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Starship Troopers

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I have never seen the movie or read the book.

I guess I should?

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Not the cleanest split, but it seemed like there was enough discussion specifically about Starship Troopers to split it out into a thread!

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I have never seen the movie or read the book.

I guess I should?

Both!

Yes to this! The film is great, and the book is a fantastic read. Very quick (well, it's a short bloody book) and a great example of how much fun Heinlein can be.

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I loved the film, especially as it fun to rewatch and notice so much innocuous dialogue become quite sinister.

The book, I don't like so much. There are some creepy things in there and Heinlein has a boner for a military controlled state. One bit that stuck out in my mind was a fight that breaks out between the soldiers and some navy. Admittedly (and kind of disgustingly) the navy start it first but the soldiers destroy them. They are exonerated because they are soldiers and the navy guys should have known not to provoke them. The way it is told is very uncomfortable for me and it coloured a lot of the rest of the book.

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I read the book for the first time a couple of months ago, and the gung-ho authoritarian elements weirded me out a bit, too. There's also barely any character development.

I've never really been a fan of military fiction.

I can appreciate how it helped set the template for a bunch of stuff that I do like, so there's that. There are some interesting concepts, and it's cool that the protagonist isn't white.

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Hate the movie (but I get it) and love the book... well at least in highschool.

Would love to see the real thing as a movie one day, they are just two distinctly different things that really shouldn't be associated with each other anymore.

I don't know why so many people can have an issue with a fantasy about a facist militaristic state with Starship Troopers, but then play the shit out of Halo and Modern Warfare (not refering to anyone here). Just because one was smartly written and the other is popcorn games doesn't make much of a difference, I like the ideas proposed in Starship Troopers(the book) in fiction, so I don't care what it's trying to say since it was interesting and cool scifi.

Maybe that's the same reason I like Mel Gibson movies, I dunno,

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I don't know why so many people can have an issue with a fantasy about a facist militaristic state with Starship Troopers... I don't care what it's trying to say since it was interesting and cool scifi.

Maybe that's the same reason I like Mel Gibson movies, I dunno,

I don't want to seem like I only enjoy the creations of people who I agree with. What I thought was weird wasn't so much the message itself, but the way it's presented. It's very one-sided and preachy. The political ideas aren't challenged in any way, so they don't have to be proven. I kept thinking some kind of counterpoint would show up, but it's the same spiel all the way through. It's boring.

I wasn't crazy about the movie, but I like the satirical elements.

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I can understand hating something because it's preachy.

For some reason, a couple years ago, I decided to force Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series down my throat. On a friend's recommendation, I read the first book, and thought it was... okay. I went on to read the rest, and discovered it was just some preachy "people gotta stand up for themselves or they aren't worth saving" gibberish the entire goddamn time like EIGHTY THOUSAND BOOKS OF IT or that's just what it seemed like at the time. Otherwise, it would've been a mediocre, flawed, but fun ride through yet another fantasy world. There were other enormous problems, too, (including preachiness of other philosophies) but that's pretty much all I remember at this point.

I still have yet to watch or read Starship Troopers!

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Terry Goodkind is really, really into teaching young adults self confidence by killing everyone in his books.

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I don't remember that many people dying. Or at least, not many of the characters actually important to the story as more than a plot device.

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I don't remember that many people dying. Or at least, not many of the characters actually important to the story as more than a plot device.

Oh no, there is plot armour galore in the Sword of Truth series. Gods forbid you shouldn't get a particularly weird name though. Bob? Dead in a chapter. Shalanroasj? Most powerful wizard ever.

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Oh no, there is plot armour galore in the Sword of Truth series. Gods forbid you shouldn't get a particularly weird name though. Bob? Dead in a chapter. Shalanroasj? Most powerful wizard ever.

Haha yes that was another one of my problems. THE NAMES. Except for Richard. Zed is almost okay until you learn his full name.

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What I thought was weird wasn't so much the message itself, but the way it's presented. It's very one-sided and preachy. The political ideas aren't challenged in any way, so they don't have to be proven. I kept thinking some kind of counterpoint would show up, but it's the same spiel all the way through. It's boring.

Every Heinlein book I've read is that way. He weaves his politics into his stories and there is usually some sort of Mary Sue type character (Dubois, Jubal Harshaw, The Professor) who is basically Heinlein himself preaching to everyone in the book. IMO, Roddenberry was guilty of this too in Star Trek, but Star Trek manages to not brow beat you with its politics quite as much, so it's more digestible. And it probably doesn't hurt that I tend to agree with Roddenberry's politics more than Heinlein's.

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Star Trek did offer differing points of view, too. Bones and Spock were two opposites... Although I would never think of Star Trek and think "politics!" :)

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Star Trek did offer differing points of view, too. Bones and Spock were two opposites... Although I would never think of Star Trek and think "politics!" :)

How very wrong you are, TP. Star Trek is all about sociopolitcal views, wrapped in a nice, campy shell so that's it easy to (and you should) ignore them.

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The latter two had very obvious connotations for me but "A Private Little War" was somewhat less immediately recognisable. Is it just meant to be an indictment of the way western countries have armed developing countries for their own interests in the past? Certainly it's something the US did a lot to try to push back communism, and that would be at around the right time for Star Trek I suppose.

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The latter two had very obvious connotations for me but "A Private Little War" was somewhat less immediately recognisable. Is it just meant to be an indictment of the way western countries have armed developing countries for their own interests in the past? Certainly it's something the US did a lot to try to push back communism, and that would be at around the right time for Star Trek I suppose.

A Private Little War is a commentary on proxy wars, yes.

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Well yeah, but put it in context. It aired during the height of American involvement in the Vietnam War in particular. The Tet Offensive was underway.

It was kind of a big deal! (I mean Vietnam was a big deal, not Star Trek.)

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How very wrong you are, TP. Star Trek is all about sociopolitcal views, wrapped in a nice, campy shell so that's it easy to (and you should) ignore them.

Yep, you're right. There was plenty of politics in Star Trek. My bad. The thing is that is always seemed really "lite", rather than a deep exploration of them. To me at least. I've not seen that many episodes.

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Yep, you're right. There was plenty of politics in Star Trek. My bad. The thing is that is always seemed really "lite", rather than a deep exploration of them. To me at least. I've not seen that many episodes.

The politics on display (Roddenberry's) were never shoved in your face (with a few sad/comical exceptions like Let That Be Your Last Battlefield), but they were always lingering just below the surface if you went looking for them. Thankfully, it's easy to not do that and just enjoy Shatner being Shatner.

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Roddenberry had nothing to do with Voyager, and neither should anyone else.

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