His name is Zim

[claidheamhmor]

A few days ago, I re-read Robert Heinlein's book Starship Troopers, and then for good measure, watched my copy of Paul Verhoeven's 1997 film Starship Troopers. It was interesting to see how the film failed, in many respects, as a film and as an adaptation of the book.

There were many downsides:

• The biggest flaw, in my opinion, was the casting of the leads. Casper Van Dien, as the hero, was a perfect plastic Ken, to go with Denise Richards's Barbie. Despite the football-hero good looks, he was characterless and lacking in the charisma that makes watchers empathise with him. The movie needed someone grittier, not "Ken".


• Almost anything to do with weapons and combat was ludicrous. One of the major points of the book was that the Mobile Infantry troopers were armoured trooped, encased in a ton of powered armour, laden with a variety of powerful weapons (rockets, guns with target-seeking bullets, flame-throwers, small nukes, etc.) and sophisticated detection and communication systems, enabling rapid, coordinated tactics with heaps of firepower in any conditions. They were fired in capsules from spaceships, and retrieved by landing craft afterward. By contrast, in the movie, we have infantry using 20th century equipment: a fancy gun that can fire hundreds of rounds of large, but ineffectual bullets, simple and not-very-good body armour on the chest, primitive 1970s-era radio equipment, and just about nothing else. For a movie set two centuries in the future, it's quite ridiculous. Then, to top that, we have our vulnerable, poorly-armed soldiers ambling about as if they're using World War 1 tactics; naturally, they have no backup from air, from armour, or from artillery - none of which the book's troopers needed, because they had the powered armour.


• The "love story" was a little silly, but would have been far better if Casper and Denise hadn't been so preppy and vacant-looking.


• The CGI was a little flaky even in 1997, but I did like the look of the warrior bugs. The huge bugs, though, were daft; in fact, the movie seemed to ignore the fact that the bugs were advanced, and space-faring.


• Verhoeven seemed to have gone for the grossness factor, sadly. Almost anything to do with the bugs was squishy, slimy and gross; the brain bug in particular was truly gross, and nightmarishly Freudian. I thought that distracted from the movie; the brain-bug's proboscis/mouth, in particular, jolted the viewer straight out of suspension of disbelief.

The film did get some things right. Much of the early parts of the film ran well; I think this may have been because Paul Verhoeven only read part of the book (I must admit, I find it very strange that a movie directory would only read half of his movie's source material - a Hugo Award-winning novel). A good bit of the dialogue was lifted straight from the book, and I liked that. Also, the movie managed to bring across the whole concept of a society where the right to vote is gained by service to the Federation.

Cast-wise, Dina Meyer was excellent: she made a good soldier and a sympathetic character. Michael Ironside was superb too; in fact, when I read the book, it's his face I see on the characters he portrayed. Best of all, though, was Clancy Brown as Sergeant Zim; with his height and attitude, he made the perfect drill sergeant.

The FedNet "inserts" were really good; I thought they were a good way of feeding information about events.

One change from the book that I liked was that in the movie, men and women served equally, even to sharing barracks and showers (the shower scene was hot!).

Comments

[pcb.livejournal.com]

The book got better and better as I got older: layers of political thinking sparked thought, even though the people were way too polite for this child of the eighties.
The movie is a bug hunt; the CGI worked for me, at the time, but my feeling is that they stuffed up good story by taking out all the interesting bits. No power-armour? or, as far as I remember, no proper political orientation discussions? Hah.

Mind you, have you ever seen The Ninth Gate with Johnny Depp and also read its originating novel The Dumas Club by Arturo Pérez-Reverte?
I reckon they cut the plot and went with the sub-plot. At least the story stood the pruning. I don't know if the movie could have swallowed the plot whole, especially when I remember that I used to work with a man who reckoned the movie was called The Ninnth Gate and the book was called The Dumb-ass Club...

[claidheamhmor]

No, I haven't seen it - I'll keep an eye out.

[ubet-cha.livejournal.com]

I'd recommend the movie first then the book. The movie was good, but felt incomplete so I searched out the novel.

[evildmguy.livejournal.com]

That's interesting. I never read the book but heard it was much better than the crap fest of the movie, sans the shower scene of course. It didn't make me want to read it, though.

I loved Dina and Clancy in most things they are in. Very good. Michael is give and take, depending on the movie but he did all right here.

edg

[argonel.livejournal.com]

I highly recommend reading the book. Check your local library or used book/thrift store. You can frequently find old copies of it going for around $0.50 and it is a pretty quick read.

[claidheamhmor]

The book is interesting, but like a lot of Heinlein's stuff, it has a lot of socio-political discussion.

[pcb.livejournal.com]

Do I remember correctly that Heinlein got grumped at for producing a an apparently pro-right-wing work in the shape of 'Troopers, in very much the same way that his Libertarian pieces like Friday did from the other side of the fence? (They didn't have the shower scene, then, remember).

[claidheamhmor]

I don't know about the book, but the movie was slated as being fascist, which was rather silly in the extreme, given that voting, democracy, and free choice was part of the whole point.

[pcb.livejournal.com]

I should really go and read up, hey?
That was the basis of the book's complaints, I believe.
Only the people matching given criteria, those who are ex-military, get to vote: certainly not the spirit of the 1960's (even if it was published late '50s).

