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Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: S-99 on February 22, 2015, 08:45:37 pm

Title: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: S-99 on February 22, 2015, 08:45:37 pm
Been following all of the starship trooper movies. It occured to me that the bugs take several salvos of bullets to take down. Why wasn't explosive ammunition a staple of the federation?

EDIT: When dealing with hordes of bugs, you really don't have time for a well placed shot.
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: An4ximandros on February 22, 2015, 08:53:30 pm
In the books by R.A Hein. They go around fecking nuclear grenades at the bugs from the safety of powered armor.

This is very much a case of Verhooeven giving minimal f***s about R.A.H.'s work.
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: S-99 on February 22, 2015, 09:50:08 pm
Yes, i know the novel is better :lol: However, for the sake of the movies which did their best back in the day with a low enough budget not to have the powersuits. I think explosive bullets would have helped a lot. In fact, it probably wasn't even though of.
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: Scotty on February 22, 2015, 10:07:40 pm
Or they actually are already and bugs are just really tough.
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: Aesaar on February 22, 2015, 10:40:06 pm
You could ask the same question about, say, tanks and AFVs in general.  Or attack helicopters.  Or any means of transportation besides spaceship and walk.

In the books, they didn't need them.  In the movie, they do need them, and they don't have them because Verhoeven put zero thought into it.
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: swashmebuckle on February 23, 2015, 02:08:00 am
Can't show off those chiseled arms and vacant blue eyed faces in power armor. The stupidity of it is a huge part of the point the director was making. Awesome movie.
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: Fury on February 23, 2015, 02:20:02 am
Why wasn't explosive ammunition a staple of the federation?

In fact, it probably wasn't even though of.

Did you just answer your own question? Yes, I think you did.
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: BritishShivans on February 23, 2015, 02:20:51 am
In the movie, they have no explosive bullets... because the entire movie is satire about the military-industrial complex and is mocking militarism.

This is also why everyone constantly underestimates the Bugs and why everyone is so stupid.
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: Mika on February 23, 2015, 03:44:02 pm
In the movie, they have no explosive bullets... because the entire movie is satire about the military-industrial complex and is mocking militarism.

This is also why everyone constantly underestimates the Bugs and why everyone is so stupid.

I think this is exactly what Verhoeven was after. I think he stated that he had attempted to read the Hein's original novel but quit before finishing it - he was simply disgusted by it. I suppose he wanted to make a show of military bravado and stupidity, and succeeded pretty well. I always thought the movie was close to WWI level trench warfare mentality and stupidity to draw parallels to nowadays world. And yes, that stuff has happened several times in the history and will happen again.

All that doesn't make it a bad movie, though. I thought it was a pretty funny and crazy flick when it came.
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on February 23, 2015, 06:14:48 pm
i love how the film starship troopers was pretty much perfectly calibrated to annoy people who liked the book
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: deathfun on February 23, 2015, 10:15:55 pm
i love how the film starship troopers was pretty much perfectly calibrated to annoy people who liked the book

It was a movie...
...of a different calibre
YEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Eh? Eh? Ehhhhhhhhh?
(Because the conversation is about ammunition? And ammunition is distinguished by calibres? Eh? Ehhhh?)
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: deathspeed on February 23, 2015, 10:21:36 pm
i love how the film starship troopers was pretty much perfectly calibrated to annoy people who liked the book

It was a movie...
...of a different calibre
YEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Eh? Eh? Ehhhhhhhhh?
(Because the conversation is about ammunition? And ammunition is distinguished by calibres? Eh? Ehhhh?)

It's a little difficult to gauge the intentions of the author and the producer.
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: Aesaar on February 23, 2015, 10:48:16 pm
i love how the film starship troopers was pretty much perfectly calibrated to annoy people who liked the book
I liked the book because it presents a (very utopian) facsist society that was interesting precisely because it wasn't "lol Nazis" or "lol Communists".

What does Verhoeven do?  "lol Nazis"

So yeah, you might be right, the movie does annoy me as someone who liked the book.  The book was actually intelligent.  The movie wasn't.  Its attempt at critique was as dumb as the movie's actual action is.   It doesn't annoy me because it's a strong counter to the book's message.  It annoys me because it's basically just low-effort trolling.

An intelligent critique of the book might have actually tried to show how poorly the book's society would work in the real world.  But that would require putting actual thought into both the book and the movie.

Or, you know, it could have just been The Forever War.
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: Colonol Dekker on February 24, 2015, 01:09:04 am
It has Denise Richards boob squeeze deleted scene...
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: swashmebuckle on February 24, 2015, 02:27:29 am
An intelligent critique of the book might have actually tried to show how poorly the book's society would work in the real world.
Would anyone actually want to see that movie? I think doing a critique of this totally fanciful political system in space would be pretty much audience poison, especially if you're gonna call it Starship Troopers. The goal (and the only reasonable goal if your movie is named Starship Troopers) was to make a popcorn blockbuster. They found a blockbuster guy who had first hand experience with fascism to direct, and he thought the book was really stupid and made the movie he wanted. This is an awesome way to make a film, and IMO the wonderfully vacant splatterfest that resulted was way better than any serious movie treatment of the material could hope to be, whether it argued for or against the "source" book.
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: Mars on February 24, 2015, 06:58:07 am
And this is why we have Micheal Bay.
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: Aesaar on February 24, 2015, 09:02:57 am
Would anyone actually want to see that movie? I think doing a critique of this totally fanciful political system in space would be pretty much audience poison, especially if you're gonna call it Starship Troopers. The goal (and the only reasonable goal if your movie is named Starship Troopers) was to make a popcorn blockbuster. They found a blockbuster guy who had first hand experience with fascism to direct, and he thought the book was really stupid and made the movie he wanted. This is an awesome way to make a film, and IMO the wonderfully vacant splatterfest that resulted was way better than any serious movie treatment of the material could hope to be, whether it argued for or against the "source" book.
Why call it Starship Troopers at all, then?  The movie has nothing in common with the book except the name of the protagonist.  It doesn't challenge the book's ideas in an intelligent way, it doesn't have the same plot, it doesn't have power armor (arguably the book's biggest contribution to SF).  If the two didn't have the same name, I don't think anyone would have made the connection between them.

Hell, I'd be prepared to say WH40k presents more intelligent and pertinent criticism of Starship Troopers' ideas than the movie does.  And that's saying a lot.
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: deathfun on February 24, 2015, 11:52:29 am
Would anyone actually want to see that movie? I think doing a critique of this totally fanciful political system in space would be pretty much audience poison, especially if you're gonna call it Starship Troopers. The goal (and the only reasonable goal if your movie is named Starship Troopers) was to make a popcorn blockbuster. They found a blockbuster guy who had first hand experience with fascism to direct, and he thought the book was really stupid and made the movie he wanted. This is an awesome way to make a film, and IMO the wonderfully vacant splatterfest that resulted was way better than any serious movie treatment of the material could hope to be, whether it argued for or against the "source" book.
Why call it Starship Troopers at all, then?  The movie has nothing in common with the book except the name of the protagonist.  It doesn't challenge the book's ideas in an intelligent way, it doesn't have the same plot, it doesn't have power armor (arguably the book's biggest contribution to SF).  If the two didn't have the same name, I don't think anyone would have made the connection between them.

Hell, I'd be prepared to say WH40k presents more intelligent and pertinent criticism of Starship Troopers' ideas than the movie does.  And that's saying a lot.

Because a movie based on a book can't have it's own take on the idea right?

Key word here: Based, not followed to a tee

Take a look at the Bourne Trilogy. Starts off sort of in line with the book, then breaks off as a tangent and no longer follows the trilogy in the slightest. Anyone complaining? I'm not. I liked the books, I liked the movies. Did the changes work for the movies? Yes

Book fought bugs, movie fought bugs. There's the connection you could easily make Aesaar. It's also the only one you'll need.

There's also no rule that a movie can't change nearly everything and just maintain certain concepts from the book.
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: Aesaar on February 24, 2015, 12:20:03 pm
So what if there's no such rule?  That doesn't mean it can't be a really ****ty adaptation.

What I'm saying is that it's so ****ty an adaptation that it may as well not be one.
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on February 24, 2015, 02:51:27 pm
It clearly gains something from its association with the book, because the combined dialogue on fascism is by far the most interesting thing about either.
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: Scotty on February 24, 2015, 05:15:23 pm
Sure, in the same way that the pond in my backyard and the Pacific ocean can have a good combined dialogue on the percentage of earth's surface they cover.  One of them presents a meaningful (if not particularly agreeable, going for the "I agree with this" definition) dialogue, the other goes "lol they're almost nazis" and then blows a bunch of **** up.

The title is the same.  The characters have similar names.  They fight "bugs".  That's where the meaningful similarities end.  I'm not about to congratulate the movie for putting forward the least required effort on the subject to make it a "dialogue".
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: Scourge of Ages on February 24, 2015, 07:37:44 pm
It's an entertaining movie, and it's just unfortunate that it's associated with the book. It's not the first terribly adapted book, and won't be the last.

Ever see the movie Timeline based on the Michael Crichton book? Bad adaptation, and overall bad movie. Ever see the Lord of the Rings movies? Pretty good on both counts.

I figure that there are primarily two types of adaptations: The one where only the name and barest premise serve as bones for another movie entirely (usually not so good but not necessarily), and the one where the movie is actually being made for people who enjoyed the book (can be done well). Bonus third type: cash grab combining fair respect to the source, but not done well.

Starship Troopers only exists because whoever greenlit it figured that the name it carried would be enough to turn a profit, probably. If it was just called "Bug Hunt at Outpost Nine" or something, we'd all just assume it was a SyFy style B-movie.
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: swashmebuckle on February 24, 2015, 08:31:23 pm
I just can't imagine a faithful attempt at a two hour movie adaptation having anything on Doogie Howser, psychic exterminator in space. The book will always be there for people who like that sort of thing, and the movie certainly benefitted from the license, even if it was just in getting funding. Personally I found the director taking a gleeful dump on fascism and militarism to be pretty refreshing given how action blockbusters usually come off in those respects.

