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Starship Troopers

Starship Troopers

List Price: $19.95
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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Crucial point missing from the movie
Review: There is one point, central to the book, that is missing from the movie. That is, simply, that in order for something to be valued it must be earned. The book focuses on citizenship, but in the classroom scene uses the awarding of an unearned athletic award as an example. The lead character acknowledges that his third place award has more value, because he earned it, than would an unearned first place award. The book goes on to make the point that unearned citizenship is not valued (thus our dropping participation in civic activities). It proposes that citizenship, in order to be valued, must be earned, and sets out a system for earning it via participation in the "civil service". This includes, but is not limited to, the military. Anyone and everyone who is of age can apply, and they will find something appropriate for them to do for a full term. If they serve the full term, they then become a citizen. This is particularly pertinent today, given the failure of the "self esteem" movement in education.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: A Good Film That Lost Its Way
Review: Starship Troopers is a film about the conflict between humanity and the bugs, an alien race resembling giant earth-style insects. The first half of the film follows the military training of a group of recent high school graduates who dream of glory fighting the bugs on behalf of humanity. Strategically placed amongst this storyline are newscasts which keep the viewers up to date on Earth's progress in the struggle. Verhoeven used a version of this technique in Total Recall, and it worked. It works here, too. At the film's midpoint, full scale war is declared against the bugs, and the film deteriorates into nothing more than an endless series of gory battle scenes, in which the viewers see humans dismembered in every way imaginable, over and over again in ground combat with the bugs. Handheld weapons had little effect. I have trouble understanding why Earth forces used surface attacks at all. In one scene, when a bug stronghold was bombed from orbit, the creatures were virtually obliterated. Then, a ground team went in to clean up any stragglers. That approach spared countless lives. We want to see a big battle with the awesome bugs coming out in droves, but that should have been reserved for the end of the movie. By the finale, the viewers have seen the bugs so often and so up-close that further excitement can scarcely be felt. The filmmakers would have been wiser to show us only glimpses of the bugs through the newscasts throughout the movie, thus building anticipation. The film could have been entirely framed by the military training and anxiety the cadets felt over actually fighting the bugs. There are some interesting ideas here about duty, honor, and responsibility. For example, only "citizens" may vote, and only those who have served in the military may become "citizens." I give the movie three stars for what it almost was, even though it fell short.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: I can't give this movie zero stars?
Review: If I hear "but the special effects were awesome!" ONE MORE TIME I'm going postal. This movie stinks. I was rooting for the bugs to kill off the 90210 rejects that formed the cast. Yes, the effects were awesome. That doesn't mean the movie is any good. Of course, I have a few questions about "Starship Troopers."

Was I supposed to root for the neo-fascist society and their complete lack of military, tactical, or common sense? How the $%#*^& did the bugs send asteroids half-way across the galaxy to smash into Earth? Why didn't the humans just nuke the planet from orbit? ("Its the only way to be sure." -That's a line from a GOOD movie.) Why equip soldiers with weapons that they KNOW are ineffective then send them to a planet to die? Did the director even READ Heinlein's novel? And why should I care?

Well, at least it was better than "Showgirls."

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: S*cks.
Review: If you've never read the book, the action and some of the dialogue are somewhat entertaining. If you have read it, you'll most likely be pretty dissapointed with the movie. Either way, you've got some really attractive people (and their bodies, of course) to look at--so I guess it's not a TOTAL loss (hence the TWO stars, instead of one).

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: fantastic affects, great actionpacked film, good acting.
Review: When i first saw this film i thought it was absoulty brillant and i wanted to see it again and again. I thought the affect's where out of this world and the acting of some of the stars were brillant espically Michael Ironside. I thought the way they fought of the bugs were really excellant. this film is abousalty brillant and you have got to see it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Amazing!
Review: An amazing disc for Paul Verhoeven lovers! The fx will blow you away

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: A disgusting, depressing, vision of what we could become.
Review: While I am a sci-fi fan and this movie did have scenes and lines I couldn't help but get caught-up in, overall though I found it disgusting. I can see how a story such as this could be written 40 years ago, what I can't see is why anyone would want to make a movie of it today. It is a truly depressing view of what the human race could become. I'll stick to Star Trek.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: ANOTHER MISUNDERSTOOD BUT GREAT FILM
Review: Starship Troopers will only make sense if the viewer is familiar with American/German propaganda before and during the Second World War. Starship Troopers is a brilliant "documentary" of the war machine process. The viewer joins the ranks of high school children being turned into soldiers for the state(pay close attention to the outstanding eyes and facial expressions of Dizzy - Dina Meyer - forgive her for her last line of dialogue with Caspar VanDiem). Starship Troopers is a beautiful execution of a world in which Heinlein's political philosophy is put into practice. I advise the viewer to romp around Amazon.com to obtain Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will(1938), Warner Brother's Wartime Cartoons(1993), Disney's Victory Thru Airpower(1943), Verhoeven's Soldiers of Orange and read Joe Haldeman's Forever War and Heinlein's book to understand the depth Verhoeven's powerful essay on the uses and abuses of propaganda. An important film that will not be understood by those who take it either too seriously - not seriously enough.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The extra features of the DVD make this a MUST-HAVE
Review: After reading the other reviews, I'm left with this opinion: A lot of people don't know how to review a DVD. You don't read this section to get a review of the MOVIE, you read this section to get a review of the DVD. If the movie rates 1 star, you don't give DVD 1 star because of that. Now for Starship Troopers. I saw this at the theater, and I liked it somewhat. It was action packed, and had nice one-liners and some humorous moments. If the DVD just had the movie, I would not have purchased it. But it has SOO much more! It has the FULL movie on the flip-side with the directors opinion of EVERY part of the movie. It also has scenes that didn't make the final production, which I felt made the entire Starship Trooper experience complete. This is the type of movie you can throw in when you're not doing anything and just watch. Get this DVD if you thought the movie was even SOMEWHAT interesting.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Good effects, non-existent story line, plot for pre-teens
Review: I hated this movie, and I really like science-fiction and visual effects. It is horribly incongruous to show huge, sophisticated space ships far in the future, then show men fighting giant spiders with guns that appear to have the power of .22 rifles. It takes hundreds of shots to kill the spiders, which mean humans get ripped up a lot in this film. I was also irritated at the adolescent jump to nude shower seens, idiotic story line of love between soldiers, plastic one-dimensional characters. Some folks here have written glowing, five-star reviews of this movie...there's no accounting for taste, as they say, but they must be pre-teenagers who were drunk when they saw the movie, jumping up and yelling with glee as someone's arm got torn off and blood went everywhere. This is only the second of hundreds of videos I've rented that I turned off the video before finishing it.


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