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I've got another one of these I could write for Total Recall.

I've been meaning to read that short story by Dick for quite some time, at least to compare the two. I realized that, after my comment on A Boy And His Dog, it's different disseminating a movie based on an original story for film ala robocop, and one derivative of an author's story. I suspect this is why the satire is generally quite absent in Total Recall, but that wouldn't explain other conversions of his such as Starship Troopers.

I just think Starship Troopers is a mess of a film. Not really sure what the idea was there.

The problem with Verhoeven was that he kept the trashy ultra-violent style of Robocop with his subsequent sci-fi films, even though they were no longer satirising trashy ultra-violence. So Total Recall, which has the beating heart of a very smart film, has this tacky blood-soaked outward appearance. I suppose you could justify it by saying the story mimics a spy thriller, and that could be the flavour of the implanted memories (or Quaid's hallucinations). Don't get me wrong - it's still a hell of a lot of fun for the bloodshed and Arnie quips, but it doesn't feel entirely necessary.

The gore was very out of place in Total Recall, though I am of course conflicted between my appreciation for stage blood and effects in general, and my criticism for what is sub-textual in a film's portrayal of a future grown comically apathetic to dismemberment. It certainly worked in Robocop, but if we are to assume Quaid is indeed living out a solipsistic spy fantasy, why might his seamless little trip be so gory? It collides with the existentialism of the film because violence in gratuity is quite at odds with the meaning of individuality... or is it juxtaposed with the fact that it's just everyone else who is maimed, not the dreamer? Just like viewing a violent film in the first place. It's likely not worth exploring because it just so happens Stan Winston was hanging around, but it does seem like the film would have been quite muted were it not for the culmination of three-tittied freaks, Chucky-Kuato popping out of a scruffy man's torso, and Michael Ironside giving Arnold "a hand" or two.

It is, I suspect, the diametric to Scott's Blade Runner. They both stem from the same author, but Electric Sheep was a far more colourful and exploratory piece of work, where I am having a hard time believing Dick's "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" approached anywhere near the blare of Verhoeven's rendition. It's an interesting thing - though I hate to sound so hackneyed - but I suspect the theme of the work is that our entire paradigm has become obsessed with excess - more memories, more action, more blood, more experience and sensation; Total Recall touches on this and donates plenty to the scrap table, but neglects to address the excess of perception as a focal point because it is so concerned with the preservation of ambiguity as a sensational plot device instead. There is a subtle difference, in perception and sensation, that is explored in Dick's Electric Sheep with the character of Mercer, and Brian O'blivion in Cronenberg's Videodrome - both of which illustrate the kind of God-like perception far more aptly than the questionable reality of Quaid's exploits. But perhaps it is a mistake to accuse Verhoeven of neglect in this case, if even Quaid cannot tell the difference - he just rather doesn't seem to mind his psychosis one bit, and I don't think this duress is completely lost on the audience.

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Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On The gore was very out of place in Total Recall, though I am of course conflicted between my appreciation for stage blood and effects in general, and my criticism for what is sub-textual in a film's portrayal of a future grown comically apathetic to dismemberment. It certainly worked in Robocop, but if we are to assume Quaid is indeed living out a solipsistic spy fantasy, why might his seamless little trip be so gory?

I can imagine Verhoeven saw future American culture becoming ever more violent and excessive, a prediction he helped to realise with his own film. After all, Total Recall was a major blockbuster in 1991 despite being ludicrously and unnecessarily violent. If Quaid is living in Verhoeven's hyper-exaggerated satirical future, the media around him will be extremely violent and that will influence both the textures of cinema-aping experience implants or his hallucinations thereof. You can see right at the beginning of the film, before he visits Rekall, that the news reports of the future gleefully project images of real violence across the morning cornflakes. The construction (or destruction?) of reality by the media is obviously a big part of hyper-reality, which is one of the film's primary themes. It's quite surprising that Verhoeven didn't show us more of the media of the future, given how readily he does it in his other sci-fi films.

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Originally posted by SYSTEM-J I just think Starship Troopers is a mess of a film. Not really sure what the idea was there.

I thought it was pretty obvious

KILL EM, KILL EM ALL!

Have you read the book though? It's almost as if the people who wrote the screenplay for the movie read it, set it on fire, and then re-wrote the entire movie, and in the process made it nauseatingly cheesy (albeit awesome).

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Originally posted by srussell0018 Have you read the book though? It's almost as if the people who wrote the screenplay for the movie read it, set it on fire, and then re-wrote the entire movie, and in the process made it nauseatingly cheesy (albeit awesome).

Are we talking about Starship Troopers or Total Recall here?

Ahh sorry, Starship Troopers.

As I said, I just do not know what the gameplan was with the Starship Troopers script, at all. Many people seem to think the film is a parody of Heinlein's views, but I'm not sure what points you scored for satirising Cold War right wing ideology in 1997. And why parody Full Metal Jacket into the bargain. Is that a film that deserves mocking? Why is there so much teen drama bullshit in there? And an homage to Zulu? What's the fucking target here, Verhoeven?

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Originally posted by SYSTEM-J As I said, I just do not know what the gameplan was with the Starship Troopers script, at all. Many people seem to think the film is a parody of Heinlein's views, but I'm not sure what points you scored for satirising Cold War right wing ideology in 1997. And why parody Full Metal Jacket into the bargain. Is that a film that deserves mocking? Why is there so much teen drama bullshit in there? And an homage to Zulu? What's the fucking target here, Verhoeven?

