There will always be morons that just don’t get it. It is how Q Anon went from a 4chan joke to what it is now.
Also what happened to t_d on Reddit.
What happened? Who is t_d?
Reasonable question! It was a sub called “the_donald”. It started with a bunch of folks saying outrageous things that were satirizing Trump and his followers. Unfortunately it wasn’t outrageous enough because it was slowly taken over by true believers who spouted the same outrageous shit because they actually believed it.
“Mind bottling. You know, when things are so crazy it gets your thoughts all trapped, like in a bottle”
“It’s a moo point. Like a cow’s opinion, you know, it just doesn’t matter.”
It’s all water under the fridge
Don’t take things for granite.
My first viewing I did mostly take it at face value. But in my defense, I was a dumb 11 year old kid. It wasn’t until Neil Patrick Haris came out in full SS uniform that I started asking questions.
Gam*rs
I’ve seen this a few times, ca you explain this to me? Is it a way of talking about people that consider themselves capital G gamers without having them come in and ruin the conversation with whining or gamergate bs?
It’s a joke about writing slurs and censoring them with an asterisk, implying Gamer is a slur
Ah gotcha, thanks. I will say, I don’t like being called a gamer because I don’t want to get lumped in with the whiny chuds so I get it
It’s just pretending Gamer is a slur, that’s it.
It’s not a slur, but I’m doing everything in my power to turn it into one
Godspeed o7
I support this movement
Gotcha, thanks!
I would just like to take this moment to suggest people find a comfortable place to sit with a stiff drink, spliff or whatever and listen to the first chapter of the audio book - and I mean really listen, actively visualize the story and everything being described, let yourself really emotionally connect with the events as much as possible - it’s a really powerful and well written bit of action sci-fi.
It’s on YouTube read by Christopher Hurt, first chapter is about 40 min, I’ve read a lot of sci-fi and it’s without a doubt in my mind the strongest and most thought provoking opening to a Sci fi. It gets you pulled into the characters, the world, and emotion without a break in the action - and for a book punished in 1959 the action is unbelievably believable, it’s hard to imagine better high energy action sci-fi combat – someone needs to make a real gritty anime of it.
Doesn’t appear to be on audible UK - is it on USA?
I don’t know, I just listen on YouTube, it’s not got the useful features but it works
The main arguments for it being a pro military and pro war movie is that the Bugs ARE attacking and that if humanity wants to survive, they will have to fight. Then, while most people do die, the movie ends with a major victory that looks like it may help save humanity.
I don’t really think you can argue those points away to claim its an anti military/war movie. The movie would have needed for humanity to have attacked the bugs first, starting the war; or at the least having had most everyone die for no reason, without making a shred of progress in the war effort.
I mean, they were fighting to save our entire species, and the two most vocal people in the entire movie (Ricos parents) that were against the military machine were some of the first people to die in the movie.
Are the bugs really initiating the attacks? Because with the distance between Klendathu & Earth it seems pretty obvious the movie is trying to imply the bugs aren’t the ones sending meteors at the humans.
When I rewatched the movie with a friend recently he was surprised that the movie ended with what felt like an anticlimactic resolution - because the war keeps going forever (or so it seems). I really like the interpretation that Starship Troopers (the movie itself) is an in-universe propaganda film used to recruit soldiers to feel important and make a difference in the war effort.
The point is the war must continue for ever, this is made very clear in the book - that’s what happens when you deify soldiers, when you make a society obsessed with valour there needs to be a war for the generals to earn stripes - when your society’s entire social contract and cohesion is based on war your leaders will always find a war that just HAS to be fought…
The movie point blank says the bugs attacked first and that it’s a colonization species that just hurls meteor filled bugs randomly into space in order to try and find new planets to colonize.
Also, when the “main” character in the movie (Rico) is in basic training and about to quit the military, a bug meteor impacts the earth, taking out an entire city, and killing his parents, so the bugs were most definitely attacking humanity, and earth directly.
The movie also ends on a high note, making it seem like they learned some very important information by capturing one of the until then unknown bugs that was able to think and direct all the mindless bugs. So while the war will go on, it leaves the viewer to think that humanity was making progress towards a victory. The movie also marked the first time that humanity actually went to the bug home planet and “took the war to them”.
deleted by creator
Nice write-up
Seconding the other poster. Excellent write up; you distilled every rebuttal point I would have made to OP perfectly.
