Starship Troopers-on now

[Johnny Canuck3]

Mmmmm

You don't have a dick.

 

[sinky]

*gets wobbly legs*


D'ya think he does everything in that manner ?

He's more interested in the tea: http://i26.tinypic.com/2mzin7r.gif (3mb)

 

[mentalchik]

You don't have a dick.

Yes i realised that a bit later......was just too distracted by the thought of him giving me orders.....



you naughty person suggesting such a thing about the Picard !

 

[dylanredefined]

He could be termed as guilty of gunboat diplomacy though


You know, when you park a massive gunship next to a city and say 'hey lets talk peace'

Earl Grey, Hot.

And thats a bad idea because ?
The film is intresting and can be seen either as a piss take of the military or a homage it works either way imho.They might dress like nazis but hardly behave like them .Still think the book is better .Though how you could film the opening scene in the book and make it look anything other than cgi is beyond me

 

[nino_savatte]

Yep me too, it just looks so obvious it's a pisstake. I remember years ago talking to a mates brother and him saying he thought it was great that Hollywood was finally taking his politics seriously and showing it respect (he was a rightwing), he really thought the film was a homage to patriotic people etc...

LOL!!! He obviously never had a look at Verhoeven's other work, Robocop, which was as savage a satire on corporate America as one can get.

 

[Random]

Heinlein's book is based on Plato's theories of an ideal state, which have also been cited as influences on fascism, but there the connection ends. However, in his personal politics, JC2 is right, Heinlein was a right wing libertarian, in the US tradition, not a fascist. His books laud those fighting against imperialism, as in Between Planets, and the image of the heroic entepreneur, as in the Rolling Stones. Very right wing, but not a fascist - for one thing, fascists don't endorse homosexuality and incest, they're more into family values.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

LOL!!! He obviously never had a look at Verhoeven's other work, Robocop, which was as savage a satire on corporate America as one can get.

Don't get me started, please!

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

LOL!!! He obviously never had a look at Verhoeven's other work, Robocop, which was as savage a satire on corporate America as one can get.

Yet Robocop could also appeal to unthinking idiots who want to take all the 'undesirables' and shoot them. That's precisely the beauty of it.

 

[DotCommunist]

And thats a bad idea because ?
The film is intresting and can be seen either as a piss take of the military or a homage it works either way imho.They might dress like nazis but hardly behave like them .Still think the book is better .Though how you could film the opening scene in the book and make it look anything other than cgi is beyond me

Well it all depends on what sort of 'peace' one is offering doesn't it?


The sort of peace that says 'OK we won't destroy your city, we'll offer you a peace and continue pumping opium to your populace' isn't nice.

Good old Picard would never do something so horrid

 

[MikeMcc]

I think Heinlein was certainly pseudo-fascist, if a read of Stranger In A Strange Land is anything to go but, but Verhoeven's film is far from it and is indeed a glorious satire, unlike Showgirls.

I don't really think he was. His writings show him to be an anti-state individual, almost to the point of being an anarcharist. Where he did write about the facistic state he always portrayed it in a bad light, hence the flaying in the story of Starship Troopers. I certainly don't support many of his political ideals, especially his portrial of incest. he seemed very blase over the damaging ascepts of this.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Some of Heinlein's ideas, especially those set forth in Stranger in a Strange Land, were influential on the founding ideology of the counterculture in the Sixties.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Oh, I think we've come across your inability to accept Heinlein as a fascist before. Never mind though.

 

[DotCommunist]

seems to be that people going 'oh he was a hardcore right winger' aren't willing to accept just how far right he was. Still, agree to differ

 

[chainsaw cat]

A while since I read any Robert H....

Is Stranger in a Strange Land that one with the earth born Martian? Or is that another one?


I read a great deal of 50s/60s/70s sci fi as a kid, just beginning to revisit some of the ideas now with an adult perspective.

I've also just recently filtered a bit of Joe Haldemann - an important author?
and would be interested, in due course, in a thread on this stuff.

Not sure if us Brits can adequately grokk the rugged individualist thing though.

Wotcha think, JC2?

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Oh, I think we've come across your inability to accept Heinlein as a fascist before. Never mind though.

And we've come across your blind acceptance of the new PC revisionism.

Never mind, though.

Random put it best, I think.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

seems to be that people going 'oh he was a hardcore right winger' aren't willing to accept just how far right he was. Still, agree to differ

It's for people too simpleminded to see that Starship Troopers is a satire, although I'm not sure how simpleminded one must be to miss the side of that barn.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

A while since I read any Robert H....

Is Stranger in a Strange Land that one with the earth born Martian? Or is that another one?


I read a great deal of 50s/60s/70s sci fi as a kid, just beginning to revisit some of the ideas now with an adult perspective.

I've also just recently filtered a bit of Joe Haldemann - an important author?
and would be interested, in due course, in a thread on this stuff.

Not sure if us Brits can adequately grokk the rugged individualist thing though.

