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Watching Star Wars will send you to Hell...

nescafe said:
Aw, it was not nearly as bad as Starship Troopers 2.
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Caught that on cable, if it ever made the theaters it left quickly, out the back, holding it's hands in front of it's face.

It, at the least, appeared to have the excuse of no budget.

Back on SW... I suppose the (particularly fanatical) church would object to aliens due to the bible not mentioning them, and the Force cause godless heathens clearly aren't connected to the true believers, and humanoid androids cause they're probably gay. "Goldenrod" indeed.

Long, long ago probably contradicts the young earthers. I'm reasonably sure that blowing up enormous military installations is ok, as long as there are godless heathens inside. But a black guy and someone who doesn't speak English blowing one up? Surely they've gotta object to that. ;)
 
nescafe said:
Aw, it was not nearly as bad as Starship Troopers 2.
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I was unaware there was such a movie.

I now wish I believed in the afterlife, so I could happily imagine Heinlein's ghost tracking down the perpetrators and making them suffer.
 
Genesius said:
Sorry, just a product of a life-long starvation for good screen SF.

If you really want to get me started, we can start a new thread in the Entertainment section concerning what tortures would be appropriate for the director who screwed up Starship Troopers.
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I don't know, but I want in on it when it gets applied. :mad:
 
Genesius said:
If you really want to get me started, we can start a new thread in the Entertainment section concerning what tortures would be appropriate for the director who screwed up Starship Troopers.
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You simply lack an appreciation for the finer things in science fiction. Starship Troopers was utterly brilliant.
 
This has to be a joke. It has Jesus reaching down to hug the Death Star.
 
Zombified said:
Starship Troopers had more boobies than Star Wars, but fewer robots.
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True, and while the boobies were quite nice (though that coy vixen Ms. Richards avoided showing hers, perhaps the only time she's ever been in front of a camera without getting topless), I was referring more to the scathing political satire.

That said, boobies beat robots.
 
JamesDillon said:
You simply lack an appreciation for the finer things in science fiction. Starship Troopers was utterly brilliant.
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I liked it. But that's because it didn't take itself entirely seriously. "Do you want to know more?" But the book WAS serious, I think, so in one respect, it's not a good adaptation. In another respect, the mobile infantry were in power suits; so it's not a good adaption that way, either.

But I liked it. When I complain about Pirates of the Caribbean, and they say, "Aw it's just a fun film, you're stupid," I have to remind them that I liked Starship Troopers, Rush Hour, Waterworld, Shanghai Noon, and Face/Off. PotC wasn't fun; it was bad. Despite Johnny Depp's excellent efforts, it was just flat, boring, uninteresting, lame, and dull.
 
I agree that it was a bad adaptation, in that it wasn't particularly faithful to the book, but I didn't like the book all that much; I liked the film a lot better. I think it's often unfairly disregarded as a silly action movie about giant bugs, when it really was a fairly insightful bit of political satire.
 
JamesDillon said:
I agree that it was a bad adaptation, in that it wasn't particularly faithful to the book, but I didn't like the book all that much; I liked the film a lot better. I think it's often unfairly disregarded as a silly action movie about giant bugs, when it really was a fairly insightful bit of political satire.
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I'm still trying to figure out what was insightful about the political satire in the film. I found the over the top and rather unnecessary eeeevilness of the government more comical than the absolutely idiotic action scenes. I mean, you've got giant freakin' insects that annihilated a planet full of humans... some people might consider that a legitimate threat and not have to be bullied/misled/lied to about it for no particularly good reason. Maybe if they got around to exploring what was really going on in the universe (like Ender's Game where the war with the bugs was due to a miscommunication... oops, or covering up the blatant ineptitude of the military or any of a dozen other possibilities) then it would be interesting, but as it was it just showed a bunch of propaganda and a really bad action film. No idea if the propaganda was appropriate or not (Allied vs. Axis propaganda?), but given that the average IQ of characters in the film bordered on freezing ice I gotta think leading these morons around by the nose was necessary. Gotta admit I have the same feeling about the Emperor and the Jedi in episodes 1-3. He was the only competent guy in the universe, seems like putting him in charge isn't such a bad idea. ;)

Course, the fact that the soldiers firearms seemed totally ineffective from more than 5 yards did kind of sour me on Starship Troopers. The scene with a bunch of soldiers standing in a circle and shooting inward towards a bug decreased my opinion of the intelligence of the filmmakers to the point where I'm not gonna give anything in it the benefit of the doubt. Similar to the problem I have with lightsabers in a blaster fight. Yeah, you can block a shot or 2, but at some point it's just silly. And that point is the colliseum scene in ep 2. In the original trilogy (and even ep 1) they were bright enough to gloss over this and seperate out the lightsaber duels from the shootouts. Honestly, doesn't matter how fancy the knife, it's still a gunfight. Course, the catapult/paintball thing in episode 1 didn't help any. And the utterly moronic civil war stand in lines and shoot at each other thing in ep 3. Come to think of it, ep 1-3 might have had worse battle scenes than Starship Troopers. Hell, they knew the concept of "taking cover" while on Hoth, guess the clones and robots were just too stupid for that idea to catch hold.

The shower scene in Starship Troopers was interesting. A bunch of totally non-sexual nudity. It was frankly the only "sci-fi" concept I thought done remotely well in the movie. In the future, people are only allowed to have kids after becoming citizens, so casual coed nudity (and one supposes casual sex, not that it's mentioned) among non-citizens isn't such a big deal. No kids will result, and one presumes that STDs aren't that big an issue. One could argue it's postponing the issues of puberty until one becomes a citizen, and get into entire sociological debates about what that would mean. Of course, in this film it was just an excuse to show boobies, but hey, at least it isn't morally repugnant like all those rape scenes in the 70s that they included to sneak shots of boobs in. Or kissing your sister, and later rescuing her while she's wearing a brass bikini and chained to a worm. Or knocking up a Senator and having her die of sadness or some craptastic thing.
 
Tricky said:
Don't think of it as sci-fi then. Think of it as a western, because that is exactly what it is. Young but green hero with good friend who is a plucky neer-do-well, gorgeous but strong female in trouble, comic relief sidekicks (the droids), intelligent pets (Chewbacca), enemies shooting at them who cannot hit the broad side of a barn, the fastest horse in the territory (the Millenium Falcon), a wise old cowboy to help him learn the ropes, and of course, the evil land baron who wants to control everything.
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So Pirates of the Caribbean was a western too?
 
Almo said:
But I liked it. When I complain about Pirates of the Caribbean, and they say, "Aw it's just a fun film, you're stupid," I have to remind them that I liked Starship Troopers, Rush Hour, Waterworld, Shanghai Noon, and Face/Off. PotC wasn't fun; it was bad. Despite Johnny Depp's excellent efforts, it was just flat, boring, uninteresting, lame, and dull.
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I thought the whole undead thing with the moonlight was pretty interesting. I will agree that the plot was not much more entertaining that Geena Davis's pirate movie: Cutthroat Island. On the other hand, I am a bit of a costume aficiando, so between the period costumes and the good musical score, I was entertained by PotC. I also enjoyed (on a much smaller level) spotting the references to the Disneyland ride.
 
Star Wars is an awesome movie. You have to consider the time and what it accomplished for that time (and subsequently). I love the movie, I love that I was a child when the original movies came out, and I am sorry that younger folks might not have the experience with it that I did. I can understand some cynicism. I'm just sad to hear it.

One thing that I wish Lucas would take back is Jar Jar. It became clear in Episode 1, in particular, that he didn't appreciate what it was about the first three films that made them so special. CGI was a detractor, in my opinion, in the beginning. Episode 2 was an improvement, and Episode 3 was definitely the best of the more modern films. Hayden had also figured out finally how to act.

One more thing that I would add is that, the only reason why I would want to get this "newly"-released original Star Wars on DVD is so that I could see the cantina scene the way it really was. In other words, Greedo did not shoot first! He got what he deserved, and Han was a bad (hot)-ass!

han.jpg
 
kmortis said:
Yes, 'cause we all remember that classic scene from "A Few Dollars More" where the Monco (aka Man with no Name) uses his mystic Moxie to get his gun to leap into his hand from twelve feet away just in time to kill the Bad Guy. ;)
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A s.f. author/critic many years ago(enough that I do not remember which- but it was at least ten years before SW) compared much of TV/film and book SF to westerns, westerns could be compared to knight adventures, etc. It does not become "real" s. f. because it has space ships and ray guns - they just take the place of the horses and six-guns or the horses and sword (bow and arrows/crossbows). Babylon 5 was Lord of the Rings with spaceships replacing horses (again). They are all based on ancient story groupings/archtypes. and as such, Star Wars wasn't that bad - the dialog got crappy though. (Oh, if it helps, the reviewer actually said - at about 95% accurate reconstruction rate "If you can replace the spaceships with horses and the rayguns with six-shooters and tell the same story, it's not science fiction")
The equivalent of pulling the light saber to his hand from twelve feet away is dive,roll, grab gun and shoot. Neither is Science Fiction - nor is the Force. Light Drive would be if it actually mattered to the plot, but it was never used in a way that did. No element of SW was SF, just its' trappings - and the aliens were never alien in any way except appearance.
 
JamesDillon said:
True, and while the boobies were quite nice (though that coy vixen Ms. Richards avoided showing hers, perhaps the only time she's ever been in front of a camera without getting topless), I was referring more to the scathing political satire.

That said, boobies beat robots.
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I assume we all know this ( I tend to be very literal and sometimes miss jokes because of it) But the Nazi outfits, etc. were making fun of the Heinlein philosophy as well as (at the time) some American policies. I still remember the Forever War people lining up to protest the Vietnam war while the Starship Trooper guys and gals supported the war. I liked both books and did not support the war AS IT WAS HANDLED (just like my attitude about the one happening now). I also hope we noticed that there was NO WAY IN HELL the (Klendathi?) could have launched a big rock from another solar system that would hit the Earth (the rocks traveled at very sub-light speed).
Also, I liked the Rorkes' Drift part!!(But I like Rorkes' Drift so.......).
 
Forget Starship Troopers and forget boobies (ok at least for a second). Star Wars rules!
 
Katana said:
Star Wars is an awesome movie. You have to consider the time and what it accomplished for that time (and subsequently). I love the movie, I love that I was a child when the original movies came out, and I am sorry that younger folks might not have the experience with it that I did. I can understand some cynicism. I'm just sad to hear it.

One thing that I wish Lucas would take back is Jar Jar. It became clear in Episode 1, in particular, that he didn't appreciate what it was about the first three films that made them so special. CGI was a detractor, in my opinion, in the beginning. Episode 2 was an improvement, and Episode 3 was definitely the best of the more modern films. Hayden had also figured out finally how to act.

...
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So true. The original 3 had an insouciant spirit, mixed with the classically high-toned villiany of Darth Vader. It is stunning how Ignorant Lucas is of his own creation. What on Earth happened to him in the intevening years?

I love the scene where Vader first appears. Listen to the music here:
http://www.last.fm/music/John+Williams/_/The+Imperial+March+(Darth+Vader's+Theme)

Also, the scene where Luke breaks into Leia's prison cell and they first meet. She says, "You're kind of short for a storm trooper," and he takes of his helment, and with his best chirpy farm boy charm declares, "I'm Luke Skywalker, and I'm here to rescue you!"

Lucas can't touch that kind of spirit any more.
 
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