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Posted: 5/27/2001 5:00:52 PM EDT
I recently picked up a copy of "Starship Troopers" and was blown away by this movie. It has a lot of killer effects along with a well scripted plot. I like the characters, too.
The script seems like it could have been applied to WWII with the patriotism and the war effort in place except it deals with the future and the enemy are alien bugs instead of nazis or japs. It's a surprisingly excellent movie that never really got the recognition it deserves. IMHO. |
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I am a total "Starship Troopers" nut. I would also advise you to read the book.
In they book, the Mobile Infantry is much tougher. Many panned it, but I think they should give it another chance. My only beef was Denise Richards wore much too much clothing. |
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Obviously, you've never read the book.
Compared to the book, the movie SUCKED. I just re-read (for about the 12th time) [u]Starship Troopers[/u], and I'm still blown away by the common sense and unique ideas R.A. Heinlein wrote oh so many years ago. Heinlein was my introduction to the philosophy of government, and [u]Starship Troopers[/u] and [u]The Moon is a Harsh Mistress[/u] were my primary textbooks. Damn, I miss that man. [sniper] |
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I liked the movie, but the book is much better. The computer animated cartoon show they made for kids was actually more true to the book than the movie, except not that many people got killed.
The way they fought the bugs in the movie made no sense. Why did they need to fight them on the ground? They could have just blasted the hell out of them from the air, or just nuked the planet from orbit for that matter. It would have made much more sense if they were after the bugs for scientific research ala' Aliens, then they would need to go down on the planet surface and capture some. They could have had the bugs be intelligent as they were in the novel and had a much better overall plot, instead they basically ended up fighting large animals without much of the fear factor that went along with the Xenomorphs in Aliens. Leaving out the powered armor was a big mistake too, that was one of the most interesting aspects of the novel. I read that it would have been cost prohibitive to include it. I don't really think so, they could have done a decent job with CGI and scale models. At the very least they should have put some kind of tank in there. Why send infantry up against wave after wave of large carnivorous animals, with what appeared to be ineffective weapons? |
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Hopefully someone remakes it in about ten years. I suspect they didn't use power armor because it would have obscured the actors.
The Maruaders used in the cartoon show were pretty awesome however. Does anyone know if the cartoon show is still on? |
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Book, Movie?
There is a HUGE difference between the two. Both have their good points and bad. Enjoyed them both. But the name is the only thing the same between the two. |
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Apples and oranges.
Heinlein is (was) my favorite arthor. I loved the book, the movie was ok. It takes about 100 pages to make a screenplay including stage directions. Novels don't translate into movies very well. |
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Quoted: oooooooo the redhead chick!!!!!!! View Quote Dina Meyer is very hot, I wish she would get more roles in films, especially ones that involve guns and nudity. |
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The book is better than the movie, but I thought the movie was pretty well done if not very true to the book. I would not mind reading a sequel to the book or seeing a Starship Troopers II movie.
GunLvr |
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Saw the movie yet haven't read the book it's based off.
The movie started off my love affair with Denise Richards, whoa man can you say "DSL"? She was so damned hot in that movie even if she never did get naked, but that's okay cause you get a decent eye full in the movie "Wild Things". Not gonna mention anything about her acting skills or lack there of. opps, too late |
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Does anyone know if the cartoon show is still on? View Quote Don't know if it's still on, but you can get some of the episodes on DVD. My nephew watched this twice when he spent the weekend recently, so he received the book for his birthday. [url]http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000056HP6[/url] |
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The book and the movie are both good in their own sense. The book for its philosophy, technology and ideas, the movie for when you want to waste an afternoon watching some gore, death, destruction, and Mini-14s in bullpup stocks with seemingly unlimited ammo and underbarrel shotguns. Oh, dont forget the skin that gets shown in various parts of the movie...
Kharn |
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awsome show! denise richards,wow! but she could have showed more skin.[:)]
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werent these in the movie??
[img]repliq.8k.com/graphics/morita1.jpg[/img] |
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Originally Posted By Snot Rocket: I recently picked up a copy of "Starship Troopers" and was blown away by this movie. It has a lot of killer effects along with a well scripted plot. I like the characters, too. The script seems like it could have been applied to WWII with the patriotism and the war effort in place except it deals with the future and the enemy are alien bugs instead of nazis or japs. It's a surprisingly excellent movie that never really got the recognition it deserves. IMHO. View Quote Ok... I liked the movie and DVD. Compared with the book? Bah.. no comparision. The book was originally released as a sequenced bit in "Boy's Life" Magazine. It was good propaganda. propaganda I believe to this day. It was wriiten post korea I believe. R.A.H was retired Navy general staff ?. Anyway.. The movie was fun... it kept me entertained for two hours. I re-read the book... it has kept me entertained for 30 years. |
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Another fan here (of the book, much less of the movie).
While not daring to discuss the excellent works of the sorely missed RA Heinlein, may I suggest another very good read on the very same topic? "Eternal War" by Joe Haldeman, trust me, it's a real good novel too. Albert. |
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Never read the book, but the movie was just awful, awfUL, AWFUL.
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The movie? Guns, naked women and GIANT EXPLODING BUGS! What's not to like? Sure, it wasn't realistic...so you think the Duke could'a shot all those Indians with that 5" barreled Colt? Who cares?
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Enjoyed both the book and the movie from completely different points of view - both have their merits. I have a copy of the movie and watch it when I want to just be brain-numb for a coupla hours. I have a copy of the book and read it to think.
IMHO, Casper van Dien has the acting ability of a bar of soap, but inasmuch as he is the male equivalent of Denise Richards (similar acting ability, but who cares?), they were cast well together. Michael Ironsides has been playing the same basic character since [i]Top Gun[/i]. And did anyone else get as much of a kick outta Doogie Houser MD playing a telepathic Gestapo officer as I did? |
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"Starship Troopers" used to be a serial in Boy's Life!?!
How un-pc! I remember they made a comic stip of Heinlien's book about Venus but took out all the political parts in the 70's. I know Boy's Life could never do that again, the soccer moms would be shocked. |
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The people that I've talked to about the movie said it sucked. I've watched it about 4 times and I love it. I've always liked sci fi movies with aliens and big guns. As a matter of fact my brother in law built a few of the guns in the movie. He was a tig welder at barrett's in Murfreesboro. But they put all kinds of other junk on it for special effects so you can't even tell it was a barrett 50 cal. He also built a couple guns for the movie Robo Cop when it came out.
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I love the book. I read five or six times. The movie is just a big toys to spend a couple of ours. Heinlein wrote, in his book, a portrait of a whole society, and the philosophy behind it. Apart the amazingly beautiful Denise Richards, I would never keep the movie in my collection, but I am still looking for the book to keep it with my other ones in my bookshelves. Consequences in my life? When I read "Starship Troopers" the first time I was 22 years old. This book and the history of the Red Devils (British Paratroops)made me to volunteer Paratroops 4 years later.
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I love the book. I read it five or six times. The movie is just a big toys good to spend a couple of hours. Heinlein wrote, in his book, a portrait of a whole society, and of the philosophy behind it. Apart the amazingly beautiful Denise Richards, I would never keep the movie in my collection, but I am still looking for the book to keep it with my other ones in my bookshelves. Consequences in my life? When I read "Starship Troopers" the first time I was 22 years old. This book and the history of the Red Devils (British Paratroops)made me to volunteer Paratroops 4 years later.
(Sorry for the double post... too many errors in the first version) |
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The movie sucked. (in my own opinion)
Would you like to know more? The best thing about the movie was the chick from "Wild Things". What's-her-face, she peaks my fancy (or something like that). |
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The movie was horrible, revisionist shlock by a hack (Verhoeven) who started out from the get-go to "deconstruct" the Heinlein novel.
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The book was great, along with everything else Heinlein wrote. The movie was typical hollywood communist eyecandy, and was not even similar to the book. The anti- country anti- war anti- nazi symbolism in the movie sickened me. And there were NO feminist dykes in the Mobile Infantry!
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I nearly forgot to mention, my buddies and I when we went to see the movie in the theaters, we were laughing our asses off through the whole thing.
What was really funny was when we saw Jake Bussey in his first scene, you can tell that's Gary's son due to those enormous horse "Bussey" teeth. Every time Jake smiled showing off those gigantic jackass buck teeth we would just start cracking up. Seems we were always laughing when somebody died as well. |
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The movie was good, I thought, but not true to the book. But it's a MOVIE for chrissakes! How often do they ever follow the book? And some of you guys see politics in everything, to the point that you can't even enjoy a good action filled sci-fi shoot-em-up without picking apart the political nuances the director may or may not have intended. It was fun to watch bugs being torn up by vast amounts of automatic weapons fire... so what if the tactics made absolutely no sense, it was cool if not particularly realistic. You'd think that with all that full auto fun more people from this site would really dig this film, instead of nitpicking it to death.
Rant over... thanks for letting me get that out of my system |
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The book is my favorite novel and heinlein is by far my favorite author. The movie was dumb but fun. Kinda like most of the blondes I've dated. lol. What I really want to see is someone come out with a conversion kit to turn a mini-14 into the guns they used in that movie. They looked really kewl but I dont get why they would be that big (or why 200 years in the future they are still using brass cased/combustion guns...common rail guns will prolly be common in like 10-20 years)
-----"I'm from Buenos Ares and I say kill them all!!" [rail] |
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Thanks for the book review guys, I was looking for a new one to read. I guess I'm not the only one who watched the cartoon.
[uzi] |
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Quoted: The movie was good, I thought, but not true to the book. But it's a MOVIE for chrissakes! How often do they ever follow the book? And some of you guys see politics in everything, to the point that you can't even enjoy a good action filled sci-fi shoot-em-up without picking apart the political nuances the director may or may not have intended. View Quote There's no "may not" about it. Verhoeven came right out and SAID he intended them. It was fun to watch bugs being torn up by vast amounts of automatic weapons fire... so what if the tactics made absolutely no sense, it was cool if not particularly realistic. You'd think that with all that full auto fun more people from this site would really dig this film, instead of nitpicking it to death. Rant over... thanks for letting me get that out of my system View Quote You're welcome, but it was still a horrible movie with putrid acting, lousy battle scenes and a wretched script that actually forced a quality actor like Michael Ironsides to say "They sucked out his brain!" |
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The BOOK Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein is AWESOME. It is awesome in that he described a good political system, talked about human morality and the necessity of having a military.
Also the MI (Mobile Infantry) was really tough...had better armored suits etc, than what was portrayed in the Movie. Hollywood in typical leftist fashion "slandered" Robert Heinlein by making the movie completely different than the book and by using uniforms that were similar to the what the SS wore. It was a subtle attack on Heinlein's political beliefs by equating his "society" with "facism" when nothing could be further from the truth. |
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Quoted: Originally Posted By Snot Rocket: I recently picked up a copy of "Starship Troopers" and was blown away by this movie. It has a lot of killer effects along with a well scripted plot. I like the characters, too. The script seems like it could have been applied to WWII with the patriotism and the war effort in place except it deals with the future and the enemy are alien bugs instead of nazis or japs. It's a surprisingly excellent movie that never really got the recognition it deserves. IMHO. View Quote Ok... I liked the movie and DVD. Compared with the book? Bah.. no comparision. The book was originally released as a sequenced bit in "Boy's Life" Magazine. It was good propaganda. propaganda I believe to this day. It was wriiten post korea I believe. R.A.H was retired Navy general staff ?. Anyway.. The movie was fun... it kept me entertained for two hours. I re-read the book... it has kept me entertained for 30 years. View Quote Heinlein was a disabled Gunnery Officer who served aboard destroyers and cruisers in the 1930's. Was also an Annapolis Graduate. He got a case of tuburculosus and was discharged from the Navy. He was an expert marksman (revolver) and fencer. One of the ships that he served on was the USS Oklahoma which later got hit pretty hard at Pearl Harbor. During WWII the Navy refused to allow him to join. He ended up serving our nation by working as a Civilian Engineer for the Navy during WWII. |
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Jeez, it is amazing to me to see how many people just didn't understand how the movie slaughtered the book! Total transformation of plot and symbolism!
Don't forget that Heinlein had a keen ear for "jingoistic" dialogue. He was not afraid to make fun of his own govenrmental/social system as well. Politically, he really stands on his own, especially if you look at books like "Stranger in a strange land" and "Farnhams Freehold". He is strongly conservative in one area, and especially in the "social" area very liberal. We can feel grateful that he always exalted the personal right to bear arms. |
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I am not too into reading because I have a short attention span. The movie was pretty cool though!
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Quoted: I am not too into reading because I have a short attention span. The movie was pretty cool though! View Quote You have the short attention span because you watch too much TV and don't read enough. |
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Originally Posted By Dirk Pitt: Thanks for the book review guys, I was looking for a new one to read. I guess I'm not the only one who watched the cartoon. [uzi] View Quote Hell no, you weren't the only one. I watched the cartoon on the WB-Kids network trying to see the ENDING of that damned series. But everytime it gets to the part of LT. Razak dying and Sgt. Bruto's little brother/cousin joining the Roughnecks, the series seems to restart (DragonBallZ - [i]the best cartoon out there[/i], suffers from the same effect). At first I figured [u]Starship Troopers[/u] the movie was to the book, as [u]Jurassic Park[/u] was to it's written counterpart. Now, after hearing you guys' reviews, it sounds like it really was COMPLETELY different from the movie - more like a book on politics and struggle than a kill-em-all action thriller. I'm convinced, I'll go pick up or check out a copy next chance I get. [img]www.auburn.edu/~littlcb/E-vil2.jpg[/img] |
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hmm now i want to reread my copy of starship troopers if u can finds it its a great book
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Just picked up a used copy from Amazon.com, for about $6 after shipping.
Not bad, I must say. [brown]Evil Jewbroni~[/brown] |
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Heinlien was a great one for Second Ammendment rights. He had one book, I forget the title, where every male was required by law to carry a firearm openly.
I can just imagine some of the rigs you guys would have. I think I would go for a pilot's shoulder holster 1911 rig. |
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Did anyone happen to notice that the guns used in Starship Troopers were M-14s spiffed up in bullpup stocks? The machine guns were Soviet 12.4mm heavies.
Unreconstructed: As far as being anti-Nazi: Is that a bad thing? Last time I checked preventing the slaughter of 13,000,000 unarmed people was why we owned guns. I didn't see the anti-war, anti-country aspects. And my mother (who was a soldier before sexist pee-brains like you forced her out) would be able to shoot you ass dead before you even saw her. Check your stupidity at the door. |
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