Starship Troopers 4K UHD (1997) (20th Anniversary Edition)

[GenPion]

A few thoughts...

This has a fantastic presentation. Top notch picture and audio quality. But am I the only one here that found the movie itself rather mediocre? I’ve enjoyed other Verhoeven films before but frankly, seeing this film for the first time on UHD, I think this is a slightly above average B movie that really faulters in the second act. Just so many badly orchestrated action scenes.

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by GenPion

This has a fantastic presentation. Top notch picture and audio quality. But am I the only one here that found the movie itself rather mediocre? I’ve enjoyed other Verhoeven films before but frankly, seeing this film for the first time on UHD, I think this is a slightly above average B movie that really faulters in the second act. Just so many badly orchestrated action scenes.

The movie's main entertainment value is the satire. I don't think it's a super great action movie like Total Recall is, it's just a great satire.

[Geoff D]

Yeah, this movie isn't about the steak, it's about the sizzle. Would you like to know more?

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Yeah, this movie isn't about the steak, it's about the sizzle. Would you like to know more?

"Geoffy Vision offers you a world of technical exploration and adds value to your movies by encouraging multiple viewings for analyzing purposes. Be a true enthusiast and use Geoffy Vision on your collection today! Would you like to know more?"

[Noremac Mij]

ST is an awesome movie. Obviously it can’t top Total Recall and RoboCop. But if they still made movies like ST these days, I’d be living in a movie theater. I’m also a fan of Verhoeven’s The Last Scene, wish he made another movie like it.

[bradnoyes]

People shooting at bugs isn't that appealing to me. It's their enthusiasm and lust for blood that wins me over.

[Geoff D]

Funny thing is, I thought the movie was shite first time around (I was 17 at the time). I just didn't get the satire, it was all so over the top that it didn't register, if that makes sense, but when I watched it again a few years later it blew me away when I realised what Verhoeven was trying to say. And not to get all heavy into socio-political areas - for that way madness lies - but I adore that this movie posits its future society as this level playing field for everyone regardless of gender or race but that it took the fascists winning to make it happen. There's a head-**** for you! It's like the sequel RoboCop never had, I very much consider ST to be a spiritual sequel to that flick.

[Member-167298]

Saw ST twice in the theater when I was in middle school. Enjoyed it on a pure dumb-fun surface level. As I got older and learned about history and I took film classes where I realized that films could have deeper meanings, I saw the political and social satire at play and began to appreciate it on another level.

[ROSS.T.G.]

I hated it when I saw as well, I was also 17. Love it now.

[LoSouL]

I was younger, but yeah. I didn't hate it, just thought it was kinda cheesy and dumb, never thought much about it. All I saw was meatheads.

Saw it again in my late 20's and it was like "whoa this is awesome, wtf was I thinking?"

[Ernest Rister]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Funny thing is, I thought the movie was shite first time around (I was 17 at the time). I just didn't get the satire, it was all so over the top that it didn't register, if that makes sense, but when I watched it again a few years later it blew me away when I realised what Verhoeven was trying to say. And not to get all heavy into socio-political areas - for that way madness lies - but I adore that this movie posits its future society as this level playing field for everyone regardless of gender or race but that it took the fascists winning to make it happen. There's a head-**** for you! It's like the sequel RoboCop never had, I very much consider ST to be a spiritual sequel to that flick.

I was a runner for Sony Pictures ImageWorks in 1996-1997, and spent most of my time on Troopers with the miniature f/x unit. I drove the Hero model of The Roger Young in the back seat of my poor broken-down Buick. Anyway, the crew thought they were working on garbage. One of the grips tells me, "There's an unending film we all have to work on eventually called 'Piece of Shit', and we're working on it now." They ripped everything. So don't feel bad, Geoff. You weren't alone.

Slightly off-topic, the tone of a work environment and morale is set by the unit production manager, and in our case, the Production Supervisor was such a bitter rage machine, firing people left and right and screaming at people, his anger and bitterness bled all the way down to the floor, through the paint traps in the sink, and straight down to hell itself. The guys themselves were wonderful people. Pete Kozachik (DP on Nightmare Before Christams), Alex Funke (Lord of the Rings), and we're under this schmuck. Now this ass produces shorts and nature documentaries. I feel sorry for the animals.

[Geoff D]

I remember you saying you worked on this, yeah.

[trevanian]

Originally Posted by Ernest Rister

I was a runner for Sony Pictures ImageWorks in 1996-1997, and spent most of my time on Troopers with the miniature f/x unit. I drove the Hero model of The Roger Young in the back seat of my poor broken-down Buick. Anyway, the crew thought they were working on garbage. One of the grips tells me, "There's an unending film we all have to work on eventually called 'Piece of Shit', and we're working on it now." They ripped everything. So don't feel bad, Geoff. You weren't alone.

