1996, the best year in movie history, pt. 92: Starship troopers
Well, that was a ludicrous display. Palmeiras 4, Liga 0. The Brazilians advance, 4–3 (on aggregate).
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Happy Halloween. This month, I review a 1997 movie with the IMDb description, “Humans, in a fascist militaristic future, wage war against giant alien bugs.”
“Fascist” – or something else? “Advanced neoliberal,” perhaps? That would make the movie a more pointed commentary on its time.
(“Neoliberalism” has several definitions, but the most common one is something like “the pursuit of economic integration on a global scale” – capitalist economic integration, to be precise. Warring doesn’t come into the definition, but it certainly has aided capitalist powers in establishing and maintaining their trade networks.)
Globalist capitalism appears to have triumphed so comprehensively in Starship Troopers that the planet’s cities have become indistinguishable. Our young protagonists hail from Buenos Aires but speak in English and look and act like stereotypical rich kids from Southern California. Most are concerned, not with the polis – the “Federation” – but with personal projects and desires. They aren’t nationalists, racists, or devotees of a “Great Leader”; but the common good isn’t foremost in their thinking, either.
The most ambitious high school graduates are willing to endure privation in order to rule. In the Federation, military service is what confers “citizenship” – roughly, the right to extend one’s influence by other means than capitalist free exchange. (This is my characterization. The movie doesn’t state this rather abstract notion in so many words.)
Hence: voting, governing, teaching, and childrearing are permissible only for the few. The violence-wielders. The warriors.
Domination is the basis of the global order. All pretense to the contrary has been dropped.
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This is made clear during a high school civics lesson:
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Ideological stage-setting occupies the movie’s first half. The second half is given over to Humanity’s war against the Bugs, in scenes that manage to be cartoonish but also, dare I say, sublime.
The troopers land on a craggy desert planet. Most carry only machine guns – mere pea-shooters (the Bugs’ exoskeletons are bulletproof). The slaughter of Humans is terrible but not terribly affecting. Troopers are impaled and burned. Their brains are sucked out. Their limbs and heads are severed. Such things do happen in combat (well, maybe not the brain-sucking). I don’t know if they look ridiculous in real life. They do onscreen.
The sublimity of these scenes comes from seeing Bugs cover the landscape. The troopers’ situation is grave – tragic, even.
It ought to dawn on these soldiers – aspiring citizens, i.e. dominators – that they’ve been brought in as Bug fodder. Being dominated is their lot, as it is that of enemies and civilians. High-ranking warriors dominate their subordinates: they “play God”; they delegate suffering and death to the lower ranks while uttering platitudes about the good of the species. To the audience, these platitudes ring hollow since the species is evidently not very concerned about the common good.
But a curious thing happens. Maybe it happens in real life, too. The troopers – not the lofty generals, colonels, and starship captains, but those belonging to the lowliest infantry ranks – develop something akin to altruism. Faced with likely death, they become intensely loyal to their unit. They assume responsibility for the well-being of civilians – those whom they’d set out to dominate. I say this is akin to altruism because they still have no sympathy for the enemy. But it’s something.
There are viewers who interpret the whole movie cynically, who read the pervasively campy, mocking tone as applying to everything that happens. (It’s well known that the director, Paul Verhoeven, was deliberately subverting the jingoistic 1959 novel by Robert A. Heinlein.)
They have a strong case. Why are Humans and Bugs at war? Not just because the Bugs bombed Earth (but did they? see the last video below). Rather, because Humans first encroached. Encroaching is what Humans do. In particular, it’s what expansionist capitalists do. (Recall Hannah Arendt’s quotation of Cecil Rhodes: “I would annex the planets if I could.”) It’s briefly noted, early on, that a group of rogue Mormons has attempted to settle in Bug territory. Their foray may have been illegal and ill-considered, but the other Earthlings are happy to endorse it – post hoc – with force. Doing so allows them to flex military muscle abroad and at home. By implication, this isn’t the first expansionist war against residents of other planets, and it won’t be the last. The troopers themselves may develop noble, self-sacrificial ideals, but these just serve a regime of mostly selfish, violently competitive individuals doing land grab after land grab.
I don’t say the movie doesn’t intend to make these points, but I’m not sure that it doesn’t regard the troopers’ ideals as something valuable.
There’s a romantic subplot. Johnny (Casper Van Dien) loves Carmen (Denise Richards). Carmen, a selfish careerist, is on track to become a military starship pilot. Johnny doesn’t have the test scores for that, so he joins the infantry; he can at least become a citizen like Carmen. Dizzy (Dina Meyer, from Dragonheart) loves Johnny. She could become a professional athlete, but instead she joins the infantry so she can be near to Johnny. She knows that Johnny loves Carmen, but she pursues him anyway, even if it means dying. Here is self-sacrifice, born not out of servility to dominators or the trauma of war or hopeless nearness to death, but autonomous and unconcerned with death. Here is something good.
The classroom scene:
A relatively tame (still gruesome) battle scene:
One of 10,000 “fan theories” from the Internet:
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Happy Halloween. This month, I review a 1997 movie with the IMDb description, “Humans, in a fascist militaristic future, wage war against giant alien bugs.”
“Fascist” – or something else? “Advanced neoliberal,” perhaps? That would make the movie a more pointed commentary on its time.
(“Neoliberalism” has several definitions, but the most common one is something like “the pursuit of economic integration on a global scale” – capitalist economic integration, to be precise. Warring doesn’t come into the definition, but it certainly has aided capitalist powers in establishing and maintaining their trade networks.)
