to muster support for the bugs in any situation. If that was his plan, he failed miserably.
I would also disagree with the inherently fascist assessment of Heinlein's book. Heinlein is closer to Ayn Rand than Hitler. Both Ayn and Bob have contempt with the great mass of humanity becasue they just don't TRY hard enough or care enough, but that isn't inherently fascist. (though to be fair, the great mass of humanity han't particularly distinguished itself in this area)