General Trump is scum re. the kurds

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BenAskrensStrikingcoach

Formerly formulating formally
Jan 30, 2015
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If you ever want to see this hokey, romanticized, gung ho, US war culture satirized in film check out the brilliant science fiction satire movie Starship Troopers. It nails it so precisely that most movie goers didn't pick up on that they were watching a satire and enjoyed it as a straight space adventure. It is absolutely a masterpiece, brilliant in every respect. You might even recognize your young self in the idealistic young brainwashed patriots as they ship off into outer space to fight the dirty, evil bug planet.
Great film.

I was fairly shocked people didn't realise it was satire after I watched it years ago.

Sometimes the message gets completely missed though, music is one of the best for it, loads of classics.

 

megatherium

el rey del mambo
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Jan 15, 2015
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Great film.

I was fairly shocked people didn't realise it was satire after I watched it years ago.

Sometimes the message gets completely missed though, music is one of the best for it, loads of classics.

Yeah, I saw it in it's original theatrical run in 1997 I guess it was. Was completely floored by what I wss seeing, and that a film like it could ever be produced and receive major studio backing. Ear to ear grin all the way through and then to read the critics completely miss the boat, almost all of them....pretty discouraging.
 

megatherium

el rey del mambo
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How we made Starship Troopers


I borrowed from the films of Leni Riefenstahl to show that these soldiers were like something out of Nazi propaganda. I even put one in an SS uniform. But no one noticed’

Paul Verhoeven, director
Robert Heinlein’s original 1959 science-fiction novel was militaristic, if not fascistic. So I decided to make a movie about fascists who aren’t aware of their fascism. Robocop was just urban politics – this was about American politics. As a European it seemed to me that certain aspects of US society could become fascistic: the refusal to limit the amount of arms; the number of executions in Texas when George W Bush was governor.

It’s an idiotic story: young people go to fight bugs. So I felt the human characters should have a comic-book look. Mark Wahlberg and Matt Damon auditioned, but I was looking for the prototype of blond, white and arrogant, and Casper Van Dien was so close to the images I remembered from Leni Riefenstahl’s films. I borrowed from Triumph of the Will in the parody propaganda reel that opens the film, too. I was using Riefenstahl to point out, or so I thought, that these heroes and heroines were straight out of Nazi propaganda. No one saw it at the time. I don’t know whether or not the actors realised – we never discussed it. I thought Neil Patrick Harris arriving on the set in an SS uniform might clear it up.

I drew on the Normandy landings, too: there’s a certain retrograde aspect to the spaceships. Phil Tippett – the genius who made ED209, Robocop’s rogue robot – took care of the special effects. He’s extremely clever with movement: he made these arachnids so well-done and animalistic. Nobody else I knew could do something so difficult, with hundreds of insects in one shot.

There was so much regime change at Columbia Pictures at the time that we slipped through the net. When the executives finally saw it, they said: “Their flag – it’s a Nazi flag!” I said, “No … it’s completely different colours.”

But they moved it from a July release to September, because they thought Air Force One was more commercial. [Producer] Jon Davison said: “It will never make its money back.” He saw there was a problem with the American audience better than I had.

A Washington Post editorial warned Americans about the movie because, it said, it was made by two neo-Nazis: me and [screenwriter] Ed Neumeier. It helped destroy it, along with the word of mouth. It dropped 50% in the second week, which was unheard of at the time. With a title like Starship Troopers, people were expecting a new Star Wars. They got that, but not really: it stuck in your throat. It said: “Here are your heroes and your heroines, but by the way – they’re fascists.”

Denise Richards, actor
I didn’t think about the politics – I was just hoping not to get fired from my first big movie. My character wasn’t part of the infantry, so I didn’t have to go on the actors’ boot camp, but I asked to. Casper, Jake [Busey] and I really bonded. On the first night, there was a blizzard and I ended up in their tent in the middle of the night, snuggled together to keep warm.

I love my character, and the fans seem to appreciate she’s a strong woman. If there were negative audience reactions to her swapping between two men, I didn’t hear about it. At some point or other, everyone gets dumped and does the dumping – that’s young love! But for the most part I think she’s a badass, a great role model. Paul added a topless scene that wasn’t in the original script but I refused to do it – I didn’t see the point of it.

I had to learn how to act in front of green screens, and Paul was a great teacher. We only had an idea of what the bugs might look like from pictures and animatronic clips. He would be there jumping up and down with a broom in the air so we would have a sense of how big they were. If we weren’t giving enough, he would do even more.

They saved the most dangerous thing for last. Casper, Jake and I had to run out of a tunnel with an explosion rushing up behind us – a real one. We had to keep moving because there was a ball of flame. We had one take, so we had a lot of adrenaline going on. We said to each other: if someone falls, pick ’em up and drag ’em out. I was stunned seeing it for the first time with all the special effects. I’d love to work with Paul again. He was a crazy person – in a good way.


