The Last Movie You Watched

[Fake Messiah]

I watched that movie "Bodyguard" from 1992. I didn't realise before how much Kevin Costner is mimicking Steve McQueen's acting and body language in that movie. He's doing it so much that in some scenes I thought that I was watching McQueen.

[Rev. Rye]

This week in the Deep Hurting Project, Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation. I was actually familiar with the original before finding out that this sequel was bad enough to make the So Bad It's Horrible List. Some people don't like it, but I think it's brilliant, and it helps to remember a quote Michael Ironside attributed to Paul Verhoeven. When he asked why he was making what seemed to be a fascist film (I should point out that Verhoeven grew up in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands and narrowly escaped being killed by bombing raids), he said "If I tell the world that a right-wing, fascist way of doing things doesn't work, no one will listen to me. So I'm going to make a perfect fascist world: everyone is beautiful, everything is shiny, everything has big guns and fancy ships, but it's only good for killing fucking Bugs!" So, he makes this sleek-looking film about this militaristic world, but if you're looking into the film, you can see the darker and suckier side of this lifestyle creep in, and it's easy to spot if you're looking for it: 



So, how does the sequel fuck it up?

• As soon as the opening text crawl ends, it's immediately clear that they're working with a fraction of the budget of the original (one-fifteenth of it, to be precise), with stock footage of the original film, footage that clearly looks like it was on a set and not the immersive environment of the original (I don't believe for a second that any of this is actually supposed to be happening), dark battle scenes, as opposed to the bright ones in the original, and a particularly egregious over (and mis-) use of the "Would You Like to Know More" line from the original.
  
• You know, when I did my review of Chimes at Midnight for Anglotopia, I talked about the Battle of Shrewsbury scene, where Orson Welles managed to make the most out of a very limited budget with some judicious use of smoke, setting, and reuse of the extras. It's like the opening battle took notes from that and did it in the most ass way possible, focusing almost entirely on the protagonists just standing around and firing their light guns (because they couldn't afford proper guns), making it all seem claustrophobic, with a background that's mostly just a dark blue/red sky and maybe some sandy soil when absolutely necessary, with enough smoke to make it look like it's not totally quarter-assed. And even if it wasn't done in such a shitty way, it's a bad fit with the previous film. And it's a lot of the film; even when the setting moves into an old abandoned building, when the bugs appear, any sense of place vanishes.
  
• And speaking of the protagonists, none of the characters from the original make an appearance. And the squadron they're replaced with? They're bland ciphers to a one. In the original, we get a proper character arc for Johnny Rico. This film? Nada. Well, maybe Captain Dax, who was apparently supposed to be Sgt. Zim from the original, except Clancy Brown was too busy with Carnivale to reprise his role, so they made a new character, and then, they changed him radically, turning him from a drill sergeant so gung-ho that once war was declared, he deliberately demoted himself back to a private so he could fight the bugs himself, to a cynical officer who tells his underlings "don't trust officers, it's our job to kill you." And if they kept him Zim, this would be a perfect place for the Richie Cusack clip, because they gave him a 180 personality-wise with no explanation or even idea of how long it took for him to change (at least until he has his mind hacked and it turns out he made a bad order that killed a lot of kids).
  
• So, about a third of the way through the film, it goes from a shitty war movie to a bland sci-fi horror movie, and it still does a poor job of setting that change up, even as the pacing grinds to a halt. So, we have TWENTY MINUTES of nothing happening, and a female trooper  trying and failing to seduce Dax, which is funny, I guess? This scene should have been after she frenches some other guy and gives him the bug brain parasite that turns this movie into a shitty version of The Thing:
  
  
  
• You know, I seriously thought I'd actually get some interesting things to talk about for this movie, especially given how multi-layered the original was, but nope.
  
• What the fuck? There's bugs roaring in the distance, and nobody's doing anything?
  
  
  
• And when we finally get a proper scare (51 minutes into a  91.5 minute film), it's a guy with red eyes spitting a tiny bug into another guy's mouth like a baby bird? 
  
• What the fuck is that nightmare scene? Dog tags and chess pieces being shot menacingly?
  
• So, the plot decides to turn into The Thing, late into the movie, with the troop turning into bug brain parasites, except there's no suspense about what's going on, even if we gave a shit about anyone. And it takes half the movie to do so.
  
• The Itsy Bitsy Spider? Are you shitting me?
  
• ""Poor creatures. Why must we destroy you? I'll tell you why. Order is the tide of creation. But yours is a species that worships... the one over the many. You glorify your intelligence... because it allows you to believe anything. That you have a destiny. That you have a right. That you have a cause. That you are special. That you are great. But in truth, you are born insane. And such misery... cannot be allowed... to spread!" You know what? I think the parasite has a point here.
  
• Good God, the mechanical arm on that recruiter at the end looks so ridiculously fake it's not even funny.
  

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The director of the first one and I should not be in the same room at the same time.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

The director of the first one and I should not be in the same room at the same time.

I know, right?  It's as if Paul Verhoeven had the book explained to him by someone who didn't like the book, and based the film on that.

Starship Troopers is on my short list for Worst Film Adaptation EVER.

Boru

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The director of the first one and I should not be in the same room at the same time.

I know, right?  It's as if Paul Verhoeven had the book explained to him by someone who didn't like the book, and based the film on that.

Starship Troopers is on my short list for Worst Film Adaptation EVER.

Boru

Sounds like exactly what happened. And there's a shit load of sequels and spin-offs. Me and fan bois don't get along.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

And the saddest bit is that the book, as is, would make a cracking good film in the right hands.

Boru

[Gawdzilla Sama]

And the saddest bit is that the book, as is, would make a cracking good film in the right hands.

Boru

As a veteran I think the concept would be worth a try IRL.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

You mean the citizenship thing?  I don't disagree.

Boru

[Gawdzilla Sama]

RAH did the military thing because of his history, but five years of national service, including military, would be better, I think.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Yeah, I think I could get behind a plan that called for people to do something (other than be alive) in order to have full citizenship.  I don't find it unreasonable that people who want a voice in running the State should have made a contribution.

Boru