"Starship Troopers" - Verhoeven is a mad genius!

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How could you satirize fascism with an action movie?

http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/roll.gif

― Nathalie (stevie nixed), Thursday, 1 December 2005 20:11 (eighteen years ago) link

http://www.sachsreport.com/appple%20users%20are%20so%20irrational%20they%20make%20me%20sick%20power%20book%20loser.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/8/12668304_8c8065b996_o.jpg

― 'you' vs. 'radio gnome invisible 3' FITE (ex machina), Thursday, 1 December 2005 20:11 (eighteen years ago) link

I loved "The Hollow Man"! They set Kevin Bacon on fire, thereby creating a derisive allegory highlighting the excesses of the Thuggee cult.

― Dan (And So On) Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 1 December 2005 20:12 (eighteen years ago) link

http://norman.walsh.name/2004/09/30/images/toad.jpg

― dabnis coleman's ghost (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 1 December 2005 20:12 (eighteen years ago) link

http://www.svenska.gu.se/isa/personal/lilian_n_j.jpg

― dabnis coleman's ghost (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 1 December 2005 20:13 (eighteen years ago) link

Holy Christ Ally that's exactly my point: nobody on this thread is saying this is fucking Dostoevsky! The most anyone has said on here is that's is a pretty clever aesthetic trick that reflects really interestingly on our actual real-world aesthetics about war! The way you guys are going on you'd think someone up in this thread was trying to nominate Verhoeven for a Nobel Prize.

There's weird cross-talk going on here, too, where everyone agrees. To wit: "Fascism is action" -- this is basically the jumping-off point for half of what this movie is playing with!

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 1 December 2005 20:14 (eighteen years ago) link

http://www.jedsoft.org/images/jedutf8.png

― 'you' vs. 'radio gnome invisible 3' FITE (ex machina), Thursday, 1 December 2005 20:14 (eighteen years ago) link

http://www.anti-malware.info/payloads/number-1.gif

― WORLD AIDS DAY (ex machina), Thursday, 1 December 2005 20:15 (eighteen years ago) link

http://www.entineeducation.co.uk/images/Number-1.jpg

― 'you' vs. 'radio gnome invisible 3' FITE (ex machina), Thursday, 1 December 2005 20:16 (eighteen years ago) link

Have any of the naysayers seen a little movie called Spetters? Pretty brilliant subversion of the teen-movie format if you ask me.

― k/l (Ken L), Thursday, 1 December 2005 20:17 (eighteen years ago) link

http://www.math.tamu.edu/~patrice.poage/Images/sport4.jpg

http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/7198/joneskuato300w8gi.jpg

Just to bring it all back around.

― monkeybutler, Thursday, 1 December 2005 20:22 (eighteen years ago) link

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B00004COT4.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

cred Spencer Chow

― 'you' vs. 'radio gnome invisible 3' FITE (ex machina), Thursday, 1 December 2005 20:23 (eighteen years ago) link

No one? I used the word brilliant and meant the word brilliant. "Starship Troopers" is brilliant. There. Said it again. Even more so than "RoboCop." But both were written by Ed Neumeier, whereas "Basic Instinct" and "Showgirls" were written by Joe Eszterhas, which implies Verhoeven is only as strong as his script, and can't be counted on to salvage shit. Which "Basic Instinct" does and "Showgirls" (ahem) does not.

― Josh in Chicago (Josh in Chicago), Thursday, 1 December 2005 20:24 (eighteen years ago) link

You also said on another thread that black people shouldn't be offended by getting called "water buffalo" so I think your opinions are being taken with a salt lick the size of Utah.

― Dan (Just Saying) Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 1 December 2005 20:30 (eighteen years ago) link

To this day, Dan, I have no idea what's so bad about the term "water buffalo," having never heard it before or since as a pejorative. The implication of racism on my part is lame, especially since you put words in my mouth. Asshole. Unless you are confusing me with someone else, in which case you are not an asshole and I am sorry.

― Josh in Chicago (Josh in Chicago), Thursday, 1 December 2005 20:37 (eighteen years ago) link

Whatever. That photo looks like someone just propped up a pair of mannequins in a naughty pose, which is just the kind of stupid thing students do all the time. I mean, it's not like anyone was shouting down "water buffalo" or something.

-- Josh in Chicago (Vitesse9...) (webmail), December 1st, 2005. (link)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

i agree, yet the university is treating it with the same matter of seriousness as said incident.

