Science Fiction Films

"But try this: Watch Starship Troopers through the lens of somebody in the world in which it’s set. Imagine you’re watching this as a denizen of this legitimately scary society. As Republican candidates for president in 2016 went on about possibly repealing birthright citizenship—a legal precedent established centuries ago that stands unquestioned in nearly every country in the New World—this a movie from 20 years ago paints a perfect picture of what a society without it would look like. The film’s newsreels and secondary characters repeat that “Service Guarantees Citizenship,” meaning that if you voluntarily enlist in the military, you are granted citizenship. Nowhere in this sunny propaganda film of an action movie is there any mention of what not being a citizen means. This is a world where the fascists have already won. All society is geared around and idealizes the military. In the film’s opening scenes, when Johnny and friends are finishing high school, we’re given glimpses into what this is doing to society. Their teachers are disfigured and unhinged war veterans. Michael Ironside plays an amputee who fills his students’ heads with war propaganda, flatly telling them that violence is the solution to political disputes, and maybe you should ask Hiroshima how being a peacenik works out, huh?"

"Starship Troopers has the most rock-dumb and dirt-simple plot of any science fiction feature in recent memory: Humanity is at war with gigantic creepy-crawlies from outer space, and a crew of determined youngsters must do battle with them."

"VERHOEVEN: It was too difficult; I think they’ve never seen a movie, a really big Star Wars kind of movie with this message. I don’t think they were ready to accept the fact that the film was political. You can see that it was political 15-20 years later, with all that’s happened. People have started to realize that a dominant layer of the movie was political. I thought it was very audacious what we did, but it didn’t pay off very well."

"VERHOEVEN: We were paraphrasing elements of Riefenstahl movies. Everybody seemed to be sculptures—I wanted these people to be like proto-Nazis, proto-Aryans. Their faces are kind of sculptures. So I thought to choose actors who would have streamlined faces, and certainly Johnny Rico has that. I think that was a necessity to make it believable to myself, the exaggeration. There’s no question, the bugs are fantasy and comic book-y! So if you use those kinds of elements, then you should be careful not to make your caricature around them completely real because they clash! If you have a caricature enemy you can’t have a very realistic protagonist. I think it was necessary to make them two comic book figures, that was the idea."

"VERHOEVEN: We were making some statements underneath the movie. The peripheral layer is interwoven with the main narrative. It’s very much visible in the newsreels, which are all based on German fascism. I felt that this was talking about upcoming fascism, of course. Even the Germans, I would say 80 to 90 percent of the Germans, when all this happened, didn’t think that it was happening. You see all the newsreels from the streets of Berlin—they’re all of very happy looking guys or girls. They were not aware of the threats, the diabolical deaths underlining the politics of the government. At that point I did not feel, in all honesty, that this was really something of a possibility in the United States. Otherwise we would’ve been prophets."

"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!"

"The layers that were there—especially with the most political movie, "Starship Troopers." It's never that we thought, We're going to do a representation of the United States as a metaphor. On the other hand, many elements of the movie came from American life ... it was all based on things that were vaguely there in American life. Especially in Texas and stuff like that ... but we never set out to do that. We needed something to put our point of view also there, you know? We don't think this is so great in anyway, this kind of, "let's go to war, let's kill.""

"In The New York Times, Janet Maslin complained that the film was nothing more than “crazed, lurid spectacle.” Roger Ebert described it as “totalitarian.” Reading those initial reviews, it seems as though Starship Troopers fell victim to Poe’s Law, the inevitability that at a certain point it becomes impossible to distinguish between an extreme example of a thing and a parody of that thing. Was Starship Troopers fascist propaganda or a parody of fascist propaganda? History has been somewhat kinder to Starship Troopers, as demonstrated by a slew of retrospective pieces that enthusiastically recognized it as “one of the most misunderstood movies ever” and a piece of social commentary that was “way ahead of its time.”"

"Heinlein’s book has been seen to suggest that “the best societies would be run by military dictatorships.” However, Verhoeven described Starship Troopers as “a movie about fascists who aren’t aware of their fascism.”"

"It’s hard not to draw a parallel with America’s 17-years-and-counting of engagement in the Middle East. What comes after the war? More war. This is a surprisingly radical message for a big budget ($100 million) studio film. “I don’t think that will be done again, a movie like that,” Verhoeven admits over the phone. “It’s so surprising that this was made. I don’t think anyone nowadays would dare to make a movie like that.”"

"When Starship Troopers was released, critics panned it as a simplistic B-movie. Former film critic Janet Maslin called it “raunchiness tailor-made for teen-age boys” in the New York Times. It’s not a totally unfair description of a movie in which most scenes involve characters being sprayed with lime-green alien guts."

