War Films

"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!""

"When you battle 6 trillion enemies that will eat you alive, there are only two rules... EVERYONE FIGHTS. NO ONE QUITS."

"The paratroopers of the future are here... and their enemies aren't HUMAN"

"In the First World War, and for the first time in the history of man, nations combined to fight against nations using the crude weapons of those days. The Second World War involved every continent on the globe, and men turned to science for new devices of warfare, which reached an unparalleled peak in their capacity for destruction. And now, fought with the terrible weapons of super-science, menacing all mankind and every creature on Earth, comes...The War of the Worlds!"

"[last lines] The Martians had no resistance to the bacteria in our atmosphere to which we have long since become immune. Once they had breathed our air, germs which no longer affect us began to kill them. The end came swiftly. All over the world, their machines began to stop and fall. After all that men could do had failed, the Martians were destroyed and humanity was saved by the littlest things which God, in His wisdom, had put upon this Earth."

"The Martians had calculated their descent upon our Earth with amazing perfection and subtlety. As more of their cylinders came from the mysterious depths of space, their war machines, awesome in their power and complexity, created a wave of fear which swept into all corners of the world. In every country, government officials met in desperate conclave, seeking ways to coordinate their defenses with those of other nations. The government of India, driven from New Delhi, met in a railroad coach, while massive Hindu populations streamed for the imagined safety of the faraway Himalayas. The redoubtable Finnish and Turkish armies, Chinese battalions and Bolivians worked and fought furiously. Every effort against the tremendous power of their other-world antagonists ended in the same frantic rout. As the Martians burned fields and forests, and great cities fell before them, huge populations were driven from their homes. The stream of flight rose swiftly to a torrent. It became a giant stampede without order and without goal. It was the beginning of the rout of civilization, of the massacre of humanity. A great silence fell over half of Europe, as all communication was disrupted. When the last wire photo out of Paris reached the French Cabinet, exiled in Strausberg, they hit upon the idea of using super-speed jets as couriers. Stripped of armament and loaded with extra fuel, these planes maintained connections with the Scandinavian countries, North Africa, the United States and especially with England. It was plain the Martians appreciated the strategic significance of the British Isles. The people of Britain met the invaders magnificently, but it was unavailing. As the Martians swept northward toward London, the British Cabinet stayed in session, coordinating every item of information that could be gathered, passing it on to the United Nations in New York. From there, the news was forwarded to Washington. Because here was the only remaining unassailed strategic point."

"[opening lines] No one would have believed, in the middle of the 20th century, that human affairs were being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's. Yet, across the gulf of space on the planet Mars, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic regarded our Earth with envious eyes, slowly and surely drawing their plans against us. Mars is more than 140 million miles from the sun, and for centuries it has been in the last stages of exhaustion. At night, temperatures drop far below zero even at its equator. The inhabitants of this dying planet looked across space with instruments and intelligences of which we have scarcely dreamed, searching for another world to which they could migrate. They could not go to Pluto, outermost of all the planets, so cold that its atmosphere lies frozen on its surface. They couldn't go to Neptune or Uranus, twin worlds in eternal night and perpetual cold, both surrounded by an unbreathable atmosphere of methane gas and ammonia vapor. The Martians considered Saturn, an attractive world with its many moons and beautiful rings of cosmic dust, but its temperature is close to 270 degrees below zero, and ice lies 15,000 miles deep on its surface. Their nearest world was giant Jupiter, where there are titanic cliffs of lava and ice with hydrogen flaming at the tops, where the atmospheric pressure is terrible - thousands of pounds to the square inch. They couldn't go there. Nor could they go to Mercury, nearest planet to the sun; it has no air, and the temperature at its equator is that of molten lead. Of all the worlds that the intelligences on Mars could see and study, only our own warm Earth was green with vegetation, bright with water, and possessed a cloudy atmosphere eloquent of fertility. It did not occur to mankind that a swift fate might be hanging over us, or that from the blackness of outer space we were being scrutinized and studied – until the time of our nearest approach to the orbit of Mars during a pleasant summer season."

"Jack Kruschen - Salvatore"

"Henry Brandon - Cop at crash"

"Vernon Rich - Colonel Ralph Heffner"

"Sir Cedric Hardwicke - Narrator"

"Bill Phipps - Wash Perry"

"Paul Frees - Radio reporter"

"Housely Stevenson Jr. - General Mann's aide"

"Lewis Martin - Pastor Dr. Matthew Collins"

"Sandro Giglio - Dr. Bilderbeck"

"Bob Cornthwaite - Dr. Pryor"

"Les Tremayne - General Mann"

"Ann Robinson - Sylvia van Buren"

"Gene Barry - Dr. Clayton Forrester"

"The original invasion!"

"Mighty panorama of Earth-shaking fury as an army from Mars invades!"

"They came to CONQUER the EARTH!"

"A mighty panorama of earth-shaking fury!"

"Amazing! Terrifying! The most savage spectacle of all time!"

"Col. Heffner: [last words before being disintegrated.] Everybody out of here! Everybody out! The Air Force will take care of these babies now! Dr. Forrester, get out of here! Everybody out of here! Everybody out—!"

"Guns, tanks, bombs - they're like toys against them!"

"According to intelligence from other nations, they're working toward some kind of plan. Now, what it may be isn't clear yet, simply because once they begin to move, no more news comes out of that area."

"They'll probably move at dawn."

"We know now we can't beat their machines. We've got to beat them."

"Those shells can't get through to them. They've put up some sort of electromagnetic covering, a protective blister."