Comments by "Seven Proxies" (@sevenproxies4255) on "Starship Troopers - Deceptively Smart Satire" video.

  1. You do have rights and freedoms in The Federation though. Like Johnny's parents. They are wealthy and well off, but not citizens. Which is why Johnny's father oppose his son enlisting. The thing about The Federation is that everyone have access to basic freedoms, like freedom of speech, religion etc. But in order to wield political authority through the vote, you have to prove your worthiness of being a citizen by making a personal sacrifice in service of The Federation. Also, the film suggests that military service is the only way to become a citizens, but that's not really the case. A person can spend their civic service doing other things from volunteering for medical trials to cleaning streets and hauling trash. But the film wouldn't be very exciting if Johnny spent the duration of the film hauling trash, or Carmen trying out experimental drugs.
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  2. The film diverged from the source material heavily in terms of military practicality. For starters, the "Mobile Infantry" in the book were called "Mobile Infantry" because they were equipped with massive powered exoskeletons, which could even hurl nukes at the enemy and doing stuff like orbital drops from a starship onto a planet surface. But Verhoeven either didn't have the budget to showcase this, or he simply just wanted to make fun of the source material and opted for completely idiotic behaviours of the military characters, like massed infantry or flying in close formation while under AA-fire.
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  3. The book is better. And you kinda need to read it to understand the context to be honest. The Federation isn't nearly as fascist as Verhoeven tried to portray it as. He actually had to go out of his way to achieve this portrayal, because as a typical Hollywood liberal, he found Heinleins book to be disgusting.
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