-- maria tessa sciarrino (mari...) (webmail), December 1st, 2005. (link)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And we all know that "water buffalo" stuff was as serious as it gets! Ah, Ivy League, so much to answer for...

-- Josh in Chicago (Vitesse9...) (webmail), December 1st, 2005. (link)

― Dan (Decide For Yourselves, Folks) Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 1 December 2005 20:40 (eighteen years ago) link

Showgirls was so pretty, tho

― kingfish hobo juckie (kingfish 2.0), Thursday, 1 December 2005 20:41 (eighteen years ago) link

i have never heard it before = it is not racist

― oooh, Thursday, 1 December 2005 20:43 (eighteen years ago) link

Where did I say that "black people shouldn't be offended by getting called 'water buffalo'"? God, I hate myself for taking your bait, but I would never say that and the suggestion I would and did reallly irks me.

To say that incident wasn't serious is hardly the same thing. I just recall thinking it was really blown out of proportion. Sorry if you were offended, Dan, either by the post or for being called an asshole. But I didn't remotely say what you said I did, which is defamatory and inconsiderate.

― Josh in Chicago (Josh in Chicago), Thursday, 1 December 2005 20:44 (eighteen years ago) link

Where did I say that "black people shouldn't be offended by getting called 'water buffalo'"? [...] To say that incident wasn't serious is hardly the same thing.

Sorry, but that just doesn't compute.

― Erick Dampier is better than Shaq (miloaukerman), Thursday, 1 December 2005 20:45 (eighteen years ago) link

maybe he meant it isnt serious when black people are offended by racist taunts

― oooh, Thursday, 1 December 2005 20:48 (eighteen years ago) link

for tru satire
please visit last action hero

― styler, Thursday, 1 December 2005 20:49 (eighteen years ago) link

Oh, come on. Sorry if I'm not being clear. Everyone has a right to be offended. If you are offended, who am I to say you're not offended? I just meant that, per my earlier post, I had never heard of anyone being called a water buffalo before, and have never since. I don't know how serious a racial epithet it is, considering it would never occur to me that it even *was* a racial epithet. But I'm all for apologies: show me a place where it has been used as such before said incident or after (and not a reference to said incident), and I will be all (more) apologies.

― Josh in Chicago (Josh in Chicago), Thursday, 1 December 2005 20:49 (eighteen years ago) link

I really, really am sorry for even implying that no one should be offended by that term. It's just what I wrote, I think, is a far enough cry from what Dan said I wrote that, er, *I* was offended.

― Josh in Chicago (Josh in Chicago), Thursday, 1 December 2005 20:51 (eighteen years ago) link

See, this was exactly my point on the other thread! The kid basically defended himself by saying that "water buffalo" isn't technically a racial slur and he just meant it as a generalized insult -- even though everyone on earth (especially the targets), knew he was using it in exactly the same way as a racial slur. That's what made the whole thing so vexing. That smug little bastard managed to invent a racial slur that did all the work of a racial slur but still had some kind of "plausible" deniability around it.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 1 December 2005 20:54 (eighteen years ago) link

okay what does this have to do with bug sci fi

― gear (gear), Thursday, 1 December 2005 20:57 (eighteen years ago) link

Nothing. Dan invoked it here, invalidating my take on "Starship Troopers" because of something I mentioned on a completely unrelated thread.

― Josh in Chicago (Josh in Chicago), Thursday, 1 December 2005 20:59 (eighteen years ago) link

I dunno. All I know is, I was disappointed that Bug Jack Barron did not feature any actual bugs.

― k/l (Ken L), Thursday, 1 December 2005 20:59 (eighteen years ago) link

The point being made here is that "water buffalo" does not have to be a commonly-used racial epithet with thousands of years of precedent for it to qualify as a racial epithet in the original 1993 situation at Penn and your insistence upon having proof of its offensive lineage is kind of perplexing and casts a gigantic amount of doubt on your ability to infer from subtext in other contexts, like when talking about the meaning of "Starship Troopers".

― Dan (My Point Was Never That You Are A Racist, Just That You Can't Reason Very W, Thursday, 1 December 2005 20:59 (eighteen years ago) link

This thread has made me decide that Starship Troopers actually sucks. Not just the movie, everything to do with it. The tabletop wargame, the novel, Buenos Aires, asteroids, bugs, all of it. It all sucks and I hate it. Completely.

― TOMBOT, Thursday, 1 December 2005 21:03 (eighteen years ago) link

In fact I think that term does have a lineage as such, going back thousands of years, if not more.

