Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on August 26, 2023, 10:35:42 AM

The Verhoven movie is bad satire that ivory tower morons praise as good satire to inflate their egos. Being indistinguishable from genuine propaganda doesn't make something good satire. It means it runs afoul of Poe's Law. Just look at the Dark Dungeons movie: it isn't satire, it's an accurate depiction of what fundamentalists believe!

To add insult to injury, the crowd calling it good satire vehemently despise every other product for the IP. The original novel, the sequel movies, the cgi cartoon show, the video games, and the various tabletop games (most of these you can't get legally now, and the fandom wiki is mostly garbage). Sony has recently licensed several new video games for reasons I cannot fathom. The tone is cringe propaganda, but the objective is still to kill all bugs. How is that remotely satire?

Sony can eat shit and die in a fire

Verhoeven is generally a hack, but I found the movie entertaining.  It's a good example of a film that tries to make one side look evil (the humans) when it actually encourages you to somewhat root for them.

I haven't read the book, so I don't know how it compares, but it sounds like the book is far better.

In a weird parallel, this is like the Barbie movie.  Many people called it woke garbage, but other people viewed it as a subtle criticism of feminism where Ken is basically the "good guy" to root for.

Quote from: BadApple on August 26, 2023, 11:06:55 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on August 26, 2023, 10:35:42 AM

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 25, 2023, 08:14:57 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 25, 2023, 01:43:14 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 25, 2023, 01:25:31 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 25, 2023, 12:55:12 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on August 25, 2023, 12:33:24 PM

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on August 25, 2023, 12:09:07 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on August 25, 2023, 11:42:54 AM
The WEF are the same species as us. I think it loses something when you make them a different species and then say it's okay to genocide them.

That's from the elf and they were being genocided by the Scro Economic Foundation for Good.  Now if you think the WEF considers you human, that's quaint, they view most people as being useless, at least the lead advisor to Schwab does.  Creepy really.  You might consider them human, they don't consider you human,  you don't have enough money for that.  Its more altered carbon for those nutters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZP5lIzGNT8

Okay, I don't care anymore. Have fun playing your justified genocide simulator.

You play as you want but...

Isn't saying ALL Orcs are evil the exact same thing?

It's a fantasy game.

Are the humans justified in Starship Troopers? Even if they wiped every single bug of the face of the universe?

The book Starship Troopers or the movie Starship Troopers?

The book mainly but the same applies to the movie since Verhooven failed miserably at trying to make it an allegory for fascism.

Base on the book, then yes. By the time of the events in the book, The Bug War was becomming a war of extermination against the humans.

The Verhoven movie is bad satire that ivory tower morons praise as good satire to inflate their egos. Being indistinguishable from genuine propaganda doesn't make something good satire. It means it runs afoul of Poe's Law. Just look at the Dark Dungeons movie: it isn't satire, it's an accurate depiction of what fundamentalists believe!

To add insult to injury, the crowd calling it good satire vehemently despise every other product for the IP. The original novel, the sequel movies, the cgi cartoon show, the video games, and the various tabletop games (most of these you can't get legally now, and the fandom wiki is mostly garbage). Sony has recently licensed several new video games for reasons I cannot fathom. The tone is cringe propaganda, but the objective is still to kill all bugs. How is that remotely satire?

Sony can eat shit and die in a fire

It's shit material bastardizing a book from one of my favorite authors.  The fact that movies isn't relegated to shadowy knowledge of forgotten movie nerds is beyond me.  The only good media that was bases on Heinlein's book I have seen was the game book.

The one thing I think it could do well if someone were willing to do up some 3D models is a TT war game.  Alas, I fear that Sony would make hash out of it.

Only if you want the models to resemble the descriptions in the book (as you should).

Quote from: Nameless Mist on August 26, 2023, 11:31:50 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on August 26, 2023, 10:35:42 AM

The Verhoven movie is bad satire that ivory tower morons praise as good satire to inflate their egos. Being indistinguishable from genuine propaganda doesn't make something good satire. It means it runs afoul of Poe's Law. Just look at the Dark Dungeons movie: it isn't satire, it's an accurate depiction of what fundamentalists believe!