[claidheamhmor]

Yep. Or to be more specific, only those who have done a term of service for the Federation can have a say who is elected to run it. Maybe more elitist than excluding people who are the wrong colour, or too young, perhaps, but not much different in essence.

[mynameisnotreal.livejournal.com]

You can serve your term by digging ditches, for all they care. It wasn't necessarily in the military. And as for being the wrong color, Juan Rico was a dark brown Filipino, the white Ken doll, as you so succinctly put it.

[pcb.livejournal.com]

The side of the argument I admired, especially when I realised how few people bother to vote IRL out of those who are entitled, is that only those who have made a contribution, those who stood up and did something for society, got to vote.
But that excludes the people who were disabled or physically unfit for duty, or those who washed out for whatever reason. And there must, surely, be a limit to how big a standing army can be supported.
A nice suggestion, but why not make it members of the medical and caring professions? Apart from the story would be a lot, lot shorter.
'There was a sudden explosion of debris and masonry and a bug broke through the surgery wall. A charge nurse went down straight away, but the rest of the unit opened fire with tongue depressors...'

[claidheamhmor]

Agreed. I think the assumption in the book was that there were always ongoing military actions.

[argonel.livejournal.com]

A much better adaptation of the book is the animated Roughnecks: starship troopers chronicals. It seems to be targeted at early teens, but it is still a more faitful adaptation. Worth renting if not buying.

If you really want to hurt yourself go find a trailer from the upcoming starship troopers 3 movie. From the trailers they appear to have kept the bad parts of the first movie but removed the redeeming features (like the shower scene)

[claidheamhmor]

I'd like to see the ST3 movie, but I suspect it'll be totally bad. I'll take a look at Roughnecks sometime.

[arthwollipot.livejournal.com]

I heartily endorse the animated version. It's like a compromise between the book and the movie. There's still the thing between Rico and Dizzy (whereas in the book Dizzy is killed in the first chapter), but it draws a lot more on the background of the book, including going quite deeply into the idea that the bugs are spacefarers. If you like the whole [i]Starship Troopers[/i] idea, and the movie pissed you off, then I think you'd like the series.

[claidheamhmor]

I've added you as a friend, BTW; I hope you don't mind - you seem interesting.

[argonel.livejournal.com]

I don't mind at all. I don't post much, but I tend to comment here and there.

[openmindedmale.livejournal.com]

I really should read the book.. it's one of the few Heinlein books I never got around to reading..

[claidheamhmor]

If you like Heinlein, it's one on the "required reading" list.

[openmindedmale.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you're right. Not sure why I never did read it, actually.

[suibhne-geilt.livejournal.com]

I remember that Verhoeven wanted to do the powered armor and all that, but the money wasn't in the budget to do that and bugs. I'll give him that, but otherwise, Starship Troopers is the epitome of completely crap novel-to-movie adaptations. They really should have qualified it as, "Starship Troopers! Shares a title with a book!"

[claidheamhmor]

I think it shared a fair bit with the book - at least, the beginning bits - but some of the really appealing parts were dumped completely.

[the-eleven.livejournal.com]

verhoeven's commentary on the dvd cleared up a lot of my confusion about WTF he was thinking. i recommend watching it with the commentary on.

[claidheamhmor]

I'll give that a watch; maybe I can figure out what he wanted.

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

I despise that film. Heinlein's Starship Troopers, which I first read when I was about eight, was the main influence on my decision to be a soldier. All that talk about a citizen's obligation to society, etc, really struck a chord in a kid growing up in 70's California.

Ever hear about Jerry Pournelle and the German Translator?

[claidheamhmor]

I like the idea of a citizen's obligation.

I haven't heard about Jerry. Do tell?

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

Dr. Dr. Pournelle is a man of great passions, and was at one point a communist. He harbors a deep, deep hatred of fascism.

Anyway, he was sent a copy of the German translation of The Mercenary and it quickly became clear that the translator had re-written the book, removing all the social commentary and leaving in the bloody boot-on-the-neck parts.

Pournelle catches up to the translator at a WorldCon party. The translator says "You are a fascist, your book is fascist, it should read like a fascist story."

Amazingly enough, Jerry didn't kill him.

[not-a-duck.livejournal.com]

How odd; I'm currently re-reading (re-re-re-reading if we're honest) The Mercenary at the moment. It's never scanned as being fascist to me.

[claidheamhmor]

Ouch. Nasty thing for a translator to do...

[not-a-duck.livejournal.com]

To my mind, the mixing of gender in barracks etc. (shower scene) always felt like it had been borrowed from Joe Haldemans' "Forever War" which incidentally also had the soldiers garbed in powered armour although it was more of a secondary/tertiary concern.

And it was (to me) a shame that the worker bugs and the soldier bugs were so dissimilar in the film whereas in the book the bugs went so far as to use their similarity as a tactical feint. A very minor point when compared to the lack of powered armour, "dizzy" being female and surviving so far into the tail, the nature of the Lieutenant's demise, Carmen not going bald, Rico's nationality, Karl getting killed, etc. etc. etc. But it always niggled.

Then on the theme of powered armour comes Harry Harrison's lampooning of such a plot tool "The Stainless Steel Rat Wants' You!" where it's made to look like a horrid alien with tenticly bits, and slime, claws, eye stalks, and a grenade launcher located at the rear firing suitably disguised grenades... etc.

[claidheamhmor]

Yeah, I would have liked the bit about similar worker and soldier bugs. It could have added some depth.