Thriller 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!""

"Vikram Walia: Protect and serve my ass, where's my fucking turban?"

"Veronica Keepsake: You're saying I violated section 34/Double-D?"

"Young Boy: Like my man Fiddy says, get rich or die trying."

"When there's blood in the streets it's time to buy. (attributed to Baron Rothschild)"

"I can change your entire program, so the sooner that you stop being my problem, and start being my solution, the better off you'll be."

"Captain Darius: Get these guys some vests."

"Look out, bad guys! Here I come."

"Don't bullshit the bullshitter!"

"This ain't no bank robbery."

"You planned every inch of this thing right from the start and you've got everybody marching to your beat, including me, and I'm through buying it."

"Until I talk to them, they get nothing, not even a cup of coffee."

"We got to sit back and look at this thing from a distance. Things are not all they appear to be."

"Fact is, all lies, all evil deeds, they stink. You can cover them up for a while, but they don't go away."

"This is the spirit dissolving in the music carrying up to God. Open up and let her rip. Don't perform... create. Say, 'Muse, I hate you, but I hate you on my knees.' Scream, 'I am the infantile center of the goddamn universe!' Everyone!"

"Sopranos, this piece was written by monks who believed in God. They're singing not to other monks but to God. They're singing about God to God. And you think I'm a tough audience."

"When I'm good and ready, I'm gonna walk right through the front door."

"Or am I just whistling "Dixie" out of my ass?"

"Respect is the ultimate currency."

"Anyone else here smarter than me?"

"Peter, think very carefully about how you answer the next question, because if you get it wrong, your headstone will read: "Here lies Peter Hammond, hero who valiantly attempted to prevent a brilliant bank robbery by trying to hide his cellular phone, but wound up getting shot in the fucking head.""

"My friends and I are making a very large withdrawal from this bank. Anybody gets in our way, gets a bullet in the brain."

"You have four seconds. Anyone still standing gets shot."

"When I said that I planned the perfect bank robbery, I meant precisely that."

"My name is Dalton Russell. Pay strict attention to what I say because I choose my words carefully and I never repeat myself. I told you my name, that's the who. The where could most readily be described as a prison cell. But there's a vast difference between being stuck in a tiny cell and being in prison. The what is easy. Recently, I planned and set in motion events to execute the perfect bank robbery. That's also the when. As for the why, beyond the obvious financial motivation, it's exceedingly simple: Because I can. Which leaves us only with the how. And therein, as the Bard would tell us, lies the rub."

"Gabrielle Union - Amanda Luttrell"

"You have no grace."

"Will McCormack - August"