And here I thought this was about some company recalling a toy because of lead paint or something. But I would totally buy a toy called "Starship Robocop".

Seriously not what I was expecting. Interesting perspectives, but I'm probably not going to watch this all the way through until I'm really bored.

Third!

*thumbed down*

Sad Panda level-up!

Verhoven? VerhOEven! ;)

It's verHOOven, VERHOOOOOOOOOOOVEN! He's not a ho, he's a hoo!

God, foreigners.

my bad... but really... the video isn't about spelling.

But it's also the pronunciation. The 'oe' or 'o' is pronounced like in 'who'.

In Dutch that's spelled as 'oe'.
Back at you!

(that rhymes...) ;P

No its not it VerhOEven as in hooves not Verhooven as in hof. Are you Dutch? if so stay in school. :P

And yes I am Dutch, I'm from Dordrecht just like Paul's parents :P

That was pretty much everything my friends and I have discussed about Paul Verhoeven's sci-fi films in a nutshell. Hell, we even had similar discussions towards "Showgirls".

I also thought that the attack on Ricos city was staged when I saw the starship troopers movie. The movie was a satire of the world Heinelen had created and the movie was all the better for it. HOWEVER... It is weird to me as an fellow European to see an Frenchman of all people say that Verhovens anti facist message was about American society when in the movie the whole world was under facist control. France is just as likely to become like the Starship troopers world as USA.

I actually thought the satire in Starship Troopers went much further.
First of all (to me ^^) its a satire about the book. In the Book the Mobile Infantry are like Super Soldiers, Space Marines if you so want ^^, but in the movie they are nothing more then cannon fodder.
The Book tries to make a point about the "good" points a fascism and militarism, while the movie makes fun of them.
And in the book its pretty much stated that the original aggressor in the conflict was mankind.

Then you have the alomst complete lack of privacy in the movie, paralleling the way our society moves.

And to me to movie culminated in the first apperance of the SS, er Psi Corp. :) reminding us that this is never so far away as we might think :)

@Trencher
He can say that because that is pretty much what Verhoeven said a lot of times about his movies.
Naturally this doenst mean: "Them Bad, Us Good" We europeans tend to view the US as an exxagerated version of ourselves. This does not come out of nothing but its still an exxageration. America and american politics is so prevalent in the media (at least here in germany) that we automatically have a strong connection to that society.
Kids often think that american laws and procedures are actually the way stuff is done here because they are so used to what they see on TV.

Generelly the Verhoeven Sci Fi flicks are really good, everyone of them very enjoyable, yet they encourage to think for yourself, and thirdly they are all quite different even though they share some common themes.

Thanks you three for making this video, I really enjoyed it and wish for more :D

being a satire of the book is that he could have made the same movie joking about a facict world at war by not using the book and using an original script. He used the book because it was convenient. He has since made another what... 2 or 3 movies in the series. That says to me that he was having writing block, and found an easy way out. He wanted a sci-fi series of his own and used Starship Troopers as a jump off point. Even if he had to butcher a good book in the process.

Now don't get me wrong, I can enjoy the movie as being a fun cheesy sci-fi action flick. BUT, that being said I don't think it did the book or Heinlein credit and hoping that someday someone makes a movie that deserves the name and is actually based on the book.

Actually, the book wasn't optioned until well into pre-production (http: //en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Starship_Troopers_% 28film% 29#Comparison_with_the_no vel) and Verhoeven never even read it through, so it can't really be called a satire of the book. At least, not a very good one. Certainly they made a fascist society that looked superficially similar to the society represented in the novel, but the differences are glaring to anyone who actually read it.

That said, I don't hate the movie. It's pretty good, but I wish they hadn't felt the need to drag Heinlein into it. It unfortunately means I'll probably never get to see a faithful adaptation of the book, just a movie with a few similar names and events slapped on to pull in a bigger audience.

I think Verhovan missed a trick with a scene in the middle of the book.

Rico having just been promoted to lieutennat runs into his pacifist father who survived BA and is now a marine quatermaster.

That would have given even more creedence to the conspiricy theory.

I like all three of these movies, though I lose geek points for not realizing they were all directed by the same man.

Like Ben though, I do carry a fascination how these sci-fi movies made decades ago have rather unsettling parallels to how at least the US runs these days.

Not going on to a rant but the big one for me is the mirroring of the plot of Starships Troopers with the country's current war on terror operations.

The attack on Buenos Aires with the enormous asteroid is insanely ridicules for anyone who knows anything about the vast distances you have in a galaxy. Shown in one of the newsreels you can see the Klendathu system is suppose to be on the other side of our galaxy e.i. there should be around 50-70thousand light years between our solar systems.

So even if they somehow manage to fling out the asteroid with the speed of light it would still take at least 50000 years before it hit earth. Also the precision and calculations needed for something like that would be the equivalent of someone standing in Australia shooting an arrow with a crooked bow trying to hit a flea in the north pole.

So yeah it is a pretty silly movie but as you guys pointed out is suppose to be and with that in mind it's pretty damn good actually. The message being portrait and its parallels to our reality is very interesting and a bit scary.

Also I very much agree with Benzaie about the CGI that still looks great even by today's standard, a good example on how to mix CGI, special effects and props together with filming outside and on build sets instead of just using a bluescreen for almost everything.

in the book the Arachnids have interstellar warships and the attack on Buenos Aires is done by a small fleet, it is meant to highlight that even though the terran federation is heavily militarized they always considered earth safe and therefore did not have a large fleet presence there.
also while i also agree that the cgi is great, it does not portray the arachnids like they in the book, where they were described as a mad mans interpretation of a spider; harry, eight legged (hence the name arachnid), and also technologically advanced enough to have interstellar travel and directed energy weapons.

how many times does benzaie says "like" in this video?

Like, way too many times, like.

Starship Troopers was based off a book of the same name, from Robert A. Heinlein which was published in 1959.. and is the reason behind the Us's Volunteer Army (At least in part)

The Buenos Aires attack being faked is absolutely brilliant.

Btw What highlander Book? There are a few out now. unless he means the novelization of the first movie.. I thought that came out after.

Agreed that critique on the media plays a big part in Verhoevens American movies.

Starship Troopers actually draws a lot of inspiration from Riefenstahls nazi propaganda films.

I've seen Robocop and Total Recall back in the day. Not sure if I saw Starship Troopers. It was one of those movies I may have missed. I think I saw bits of it. Anyway, I kind of liked all three versions of the future. To this day I still wonder if it was still a dream in Total Recall.

Anyway, great roundtable discussion!

It's not important to understand what the filmmaker was going for. I don't even get how people can think otherwise. If it doesn't come across in the movie, why do I have to pick up the slack for the filmmaker's incompetence?

You're not alone, Ben. I liked Sucker Punch too =)

Not unlike Total Recall, I'm still wondering just how much of it was a dream.

Yeah like many Dutch guys said already its Verhoeven as in hoef which translates to hooves.

Though Robocop isn't that original. **chough**8-Man rip-off**cough** http://bit.ly/kTxkNr

Btw To me the best move he made was Soldaat van Oranje. Not sure if you guys ever saw that movie

Verhoeven was planning to make a film about the life of Jesus Christ. Unfortenately due the many studies he was more interested in studying him than to make an actually movie in the end. So he wrote a book about it which I've read.
The description of the opening and the end of what the movie would be like is amazing! After reading his findings about Jesus i'm very dissapointed he wouldn't made it.

It would be one of the most disturbed and best movies ever.

http://www.amazon.com/ Jesus-Nazareth-Paul- Verhoeven/dp/1583229051

Verhoeven is one of the best cinematographers, to bad Hollywood didn't gave him that much of a chance for even better scripts.

Really liked this one, guys. I went into it expecting it to be funnier and with less in-depth analysis, but I LIKE the in-depth analysis. You guys are definitely still worth watching when you aren't doing off-the-wall segments like those with Insano and so forth. I liked that you treated the subject seriously. If I see these films again, I truly will keep in mind your analyses because they're very inciteful. It's nice to see that a bunch of TGWTG people can get together and be profound, because you're all so talented that it's nice to see you using it in different ways than usual.

Benzaie, dude, lay off of "like" word. I would recommend drinking alcohol before filming - it's good for loosening up.

Haven't even watched the video, but from the preview art thing Ed Glaser appears to be team Recall & is thus right. And if you disagree, Consider ziz a divooorce.

