Good Bad Movies

The things that made me list Starship Troopers as a bad movie are:
1. Acting - Denise Richards, c'mon, she couldn't develop a character more complicated than... point made (creativity slipping)
2. Futuristic Football - Cheesy & played with a Nurf ball.
3. Dialogue - Just cheesy once again
4. Doogie Howser - Instead of sewing up people he talks with ferrets and big bugs.

I'm not knocking this movie, but I hardly consider it to be a great film. I think it is a bad movie, in my opinion, but I own it and watch it all the time. It is so bad that I love it.

C'mon, they are these 90210 people living in Buenos Aires...
 
I think Starship Troopers turned out exactly the way Paul Verhoeven had hoped.
That's why I have a hard time listing it as a 'bad movie.'

The style of the movie isn't for everyone, that's for sure.
But I think that when a director can nail a tone as difficult as the satire in Starship Troopers,
then that should at least mark it as a 'well made' movie.

Some of us may not like the style...but that's something else entirely.

Bad movies to me are movies where the inexperience or incompetence of those involved made the tone and style of the movie suffer.
Then again, we may just have different definitions of what makes a movie 'bad.'
 
GenJerDan said:
Satirizing what?
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Hmmm, I guess Verhoeven didn't do as good a job as I thought.
:)
Otherwise you wouldn't have had to ask that.


(i do not want to turn this into a political thread)
In short - Nationalism and American Politics.
 
It's funny you mention 90210 in reference to Starship Troopers because that's a point that came up during a discussion of the movie between some classmates and I. We (or at least I) felt that the casting decisions that were made kinda reinforce A) the lull the movie puts you in by populating it with beautiful people, acting skills or lack thereof put aside B) make it basically a teen drama Degrassi High in space which is an interesting dynamic and funny in it of itself and C) remind us that the people we lose in war are the young. Also the 90210 parallel is interesting since the whole Beverly Hills image brings up ideas of class, wealth, status, external beauty, all things that I think the film takes a look at too.

As far as the satire goes, a lot of sci-fi critics and fellow writers critized Heinlein for glorifying right wing politics in his novels and showing only the positive side of the military without any of the negative and that basically his novels are facist. A big part of that many people say is because Heinlein himself never served in combat (he was taken off the front lines because of a health disorder) which gives him this view where he glorifies the military but never first hand experience that horrors that wars bring.

Now his defenders say that in Heinlein's novels and in Starship Troopers, it's is not a facist government as people do vote, but only those who served military service. Also there seems to be no racism (in the original novel, Johnny Rico is Juan Rico and he's the son of a wealthy Filipino businessman) and if you watch the film, women have a much more equal status with men, being able to serve in the military and being able to be aggressive sexually and not be judge negatively for it. The film Verhoeven ultimately made sided with the side the critized Heinlein.

Now I heard in the original script version of Starship Troopers, it was basically a faithful reproduction of the novel and when Verhoven read it, he wanted to pass on it thinking it was too straight forward and a rip off of Aliens (which Cameron later admitted was heavily influenced by the novel Starship Troopers). Then his wife convinced him to really look at the script and see how he could make fun of the source material, while at the same time playing by the rules, much like how he did with Robocop when he satrized mass consumerism and man's losing grip on humanity in the face of technology. He shows us the horrors of war and contrasts it with the P.S.A.'s of children stomping on bugs and holding guns to "fight the good fight."

That's how he made a movie that when I watched when I was 16 and again when I was 20, I saw two completely different films. The first time I was just going along with the ride. "Holy crap, he blew that bugs brains out!" Then after I saw Triumph of the Will in college and rewatched Starship Troopers and saw several shots literally plucked straight out of that film, I was like, "Oh, so that's what he was doing." But you know, to each his own. In the end, I'm glad that people like the movie, whether they consider it "bad" or not. I just really liked it but I can see how others won't. Then again, I also geniunely like Good Burger.
 
CallaghanFilms said:
Mallrats is funny stuff. I'm far from a KevinSmithphile, but this is the film of his that I've always been surprised doesn't get more attention paid to it.[/COLOR]
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i agree. i'm a huge kevin smith fan and love all his films (jersey girl was pretty bad though). i always laugh at Mallrats. thats just my opinion
 
GenJerDan said:
6
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7!

I've always liked Waterworld and Postman. Waterworld truly takes you there. I get so thirsty watching that movie and find myself getting caught up in trying to figure out how I would survive in that world.
 
Luis Caffesse said:
Hmmm, I guess Verhoeven didn't do as good a job as I thought.
:)
Otherwise you wouldn't have had to ask that..
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All he did was cut the social/political stuff out of the story and shot the action sequences that were left.

Unless you're saying that the book itself was satire...in which case, you didn't read it.
 
The point is the film is a satire of the book. It actually leaves in a lot of the social/political stuff in the source novel but instead of advocating it, he implies, "Look how messed up this is!?" He made an anti-Heinlein movie based on a Heinlein novel. :-)

and Kimko, that's my name. :-)
 
aha! i'm haphaole; korean(mom side) scots english and siksika(blackfoot)(dad's side) i'm the all american mongolian mongrol Slimothy is also a kimchi kalbi eating fool himself
 
GenJerDan said:
All he did was cut the social/political stuff out of the story and shot the action sequences that were left. Unless you're saying that the book itself was satire...in which case, you didn't read it.
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Yeah, that's all he did.
:thumbsup:

I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one GenJerDan.
No worries.

KevinPeeples said:
My favorite worst film has to be UHF with Weird Al Yankovitch.
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I can't believe I'd forgotten about UHF!

"Supplies!"
What a bad, yet funny, movie.
 
I love UHF, along with the last four movies mentioned in the first post by The Yankee.
Funny thing though, most of the people I know think that Mallrats is Kevin Smith's best movie. I always ask them about Clerks, Chasing Amy, or Dogma, and they usually say they got bored by Clerks, never saw Chasing Amy, and thought Dogma was pretty good. Then they bring up Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. I don't even argue, rather, think to myself "It's good to be an elitist" and smile at them like a total prick.
 
David Jimerson said:
Boy, you must be ASLEEP if you can't see "Starship Troopers" is a satire.
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Showing something the way it is (or the way it would be, under the circumstances) is not satire.

Showing people fighting over which end of an egg to crack is satire, not drumming up support to fight an actual enemy.
 
GenJerDan said:
Showing something the way it is (or the way it would be, under the circumstances) is not satire.

Showing people fighting over which end of an egg to crack is satire, not drumming up support to fight an actual enemy.
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By that logic, "Network" is not a satire either.
And I suppose 'The Great Dictator' wouldn't be a satire either.

It's one thing to say that "Starship Troopers" isn't a good movie, that's fine, it's a matter of opinion and personal taste.
But to say it isn't satire is just wrong.

You may not think it was well done, but that doesn't make it any less of a satire.
That's like me saying that "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" isn't a comedy because I don't think it's funny.
Good or Bad, the movie was intended as a satire.
 
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