To add insult to injury, the crowd calling it good satire vehemently despise every other product for the IP. The original novel, the sequel movies, the cgi cartoon show, the video games, and the various tabletop games (most of these you can't get legally now, and the fandom wiki is mostly garbage). Sony has recently licensed several new video games for reasons I cannot fathom. The tone is cringe propaganda, but the objective is still to kill all bugs. How is that remotely satire?

Sony can eat shit and die in a fire

Verhoeven is generally a hack, but I found the movie entertaining.  It's a good example of a film that tries to make one side look evil (the humans) when it actually encourages you to somewhat root for them.

I haven't read the book, so I don't know how it compares, but it sounds like the book is far better.

In a weird parallel, this is like the Barbie movie.  Many people called it woke garbage, but other people viewed it as a subtle criticism of feminism where Ken is basically the "good guy" to root for.

The book is infinitely better, Verhoeven didn't even read it IIRC. Or if he did he understood jack shit, and it shows since his movie fails to present the Bugs as anything but genocidal communist monsters, the humans as justified and the Federation as a fair government.

I highly recomend you to read it.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 26, 2023, 11:55:14 AM

The book is infinitely better, Verhoeven didn't even read it IIRC. Or if he did he understood jack shit, and it shows since his movie fails to present the Bugs as anything but genocidal communist monsters, the humans as justified and the Federation as a fair government.

I highly recomend you to read it.

Thanks.  I've always heard good things about Heinlein.

Quote from: Nameless Mist on August 26, 2023, 12:10:13 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 26, 2023, 11:55:14 AM

The book is infinitely better, Verhoeven didn't even read it IIRC. Or if he did he understood jack shit, and it shows since his movie fails to present the Bugs as anything but genocidal communist monsters, the humans as justified and the Federation as a fair government.

I highly recomend you to read it.

Thanks.  I've always heard good things about Heinlein.

Also from him "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", one of my all time favourite Sci-Fi books.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 26, 2023, 12:45:23 PM

Quote from: Nameless Mist on August 26, 2023, 12:10:13 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 26, 2023, 11:55:14 AM

The book is infinitely better, Verhoeven didn't even read it IIRC. Or if he did he understood jack shit, and it shows since his movie fails to present the Bugs as anything but genocidal communist monsters, the humans as justified and the Federation as a fair government.

I highly recomend you to read it.

Thanks.  I've always heard good things about Heinlein.

Also from him "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", one of my all time favourite Sci-Fi books.

TANSTAAFL

Considering the definition of "racist" changes every day, yes, it is hard.

Also, no one can agree on what "racist" means. Trying to satisfy the imaginary criteria of a million mental patients is not easy.

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 26, 2023, 01:04:41 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 26, 2023, 12:45:23 PM

Quote from: Nameless Mist on August 26, 2023, 12:10:13 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 26, 2023, 11:55:14 AM

The book is infinitely better, Verhoeven didn't even read it IIRC. Or if he did he understood jack shit, and it shows since his movie fails to present the Bugs as anything but genocidal communist monsters, the humans as justified and the Federation as a fair government.

I highly recomend you to read it.

Thanks.  I've always heard good things about Heinlein.

Also from him "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", one of my all time favourite Sci-Fi books.

TANSTAAFL

Indeed

Quote from: David Gerrold on Starship Troopers

I am going to make a declarative assertion.

Stand back. I don't want anyone getting hurt.

Here we go.

Starship Troopers is the single most misunderstood book in the entire SF genre.

Now, putting aside the observation that all science fiction since Heinlein is either imitation of Heinlein or reaction to Heinlein, let's simply talk about three things:

What was Heinlein trying to do?
How well did he do it?
Was it worth doing in the first place?

It's that first question that requires the long answer.

