Starship Troopers - 4K + Blu-ray [4K UHD]

Picture this: you invite someone into your home for dinner, and instead of being gracious, they spend the entire evening openly insulting you. They mock your cooking, laugh at your choice of furnishings, deride your values, all while helping themselves to your booze. I’m sure we can all agree that that’s no ones idea of a good time, and yet that is almost exactly what Dutch director Paul Verhoeven did back in 1997 when he directed Starship Troopers. Perhaps that goes someway to explaining why the film was almost universally panned by US critics of the day, whom to a man refused to acknowledge the film’s explicitly satirical execution and, in the critical equivalent of who smelt it dealt it, instead decided to accuse Verhoeven of making a piece of fascist propaganda. But while the movie’s reputation in the US remains in the gutter, everywhere else in the world this film is seen as a classic, with many considering it to be Verhoeven’s most accomplished American film: it’s more polished than Robocop, not as silly as Hollow Man or Total Recall, nor as vapid as Basic Instinct or Showgirls. Plus the satire is razor sharp.The story is fairly simple: in the distant future, some space Mormons from a now fascist America set up a mission on an Alien planet. The Aliens, construing the outpost as an advance on their home world, retaliate by massacring the Mormons and firing asteroids on earth. Meanwhile in a colonized Argentina, Barbie and Ken are graduating high school where they’ve been educated on a diet of nazi propaganda by the maimed and limbless survivors of some previous, unmentioned conflict. Barbie makes plans to enlist as it’s the only pathway to citizenship and by extension access to higher education or the right to start a family, while idealist Ken follows her for more goofy teen reasons. When an Alien asteroid strikes their city and obliterates their Dreamhouses, Barbie and Ken slowly lose whatever modicum of humanity they had and turn into space nazis. It’s the age old story.From the opening scenes -a shot for shot recreation of Leni Riefenstahl’s work in Triumph of the Will disguised as a mock PSA for army recruitment- through to the astonishingly fascist civics lesson where we’re introduced to our protagonists and their world, Verhoeven’s intentions are clear. By placing the action in a post liberal, right wing dystopia, he avoids the lecturing preachiness of It Happened Here, and focuses his attention squarely on showing us just how merciless and horrifying such a dystopia would be. Concepts like social justice, personal liberty, even love are dismissed in favour of the becoming a citizen: a person who is willing to sacrifice anything -including their life- for the preservation of the body politic. To those unsure which side of the argument Verhoeven himself lands on, he draws a direct parallel between that ideology and the mindless obedience of the icky arachnids, a trait which as far as Rue McClanahan’s scarred biology teacher is concerned, trumps our individualism and superior intellect, and which makes them superior to us.But Verhoeven knows that fascism cannot take hold without the approval -however tacit- of the broader population, so he cannily utilizes the template of the hyper militarized action films of the day, using the audience’s hunger for that type of violent wish fulfillment to point the finger at us. What the critics of the day called propaganda, is actually an indictment on our complicity in the seemingly inexorable march towards totalitarianism. Sure, he thumbs the scale by making the alien arachnids some of the most frightening, least sympathetic antagonists ever committed to film, but by hiding the origins of the conflict in a flawless takedown of the type jingoistic news reporting de rigueur on American networks, he’s encouraging us to look at how easy it is to manipulate us. And funny as it is watching a wild-eyed and hysterical Donna Reed type encouraging her kids to squish bugs, Verhoeven is asking us to recognize that by priming people from birth to accept the use of force as some sort of virtue, it’s all too easy to convince people that war and its attendant atrocities are justified and justifiable. The human wreckage this ideology has wrought is seen everywhere, from Micheal Ironside’s missing arm and Rue McClanahan’s disfigured face, to a quadriplegic recruitment officer unironically exclaiming that “the mobile infantry made me the man I am today” Verhoeven is asking us to question how we’re being manipulated, because pursuing this type of ideology is like wielding a knife without a hilt- just as likely to hurt you as it is your enemy.But this is a Paul Verhoeven movie, so all this satire is dressed up in some of the most exciting and explicitly violent action ever put in a mainstream Hollywood movie. The grotesque and terrifying effects by legendary effects artist Phil Tippit (who’s work includes the Raptors in JP and the AT-AT walkers in ESB) are astonishing even by today’s standards, and would give any modern MCU cartoon a run for their money. This truly is a fantastic film, get it in the best format you can and strap in, it’s one hell of a ride!

This is the first 4k blu ray I've ever bought, because finding a region 1 standard one is hard to get. I couldn't believe how hard to find a blu-ray copy of this was to find. It's not on any of the free streaming channels (I think Amazon has it for $4). Hopefully, with the renewed interest a re- release is in the cards.I don't know if it's truly fair to call Starship Troopers underrated. It's well known and often beloved. It's highly quotable and meme-able. If you say "I'm doing my part!" or "Would you like to know more? " people get the reference. It didn't do well on release because critics didn't understand what it was. It's a propaganda film in the universe. That's why all the main cast are so attractive and capable. Director Paul Verhoeven makes fascism look heroic and appealing, because that's what a fascist government would put in a military recruitment film.It's also a hell of a lot of fun to watch. Plenty of violence, gore and nudity mixed with dark humor. Heroic soldiers are gruesomely torn to shreds in order to make you, a loyal citizen, angry and terrified of the bug menace. The bugs themselves tend to explode satisfyingly when shot, stabbed and nuked. It's never clear exactly who the bad guys are if you look past the surface message. But that's the point.If you're here because of Helldivers 2, you might be disappointed by the lack of robots, so you might want a copy of The Terminator as well. But since that game takes SO MUCH inspiration from Starship Troopers for its world building, this movie is almost mandatory viewing for managing democracy. If you're a sci-fi fan, a military fan or a subtext fan, this is a great movie for you.

Excellent movie, fist time I have watched when i am studying masters..now i am 48 :)