Starship Troopers by Christiane Butler

Title/Year: Starship Troopers/1997

Director/Birth Year/Year Born: Paul Verhoeven/Dutch/1938
Budget: $105 Million
Gross: $121,214,377
Synopsis: We follow Rico as he graduates high school and joins the military in a futuristic space-exploring world. A hostile alien species of giant bugs is attacking earth & Rico with some of his high school buddies as they work to defeat the bugs & Rico moves up the ranks in the military.
Narrative and Visual Keywords: Citizenship, giant insects, infantry, telepathy, sensationalized news, smart bugs.
Characterization/Dialogue: Most of the characters are over-exadurated in this film, it works because it’s done all around and the film is meant to be a satire.
Camera/lighting/editing technique: We have some camera that’s smooth and just helping to tell the story without distraction, some of the time it is shaking as if being filmed by a soldier running with the troop.
Political/Social Commentary: The movie is based on a novel of the same title, but it received, many say, better criticism because the novel is thought to be too fascist and pro-military rule.
Notable Collaboration: Many of the people working on the film had previously worked together on the film RoboCop. The film had aid in more accurately portraying military from former US Marine, Dale Dye, who served in combat during the Vietnam War.
Random fact: The director has said that the first scene of the film was a direct reproduction of a scene in Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will.

Verhoeven flat out states in the film’s commentary that the message he is portraying is “War makes fascists of us all.” There is mixed review though, some see the film as just an over-the top action film, some as a satire, and some have even compared the film to the George W. Bush administration and it’s war on terrorism through extreme patriotism. Throughout the film we see what appears to be a futuristic and interactive propaganda message about the war, something a few commenters on a review say they wouldn’t have put past Bush. Other connects to a fascist idea can be made through the various Nazi-like elements. If you look at the smaller details of the film, specifically the wardrobe, the commanding officers have uniforms that are said to resemble that of the Nazi Gestapo uniform. *Show photo examples*

The biggest and most obvious though is that  Verhoeven admits to making the opening scene after a scene in the Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will. We watched some of this film in class, and I believe that the portion Verhoeven imitated is actually one that we saw. It is a scene where the Nazi soldiers are all gathered in a field to listen to Hitler’s speech, they all sound off about what they’re doing to help in the effort. *Play opening scene*

The main subject of the film follows the choices of one boy, Rico, through the military and his heroic actions, which lead to his becoming a man’s man, someone that others should strive to be like. The film starts with him as a kid who is completely full of himself, and he gets into some serious trouble when his over-confidence gets a fellow soldier killed and he almost backs out of the military all togehter. But then, by a twist in the plot, he has to grow up fast because as he is taking his walk down “washout lane” a meteor, that the bugs had launched into space, comes crashing down and completely destroys his home town along with his only family.  At this point he has no where to go so he sticks it out & through various battles and missions he begins to prove himself in the face of danger, to be a great leader that makes smart choices for the better of the group. Eventually through promotions by his superiors and deaths causing him to assume higher roles during battles, he makes it to the rank of Captain. The film closes out with another similar to the opening scene. Only this time he and his classmates from high school are the brave soldiers that the military advertisement is saying you should aspire to become. *Play closing scene*

Sources:

The Examiner, on a remake of the film http://www.examiner.com/article/hollywood-to-remake-starship-troopers

Entertainment Weekly, movie review http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,290338,00.html

The best humour is satire, and there's a reason we have so little of it today by Ian Hunter