I always kinda wished Sunrise would make another Starship Troopers ova
[QUOTE=catbarf;51313525]The society depicted in Starship Troopers isn't on the same level as 1984 or Brave New World. It's not a starry-eyed utopic Mary Sue universe, nor is it a cautionary dystopia either.
It's a depiction of a different society operating under different rules, and it's not even fascist like is frequently claimed- it's a system where service to society earns suffrage, not simply age, and the book explores the consequences of a society in which the right to political influence is based on a very different system from traditional democracy. It's very positive towards military service (and [I]if anything[/I] could be called military propaganda, as Heinlein was [I]very[/I] pro-military), but that doesn't make it inherently fascist, and there have been [I]many[/I] historical examples of democracy that have put restrictions on the right to vote.
The movie takes the basic premise, exaggerates it, throws in influence from Triumph of the Will, and boots it into full-on parody of fascism as an ideology. It's a great movie and great satire, but it's not fundamentally a satire of the book itself. The book spends a lot of time talking about the role of the military in society and the necessity of force, not waxing poetic about how great everything would be if everyone belonged to the state, and IIRC it even points out some of the weaknesses of its system, such as the inherently conservative nature of a society in which only the people who work within the system are given a political or educational voice.
I think an [URL="http://io9.gizmodo.com/5439145/starship-troopers-is-perfect--and-therein-lies-the-problem"]author on Gizmodo[/URL] did a good job of summarizing the book:
Heinlein was not one to shy away from using his books as platforms for preaching (especially his Libertarian ideology), and Starship Troopers is heavy on glorifying the military, but the 'Starship Troopers promotes fascism' argument is sophomoric at best.[/QUOTE]
Wasn't there something like the whole service for citizenship thing didn't necessarily mean military service, simply volunteering to work for the government on some level (including military service)?
[QUOTE=TornadoAP;51314182]Wasn't there something like the whole service for citizenship thing didn't necessarily mean military service, simply volunteering to work for the government on some level (including military service)?[/QUOTE]
Long answer: [URL="http://www.nitrosyncretic.com/pdfs/nature_of_fedsvc_1996.pdf"]Read this great essay on the subject.[/URL]
Short answer: Heinlein claimed, in his 'expanded universe' book written decades later, that 95% of 'federal service' in SST is non-military and that this is clearly stated in the book. However, not only is that not clearly stated, almost every reference to the federal service in the book is of a military nature, and the only mention given to non-military service is basically an afterthought. The author concludes that Heinlein probably meant, especially in retrospect, for federal service to include non-military positions, but the text itself (written in a weeks-long bout of anger over some Cold War political shenanigans, which is part of why the book has such a military boner) only indicates military service.
Personally, I think the fact that there's this huge incongruity between what Heinlein wrote and what he apparently meant just goes to show that he wasn't trying to illustrate his idea of the ideal society a la Ayn Rand.
[QUOTE=Oldaveragejoe;51313840]I always kinda wished Sunrise would make another Starship Troopers ova[/QUOTE]
I wish it would get a DVD/Blu-ray release. Best copy you can get is a laserdisc copy.
[QUOTE=plunger435;51311725]The Starship Troopers book actually approved of the society it portrayed, 1984 and Brave New World abhorred it.[/QUOTE]
The book wasn't a response to Roman-esque power but more a response to Americans who were asking for the US to disarm their nuclear weapons which was a hot topic issue when he originally penned the book.
Heinlein usually wrote novels as responses to large swaths of editorials/debates going on while he was alive.
Remember this is the guy who wrote about a Moon Colony revolting for their personal freedom, Stranger in a Strangeland and a story of a transwoman giving birth to herself through time travel.
He hit every subject he could.
[editline]5th November 2016[/editline]
I also think the funniest bit about the movie is they whitewashed Rico who was originally Filipino and spoke Tagalog, Spanish and English.
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