So we're back with another one of these. Yeah, I know. The runtime. Don't worry about it. Shh. It's okay. We're here today to talk about one of my most problematic faves. Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein. And a good movie that I kind of hate. Starship the movie directed by Paul Verhoeven. And Jack is here. So, you know, we're completely off the rails. All right? Things are just. They're just gonna happen. So strap in. Yeah, cable management is bonkers, especially if you're like. Like this. This mic that I stand that I use, I don't particularly like. It's just the best one that I own. But, like, you can see I've got like all the cables draped over it because I need to keep them up off the floor because the number of times that dogs have like, like passed underneath and like, caught themselves on tables and just dragged everything off my desk all at once. And it's like. And you're like, you're like grabbing them, like, no, stop. I need you to just, like, stay very still while I untangle you from everything. And they're like, I don't understand what's going on. I'll just leave. And you're like, no, no, I'm gonna carry my computer away with you.

Fuck. Oh, my God.

Okay, so you have both read and watched Starship Troopers. So are we still friends at the end of all of that?

Yes, we're. And also I feel like I've seen your underwear. Like, I know things about you now I didn't know before.

Oh, fuck. Yeah, that's probably true.

I feel like I've seen your dirty laundry. No, it's fine. I thought. Okay, so let's preface this by saying, hi, everyone. I am brand new to Starship Troopers. I have just recently, for the first time, ever seen the movie in its entirety and read. Well, listened to the audiobook in its entirety.

Yep.

At regular one time speed. Because I don't have the same ears as Scott and I can't listen sped up. It drives me nuts.

My wife is even faster than me. She's at like two times speed on a lot of stuff. I'm like. I'm like, no, I can't do that. Everybody's at their dial.

I need it regular human speech speed in my ears, please. So, yeah, I know nothing about the writing or production of the movie or the book. And Scott knows all kinds of things, which I'm very excited to learn because I have so many questions.

This is one of those subjects that, like, is. It's been. I've had opinions about it for a while, but especially over the last, like, two years, I've been like, Paul Verhoeven's movie. Got a critical reevaluation over the last 20 years. And that has rubbed me the wrong way in some very specific ways. And so this is, like, been bubbling up in me. So, like, this is. This is like, like many things. This is just like, therapy that I'm not paying for. I've, like, roped Jack into doing my own therapy exercises.

Well, and it's benefiting me because I have been meaning to both read the book and watch the movie for, oh, I don't know, like a decade and only now getting around to it because Scott was like, come on my podcast and talk about. I'm like, oh, shit. Well, I better.

Hey, you picked it off the list. You could have picked something easy.

Something easy.

No, we have to do maximum effort.

I'm prepared to be here for three hours. I hope we're not, because I'll boil alive in this closet.

But we could take a break.

Yeah, we could take an intermission. Yeah, I'm sure the audience would appreciate that, too. Hey, there's just 15 minutes of dead air in the middle of this podcast. You can go to the bathroom, get.

A snack like in a previous podcast. I don't know. I haven't edited these yet, so I'm not sure if this gets left in or not. But I did take a break with. With a previous guest. Pretty sure that, like, we came back in and I was just going to be, like, shooting the shit while I ate yogurt or something. And then, like, I think it was Hera was, like, just started talking about the thing again. So there's probably, like, a really awful misophonia, like, 20 minutes that I won't be able to cut, but I'll be.

Just like, you've got yogurt in your mouth the whole time.

Yeah, just real gross. Gross. So it's fine. It's whatever. Yeah. Okay. So if I've been trying to summarize these a little bit because I am of the opinion that people can listen to criticism, which I can roughly consider all of this without actually looking at the property, because sometimes going into something with a point of view from somebody who is familiar with it is useful. So I want to prep people. So Starship Troopers, the book, is the. One of the most influential sci fi properties of all time, I think it's fair to say. This is a 19 oh God. I'm going to get it. It's either 57 or 58 book by Robert Anson Heinlein. It is the progenitor of every big robot idea you've ever seen in sci fi, basically. Especially like, I mean like fucking Mobile Suit Gundam and every other like Mecha anime. That idea starts with this book. Basically. I'm gonna. I gotta. I'm gonna pull up a Wikipedia article so I can actually make sure that I got this right.

I think it's 57. I feel like it's 57, but you.

Know how the Internet is. Yeah. So it was first in them in. No, no, 59. I was, I was actually wrong. So that's the book. It came out in a magazine earlier than that. So it was somewhere in there anyway. Late 50s.

Yeah. And it really feels like it.

Yeah. It's incredibly of its time. But it is a coming of age story. As a young like fucking boy scout of a man like who's just the most oblivious, smooth headed person you've ever met. This is the main character I'm talking about who is just like, does not. Not introspective at all and just like does things and he's like, I wonder why I did that. And then he like just like bounces along through life and grows into Penny.

He only bounces.

Yeah, he only bounces until he grows and joins what is called the Mobile infantry which is the super awesome space fighting force of the future in this book. And he goes off to fight the arachnids, the bugs who are like a colonial alien species that people can't communicate with but that Earth is at war with. And we mostly like watch him in school and like first in like boot camp and then in Officers Candidate School. Like there's actually very little like war in this war book.

Very little war. That really surprised me. We'll get into it.

Yes. And then he grows and becomes like he goes all the way from fresh boot to a freshly branded lieutenant. And then that's it. That's the whole thing. It's a coming of age story. And boy grows into a man story. And then we'll talk about Paul Verhoeven briefly. Paul Verhoeven is a Dutch filmmaker who has a very low opinion of Americans and made his. His movie. We'll get into the. We can get. I can tell you all about the production of the.

I Need to Know Everything.

And he, he was making a. He wasn't making a different thing. He was this. There was a guy shopping around a script. The person that Paul. No, no. Okay, I gotta. I can't go into the full thing here. This is A. The 1997. This is why I was pulling seven. Yeah. 1997. Starship Troopers by Paul Verhoeven is a sci fi fucking insane, hyperviolent, crazy ass satire of fascism with beautiful production design and excellent special effects. And the worst script I think I've ever. That is the worst script in a movie I love, I think is maybe the way I put it, it's just that awful and the acting's fucking bonkers and it's hot.

Just an insane movie.

It is an insane, insane movie and it is so weird and it makes so many bold choices, but also like a bunch of those don't work and.

But it's like a cult classic.

Yeah, sort of. It came out, it was lambasted. It was. It got terrible reviews. It did not make its money back in the U.S. it was a huge box office bomb. It eventually made its money back in international markets and then in the intervening. Yeah, nearly 30 years, it has gotten critically reevaluated to be like the most important sci fi movie of all time, basically in various people that I have heard. And I am a. I'm a. I'm an old. I'm an old head Heinlein fan. My dad handed me one of Heinlein's books when I was like, what, slightly too young. I probably came into that writer a little bit too young. I read all of his stuff up at that point and I am conflicted by my love for the movie because I do actually love the movie, my love for the book and my wish that these things had nothing to fucking do with each other.

Yeah, because here's the thing, they're two different like stories. The theming of them is very different. The entire concept of how war is conducted is different in these two different war stories. They have basically nothing to do with each other. There are some names that are similar, but that's it.

And like certain plot points are brought over and even some, like, because the book has a ton of like philosophical and like political musings in it, it just like, it like literally puts you in a classroom at various points and is like, here's some thoughts about morality and how society should maybe work. And they've pulled some of that text into the movie, but like, it doesn't actually pertain to the movie in a lot of ways.