Plus, don't people love saying the book was better? Another opportunity for them to say that. Everyone wins!
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: deathfun on February 24, 2015, 08:37:52 pm
The other question we need to concern ourselves with: Does it really matter?
I find that no, it really doesn't matter whether or not the movie was good or carried a name to sell more tickets. If anyone watched the trailer, they'd pretty much know what they were getting into

Because seriously, who would have thought the movie was anything like the book in this?


I don't think the movie was trying to be anything more really than the appropriately described "they're starship troopers and they're fighting bugs"

If you thought the movie was going to be like the book from that trailer... well... uh...
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: S-99 on February 26, 2015, 05:10:09 pm
Did you just answer your own question? Yes, I think you did.
I certainly did. It doesn't matter of in the context of the making of the movie or the story either. It really didn't seem to be something that was thought of to be using explosive ammo.

Why no explosive ammo?  Because the federation is retarded :drevil:
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on March 01, 2015, 03:21:02 am
Was explosive ammo in small arms even an established thing when the book was written?
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: Colonol Dekker on March 01, 2015, 12:04:59 pm
Rifle grenades were a thing.
Rocket style anti personell artillery goes back as far as Waterloo.
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: Dragon on March 01, 2015, 02:50:55 pm
Was explosive ammo in small arms even an established thing when the book was written?
Yes, it was known it's possible by then. Not only that, it was already banned. :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Petersburg_Declaration_of_1868
Fulminating (not explosive, but close) musket balls were already thing in 1863. By 1867 they found how to make them explode on contact with personnel and in 1868, they found the whole thing too gross. So, it was possible, though development of such ammunition for calibers below .50cal effectively stopped soon after they were invented. Admittedly, this is not very well known, but I'm pretty sure that explosive (and incendiary) HMG bullets were in use during WWII.
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on March 01, 2015, 05:39:17 pm
Given that I could easily chalk it up to the concept being stamped out so early it never really entered the public consciousness.
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: deathfun on March 01, 2015, 06:30:04 pm
What's hilarious is the fact that the Security Council is known to just outright ignore the bans
Dragon's Breath anyone? :D
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: Phantom Hoover on March 02, 2015, 03:05:56 am
They aren't explosive, though.
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: deathfun on March 02, 2015, 03:58:25 am
But equally as awesome

Wait, better idea...
...why didn't they just build a giant magnifying glass and pretend to be God smiting them with such "FIERY" (get it because burning) VENGEANCE

Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: pecenipicek on March 02, 2015, 12:45:36 pm
What's hilarious is the fact that the Security Council is known to just outright ignore the bans
Dragon's Breath anyone? :D
there's a difference between "spew fiery doom which may or may not splatter the target" and "disintegrate and pelt everything nearby with shrapnel of the target"

Not much, but its still there.


Spoiler:
if i remember correctly, explosive rounds are banned on grounds of massive overkill among other things?
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: Colonol Dekker on March 02, 2015, 01:01:11 pm
Geneva convention on human rights.  Laws of armed conflict of which every NATO soldier is schooled in state that you must inflict no unnecessary suffering in not so many words.
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: pecenipicek on March 02, 2015, 01:20:48 pm
Geneva convention on human rights.  Laws of armed conflict of which every NATO soldier is schooled in state that you must inflict no unnecessary suffering in not so many words.
thank you, my knowledge is very thin in that whole area
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: SpardaSon21 on March 02, 2015, 04:18:52 pm
One thing I'd like to point out is that the parts of the Hague Convention of 1899 that restrict the use of poison gases in warfare and non-jacketed and indented rounds were never actually ratified by the United States.  The United States was also never invited to the St. Petersburg Declaration in 1868, and therefore never ratified that treaty.  Food for thought.
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: Dragon on March 02, 2015, 05:14:53 pm
Yeah, the US has not signed a number of things that forbid various weapons, including explosive rounds, cluster bombs, poison gases and the like. It still conforms to most of them, probably out of political convenience, but it has been known to use incendiary-explosive rounds against personnel (the infamous .50 Raufoss rounds), though in a very limited fashion (basically, snipers engaging targets of opportunity with anti-materiel rifles). There were also cases of dropping incendiaries on personnel in Iraq war (not napalm, as some reported, but pyrogel is even worse than that).
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: Ghostavo on March 02, 2015, 06:13:26 pm
Geneva convention on human rights.  Laws of armed conflict of which every NATO soldier is schooled in state that you must inflict no unnecessary suffering in not so many words.

It's actually the first Hague convention.

Quote
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conventions)
[Geneva Conventions] do not address warfare proper—the use of weapons of war—which is the subject of the Hague Conventions (...)

EDIT: Damn you sparda!
Title: Re: Starship troopers; why not explosive ammunition?
Post by: Colonol Dekker on March 03, 2015, 02:29:14 pm
All that matters is that I was in date until December when my 15 year career finished :nod: