What movie did you see today?

[wiggin]

I'm not sure I even really consider it a satire. I know people call it that, but to me, satire has to have a more nuanced point than "fascism bad, rah". But I enjoyed the movie even if it didn't really have anything noteworthy to say. It was fun for me that they played all the absurdity completely straight. I just really like heavy-handed propaganda. Seriously, just one nicely stylized portrait of Trump ordering me to build that wall, and I'm buying a MAGA hat.

I didn't enjoy the novel as much as most seem to, but that might have just been because I accidentally read John Steakly's Armor first, so Troopers wasn't as novel a novel for me.

I find it odd that people lump Armor, Starship Troopers, and The Forever War together. The only commonality between them is the use of powered armor; pretty much everything else is unrelated. Oh, I get that they might be responses to each other in some way, but everything from the style to the themes are just light years apart.

But if you enjoyed the movie on its stylistic grounds, please be my guest. I guess I just didn't find that ridiculously overdone style to be particularly engaging. (Now, give me a neo-noir piece and I won't be able to resist it.)

As I understand it, he had a pretty radical political shift partway through his career.

You can clearly see an evolution of his thinking (I would hesitate to say 'politics') throughout his books. He also has a pretty different take on things whether his books were aimed at a younger or adult audience. But even in the same general era of his writing, there's a pretty big diversity of social structures he explores. I don't think he chooses them randomly, no, but I also think he's trying ideas on for size rather than representing his actual views on a subject. By far the most common thread throughout his books is how he portrays women - often hypersexualized, often passive objects of admiration, and often subject to male gallantry that borders on fetishism. But the other themes are far more varied.

[EyeKhan]

Train to Busan. A subtitled Korean fast-zombie story about people trying to survive a zombie outbreak on a, you guessed it, train to Busan. The not very subtle theme is loyalty to family/ group cooperation vs selfishness. I'm not a big fan of fast zombies and these, particularly in the turn from dead to undead, are very reminiscent of World War Z (which I hated). The acting and direction were both good and some of the scenes were excellent, offering unique visuals, which is saying something these days. If you're a genre enthusiast, I recommend.

EDIT: I finished the Starship Troopers re-watch and it's still a terrible film. As a whole it makes more sense as a satire, but it fails to execute. In fact, as satire it really comes off as a middle-finger to Heinlein, and by extension, to anyone that liked the book. So it's strangeness was incomprehensible to most viewers, and offensive to anyone who actually got it. Were they really surprised it failed at the box office? Minx, maybe you like it because you understand it as not so much a middle finger to Heinlein, but a middle-finger to Americans tip-toeing along the line of fascism? And in either case, the finger's not at you, and you can laugh along with the filmmakers?

[Aimless]

EDIT: I finished the Starship Troopers re-watch and it's still a terrible film. As a whole it makes more sense as a satire, but it fails to execute. In fact, as satire it really comes off as a middle-finger to Heinlein, and by extension, to anyone that liked the book. So it's strangeness was incomprehensible to most viewers, and offensive to anyone who actually got it. Were they really surprised it failed at the box office?

The creators were clearly a little surprised it made it to the box office. They weren't really expecting to get away with it, but the studio's borderline farcical incompetence and greed played right into their hands.

Minx, maybe you like it because you understand it as not so much a middle finger to Heinlein, but a middle-finger to Americans tip-toeing along the line of fascism? And in either case, the finger's not at you, and you can laugh along with the filmmakers?

The answer to that is no, but your question touches on something kinda important. A lot (most?) of modern satire relies on precisely what you describe: the audience laughs along with the writer, at a common enemy or outgroup of some variety. They're just palling around, agreeing with each other and having a great time. It's very enjoyable, and it's crucial to eg. Pratchett's immense success (esp. among enlightened secular centrists with a superiority complex and an authoritarian bent). The Discworld novels are fantastic, exciting, well-written, funny as hell--but Pratchett and his readers clearly love each other, and all the books are just opportunities for everyone to have a pleasant time together (with a few exceptions). The same goes for other well-loved examples of satirical works--their mass appeal stems not only from quality of production but also from enabling a large audience to laugh along (or just agree) with each other and with the creator. I'm not saying this is a bad thing--I love Discworld, the Truman Show etc--but it is IMO just another form of tribal social activity. Even less friendly exercises, such as the bit in every comedy routine where the audience is made to laugh at something utterly abhorrent (eg. Louis CK's of course/but maybe) are ultimately about the performer and the audience going through something together and enjoying that comforting sense of togetherness. Everything is always okay, there's always a resolution, and that's what makes it all funny. Even in darker examples, eg. Catch 22, there's a sense of shared enjoyment, and a comforting resolution at the end of it all.

Starship Troopers is certainly a middle finger pointed at an enemy, but it has a special place in my heart because I too am that enemy. The creators are attacking or just blowing a giant raspberry at their own presumptive audience, and I am very much a part of that audience. I love violent movies about war, retribution, vigilante justice etc. Some of my favourite stories are suffused with precisely the kind of dehumanizing fascist ideals that are shat on by the movie. There's a whole generation of people who were introduced to fantasy by Eddings's Belgariad novels, that are all basically about a bunch of sociopathic racists murdering people for glory (and I still love them). Several generations of scifi lovers have been trained to be fascinated by stories about questionable exercises in sophisticated social engineering. This movie says, this is all bullshit, you're all fucked up, fuck all y'all--and there's no resolution; you're just stuck with it. There's a place for that, just as there's a (much larger) place for subtle satire, composed on a typewriter by some chortling dude in a top hat for the amusement of his enlightened readership.


That being said, whenever someone tries to give you persuasive, objective reasons for why they like something, you can be sure they're just trying to tell you a story about who/what they think they are... so take all of the above with a pinch of salt.