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.
Registered: Mar 2003
Location: On a spit of sand we call Earth
Starship Troopers was created for only one purpose: to reboot Doogie Howser's career.
Jan-04-2013 06:22
paulversuspaul
Inventor of the fist pump
Registered: Mar 2012
Location: Zabriskie Point CA
good piece of criticism jack. Love Robocop and the best part of the movie is that it is an art film pretending to be a hollywood action movie. Verhoeven was definitely the most intriguing and probably best director working in Hollywood during the 80s-2000s. Showgirls is probably my favorite Verhoeven film because by that point, Verhoeven is basically just even attacking the intelligence of the audience and its central premise, that capitalism has turned the US into a nation of whores, probably rings more true today than even when it came out.
Edit/update:
To me Starship Troopers is basically a satire of the audience and action movies in general. It paradoes FMJ etc. not to make a broader point about society, but to question the very nature of the audience that comes to see war films to begin with, and the audacity of a director trying to somehow capture the brutality of war through action scenes that just seem to entertain the audience who pays money to watch them. I think for Verhoeven, action movies just prove the inherit fascist nature of people and how the cinema encourages this fascism. Like Showgirls, I think Verhoeven is basically satirizing the people in the audience themselves for wanting to see killings for their 7 bucks or tits and ass etc.
Last edited by paulversuspaul on Jan-06-2013 at 06:59
Jan-06-2013 06:53
Vivid Boy
TA's GodFather
Registered: Sep 2001
Location: T.O
Ive never seen robocop. I dont ever plan too.
and a lot of you may be shocked by that since i am the ultimate 80s child. but i was a fan of bad guys, i hated good guys growing up
Jan-06-2013 07:10
Vivid Boy
TA's GodFather
Registered: Sep 2001
Location: T.O
quote:
Originally posted by paulversuspaul
good piece of criticism jack. Love Robocop and the best part of the movie is that it is an art film pretending to be a hollywood action movie. Verhoeven was definitely the most intriguing and probably best director working in Hollywood during the 80s-2000s. Showgirls is probably my favorite Verhoeven film because by that point, Verhoeven is basically just even attacking the intelligence of the audience and its central premise, that capitalism has turned the US into a nation of whores, probably rings more true today than even when it came out.
Edit/update:
To me Starship Troopers is basically a satire of the audience and action movies in general. It paradoes FMJ etc. not to make a broader point about society, but to question the very nature of the audience that comes to see war films to begin with, and the audacity of a director trying to somehow capture the brutality of war through action scenes that just seem to entertain the audience who pays money to watch them. I think for Verhoeven, action movies just prove the inherit fascist nature of people and how the cinema encourages this fascism. Like Showgirls, I think Verhoeven is basically satirizing the people in the audience themselves for wanting to see killings for their 7 bucks or tits and ass etc.
orrrrrrrrrrr he's trying to make a buck
Jan-06-2013 07:11
SYSTEM-J
IDKFA.
Registered: Sep 2003
Location: Manchester
quote:
Originally posted by paulversuspaul
Edit/update:
To me Starship Troopers is basically a satire of the audience and action movies in general. It paradoes FMJ etc. not to make a broader point about society, but to question the very nature of the audience that comes to see war films to begin with, and the audacity of a director trying to somehow capture the brutality of war through action scenes that just seem to entertain the audience who pays money to watch them. I think for Verhoeven, action movies just prove the inherit fascist nature of people and how the cinema encourages this fascism. Like Showgirls, I think Verhoeven is basically satirizing the people in the audience themselves for wanting to see killings for their 7 bucks or tits and ass etc.
I'm unconvinced. I think the film lacks the satirical clarity of Robocop. It's just a big mash-up of these different tropes from different places that don't really coalesce into a focused critique on anything in particular.
Crucially for me, Robocop may be an implicit satire of its own genre, but it remains one of the best examples of that genre. Verhoeven earns his right to criticise '80s action movies because he shows he can do it better than the film-makers he's mocking. Starship Troopers, on the other hand, just isn't a particularly good film. It's entertaining in places and technically well made, but the plot is dragged down by cornball shit for large sections, the action scenes are filled with cheap contrivances, and huge parts of the film are so conceptually implausible the viewer is required to disengage their intelligence in order to accept what they're being shown. The suggestion is often made that Starship Troopers deliberately contains these flaws, but it hardly strikes me as a film that is laughing at its own silliness, a la Airplane or The Naked Gun. Consequently, any appreciation of Starship Troopers can only really happen on a satirical meta-level. I don't think any director should ever be allowed to make a deliberately bad movie at the cost of tens of millions of dollars just to make a statement.
All I know is that I was confused by the ending of Starship Troopers 3. To this day, I'm still not sure if I'm supposed to laugh at it or if they really intended for it to be taken as seriously as they seemed to strive for.
