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  #21  
Old 12-18-2010, 06:48 PM
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Originally Posted by BurtReynoldsMoustache View Post
Paul Verhoeven is an objectively bad director. His only "good" movies were RoboCop, Total Recall (both mindless enjoyable action films), and Basic Instinct, which was completely average and only notable for showing Sharon Stone's hoo ha. Starship Troopers was laughably retarded (he didn't even read the original book), Showgirls and Hollow Man (didn't see either of them) were savaged by the critics and are both pop culture punchlines. Everything else he's done is not notable and/or Dutch.
Sorry, but I like "Starship Troopers". It's one of the best mindless sci-fi/action movies from the '90s.
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  #22  
Old 12-18-2010, 07:04 PM
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Sorry, but I like "Starship Troopers". It's one of the best mindless sci-fi/action movies from the '90s.
Will you at least concede that, given the original source material, it was wasted potential?
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  #23  
Old 12-18-2010, 09:22 PM
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Will you at least concede that, given the original source material, it was wasted potential?
I haven't read all of "Starship Troopers" myself (tried to when the movie came out, but it wasn't the kind of novel I could read very well at age 12). However, I think Verhoeven's take on the source material was about as good as anyone could have done. I mean, how do you take a novel which (positively) depicts a quasi-fascist world order, and make a good movie out of it (especially in the 1990s, when everyone looks back on the McCarthyist era with disdain)?
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  #24  
Old 12-18-2010, 09:44 PM
BurtReynoldsMoustache BurtReynoldsMoustache is offline
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I haven't read all of "Starship Troopers" myself (tried to when the movie came out, but it wasn't the kind of novel I could read very well at age 12). However, I think Verhoeven's take on the source material was about as good as anyone could have done. I mean, how do you take a novel which (positively) depicts a quasi-fascist world order, and make a good movie out of it (especially in the 1990s, when everyone looks back on the McCarthyist era with disdain)?
He admitted to having not read the book beforehand, so you can't really call it "his take" on it so much as a reimagineering of a basic synopsis. And there was no reason for it to have been as cartoony as it was. It felt like the bastard lovebaby of Star Trek and GI Joe. Starcraft had a more realistic presentation its story.

And for mindless escapism, Aliens already had that cornered. Starship Troopers was Aliens reduced to the lowest common denominator and then multiplied to the 50th power, glossed over with a sickening sheen of 90210 "for the kids". Ironic considering that Aliens took a lot of its ideas from the original Starship Troopers novel.
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Old 12-18-2010, 10:30 PM
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He admitted to having not read the book beforehand, so you can't really call it "his take" on it so much as a reimagineering of a basic synopsis.
Agreed, but isn't it kind of a moot point, for the reasons I mentioned?

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And there was no reason for it to have been as cartoony as it was. It felt like the bastard lovebaby of Star Trek and GI Joe. Starcraft had a more realistic presentation its story.
I think of it as a "spiritual successor" to "RoboCop" in this regard: It juxtaposes absurdly bloody violence with satire and humor.

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Originally Posted by BurtReynoldsMoustache View Post
And for mindless escapism, Aliens already had that cornered. Starship Troopers was Aliens reduced to the lowest common denominator and then multiplied to the 50th power, glossed over with a sickening sheen of 90210 "for the kids". Ironic considering that Aliens took a lot of its ideas from the original Starship Troopers novel.
Comparing "Aliens" and "Starship Troopers" is a bit extreme. Aside from the fact that they're both sci-fi "bug hunts" and were inspired by the same novel, those two movies are completely different in every other way. (And by that, I don't mean, "Duh, 'Aliens' is good and 'Starship Troopers' sucks.")
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Last edited by MT2008; 12-18-2010 at 10:33 PM.
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  #26  
Old 12-18-2010, 11:03 PM
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I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned Darren Aronofsky.
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  #27  
Old 12-18-2010, 11:15 PM
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I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned Darren Aronofsky.
That's because no one knows who he is
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  #28  
Old 12-18-2010, 11:18 PM
BurtReynoldsMoustache BurtReynoldsMoustache is offline
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I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned Darren Aronofsky.
He's not exactly a member of the IMFDB pantheon. His movies are also pretty inaccessible. Let's go down the list:

Pi: nobody saw it
Requiem For A Dream: good movie, but very nihilistic, favored by film students and recovering addicts
The Fountain: normally when I find a movie that I've never heard of, I'll look it up and think "oh yeah I do remember hearing about this movie way back when it came out", that did not happen with this movie, I haven't heard a single thing about it in the 4 years since its release
The Wrestler: finally some mainstream recognition...
Black Swan: ...squandered on a masturbatory radical feminist rape fantasy, but hey at least it has some lesbian stuff
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  #29  
Old 12-18-2010, 11:25 PM
Zulu Two Six Zulu Two Six is offline
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Black Swan: ...squandered on a masturbatory radical feminist rape fantasy, but hey at least it has some lesbian stuff
lol burt, i love this. welcome back!
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  #30  
Old 12-18-2010, 11:50 PM
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Originally Posted by S&Wshooter View Post
That's because no one knows who he is
Name was familiar to me, but I couldn't match his name to his movies off the top of my head (had to use IMDB).
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