Heinlein had been working on Stranger In A Strange Land. He saw a paid ad advocating a unilateral US ban on nuclear testing. It pissed him off enough that he published a counterblast in his home newspaper and formed a group to advocate in favor of continued testing.

And then he stopped working on Stranger and wrote Starship Troopers. Originally, he wrote it as a juvenile, but his editor at Simon & Schuster rejected it and he never wrote another juvenile for them (or anyone else) ever again.

(BTW, as others have noted, he regarded both Stranger In A Strange Land and Starship Troopers as "thought experiments," not advocacy. And yet, they both still read like advocacy.)

Starship Troopers was serialized in the fall of 59 in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, one of the few serials they ever published. The following year, it was published in book form.

Starship Troopers traces the career of Johnny Rico, a Filipino living in Buenos Aires, who joins the Mobile Infantry, a high-tech version of the marines. The Mobile Infantry is fighting a ferocious war against "the bugs."

The book is more about Rico's training than it is about the war. Just as Space Cadet was about teaching Matt Dodson how to think like a professional, so is Starship Trooper about teaching Rico the responsibilities of a military person.

Those discussions are the heart and soul of the book. They are the whole point of the book. The bugs are secondary to those essays. And the point of the entire effort is to discuss the relationship of the individual to the society that has nurtured, protected, and educated them. A human being benefits from their participation in a civil society. Therefore, that same human being has an obligation to keep that society functioning — not just for themselves, but for everyone else who exists as part of that society.

While Heinlein doesn't use this analogy, it's a fair one. A society is a functioning organism. Every part of the organism has a function — whether it's growing crops or maintaining the roads or making sure the plumbing works. Those who benefit and do not contribute to the well-being of the organism are parasites, feeding but not contributing.

Heinlein's point is simple. When the civil organism is under attack, the members of the organism have a corresponding responsibility to defend against the attack. Otherwise, the civil organism dies. In the human body, white blood cells are the front line against infection by invaders: viruses, germs, microbes — bugs. In the war that Heinlein postulates, the Mobile Infantry are the white blood cells defending against the alien bugs.

That's it. That's the point.

When your nation is under attack, you must become a part of the defense. Heinlein's experience was World War II — when the home front was as important as the battlefields. Women went to work in the factories. Schoolchildren had scrap metal and rag and paper drives. Housewives collected their bacon fat which was used to make ammunition.

Now, Heinlein added a couple interesting twists to hammer home the point. Only those who had served were allowed to vote — because part of their service was to be trained in the responsibility that a citizen owed to the society that had raised and nurtured and educated them.

The second part was the History and Moral Philosophy courses that were mandatory in high school — and which functioned somewhat as a recruiting course for the military.

Many people have said that this is a fascist wet dream, indoctrination and recruitment — and you can point to Nazi Germany for the closest example. Fair enough. But that's not the whole story.

Sidebar: Various human potential companies created Large Group Awareness Trainings — the most famous were est and Lifespring. The Landmark Forum is still around. People who did not understand the nature of these courses compared them to cults, compared the philosophies of personal effectiveness to brainwashing or indoctrination. But really, most of the courses (the ones that I'm familiar with) were a kind of westernized zen delivered with a fire hose. (ie. "Get over yourself.")

What Heinlein posited was also misinterpreted as brainwashing and indoctrination — when its purpose was simply to introduce a new perspective about the nature of military service as a necessary function for the protection of a civilization under attack.

Now, to be fair — Heinlein stacked the deck. Not the first time, not the last time. In this book, the enemy exist as a relentless, unending horde of mindless giant insects. Bugs. There is nothing there to empathize with. They are killing machines — chitinous terminators. The only response is kill or be killed. And in that context, Heinlein's assertin is justifiable.

Now, consider if the enemy was not some kind of alien bug — but instead, another branch of humanity. Or even just another nation with a shared border. And consider that the battle is not so much a fight to the death, but an argument over whether eggs should be broken at the big end or the little end. At that point, the whole discussion of military service breaks down with one simple question, "Are you fucking kidding me? You want me to die on that fucking hill?"

