Guy talks About Starship Troopers for 25 minutes NOt clickbait

May 2, 2024 5:49 PM

Patrick Gill discusses Helldivers 2, Verhoeven's Starship Troopers, and satire. And how satire of fascism can be missed by viewers, undermined by its medium, or embraced by genuine fascists.
posted by The Manwich Horror (43 comments total)

Yup, the age old quandary, I know it well.

Have come around to the point of view that you can’t make the humour too dark, the satire too broad, the whole thing so obvious that SOMEONE won’t take it at face value and maybe embrace it, and you just have to live with that.
posted by Artw at 7:18 PM on May 2 [5 favorites]

My general opinion in the last 15 years, an epiphany sparked by Captain America of all things (because ww2 is so far away, why wouldn't they update the history, and realising that's the last "morally good" war for the US), is realizing that the movie came out just before 9/11 and Vietnam War is in the review mirror and coopted as a teachable moment (less so with the Korean War except maybe as a MASH backdrop; other wars didn't make it into pop culture awareness) and it was the decade when the Cold War officially ended and so quite frankly Americans per those who would be employed as cultural critics have no internal or cultural experience of thinking about a. Losing a war; b. Being in a morally bad war; and c. Imagining American-coded characters as belligerent war actors.

Consider the landscape at the time when it comes to employing war imagery in a fluffy action movie setting - even a Zero Dark Thirty etc could not happen yet. This movie was confronting.
posted by cendawanita at 7:40 PM on May 2 [4 favorites]

I was a huge fan of the book, (I was too young to see all the horrible fascism Heinlein had in there, but loved all his YA stuff), and was a huge fan of the boardgame, being a wargamer. So when this came out, and the MI weren't in their suits, WTF? Have only watched a few scenes. Didn't like them much.

Now I have to look up helldivers.

Satire does seem to be missed a lot these days. Was Showgirls satire? Haven't watched that either. Going to RTFA now
posted by Windopaene at 8:30 PM on May 2 [2 favorites]

Warhammer 40k is another one that has this problem a lot. The Imperium of Man is not the good guys.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 8:41 PM on May 2 [14 favorites]

"If you're here... you're freaks."

Well, I feel seen.
posted by Pedantzilla at 9:50 PM on May 2 [2 favorites]

The Last Laugh, a documentary about holocaust humor, says that the only portrayal of Nazis that Nazis haven't coopted was The Producers. I'm not sure whether the actual documentary is still available online, or just a documentary about making the documentary.

I expect that Nazis haven't coopted "Are we the baddies?", but I don't know for sure.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 10:03 PM on May 2 [6 favorites]

I was a huge fan of the book, (I was too young to see all the horrible fascism Heinlein had in there, but loved all his YA stuff), and was a huge fan of the boardgame, being a wargamer. So when this came out, and the MI weren't in their suits, WTF? Have only watched a few scenes. Didn't like them much.

It's a modern classic, and you should definitely watch it.
posted by Sebmojo at 10:16 PM on May 2 [3 favorites]

This is one of my favorite movies
posted by kensington314 at 10:19 PM on May 2 [1 favorite]

"But why skulls?"

The one scene I watched had the MI getting wrecked by the bugs. But why were not the MIs as they should have been, The suits were what made them awesome, And these were just troops with no armor other than fancy helmets getting pierced. So not canon. So never got all the satire, as, just not right
posted by Windopaene at 10:50 PM on May 2

I can understand being disappointed that an adaptation doesn't include your favourite thing about the source material. But sometimes an adaptation that tries to do its own thing ends up being an impressive work in its own right.

Starship Troopers the film goes one step further by subverting of the book it's based on. It's both an excellent action film and a critical commentary on Heinlein's book. I'm not surprised that a lot of book fans hate it. An adaptation that interrogates its source material like that is a kind of betrayal.

I get it. And I'm sure Heinlein would have hated it too. But not because of then power armour. In the book power armour's narrative function was to make war seem cool and safe. A power fantasy.

Heinlein would hate it because Starship Troopers the film is about exactly the same thing that Starship Troopers the book was, but with a totally opposite message.