"Like his RoboCop, Verhoeven uses television clips and fake advertisements to take shots at society. But where RoboCop uses these moments to skewer Cold War politics and the American automotive industry, the ones in Troopers are more pointed. They are satirical extremes of military propaganda, showing happy citizens (not civilians), shots of children joyfully holding guns, all while pushing for enrollment into Federal Service. The ads dovetail into the depiction of a Nazi-like regime that is embraced and is working. The allusion to Nazism is so prevalent and over the top - from costuming to the use of a Nazi Eagle like symbol - that it clearly is satire to show the dangers of extremist policies, which somehow blew right past the critics of the day. Militarism is another victim of Verhoeven's critical eye. There is no plan for the Federation forces. They are told to go in and kill anything with more than two legs, and when that invariably goes sideways they simply bring in more soldiers. The graphic scenes of the dead are an unwavering display of the horrors of war, a visual representation of the dangers of unchecked policy. The real kicker comes at the end. Whereas other films would have the main characters learn about the dark side of their leadership, even opting to fight against it, Starship Troopers' protagonists instead become part of the system, a vicious circle where they are now the stars in the propaganda."

"These days Starship Troopers sits easily alongside Verhoeven’s other sci-fi cult classics, Robocop and Total Recall, in a fabulous pantheon of futuristic, satirical silliness. Yes, these movies are violent, bloody, over-the-top and often hammily acted, but the director is very much in on the joke. Only an outsider like Verhoeven could have made films that overtly criticised the knuckleheaded excesses of 1980s and 90s American action cinema, yet somehow did a better job of delivering the era’s trademark trashy bombast than Hollywood itself."

"“It’s a very rightwing book,” the director told Empire magazine. “And with the movie, we tried, and I think at least partially succeeded, in commenting on that at the same time. It would be ‘Eat your cake and have it.’ All the way through we were fighting with the fascism, the ultra-militarism. All the way through I wanted the audience to be asking, ‘Are these people crazy?’"

"When Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers originally hit cinemas in 1997, the reviews were scathing. The Los Angeles Times’ Kenneth Turan argued that the Dutch director of Robocop, Total Recall and Basic Instinct had delivered a space flick “rigorously one-dimensional and free from even the pretense of intelligence”, even suggesting that the film-maker had preserved the “fascist utopianism” of the 1959 Robert A Heinlein novel that it had been based on. “Troopers takes us to a militaristic future where video bulletins encourage young people to ‘Join the Mobile Infantry and save the world’,” wrote Turan. “Schools teach that ‘violence is the supreme authority’ and nothing solves problems with the efficacy of ‘naked force.’” The Washington Post described Verhoeven’s tone as “so inconsistent that it’s impossible to decide whether he’s sending up the Third Reich or in love with it”."

"Sky Marshall Diennes: [addressing the UCF Federal Council as it agrees to declare war against the Bugs] We must meet this threat with our valor, our blood, indeed with our very lives to ensure that human civilization, not insect, dominates this galaxy now and always!"

"Dizzy Flores: [placating Rico after he fights Xander Barcalow over Carmen] Mobile Infantry and Fleet don't mix."

"[to Rico and Carmen after the Brain Bug is finally captured] We've got one of their Brains now. Pretty soon we'll know how they think. One day it will all be over. And everyone will forget that this was the moment. This was when it turned. It wasn't the mighty fleet, it wasn't some fancy new weapon. [they see the now-Private Zim being carried by the soldiers] It was a drill instructor named Zim, who captured a Brain."

"Hold here! Hold what you got!"

"Listen up! I expect the best and I give the best. [opens pod and pulls out a beer keg] Here's the beer. [everybody cheers. opens another pod with sports gear and music equipment] Here's the entertainment. [throws football] Have fun. That's an order."

"[to Rico at a party] Figuring things out for yourself is the only freedom anyone really has. Use that freedom."

"[eulogizing Dizzy Flores] Somebody asked me if I knew the difference between a citizen and a civilian. I know now. A citizen has the courage to make the safety of the human race their personal responsibility. Dizzy was my friend. She was a soldier. But more than that, she was a citizen of the Federation."

"[addressing a reporter] Let me tell you something: I'm from Buenos Aires, and I say "Kill 'em all!""

"Vengeance isn't true power. Anyone can take a life. Giving life is true power, the power you once had."

"A film that boasts 10 Bat weapons specific enough to be mentioned in the press notes (plus four different "Batarangs") yet considers lines like "Freeze, you're mad" to be acceptable dialogue, Batman & Robin lives and dies by the aesthetic of excess, the familiar idea that anything worth doing is worth overdoing. You may admire its surface, but it is far too slick for even a toehold's worth of connection. While it would take more time than it's worth to list all the wrinkles of the film's Akiva Goldsman plot, Batman & Robin has the eerie feeling of having no beginning, no middle and no end. Watching it is like stumbling into the world's longest-coming attractions trailer, or a product reel for a visual effects house."

"If there's anybody watching this, that... let's say, loved Batman Forever, and went into Batman & Robin with great anticipation, if I've disappointed them in any way, then I really want to apologize. Because it wasn't my intention. My intention was just to entertain them."

"There was a lot of pressure from Warner Bros. to make Batman & Robin more family-friendly. We decided to do a less depressing Batman movie and less torture and more hero. I know I have been criticized a lot for this, but I didn't see the harm in that approach at all."

