Ah yes, Mike Judge, with his deeply nuanced insights about how the downfall of American culture will come when liberals are subjected to great replacement theory and we elect a black president.
The future isn't 1984 with people getting whisked away in the night as great superpowers fight in forever wars, nor is it brave new world where we're kept docile as we willfully sacrifice our freedoms. It's a stupid mix of the two with loud talking heads on cable as the president shills shitty cars
One thing I always loved about verhoevens work is that he really captures how unsustainable fascism is. Like it's this constant scramble to buy more time for your stupid dying society. The end of starship troopers is NOT triumphant. It tries to be, but its still clear this world is a meatgrinder
Yeah, and a bit like how the speech in waterworld drives the smokers into a frenzy and pushed forward the fall of the regime a bit, the false flag rock attack pushes the society forward and away from noticing its own contradictions.
I know waterworld isn't a verhoeven film, but I think it is a little bit underrated, and I like the whole speech scene. The fake industrialization hope, the contempt for his own people, perfect bad guy.
A younger friend came by to visit me last week, and when I showed him my small potted lemon tree I exclaimed, "Dryland is not a myth! I've seen it!" and he just stared blankly at me.
Kids these days.
The folks too dumb to get the satire sure think it was triumphant. It’s clear the government in Troopers NEEDS an eternal war to function and keep the people in check.
When asked in the mid-2000s if he had any plans to tackle the War on Terror™, Verhoeven said that as far as he was concerned he'd already done it in 1997.
Deadass "it's afraid" is such a great moment because like yeah of course it's afraid dude. It's an animal that sees you as a threat and you've tied it up and are pointing weapons at it. You'd be afraid too.
It sells how utterly meaningless this victory is. All those loves lost for the capture of a tactical asset they're just going to torture until expires and provides them with no usable info. A perfect mix cruelty and stupidity shooting themselves in the foot.
Watching Starship Troopers myself made me see how blatantly it was ripping into fascist aesthetics and attitudes, and iirc Verhoven wanted actual 18 year olds in the lead cast to show how young actual soldiers fresh out of school looked? I’m not sure about the 2nd part
I think only Back to the Future II was more prescient.
There is a certain hilarious irony to Biff Tannen being based on Trump and the country *still* electing him president and now we are living through the misogynist tacky casino phase, but without the time machine to clean it all up.
You should credit Mike Judge for his accuracy in Idiocracy as well. It's just happening 500 years earlier than he predicted. But he got the vibe entirely correct.
idiocracy correctly predicted how stupid things would be and incorrectly said it was because the stupid, dysgenic working class was having stupid, dysgenic babies, because it's elitist eugenicist trash.
whereas what actually happened is that it's the richest people alive who are rock fucking stupid
Literally just watch the first 30 minutes. It loudly and confidently states "not only is the problem that poor stupid people are having too many kids, medical science should let these poor stupid people die so they don't corrupt the gene pool." Flat-out eugenics.
when you have a billion dollars while people are starving and homeless you have to come up with increasingly disconnected ideas for why you *deserve* that wealth. It's impossible to justify to a normal person
my favorite fact about starship troopers getting made is that they got away with it because the movie studio was in such disarray with executives being fired and hired all the time
Everyone always seems to see the Nazis as cool guys at Nuremburg rallies or driving Tiger Tanks, but the official 'Leader of the Dutch Volk' when Verhoeven was a boy was a disgusting, cowardly worm called Anton Mussert.
I’m still a bit shocked at how I found the movie utterly insufferable as a kid only to watch as American politics slowly morphed into that over my life.
Dick Jones in Robocop summed up US corporations thus "I had a guaranteed military sale with ED209! Renovation program! Spare parts for 25 years! Who cares if it worked or not!"
The one-two punch of Rico’s reinforcements being fresh-faced recruits straight out of boot camp to show that the Federation is hemmoraging manpower and then beckoning viewers to join by revealing the film is a propaganda piece is so on the nose.
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* A red dot appears on my forehead*
(this is sarcasm)
SERVICE GUARANTEES CITIZENSHIP
Wait...
Kids these days.
There is a certain hilarious irony to Biff Tannen being based on Trump and the country *still* electing him president and now we are living through the misogynist tacky casino phase, but without the time machine to clean it all up.
It'll happen. It'll fucking happen.
whereas what actually happened is that it's the richest people alive who are rock fucking stupid
Starship Troopers grows more relatable with every passing year.
DON’T READ BETWEEN THE LINES JUST SIGN THE PAPER
I do believe if given the chance, the fascists would make citizenship and voting a pay to play and/or require military service.