Right. Yeah.

And sometimes they even like completely undermine. They bring over some of the text or a particular incident and then just completely undercut it. And make it as dumb as possible.

Yeah, it's.

Yeah. So how do we want to structure all of this?

Yeah, because there's a lot.

There's just so much. I think we'll start with the movie because it's more easily digestible.

I also watched the movie before I read the book, so that works for me.

And for the record, I have. I didn't. I haven't watched that movie. This was one of those movies that I watched like every weekend for like two years when I was a young man.

I feel like that makes so much sense for, like, the person that you are. This is not a dig. It's just like an observation. Totally.

I don't mind that. I mean, like, this whole entire season is about coming to grips with, like, what can you take away from media that has flaws and.

Yeah. And like, things that were sort of instrumental in, like, you know, the stuff that you, like, formed your whole personality around when you were young. And then as an older adult looking back going, huh, there were some fucked up shit in this piece of media that I put all of my personality and put into all my personality figuring.

Out, like, how do you deal? Like, because there is a real. Like, this is probably the Internet's fault because there's very much a reductivist philosophy within Internet spaces that, like, when a, when a piece of media is dubbed, like, problematic, right? Like if it says, oh, like that's a. That espouses some horrible political belief or the creator of this thing is awful, that, like, the correct and moral thing to do is to drop that property and just never engage with it again. And I do not subscribe to that idea especially, you can get into some practical arguments about, like, when a creator is alive and still receiving benefit from like, commercial success, but once the person's dead, which Robert E. Henlein is, and Paul Verhoeven unfortunately isn't, sorry, I'm going to take digs at Paul Verhoeven over the course of this. And I mean these with love, but.

Also, but also with seething hatred.

I think he deeply disrespects his audience. So that's fine. Anyway, so. But like, even when an author or creator is still alive, like, be understanding how you can interact with media that contains shit that either you don't like or that you, that you find to be a problem or that like, you think sends the wrong message, all of that. Or even just as ugly, like engaging with that media is actually not just okay, but super important because you need to, you need to dig into those things, like saying, like, let's use like Harry Potter as the big example because that's the one that everybody's talking about in the, in the last few years. Look, if you say, okay, well, J.K. rowling is a transphobe, but so I'm just going to abandon all of Harry Potter. That means that you never engage with the like actual bad ideas that are in that property. And you never identify what those things are and why you might relate to them and why they seemed okay at the time. And you never have a chance to grow.

Yeah, there's interesting thinking to be done within yourself about like, what in a property speaks to you. That said, don't give J.K. rowling your money. She uses it to make sure I personally don't get to have human rights. So like, you know, but that's the whole thing is like, yeah, yeah, that's.

What, that's what I'm talking about with the practical reasons. But like, also the practical reasons.

Is she alive and still doing just horrible stuff for trans folks all the time.

But like reading those books and thinking critically about them.

Right.

Still is an important part of. Because they are hugely influential on like, they, they were like, they built the Ya space over the next 10 years in a lot of ways. And like, you know, we still feel the effect and like, so like, it's not just one of those things. Like we can't just pretend these things don't exist. Like somebody. And maybe this is also one of those things where I'm not saying that everybody should do this with every property. It's like any piece of art that you personally can't handle, that's or don't want to handle, that's okay. But there need to be some of us out here who are like the canaries in the coal mine or the guy digging close to the magma who can handle it. And so therefore needs to get in there and figure out what's wrong.

Yeah. And do the actual critical thinking.

So the movie itself, is that okay? The fact that I like to tell people about Starship Troopers, the movie is that the piece of marketing material that stuck with me from its original release is that they were very proud that they fired more blank ammunition on the set of this movie than any movie up to that point.

Oh my God.

And I think the fact that they were bragging about that says a lot about what this movie is.

Yeah, it really does.

It is in all, in all ways, it is a really dumb action movie. And it is like it is meant you are Meant to turn your brain off. I think it's from its presentation, you are meant to turn your brain off and watch this movie. It's kind of the only way it's enjoyable. It has since gotten a critical reevaluation as, like, an incredible satire of fascism. I don't think it really is. I think it's like Baby's first satire of fascism. And in fact, because it is so not doing. It's not doing that job well that, like, literally when it came out for the first, like, 10 years, everybody thought that it was just straight up, like, propaganda. Like, it straight up was just earnestly saying all of the things that it was saying instead of saying them tongue in cheek.

Well. And people were falling for the propaganda as well.

Well, but, like, if you like. Because Paul Verhoeven will say that this movie is a. Is about. Like, it's like, it's so dumb and like, that it's meant to lambast fascism. And for the record, he, as a. As a. He grew up under Nazi regime. Like, he was a young kid in the Netherlands in 1944 when it was occupied by Germany. Like, fucking dude. Like, has a. Has a stake in this game, but he was like, we're gonna make this so stupid and so bonkers, and, like, we're gonna make everything, like, very obviously Nazi the whole time. Through that, people will be able to understand that it's. That that's what this is.

Can I just say really fast that when Neil Patrick Harris, baby, little infant Neil Patrick Harris comes out in the full Nazi coat and hat at the end, I was like, so funny. Ah, I see.

Yeah. Not. Not subtle.

Not subtle.

But the problem is that, like, there's nothing he doesn't do enough within the film to make it clear that it's satire. It becomes clear, I think, because of its. It only. Okay, I'm gonna.

There's a lot to go into.

There's just a lot to go over. It becomes clearer over time that that's what he's doing. But at the time, it was very. Not clear. And, like, critics were like, I don't understand why you make this movie. It's fucking gross. And unfortunately, a lot of the criticism of the movie has colored how people criticize the book as well, I think. And the thing that makes me mad is that the book has stuff that you need to criticize in it. And it's not that stuff.

It's different stuff.

It's literally like, yeah, like, I want people to be mad at Starship Troopers. The book for the Right. Reasons. If you're gonna be mad about it, you need to, like, you need to understand what's really wrong with it. So broadly speaking, the movie does cover the same sort of beats. We have young Johnny Rico now from Buenos Aires. An inexplicable thing. They've set this in Buenos Aires and just had the whitest goddamn cast you've ever seen.

It's incredible. Okay, so I have questions about this. I don' Know if you know, like, in the production, why they cast, I think all white people to play.

It was on purpose.

It was on purpose. Okay. That's what I was curious about because it's. It's saying something to be like, oh, here are all these characters who have, like, Latin American last names and they're all white folks with blue eyes. And I'm like, yes. Okay, was this on purpose or are we just like.

It's a little bit the writer fighting with the director.

Okay, interesting.

Not like actually fighting, but like, them working two different goals. So it starts off in Buenos Aires in like a high school where it's the Dawson's Creek casting where, like, everybody's 29 and they're playing high schoolers and we have a sort of. It's not even like we've got the three original characters of Carl Jenkins, Johnny Rico, who is our main point of view character, and Carmen Abanez, who is our girl. Our girl sort of like latched onto this. Who's also a named character is a character called Dizzy Flores, who. God, we're gonna have to spend like 40 minutes on dizzy because we have.

To talk about Dizzy.

Dizzy.

Oh, my God.

Dizzy is the only character in this movie I like and like, genuinely. And she like. And so there's this thing where, like, Johnny likes Carmen and Dizzy likes Johnny and Carl is Doogie Howser, and Carl.

Is too busy thinking about being a Nazi to like.

