Paul on Starship Troopers

I love long hair. I just I can't tell anything with that little uh you know whatever, that that little sprout on top. So I would like to see it long. It's it's at the in between stage, so I'll give it some time and okay, fully fully blossom. Well, don't cut it before you let me see it and it's in its full glory. Oh, I won't, don't worry. How you doing, I'm good man, it's good to be back.

It's good to talk to you. Yeah. So we're gonna be talking about Starship Troopers and Paul, I thought I would uh start off the show doing something a little different. I posted it coming soon Starship Troopers on the movie crush page, and I thought we'd just read through a few of these comments to get us going. If that works for you. Yeah, I actually just I saw that right before I went on here. I saw you a lot of a lot of comments when you posted that,

which was exciting. Yeah. So, Philip Mosley says, amazing you kill bugs. Good. Our old friend Lisia Lisa to Sheriff says, another movie I watched away way too young. Mark Colbinson says, just happened to have rewatched it and it was guy damn fantastic, can't be over the top, hilarious in all the right ways, and a badass sci fi action movie to boot. Roger Dodger says, at the age I saw it, I didn't realize it was a satire. Maybe I should give it another watch. Yes, Roger, give it another watch.

Let's do a couple of more here. Um. David Linquist Dave says, this movie just gets better and better with age. I think that's probably yeah. Uh. Mike Dancy said, that's the movie that made me fall in love with redheads? Is the one? Lady? Is she a redhead? She looked kind of like a brunette. Was she redhead? I guess she Dizzy Dizzy is a redhead? Yeah, okay, I couldn't quite tell. Uh. And let me see our old friend Gail. The danger of n Kuntz, says Stevie. Nick sings like

a goat. I don't know what that has to do with anything. I don't either, but people are excited about this one, Paul, and I revealed to you something that I will reveal to everyone else. Up until last night, I had never seen Starship Trooper. I know. Yeah, I was surprised. I was too. And and here's the deal. I was not um. I was living in New Jersey. It was post college for me, and I did not all.

I think I was a victim of the reviews, which were I think it's safe to say that the most critics didn't get it as a satire, and they just said, boy, this is some pretty stiff acting and kind of an over the top, goofy sci fi war action movie that's really sort of jingoistic and imperialistic and hits all the wrong notes. And so I heard all that, and it was kind of one of those famous movies of the late nineties that was kind of up there with show Girls as far as like, it's supposed to be really,

really bad, so I just didn't bother. But um, boy, dude, I love this movie. It was great. Yeah, I'm glad. I'm glad to hear you say that. You know, I didn't see it until probably sometime within the past six months myself. Okay, I didn't see it when it popped

up on Netflix a few months ago. When I watched it, and I had kind of known about it in the same way you had, as this poorly received at the time of release, but one of those hey it's actually really good movies that's been sort of rehabilitated as the years have gone by. Total people have gone to bat for it and um. In fact, when I watched it,

I actually hadn't seen much Paul Verhoven at all. But um, since then, just within the past few months, I've kind of gone on a binge of his work, so I've caught up with you know, all the big ones, you know, RoboCop, show Girls, Basic, Basic Instinct, uh, and this one and um one or two more. Yeah, and I pretty much love all of them, to be honest. Yeah, I mean he is uh, he's Dutch. He is as a screenwriter and director and producer. Uh. He grew up in Nazi

occupied um, dutch Land, Netherlands, Holland. I think, yeah, in Holland. I was just kidding. Um, it's a country of many names, but Dutch dutch Land isn't one of them. But uh, and you see a lot of that thread and the impact I think of growing up and Nazi occupied country sort of sprinkled throughout certainly works like this and RoboCop. Um. I haven't seen show Girls. Actually I should check that out because dude has a way of going over the top.

I've always loved Total Recall. UM, and RoboCop is excellent. But RoboCop Total Recall and then Starship Troopers kind of finishes out what's known as his kind of dystopian sci fi satire trilogy. Yeah. Yeah, and UM it's interesting to how, um, I was reading some of the contemporary reviews of some of these movies and how RoboCop was pretty well received when it came out and people got it. People got

the satire pretty easily. Critics, especially whereas Starship Trooper's they didn't really get it, or some of them, like even like Roger Ebert did say, did point out that there worst satirical elements in it, but it just didn't really click with people, with critics, especially the the what the movie was doing right off the bat. Yeah, Um, I wonder how frustrated he has been in his career to make something like this and have it be kind of

not understood at the time. But then maybe it's good later on because it's a cult classic and everyone gets it now. Yeah. He I've I've recently just watched, you know, a couple of interviews with him. He seems like a very good humored guy that doesn't seem too bothered by it.