Second question? How well did Heinlein do it?  Well, we're still talking about the book 60 years later, so I would say that he did a damn good job. Except that we're not just talking about the book, we're arguing ferociously about it. So maybe his point wasn't as clear as he intended it to be. The accusations of fascism have pretty much obscured the more interesting point, which is worth discussion even if we're not at war:

What is the obligation of a citizen toward the nation in which he lives? If the citizen benefits from their participation, what is their obligation — but also if the citizen does not benefit, what are their options?

Also — what are the responsibilities of those who do vote? Heinlein's thesis was that the vote is so sacred that one does not just vote out of prejudice and certainly not out of ignorance, but out of rational examination of the consequences of the choice.

These are the real questions in Starship Troopers and the ones that few analysts and critics have ever addressed in depth. Because it's so much easier to do a Donald Sutherland, point the finger and scream. Roll credits.

Third question — was it worth doing in the first place? I say yes. Despite all the sidebars and accusations and misinterpretations and blah blahs, there are questions raised in the book that need to be addressed and discussed at length.

Now ... about that movie. The director wanted to do a satire on fascists who aren't aware that their behavior is fascist. Fair enough. He used the book as a jumping off point. In doing so, he missed the much larger questions. Of course, that would have been a much harder movie to make.

And ... by the way, he was given a choice. There was a limit on the budget. He had to choose. Power Armor or bugs. He chose bugs. Which is why the soldiers portrayed in the film are woefully under-armed, fighting monstrous insects with the futuristic equivalent of an AK-47. Not a bad weapon, but the wrong weapon for fighting giant killer insects. Those soldiers needed flame-throwers, daisy cutters, and the smell of napalm in the morning. What the movie portrays is one military disaster after another — and the soldiers are nothing more than disposable cannon fodder.

(BTW, I thought those bugs were badly conceived. Beautifully rendered, but hard to believe.)

The movie version of Starship Troopers is bad military strategy, it's bad science fiction, and even if the intention is satire — it's bad satire. It's a bad movie. Seeing Doogie Howser show up in an SS uniform provoked howls of laughter at the screening I sat through.

To really do Starship Troopers justice requires a producer and director who have a genuine affection for the book and are willing to tell it as Rico's story. Heinlein's structural model for the book was All Quiet On The Western Front — and perhaps even a fairly substantial film of the era, Battle Cry. Those efforts were about the experience of the grunt — and that's what Starship Troopers is really about. It's a growth arc for Johnny Rico — from high school student to Lieutenant Rico. The war is not the point. The "indoctrination" is not the point — it's about Rico learning what he needs to learn so he can accept his responsibilities in the circumstances.

That's what too many of the book's critics have missed. It's certainly what the film so badly missed.

IMHO.

Your mileage may vary, of course.

Some food for thought that has a direct bearing on the creation of believable RPG settings.

Quote from: Horace on August 26, 2023, 01:08:53 PM
Considering the definition of "racist" changes every day, yes, it is hard.

Also, no one can agree on what "racist" means. Trying to satisfy the imaginary criteria of a million mental patients is not easy.

Just use the real definition.  Not something like, "Whatever you say that I disagree with."  I posted the real definition upstream.  And NO there is no other legit definition.

Quote from: Scooter on August 26, 2023, 03:32:02 PM

Quote from: Horace on August 26, 2023, 01:08:53 PM
Considering the definition of "racist" changes every day, yes, it is hard.

Also, no one can agree on what "racist" means. Trying to satisfy the imaginary criteria of a million mental patients is not easy.

Just use the real definition.  Not something like, "Whatever you say that I disagree with."  I posted the real definition upstream.  And NO there is no other legit definition.

Unfortunately that is not what it means to a majority of people. And the commies use language as a weapon by redefining terms. This is how they smuggle in their insane warped world view and make inroads into cultures. Sadly, they've destroyed America from the inside and I don't know how this country recovers.