(Having said that, I'm sure that Verhoven would have found a way to include the power armour if budget and technology allowed. The film loves to have its cake and eat it too. Hence the issues with its satire.)
posted by Lorc at 1:04 AM on May 3 [16 favorites]

I'm on team "Loved Heinlein as a teenager, loved the book, loved this movie."
posted by chavenet at 2:00 AM on May 3 [4 favorites]

Always amazes me when Verhoeven's Starship Troopers comes up to be reminded that so many people apparently hated it at the time. I saw it back then and laughed my head off, as did the rest of the audience. Used to love Heinlein when I was a kid, too, although I'd never read this one.

Perhaps the crucial context was that the audience I saw it with consisted of Australian university students, because it was being screened for a campus film group.

But come on, this was the guy who'd made RoboCop. How did people not get it? (Scans down front page and sees latest post on new Boston Dynamics robots. Ohhhh.)
posted by rory at 2:06 AM on May 3 [5 favorites]

I'm 100+ hours into Helldivers 2 (AC main, difficulty 7+ Automaton preference) and follow the Reddit community - they get it. Sure they bitch about balance and broken strats but there's a level of self-awareness I've never seen in a COD or Halo community.

The memes are entertaining, skewering authority and oppression, with people frequently calling for a "Democracy Officer" to check someone else's commitment to the cause. In-game it's so rare to be stuck on a team with a team-killer or sweat - the game requires cooperation and teamwork or you're gonna get swarmed, and all mission rewards are shared across the team.

Sure there are n00bs, I was one myself, but higher level players took the time to guide me, let me test strats I hadn't unlocked yet, and grabbed the in-game currencies I needed to progress. In turn, I now do the same. It's fun dropping into a difficulty 3 or 4 and loaning someone the use of your mech suit (Windopaene take note, Helldivers have access to mech suits) so they can go ham on a bug breach.
posted by Molesome at 3:14 AM on May 3 [3 favorites]

This is one of those posts where I have to insist people watch the video (it's only 12 minutes if you watch on 2x) before commenting. It really does bring up new points even if you think you know what it's going to say about Verhoeven's Starship Troopers and Helldivers II.

Improving mefi comment threads? I'M DOING MY PART.

(I've been waiting for someone to make a good Helldivers II post. Thanks, The Manwich Horror.)
posted by AlSweigart at 3:21 AM on May 3 [13 favorites]

Related: Real Starship Trooper Casper Van Dien Reacts to Helldivers 2
posted by Molesome at 3:45 AM on May 3 [5 favorites]

Warhammer 40k is another one that has this problem a lot. The Imperium of Man is not the good guys.

I think it's important to note that there are zero good guys in Warhammer 40k.

Except of course for my effluently blessed Antifa Super Soldiers: The Death Guard and their plaguemarines. They are perfect and noble in every pus encrusted way.

Death to the False Emperor!
posted by Slackermagee at 4:47 AM on May 3 [6 favorites]

I feel like I must be boring the whole Internet every time I bring it up again, but Verhoven's Starship Troopers movie was not really an adaptation of the book.
posted by Western Infidels at 5:02 AM on May 3 [5 favorites]

I read Starship Troopers long before they made the movie, and I just assumed that Heinlein was being satirical. So when the movie came out and was an over-the-top satire (though some people to this day don't understand that), I thought it was a fitting adaptation. It was only well after watching the movie did I discover that Heinlein wasn't actually being satirical; he was actually a "right-of-Atilla" fascist type, and Starship Troopers was his rant against democracy, basically. But the screenwriters saw the potential in the irony and took it to the next level--Neil Patrick Harris going from goofy high school kid to a psychic Nazi was laugh out loud funny. I watched it about a year ago and yes, it still holds up really well.
posted by zardoz at 6:00 AM on May 3 [2 favorites]

It really does bring up new points even if you think you know what it's going to say about Verhoeven's Starship Troopers and Helldivers II.

I think it bring up good points, but I can't say I learned anything new from watching it. But I like Patrick Gill & Co. so that's not a massive complaint.

I had hoped the video would go into a bit more detail about the Helldivers 2 community and developer challenges beyond "they better be careful with moderation". The reddit threads are filled with interesting discussion and commentary about things like gender in the game: you don't pick sex/gender, just a voice and general body type that is hidden under armour anyway (meme'd here). (Also, canonically, when your character dies, the "respawn" is actually a brand new Helldiver and you can randomise the voice for every respawn.)

Molesome nailed it above: for every chud with incredibly stupid takes like "you can't be fascist against bugs or killer robots", there's a hundred if not thousand people who are embracing the ridiculousness of fighting swarms of bugs on a deserted planet just to raise a flag of Super Earth in the name of Managed Democracy.
posted by slimepuppy at 6:01 AM on May 3

Helldivers, if you enjoy a peek behind the curtain, the galactic war tracking site is kind of handy. Also useful to check whether you can even achieve a personal order on any given day.

And yeah, the community seems to mostly get the joke. Whether or not that'll loop around to "getting" the "joke" in a year or two, it's hard to say, but generally it's been a fun time grouping up with randoms and managing democracy with an autocannon. Although I'll be happy when the major order is off the TCS missions, which I find boring and have all been at the darkest part of the night on whatever planet I'm liberating, somehow. I prefer bot missions at this point - their beady red eyes tell you where they are, I almost never see bugs until there's 100 of them trying to hug me.

Anecdotally, there's a Quebecois in my gaming group, and in the first few missions he was like "wait, is this what it's like being an American?" ... yeah ok got us

(Also, canonically, when your character dies, the "respawn" is actually a brand new Helldiver and you can randomise the voice for every respawn.)

"Can" or "must"? It seems like while I can pick a voice, as soon as I respawn I'm whatever was in the tubes waiting to be reinforced. Which is fine, but kind of surprising the first time it happens. Honestly I almost wish they could lean into it a bit more, somehow. You are not John Helldiver, General Brasch's favored son, you're John Helldiver, one of millions, now get in there and kill a couple of bugs before you get killed by the charger you didn't see behind the hunters and warriors.
posted by Kyol at 6:24 AM on May 3 [1 favorite]

Folks who wanted a more "authentic" adaptation clearly missed out on Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles. wiki. Weird little combo of book + movie imagery + animated sorta-kids series.

I was really reticent to try Helldivers 2 for a host of reasons, but have a friend crew that is very into it and playing with buddies is pretty great.
posted by curious nu at 6:47 AM on May 3 [1 favorite]

If you want a look at the general lore and vibe of Helldivers II, check out the first 12 minutes (6m on 2x) of the opening cinematic and tutorial level.

I love the map of the current progress of the galactic war. It's a great bit of meta: it makes the players think their actions have an effect in the game world, but of course it's all a propaganda farce and manipulated. If the players could actually win the war, there would be no game.
posted by AlSweigart at 6:48 AM on May 3

And a video of the general gameplay vibe - most other games this would have been the beginning of swearing and recriminations and mother slander. HD2? Everybody laughs it off and goes off to extract anyway.

I mean, you get some dumb player moments, but it's been pretty rare in my experience playing mostly with random groups.
posted by Kyol at 7:19 AM on May 3 [1 favorite]

I'm enjoying helldivers, but, idk, I kinda don't feel like satire works these days.

Like, if you don't want people to misappropriate your art, just make it from the perspective of the oppressed rather than from the perspective of the oppressor.

Hard space : Ship breaker does a good job here.
posted by constraint at 7:28 AM on May 3 [5 favorites]

This place is a big tent indeed.
posted by y2karl at 7:53 AM on May 3

Like, if you don't want people to misappropriate your art, just make it from the perspective of the oppressed rather than from the perspective of the oppressor.

Yeah, this is the final point of the video.
posted by curious nu at 8:22 AM on May 3 [4 favorites]

Sounds like we need a fascism version of Poe's Law.
posted by lock robster at 10:37 AM on May 3

I attended a queer-presented screening of Starship Troopers. There was a drag show before the film. There was an introduction talking about how this movie is a camp deconstruction of fascism.

And yet there were still these weird bros sitting next to me who literally screamed along to to jingoistic one liners coming from the space marines. It was unsettling.
posted by thecjm at 10:59 AM on May 3 [1 favorite]

Don't forget, too, that Starship Troopers passes the Bechtel Test.

I once got into a long discussion about this film with a guy who argued that absolutely no one would send in unprotected infantry from starships to fight an above-ground enemy without either armor or air support. "Do they not have tanks?" he would say. Which was completely true and completely against the point.
posted by fuzzy.little.sock at 12:17 PM on May 3 [4 favorites]

Like, if you don't want people to misappropriate your art, just make it from the perspective of the oppressed rather than from the perspective of the oppressor.

I get the point and there's truth to it, but people also think Darth Vader and the Empire are cool. The art can literally be "good vs. evil" and some media illiterate fascists will argue that "what if the evil is good, actually?"

