Starship Trooper-- off topic

I just saw a review of the movie Starship Troopers on TV. The review was very
favorable. The troops don't have powered armor but the bugs are there.
Supposedly the movie will be a "thinking man's" film as much as an action
movie. On a side note I was disappointed with Men In Black; they could have
done it so much better.

> At 09:06 AM 7/10/97 -0700, you wrote:

Where did you see this review? Who did the review? Since the film isn't due
out until this fall, could it have been a press kit instead of an objective
review?

Sorry. I just got back from vacation and had the TV going in the background
with taped documentaries. I went to change tapes and there was the review. I
think it was Gene Shallot (no idea on how to spell his name) from
ABC??.
I only caught the tail end where they showed a clip (cool looking bugs done
with 3D animation) and the final summation. He compared the movie to the
original Alien flick as an example of how this kind of movie could be done.

Paul

> At 01:43 PM 7/12/97 -0400, you wrote:

> At 09:06 AM 7/10/97 -0700, you wrote:

I saw a preview of Starship Troopers a couple of days ago at the local movie
theater. I didn't pay much attention since we had just walked in and were
looking for seats. Here are a couple of random observations.

I liked the scenes in space. The spaceships reminded me of Babylon
5.

I briefly saw what I took to be a landing craft. The front was a big box shape
that opened. It was painted to look like a mouth. The effect was of a large
fake animal mouth made of a box. I'm not sure what this really was though.

The battle on the ground consist of hundards of human troopers running in mass
to attack the bugs. My though was, don't the bugs have an area effect weapon?
I guess not, because if they did the humans would have been wiped out.

The bugs looked good.

Enjoy,

> Tom Granvold writes:

@:) >I just saw a review of the movie Starship Troopers on TV. The @:) >review
was very favorable.
@:)
@:) I saw a preview of Starship Troopers a couple of days ago at @:) the local
movie theater. I didn't pay much attention since we had @:) just walked in and
were looking for seats. Here are a couple of @:) random observations.

I actually saw a preview two days ago so it's pretty fresh in my mind. The
reason I mentioned Armor, actually, is because the preview
I saw reminded me _VERY MUCH_ of Armor and very little of what little
I can remember of Starship Troopers. The humans flew a fleet of ships in to a
fairly low orbit around the planet and the bugs were apparently launching some
kind of missiles at them. The missiles looked primitive but that might just be
my overinterpretation and the fact that I want this movie to be Armor. They
looked like comets and they were drifting up lazily from the surface of the
planet and demolishing spaceships. So anyway all the people in their Space:
A&B costumes were standing inside a steel stockade and shooting over the top
at the thousands of bugs coming in. Bugs were predictably getting
over the wall but not many - just enough to make it scary.  Anyway all
of a sudden this gigantic thingie, it looked like a really pissed-off
beetle about the size of a bus, well it came out of the ground apparently
inside the stockade and started snuffing our heroes. Then one of the said
heroes said to his commander (after the battle, I guess) "the bugs laid a trap
for us, didn't they, sir. It was an ambush from the beginning!" Or something
like that.

So it reminds me a lot of armor, given the location and scenery and bugs and
what have you. I seem to remember Starship Troopers taking
place on a lot of human-populated worlds with buildings and houses and
the like but none of that was to be seen here.

It sounds like they wouldn't be able to do a good job reproducing S. T. as a
movie. If they can reproduce Armor, even just the fighting (and even without
the powered armor) (and also you're right Mike L. there's more to the book
than that but that's what they need to reproduce) then I'd be more than
satisfied.

In May I was at MARCON Sci-fi/Fantasy Convention in Columbus, Ohio. They
ran "Making of Starship Trooper". The only comments from the audience was:
'Did these guys even bother to read the book?' I don't think I saw 2 scenes in
the movie that were in the book. This was in the 20 Minutes or so of footage
(not counting the interviews) that they included. I have a feeling that it
will be
a very good effects/action movie, but anyone expecting to see the book
as a movie will be disappointed.

> campbelr@pop3.kunsan.af.mil writes:

@:) Having read the 1st ST comic, I immediatly thought of Armor, as we @:) are
fighting "bugs" on thier home planet, for no obvious reason.

I hope I don't give too much away but the reason they were fighting in Armor
was that the bugs had nuked Brasilia or some such place. That they had somehow
attacked us was the coolest and most bizarre aspect of their mysterious
nature. I bet the movie will be good. Maybe someday they'll do a movie called
"Armor" that'll be about Starship Troopers.

> Tom Granvold wrote:

I watched a preview as well and the large ships looked a bit boxy.

> I briefly saw what I took to be a landing craft. The front was a

The landing craft looked cool on the ground, but looked a little cheap when in
flight.

> The battle on the ground consist of hundards of human troopers

Yeah, that did look goofy. The one scene of a large mass of bugs reminded
me of an old sci-fi novel where the bug-like enemy came in
waves(quantity vs quality) to overcome the humans. The main difference with
the book was the enemy was constantly being manufactured at several hidden
factories so as each wave got destroyed, a new wave came out later to take on
the reduced human strength.

> The bugs looked good.

Looked kinda like big praying mantis and dragon flies.

The probelm as i see it for ST:TM, is the plot etc.. is Armor, and not ST.In
ST we were engaged witha foe who was pretty equal in tech, in an intersteller
war. Having read the 1st ST comic, I immediatly thought of Armor, as we are
fighting "bugs" on thier home planet, for no obvious reason. Guess I'll have
to wait until it gets here, (about 6 weeks after it opens in the states, if
I'm lucky) and see. Randy

> campbelr@pop3.kunsan.af.mil writes:

@:) Nuked Brasillia? I must have missed that one, (a friend has it so @:) I'll
"borrow" his copy:) I know the "bugs" in ST nuked Rio.

I may have the location wrong but I'm pretty sure the reason humans
were on A-9 was that the bugs had attacked us.  With all this talk
about the book, I've put it at the top of my reading list but unfortunately I
still have to get through 800 pages of volume one of Sean O'Casey's
autobiography (yawn). So it'll be a while.

> On Jul 15, 9:03, Joachim Heck - SunSoft wrote:

Didn't the Bugs nuke Buenos Ares in ST?

Nuked Brasillia? I must have missed that one, (a friend has it so I'll
"borrow" his copy:) I know the "bugs" in ST nuked Rio. SPOILER ALERT!!!!!
SPOILER ALERT!!!! The rest of this message gives out some of the plot line,
and "history" from the movie.

As for the comic, the reason is that a "ball o' bugs" crashed on Mars. If the
atmoshpere had been a bit thicker, they would of soft landed. So the newly
combined militaries of Earth call this a crisis and take over the newly
invented FTL drive and send a scouting mission, (the comics) with an invasion
force to follow to stop the "menance" So faar I'm niether impressed with the
characterazations nor the art. Still waiting for issue 2, but I probably won't
get it before the movies out. Randy