Klendathu is shown to be on the opposite side of the Milky Way. It is physically impossible for the bugs to hurl meteors at these distances while accounting for drift, every piece of matter in between and also the time difference. “Oh yeah, let’s launch this meteor so it can destroy a city called Buenos Aires, that hasn’t been founded yet by a species that hasn’t evolved yet.”
They didn’t learn anything at the end, they all remained the same characters, still happy to be gears in a military machine. Oh, and NPR mutilated the brain bug’s face vagina.
The music made you feel this way, but that’s to manipulate you to do so.
It is physically impossible for the bugs to hurl meteors at these distances
This one always bugged me (no pun intended) when I first saw the movie as a kid. We (humans in the movie) can barely do precision missile-strikes on another planet across the galaxy, and the bugs are way less technologically inferior. How do they even move/manage a meteor?
Buenos Aires is an inside job?
The bug meteors aren’t launched ballistically, they are launched in some kind of superluminal method that isn’t explained and doesn’t need to be, it did bypass earths defenses however. You can see that happens because the transport ship Denise Richards is piloting literally sees it happen. In the movie the idea of Buenos Aires being a false-flag isn’t supported by the text, nor the subtext.
that just hurls meteor filled bugs randomly
I think you meant to say “bugs filled meteors”?
There is implications in the film that we started colonizing the bugs territory and initating conflict. We caused the war. The bugs were just defending themselves. While we sent massive ships after their planets.
No there wasn’t.
Watch again.
deleted by creator
It’s all people who don’t read much or only read modern stuff, heinlein was an author who explored ideas he wasn’t someone who believed that his job was to tell people what to think. People who think the book is trying to be pro or anti anything are honestly borderline illiterate, they certainly haven’t read his other work.
The movie is just a dumbed down action movie directed by someone who didn’t really understand or enjoy the book - is a great movie for an action movie but it’s not very well thought out and it’s certainly not deeply thoughtful.
The film misses all key moments - the first scene, Zim throwing the knife, etc and everything subtle that really makes the story and emotion work - for the film the ending makes no sense, in the book it’s really powerful.
The movie isn’t really about much, the book is about everything - along side Friday and Stranger it’s a fascinating insight into the evolution of Americanism and cultural ideals pushed to absurdity. That’s not to say it should be read expecting answers, prime golden era sci-fi wasn’t about giving answers it’s about posing questions - hence foundation, the laws of robotics series, Stainless steel rat, etc - ‘We must be as stealthy as rats in the wainscoting of their society’ it’s not about telling you how to live or how not to live it’s about showing possibilities you probably haven’t thought to explore.
We aren’t talking about the book at all, though. We’re strictly talking about the movie.
Would you like to know more?
NGL I’m still a little salty at OWI only making the Extermination game after the Troopers Mod for Squad took off so hard. No credit to the hard work on that mod that rekindled the interest at all.
Hang on, Troopers mod???
Oh gosh yes! It’s popularity has dropped a bit since OWI’s little stunt, but you should check it out on Fridays when we try and get the OG’s to come back and show us how to kill some BUGS.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2830905314&insideModal=0&requirelogin=1
Great, guess I know what I’m doing after my uni exam… and possibly before (let’s be honest).
I mean he’s pretty much been on board with it all along. I’m pretty sure he’s been involved in most of the sequels in some way.
I don’t understand why people wouldn’t take it at face value without any further context offered to them beforehand. It’s a campy action film that’s a lot of fun but with just the faintest dusting of authoritarianism that could be easily disregarded as just part of the ambience of the filmmaker’s decisions. It ends on a hopeful scene implying better understanding of the Bugs in order to reach victory.
You’ve got to read the book to get it, but even then that doesn’t really shift the film out of being a Big Action Shooter that’s fun to watch.
Umm, I’m pretty sure Heinlein meant it as a system that could work. The book is definitely not the parody the movie is.
Sorry if it came across that way, but no…the book is not like the movie. No disagreement there.
All good. Maybe my reading comprehension was off.
No
People don’t even get Robocop, and that one is even less subtle (IMO).
Neo Nazis didn’t get The Dead Kennedys (a very left-leaning hardcore punk band). It motivated them to write a song titled “Nazi punks fuck off” (the lyrics just repeat the song’s title aggressively) in an attempt to pass the message into their thick, mostly empty skulls.
I just watched the movie because there were boobies.
There were some nice ones.
Unrelated, but I met Casper at a convention last summer, and he was super cool. He seems like he’d be a fun guy to know.
I watched the trailer and thought to myself, 20 years ago me would be super excited for this game!