And he's psychic for some reason. That's a. That's a thing.

Yeah, they introduce psychic powers in this movie, but not really, like, they don't really come up at all.

Yeah, it's one of those things like, why did you do this if you're not going to do anything with it?

They did nothing with it. It's so funny.

So. And in the movie, Carmen really, like, it's just so obviously wants to be a pilot. Like, the only thing she ever talks about is being a space jet pilot, which fucking good for you, girl. But, like, also, it does kind of lambast your character a little bit because she's so.

Here's here's the. We are also gonna have to get into the differences in character between the book version of that character and the movie version, because they are two separate people. Well, the problem is the movie character is actually a character. At least in the book. She, like, isn't one.

The. The problem with all of the characters in the book is that all of them are filtered through Johnny Rico, the least observant man in the universe.

Yeah, that's true. He's seeing, he's looking that he's not seeing.

And possibly I am at the point where. Because I read it twice for this. Well, one and a half times, I fell asleep last night while trying to finish it out. But, like, so I've read the book a number of times, and I've gotten to the point where I'm. Where like, an under. Like, to me, I can't read it fresh anymore. So, like, understanding that Johnny Rico doesn't, like. He's. He's just like, shit's going on in the world, and he doesn't pay attention and doesn't notice. So there's all this stuff going in the background, which makes me, like. Like every interaction that he has with Carmen is like a little puzzle to try to figure out what actually happened in the real world, kind of, because, you know, that he doesn't understand.

He just has no idea what's going on.

No idea. And this is. This is book Johnny we're talking about.

Yeah.

Movie Johnny is a whole different thing.

He's a different guy.

He's a completely different guy. Played by Casper Van Dien, a man who is a certain genre of guy.

A type of guy.

He's a real type of guy. And so they. He joined in the movie. Like, Carmen wants to join the military. And so he fucking joins up, too. He's like, okay, I want to be with Carmen. I'm going to try to be a pilot as well. And I'm going to, like, fucking follow her around like a puppy. And he flunks out of all of the stuff to be anything other than a Mobile Infantryman. I don't know if they explicitly say that in the movie or not, but basically, like, they send him off to be a grand.

I thought he signed up for Mobile infantry in the movie. Does he?

No, no, no, he. No, he. Because he hands in the paper to Sergeant Ho and says, like, this is the unit that I've signed. Like, I've been placed in. It's a policeman.

Okay.

Yeah.

But they don't show all of him, like, flunking Every other possible test.

Yeah, that's a book thing. But he does. So he ends up in the, in the Mobile Infantry. He goes off to boot camp where he's beaten up by Clancy Brown. The guy who is a. The voice actor in everything you've ever like. He's the Krab. He's Mr. Krabs in SpongeBob. Like he's a fucking.

You've heard this guy's voice, I promise.

He's also, He's a fantastic 80s 90s villain. Character actor. He's a really great character actor. He played the main villain in Highlander, the original Highlander. So he's like, wow. Yeah, he's this big, tall, good looking guy, but also he's like perfect for villains. He's also one of the principal villains in the Shawshank Redemption. Really? Actually love Clancy Brown's performance in this.

Although this is the guy who played Zim, right? Is that what we're talking about? I have a funny fact about this guy, which is that he looks eerily similar to my grandfather when he was young. Oh, really? My grandfather had that same like, sort of long face and big jaw and like, I don't know, every time I saw that guy, it felt like seeing a photograph of my grandfather from when he was young in the Navy and it was kind of spooky. I'm like, oh my God, that's my grandpa.

So we, under the, under the auspices of Sergeant Zimmerman, he goes through this boot camp which as far as I can tell, in the movie, the boot camp is designed to torture and kill as many of the recruits as possible. It seems that way, pretty much what they're going for. And then he graduates. They. I forgot that they did a flash forward flashback thing at the beginning of the movie too where. So we see the battle, the first battle of Klendathu, where they cold opens on that. Yeah, cold opens on a, on a, on an in media thing. So we have the first where everything goes to shit and just like a bunch of people die and it's all horrific and like everybody doesn't know what the fuck they're doing. And then weirdly like Johnny Rico gets like stabbed in the leg by one of these bugs and then he's thought of to be dead and killed in action for a minute for like, like the least amount of time. I don't know what that is.

About two days or something.

Yeah, like they like, like just so that we get the shot of like Carmen being like, oh no, he's dead. I guess that's the whole point. But, like, immediately afterwards, it is revealed that he is actually alive. And then they are dropped into Rico's Roughnecks. A different mobile unit, him and his other Ratchet Roughnecks. Yeah, sorry. And. Which is like, Lieutenant, like, commanded by his high school, like, history and morality teacher in this version of it. They crammed so many characters together.

They really squashed a lot of characters together because it's.

That character is Ratchet, Jalal and Dubois. And like, they really. They really smashed it all together.

Efficient.

Yeah. Played by Michael Ironsides, who is another one of those fantastic 80s 90s character actors who just, like, has one of those great voices. His voice is so good.

It's so good.

And the character that he plays is so fucking weird because it's three characters. Well, but like. And also like. But also like, they've added stuff that isn't in any of those characters.

Like his whole, like, plus characters.

Yeah, they. Because they added in this whole thing about, like in the. In the Mobile infantry, everyone fights, no one quits. Which is like literally 180 degrees from what the book is about. Because, like, literally you can quit at any fucking point. That's the. That's the idea is that, like, it's. They want you to quit. But also, like, he's like. He has a whole big thing about, like, you know, rather than letting people get captured, I'm going to shoot them myself. Right? And like, he demonstrates this and then, you know, sure enough, he, like, is about. He's like gets his legs chopped off. I think that we know in this universe you can just like, they have medical. Like, you're like five feet and he's like, you know what to do. And Johnny shoots him. And then like, it's so weird.

It's so crazy.

This is. Although now we're getting to the point where the movie, I think, kicks off, because that first half, everything up to the moment when they join the Roughnecks, that movie is not firing on all cylinders. It is limping along barely to, like, get you to this point. At this point, it starts firing on all cylinders. We have like a semi competent force who are still very bad at their jobs. They're just. They do not have any kind of like, milit. Like you were talking about when we talked about Sucker Punch. You mentioned how, like, everybody had this like, tactical feel to their movements.

Yes.

You could like, watch them, like, move around and it looked really, really cool. And like, that is not how anybody in this fucking movie moves.

Like, they're just sort of Trotting.

They run around the props for their rifles don't have sights on them. Like, that's how bad. Like. Like, I love the Marie. We'll talk about production design in a bit. But, like, they don't. They literally do not have sights. So, like, everybody is just, like, holding it in the action movie pose, like, down at their. Like at their armpit instead of up where they could see and just, like, spray and pray the whole time. Nobody ever fires a single shot in the movie. It's all automatic fire, I think. And then so they. There's this whole. Okay, so now we're into the actual part of the movie. Like, we've, like, up to the point where, like, we get to Ratchet's rough racks. I don't think this movie has even started now. We get to the only good part where they have been sent off on a mission. They hear a. Oh, yeah. Johnny has this little hero movement where he jumps on the back of a. Of a big tanker bug and blows it up. And he gets promoted for this. And then he get. And then he and Dizzy finally fuck. Which I feel so bad for Dizzy. She deserves so much better.

Girl. You can do better. Like, please.

Yes, she deserves a whole better movie.

I want a whole movie about Dizzy That's a different movie than this.

Yes. So he and Dizzy finally get together, and then they get a distress call from a whiskey outpost. They go off there and they find that bugs have overrun this one outpost and sucked the brains out of several people on the facility. And they find this general who's like, game over, man. Basically doing the aliens thing. We're all gonna die. It's. We gotta get out of here. And then they get overrun with bugs because it turns out this was a trap to try to catch more of the. Of the soldiers. And we have the big action. Like, probably the climax of the movie is the scene where they are just gonna get overrun with bugs. And this is when the movie is at its most itself. And it's amazing. Like, literally the shot of when, like, the camera goes up and you see just a field, hundreds of CGI bugs. Which in 1997 is, like, absolutely fantastic.

Yeah, it blew my mind even, like, a week ago in 2024. I was like, whoa, there's so many, like, individually moving creatures.

I can talk about the production from this too, because this is one, like, special effects is one of my special interests. So, yeah, we'll just. We'll talk about that in a minute. So they managed to get out in the course of this Both Ratchak and Dizzy die. I don't know why. Like, it doesn't serve any purpose except to knock them out of the plot so that we can bring Carmen back in and so that.

Okay, so Dizzy also dies in the book, but Dizzy is a different character.

Yeah, Dizzy as the movie. Dizzy doesn't exist in the book. Dizzy in the book is named. But we don't even meet them. We don't even meet him. He doesn't exist. So they just used a name. So then we have this last part of the movie which is kind of like the last big fight of the book where they're trying to hunt down a brain bug is the thing. But it's mostly taken up with a plot where. Because we've been following Carmen this whole time and there's this whole thing with like a sort of a romance triangle between Carmen Rico and Ramsey Xander, a guy we made up for the movie, who is his actors doing a great job making us fucking hate that guy. Because you're supposed to hate him. Weirdly enough. I also hate Johnny, but I'm not.

Supposed to hate Johnny.

But, like. Yeah, so there's this. There's a weird romance thing going on there, which I don't understand why. I understand why it's there. It's because the writer was drawing from his own experience as a high schooler, apparently.

Oh, God. That's exactly what it feels like. Fuck, yeah. I'm sad that I know that.

Okay, well, yeah, so these two. The spaceship that they're on gets hit by a bug artillery and they jump out and then they crash land on the same surface of the planet or the same planet that the MI are on. And we spend the last part of the movie rescuing Carmen and they meet the brain bug and we get to see Xander's brains get sucked out in a fantastic scene.

Yeah. Amazing effects on that as well.

Anytime that the monster guys get to take over, I'm so much more happy with this movie than when Paul Verhoeven's in charge. And so, yeah, he literally said, like, Phil Tippett is my second unit director on this. Basically, like, because he handled all of that. And it's a better movie when Phil Tippett's in charge. And so they. But yeah, they. That's the end of it. They rescue. They rescue Carmen and, well, they take.

The bug back for testing the brain.

Right. But like, off screen, the bug, the bug is captured by Zim, who's had his own better movie off the screen this entire time, apparently. Right.

Yeah. Which I want to know what was going on with him.

And then like we end on another. Through all of this we've been cutting into interstitials of these like propaganda in universe media things of like the FedNet where it's like talking about basically like feeding propaganda to us, the audience. And in lieu of like an in universe audience and then cops, like you can literally see like a mouse cursor moving on screen, clicking on different like subject matter. It's really get these little tidbits and.

Stuff and then like, hey, child soldiers are great, come join. Yeah, it's.

It's very heavy handed and yet still somehow people in the 90s missed it, which I think I know says a lot, but also. Anyway, and so it ends on one of those where like we see. I didn't even talk about Carl Jenkins being fucking psychic because he like goes up to talk to the brain.

He's also kind of a different character also.

Yeah, not even the same name. They. Another one where they just like used a different name. So they. Yeah. So it ends on like we're about to go kill the bugs again and like we're, you know, we're about to go stomp on them at Kleindathu again. And here's our, our main characters who have managed to survive being like awesome, cool. But guys, still at the end of the movie and then it cuts out and that's the end of the movie. So.

Scott's leaning way back in his chair.

Okay, so I, as I've said, I am bothered by this, by the critical reevaluation of this movie because I don't think it's the masterpiece a lot of people have kind of reevaluated. I think it is at best Baby's first satire of fascism. And I think it's too easy for people to miss the point and think and just kind of buy into what it's actually doing. I know for a fact that there. I have not seen any of these, but I know for a fact that there are very earnest sequels to this movie where Casper Van Dien and other filmmakers have continued to go on in this universe.

Oh my God.

And I don't want to watch those movies because they're not my. I don't want to subject myself to that.

Yeah, you'd have to be. Well, okay, so I want to say something right now before we even get into the book, which is like as far as this movie being Baby's first satire in a way that it's missable that it's satire. I Definitely, like, went to high school with the people who would have fallen for this propaganda. And, you know, like, the kids whose entire aspiration in life was to join the army the minute they were old enough and get out of small town Kansas and go see the world. And so, like, I see where this would get you if that was, like, the type of person you already were and the circumstances you had grown up in.

Well, and the problem is that if you treat a piece of art, basically, because basically the thesis of this movie is this entire movie is exactly the kind of propaganda that would be produced by the government in this movie, because it's structured with Johnny Rico is the hero of the story. He gets in, he saves the day, he gets the girl at the end and all of that. I think he gets the girl.

He gets promoted a bunch of times.

Yeah. And he's super handsome and clean cut and all these things. And he's presented super heroically over the course of this movie, which means that it doesn't undercut the message of the propaganda that you present this movie as. He wins, he gets everything that he wants over the course of this film. He gets to fuck both girls, as far as I could tell. He kills a bunch of bugs, he gets promoted all the way up to being a lieutenant, a thing that he is apparently very. This version of Johnny Rico is, like, always bucking for promotion and, like, really, like, wants to be a. You know, the big guy, the big hero, and he gets that. And, like, it is so, like, there's no actual undercutting of the message of this being like a. Like, like, where, where. Where does Paul Verhoeven actually do any commentary about fascism is the question and the only. And the answer is only in the FedNet sequences where we start to see what this universe is like. But everything of the actual story itself is presented super straight and does not like. Unless you think that Paul Verhoeven's decision about how to direct his actors and their terrible performances and the frankly lackluster script is supposed to be a message to the audience about what the quality of the story actually is. But I don't think that's the truth. I don't think that's the case because I've seen other Paul Verhoeven movies, and that's just kind of how they are.

Oh, sure, yeah.

So, like, if this is supposed to be a satire of fascism, then shouldn't we see some takedown of fascism within the actual text of the film other than those. Other than those interstitials?

So Here is my argument here. I feel like you could read it in such a way that's like, oh, because it all goes so well for them, for Johnny, at least by the end. And like, you see Carl come out in the Nazi code and be like, yeah, I got my, like, the position that I wanted as the top fucking Nazi researcher who's gonna like, saw this brain bug part and figure out how it works and blah, blah. And like the characters succeeding in the way that they do, like the main characters anyway, like, is the, like, hey, this should scare you. Like, watching these people succeed should put a knot in your stomach and be like, hey, we don't want these people to succeed. But I don't know if that's what the intent was or what I got out of it.

So, like, we'll get into a. Yeah, well, I think you're not wrong. You are right in that effect. But the question is, how would the. If you were, if this movie was made in earnest, what would be different about it?

Damn.