Globalist capitalism appears to have triumphed so comprehensively in Starship Troopers that the planet’s cities have become indistinguishable. Our young protagonists hail from Buenos Aires but speak in English and look and act like stereotypical rich kids from Southern California. Most are concerned, not with the polis – the “Federation” – but with personal projects and desires. They aren’t nationalists, racists, or devotees of a “Great Leader”; but the common good isn’t foremost in their thinking, either.
The most ambitious high school graduates are willing to endure privation in order to rule. In the Federation, military service is what confers “citizenship” – roughly, the right to extend one’s influence by other means than capitalist free exchange. (This is my characterization. The movie doesn’t state this rather abstract notion in so many words.)
Hence: voting, governing, teaching, and childrearing are permissible only for the few. The violence-wielders. The warriors.
Domination is the basis of the global order. All pretense to the contrary has been dropped.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
This is made clear during a high school civics lesson:
The teacher (Michael Ironside), a grizzled old soldier, delivers his lesson sternly, compellingly. It sounds better than it looks on the page. I can think of a few objections to the argument. But then I imagine the teacher knocking me out cold with his arm-prosthesis: “I refute you thus.”TEACHERAll right, let’s sum up. This year we explored the failure of democracy: how our social scientists brought our world to the brink of chaos. We talked about the veterans, how they took control and established the stability that has lasted for generations since. You know these facts, but have I taught you anything of value this year?(To a student)You. Why are only citizens allowed to vote?
FIRST STUDENTIt’s a reward. Something the Federation gives you for doing federal service.
TEACHERNo. Something given has no value. When you vote, you are exercising political authority, you’re using force. And force, my friends, is violence. The supreme authority from which all other authorities are derived.
SECOND STUDENTMy mother always told me that violence doesn’t solve anything.
TEACHERReally? I wonder what the city founders of Hiroshima would have to say about that.(To a student)You.
THIRD STUDENTThey wouldn’t say anything. Hiroshima was destroyed.
TEACHERCorrect. Naked force has resolved more conflicts throughout history than any other factor. The contrary opinion, that violence doesn’t solve anything, is wishful thinking at its worst. People who forget that always die.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Ideological stage-setting occupies the movie’s first half. The second half is given over to Humanity’s war against the Bugs, in scenes that manage to be cartoonish but also, dare I say, sublime.
The troopers land on a craggy desert planet. Most carry only machine guns – mere pea-shooters (the Bugs’ exoskeletons are bulletproof). The slaughter of Humans is terrible but not terribly affecting. Troopers are impaled and burned. Their brains are sucked out. Their limbs and heads are severed. Such things do happen in combat (well, maybe not the brain-sucking). I don’t know if they look ridiculous in real life. They do onscreen.
The sublimity of these scenes comes from seeing Bugs cover the landscape. The troopers’ situation is grave – tragic, even.
It ought to dawn on these soldiers – aspiring citizens, i.e. dominators – that they’ve been brought in as Bug fodder. Being dominated is their lot, as it is that of enemies and civilians. High-ranking warriors dominate their subordinates: they “play God”; they delegate suffering and death to the lower ranks while uttering platitudes about the good of the species. To the audience, these platitudes ring hollow since the species is evidently not very concerned about the common good.
But a curious thing happens. Maybe it happens in real life, too. The troopers – not the lofty generals, colonels, and starship captains, but those belonging to the lowliest infantry ranks – develop something akin to altruism. Faced with likely death, they become intensely loyal to their unit. They assume responsibility for the well-being of civilians – those whom they’d set out to dominate. I say this is akin to altruism because they still have no sympathy for the enemy. But it’s something.
There are viewers who interpret the whole movie cynically, who read the pervasively campy, mocking tone as applying to everything that happens. (It’s well known that the director, Paul Verhoeven, was deliberately subverting the jingoistic 1959 novel by Robert A. Heinlein.)
They have a strong case. Why are Humans and Bugs at war? Not just because the Bugs bombed Earth (but did they? see the last video below). Rather, because Humans first encroached. Encroaching is what Humans do. In particular, it’s what expansionist capitalists do. (Recall Hannah Arendt’s quotation of Cecil Rhodes: “I would annex the planets if I could.”) It’s briefly noted, early on, that a group of rogue Mormons has attempted to settle in Bug territory. Their foray may have been illegal and ill-considered, but the other Earthlings are happy to endorse it – post hoc – with force. Doing so allows them to flex military muscle abroad and at home. By implication, this isn’t the first expansionist war against residents of other planets, and it won’t be the last. The troopers themselves may develop noble, self-sacrificial ideals, but these just serve a regime of mostly selfish, violently competitive individuals doing land grab after land grab.
I don’t say the movie doesn’t intend to make these points, but I’m not sure that it doesn’t regard the troopers’ ideals as something valuable.
There’s a romantic subplot. Johnny (Casper Van Dien) loves Carmen (Denise Richards). Carmen, a selfish careerist, is on track to become a military starship pilot. Johnny doesn’t have the test scores for that, so he joins the infantry; he can at least become a citizen like Carmen. Dizzy (Dina Meyer, from Dragonheart) loves Johnny. She could become a professional athlete, but instead she joins the infantry so she can be near to Johnny. She knows that Johnny loves Carmen, but she pursues him anyway, even if it means dying. Here is self-sacrifice, born not out of servility to dominators or the trauma of war or hopeless nearness to death, but autonomous and unconcerned with death. Here is something good.
The classroom scene:
A relatively tame (still gruesome) battle scene:
One of 10,000 “fan theories” from the Internet: