A New Kind of Enemy. A New Kind of War.
Starship Troopers is of significant sentimental value to me. It is the one film I can distinctly remember my mother refusing to let me see. 1997: I was heading to see it in the theater with some friends, accompanied by mom. We walked up to the box office, buzzing, totally juiced on Nerds and Sour Patch; The ticket lady took one look at our peach-fuzzed, pining baby-faces, and primly advised my mother that this was "an extremely violent movie". (Sheesh, what did that bitch know?) Lights, camera, get in the car we're going home.
But what killjoy kismet was this! Years prior, my mother's only other known case of censorship involved my brother and Robocop, which was directed by Paul Verhoeven, the same man who would go on to create that bug-blasting bombshell Starship Troopers (he also made Showgirls, but everyone was smart enough to keep that kind of thing under the floorboards).
I sincerely hope I live to see the day when I will get to shut down another Verhoeven classic for my idiot kids. I'll call their friends' parents with the tip whenever they have a sleepover, cause I know all the tricks. I'll be the biggest narc ever- Robopops, Starship Party-Pooper, and Nogirls for you tonight.
The modern take on Starship Troopers is actually descended from a piece of science-fiction satire written by a giant of the genre, in 1959.
And to some extent that original flavor of irreverent, quasi-ironic jingoism is still represented in trailers like this:
No comments:
Post a Comment