Wotcha think, JC2?

I think he's martian, as in his parents, human, had lived on Mars. The main character is Michael Smith. Grok is a big word in the book. In the end, he dies, and they eat his body.

Maybe brits can't get rugged individualism, but I'm not sure that's what it is. Canadians and Canada are the offspring of British ways in many aspects, although it's changing, and aspects of US culture are viewed here with horror. But even so, the idea of the rugged individualist isn't abhorrent to us, or unavailable to our understanding.

 

[chainsaw cat]

Aha!

Tattoo'd lady, strange powers, odd religious cult with pervy undertones... remote farmhouse with elderly wise dude... all coming back to me now. Might re read it. Very 60s.

I try to read these things as ripping yarns, and then ascribe meaning to them later. Hopefully, authors have the decency to make their polemic into ripping yarns too, so that I can do so.

Read all this stuff in bright yellow hardbacks the People's Republic of Clwyd (Flintshire) had on the shelves in '78 or thereabouts. A C Clarke too. And Asimov, Poul Anderson, Bester, Pohl, Dick.... Wish I had the time now to go to the library and come back laden with 3 or 4 harbacks, knowing I could read them before my next trip 5 days hence.

Mind, that was at the expense of homework.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Aha!

Tattoo'd lady, strange powers, odd religious cult with pervy undertones... remote farmhouse with elderly wise dude... all coming back to me now. Might re read it. Very 60s.

I try to read these things as ripping yarns, and then ascribe meaning to them later. Hopefully, authors have the decency to make their polemic into ripping yarns too, so that I can do so.

Read all this stuff in bright yellow hardbacks the People's Republic of Clwyd (Flintshire) had on the shelves in '78 or thereabouts. A C Clarke too. And Asimov, Poul Anderson, Bester, Pohl, Dick.... Wish I had the time now to go to the library and come back laden with 3 or 4 harbacks, knowing I could read them before my next trip 5 days hence.

Mind, that was at the expense of homework.

We were in our early teens when we read that book. We passed it around to new people like giving the bible to an initiate.

It was all downhill for me from there...

 

[DotCommunist]

It's for people too simpleminded to see that Starship Troopers is a satire, although I'm not sure how simpleminded one must be to miss the side of that barn.

Or too wedded to the rugged individualist myth to spot a facist. Still, if you can't see it, it isn't true. Right?

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Or too wedded to the rugged individualist myth to spot a facist. Still, if you can't see it, it isn't true. Right?

...or it isn't there.

 

[Idris2002]

Heinleinesque 'libertarianism' isn't fascist - it's just (like fascism before it) a load of reactionary SHIT.

I think Michael Moorcock nailed Heinlein and his politics over thirty years ago.

Rugged individualism also goes hand in hand with a strong faith in paternalism -- albeit a tolerant and somewhat distant paternalism -- and many otherwise sharp-witted libertarians seem to see nothing in the morality of a John Wayne Western to conflict with their views. Heinlein's paternalism is at heart the same as Wayne's. In the final analysis it is a kind of easy-going militarism favoured by the veteran professional soldier -- the chain of command is complex -- many adult responsibilities can be left to that chain as long as broad, but firmly enforced, rules from 'high up' are adhered to. Heinlein is Eisenhower Man and his views seem to me to be more pernicious than ordinary infantile back-to-the-land Christian communism, with its mysticism and its hatred of technology. To be an anarchist, surely, is to reject authority but to accept self-discipline and community responsibility. To be a rugged individualist a la Heinlein and others is to be forever a child who must obey, charm and cajole to be tolerated by some benign, omniscient father: Rooster Coburn shuffling his feet in front of a judge he respects for his office (but not necessarily himself) in True Grit.

 

[Detroit City]

Heinleinesque 'libertarianism' isn't fascist - it's just (like fascism before it) a load of reactionary SHIT.

go to sleep, man

 

[Idris2002]

It's 1547 hours where I am, mate.

You should have said 'get back to work, man'.

 

[nino_savatte]

Yet Robocop could also appeal to unthinking idiots who want to take all the 'undesirables' and shoot them. That's precisely the beauty of it.

Yep.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Heinleinesque 'libertarianism' isn't fascist - it's just (like fascism before it) a load of reactionary SHIT.

I think Michael Moorcock nailed Heinlein and his politics over thirty years ago.

Sounds like sour grapes from an author who hasn't sold as many books. Heinlein is anything but Eisenhower Man; Heinlein's philosophy was the antithesis of Eisenhower Man.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

For those unclear on the concept, this is an example of Eisenhower Man:

 

[chainsaw cat]

Nice suit, hot wife.


I want to be Eisenhower Man!

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Nice suit, hot wife.


I want to be Eisenhower Man!

She's also a witch. And because he is eisenhower man, he won't let her use her magic to make them rich beyond avarice. He insists on making his way on his own.

 

[chainsaw cat]

I want to be Eisenhower Man with slightly modified principles!