Starship Troopers - the greatest satire of extremism ever made?

[gorah_pindu]

The film was written off as an 'action movie' by people who clearly didn't understand its satirical nature whatsoever. I guess it is easy to not notace a parody, when you live in a society that really does act like the one in the movie. It was a spot-on portrayal of jingoism that managed to predict the entire 'War on Terror', four years before 9/11 happened. It came complete with Fox News style political commentary that is little better than propaganda, a terrorist attack used as justification for war, rampant patriotic crap, etc. But, before gleefully deriding American imperialism from some fragile moral highground, (as people often do), one has to realise that this film applies to all extremism worldwide, and not just American jingoism. Islamic extreamists are pretty much a mirror-image of the American militarists who they hate. India too has its own vile trends.

[CC1981]

I loved that movie...especially the 'glorifying' part where lil kids are stomping roaches and mommy is excitedly clapping them on...like ROTFL and WTF rolled into one !

[THX_1138]

well i read the book after watching the movie and the book is less about extremism but more about jingoism and misguided priorities. it is certainly relevant in the current atmosphere of the war on terror, or rather the "so called war on terror" as amy goodman refers to it (and i agree), which is nothing but a counter measure to the reaction of self serving foreign policies of the west. incredibly, the west retains the power to adopt a path of self sufficiency for power generation yet chooses to exploit fossil fuels (well to be precise its the oil companies rather than the government) and thus shapes its policy accordingly. i do feel that there are some items of relevance, for instance, Heinlein as often given us the impression that "citizenship" is earned rather than received, something he actually disagrees with but still promotes in his book, and his remark that criticism of the army is the sole responsibility of citizen and not other mortals (of course citizen ship is obtained through military service). his notion of fast track courts and instantaneous punishment is also a bit of social commentary on prejudicial judiciary systems but those are not taken from the west, more from the theistic monarchies of the middle east. if you liked star ship troopers, read Brandenburg, its a chilling tale of the rise of extremism in germany in the late 90s which was first intended as fiction but is incredibly clairvoyant of current events in some western european nations.

[gorah_pindu]

well i read the book after watching the movie and the book is less about extremism but more about jingoism and misguided priorities. it is certainly relevant in the current atmosphere of the war on terror, or rather the "so called war on terror" as amy goodman refers to it (and i agree), which is nothing but a counter measure to the reaction of self serving foreign policies of the west. incredibly, the west retains the power to adopt a path of self sufficiency for power generation yet chooses to exploit fossil fuels (well to be precise its the oil companies rather than the government) and thus shapes its policy accordingly. i do feel that there are some items of relevance, for instance, Heinlein as often given us the impression that "citizenship" is earned rather than received, something he actually disagrees with but still promotes in his book, and his remark that criticism of the army is the sole responsibility of citizen and not other mortals (of course citizen ship is obtained through military service). his notion of fast track courts and instantaneous punishment is also a bit of social commentary on prejudicial judiciary systems but those are not taken from the west, more from the theistic monarchies of the middle east. if you liked star ship troopers, read Brandenburg, its a chilling tale of the rise of extremism in germany in the late 90s which was first intended as fiction but is incredibly clairvoyant of current events in some western european nations.

The parralels between Nazi Germany and any number of fanastic movements today is so perfect, that I often wonder how people dont notace them - ill definatly check out Brandenburg.