Finally a reddit post about Starship Troopers that didnt miss the message. For something so on the nose, you'd hope this wouldn't be so rare...
https://old.reddit.com/r/greentext/comments/1b8qajw/erm_guys_are_we_the_baddies/
I can't be bothered to copy paste all the comments are smugjerking their media literacy
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
I will exile you if you post another cute twink b-word r-slur
BIPOC /r/grxxntext post again
Trans lives matter BIPOC BIPOC BIPOC BIPOC BIPOC
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
Watching the media literate leftists argue that the bugs are the good guys because massacring people who illegally immigrated to your lands in search of a better life is actually completely justified and the Mormons deserved it is certainly something.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Killing humans wuz justified because the humans were white.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
Based, !christians a new holy war is upon us
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
R*PE THEM. R*PE THEM ALL
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
I don't think Jesus would advocate for that tbh
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Buddy you have no frickin idea
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
Wonder what their opinion on immigration in the EU is
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
Why is it always Starship Troopers with these people?
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
It is in a weird place where the film is a parody that uses blatant fascist aesthetic, but still has the non-fascist book structure of government.
So, it allows both side to see what they want to see in it to fit their narrative.
Obviously what the film tries to say is that this is a bad and stupid society, but one thing that Redditors don't really ponder is if it manages to actually say that.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Bad faith, media illiterate, incel, right wing, russian bot.
Nuance.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
The beta fears the sci fi with a morally ambiguous ending
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
Hmm I must decide if I relate more to the hot, fit people who serve their country and have camaraderie with one another to overcome challenges, or the horde of disgusting person eating bugs that live in holes
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
This is unironically what Verhoven was trying to say but he made the mistake of thinking a human audience would have any reason to sympathize with literal bugs. Especially after how viscious and animalistic the the bugs are shown to be. It's a good example of failed satire.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Actually, Verhoven was a secret fascist because he made a movie where the facists look cool.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Unironically this.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
This is probably also true.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
The point is that you don't feel bad for the bugs though, showing that people are still susceptible to the same propaganda that Nazis relied on 80 years ago.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Yeah, but they're still literal bugs. If he had stayed closer to the book it might have worked since the bugs were an advanced civilization. But as it stands in the film the audience has no more reason to sympathize with them than the ant hill in their backyard they just doused with poison.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
I agree and I think Ender's Game did a better job with the sympathy for bugs thing but I still love Starship Troopers anyway idk. Guilty pleasure I guess.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
All enemies in propaganda are displayed as sub human savages who act on animal instincts. You're not supposed to like the fricking bugs, the point is that the movie is told by an unreliable narrator/director.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
But at no point are we even able to see a hint of underlying "humanity" in the bugs. If that was the angle he was going for there has to be something to make the audience realize there might be more to the villains than what they are being told.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
It's just played straight. The perspective is from the government fighting the bugs. Movie literally ends with a recruitment ad.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
So it's actually about proving propaganda works even when you know it's propaganda?
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
Do we know that he actually wanted audiences to sympathize with the bugs?
I agree that he wanted to create a parody of a fascist state responding to a foreign threat but I'm not convinced he was trying to say anything like “acshually you guys the bugs are just misunderstood good guys!
In directors commentary for the movie he states explicitly that the asteroid that hit earth WAS sent by the bugs, it's not a false flag. But it was a response to space Mormons settling on their planet. So there's shades of grey involved in all of it. I never get the feeling that he's saying humans are in the wrong for responding, but the crazy authoritarian unlimited war that they instantly resort to rather than something with a little more diplomacy and less death.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
If that's true then he still kind of dropped the ball. He shouldn't have depicted the over-the-top war from the POV of an average infantryman. Because from his POV the bugs are just mindless, voracious pests. How would one even go about handling the grey of politics with that? Whay would you even want too? Just kill them all and eliminate the threat.
This is why I keep saying everytime the topic comes up: Starship Troopers is satire; just not very well done.
It's the most radical centrist position to hold and therefore the right one.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
In my opinion, the entire movie is the based-cringe-based IQ curve made manifest, where the extreme ends are generally able to understand that humanity is good (be it becuase the movie is cool, or because you recognize it as a failed satire that tries to tell you a near-utopia is bad), whilst the middle is trying to claim that the bugs are actually the moral side.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
....OH FRICK THAT'S A GOOD POINT
BUENOS ARYAN BROS.... ARE WE THE BADDIES?
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More like Verhoven didn't know or cared about the size of space. Shit you have a ship not fricking spotting a massive asteroid heading towards them until the last second.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
Nope. I say kill 'em all.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
The only good bug is a dead bug.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
The citizenry is so stupid and violent that a random asteroid hits Earth and they respond by shooting bugs on the other side of the galaxy. It's not that subtle
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy media literacy
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Starship troopers was a metaphor for 9/11. You would know that if you understood media
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
I just want to kill bugs.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
Reminds me of that tragedy
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Starship troopers was a metaphor for 9/11
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
It was, and 9/11 was actually an accident and not an intentional terrorist incident.
Y'all ain't ready for that conversation yet...
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Wouldn't that be the funniest conspiracy? Nobody could imagine that two plane would accidentally fly into the towers at the same time so they had to invent a whole terrorist plot to explain it away so people could accept it
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
The director says in the commentary that the meteor really was an attack by the bugs. There's nothing in the film that contradicts this. The whole false-flag angle is made up nonsense on the same level of "actually the whole show is just a dream of a kid in the hospital".
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
It's contradicted by being stupid. If your movie shows someone accused of committing robbery in Brazil, and the film clearly shows the audience that person was in Australia at the time, that person is obviously innocent in the context of the film, even if it only happened because the director is tardy and doesn't know how planes work
That does mean the director is a moron, though
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
I've never seen a fascist quote Starship Troopers unprovoked, it's always people going "NOOOO YOU CAN'T LIKE THE HUMAN FASCISTS YOU CAN'T UNDERSTAND OBVIOUS SATIRE AIIIEEE" who then attract fun having chuds to mock them
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
I've seen fascists quote the book, especially the part with the fascist professor, but never the movie.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
The bugs are MAGA isolationist schizo conspiracists and the Earth's government is a WEF globohomo diversity imperialist movement crying of how racist and fascist the bugs are
No i'm not gonna elaborate
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
I would never genocide a soy like u bb
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Okay thanks for that brain bug
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Anytime bb
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
Don't care. It's still ugly so we should kill it
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
fascism is when not ugly
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
Kinda feel sorry bad for Heinlein. He wrote a serious book and then the guy who made Robocop and Total Recall shit all over it.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
At least he never lived to see it happen.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
The hero in Glory Road turns down a loli, nearly gets killed for it, then decides he's gonna go back and bang her at the end of the book.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Hollywood loves pedos.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
I really don't know, and don't care, what media literacy is after this point. It now sounds like a bludgeon people use to one-up each other online and nothing more.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
Is there a remake happening or something? Why do people keep bringing up this old butt book/movie?
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Because of Helldivers 2, a co-op shooter that borrows heavily from the movie's "chad colonizers vs evil space monsters" setting
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
Helldivers 2
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
Kill the bugs to eat them and save the environment
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
Verhoven Said the bugs sent the asteroid because hes an r-slur
who doesn't understand satire beyond 
a clown 
show 
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
I maintain that Doogie Howser coming onto the final victory scene wearing an actual Waffen-SS uniform before taking a giant big away to be tortured is the funniest visual gag in cinema
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
Verhoeven might be an actual r-slur.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context