Starship Troopers(1997) vs Galaxy Quest (1999)

[Bos Docken]

I enjoy them both, but gotta go with Galaxy Quest because it's basically a love letter to Star Trek.

It was doing self-aware Star Trek tribute 20 years before The Orville.

Plus, it had Sigourney Weaver playing against type as a blonde bimbo. And she looked goooood

 

[cincymma79]

Starship troopers is spectacular
Every single sequel is flaming diarrheal

 

[-sin-]

Starship Troopers by a mile. It taught me many important life lessons.

 

[I Am Legion]

SST by far.

 

[TheFakeMacoy]

I like both, but I have to go with Galaxy Quest. While it was probably intentional, Starship Troopers had the main cast be unlikeable blocks of wood. It makes it difficult to want them to survive (again, likely intentional).

Meanwhile, all of the cast of Galaxy Quest were on average, much better actors and the characters were ones you wanted to see survive.

 

[Bos Docken]

Meanwhile, all of the cast of Galaxy Quest were on average, much better actors and the characters were ones you wanted to see survive.

Alan Rickman's character in Galaxy Quest has a more compelling arc than any character in Starship Troopers, and his performance couldn't be more perfect.

"By Grabthar's Hammer.... what a savings."

 

[moreorless87]

The book wasn't actually fascist. As in the system that was prevalent during WW2, not the slur. The proposed system would involve democratically elected leaders, voting wouldn't be based on race, nationality, sex or wealth, but you would need to serve a full time in the Earth's military so only people who choose to risk it on the frontline would have the rights to vote.
Rico's parents were wealthy but couldn't vote because they didn't have the courage to serve, preferring instead to invest their youth into making millions.
Actual fascism was a dictatorship, ethnically centered and despite the military overtones it was heavily influenced by big business (Junkers, Fiat etc).

I wouldnt say facism is automatically a dictatorship, it tends to limit democracy from much of the population but doesnt automatically remove it entirely, many would call modern China facist(even if it might call itself communist it bares little resemblance to it anymore) but Xi does nominally derive power from voting within the CCP.

Really though I think the film basically see's the book as propaganda trying to sweeten facism or at least strong facist tendencies. It does the same thing in a rather over the top fashion were the system gets to justify itself though Ironsides lectures and we see that internal human racism/sexism doesnt seem to exist when an "other" can be the source of the hate instead plus of course it has the larger than life fantasy violence/drama.

The depressing thing really is that a lot of viewers seemed to totally miss this, they went along with its face value message and just thought it was a badly made film for the sillier aspects of the way it was sold.

 

[Bos Docken]

The depressing thing really is that a lot of viewers seemed to totally miss this, they went along with its face value message and just thought it was a badly made film for the sillier aspects of the way it was sold.

The satirical aspects of the movie are entirely due to the director Paul Verhoeven. The original story by Robert A. Heinlein was written totally straight and was not meant to be a parody. Indeed, the book is an expression of Heinlein's position that 1950s USA needed to be more militaristic to counter communism.

Audiences missing the satire is a common thing with Verhoeven movies. There are viewers whose appreciation of RoboCop and Total Recall doesn't go beyond "RoboCop kicks ass" or "Arnold kicks ass."

 

[Bacco]

Denise Richards

 

[moreorless87]

The satirical aspects of the movie are entirely due to the director Paul Verhoeven. The original story by Robert A. Heinlein was written totally straight and was not meant to be a parody. Indeed, the book is an expression of Heinlein's position that 1950s USA needed to be more militaristic to counter communism.

Audiences missing the satire is a common thing with Verhoeven movies. There are viewers whose appreciation of RoboCop and Total Recall doesn't go beyond "RoboCop kicks ass" or "Arnold kicks ass."

You could argue I spose Total Recall isnt so strongly satirical, more just very negative in its view of the establishment we see told in an over the top fashion but generally it just felt like their was a bit more apatite for that kind of thing a few years earlier.

80's actioners get called conservative and militaristic but really they tended to just glory in a lone hero who was pretty often fighting a corrupt establishment were as by the 90's you had something like ID4 which you could argue isnt that far off of a straight telling of Starship Troopers, not so nakedly militaristic but glorying a hell of a lot in the US miltiary and the idea that having an enemy to fight would gloriously bring humanity together.