If it really was just a Nazi propaganda movie, what would be different? I think that the overall plot works just fine for an actual Nazi propaganda movie. Yeah, maybe they'd be more subtle about stuff. But you know what? Like, lately the Nazis have been getting really unsubtle about shit.

Really, really unsubtle.

Yeah, yeah. And so, like, the idea that, like, this is so ridiculous that it has to be a joke falls flatter and flatter over time to me because, like, it's not that ridiculous. That's. That's a thing that people like, absolutely, like, would just unironically believe and take in and. Okay, so you put the stuff in and you put your main, Your main. One of your characters in a Nazi or obviously all of them by the end are invariant.

Yeah, basically some sort of.

Of Nazi ish looking uniform. Okay. But like, you have also told us that all of these people are right and good in the movie. Like, they're our heroes. We're supposed to like them. I don't actually like them anymore.

Right.

But like, at the time I did, I thought they were. I thought there was a reasonably fun movie. And I liked her. You know, I also had associations with the book, so I was carrying those over. But, like, I liked it. You know, Denise Richards is really, you know, charismatic and like, Dina Myers, who plays Dizzy is just like. I like, I liked her performance a lot. I think she's great.

Yeah, she gave a very convincing performance.

Yeah.

And so strikingly so against some of the other performances.

And like the. So like, what are you telling. Like, okay, so you've. Like, you. They haven't actually communicated. This movie doesn't communicate to me that it actually believes the satire. I think it. Like, it hasn't. Like, it doesn't undercut it enough. And the. But what. And to that end, because it is not so clear that this all is meant to be a takedown of a particular philosophy. That's why I think people in the 90s missed that this was what it was. So I was thinking about this yesterday and I came up with a hot ass take, which is the best thing to ever happen to. Paul Verhoeven's critical reputation was 9 11, followed closely by RuPaul's Drag Race.

I read that comment out loud to my wife and she squawked aloud and was like, that's a take.

But I don't think it's wrong. I think it actually is a fucking reasonable way to produce. Because here's the thing, he made Showgirls right before this. So Paul Verhoeven, if you are not familiar with this body of work, he is a Dutch filmmaker who made these really very. I don't want to say out there, but very. His reputation for doing, like, transgressive things has been right there from the beginning. He is the transgressive director and he made these sort of art house European films when he was back over in Europe. And some of them are really apparently very, very good. I have not seen a lot of them. I have seen his American work because when he came over to Hollywood, my impression is that he does not have a high opinion of American audiences or the Hollywood machine. And so he made these big dumb action movies and very over the top and also very transgressive. So RoboCop, total recall, basic Instinct, which is not an action movie, but is a very kind of it, that one had got a huge reaction from the audience because of its use of Sex and Starship Troopers and Showgirls. That's kind of like his. His largest set of American works. Showgirls and Starship Troopers were so badly received and did so badly at the box office that he made one more movie called Hollow man, which I have not seen. I should probably see it because that one, I don't know if it's good or not, actually. But he made one more movie and then was like, fuck it, and went back to Europe and started doing his own shit again and did not come back to America afterwards. He kind of, in a lot, in a very large way, he kind of left in disgrace. Like, everybody was like, paul Verhoeven is, like this dumb 80s director. He didn't make the transition to the 90s when we take movies somewhat more seriously. And then he buggered off. And then in the intervening time, 911 happened, and America did the thing that this movie kind of says that it would do. Like, we became that characterization of ourselves. Like, down to the point where in the movie there's even the destruction of Buenos Aires, which is a pretty. I mean, like, it's not a clear analog for 911 because it precedes 911 by many years. But, like, you can absolutely read that as the same moment of, like, a sleeping society that has not been thinking of itself as being part of the world stage suddenly gets a major attack and everybody just goes fucking apeshit with Bloodlust. And then we go off to, like, commit horrors on the other side of the galaxy. And, like, yeah, I mean, like, that's not. That is a perfectly reasonable read for the exact way that we did things in 2001 and 2002 to the point where we even attacked, like, an unrelated country just because we're really hopped up on adrenaline.

Well, and it is interesting, too, because there was a change made between the book and the movie for that incident, which is that a lot of the main characters weren't even from Buenos Aires in the book. And, like, it so happened that Johnny's mother is there visiting and gets killed. But, like, he's not from there. But in the movie, it's like, this is their. The main characters have this moment where they're now locked in military service because they're like, that was my home. My family was there. I've lost everything. We're gonna go kill all these fucking bugs.

Yeah.

It's like.

It's not like everybody starts yelling, kill them all. Kill them all. And, like, kill them.

And it's like in the book, he's like, yeah, I mean, it's. It's a bummer about Buenos Aires, but, like, I didn't really know anybody there. And then later he finds out his mother died there.

Yeah. And there's also a much more gradual slide into war. Like, there's a. There's a point where it was. It was pointed out that, like, even in times of peace, there's been fighting going on. And then at some point, while he's in training, it goes from peace to state of emergency, and then from state of emergency to war. And he didn't notice. He was like. By the time I popped my head up again, we were at war, and that's just a thing. And Buenos Aires happened in the background somewhere. Because again, Johnny Rico is also the world's least observant character of all time.

Yeah. Smoothest brained man alike. But it's a very sharp, pointed plot point in the movie where he's about to quit. He's about to turn in his shit and walk, walk out. And on his way out the door, it's like, oh, my God, we're going to war. They hit Buenos Aires, everyone's dead. And it's like this very flip switch character moment.

Yes. And for everybody, like, it's everybody.

For all the guys in his squad.

Previously, everybody had been talking about their own reasons for joining the Federal Service.

And that scene's amazing.

Yeah. We can talk. Okay. Let's just talk about it.

Okay, let's talk about it.

This scene is.

I've actually seen this scene before. I saw the movie because someone showed up.

The most famous scene like this is Paul Verhoeven being deliberately transgressive. Because in the 90s, putting a bunch of naked people on screen kind of when you didn't need to, that scene could have been at a chow hall. It would have been fine. To put them in this scene and just have everybody's tits on display is a deliberate choice. And.

Okay, let's set the scene up a.

Little bit for the list. They're in basic training and everybody. I don't know if there's like, even really set up to be done. It's just the scene where everybody talks about why they joined the service.

Okay? Actually, there is. And I'll tell you what it is, okay? In the book, there are no women in the Mobile Infantry. There are none. It's. It's. The gay vibes are off the charts because there are no women there. It's crazy.

And like, except for Johnny Rico, the straightest man in the universe, straightest man alive.

But, like, even he has got like, those types of relationships with the other guys in his squad sometimes that make you go, hmm. But, like, like that. Yeah, in the movie, they're like, oh, yeah, anybody can join up with the Mobile infantry because this is how you get citizenship. So, like, yes, there are also women. And yeah, they all shower together because we're all just, you know, infantrymen together. Like, whatever, it's no biggie. Like, we got other things to worry about. We're getting stabbed and dismembered by Bugs all the time. Like, who cares?

Yeah, so. So Paul Verhoeven did this on purpose. In part because I think the actual, like, banal reason is he wanted to put tits in the. More tits in the movie. He just wanted more. He.

More tits.

He's that kind of director.

More tits in the movie.

I just want naked people on screen. He's also, you know, he's Dutch, he's from the Netherlands. Nudity is not as big a deal over in Europe as it was here. And he's just like, I'm just going to do this, so. However, I'm going to read to you his state at his. Paul Verhoeven. Anytime he makes a statement about any of the works that he's done, take it with a giant s. Grain of salt. Because I'm pretty sure this dude just says stuff.

Okay, all right.

But here is his stated reason. The idea I wanted to express was that these so called advanced people are without libido. Here they are talking about war and their careers and not looking at each other at all. It is sublimated because they are fascists. What that is his. That is his stated purpose for what that scene is supposed to communicate. I want to state that that is in direct opposition to everything else in this movie, which is so goddamn horny every fucking moment of the movie. Like, they are not. None of these characters are without lupido. They happen to all be showering with each other at this time and not like making out in the process of doing it. Sure. But like Johnny Rico has spent most of the movie trying to fuck Carmen Abanez. Like, that is his whole thing.

So hard.

And then like when he. At a certain point it's like, well, I guess I'll fucking dizzy instead.

Well, and like, dizzy is like trying to jump on that dick the entire time she's trying so hard.

And like, there's just you. You cannot like that. That statement shows to me that like Paul Verhoeven either does not understand the movie that he made or is the kind of guy who just says shit.

Because, like, says things to say them. Because, like, that doesn't follow for what the movie that you made.

Yeah, and. And if you, if he had just been honest and been like, I wanted more tits in the movie because I thought I would sell tickets then, like, fair enough, man. Like, that's fine. I'll buy it.

I probably would have.

Yeah, dude. Like I, you know, like, I will be pandered too. I will buy those movie tickets.

Try me.

Yeah, it's fine. You don't need to justify it by saying it's all Nazis. But he's like, trying to bolster his point that this was a takedown of fascism. When I.

Okay. Yeah, okay, buddy. I think what it actually does is, like, really sell the, like, easy camaraderie that springs up between the people who are in this, like, horrible boot camp together. Because, like, in the book, there's a lot more time and space to go into the boot camp, like, section, that whole experience and, like, how difficult it is and how it, like, builds these really strong bonds because all these people are going through this really hard stuff together.

Yeah.

And in the movie, they don't have all that time to do all that. So they're like.

Also.

Yeah, no, they're just slapping each other's asses in the shower, like, casual.

Also, I think that the boot camp in the movie does a different thing than the book camp in the book. The book. Pamp. In the book.

Okay, hold on. We have to talk. Okay. We have to talk about how there are no armor, power suits in the movie. The type of combat that we're talking about and dealing with in the book is not present whatsoever in the movie. And I'm bummed about it.

Yeah, no, no, we. Everybody, I'm going to close out on the shower scene first.

Oh, yeah, please.

I have. The big shadow that holds itself over this scene is that there are two competing narratives about its production. Pal Verhoeven and several other people higher up in the staff say, basically, like, we. You know, we brought these people in. You know, we had. We closed the set off. It was just like the camera guy and Paul Verhoeven and the cast to do this shooting. The cast requested that Paul Verhoeven and the cameraman also be nude for it so that everything's fair.

Oh, yeah, that makes sense.

That's their narrative. The other narrative is that several of the actors were like, we didn't ask him to fucking do that. And prob. And I would prefer if he had not.

Oh, my God.

Right?

So, like, that's crazy.

Right? And I don't. And I cannot know which one is true. And it's possible also, because there are multiple parties involved, that some of them would prefer if he had not been naked, and some of them would have. Would. Were the ones asking for. So it's like, it could be this big, messy thing in there, but, like.

Well, because that's the other thing. This scene has, like, 30 extras in it.

Yeah, there's a ton of people. And, like, if you. So if you ever hear. I want that. I want to be known that there's Two narratives here. Because if you ever hear the tidbit that, like, Paul Verhoeven did that specifically to make his actors more comfortable, that he very likely did not do that, like, successfully, that there seems to have been several people on set who were made more uncomfortable and that it seemed to have been his idea rather than. So, like, there's a. There's a. And that's just scummy enough that it makes me uncomfortable when I watch this game knowing that story. Okay, so we can talk about the fact that. Yeah, okay, so the power armor thing.

We haven't even gone into the book, like, basically at all yet.

We haven't. So the. This is probably one of. Probably the biggest influence that this book has had on sci fi because Robert A. Heinlein had a habit of coming up with ideas that then other people either really liked or even just, like, made it into the real world. Famously, the idea of a waterbed could not be patented because he had described a waterbed several years earlier in one of his books. So when somebody made it and tried to patent it, they're like, no, this guy made it up.

This guy made it up.

Yeah. And so it's. It's prior knowledge. So, like. And he has a habit of this, and he goes into kind of a lot of detail about how one of these things would work. Because the idea is that it works under negative feedback. So if you move your hand, the switches that make you move your hand are then pulled away from your hand by the suit. It's a thing that you just wear instead of piloting it. And that particular idea, in some variation, sometimes with neural interfaces, sometimes with senses, but the idea of a very strong robot suit that you can just wear instead of having to learn how to haul levers and pilot it carries on everywhere. That's just a baked in part of sci fi here. And, like, sat down and figured out how it might work and described it and was the first one to really talk about it. Same also with the idea of drop troopers. Like, the characters are called drop troopers or cap troopers. They're called capture in the movie for some reason, despite the fact that that comes from capsule troopers, the ones who are dropped in capsules.

And I'm like, wait, that's not even what's going on in this movie.

It's not. It's so. So that's also a thing. You see that in Halo. You see that in just. It's all over the place. And then famously, you know, this whole movie was made much more popular by. Or the book was made more popular by Helldivers2, which got real popular recently. So like it's been a resurgence from like, but like, it's so ingrained that like, it's a super big part of sci fi. And this is the moment where it originates. And honestly, it comes into the world fully formed. Like the idea of like a cybernetic enhancement. In a lot of ways it's a thing that you just wear and enhances all of your abilities. He talks about a heads up display. I think before that technology was really weird. We're talking about using a. A, like there's a screen above your head that's projected onto a half mirror that you can see at the top of your field of vision. So that you can have information displayed directly in your field of vision rather than having to like, look to a separate display.

Like way, way ahead of its time.

Yeah, really, People are still. I mean like, we're seeing some amount of exoskeletal robotics used now. But like, this is an idea that, that started in the mid-50s with, with Robert A. Heinlein sort of thinking about it. And he's the one who popularized it. And that's really cool. And it also. He spent a lot of time thinking about what war with that technology would look like. We only see really in detail, one real battle. And that's the very beginning. It's the cold open to the book where they're fighting, not the arachnids, a different, a different group. And we see him kind of running through a single mission where, you know, they're dropped out. He spends a lot of time talking about how re entry works in one of these things where it's like, you know, multiple heat shields are burned off and then multiple parachutes.

Capsule comes off in stages.

And then like the, the suit itself has retro rockets so that he can land safely. And then that allows him to sort of bounce around through the world. And at one point, you know, decides, oh, I can't, you know, I need to. I can bounce over buildings, but that's getting a little dangerous because they're predicting it. So I'm gonna go through a couple of buildings instead. Because I'm a fucking metal gorilla. I could just like bust down a wall if that's fine. You know, they're carrying. This is a very 1950s idea. They're carrying mini nukes that he can like fire off at various things. And they're treated super casually. Like that's not a big deal that we have these like little nuclear weapons.

Okay. So I Actually know one thing about the writing of this book. I have no one factoid which apparently is that Robert Heinlein wrote this story in a couple of weeks when he found out that they were discontinuing nuclear testing.

