Citizen Federation Version 2.0 available ! - Page 7

PvK · #61 May 10th, 2003, 11:40 AM

Three cheers for a shipset that has a different "leader" picture from the "population" picture!

Hip hip hooray!!!
Hip hip hooray!!!
Hip hip hooray!!!

The rest of it looks extremely nice and promising, as well!

PvK

trooper · #62 May 10th, 2003, 07:26 PM

Is this irony ?

Pocus · #63 May 11th, 2003, 08:12 PM

Trooper, did you read the book from which is - extremely distantly - inspired the movie?

I find the book far more interesting than the movie btw.

dogscoff · #64 May 12th, 2003, 04:32 PM

Quote:

Three cheers for a shipset that has a different "leader" picture from the "population" picture!

Hey! So have the KanesS. OK, they aren't ready for download yet, but...

General Woundwort · #65 May 12th, 2003, 04:41 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by dogscoff:

quote:

Three cheers for a shipset that has a different "leader" picture from the "population" picture!

Hey! So have the KanesS. OK, they aren't ready for download yet, but...

Well....?

trooper · #66 May 12th, 2003, 09:06 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by PvK:
Three cheers for a shipset that has a different "leader" picture from the "population" picture!

Hip hip hooray!!!
Hip hip hooray!!!
Hip hip hooray!!!

The rest of it looks extremely nice and promising, as well!

PvK

Thanks, but that's nothing very hard to do... especially when you make a screen copy of the movie

...

Pocus : No, I've never read the related book. Is it a comic or a novel ?

[ May 12, 2003, 20:08: Message edited by: trooper ]

Pocus · #67 May 12th, 2003, 09:37 PM

If I recall well your email is at free.fr, so I will asume that you are french (as me). The title in french is 'Etoile Garde � vous', and it was wrote by Robert Heinlein. In english the title is Starship trooper.

a french URL on Heinlein can be found at
http://rocbo.chez.tiscali.fr/Max/sf/heinlein.htm
for others english speaking persons, you can at least see the author picture on this URL.

The original book is very distant from the movie. I must say that I was rather deceived by the film. This is not to say that the film is bad, but rather really far from the book.

For example in the initial book, the troopers are elite soldiers which all rely on heavy enhanced robotic armor. They have jump pack, portable tactical missile launcher, and are stuffed with high tech gear. Loosing one trooper is a big loss. In the film, it is laughable. You see hords of soldiers, some armed with small fire arms.

If you look at the intent of Voerheven (sp?), you see an action movie. If you read Heinlein, and know a little bit about why he wrote the book, you understand that it try to depict how horrible is a war, any war. If I recall well the book was aimed partly against the vietnam war.

Well anyway you should read the book. The troopers against bugs encounters are really scary. You really see that even with this powerful and awesome gears, the soldiers are only poor little humans which are governed by primal feelings, like fear and self preservation.

General Woundwort · #68 May 12th, 2003, 10:37 PM

Heinlein's book is considered a classic in the genre. I have not seen the movie, but everything I've heard is that it bears only a passing semblence to the book (the title and the bugs).

The book is mainly set in boot camp and in the classroom (truth!). There are only two extended combat sequences in the entire novel - the beginning and the end. It's mainly a political and sociological treatise. I don't agree with everything Heinlein wrote in it, but some of it is downright prescient (and scary). In the book, he predicted the rise of predatory urban street gangs in the USA (remember, the book was written in 1959!), and that the Third World War would be the Russians, English and Americans vs the Chinese. Definitely food for thought....

Pocus · #69 May 12th, 2003, 10:50 PM

Before somebody jump on me, I went to a big Heinlein fan site. Seems the book was written in 1958, so the war critics put into the work was aimed not against Vietnam (it would have been difficult!, but against war in general).

Also about the movie, here is a commentary from the fan site:
"Starship Troopers" (1997)
Filmed by Tri-Star Pictures with a budget said to be in the neighborhood of $90 million, and directed by Paul Verhoeven. It manages to faintly resemble the action elements of the novel while missing almost the entire point. What elements of the political and social issues make it into the film are so distorted (a clearly fascist government, Sergeant Zim as a sadistic bully) as to make fans of the novel cry in their popcorn. A wretched mess, best summarized as "Bughunt 90210."

the fan site I refer is
http://www.nitrosyncretic.com/rah/

Seems that Heinlein wrote a ton of scifi books which I didnt knew about. Enjoy!

Erax · #70 May 13th, 2003, 10:47 PM

Heinlein raises some controversial points in the book (democracy vs. meritocracy, jail vs. physical punishment) which bear thinking about. More so now than in 1958, in fact.

Labelling the book fascist and sadistic is the easy, closed-minded way out. This is apparently what the script writer for the movie chose to do.

So if you haven't read the book... do so. I can't recommend it highly enough. I might not agree with everything that's written there, but I do recommend the book.