Chiggy Posted December 28, 2006 Share Posted December 28, 2006 Starship Troopers is one of my all time fave sc-fi films. Totally slammed by the critics when it came out, regardless I bought the merchandise. It was supposed to be a comic book film that is very tonge in cheek about a fascist regime. I would rate it as the best film I have ever seen at the cinema.......the effects were awesome as you really believe you are involved in those bug battles. I have never read the book which the film is loosely based. The book is supposed to be better than the film so Ive been told, but dont the book worms always tell you that? For those of you have had the misfortune of watching Starship Troopers 2 you will know that this particular film is best left forgotten at the bottom of your video shop bargain bin...........not even the naked lady could save it. It was pants probably because none of the original cast were in it, the acting sucked and the effects were crap. If you havent seen it and you do decide to watch it I would recommend you get drunk first. What you may or may not be pleased to hear is that Casper.........Thats Johnny Rico from the first film, is returning to make Starship Troopers 3. Filming starts next year in April. Who knows if this film will go straight to DVD release or even if its actually worth watching? Might be another Starship Blooper! If its got sc-fi, big guns and ladies you can count me in! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slug Posted December 28, 2006 Share Posted December 28, 2006 There was talk of aproper cinematic sequel for a while but wiki suggest this will be another straight to video hell affair. The guy from the original is certainly not above straight to video land. It still has the potential to be decent, or it needs to make sure that it functions as absolute smut as a fall back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenebrae Posted December 29, 2006 Share Posted December 29, 2006 Reading wiki - the film was actually conceived as something called "Bug hunt" or some such. It bears precious little resemblance to Heinlein's work, except the idea of humanity fighting insects... Why the Heinlein's estate gave up the rights to such a defining work of fiction (science or otherwise) to Hollywood to piss all over, I may never know (well, if it's not money). Anyway, it's clear that Hollywood wanted to make fun of the militarism of the films... I suppose that's ok. The tongue in cheek nature of the film worked for me and I enjoyed it for what it was. The second one was rubbish... third one, well - wait and see. The "Roughneck Chronicles" CGI series was a good compromise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chiggy Posted December 29, 2006 Author Share Posted December 29, 2006 Ive heard some good things about Roughnecks.......I need to see those episodes. From what I can tell its about the characters from the first film.......not the same voices. Lots of episodes to watch. It would be mint if Paul Verhoeven would come back and do a sequal, this time following a closer theme to the book with Power Armour as sort of an advancement in technology for fighting the bugs. Considering I saw the first film in 1997 the effects have stood up very well....its 10 years old! As far as I am concerned there hasnt been a Sc-Fi film made like it although one wonders if a few elements were borrowed from SAAB e.g. The drop ships and rifles for example. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TetsuoShima Posted December 29, 2006 Share Posted December 29, 2006 The "Roughneck Chronicles" CGI series was a good compromise. I think I saw some of those episodes a few years ago, if I recall correctly, I really liked 'em, they were pretty good! As for Starship Troopers 3,...., Let's just say I can't say I have high hopes... (the title alone is enough to be a turn-off) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[MM] Posted December 29, 2006 Share Posted December 29, 2006 Ive heard some good things about Roughnecks.......I need to see those episodes. From what I can tell its about the characters from the first film.......not the same voices. Lots of episodes to watch. It would be mint if Paul Verhoeven would come back and do a sequal, this time following a closer theme to the book with Power Armour as sort of an advancement in technology for fighting the bugs. Considering I saw the first film in 1997 the effects have stood up very well....its 10 years old! As far as I am concerned there hasnt been a Sc-Fi film made like it although one wonders if a few elements were borrowed from SAAB e.g. The drop ships and rifles for example. Paul Verhoeven was involved in making The Roughneck Chronicles - and I thought they were very good myself - unlike the film they gave the impression of a long drawn out campaign and the effect that had on the troops... As for things "borrowed" from ST - the Trooper uniforms were used in the Firefly episode "Train Job" as uniforms for the Alliance troopers.