The target was probably American teenagers/young adults probably, hence the teen drama bullshit. What scene(s) did you think parodied Full Metal Jacket? Are you likening the public lashings to the soap in the sock, or what?

I'm not sure about the Cold War right wing ideology satire, as in the case of Starship Troopers, earth actually was attacked, thus the invasion of the bug home planet wasn't preemptive.

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Originally posted by srussell0018 earth actually was attacked

Or was it???

I'm aware that Full Metal Jacket didn't invent boot camp, but the whole boot camp sequence is just FMJ turned up to the levels of farce.

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Originally posted by SYSTEM-J I'm aware that Full Metal Jacket didn't invent boot camp, but the whole boot camp sequence is just FMJ turned up to the levels of farce.

Eh, I'm not so sure I'm with you on that one. Lots of war movies that include a boot camp sequence have a hardass drill instructor, people debating quitting, etc. I don't think it was the aim to satirize FMJ in this one.

How many of those films came before FMJ?

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Originally posted by SYSTEM-J How many of those films came before FMJ?

Fair point, but does that then mean that any film that portrays a tough drill instructor in boot camp that came out after FMJ is satirizing/paying homage to FMJ?

From what I've gathered from all the people I've known who have served in the military, that's just a slightly exaggerated portrayal of how it actually is.

I think it's more of a matter of both FMJ and Starship Troopers attempting to satirize the same thing, although FMJ pulled it off with far more depth.

Though much of Starship Troopers can basically be reduced to that coed shower scene. The way with which everyone holds themselves in that scene is interesting - as though their nudity before one another is a complete lapse in issue because they are all on the same 'side'. Nobody is bashful in the least, indeed they tease one another as if they were clothed - and this is fictional, futuristic, given the fact that earlier we heard Ironside pontificating the "failures of democracy", as though our personal inhibitions have been turned on their head by a government indistinguishable with the socialization of progressive coexistence, the audience left to fill in the blanks of how this came to be. They had a good thing going there, too... were it not for the fact that Rico and Dizzy eventually hooked up, throwing teenage emotions around with abandon, and the fact that Rico's parents were protestant to his enlistment far earlier than that- as though individualized desires and opinion were still something omnipresent enough that they can just be dismissed whenever there's an opportunity to show wet boobs.

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Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On I think it's more of a matter of both FMJ and Starship Troopers attempting to satirize the same thing, although FMJ pulled it off with far more depth. Though much of Starship Troopers can basically be reduced to that coed shower scene. The way with which everyone holds themselves in that scene is interesting - as though their nudity before one another is a complete lapse in issue because they are all on the same 'side'. Nobody is bashful in the least, indeed they tease one another as if they were clothed - and this is fictional, futuristic, given the fact that earlier we heard Ironside pontificating the "failures of democracy", as though our personal inhibitions have been turned on their head by a government indistinguishable with the socialization of progressive coexistence, the audience left to fill in the blanks of how this came to be. They had a good thing going there, too... were it not for the fact that Rico and Dizzy eventually hooked up, throwing teenage emotions around with abandon, and the fact that Rico's parents were protestant to his enlistment far earlier than that- as though individualized desires and opinion were still something omnipresent enough that they can just be dismissed whenever there's an opportunity to show wet boobs.

Most things can be dismissed whenever there's an opportunity to show wet boobs.

Most things except wet boners!

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Originally posted by srussell0018 Fair point, but does that then mean that any film that portrays a tough drill instructor in boot camp that came out after FMJ is satirizing/paying homage to FMJ?

No, a lot of them are just copying it.

Well the last time I tried to make a new brand of Cola, I got my carbonated water, high fructose syrup, and caramel colour together, and exclaimed, "WELL FUCK, NOW WHAT?".

You won't see it on shelves for quite some time.

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Originally posted by SYSTEM-J No, a lot of them are just copying it.

They're portraying something that happens in real life. Just because FMJ happened to portray it first doesn't necessitate that any more recent examples are copying. Part of any war movie that has a bootcamp scene, or any amount of time spent showing bootcamp is just portraying something that happens in actuality. Jarhead has a tough drill instructor in it, who publicly humiliates the star of the movie too. That's just how drill instructors actually are. It doesn't mean they're copying FMJ, it just means they're getting it right.

I'm sure there have been movies before FMJ which portrayed bootcamp as well, so FMJ must have been copying them.

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Originally posted by srussell0018 Jarhead has a tough drill instructor in it, who publicly humiliates the star of the movie too. That's just how drill instructors actually are. It doesn't mean they're copying FMJ, it just means they're getting it right.

Very briefly, and Jarhead is well aware of the films that went before it. There are two separate scenes where they watch Vietnam movies, for example, and plenty of other references. The boot camp in Jarhead is more about the interaction between the soldiers. In Full Metal Jacket it focuses on the drill instructor for reasons relevant to the themes of the film. Full Metal Jacket was the first major film I can think of that was really interested in boot camp as a process, not just as a setting.

Remember that Starship Troopers is set in a future where the military is clearly quite different to the modern US military. There's no call for verisimilitude, and the film is rife with references to various other war films as well. I can't believe the film just happens to play like a farcical FMJ for several scenes.

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