His mistake is believing that inundating his audience with mass slaughter just for the sake of laughs
And at that point I need to stop you...
These aren't meant to be laughs. If you're laughing at this, then I believe you have a schadenfreude problem...
Certainly the violence, and the cinematography in general, has a cartoony/comic-book styling, but that does not equate to comedic intent.
will excuse the fact that this is a terrible movie and satire.
Again with the excusing...
Why do you think Verhoeven needs to excuse himself to you?
The work is delivered as he intended and he stands by it. If it's not to your tastes, that's up to you, but to expect some kind of justification for not meeting whatever personal requirements you might have is just arrogant and stupid.
A person with a modicum of sense would be smart enough to look past the bull$hit, analyze the movie and see it for what it is - trash.
If you're seeing trash, you're still looking directly at the surface presentation, instead of past it. So much for being smart...
Verhoeven: "...BECAUSE.....BECAUSE...BECAUSE FASCISM IS BAD! UHHH......HERE ARE SOME BOOBIES, DON'T YOU LIKE BOOBIES?! NO?! THEN HOW ABOUT SOME GORE?! LET'S JUST PILE THAT F$CKER ON!"
Again, I ask - Did you actually watch this film, or simply catch part of the trailer?
What separates "satire" from "parody" is that the latter is nothing more than imitation just for the sake of a laugh.
Here's what YOU need to understand about parody - Parody *is* satirical. There is no separation - It's very
nature is satire. Go back to your Wikipedia page or wherever you ripped that quote from and read more than just the first line, yeh!
The former, however, has a higher moral ground and is more subtle, often used to interrogate social issues.
Says who?
Who says satire *must* be subtle? You?
Some of it can be, but in general the very point of satire is 'to hold things up for ridicule'. Making it subtle means it's more likely to go unnoticed and so defeats the purpose, while bordering on oxymora.
And yet, you seem to have widely missed those parts of SST that *are* more subtle. Not once have you even mentioned the cultural psychology, the juxtaposition of imagery, or the critique of the tribal mentality.
As for moral high ground - This is purposely presented as an action film, where audiences do naturally cheer for the hero, yet in this the heroes are BLATANT fascists... If anything, Verhoeven does have that moral high ground, because the audience *are* cheering for the fascists, despite knowing that fascism is so wrong. It's a nice parallel of the novel, while also criticizing it.
However, when analyzed fully, it is a vicious indictment of nuclear testing, loaded with raw emotion, offering a number of socio-political commentary blah blah blah blah the atom bomb.
No, it is just a monster movie. Any moron can see past the *beep* and discern the film for what it truly is - Trash!
See - When you selectively ignore parts of the whole film, you get the same result as your ill-considered opinion of SST.
"Wherefore the multitude of thy thorns to him that toucheth thy fruit?"
You overestimate him. I'll reluctantly give him credit for "Robocop" as proof of his competence, but "Starship Troopers"? A five year-old could figure it out.
So how come you can't? Are you only 4½, or something?
If anything, SST is far superior to Robocop.
As a movie, it's divided unto itself and lacks effect - on one hand the movie invites the audience to laugh in supposed mockery at this fascist society, its characters, violence and xenophobia, but on the other hand the movie wants its audience to thoughtlessly revel in it all in an enthusiastic cheer.
If that's what you're seeing in it....
Again, I say you're missing the point if you think you're supposed to revel thoughtlessly in this violence and you're no different to those who do the same during the beach landing sequences of Saving Private Ryan.
Sounds like you're only seeing what you want to see... which is the boobs and violence.
Not saying that's a bad thing either, as I'd *love* to see more of Dina Meyer's boobs. But you can't then get all picky and up your own backside about your perceived lack of overintellectualised claptrap simply on the basis of ignoring it when it's right in front of you. That is just retarded.
Revel, by all means, but *think* about what you're revelling in and *why* you're revelling...
It features barn-broad satiric touches such as a military flogging shot like sweat-drenched S&M porn, screamingly obvious recruiting ads, vagina-mouthed aliens, and military scientists who dress like SS monsters.
Where the *beep* do YOU live, that vaginas look like that???!!! Remind me not to visit...
It also features many less in-your-face satiric touches, such as the juxtaposition of a society that plasters the gruesome dead bodies of slaughtered humans all over the news, yet censors the mutilaton of a cow.
Or was that too subtle for you?
The trouble is, Hollywood loves sex and violence only slightly less than Verhoeven himself, so who is he critiquing exactly?
He loves it, does he?
A man whose early years were governed by fascist violence and the Nazi occupation of his country, where the neighbourhood was regularly bombed and bodies littered the streets... you really think he's a fan of all that?
The critique is levelled at the audience, Hollywood, the industry, the various genres, the novel, vrious cultures and nations... pretty straightforward on that front.
It has nothing to do with "sounding intellectual",
I would hope not, since you fail badly on that count... but it certainly sounds like you're trying!
it's calling it for what it is, which is Verhoeven having a wank at the expense of peoples' sufferings, something not even you can deny.
It's lending modish, de riguer terminology, typically of foreign wording, to appear avant garde, while ignoring the fact that there already are perfectly good words of your own language that adequately describe it... in short, being a pretentious wanker.
As for wanking - It's not Verhoeven doing that. The audience is encouranged to do so, while also seeing and knowing that it's wrong.
As a director, Verhoeven never seems particularly sympathetic to any of his heroes and heroines; in fact, they are barely likable as people and there's very little in the way warmth and sentimentalism.
So what?
Where is it writ that he has to be?
Are you sympathetic to all the people you meet in real life? Is everyone you meet a wonderful, likeable person?
I find most of Tarrantino's characters to be complete pricks, Scott's to be dull, Spielberg's to be dripping with icing sugar and Scorsese's to be utterly foul human beings... and yet they all made some fantastic films around such characters.
Most of the character arcs of the heroes/heroines in Verhoeven’s films are defined simply by their learning to toughen up in a world of hard and brutal edges, all of which involve brutal punishment, sadistic despatches and humiliations on their own persons.
So it's not an in-depth character study... what's your point?
Does every film have to be?
Who, sadomasochistic freaks?
So you claim Verhoeven is inconsistent... and yet here's you, a Daily Mirror reader, getting all Daily Mail about the film while at the same time trying to be all Guardian in your lambasting, not realising you're actually reading The Sun!
Ah yes, anti-intellectualism and uncritical thought at its finest.
Not at all.
You are looking for some specific subtle and clever things in the film, in the hope that you can understand it and feel clever about yourself, yet are missing the parts of the film that actually are clever... I'm all in favour of intellectualism, where appropriate and necessary. In your case, you're stumbling over the first sentence, which is why I suggest you stop trying and just enjoy what's presented.
I see Verhoeven has trained you well in being mindlessly obeisant and turning a blind eye to the obvious.
Matthew 7:3.
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