I'm a filthy leftie but very much enjoy dark satirical antihero media like American Psycho and Nightcrawler, both of which have undoubtedly inspired hundreds if not thousands of capitalist dickheads to be their best worst selves. I just happen to believe they were always going to be dickheads and that the world is a more interesting place with the art in it.
posted by slimepuppy at 12:20 PM on May 3 [2 favorites]

I get the point and there's truth to it, but people also think Darth Vader and the Empire are cool. The art can literally be "good vs. evil" and some media illiterate fascists will argue that "what if the evil is good, actually?"

Well when the good guys are the ones who are literally birthed to be leaders, and Yoda is a such a dreadful character in the main 3 movies, then the idea that the good guys have a positive and inclusive justice and goals just doesn't go very far. Which is also why I think the satire falls flat - he really did lean far too hard into making a space battle movie, so a lot just falls into genre expectations.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:26 PM on May 3

MetaFilter: Which was completely true and completely against the point.
posted by y2karl at 2:15 PM on May 3 [3 favorites]

Using Richard Spencer as the face of modern fascism is the icing on the cake.
posted by fiercekitten at 2:39 PM on May 3

The one thing I didn't know before watching this video was that NPH, who first came to prominence in the Harold and Kumar series, was in Starship Troopers and also was in that show Doctor Howser
posted by i used to be someone else at 3:57 PM on May 3

But come on, this was the guy who'd made RoboCop. How did people not get it?

I know. The fake commercial where the woman cheers on the kids squashing bugs? I mean, they must've sucked their brains out.
posted by eustatic at 6:40 PM on May 3 [2 favorites]

The one thing I didn't know before watching this video was that NPH, who first came to prominence in the Harold and Kumar series, was in Starship Troopers and also was in that show Doctor Howser

This hurts me in my preteen weekly appointment tv-watcher of Doogie Howser MD heart. His entire career up to HIMYM was a constant juxtaposition of "oh look wee little doctor genius boy is ____", in this case a fascist. (The H&K bit hinged on the, "lol Doogie Howser smokes pot")
posted by cendawanita at 7:05 PM on May 3 [5 favorites]

(RIP to the any number of word processor files I started so that I could keep an end-episode diary too. Also I'd be remiss if I didn't note that his turn to musical theatre also especially helped to shake off the genius child doctor brand.)
posted by cendawanita at 7:15 PM on May 3 [2 favorites]

Ooof. Bad news....
posted by AlSweigart at 4:56 AM on May 5

The fake commercial where the woman cheers on the kids squashing bugs? I mean, they must've sucked their brains out.

Pretty much.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 8:10 PM on May 5 [1 favorite]

Using Richard Spencer as the face of modern fascism is the icing on the cake.

Cutting away from the clip just as the punch enters the frame behind the narrator was legitimately hilarious.
posted by fullerine at 4:51 AM on May 6 [1 favorite]

(yeah, i recall doogie howser, it was more that when watching the video in op, it seemed like that factoid came up like, five or six times)
posted by i used to be someone else at 12:47 PM on May 6

I think there's insufficient credit being given to the ability of audiences, especially those consisting of young people, to recognize both the text and 'subversive' subtext of a work like Verhoeven's Starship Troopers, and choose to engage with the text and ignore the subtext as a way of ironically showing that they get the very obvious (WAR-IS-BAD-MMKAY) text, and perhaps find the message a bit... lacking in nuance to take seriously in their real world.

It's a common mistake on the part of people who believe they have the moral high ground to believe that those who disagree with them must simply be ignorant. This is often not the case. There are drone pilots who went to liberal arts colleges, too.

I further suspect the number of "I ❤️ THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX" t-shirts that get worn to after-hours functions at General Atomics is not zero.
posted by Kadin2048 at 6:57 PM on May 6 [2 favorites]

and choose to engage with the text and ignore the subtext as a way of ironically showing that they get the very obvious (WAR-IS-BAD-MMKAY) text, and perhaps find the message a bit... lacking in nuance to take seriously in their real world.

another option is, doing this not because they think the message is lacking, but because they agree with the message and are engaging with it in a fun way by participating in the satire -- like the people cheerfully posting "I'm doing my part!" in the youtube comments of the OP video, or the people speaking in in-world propagandese on the Helldivers 2 reddit.
posted by rifflesby at 6:08 PM on May 12 [1 favorite]