Andre, your obvious hate of all things American does not make your vision of the movie clearer than anyone else.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Quill:
Andre, your obvious hate of all things American does not make your vision of the movie clearer than anyone else.

You cannot really compare the world in Troopers to a Nazi state...all the races are represented equally...not quite keeping with fascist themes.

---

Quill... are you sure you read my last post??

I do hate some things that USA government do around the world - the same hate I have for the corrupt politicians we have here in Brasil. In the other hand, there are lots of things I love about your country (too bad you can't say the same about mine, since you probably can't even find it on a map of the globe)...

But I will repeat to make myself clear: the vision I have of the movie (USA militarism = Nazis) was given to me by Paul Verhoeven, the guy who did the movie to be like that in the first place.

And, believe me, I don't even think he did it right this time, as he did in ROBOCOP and SHOWGIRLS. Like I said before, I really despise this movie, not only because of the unintentional fascist propaganda, but also because it's ridiculous wall-to-wall.

As for "all the races represented equally" I presume you've never beem to Buenos Aires...

quote:

---

Originally posted by JeffBond:
I gotta say, Andre mounts an increasingly compelling defense of the movie. Maybe he'd be happier if everyone living in the American "sewer" could be rounded up and put into camps.

---

Oh JeffBunda, how pathetic...
It's always sad when someone with a giant ego let his rancor dominates and decides to get personal, stating all kinds of stupid and useless personal remarks in the absence of better arguments.
Anyway, it's quite easy to be cocky and bold behind a computer monitor. But what else would be news...

I still can't even fathom how this entire conversation has come this far...someone's cheese must have slid all the way off their cracker (forgive me for borrowing the line!) if they view Troopers as any kind of commentary of society or the possible evolution of a humanistic society. I just get a laugh at the cheesy dialogue, over the top action, and half-way decent special effects.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Quill:
Some people just have too much time on their hands and worry about things that just plain aren't worth it.

---

Another great example of: "I don't have any better arguments, so I will just post some offensive personal remark to make me look cool..."

Sad...

Anyway, try to argue with these people is the same to talk to a brick wall.

Now, send your next complaints to Paul Verhoeven, movie director.

...then again, I'm single...so who gives a darn...

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scott:
Oh shoot! I didn't.

...then again, I'm single...so who gives a darn...

Scott

---

That explain why you are a single...

NP -- Titus, Goldenthal

Case in point: Lancelot points out that the film's bugs can't be stand-ins for the Jews vis a vis Nazi Germany because the bugs fight back and destroy cities. But do they REALLY destroy cities? A turning point in the movie occurs when the bugs destroy Buenos Aries. However, this crucial event occurs offscreen and is only depicted via the clearly government-controlled media. When I talked to Basil Poledouris about scoring the film he said he and Verhoeven discussed the possibility that the bugs had never attacked Earth or any of its outposts and that these attacks had in fact been staged by the human forces in order to rally the populace behind the war effort.

On the surface Starship Troopers appears to be another inane special effects movie with shallow human characters fighting alien monsters. But here (as in Verhoeven's Total Recall) there's a subversive reason why the characters we're watching are bland, good-looking icons. Starship Troopers is a takeoff on WWII military propoganda films, in particular the kind of film the culture depicted in the movie would make. Would the culture behind this film want to show complex characters wrestling with the gray areas of war? No, they would want handsome Ken and Barbie dolls, idealized figures that audience members could aspire to be.

When Top Gun came out one critic described it as a movie "Goebbels would have been proud to make." That's exactly the sort of film Verhoeven was satirizing with Starship Troopers. The movie addresses how we have to dehumanize the enemy (literally reducing them to "bugs" to be stomped on by our children) and how anti-intellectualism drives our culture (it's demonstrated at the very beginning of the film that the "hero" is the least intelligent person in his class).

If I have a criticism of the film it's that it squanders its only two mildly interesting characters (Michael Ironside and Dina Meyer) before the climax, leaving the final sacrifice to a minor character and robbing its finale of any dramatic impact. But the ultimate victory is pretty chilling--we don't defeat the enemy, we make them fear us.

The fact that movie-going "skinheads" couldn't see how they were being lampooned onscreen I don't think is the movie's responsibility. That's the fault of our own culture which values the contribution of a WWF wrestler over a teacher. Anyone who embraces that ethic isn't going to bother thinking about what they watch on a movie screen.

I saw "Starship Troopers" immediately after an exhaustive study of the book in my college science-fiction course. My question was not: was the film about fascism? Numerous interviews and sudies have clearly and rightly identified it as such.

The subject of my interest was what -- if anything -- the film revealed about Heinlein's original novel. I don't think Verhoeven ever pretended he wasn't adapting a controversial work. His interpretation of the novel was a thinly veiled military satire. If the original source was likewise a satire, it was an incredibly subtle one. With any other author, I might have dismissed the notion.

