Starship Troopers was on TV last night in Oz... it's pretty damn funny, with the satire being even more blatant now.
I remember at the time friends having heated discussions about the idea that it was just a really, really dumb action flick with incidentally fascistic overtones cos that's what Heinlein was like. I feel vindicated, having found this interview with Paul Verhoeven just now, which has this fairly interesting comment about it:
Five years ago, most of the critics totally trashed that movie. They called me a nazi, saying I was idolizing Leni Riefenstahl. Now, that image has totally changed. A lot of people see now that the film is about the United States. The whole situation in Afghanistan is almost an exact copy of STARSHIP TROOPERS; the whole gung ho-mentality of bombing everything, blasting the Taliban-forces out of the caves. I put all that in STARSHIP TROOPERS! The corrupted atmosphere of propaganda, once invented by Goebbels, has now taken over the United States as well. It's extremely interesting to see how the media can besiege an entire nation with propaganda.
Apparently the DVD commentary is explicit about parts that deliberately emulate The Triumph Of The Will and things like that, from what I've read on the web today.
Verhoeven also mentions that of the 6 films he did in the States, 3 were not totally mainstream - Starship Troopers, Robocop and Showgirls. The first two are the only Verhoeven films I've seen, but I've heard a lot of really bad things about Showgirls and have no interest in seeing his straight genre flicks.
Does anyone have any comments on Showgirls? Are Verhoeven's earlier films of any interest?
Actually, he slags Showgirls himself later in that interview...
I remember at the time friends having heated discussions about the idea that it was just a really, really dumb action flick with incidentally fascistic overtones cos that's what Heinlein was like. I feel vindicated, having found this interview with Paul Verhoeven just now, which has this fairly interesting comment about it:
Five years ago, most of the critics totally trashed that movie. They called me a nazi, saying I was idolizing Leni Riefenstahl. Now, that image has totally changed. A lot of people see now that the film is about the United States. The whole situation in Afghanistan is almost an exact copy of STARSHIP TROOPERS; the whole gung ho-mentality of bombing everything, blasting the Taliban-forces out of the caves. I put all that in STARSHIP TROOPERS! The corrupted atmosphere of propaganda, once invented by Goebbels, has now taken over the United States as well. It's extremely interesting to see how the media can besiege an entire nation with propaganda.
Apparently the DVD commentary is explicit about parts that deliberately emulate The Triumph Of The Will and things like that, from what I've read on the web today.
Verhoeven also mentions that of the 6 films he did in the States, 3 were not totally mainstream - Starship Troopers, Robocop and Showgirls. The first two are the only Verhoeven films I've seen, but I've heard a lot of really bad things about Showgirls and have no interest in seeing his straight genre flicks.
Does anyone have any comments on Showgirls? Are Verhoeven's earlier films of any interest?
Actually, he slags Showgirls himself later in that interview...