"[The costume] was made by Jose Fernandez, who was our brilliant lead sculpture. If you look at Batman and Batman Returns, it was the genius, Bob Ringwood who created those suits, so by the time we got to Batman Forever, the rubber and techniques had gotten so sophisticated. If you look at when Michael Keaton appears in the first suit, you'll notice how large it is. It was brilliant but the best they could do at the time. By the time Batman Forever came around, rubber molding had become so much more advanced. So I said, let's make it anatomical and gave photos of those Greek statues and those incredible anatomical drawings you see in medical books. He did the nipples and when I looked at them, I thought, that's cool."

"At a gala in Gotham City, the fabulous Poison Ivy makes her entrance in a fluffy magenta gorilla suit made from 450 Santa Claus wigs. Then she peels this off slowly as the band plays her theme song. And out comes the most show-stopping character in Batman and Robin, the fourth and most frenetically gaudy feature in the series. As played by Uma Thurman, Poison Ivy is perfect, flaunting great looks, a mocking attitude and madly flamboyant disguises. Like Mae West, she mixes true femininity with the winking womanliness of a drag queen. Poison Ivy captures the essence of Batman and Robin, a wild, campy costume party of a movie and the first Batman to suggest that somewhere in Gotham City there might be a Studio 54. Joel Schumacher, director and ringmaster, piles on the flashy showmanship and keeps the film as big, bold, noisy and mindlessly overwhelming as possible. In this context, it's not surprising that even the opening credit sequence is at fever pitch. The movie begins with Batman and Robin caught up in a crazed hockey match, taking off on a rocket and then surfing through space."

"It's as if Clooney didn't spend any time figuring out what makes Batman tick. This is a rich man who is so weird and troubled that he dresses like a bat and chases criminals every night for years and years. Would a normal person do that? The rubber suit alone should have been the tip-off. This guy has problems."

"Joel [Schumacher] would sit on a crane with a megaphone and scream before each take, 'Remember, everyone, this is a cartoon'. It was hard to act because that kind of set the tone for the film."

"What I'll remember from the film are some of the images, such as the Gotham Observatory, which is inside a giant globe held aloft far above the city streets by a towering statue in the Grecian style. And I will remember Mr. Freeze sadly looking at a little music-box figure of his wife. And Alfred poignantly searching his family tree on his computer. And Ivy's leafy eyebrows. My prescription for the series remains unchanged: scale down. We don't need to see $2 million on the screen every single minute. Give the foreground to the characters, not the special effects. And ask the hard questions about Bruce Wayne. There is a moment in the film where we learn that the new telescope in the Gotham Observatory can look at any place on Earth. "Just don't point it at my bedroom", Bruce Wayne chuckles. What is he chuckling about?"

"Listening to Schwarzenegger's one-liners ("The iceman cometh!"), I realized that a funny thing is happening to the series: It's creeping irresistibly toward the tone of the 1960s TV show. The earlier Batman movies, especially the dark Batman Returns (1992), made a break with the camp TV classic and went for moodier tones. But now the puns and punchlines come so fast the action has to stop and wait for them. Although we don't get the POW! and WHAM! cartoon graphics, this fourth movie seems inspired more by the TV series than the Bob Kane comic character."

"Because of my love for the world of Batman, I went to Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin with real anticipation. I got thrilled all over again by the Gothic towers of Gotham City. I was reminded of how cool the Batmobile is (Batman has a new one), and I smiled at the fetishistic delight with which Batman and Robin put on their costumes, sheathing themselves in shiny black second skins and clamping on lots of belts, buckles, shields, hooks, pulleys, etc. (How much does that stuff weigh? How do they run while they're wearing it?) But my delight began to fade at about the 30-minute mark, when it became clear that this new movie, like its predecessors, was not *really* going to explore the bizarre world of its heroes, but would settle down safely into a special effects extravaganza. Batman & Robin, like the first three films in the series, is wonderful to look at, and has nothing authentic at its core."

"I was in a rubber suit. I had rubber nipples. I could have played him straight but I didn't. I made him gay."

"I just thought the last one had been successful, so I thought I was just going to be in a big, successful franchise movie. [And] in a weird way I was. Batman is still the biggest break I ever had and it completely changed my career, even if it was weak and I was weak in it. It was a difficult film to be good in. I don't know what I could have done differently. But if I am going to be Batman in the film Batman & Robin, I can't say it didn't work and then not take some of the blame for that."

"I hope Mr. Bane can swim."

"A laundry service that delivers. Wow!"

"After you're frozen, your icy tomb will plummet back to Gotham."

"Tonight's forecast: A Freeze is coming!"

"Dare to be cold, Batman?"

"[freezes Robin] Stay cool, Birdboy."

"If revenge is a dish best served cold, then put on your Sunday finest: It's time to feast!"

"I hate uninvited guests."

"You're not sending me to the cooler!"

"No matter what they tell you, Mr. Bane, it is the size of your gun that counts."

"In this universe, there is only one absolute: Everything freezes."

"Alright everyone! Chill."

"I hate when people talk during the movie."

"Can you feel it coming? The icy cold of space. At 30,000 feet, your heart will freeze and beat no more."