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Originally Posted by Worldwalker
Yeah, they're Tea Partiers. But they're DRM-free Tea Partiers.
Except, among other things, one of the themes of the book informed, not unquestioning, patriotism. That's the point of the History & Moral Philosophy class that forms an important part of the story: understanding the foundations of the society and its beliefs -- that is, being a citizen, not just a blind follower. Which is something people on all sides of the political spectrum need to start doing before we dig ourselves in any deeper than we already are. And that goes for every citizen of every country.
For that matter, deference to power is no more fascist than it is communist, or a lot of other -ists. It's not just human nature, it's nature, period. We just rationalize it more, instead of the rest of the animal kingdom's uncomplicated understanding of "if the big guy doesn't like what I'm doing, he's gonna bite me," but it's the same thing. We're primates that rationalize excuses for our instinctive behavior.
Very, very, very roundabout. So roundabout it missed the point entirely and went whirling off into cloud-cuckoospace.
And the humans are "the wrong side"? Might I point out who started the war? Even with Verhoeven's best efforts to turn the humans into the bad guys -- making Sergeant Zim a gratuitous sadist, for instance, and the whole business with the SS uniforms -- they're still the people trying to fend off an invasion by an enemy intent on eradicating the entire human race.
But in any event, it wasn't Starship Troopers. All political content aside, the Starship Troopers M.I. are one-man doomsday machines in powersuits ... not cannon fodder in T-shirts who apparently have no long-range weapons, no grenades, no air support, no artillery, and no tactics aside from suicidal human wave attacks. The Bugs were a technologically-advanced species with starships, not intergalactic FTL farts! You might agree or disagree with the themes of the book, but at least it wasn't mind-numbingly stupid. Verhoeven lost any chance he had to convince me that the book wasn't what I thought it was when he decided he could disregard anything from the book -- or from science -- that didn't fit his worldview and replace it with something that did.
Seriously, intergalactic bug farts?
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Your assessment may in all likelihood be true, but as I'll never read the book, I'll probably never know. I was just passing on an interesting titbit about Verhoeven's approach that I saw in an interview and confirming with the poster above me the right-leaning aspects that I see in science-fiction (this political bent is also found in most mainstream and genre fiction). I don't like Starship Troopers, it was a terribly acted, horribly violent, pointlessly gory excercise in bland. Whatever Verhoeven's intentions they didn't reach me. Although I fully appreciate that he can do whatever he wants with the material at hand as is his want as a creative artist. And I do believe that he believed in his vision. I saw that vision in his early Dutch-language films and in his only successful (to me) American film; Robocop.