For example, Um, show Girls was trashed by everybody when it came out, and in fact it got it got nominated and and one I think for the Razzies, you know, the Worst Movie Awards, and Paul Verhoeven actually showed up to accept the award and like nobody no director had ever actually showed up to the Razzies to accept the award for best or Worst Movie. And I think that just goes that goes to show how he's he's very good natured and has a sense of humor about it. Yeah,

well he's Dutch, they're great. But but yeah, I agree, But I think we shouldn't sell him short because he is a fantastic filmmaker and he's very He's doing a lot of things very consciously. It's not just like it's not like Tommy Wizo making The Room where it's like so bad, it's good. Like he's he's making very conscious choices in his films, especially with Starship Troopers. Yeah, it's a movie that was made in and it's somehow manages to look like it was made in nineteen eight four

at times and two thousand seven at times. Like the visual effects and the and the bugs. That stuff looks really good and it holds up pretty well, I think. Um, but all the rest of this stuff, all the practical uh, the sets and those the school and that football game, and it all looks like early eighties and that may have been I mean, I imagine it was intentional. Um. I don't think he accidentally made a movie that looked

like it was. It was fro But it's weird watching it last night because half the time I was watching all that stuff, I was going, I can't believe the Matrix came out two years later and like Starship Troopers

looks like teen Wolf in a lot of ways. Yeah, and you know that's that's obviously intentional, and I think it's it's playing into the the sort of bright, shiny aesthetic of this this universe he's created, I should say, partially created, because the movie is based on a Robert Hien novel from um which we we should mentioned and also you know, before we can dive into it now a little bit, I guess, but the not you know, it's probably Heinland is one of his most famous novels.

I have not read it, but um, from what I understand, it's a more straightforward take, Like apparently a lot of what happens in the movie is the same as what happens in the book, but it's played more straight. And many have actually accused the novel of being jingoistic, pro military, you know, fascist, uh, pro fascism in some ways. And I've I've got a lot of in my notes here, I've got a lot of great quotes, and I'll just give you one here um about Verhoeven um on adapting

it which it was written by Edward. The screenplay was written by Edward Newmeyer, who also wrote Robocops and Um Paul Verhoeven. When asked about reading the book, he says, I stopped after two chapters because it was so boring. It is really quite a bad book. I asked ed Nwmeyer to tell me the story because I just couldn't read the thing. It's a very right wing book. Wow. Yeah,

that's not what he was doing here at all. Uh. This is a skewering of the military industrial complex and UM kind of everything that we are seeing now more than ever in the United States. UM, imperialism, colonialism, like you said, certainly jingoism, and and all through the lens of these kids who are just so gung ho to go become I think what they called them citizens in

this movie, right, which is very interesting. Yeah, the difference between a civilian and a citizen, uh is that will to become a citizen, you have to uh do military service and only then are you allowed to vote. Yeah. So violence and the war machine is very tied up with UM one's recognition in the body politic as a contributing member to society. Yeah, which is I mean, I'm surprised this was so lost on critics back then that they took it at such face value. It's kind of

disappointing because it is a fun movie. It is very funny. I was laughing a lot, uh, and it really just moves like it was exciting and fun. It is um like all the battle scenes are just so rudimentary and over the top, like there's never any uh strategy. It's just literally people lined up eight inches from each other with machine guns. Occasionally they'll use one of those little mini nukes, but it's really just about shooting machine guns as much as they can with a seemingly endless supply

of ammunition at these things. Yeah, it's the movies kind of. It has sort of a bifurcated structure where it's kind of split into two halves, the first half being you know, training, boot camp and all that, and then once the war begins that kind of takes up the second half of the movie. Full metal Jacket and yeah, you're right, that's a really good point. It is. Yeah, um and uh for me, the first half is much more like out like laugh out loud, funny yeah. Uh, but but the

second half it kind of just grinds you. It kind of grinds away you as a viewer, which is like you know, shooting after shooting after shooting, just taking out bug after bug after bug till it kind of numbs you to the violence, which I think is very intentional totally. And uh, like I said, like the lack of strategy, Like I was kind of laughing last night. I was like, there hasn't been one conversation about strategy and military strategy and maneuvers. It's just mow down everything. And then it