How we made Starship Troopers
 

megatherium

el rey del mambo
First 100
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Watch Starship Troopers now: it’s reality, not sci-fi

Tom Usher

Twenty years ago Paul Verhoeven’s film foresaw the nightmare of the west’s endless war with terrorists. If only the world had recognised its genius

There’s an image from Starship Troopers – 20 years old this week – that has been carved into the walls of my memory ever since I first watched it as an awestruck, acne-ridden teen.

Before this moment we had been treated to a pastiche of Hollywood military training set pieces – goofy recruits, locker-room banter, an unforgiving drill sergeant – propped up in front of cloying high school drama: saccharine romances, competitive sports and innocent musings on the future. And all performed by people who wouldn’t look out of place in an Abercrombie & Fitch advert.

Then, during a live fire exercise, our outlandishly chiselled protagonist Johnny Rico removes a faulty helmet from a fellow recruit to fix it, before a stray bullet chews the recruit’s head to pieces. Only a few moments before you had seen the cadet joking in the showers and mess hall; now his eyes were rolling into the back of an open skull, overflowing with bloody tissue, and the film’s sun-kissed sheen gets brutally, shockingly wiped away in a flash. And it’s brilliant.

This Paul Verhoeven sci-fi action satire is loosely based on the fiercely rightwing novel that shares its name. It follows Rico in mankind’s war with an alien species called “arachnids” or “bugs” after an attack destroys the whole of Buenos Aires, killing millions. They fight, they lose, they win, but by the end of the film the war is no closer a resolution than it was at the start.

At the time of its release in 1997, the usually febrile US military complex was going through a time of relative slumber, something hard to imagine now. The Gulf war was almost forgotten, Bosnia was winding down, and there were still a few years to go before 9/11 changed the world landscape for ever. Yet Verhoeven’s darkly humorous vision of a dystopian world with a hyper-jingoistic, ultra-violent attitude towards war, propaganda, foreign relations – putting a negligible value on human life – is becoming more and more relatable by the day. It is a world in which you only exist if you’re a fully functioning member of society, or “citizen of the Federation” in the film’s own terms.

The way the film foreshadows the “war on terror” is striking. A righteous war, caused by a seemingly unprovoked attack that kills multiple lives on our soil – later found to be in retaliation to an aggressively probing foreign policy? Check.

A horde of initially enthusiastic soldiers worn down by a less sophisticated but more cunning army that uses its surroundings to its advantage? Check.

Wave after wave of increasingly blunt methods of propaganda? Check.

Essentially, you could swap the word “bug” for “terrorist” in the film and you’d get the western media’s appraisal of the Middle East since the early noughties.

The film was greeted by scathing reviews from critics as esteemed as Roger Ebert, who called it “one-dimensional” and “pitched at 11-year-old science-fiction fans”. But when you watch it now, something I do pretty much on a bimonthly basis, you realise that for a film released in the nineties it’s incredibly sophisticated.

t’s not just that the special effects stand up incredibly well, but even the deliberately OTT acting – hammy and wooden in parts – accentuates the drama. When Rico says: “Dizzy was my friend, she was a soldier, but more than that she was a citizen of the Federation” – at a time when the character is meant to be feeling purely grief – his unwavering commitment to the overarching state hits home.

Verhoeven was praised to the gills by critics for RoboCop, another of his satires on the police state. Yet when he released a film that did so much to puncture the illusion of the military hero, the criticism was vociferous. The film may seem like a chest-thumping celebration of colonialism, a big primary-coloured drum being banged in favour of war’s eternal mastication, but actually it uses the brash tactics of propaganda to show up the ridiculousness of these ideas: ideas that are worryingly appealing to a society driven by ever more fervent tribalism.
Verhoeven was praised to the gills by critics for RoboCop, another of his satires on the police state. Yet when he released a film that did so much to puncture the illusion of the military hero, the criticism was vociferous. The film may seem like a chest-thumping celebration of colonialism, a big primary-coloured drum being banged in favour of war’s eternal mastication, but actually it uses the brash tactics of propaganda to show up the ridiculousness of these ideas: ideas that are worryingly appealing to a society driven by ever more fervent tribalism.
Verhoeven was praised to the gills by critics for RoboCop, another of his satires on the police state. Yet when he released a film that did so much to puncture the illusion of the military hero, the criticism was vociferous. The film may seem like a chest-thumping celebration of colonialism, a big primary-coloured drum being banged in favour of war’s eternal mastication, but actually it uses the brash tactics of propaganda to show up the ridiculousness of these ideas: ideas that are worryingly appealing to a society driven by ever more fervent tribalism.
 

BenAskrensStrikingcoach

Formerly formulating formally
Jan 30, 2015
4,753
5,118
Yeah, I saw it in it's original theatrical run in 1997 I guess it was. Was completely floored by what I wss seeing, and that a film like it could ever be produced and receive major studio backing. Ear to ear grin all the way through and then to read the critics completely miss the boat, almost all of them....pretty discouraging.


I was too young to read critics reviews or even see it in the cinema, watched it a bit later on vhs.

I love it, it is a classic.

Have yet to read the book it is based on, will add it to my list .
 

BenAskrensStrikingcoach

Formerly formulating formally
Jan 30, 2015
4,753
5,118
Watch Starship Troopers now: it’s reality, not sci-fi

Tom Usher

Twenty years ago Paul Verhoeven’s film foresaw the nightmare of the west’s endless war with terrorists. If only the world had recognised its genius

There’s an image from Starship Troopers – 20 years old this week – that has been carved into the walls of my memory ever since I first watched it as an awestruck, acne-ridden teen.

Before this moment we had been treated to a pastiche of Hollywood military training set pieces – goofy recruits, locker-room banter, an unforgiving drill sergeant – propped up in front of cloying high school drama: saccharine romances, competitive sports and innocent musings on the future. And all performed by people who wouldn’t look out of place in an Abercrombie & Fitch advert.

Then, during a live fire exercise, our outlandishly chiselled protagonist Johnny Rico removes a faulty helmet from a fellow recruit to fix it, before a stray bullet chews the recruit’s head to pieces. Only a few moments before you had seen the cadet joking in the showers and mess hall; now his eyes were rolling into the back of an open skull, overflowing with bloody tissue, and the film’s sun-kissed sheen gets brutally, shockingly wiped away in a flash. And it’s brilliant.

This Paul Verhoeven sci-fi action satire is loosely based on the fiercely rightwing novel that shares its name. It follows Rico in mankind’s war with an alien species called “arachnids” or “bugs” after an attack destroys the whole of Buenos Aires, killing millions. They fight, they lose, they win, but by the end of the film the war is no closer a resolution than it was at the start.

At the time of its release in 1997, the usually febrile US military complex was going through a time of relative slumber, something hard to imagine now. The Gulf war was almost forgotten, Bosnia was winding down, and there were still a few years to go before 9/11 changed the world landscape for ever. Yet Verhoeven’s darkly humorous vision of a dystopian world with a hyper-jingoistic, ultra-violent attitude towards war, propaganda, foreign relations – putting a negligible value on human life – is becoming more and more relatable by the day. It is a world in which you only exist if you’re a fully functioning member of society, or “citizen of the Federation” in the film’s own terms.

The way the film foreshadows the “war on terror” is striking. A righteous war, caused by a seemingly unprovoked attack that kills multiple lives on our soil – later found to be in retaliation to an aggressively probing foreign policy? Check.

A horde of initially enthusiastic soldiers worn down by a less sophisticated but more cunning army that uses its surroundings to its advantage? Check.

Wave after wave of increasingly blunt methods of propaganda? Check.

Essentially, you could swap the word “bug” for “terrorist” in the film and you’d get the western media’s appraisal of the Middle East since the early noughties.

The film was greeted by scathing reviews from critics as esteemed as Roger Ebert, who called it “one-dimensional” and “pitched at 11-year-old science-fiction fans”. But when you watch it now, something I do pretty much on a bimonthly basis, you realise that for a film released in the nineties it’s incredibly sophisticated.

t’s not just that the special effects stand up incredibly well, but even the deliberately OTT acting – hammy and wooden in parts – accentuates the drama. When Rico says: “Dizzy was my friend, she was a soldier, but more than that she was a citizen of the Federation” – at a time when the character is meant to be feeling purely grief – his unwavering commitment to the overarching state hits home.

Verhoeven was praised to the gills by critics for RoboCop, another of his satires on the police state. Yet when he released a film that did so much to puncture the illusion of the military hero, the criticism was vociferous. The film may seem like a chest-thumping celebration of colonialism, a big primary-coloured drum being banged in favour of war’s eternal mastication, but actually it uses the brash tactics of propaganda to show up the ridiculousness of these ideas: ideas that are worryingly appealing to a society driven by ever more fervent tribalism.
Verhoeven was praised to the gills by critics for RoboCop, another of his satires on the police state. Yet when he released a film that did so much to puncture the illusion of the military hero, the criticism was vociferous. The film may seem like a chest-thumping celebration of colonialism, a big primary-coloured drum being banged in favour of war’s eternal mastication, but actually it uses the brash tactics of propaganda to show up the ridiculousness of these ideas: ideas that are worryingly appealing to a society driven by ever more fervent tribalism.
Verhoeven was praised to the gills by critics for RoboCop, another of his satires on the police state. Yet when he released a film that did so much to puncture the illusion of the military hero, the criticism was vociferous. The film may seem like a chest-thumping celebration of colonialism, a big primary-coloured drum being banged in favour of war’s eternal mastication, but actually it uses the brash tactics of propaganda to show up the ridiculousness of these ideas: ideas that are worryingly appealing to a society driven by ever more fervent tribalism.
 

megatherium

el rey del mambo
First 100
Jan 15, 2015
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I was too young to read critics reviews or even see it in the cinema, watched it a bit later on vhs.