Slightly off-topic, the tone of a work environment and morale is set by the unit production manager, and in our case, the Production Supervisor was such a bitter rage machine, firing people left and right and screaming at people, his anger and bitterness bled all the way down to the floor, through the paint traps in the sink, and straight down to hell itself. The guys themselves were wonderful people. Pete Kozachik (DP on Nightmare Before Christams), Alex Funke (Lord of the Rings), and we're under this schmuck. Now this ass produces shorts and nature documentaries. I feel sorry for the animals.

I spent a couple hours at Thunderstone when I was doing interviews for a Cinefex magazine CONTACT article, and got to see a lot of the TROOPERS models, which was a real treat. But I was more than a little pissed that one of the guys in the shop sprayed paint at me when I was waiting for my escort, who had drive me over from ImageWorks. Kinda taints my whole memory of the day, my throat was burning during the flight home that night and well into the next day. I'd visited ILM stages several time and nothing like that ever happened there, they were all too Dale-Carnegie-correct, I guess.

[DJR662]

The one thing that always gets mentioned over here (in the Dutch media) regarding why this flopped in the US, is because people missed the social/political satire Verhoeven was aiming for. Yet RobCop and Total Recall also had underlying themes, and those did pretty well in the US from what I remember.

Anyway I have always loved this movie ever since I first saw it in the theater. Matter of fact I was already hyped for it beforehand because during the summer of 1996, while at a free drive in showing of Die Hard With A Vengeance in my then girlfriend's neighbourhood, they played the trailer for it. Mankind vs giant bugs in a violent SF/action movie by Paul Verhoeven? Yes, please! I was already sold without even having seen the actual movie.

[Ernest Rister]

Originally Posted by trevanian

I spent a couple hours at Thunderstone when I was doing interviews for a Cinefex magazine CONTACT article, and got to see a lot of the TROOPERS models, which was a real treat. But I was more than a little pissed that one of the guys in the shop sprayed paint at me when I was waiting for my escort, who had drive me over from ImageWorks. Kinda taints my whole memory of the day, my throat was burning during the flight home that night and well into the next day. I'd visited ILM stages several time and nothing like that ever happened there, they were all too Dale-Carnegie-correct, I guess.

It was an unpleasant shoot for the miniature f/x unit. The artists over in the model shop were so focused, I never dealt with them, just silently marveled at their work. I don't know or understand why someone would blow paint on you -- other than that in any place I've ever worked, some people are just flat-out unpleasant.

Anyway, funny story about Contact...I'm told to go to the model shop to pick up a deliverable and take it about a block away to the much smaller production stage. The deliverable was essentially a plastic representation of a hollowed-out soccer ball painted day-glow orange. Get to the stage, they have four tall metal poles bolted to the floor with a large net on top.

"What's that?" I ask, bemused.
"Stop asking questions!" shouts this low-level stage jerk (who has hazed me the entire time, openly and inexplicably insulting me).

The four poles? It was the netting of the Machine from Contact. Jodi Foster's pod was a plastic hollowed-out soccer ball painted digital orange and it rolled around in the back seat of my '88 Buick. Didn't know what any of that was about until I saw the movie. I'm sitting in the theater like everyone else, I see The Machine, and the Pod dropping onto the net of the machine, and it all clicked.

[Ernest Rister]

Originally Posted by DJR662

The one thing that always gets mentioned over here (in the Dutch media) regarding why this flopped in the US, is because people missed the social/political satire Verhoeven was aiming for. Yet RobCop and Total Recall also had underlying themes, and those did pretty well in the US from what I remember.

It wasn't sold and marketed in the U.S. as a satire of WWII Nazi propaganda, it was sold as "Space Marines vs. Swarms of Alien Insects". This is a more common problem throughout film markets than you'd think...artists make one movie, the marketing department sells it as another. Audiences get blindsided, get grumpy. Easy example -- Walt Disney's Bambi was sold as a love story back in 1942.

Bambi - Original Theatrical Trailer (1942) - YouTube

Aronofsky's Mother! sold as a horror film.

mother! movie (2017) - official trailer - paramount pictures - YouTube

Anyway I have always loved this movie ever since I first saw it in the theater. Matter of fact I was already hyped for it beforehand because during the summer of 1996, while at a free drive in showing of Die Hard With A Vengeance in my then girlfriend's neighbourhood, they played the trailer for it. Mankind vs giant bugs in a violent SF/action movie by Paul Verhoeven? Yes, please! I was already sold without even having seen the actual movie.

Well, there ya go.

[Noremac Mij]

I’d love to live in the utopian Starship Troopers future!

[RockyIII]

The social system we see in this movie is clearly a national socialist regime.
Would you like to know more?

[Ernest Rister]

Originally Posted by RockyIII

The social system we see in this movie is clearly a national socialist regime.
Would you like to know more?

It's a satire of Nazi propaganda films, not too far afield from Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds.

[JimDiGriz]

Originally Posted by ROSS.T.G.

I hated it when I saw as well, I was also 17. Love it now.

Ha! I loved it on first watch. I also noticed on first watch it wasn't as dumb as it appeared to be.

Would you like to know more?