Yes. No, no. It's 100%. One of. We can get to the philosophy parts later about it where like he's talking about like how like conflict is a necessary part of the world. Like, this is where you can get to real conflict. Really real criticism of the real book. But like he goes off on this.

Whole rant about corporal punishment. I can just imagine him in his little typewriter, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Like typing away so bad.

He loves corporal punishment. He loves hitting kids.

He loves that shit.

He at least this within this book, he loves hitting kids. And like, these are the things that you should actually be criticizing.

Right, Right.

Yeah. And his whole thing like Robert E. Heinlein with gender. I've got like a whole.

Oh my God. Oh my God.

Yeah, because he's. He's a. He's kind of fucked and the worst kind of fuck because he thinks he's enlightened.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So all of the. So the type of war within this universe is a very specific, like, aesthetic and a very specific, specific like, setup is that. Which is. Because one of the main premises of his universe is that this is an all volunteer force that like we try our hardest to kick you out of. Because the point of the unit of the political system is that like only the people who want it the most and are willing to put sacrifice the most are the ones that we can trust with things like voting and being politicians. That's like, it's. If you're. That's the closest it gets to fascism in my world is that like it's, it does define an in group, but it's the people who most want to help the greater good, which is kind of a weird. It's not.

Well, and. Okay, so. But here's the thing, right? The greater good. I'm making quote marks around that in my voice. The greater good for the people of planet Earth, Terra, is like expanding throughout the galaxy and possibly wiping out or beating into submission the other aliens who.

Live out there very possibly.

So, like, that's the.

But like, so like. And that's the thing is like one of the. Okay, no, okay, we'll reattach on Politics later because we're so all over the place. So anyway, so this is like all of this is about. Because he's. He is using the mill The MI as a. Because he's also. He's very specifically arguing against conscription. Like the. As a. He's showing. He talks about how fucking badass the mobile inventory is and how. But very specifically, this is an all volunteer, highly trained, super effective force. That's later. Like, that's the like, thesis behind it. And he's coming off of World War or World War II, which was a mass conscription event. And then also we had conscription during the Korean War, which I think has just ended at this point. And so, like, he's making a point to be like, hey, that's not the way to fucking run a military. He's saying, like, all of like, he's making actually a very technical point about, like, yeah, the thing. Which is very much not what the movie's doing. The movie is talking about, like, just like, we're gonna throw bodies at it, basically. It's like the first thing that the.

Recruiter says to them at the desk is like, oh, great, meet for the grinder. And it's like, that's not the sentiment being portrayed in the book even a little bit. Because they're like, these guys are fucking expensive to train up and kit out. Because they are in these expensive mobile and they haven't trained for months.

You're talking about that. You're talking about a cold open. In the cold open of the book we have, it's the first. We find out later that that is the very first drop they do after they lose Lieutenant Raczak. So it's Jelly Jalal talking to his men and he says this whole big thing about, like, hey, you guys are very expensive. You cost half a million dollars each, blah, blah, bring it back. But, like, it is so easy to, like, look at what's going on there and be like, hey, we just lost Lieutenant. Don't none of you fucking die. I'll be very sad if you guys die because, like, we can't handle this. I literally can't handle this right now. It is so sweet, actually, in a.

Lot of ways when you, like, know in retrospect what. What just happened before this scene.

And once you understand the language that this you. The. The book uses about how men interact with each other. Because.

Right. It's a whole rituals are fucking intricate. Oh, my God.

But also, like, it's very clear, like, Johnny learns over and over and over again that the people who are the hardest on him are the ones who like him the most, who care about.

Him and want him to survive.

And, like, he keeps hears little bits and pieces behind the scenes. Or they contact him later and he's like. And so it's very clear what this. What the book thinks about, like, how men interact each other is that they cannot say, like, how close they are and how important they are to each other. You have to be hard on each other so that you can be strong men, and that will get you through things.

Like, man, we have to. At some point, we have to talk about the scene where he gets reunited with his father because. Oh, yeah, that was not in the movie either. And it's a whole thing. Wow.

Okay. It's maybe the thesis of the book. Yeah. And it did. Cut. Yeah. So anyway, so for cost reasons, they couldn't do this in the 90s. Like, it would be relatively simple to do it now. Yeah, it would relatively. I mean, like, it would have been.

Like, actually half a million dollars pursuit to, like, put them on screen.

But, like, I mean, like, the Edge of Tomorrow did this. Like, they did.

The Edge of Tomorrow was one of my favorite fucking movies. And I understand now, like, where it came from. Having seen Starship Troopers and read. I'm like, oh, they actually did it. They put that shit on the screen and it ruled. It was so sick. And I knew it would be.

We have a God. Actually, I need to read the light novel that it's based off of, because the light novel is also better than the movie in certain ways.

Damn. And the movie, it also has the.

Best name of all time, which is all you need is Kill. That is the name of the original property, which is. That communicates so much to me what that is about. Whereas the Edge of Tomorrow. I could literally name any sci fi property the Edge of Tomorrow and it would be fine. But we can't talk about that. We will. We're barely gonna make it through both of these other things right now.

Sometime I want to talk about Edge of Tomorrow because I want to talk about Emily Blunt's muscled arms when she does that stupid push up, like 80 times. We have to see her do it. Oh, my God. Not right now, though. We can't talk.

Not right now. Okay, so actually, if we wanna talk muscle arms, we should do an entire retrospective of the Terminator franchise.

I need to watch the Terminator movie movies.

Yeah. But, dude, if you want to. If you. Right now, I'm offering you. If you want to have a reason to watch all the Terminator movies.

Yeah.

And we just want to talk about Terminator movies once a month for the. For the next, like, seven. Seven months. I will fucking do that.

There is A Terminator podcast?

Yeah. Why not? Anyway, because I am here for that. I've watched the first set of them and I need to watch the lighter ones that go kind of off the rails.

Okay.

But there are muscly armed women in several of those movies.

Let's fucking go. I love to see it.

So where the fuck was I? Oh, yeah, sorry. So they. They couldn't do it. They just couldn't do it. They even toyed with the idea of let's like drop the power suit idea, but we're gonna still keep the bounce where like, people are like, you know, jumping over.

Maybe they just have to jump.

Highly mobile and stuff like that. And again, they're like, this is gonna be too expensive. And it was also. And here's the. Here's the secret. It was not part of what the script originally was. So the thing that makes this movie make so much more sense is that the guy who wrote Robocop could not make Robocop. He made Robocop and Robocop 2, and he couldn't make any more Robocops happen. Nobody was interested in Robocops. So he started like bouncing around and trying to figure out ideas. And he started writing a script which was called Bug hunt at Outpost 7. That was the script. And he started shopping it around. And he originally had thought, what if I make Starship Troopers? But he's like, starship Troopers? That's like the most important sci fi book of the 20th century. One of them.

Yeah.

But so surely the price for that aren't available. So he wrote a whole different novel. He wrote a whole. Not novel, but he wrote a whole different script. And he started shopping around. He couldn't sell it anywhere. And then one of the movie executives he was talking to was like, why don't you just make it Starship Troopers? And he's like, well, can we do that? He's like, sure, we'll buy it and we'll make Starship Troopers. So they had a script already.

Oh, no.

And then they clamped Starship Troopers on top of it, basically.

That's what it feels like. Oh, my God. That's exactly what it feels like.