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenebrae Posted December 30, 2006 Share Posted December 30, 2006 It's a shame they didn't finish Roughneck Chronicles... or at least give it a bit more conclusion, they stopped 3-4 episodes short of finishing the last "campaign", which would presumably have given some closure. Yes, Roughnecks - I think it's actually pretty much all on youtube - was pretty cool, I've seen all the episodes they made... and I think that if they redid it now with the CGI quality of Captain Scarlet it would be awesome... mainly because there were times when the bugs just looked AWFUL but then, that's not surprising, it's presumably hard to get a lot of bugs looking good on that kind of budget (budget being what resulted in the show getting prematurely cancelled). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chiggy Posted December 31, 2006 Author Share Posted December 31, 2006 Ive nearly got to the end of the Pluto Campaign of Roughnecks............its not bad considering it was made nearly 10 years ago. My only complaint is the noise of the rifles and the fact that up to now the death toll stands at 0 Troopers 5000 Bugs. The again thats no fault of the production staff I guess I am more used to manga death and destruction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenebrae Posted December 31, 2006 Share Posted December 31, 2006 Oh, I agree... the fact that the squad goes up against a thousand bugs every single episode and never lose ANYONE despite their rubbish weapons is kind of silly - perhaps more than every other TV show... I mean with the Star Trek crews, they only go up against danger every few episodes. I agree, the Japanese seem to manage to kill millions more in manga and anime... and that's probably why it's so often better but even then, main characters don't generally die... and also, you do get units that last through wars. Hell, put enough people in and you'll get some out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest c4evap Posted January 1, 2007 Share Posted January 1, 2007 Oh, I agree... the fact that the squad goes up against a thousand bugs every single episode and never lose ANYONE despite their rubbish weapons is kind of silly - perhaps more than every other TV show... I mean with the Star Trek crews, they only go up against danger every few episodes. I also enjoyed the first movie. As for the Star Trek crews...you are correct there. Maybe it's because they became "gun shy" because they lost so many "red shirts" back in the day :P c4 ::) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenebrae Posted January 2, 2007 Share Posted January 2, 2007 Despite some episodes which portrayed ground combat... it didn't really seem like that big a deal in Star Trek. Presumably because you fly into orbit and blow the bejesus out of your enemy... but then, Trek is kind of fuzzy on how that goes. One assumes that it's pretty much down to the kind of resistance we see in Insurrection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chiggy Posted January 2, 2007 Author Share Posted January 2, 2007 I`ve just got to the end of the second campaign. Some troopers in these campaign are seen to be wounded and a a squad goes missing but all we see are their helmets after the brain bug has had her way with them! Its incredidly annoying how warrior bugs in the first film used to have to be shot a million times before falling down dead yet in the series everyones a crack shot........the bugs take one in the nerve stem every time and thats it! I feel like editing the entire series with the true sound effect for the rifle from the film, it certainly would be more satisfying! The nice thing about this series is that we see a lot more of the technology that probably because of budget contraints we didnt see in the first film. Having said Starship Troopers was a very expensive film to make which is probably why it has stood the test of time. Starship Troopers could have so been an excellent franchise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenebrae Posted January 2, 2007 Share Posted January 2, 2007 Well, Heinlein's novel pretty much established the powersuit in science fiction... and there's even stuff that they don't really show here... mainly the built in weaponry of the suit and its capability to "fly"... more accurately do power hops, like they do in (which they use VERY infrequently). It was pretty inevitable that they were going to have to beef up the weapons - otherwise they'd have the squad overwhelmed frequently. The thing that perhaps most annoyed me about the show is the necessity of an attached journalist whose total uselessness is often a cheap way to generate suspense, although I suppose that it is somewhat tackled. Anyway, it's worth remembering that this is a kids show - you're not going to see graphically mutilated corpses or have a lot of people dying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chiggy Posted January 3, 2007 Author Share Posted January 3, 2007 I think your right it is a kids show and thats what spoils it and why only hardcore fans tolerate it. Perhaps they should finish the series with more gore. Considering it is a kids show theres a lot of gun fire.....even if the sound effects are poxy. One of the reasons why I have never watched the new Captain Scarlett is because I know that show has been aired during childrens viewing hours in the UK. Its funny because when Gerry Anderson was trying to raise money to fund the new series he was asking people to buy shares in magazines which I would consider to be for a more adult audience........I even found an article in an accounting magazine! I guess there must be a lot of big kids out there! Has anyone seen the Troopers table top game? I stopped visiting places like Games Workshop when I was 15 but the Starship Troopers game looks very cool..........shame I'm nearly 30. I always felt sad for those 30 year old blokes hanging around games workshop.....so I must resist! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenebrae Posted January 3, 2007 Share Posted January 3, 2007 Hahaha, Games Workshop - forget the silver ring thing, the greatest way to guard your virginity is spending time around those places. Indeed - The New Adventures of Captain Scarlet did air during some lamentable kid's show (it's not like the old days) but the show itself was pretty cool and really, one should remember that the original was also - essentially - a kids show. Despite that, you do actually get (as in the original) people getting knocked off on a regular basis. Not that it's ever graphic but it's still a very cool show, they've even managed to start to get a handle on CGI explosions. Which is a real relief... let's hope Star Trek can get a piece of that action, they've been using that Wrath of Khan explosion for literally decades. Inevitably, these kind of franchises can slide toward kiddies... it's sad but generally precipitated by money. I think the notion of "adult cartoons" is still kind of slow to catch on in the West. Hell, even when I read that my mind just says "porn" but still. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles started as a comic which was far darker than the original cartoon. The laughable Robocop cartoon pretty much spelt the end of the franchise as the bloody gore fest it started out as... I remember there was a Highlander cartoon that pretty much managed to gloss over the entire decapitation aspect. The list goes on. It's just a lot easier to sell the idea of a kids cartoon with the merchandising that entails. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chiggy Posted January 7, 2007 Author Share Posted January 7, 2007 Sorry to sound very camp...BUT oh my God! I knew Roughnecks wasnt finished but what a cliff hanger............its seams like every show I watch that involves shooting up aliens never gets finished! I kind of got into Roughnecks and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoyed the film. It took me a while to get into it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenebrae Posted January 8, 2007 Share Posted January 8, 2007 I think it's the kind of show that could with relatively little effort have been a real classic. If they had the quality of CGI used in Aurora Trek and just made it a little less PG-13 - as in, have people die, get maimed etc. Also - they made the bugs kind of crazy in some of their abilities. Mainly their ability to breed at some hilarious rate. Silly, really. Especially on the asteroid - actually, that campaign didn't make that much sense anyways. The bugs' ability to adapt to their planets was pretty cool though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Megalith Posted January 8, 2007 Share Posted January 8, 2007 troopers 1 id rate as a 9/10 very underrated as mentioned the sequel i rate at 3/10 if the 3rd one is in between the 2 in entertainment value then i would enjoy it. Haven't seen these roughneck chronicles but it sounds like something to look into, once I've caught up with new BSG that is and a dozen other things i need to get done :) Havent read the book either but yeah is so true the bookies say the book is better than the film. A battle against alien insects is a war that every humanoid can sympathise with. 'Death to the bugs' lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenebrae Posted January 8, 2007 Share Posted January 8, 2007 I think that most people who read the book first (and a lot of people who read it after) for any film (on the assumption that the film is an adaptation, rather than the book being a novelisation) are going to say it's better, generally because it is. As I always say - your imagination doesn't have a finite budget to cope with but really, the original film was very much the Hollywood anti-militarism which is totally in contrast to Heinlein - who was very much against pacifism. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slug Posted January 8, 2007 Share Posted January 8, 2007 This kind of makes me think that the film might be superior to the book, which I have not read. The film would not have had much to say if it had been faithful to the book as you describe it, it would have been inseperable from any John Wayne WWII flick. A lot of people think that the film is dross because the blatant satire goes right over their heads. Whereas in fact the film is a masterpiece. Period. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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