[S-99]

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.

[An4ximandros]

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.

[S-99]

Yes, i know the novel is better 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.

[Scotty]

Or they actually are already and bugs are just really tough.

[Aesaar]

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.

[swashmebuckle]

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.

[Fury]

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.

[BritishShivans]

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.

[Mika]

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.

[Phantom Hoover]

i love how the film starship troopers was pretty much perfectly calibrated to annoy people who liked the book

[deathfun]

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?)

[deathspeed]

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.

[Aesaar]

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.

[Colonol Dekker]

It has Denise Richards boob squeeze deleted scene...

[swashmebuckle]

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.

[Mars]

And this is why we have Micheal Bay.

[Aesaar]

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.

[deathfun]

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.

[Aesaar]

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.

[Phantom Hoover]

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.