hit me. I was like, well, yeah, of course that's all a part of this subversive satire that he's saying is is that war is dumb, and it is as dumb as sending hundreds of kids with machine guns to fire millions of rounds at thousands of bugs. It's really great, Like what a fun concept. Yeah, and um, I was actually I was watching an interview with Vhoven last night preparing for this, and uh. One of the questions was when did, uh, when did the consensus on the movie

start to change? When did people aren't viewing it begin to view it in a more positive light? And he said his answer was really after nine eleven, and not immediately after nine eleven, but post nine eleven, post the Iraq war. Uh. Kind of on the from the two thousands onward. And I think that's because it became so much more blatant of what the film was doing when you can kind of see it mirrored in real life,

where we're going to war with this enemy. We have to destroy them at all costs to get revenge for the attack they perpelled they perpetrated against us um And I think, you know, I do. It does kind of baffle me how this was all lost on critics in ninety seven. But then I think back to seven, and it was Bill Clinton was president. We were a few years removed from the Gulf War. You know, things were going relatively well for the country. I think nobody thought

something like nine eleven could happen. And I think maybe when the movie came out, people were kind of like, this doesn't seem to reflect, you know, anything about how the world is today. Yeah, I mean those were the

that was the Internet boom. Everyone's bank account was full and flush, and uh, I mean we weren't because we were children, but or you are certainly a child, but I was a young adult and uh, but yeah, those were like the boom times in the early Internet days where everything was kind of going great for a little while and I could see how this didn't really um, I can see how it didn't not only not reflect

but just people didn't get it. Like I understand it now a little bit, but I would think critics would have been a little sharper. Yeah, you know, it's it's it's always hard to tell. And Verhoeven, you know, has has had that streak about him where he does things that in my opinion, he takes very bold leaps as a filmmaker, and I think one of them with Starship Troopers especially, is the acting style he he employed, or all the actors employ, which is I don't want to see.

It's like intentionally, I mean, it's bad, but it's not. I don't know. It walks that line between just like teen soap opera, like all the emotions are or everyone's speaking with hot heightened emotions and yet they all kind of speak them in this just very dead eyed delivery, you know. And most of those main actors had appeared on like shows like nine Beverly Hills and I O

u on oh yeah, prior to this. Yeah, I mean, this leads me to a good point, because I wanted to talk about the cast and the casting and the acting Macaulay Culkin. I don't know if you read his his spiel on this. He is a big, big fan of Starship Troopers and a big champion of it, and he says this, I think a lot of audiences at first didn't know they were watching a political satire because the actors themselves didn't know they were in a satire.

I liked Bear Hoban's philosophy going into this whole thing. It feels like he just hired some soap actors and didn't really tell them that there was going to be a comedic tone. You can't really ask actors to act bad. You just hire bad actors and just don't say anything. And I think that might have been the thing. And he like he went on later in the article to say that I think Neil Patrick Harrison might have been the only one that was sort of had a clue

what was going on. Yeah, I could definitely see that. And you know, I don't want to I don't want to sell the actors short, because while that is true, like the effect it creates is brilliant in my opinion, like the movie wouldn't work without these quote unquote bad performances. But seeing that you know as a as a viewer, it's really hard to know how to take something like that when you're going into something cold. You know, is this filmmaker just really incompetent? Does he not realize what

he's doing? Yeah, I mean, I'm giving the critics a hard time, but I'm trying to imagine in walking into this movie seeing Denise Richards acting like she acts, God bless her, bless her little heart, and Casper Vandan bless his heart, and then leaving the movie theater going what a subversive war satire? How smart of a movie was that? I wouldn't have bought it either you know I would or not. I wouldn't have gotten it. I'll admit that. Yeah.

So so you know, we'll we'll go, well, yeah, we'll try to ease up on the critics from that time, because yeah, it was a different time. We'll say that. Um, one of the things I loved was the same thing RoboCop did was, which was these very campy fake commercials um in this case selling you know, selling the military. And I mean that right out of the gate, it's it seems now just so obvious that this is a

movie not to be taken seriously. Like, you can't be much more obvious than those opening commercials like military or federation recruitment commercials. Absolutely, and uh, you know, at the very beginning it shows, um, everyone's saying, I'm doing my part, and then you see like the twelve year old kid, I'm doing my part, and then everybody laughs like very

like you know, scripted laugh. And I want to talk about that that opening commercial because I don't know if you saw this, but basically that's a shot for Shot preparity slash homage to the Nazi film Triumph of the Will, directed by Lenni Reefinstahl. Yeah, I heard it was very much kind of directly ripped off. Yeah, and there's a there's a YouTube video where somebody kind of plays them side by side, um, and you can kind of see like the shot choices are all the same, the close

ups of the faces and then the flag waving. It kind of it's almost almost a one to one match. And I think that's you know for HOVN you know says it was obviously intentional um as kind of a

a nod to uh, fascist imagery and propaganda. Another thing I really loved was and I talked to work worked really well, for this was the high school angle, um, instead of making it you know, college grads or people that were in their early twenties and sort of like there was really something about the nine O two one oh Archie comics high school thing, and that that first hour that really really worked for me. I thought it was so kind of corny and sweet, and that football

game was just amazing. It's one of my favorite parts. It's so funny when you know, I watched the movie a couple of times now, and when you think about the how football is depicted in this futuristic society where it's played indoors, which you know, arena football does that already, but they play on like a horror a very hard like horror surface or something. Yeah, oh yeah, it's a court. Yeah. And they don't wear face masks. Uh. It's like it

seems like less safe and more sort of like brutal. Right, yeah, and I think, like, I mean, you and I are both pretty big football fans, right, but I will say that, like, if there's one sport that probably would thrive in a society like this, it's this sort of it's it's the one sport where it's just about like you know, hitting each other as hard as you can. It's sort of fosters that animalistic um, you know, got gotta win at

all costs instinct. I think, yeah, it was fun, the the flips and the and the gymnastic moves which come back later on during the war scenes, the battle scenes that the great uh what's his name, Paul or something Muldoon as the other future pilot who was you know, the man I think his name is Xander, and the Yeah, I mean as then for Rico and these Richards, just like she goes up to Rico at one point she's like,

are you jealous? And I was like, well, yeah, you're I fucking this guy right in front of him, like constantly, like of course he's jealous. Yeah, it's great. And obviously that that that antagonism between those two is is carried on throughout the movie. But yeah, it's it's really interesting. The high school stuff. To me, that's like the most fun aspect of the movie and the most the the

funniest for me. Uh. And I think what's interesting about it is that I think there's there's a very strong thematic link you can make between the the overt sort of militaristic fascist imagery of the second half and the first half where it's sort of about how we like to see young attractive people in movies in TV, and it's we want to root for them because they're young

and attractive. And so you find yourself even though you know on a conscious level what the movie is doing, you can't help but especially as the movie goes on, to like want them to succeed and want them to win, even though what they're fighting for and the the ideology they're embodying is is a really nasty one. Yeah. I mean everyone is so ridiculously good looking in this movie. Um, you know, he cast sort of these perfect looking people

to play. I mean, regardless of what you think about their acting, Like they don't like Denise, You never believe for a second that Denise Richards can or is flying those ships, or that Casper van Dean for someone who looks very athletic and has that body, he's very kind of clunky looking when he moves. Um, and kind of everyone, I mean, no one, no one felt like a badass in this movie. Uh. And I think that's got to be purposeful, you know. Yeah, And and also you know,

again to tie it to the sort of Nazi imagery. Um. I think Verhoeven was quoted as saying something along the lines of not just the triumph of the will reference, but having them all be sort of the to put it bluntly, like the perfect area, the embodiment of like the area and perfection of the body, you know, where they're all, Um, they're all just like chiseled, handsome, beautiful, gorgeous people. You know. It's it's it's very i would say,

pretty ingenious on his part. And it's also a military that is completely integrated, um along racial lines and gender lines. And you know that the very funny scene with a group shower where it's, uh, they're all just in their naked together and that no one's making a big deal about it. It's uh, it's it's interesting. I've never seen anything like that. You know. Yeah, that scene is very interesting. And on one hand you can kind of watch it

and view it as like this is really progressive. You know, it's like men and women are naked together and sort of seeing themselves. Everyone's on an equal playing field. You know, there's no sexism, there's no misogyny, and yet um Verhoeven himself actually, um, I've I wrote down another quote here about this the shower scene, where he says the idea I wanted to express was that the so called advanced

people are without libido. Here they are talking about war and their careers and not looking at each other at all. It is sublimated because they are fascists. So it's like the natural like instinct to be attracted to other people is sort of squashed down in the name of like all supporting the nation in the state, you know. Yeah, yeah, like the it's it's so important to them. It's a literal boner killer, you know. And it is like most

military movies. Whenever you see UM, there's a lot of misogyny. And I think in a lot of a lot of war films and military films, UM, and this movie is does not have that. I'll give it credit, you know. Yeah, everyone, it's like everyone, equality is to it canto like the most and degree of extremism, you know. And I gotta I gotta mention one anecdote here which maybe you read about, but um on when they actually filmed that nude scene, uh Verhoeven said that UM one cast member said they

would only get naked if we did, meaning Verhoven himself. Yeah, and he said, I have no problem with taking my clothes off, so he did, so he filmed it in the nude. He said, quote it is strange, but of course Americans get more upset about nudity than ultra violence. I'm constantly amazed about that. I mean, I haven't seen any sex scenes in American film that are anything other than completely boring. A bare breast is more difficult to

get through the sensors than a body riddled with bullets. Yeah, I mean, there you have it. Very European sensibility for sure. And um, you know, I remember you and you and Josh a long time ago did a stuff you should know about the m p A A right, I remember listening to that and how it's it's kind of a

it's messed up the way films are rated. Um, it's a very sort of I don't know, corrupt system, but yeah, it's it's essentially, you can make movies almost as violent as you want, and there's a good chance you'll get a PG. Thirteen. But as soon as you show nudity or set graphics sex or female pleasure in sexual situations, it's like r N c. Seventeen, No questions asked, Yeah, no, absolutely, uh And very Hooven is from a much different mindset, you know. It's just Europeans are way less hung up

on that stuff. Um. Yeah, one of the lines that I liked, And there's a lot of like very corny, funny lines, but there's also some really good lines that I think, in a quote unquote better movie would it would have been had a lot more impact. And one of them is is near the beginning when uh Rico was trying to figure out what he wants to do and he goes to his teacher, who later ends up being you know, back in the war effort. Uh. He says figuring figuring yourself out as the only freedom any

of us really have. And that's like a really great line that has just sort of lost a little bit, and the circumstances is of this kind of campy movie, and I think good line though. It is a good line. Yeah, it's and it's weird how it's used in the context of this movie, because, like you said, in another movie,

that would be kind of a really empowering line. Um. But of course in Starship Troopers, Um, he ends up Johnny Rico ends up in listing just because he's he wants to follow his girlfriend there, and he ends up

not really making that many choices on his own. Um. Someone else pointed out how when he finally hooks up with Dizzy, it's only after um, his teacher again gives him advice where it's like, don't pass up a good thing, and it's like, up until that point, he's not really attracted to her until he gets like permission from from his commander to do it, you know. Yeah, and uh, and then then that extra twenty minutes that he's granted

in the sack. Um. Yeah, the great great Clancy Brown is in this movie just one of the all time great character actors from Highlander and Shawshank Redemption. Um, one of the great bad guys, and here he gets to play the very trophy um tried and true drill sergeant, but in this case it's the drill sergeant doesn't just um emotionally humiliate people, but he gives them compound fractures and knives through the hand. It's so great and over the top. I just loved it. Yeah, it's over the top.

And um, you know, obviously you get the sense that like whenever century this is taking place in, like, it's a lot easier to heal, probably a fractured wrist. Yeah, then you know it's not gonna And even when you see Johnny Weiko get stabbed by the bugs through the leg, you know he gets healed, it's like three days, right, yeah, pretty much completely so, but even still, Yeah, it's like it's like you said, it's it's boot camp taken to

like the extreme of the streams. You know. Yeah, all that laser tag stuff was so corny and looked so uh yeah, I loved all that stuff. I mean those sets were all kind of hokey looking, But like I said, that's contrasted against like when the ship actually goes down in the in the c G I comes in, I thought it was maybe it had even more impact because it could have been you know, very corny stop motioning Jason and the Argonaut style if he was trying to go that direction. But I think I think he did

the right thing by kind of having both worlds in there. Yeah, and and you, like you mentioned at the top um the c G I holds up, it looks I would already argue that a lot of it looks better than some of the stuff you see now. It's sort of like reminds me of the way a lot of the c GI in Jurassic Park still holds up. Yeah, or maybe a terminator to like they used the budget for that really well, and I think it was it was state of the art then and it's it still works,

oh totally. I mean when uh, when the when it's really going down there at the end, they are so outnumbered, like it's it's a fun, campy movie, but I found myself really on edge watching those scenes and just how outnumbered they were. I mean, they were totally screwed and um, they're there. Strategy of just firing bullets at them was not working. They were on the run, you know. Yeah, And that opening the first time they attack the I think it's the main planet of the first attack. It's

sort of like data. It's it's sort of like the opening for Saving Private Ryan, you know where it's which is funny because this actually came out a year I

think before Saving Private Ryan. But you know, they're all strapped in in their ships and it's like the ships are shaking, you know, and they land and it's like they open up the gate and it's just like littered with bugs, and it's just a disaster, Like they barely make any progress before they have to order a general retreat and it's like hundreds of thousands of lives lost.