But that's the trouble with Heinlein. His satires and his philosophies routinely contradict and double back on each other. You can get thoroughly lost trying to explain the intention behind a book like "Job: A Comedy of Justice," which may at first seem like an obvious indictment of its subject matter.

With "Starship Troopers," Heinlein made one of the more convincing arguments for a military state in literary history. If that was his true intention, Verhoeven's interpretation runs completely contradictory to the novel. The movie might then be construed as exhibiting a shocking disrespect for the original source material. Some people regard such committed satire as outright betrayal ... again, IF we can correctly understand Heinlein's multi-layered text.

Anyone with a working brain is able to dig all the "hidden" (sic) subtexts of STARSHIP TROOPERS. But just because a movie contain several "hidden" subtexts (whatever they are) it doesn't make it good.

HOLLOW MAN (another Verhoeven's flop) is supposed to have lots of those cool "subtexts", but the movie sink in the last half thanks to a dreadful screenplay.
The same thing happening with STARSHIP TROOPERS (which sunk since the first laughable sequence), a movie where Verhoeven tried to inflict the same subversive, acid comments on the American society as he did on ROBOCOP and SHOWGIRLS. But failed miserable this time for several reasons - the awful cast he had to work being the principal.

Paul Verhoeven is a great director which, along with John Carpenter, Joe Dante, John Sayles and a few others, make movies with guts. But they don't hit the target all the time.

So, to praise a movie just because "I was witty enought to dig all its hidden messages" is not reason enough to make it good... Besides it sounds as dumb as "I criticize movies which I saw during airplane travels" kind of statement.
Particulary a movie who gives all the wrong messages for the casual moviegoer and sick right-winged followers. You know, THE FIGHT CLUB effect...
A movie, "supposed" to mock the nazis and its worshipers, which make skinheads jump in pure joy has obviously missed its point.
See AMERICAN HISTORY X for further references of how to do it rigth.

Say whatever you want about the cheesy dialogue of movies like MISSION TO MARS, but in the end they far better than STARSHIP TROOPERS - even with such naive and simpleton messages.

Give me "We are them! Thery are us!" anytime instead of "In the army you will be all you can be!!"...

Poor soul...
Well, at least he cut off the usual "english grammar lessons" people use to write when they run out of any rational argument.

As for the smiley faces, it's not that dificult Jeffey.
I mean, you were able to dig all those profound "hidden messages" on STARSHIP TROOPERS. I think you will be able to learn how to use them too...

quote:

---

Originally posted by JeffBond:
And remember, Andre--it's StarSHIT Troopers.

---

Indeed it is!
Poor Verhoeven... Shame on him!

But whenever I disagree with you about a motion picture, I have only to remember that you're the guy who thinks Showgirls is a good movie.

Or is it Shitgirls?

quote:

---

Originally posted by JeffBond:

But whenever I disagree with you about a motion picture, I have only to remember that you're the guy who thinks Showgirls is a good movie.

Or is it Shitgirls?

---

Jeffy, I can perfectly understand why you hate SHOWGIRLS. Believe me.
So don't be ashamed to admit it, ok??

Keep it coming!
....

Marian, I agree with you about ARMAGEDDON and CON AIR being more dangerous than STARSHIP TROOPERS. All this movies have those fascist subtexts, but being STARSHIP TROOPERS such a horrenduous and ridiculous movie on all aspects (except maybe 'visual efx') in the end nazis, fascists, skinheads and all other psychopaths will prefer to watch ARMAGEDDON or some Steven Seagal movie instead.

If you're gonna look at 3 or 4 minutes from this score, look at "Where?"--one of my favorites pieces composed this decade.

quote:

---

Originally posted by H Rocco:
Rogerio v. Andre, round 112 ...

---

Hehehehehe...
You noticed it too, didn't you Rocco?
Subtileness and intelligence are not his strong as anyone can see.

Quite amusing to see a fellow who have already so many serious personal problems but still finds time to make a fool of himself on a public message board just to attack someone who once considered him a true friend (yes, my mistake!).
But we must understand these kind of people - so much hate, so much anger, so much rancor, so much envy on their hearts... They need to elect someone to blain for their own misery. Indeed pitiful!

But life goes on (and better I must confess) without people of this kind hanging around you with all their negative input...

........

And this time I agree with Kross: MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 2 is indeed an awful movie and score!

N.P.: MISSION TO MARS (Maestro Ennio Morricone) *****

I do have problems with people who, in the lack of a better argument to refute an opinion, rely on personal attacks just to provoke or to mock (the JeffBond/Dr.Evil effect).

But, when someone attacks me on a personal level I will react in the same way - tit for tat. Althought there's a level which I won't go bellow, of course... After all you never know what this kind of person, who have nothing to lose, are prepared to do in the "real world". Better to just stay away!

Anyway, you obviously don't know anything about this "Dr.Evil affair". Feel free to e-mail me and I will be glad to explain it to you, ok?