Crim at the movies: Starship Troopers, the unsung masterpiece?

[video=youtube;Y07I_KER5fE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y07I_KER5fE[/video]​

I've finally come to sit down and watch the movie based on the famous Robert A. Heinlein novel. Originally, I've understood that this was originally an extremely dystopian movie. That, and the fact the movie is also insanely violent and gory. The film is a satire of Fascism and war, an is set in a world of the future where militarism is the norm in a fascist human government. It's subtle and insidiously subversive movie that follows a quartet of high school friends as they make their varied ways through the military.

The reason being in that old American-style diplomatic governments collapsed centuries ago, and that the social system is essentially dedicated to either Citizens or Civilians. Civilians do not have many rights, although anybody can become a citizen. Citizens are people who joined the Federal Service and were honorably discharged and given franchise. The Federal Service does not necessarily mean the military, and applicants may be assigned to any field where they sacrifice their time and effort for the Federation (Teaching, any of the civil services, experimental test subjects, etc), though military service is the most glorified. Some rights given to these Citizens are that they are able to vote in Federation elections. If they wish to attend college, they are given lower or no tuition fees. They are given special permission to have more than two children,etc.It should be noted that members of the military are not given franchise while still serving, they must retire to be able to vote.

I thought about this concept for a while. Then I realized that this is actually quite scary, because this could actually happen.

When it was first released, most critics seemed to have been somewhat disturbed by the fact that the "Good guys" resembled the Nazis before it delved into a Human/Alien war. The reason is that the satire is extremely subtle. This is justified though since the vast majority of them are purely made up and take the form of propaganda disguised as news. One example is the gory of shot of a colony of 'Mormon extremists'. However, the novel and the movie completely satirizes the genre while being one of the best of in its category. If there wasn't a category yet, there should. There is so much about this film to analyze and it might even take a book to cover it all.

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This might just be me, but this is absolutely genius.

As mentioned before, Humanity has gone to war against a vast alien race of bugs. They're inhuman with a horrific sense of brutality. This is graphically demonstrated through out the film, but most famously in one of the many`Why We Fight' propaganda clips. This clip shows a cow is lead into a pen holding one of these giant insects, which quickly cleaves the cow in two then brutally scatters its organs and limbs across the room in a barbaric manner with a giant [Censored] logo covering what used to be a cow. This is supposed to instill fear to the audience.Images and thoughts must run throughout the imaginary audience. Thoughts like"These insects truly are barbaric, evil! Look what it did to that poor cow! They must be destroyed! Then the website narrator proudly states that people on Earth are doing their part in the war effort, even crushing bugs that are native to our own planet with children screaming "Die! Die! Die!" while their parents encourage it. How are the bug-stomping mother and her children any more humane and caring than the repulsive alien insects?

DIE, XENO SCUM!Oops, wrong franchise.​

The film is insanely violent, so I'm not even going to bother showing images and all that. Just google it, you'll find something. People are literally cut to pieces by the smaller creatures and slowly, painfully melted by a plasma the larger insects spray.This is a true gore-fest people, people [and cows] are getting hacked up relentlessly in this film to horrify us but we cheer as machine rifles and grenades blow the giant insects apart. This world is supposedly desensitized to violence to prove this, such as the propaganda videos which contain full gore shots of human that have been literally ripped apart. The body count is high on both sides. It is all literally and purposely utter, senseless violence. But good senseless violence, violence that is caused on purpose.

At one point, a psychic uses his powers to read one of the alien's emotions. He triumphantly yells,`It's afraid!' and a legion of human warriors jubilantly cheer at this pronouncement. The question is, who are the real monsters? What is humanity? These bugs are clearly not `human' yet they are intelligent, advanced, and most importantly have feelings. If they can be afraid, can they not also be sad, happy, or even love? They even show propaganda showing torture of these bugs. These are questions the writer has left to us to ask with out leading us by the hand

Starship Troopers is a film of many things, but its intellectually brilliant. The dazzling special effects and heart pounding action are all just a distraction--like all the noise in real life--from the more important things said here. The further the movie goes, the more the viewer realizes just how horrific and wrong this supposed utopia truly is. Patriotism is exploited to trick young men and women into going off to a pointless war. The beautiful ones are mercilessly chopped to pieces by their insectoid opponents. And the united world government uses its control of the media to brainwash the public into supporting this bloody war. It's not supposedly Nazi symbolism, or even American symbolism, But that's the whole point of this movie. The intertwining of this "perfect" society with such a deeply evil subtext is supposed to be disturbing. What's even more disturbing is how close to recent American history this movie truly is. Yes it's satrical at most, but it's satire on a very real thing. How dangerous is it to have a society where everyone looks the same, thinks the same, and acts the same, even to their own death?

Every aspect of the film was one gigantic, satirical slap in the face of humanity and no one noticed.

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Ladies and gentlemen, this might be the The Greatest Pro/Anti-War Movie Ever Made.

This movie has received Four and a Half Lionheart's out of Five