I can't tell you how many times I watched this trailer in my Sophomore year of college. My roommate and I had a VHS copy of Apt Pupil starring Ian McKellan on whom we both had a massive man crush. But for every one time we watched Apt Pupil, we watched the Starship Troopers trailer 6 times, at least.
The trailer had everything a 19-year-old man/boy wants - action, jingoism, pretty people, the promise of gore - but, oh sweet Klandathu, how the movie delivered. How much do I love Starship Troopers? Let me count the ways.
1. Great Creatures - If ST is nothing else, it's a great giant bug movie with plenty of ooey gooey creatures. Drones with razor sharp appendages? Check. Giant beetles who shoot plasma out of their giant bulbous heineys? Check. A brain bug with a front crevice that not so subtly suggests female genitalia? Check.
2. Great Gore - This flicks effects department must have watched Braveheart on Nitrous Oxide. Limbs go flying, legs disappear leaving bloody stumps, people are speared and beheaded and squished and torn apart and a few lucky ones get their brains sucked out with absolutely no morality or apologies. They even spear Jake Busey's hand, which is something everyone can get behind.
3. Great nudity - Throughout the ages, philosophers have pondered this seminal question - how could anyone could hate a movie with a naked coed hard body shower scene? Some people hate this movie...but how? There's men and women, in top physical condition, showering...NAKED! Execution aside, the idea deserves applause. But when pulled off with such finesse, such beauty and such terrible dialogue in between - God, what a movie.
4. Some of the worst dialogue this side of porn - A sampling from the top of my head:
(Dying man holding a grenade) "I came here to kill some bugs, sir!"
(Man shooting) "You want some? You want some? Here's some!"
"They sucked his brains out."
"Bugs don't take prisoners."
"5...4...3...Ready...Steady...GO!"
"I'm not flying with Inez. She's crazy."
"This isn't random or light."
"You've got something to say about the mobile infantry?"
and the immortal
"You don't have what it takes to be a citizen."
Poetry. Sheer poetry.
5. Michael Ironside. WOOOO!
6. A perverse streak a mile wide - Whenever I have to legitimately defend this movie, that is by all accounts the biggest budget B-movie ever made, all you need is three words - Paul Verhoven, fascist. ST is actually a potent political statement wrapped in the dumbest, prettiest, bloodiest package you can imagine for mass consumption by the public. This movie has more to say about the state of fascism than The Manchurian Candidate. It's a parody, but also a straight faced fascist wet dream - a logical consequence to ridiculous rhetoric with bugs instead of liberals.
Don't believe me? Check out every single transmission from the Federal Network, or basic training in general, or Doogie Hauser in full Nazi regalia in specific. The flick is a sci-fi Birth of a Nation with boobies and blood. It's among the smartest dumb movies ever made.
And finally, this sucker is infinitely rewatchable. It's something I average about once every three months since I got it. I have a worn out VHS copy that actually gets fuzzy during some of the battle scenes I've watched 2,000 times. It's fun never diminishes and it never fails to elicit a head shake from my loving wife.
So why bring up this movie now? Because Johnny Rico's back, bitches! I'm so there!!!
Do you want to know more? You bet I do.
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