And then you cut to the news report and the General of the Federation or ever resigns and then they employ they you know, they they promote somebody else us who's like, we have to learn how they think and then we can kill them. Yeah, it's interesting, and I know this is of course part of the whole purposefulness of the mindless of war. But not only was there no strategy, but there was never any There was never any backstory really even about why this was all happening,

what the bugs were, what they wanted. Um, they were just was there. I mean, weren't they just sort of there? Or was it because they were colonizing other planets humans were that's right. Yeah, there's like a few throwaway lines that mentioned kind of the origins of the conflict, where it's basically humans are colonizing further out into the into the gallop into the Solar System, and eventually they encroach upon uh, the world's belonged to the arachnids Presuma and

that's when the arachnids start fighting back. And there's there's a really great line where it's during one of the news reports where um, it's after Buenos Aires has been attacked, and there's that news guy on the ship right before they're about to like set out for their first battle, and he says, you know, some have questioned the the idea that we should retaliate, because you know, some have said, we, uh, the bugs attack, was there retaliating for us encroaching on

their worlds? And maybe a live and let live policy is better. And then Rico kind of jumps into frame and he's like, I was, I'm from Buenos Aireas and I say kill them all? Yeah, that was pretty obvious. Yeah, And it's it's sort of this notion that reminds me of sort of that post nine eleven mindset where it's

like you immediately demonize the enemy. You have to demonize the enemy to justifying your mind the idea of destroying them all, because in this movie, you know, whenever they talk about attacking the bugs, it's never like we're defending ourselves or we just want to restore peace. It's all about the only good bug is a dead bug, we have to kill them all. And that general of the fleet or whatever even says like, you know, humans, uh, we must meet this threat to ensure that humans, not insects,

dominate the galaxy. So it's not just about defending themselves, it's about destroying annihilating the other, you know. Yeah, And and just imagine in this movie with the word Muslim swapped in for the word bug every time they say it, and there's your there's your message right there, you know. And I think, you know, the fact that it is they're really like ugly bugs is a really smart move because it makes it so easy for the viewer to kind of get on the movie side where it's like, oh, yeah,

they're ugly, they're gross, they're they're scary. I do want them to be destroyed. And I think that's the movie sort of genius in that it it's subtly works its way on over the viewer where you kind of find yourself rooting for for these people even though they're ostensibly fascist. You know. Yeah, I thought that was interesting. I also thought it was interesting in their use of the little

mini nuke. I don't know if they didn't have a lot of those, or they seem to be so strategically employed or maybe just seldom lee employed or deployed that it's um, it made me think they didn't have many of them. Otherwise, why didn't they just keep using those over and over? Yeah, that's a good question. I don't know if it's if it's a yeah, supply issue, or maybe they seem to be like pretty maybe there's just

a lot of danger in using them. Yeah, that's their nukes, so there probably could easily be a lot of collateral damage because they had to get the hell out of there every time they used one. Yeah, that's pretty funny. Though. We also got Hank from Breaking Bad. By the way, I don't know if you noticed him. We I've not seen Breaking Bad. Which one Hank? Okay, he was the sort of one of the higher ups, um bald guy higher up above Clancy Brown's character. Oh yeah, yeah, I

just google him. Yeah, he's he's at boot camp. He's kind of yeah, Clancy Brown's boss, sort of the next guy up the chain, his boss. Um. One of my favorite parts too, as far as just terrible goodness, is uh the the sort of the party scene when when the commanding officer is like, you know, here's here's the beer, and here's the entertainment. And Jake BC picks up that electric fiddle and starts playing Dixie. Yeah. Yeah, it's not lost on me what he's playing there so weird and

out of left field. It's like, well, I guess he can play the violin, and I guess they're all going to dance a jig to Dixie. Yeah. And and the way he's uh, the leader says, you know, I expect the best and I give the best. Opens up and it's the keg and he's like, have fun. That's in order. Right, here's a soccer ball of football and a green fiddle. Oh man, it was so good because I mean all of these things are sort of military war movie tropes too.

Like the whole movie is set up like that from the beginning, with the hometown boy going off to war and the friends getting split up into different uh uh platoons or whatever, and then of course you know they're going to come back together at some point during the war, like this is all of this stuff, is right, Or the the party scene where you take a little break from the war and have a little R and R.

It's all right. Out of the military movie trope handbook, UM, which I think is a It was a smart thing to to make it something that was comfortable and known to a movie viewer. I agree, I think, and I think this movie it moves really well, Like it uses all of those established sort of military movie cliches, but like you're never bored, like you you always feel like you're in the hands of a confident director who knows

where this movie is going. Yeah, and even though you know these tropes, you can't kind of can't help it get sucked into them because they're done really well. I think, you know, the battles do kind of like you said, put you on the edge of your seat while you're watching them. Yeah, and you know you're gonna get to see some great kills. Um. I love the use of gore in this movie, ripping people in half, stabbing them through the head, slicing heads off, Like it couldn't have

gone any other way. You know, if you're going to do this movie this way, it had to go to eleven with the gore and the violence, and um, it's it's a lot of fun to see, like the one guy that you just know he's gonna get it, you know, that's all he does is peel away from the infantry just for a moment. Come get some, Come get some. And you're like, oh boy, it's coming, here, it comes. You're just waiting to see how it happens. And yeah, he gets he's the one that gets like torn up

by like a dozen of them. I think, oh yeah, yeah. And then then the day that gets picked up and carried away to by the fly ying bugs. Oh yeah, that was all that was fun too. Yeah, And that's that's sort of excessive violent, successive gore and excessive nudity too. Is is kind of Verhoven's m o um what he's known for. He kind of he kind of loves to play in this sort of sleazy milieu. But he's he's always he's always doing it for a reason. He's always

doing it for a reason. No, totally, he's not just a purveyor of of violence and smut. Um. I think I think it always has an edge and a satiric edge to it, even movie, even a movie like of course Basic Instinct. Um. I wish he was still making these kind of movies. I miss it. Yeah. Here his last movie was called His last movie was three or four years ago, was called L E L L E with um Isabel who pair he made it in Europe. Um,

it's really good. And then he's got another one that was supposed to come out this year, but I think it got pushed back because of the pandemic. But um, it's about a nun. Uh. It's like it takes place in like the sixteenth or seventeenth century maybe, and it's about a nun at a convent who uh has some sort of sexual awakening or something something. So it's it's

another it's another movie. It's sexy Nune in his Yeah, sexy Nune and something in his wheelhouse with probably h you know, interesting explorations of sex, sexuality and probably lots of nudity. Well, let's talk about the ending, the last sort of ten or fifteen minutes of this movie when they introduced the concept of the bugs sucking out the brains and this um for lack of a better word, this uh vagina monster that he sticks on them at the end, which is so clearly what what is he's

trying to show there? I mean it's not like that sort of looks like yeah, I mean that's what Paul Verhoven is doing. There. It looks like a big vaginal spider. Yeah, agreed, I think, well yeah, so so you they introduced the concept of the brain bug, like, uh, and that's you know, a bug that they can actually learn something from because in theory, it's one of the bugs who thinks maybe and they can learn what the bugs want, however, and

how to beat them, you know. Um, and the bugs are obviously doing the same thing with their brain bugs that suck out people's brains. You know, they say they're learning from us, and that's how the um, the roughnecks we were ambushed at that that base or whatever because Rico's rough well it wasn't Rico's Roughnecks at this point

just yet, but yes, Rico's Roughnecks. They heard this distress call and it turns out they get there and one of the guys had his brain sucked out, and um, and they realized that this was a trap that the bugs laid for them, right, and they were all coming back, and that's when you get you know, uh, Denise Richards, of course, you know they're going to reunite. That's when she has to come back with their amazing pilot skills and save the day. Yeah, I hope you a pilot

who's just crazy, you know. He says, like you'd have to be crazy to fly in there. And he says, hope you got a crazy pilot, And of course it's Denise Richards showing up. Yeah. And then they had the lady from Seinfeld, uh that was chopped in half by a door at one point. That was great. She's sort of the lead the lead captain on the on the pilot ship or whatever. Yeah, that was pretty fun too, I agree, But yeah, and then the you know, the end is great because you know, Neil Patrick Harris is

going to come back into the fold. He's reunited with his friends and and what looks like full Nazi Gestapo um uniform. No accident. If the if the satire wasn't obvious by then, it's definitely obvious when he shows up in the the s S uniform. Yeah, full uh full s S and he uh. He goes and he feels the brain monster, who was just apparently now subdued with some simple rope no big deal, just a big rope net and he and he goes, it's afraid. It's afraid.

And that's the big moment of the movie. And I think such the statement um from Verehoven, which is like, it's almost like you want to subjugate your enemy rather than just kill them. You want to make them afraid of you and of your war machine. Yeah. The fact that the movie, the movie presents that moment as like the ultimate triumph. Like as soon as he yells it's afraid, everyone starts cheering because it means the enemy is scared

of them, And yeah, it's this. It's this bizarre moment where you'd think, like, again, let's say this wasn't a big, nasty looking bug. Let's say this was just another human from a different country that looked different from you in a different movie. If you'd say, oh, this person is afraid, it would be that moment of like empathy and identification. This this is another living being that feels things and is is feeling you know, scared and vulnerable right now.

But in this world, it's the ultimate triumph to make them afraid. Like you said, it's not just enough to defeat them. Yeah, it's like we own them now because they're scared of us. Uh, and they have they have no future against us because we own them. So funny, exactly, so great. I'm glad we picked this movie. Paul too, I want to I wanna um before we go here, I want to throw a quote out to you. This is a quote from or it's a quote attributed to France Watch Trufaux And he said, Uh, there's no such

thing as an anti war film. What do you now? What do you think when you hear that idea? I think I disagree? Mm hmm. I mean, is this point that in making an anti war film, it's inherently pro war because it glorifies it a little bit? Yeah, I agree, that's his point. It's like, no matter how anti war you try to make your film, by depicting war, it's inherently uh, showing it in a positive light. And I do agree with you that there are examples of anti

war films that truly are anti war. But I think he makes a really good point that anytime, almost any time you depict combat, unless you depict combat is like either just really boring or just like an absolute slaughter, like you're gonna make war look cool, Like think about Saving Private Ryan, where it's like, yeah, war is hell

and all this stuff. But it's like you come out of that movie being like, oh man, like I wanna, I want to join up and serve for the right cause you know, yeah, it's also because saving Private Ryan. It's like it's brutal, but it's also brotherhood. And it's also like these friendships and admiring this captain who was a teacher, and uh, yeah, I mean I could argue that there are a few war movies that were pretty brutal war as hell, and that was sort of the

only message. But I get where he's coming from. Yeah, I could buy that. Yeah, And it's an interesting thought exercise when you apply it to this movie. And I would actually argue that Starship Troopers is a true anti war film because it doesn't I mean, it doesn't overtly critique it. You know, it doesn't try to slap you on the wrist and say, look at how bad war is.

Instead it's sort of shows you, like, this is the movie that society would make about itself, Like this is how that society sees itself, you know what I mean. And so, uh, there's a quote from Verehoven which I think gets to the heart of this. Um. I've been quoting him a lot here, but m and as we mentioned, he grew up in um, Nazi occupied Netherlands and uh. Michael Ironside at one point asked him, so why are

you doing this right wing fascist movie? And Verehoven said, if I tell the world that a right wing fascist way of doing things doesn't work, no one will listen to me. So I'm going to make a perfect fascist world. Everyone is beautiful, everything is shiny, everything has big guns and fancy ships. But it's only good for killing fucking bugs. That's great. Wow, Well I think that's a good way to end. Um. I'm yeah, I'm I'm glad we got

to cover this. And um, yeah, I hope people who you know, like you said the Facebook comments were really positive about it, so I'm excited to hear what people think about the episode. But you haven't revisited it or watched it at all. Check it out and and I'm curious to hear what you think. Yeah, it's on Netflix. A lot of people have Netflix, so check out. Yeah, that's right. I don't know if it's streaming and Netflix abroad,

but like in the Netherlands, perhaps perhaps. Yeah. Well, thanks for joining me, buddy, and I look forward to another one soon. Yeah, me too, Thanks for having me. It's always fun to do this, all right, Go watch Starship Troopers everyone, and we'll see you next week. Jomy Crush has produced, edited, and engineered by Ramsay Hunt here in our home studio at Pont City Market, Atlanta, Georgia. For

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