Review of 'Starship Troopers' on 'Goodreads'
1 star
I liked this movie. I thought the inclusivity toward women, and farsical attitude toward fascism was unique and interesting. I heard people say the book was better. So, I assumed that it would expound on the world the story was set in. I expected it to offer more explanation about how this militarist federation was built.
I was SO WRONG!
First of all, this book offers nothing but a full-throated endorsement of fascism, corporal punishment, and the use of violence to advance the interests of the state. Secondly, women are barely involved at all. Women are allowed to pilot spaceships only because they have a "higher tolerance for g-forces". Third, there is barely any more world building in the entire book than was found in the first five minutes of the movie, and it's all delivered without an ounce of self-awareness.
Worst of all, this isn't even imaginative science fiction. โฆ
I liked this movie. I thought the inclusivity toward women, and farsical attitude toward fascism was unique and interesting. I heard people say the book was better. So, I assumed that it would expound on the world the story was set in. I expected it to offer more explanation about how this militarist federation was built.
I was SO WRONG!
First of all, this book offers nothing but a full-throated endorsement of fascism, corporal punishment, and the use of violence to advance the interests of the state. Secondly, women are barely involved at all. Women are allowed to pilot spaceships only because they have a "higher tolerance for g-forces". Third, there is barely any more world building in the entire book than was found in the first five minutes of the movie, and it's all delivered without an ounce of self-awareness.
Worst of all, this isn't even imaginative science fiction. It's 95% about a soldier's experience training and participating in a war. Replace the spaceships with planes, the power armor with parachutes, and the bugs with nazis and it could have been set in the 1930s. The characters all talk and behave like pre-war Americans. If you've watched "Band of Brothers" you will be very bored by this story by now.
Whoever made a screenplay out of this McCarthy-era bullshit book was actively mocking it the entire time. In that way the movie is a MASSIVE improvement.