― k/l (Ken L), Thursday, 1 December 2005 21:04 (eighteen years ago) link

Dan, you don't need to call me dumb, either. I was just upset you implied I was a racist - which you think I misconstrued. And (to conflate the two), to doubt my "ability to infer from subtext in other contexts" basically further implies I am too stupid to be racist. Which is fine, if that's the way you think. Anyway, you're right. Go about your business. I'm going to go take my daughter to the indoor park.

― Josh in Chicago (Josh in Chicago), Thursday, 1 December 2005 21:09 (eighteen years ago) link

Have fun!

― Dan (Seriously) Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 1 December 2005 21:12 (eighteen years ago) link

But Tom! without the novel, there'd be no X-Com!

or Aliens!

― kingfish hobo juckie (kingfish 2.0), Thursday, 1 December 2005 21:19 (eighteen years ago) link

Fuck all that shit, all of it sucks. The future, with aliens, all of that shit is a bunch of crap. As soon as we unpack after the move I'm going to rewatch Gundam 1978 and forget all this crap ever happened. Heinlein was a reactionary idiot fuckhead and a looney tunes. Screw Aliens, the first one was better. I'm not even going to play StarCraft anymore. So pissed off.

― TOMBOT, Thursday, 1 December 2005 21:24 (eighteen years ago) link

What's your opinion of Martian Successor Nadesico? and its whole postmodern giant robot pilot/fan?

― kingfish hobo juckie (kingfish 2.0), Thursday, 1 December 2005 21:28 (eighteen years ago) link

I'm not even going to play StarCraft anymore.

:-(

― Dan (What Have I Done?) Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 1 December 2005 21:28 (eighteen years ago) link

There's weird cross-talk going on here, too, where everyone agrees. To wit: "Fascism is action" -- this is basically the jumping-off point for half of what this movie is playing with!

-- nabisco (--...), December 1st, 2005.

OTFM. Nabisco OTM throughout the thead.

What is it about ILE film threads?

― latebloomer: The Corridor (Yes, The Corridor) (latebloomer), Thursday, 1 December 2005 22:03 (eighteen years ago) link

What is it about ILE ~~film threads~~?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 1 December 2005 22:15 (eighteen years ago) link

hahaha

― latebloomer: The Corridor (Yes, The Corridor) (latebloomer), Thursday, 1 December 2005 22:21 (eighteen years ago) link

All ILE film threads are alike. All other types of threads degenerate into fites in their own fashion.

― k/l (Ken L), Thursday, 1 December 2005 22:24 (eighteen years ago) link

what people are forgetting is that the film was done on the cusp of the gulf war---it actually manages to talk pretty well about the collusion of the MIC and Hollywood

― anthony easton (anthony), Friday, 2 December 2005 00:28 (eighteen years ago) link

what people are forgetting is that the film was done on the cusp of the gulf war---it actually manages to talk pretty well about the collusion of the MIC and Hollywood

How is 1997 the cusp of either Gulf War?

― Erick Dampier is better than Shaq (miloaukerman), Friday, 2 December 2005 00:46 (eighteen years ago) link

haha

― dabnis coleman's ghost (dubplatestyle), Friday, 2 December 2005 00:48 (eighteen years ago) link

so, would you guys want Verhoeven directing the Halo movie?

or Uwe Boll?

― kingfish hobo juckie (kingfish 2.0), Friday, 2 December 2005 07:31 (eighteen years ago) link

when the script was written, etc...

― anthony easton (anthony), Friday, 2 December 2005 07:51 (eighteen years ago) link

How could you satirize fascism with an action movie? Fascism is action, Leni Riefenstahl already provided the blueprint on how to shoot a blockbuster spectacle of beautiful Aryan heroes.

YOU IDIOT

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Friday, 2 December 2005 09:21 (eighteen years ago) link

this thread needed more dr morbius

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Friday, 2 December 2005 09:41 (eighteen years ago) link

YOU IDIOT

-- Theorry Henry (miltonpinsk...), December 2nd, 2005.

;-)

― latebloomer: The Corridor (Yes, The Corridor) (latebloomer), Friday, 2 December 2005 09:45 (eighteen years ago) link

i keep thinking of ren hoek!

http://www.bdt.com/david/images/rs003.jpg

― latebloomer: The Corridor (Yes, The Corridor) (latebloomer), Friday, 2 December 2005 09:46 (eighteen years ago) link

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