@Touché
I think Ed's saying Heinlein, not Highlander.

I never noticed how much Benzaie talks with his hands. BTW, The Running Man is by Stephen King (as Richard Bachmann) not Philip K Dick.

About the Starship Troopers asteroid thing:

The movie was made before 9-11, BUT, keep in mind it is a satire of WWII propaganda films. Think "Pearl Harbor".

The Star Wars Clone Wars cartoon actually reminds me of Starship troopers. Every episode begins with a narrator that sounds like he comes from a WW2 propaganda commercial and they're all a basic microcosm of dictatorial rule or military honor and loyalty.

Also, I kinda thought the "arachnids" in Starship Troopers looked more like Beetles.

Starship Troopers was crap, but I understand what they were trying to do with it. Benzaie's asteroid theory is interesting. It probalby would have made the movie better. However, there just isn't enough there to hold it up.

The first natural question is, why? Well, to go to war...again, why? If you're going to refer to WWII, Pearl Harbor actually happened and was an attack by Japan, not a secret conspiracy by the US to go to war. The movie needed a disaster to get things going...it had to come from the bugs. End of story.

The movie doesn't allude to, say, corrupt generals or governement officials. There isn't any thing like unobtainium we are going after. No talk about money/miltary contracts to build weapons. All you would need is one scene to just HINT at a cover-up, and that would be enough to make for a great conspiracy theory.

Nice idea, Ben, but the film isn't deep enough to carry it.

Sorry Rath0818 but your comment isnt valid enough because you just pick ONE event and dont consider american history (or world history for that matter) past that.

Please conisder the Gulf of Tonkin incident,
or
The bombing of the Maine in 1898 in the port of Havana, which isnt as obvious as the Tonkin incident (which was admitted to be faked by the US government later)
but still pretty obvious

The Lusitania is another example, though again more debatable.

Why people keep mentioning Pearl in this regard is the theory, that the Roosevelt Admin knew what was going to happen but did nothing to stop it, in order to have a big body count and spread destruction. The government wanted to go to war the american public didnt - up to Pearl Harbor.
Thats why many people condider it a fabricated incident. Though we cant say if this is true or just a conspirational theory.

My point is, every country in the world has almost allways had artificial reasons to go to war. The germans faked an incident where WW2 was actually began by the poles, and they just moved into Danzig to protect the germnan minority there.
The japanese pretty much did the same with the Marco Polo Bridge incident in Shanxi.

Everytime a country goes to war you have better look very very closely at the official reason it gives you, because you can be assured that at best this isnt the whole truth and at worst its completly made up.

Well, i'm only going by the idea that Starship Troopers is taking its points from WWII, which would make Pearl Harbor the obvious choice of comparison. I'm aware of the conspiracy theories about Pearl Harbor, but they are highly debateable and even if true, doesn't change the fact that the Japanese were going to attack regardless. If the bugs never intended an attack, that's one big difference between them and Japan.

I don't doubt that governments conspire to get into war. That's not my argument. What i'm saying is, within the context of this movie, there is no reason to suspect a conspiracy because the movie doesn't give us one. There's no scene you can point to and hang your hat on.

It's played and written so black and white. The bugs are bad, the soldiers are good... as Spoony explains. That's how the film is made. I think it would have been a step in making it a better movie if there was some secret plan to destroy Buenos Aires and blame the bugs. That would be awesome. But the movie and the franchise just doesn't take that angle.

OK ^^

I understand what you mean,
but to me it still does evoke the "possibilty" when I watch the movie.
I believe that was the point the three were trying to make.

I think we could agree to say:
the movie doenst explictly tell or hint at an conspiracy, because it doesnt care, because it isnt important to the story it wants to tell,
but in context of the movie, from what the movie watcher sees, the possibility is there and not inplausible.

I just object to the notion that just because the movie does not explictly tell us something we arent allowed to interpret it that way, when it would still make sense in context of said movie.

After all, this video was the first time I became aware of the notion that Robocop has anything to do with Jesus, I would have never made that interpretation. :)

I read some were that Verhoven left out power armors for purpose so that main characters could be soldiers fighting and dying side by side instead of walking tanks.

They were left out primarily for budget purposes and that in the book the power armour counts for nothing against the arachnids.

Benzaie says "like" a LOT!

Like, Total Forsure.