We are living on the fumes of the great 80's, which in turn were a shadow of the truly great 50's. Think of everything great in pop culture, the MCU was good when it was bringing to life the Marvel comics of the 80's, Stranger Things was a cloudy mirror of 80's culture. What great cultural things do we have in the 21st century? Nothing. It's all gone to crap. And I'm not even being a crotchety old man here, it is objectively true. The music sucks, the movies suck, the culture sucks.

Even 5th edition D&D was only good in so much as it recaptured some of the magic of 80's D&D.

Quote from: Thor's Nads on August 26, 2023, 03:48:37 PM

Quote from: Scooter on August 26, 2023, 03:32:02 PM

Quote from: Horace on August 26, 2023, 01:08:53 PM
Considering the definition of "racist" changes every day, yes, it is hard.

Also, no one can agree on what "racist" means. Trying to satisfy the imaginary criteria of a million mental patients is not easy.

Just use the real definition.  Not something like, "Whatever you say that I disagree with."  I posted the real definition upstream.  And NO there is no other legit definition.

Unfortunately that is not what it means to a majority of people. And the commies use language as a weapon by redefining terms. This is how they smuggle in their insane warped world view and make inroads into cultures. Sadly, they've destroyed America from the inside and I don't know how this country recovers.

We are living on the fumes of the great 80's, which in turn were a shadow of the truly great 50's. Think of everything great in pop culture, the MCU was good when it was bringing to life the Marvel comics of the 80's, Stranger Things was a cloudy mirror of 80's culture. What great cultural things do we have in the 21st century? Nothing. It's all gone to crap. And I'm not even being a crotchety old man here, it is objectively true. The music sucks, the movies suck, the culture sucks.

Even 5th edition D&D was only good in so much as it recaptured some of the magic of 80's D&D.

While I agree with you on the political stuff, I think there's been a lot of good music from the 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s, but it's just rarely played on the radio.  You have to look for the good stuff that's new.  Plenty of indie musicians are great, but the radio is just the lowest common denominator.  It's been that way for the last 20 years or so.

As for gaming, 3.0 and 3.5 D&D were pretty good IMHO.  So is Pathfinder 1E.  All of those were in the 2000s.  WOTC surely has a lot of problems as a company, but their initial run with D&D was good.  And 5E serves its purpose as a simplified version of D&D for newer players.  Granted, I'm not optimistic about the upcoming 5.5.

Quote from: Nameless Mist on August 26, 2023, 03:55:30 PM
As for gaming, 3.0 and 3.5 D&D were pretty good IMHO.

Not in my opinion. I quit D&D during the 3E playtest because I hated the direction it was going. That's not to say it was objectively bad, but it sure stunk to me at the time (and still does). I'll take 2E's simplicity over 3E's bloated mess any day of the week. Feats ruin D&D for me.

One of my retroclone ideas (I got a list) is a pastiche of Starship Troopers that doesn't try and fail to be satire. I hate how Sony turned the IP to shit.

It starts in a utopian future where a freak disease killed all men and now women maintain civilization using assistive reproductive technology. They replaced the men with androids that look like Fabio and are programmed to act like 1950s housewives, while women fulfill the 1950s husband role.

Oh wait, sorry, that's my failed attempt at satire for a hypothetical Black Mirror episode.

I haven't started writing anything

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on August 26, 2023, 05:51:06 PM
One of my retroclone ideas (I got a list) is a pastiche of Starship Troopers that doesn't try and fail to be satire. I hate how Sony turned the IP to shit.

It starts in a utopian future where a freak disease killed all men and now women maintain civilization using assistive reproductive technology. They replaced the men with androids that look like Fabio and are programmed to act like 1950s housewives, while women fulfill the 1950s husband role.

Oh wait, sorry, that's my failed attempt at satire for a hypothetical Black Mirror episode.

I haven't started writing anything

That sounds thematically similar to the Barbie movie.