I love it, it is a classic.

Have yet to read the book it is based on, will add it to my list .
Hah. I was in forties in '97. Yeah I've read it. Almost any other Heinlein story is better, he was brilliant, but Starship Troopers (the book) wasn't one of his standouts.;)
 

BenAskrensStrikingcoach

Formerly formulating formally
Jan 30, 2015
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Hah. I was in forties in '97. Yeah I've read it. Almost any other Heinlein story is better, he was brilliant, but Starship Troopers (the book) wasn't one of his standouts.;)
I was 13, I saw it a few years later, as a young kid I loved it, it only got better as I got older and understood it more.

I'm due a rewatch, definitely getting a rattle when I get home this weekend.

 

megatherium

el rey del mambo
First 100
Jan 15, 2015
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I was 13, I saw it a few years later, as a young kid I loved it, it only got better as I got older and understood it more.

I'm due a rewatch, definitely getting a rattle when I get home this weekend.

Yeah, it's one movie I would definitely watch again. But I hope a few of the folks here give it a watch too. That's the idea.
 

BenAskrensStrikingcoach

Formerly formulating formally
Jan 30, 2015
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Yeah, it's one movie I would definitely watch again. But I hope a few of the folks here give it a watch too. That's the idea.
Definitely, also holds up really well visualy, the siege scene is brilliant.

We have derailed the shit out of this thread though man.

The Turks have marched.

The U.S has washed its hands, sure fuck them, they didn't help with D-Day did they?
 
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megatherium

el rey del mambo
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Remarkable that things today have become so much like life was portrayed in the film. Wasn't like that in '97. The way they roll out the flag and the wounded vets prior to sporting events etc, the endless war against the abstract concept of terror, the ever growing enemies list, the uniformity of political parties' policy platforms,,,
 

megatherium

el rey del mambo
First 100
Jan 15, 2015
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Definitely, also holds up really well visualu, the siege scene is brilliant.

We have derailed the shit out of this thread though man.

The Turks have marched.

The U.S has washed its hands, sure fuck them, they didn't help with D-Day did they?
The Kurds are only fulfilling their historic role as the goons and henchmen for the great powers. Shed no tears for the Kurds. I could go on.
 

BenAskrensStrikingcoach

Formerly formulating formally
Jan 30, 2015
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The Kurds are only fulfilling their historic role as the goons and henchmen for the great powers. Shed no tears for the Kurds. I could go on.
I am well aware, an unusual tactic on the "war on terror" all the same, this will lead to a lot of abandoned prison camps as the SDF defend them selves against the Turkish invasion.

I suppose when the goal is to keep the grinder turning you need to keep ISIS ranks full.
 

Splinty

Shake 'em off
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Dec 31, 2014
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He was doing okay until 14 min when he implied Trump was viewed so favorably by the military. That's not really true. Military members were vverrrrryyyy pro Trump for "no foreign wars, etc" mantra during campaign, but that's evaporated. It's far more split now and represents a lot closer to the electorate. Members largely just keep their mouth shut and professional. But it's not blind love. The guys answer about top mil leaders kissing butt as they go up the ladder and generals being pseudo political position is accurate to common understanding. Not all, but many. And especially generals answer to politicians and often have to be in that world to get things done.

Mattis on the other hand is viewed as a 90%+ favorable as a military leader and his leaving was a huge blow to Trump military member imagery.

I've never met a military member that would be unhappy if Trump totally pulled out of the middle East or rolled 110% forward. Though most lean toward a, "we can't help these people in my lifetime" sentiment. The biggest issue is exactly what the caller states...a lack of mission and cohesive direction is infuriating to the guys on the ground. You need a bad guy, an end point, and to be unleashed.
No baddie, no end point, half in half out. That's a demoralizing position to be in and ambiguity breeds lack of confidence in your troops. Trumps own lack of cohesive messaging in the middle East has just continued the existing morass.
 

Hauler

Been fallin so long it's like gravitys gone
Feb 3, 2016
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Isn't Turkey in NATO? The fuck is going on over there?
 
M

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Isn't Turkey in NATO? The fuck is going on over there?
They buy Russian missile defense systems as well.

And last I checked, the Turks didn't help us at Normandy or in WW2.

The Kurds did defeat ISIS for us, though.