I thought it was pretty obvious what it was, even as a young teen when first watching this I knew something was up. Remember thinking “it’s so much like Robocop”, not realizing it was done by same director. As a kid I loved the mindless action and the amazing effects for the time, then later as an adult appreciated it on entirely different level. Still like Robocop considerably more but this movie still holds up, and is a very good one at that. Kinda thought it a bit insulting that Ebert had this on his worst of list for that year (I think he did anyway).
It was repetitive to the point of being meniachal. I think we got the point after the first invasion. After that it became monotonous to the point of being preposterous. I'm not sure I understood what it was about to be honest. I still don't.
Starship Troopers is an amazing film, the effects still hold up, and the entire plot is forgiven because it is designed to be a gigantic, effective lambast of what propagandist War films try to be.
Ebert is a military strategist. "Why use machine guns on the bugs when a grenade blows em up real good." Yes Roger, that is why all modern armies have ditched their rifles and gone to only using grenades.
Well he has a point, machine guns are anti Infantry weaponry, you wouldn't shoot a tank with a machine gun, and the bugs are essentially armoured targets. After the first massacre you would think they would switch armaments and rely more on heavy calibre armour piercing munitions and artillery. Although you could also argue they were still unprepared and they kept using rifles as it's all they had
Ebert just absolutely loves movies set in the swamps of Louisiana/New Orleans. The Big Easy is an objectively bad film, at least from the perspective of a New Orleanian, and it was Ebert’s 2nd favorite movie of 1987. Down By Law is a much better film.
I'd expect Roger to love Starship Troopers and Gene to hate it. Roger usually seemed to be more open minded towards massive-budget popcorn blockbusters than Gene.
I get Ebert’s perspective on Bean but I still enjoyed it quite a bit and it’s a marginal thumbs up if nothing else. Siskel in a rare moment got it right over Ebert on that one. It probably would have been funnier on home video as Ebert said but there are some classic moments in that movie for sure.
@@riseagain845 Yeah Ebert often contradicted himself. Maybe he loved the over the top violence in Robocop but didn’t pick up on the satire. 🤷🏽♂️🤷🏽♂️🤷🏽♂️
I agree. How could he miss the satire about the glorification of war and the non-stop wartime propaganda from the media embedded in the armed troops, just like CNN in the Iraq war in the 1990s? And what about the whole concept of citizenship in this movie that one can earn by serving in the military & embracing a philosophy/ideology of war? Wouldn't that be noteworthy? I've never been impressed by Ebert's reviews, and this is just another example of his strange preferences and upredictable opinions.
Starship troopers is a movie for 90s kids that weren't old enough to watch R rated movies and it worked perfectly. Perfect stereotypical over the top military action and behavior with bugs and humans getting torn apart spiced with simple yet relatable feelings and conflicts among the lead characters.
@@jthrash9081 Holy shit you don't understand anything. Anyone who loves that movie understands it inside and out, the "immature 90s kids" you are trying to pigeonhole would not understand the satire and would reject it's 90210 teen references. Smart cultured film viewers of any generation love Starship Troopers.
20:15 "Listen to he sounds that surround you" *Hears my cat beside me purring* "Do you hear it? It's the sound of America's needy children crying out for help" Well that escalated quickly.
Bean 1997 I coundt agree more. brilliant script, the bits with the painting are genuis, but the final act at the hospital is the clunkiest and most out of nowhere element in the film, perfect example of running out of ideas with a genuis character/ premise.
Ebert makes a good point about the soldiers continuing to inefficiently use machine guns. I like the movie as dumb as it is, but I too wondered when I saw them bomb bugs with a plane, "Why not just do that all the time?" Why did they keep sending soldiers on foot to fight the bugs with machine guns that took so many bullets to kill them instead of just bombing them from a plane!
Not to mention the news report you see halfway through the movie saying that all you have to do is shoot it in the stem. I figured everybody would have been doing that at that point.
I think i remember red letter media making a good point about this. The point is to keep the fight going, to have an enemy to fight. Winning is secondary to continuation of fighting. Thats what keeps the facist society, pictured in this movie, a float.
Same reason the Americans couldn't just bomb the Vietnamese into submission, they were bunkered down underground, and would only come out when threatened. I think the plan of a ground invasion was to kill the big artillery bugs, and to kill or capture the queen. Neither of which would be done from ariel bombardment
There are two groups of idiots when it comes to satire: those who did not get the satire which led to their dislike of the narrative, and those who think that disliking the narrative can only mean that you did not get the satire. Gene and Roger: "We agree that the satire of Starship Troopers was good but the repetitiveness of the bug battles was bad." Top comments: "Siskel got the satire because he gave a marginal thumbs up, while Ebert did not because he gave a thumbs down."
Regardless, Starship Troopers rocked ! Still holds up as well as Robocop or Total Recall. Who cares what pretentious critics think .. wether they 'got it' or not. The satire is great and the action is fantastic.
@@shiranuiaensland1442 yeah, ok .. I'm simply saying both of these critics could be serious stick in the muds and they do seem slightly inept often .. I almost agree with people who say 'he didn't get it', .. maybe he's just saying he did to save face? I'd say a lot of great movies seem to go over their heads a lot. Elephant Man, Taxi Driver, and plenty of others .... And their constant gushing over Woody Allen's overrated crap is pretty tedious .. but still entertaining in a way.