And this is why, like the section that is Outpost at the Bug hunt@outpost7, which is the whole section section with the distress call going into the big battle with all the bugs. That feels like the best part of the movie to me. Because it's the part of the movie that survives from the original idea. It's not, because that's not in the book. Basically that entire sequence is made up for the movie.

Yeah.

And it's like, to me, it's obvious that was the part of the script that originally happened that was, like, what this movie was, but that's what the movie was going to be before we decided to also make it Starship Troopers.

Only kind of make it Starship Trooper.

Yeah, but only. But, like, they didn't make it enough Starship Troopers to please all of the many, many people who read this book.

Right.

All of the sci fi fans. Because every sci fi fan at the. In the 90s had read Starship Troopers. You're just gonna piss all of those guys off. And. And Search of Troopers doesn't have enough cachet with the general public to be a selling point for anybody who hasn't. The people who wouldn't be mad. So it's like, to do this, it was an easy way to sell the movie to studios, but it was the death knell for selling this movie to an audience. Because everybody's gonna hate it. Like, either they're gonna matter who it.

Is, they're gonna hate it.

Yeah. They're like, just. It needed to be itself.

Yeah.

Okay.

Damn.

Yeah.

What a bummer.

And so the writer did. He went back and reread the book and he tried to incorporate as much as possible and lifting certain sections directly out of it and all this.

Yeah, totally.

But, like, made just the weirdest changes. Like, for example, I think the Dizzy character, like, is such a strange addition to this movie because it's only done in service of this. Of this love interest thing. Dizzy's a named male character in the book, but, like, literally dies in the first scene and then is only referenced as, like. Oh, yeah, that was the. That was the drop where Dizzy died.

Oh, yeah, that was the battle we lost. Dizzy. You don't even ever get to learn anything about him as a guy, like, as a person, as a character. And then they were like, oh, wait, here's a name of a guy we didn't know anything about. Let's make it this other whole sort of fully formed human person.

And, like, the whole. And the relationship between Carmen and Riko is dramatically different. So that they can have this. They can shove this love interest, this love story thing into the middle of this movie.

Quadrangle in there.

Yeah, it's this polygon thing that, like, doesn't work. Like. And, like, I just don't care about any of these people. Like, is the thing, like, Caspar Van Dien, I don't know if he's a good actor or not, but he's not good in this. He has his. And part of that is also because every time you do a movie, it's not just the performance that was on the set, but it's also when what takes were chosen at editing. So it's entirely possible that like Paul Verhoeven crafted all of these performances in the edit bay. So I won't, I won't even. I won't even like, necessarily dig all the actors. They could have. They might have had a really good performance in there somewhere, but man, they are not there on the screen and the script's not there. Like, okay, so we know that Carmen really, really wants to be a pilot. She wants to be a pilot more than anything else. But she seems to be very. Also concerned with, like the moment she meets, she hears from anybody who has any connection to being a pilot, she runs over to the guy. It's always invariably a guy that has some sort of connection to being a pilot. And it just starts fawning on them.

Yeah. Flirting with him. And this to me is a little bit like writing female characters in 90s media where they. That's just the only way they know how to interact with or the only way they know how to show a woman interacting with men is to have her flirt with them.

Yeah.

And it doesn't do her character a service here because she's supposed to be like laser mindedly focused on becoming a starship pilot.

Yes.

And having this like, thing where she's on and off with Johnny kind of. But also she'll flirt with any other dude who's like, oh, I'm in pilot school. We're gonna be pilots together, baby. And she's. That's so fucking sexy of you. Let's do it on the console right now. And I'm like, this is not what's happening.

Right. And it's because the writer doesn't understand women's internality. I guess he doesn't think of them as like people. Fully. Fully.

Well, but obviously fucking Heinlein didn't either because the way that he talks about women is also unhinged and. Okay, so the only. Let me preface this by saying the only other Heinlein that I have read is the Puppet Masters or whatever it's called, the one with the brain slugs. Brainstem slugs. Which now, now that I've read that book. Well, I read that book in high school. When I read that book, I then I was like, I understand what Animorphs is now. You know, like all those ideas that he came up with that people just incorporated into sci fi.

Yeah. And like he's. He's one of the principal like pillars of early 20th century science fiction. Like.

Yeah, totally. But like, so having only read that other piece of his work.

Yeah.

I feel like I already have such a complete picture of how he thinks of women.

Yeah.

Which is just unhinged.

He's. Well, like Heinlein and gender. Like I said. I probably have like a three hour video essay somewhere in me about this because it's absolutely fascinating. He is. He's a horny ass motherfucker. For one thing. This should be clear that like Heinlein like cannot separate his brain from sex. It's really hard for him. He just can't. He's so horny. He was also, surprisingly, a wife guy. His. I can see that his second wife, Virginia Heinlein. He loved her so much that like whenever a like cool ass lady shows up in any of his books, it's some version of Virginia Heinlein because. And he's always talking about how everybody loves her and wants to fuck her and is super great and she's funny and capable and can do anything she wants. Because he's like, he just, he's like, she's great. I love this woman.

I love my fucking wife.

Yeah.

Well, yeah. And like the way that he. All of the like point of view characters in his books again, the ones that I've read, which are not that many are like, women as a concept are like so hot, so cool, so capable. They're like strong and powerful but also so sexy and like they don't always turn it on, but when they do turn it on, it's like, oh my God, it's blowing my mind. Like, that's just how he talks about them all the time. And like the section of the book of Starship Troopers where Johnny is stationed on a co ed ship for the first time. So there's no. None of the shower talk about the.

Bulkhead where like it separates and it's how much of a pleasure it is to sit at the bulkhead just in case you hear a woman's voice.

You may hear the dulcet tones of a woman. Like on the other side of this wall. Everybody's waiting for the opportunity to hear a woman speak, even from a distance and to know that they're over there. And I'm like, you. What is happening in your head? I. Women are great. Okay.

But like, what you're not. Here's the. Like you've. You've got a pretty Good picture of how he thinks about women. Because that's.

I figured as much.

It's a really big deal, especially in his. Because the. I don't know where puppet masters sit. But for sure, Starship Troopers is the cusp where he stopped writing for a younger audience and started to write for a more adult audience and could just.

Is not for kids. It's like an adult.

But it's literally like the last of the. It's like the. There's a transition point. And once he started to be able to write for adults, he was just allowed to talk about sex. And so a lot of that language that you hear in there in Starship Troopers in later books, just. He just. Fucking all the characters. Fuck. All the time. There's just constantly happening.

Just all the time.

And he's also. The elephant in the rune is that he gets weird later on, especially with things like adult incest is a thing that he addresses multiple times enough that you're like, this wasn't just an idea that you wanted to talk about in one book. You keep bringing this shit up.

Yeah. You had much to say about it.

You're making it weird, dude. But he's an incredibly horny individual. That being said, the one thing you will miss out on in this book that does come up later is that I do think he is capable of writing female characters. And he thinks of himself as. He would not have called himself a feminist, but he would have called himself, like, enlightened or like an egalitarian or something. But the way that that manifests is that Heinlein thinks that women can be just as capable as men, but to do so, they must be men. Men, basically. Like, they act like men, like, if the way they're. Any woman is perfectly capable of doing all of the cool things in the world, but she must do them in the masculine way. And that is when she is at her most powerful. And then also on top of that, she'll be fucking sexy as hell. Because I love women. And I'm gonna be.

I love women.

I'm gonna be. I'm gonna have a half chub anytime anybody's. All. Anyone. Any of them are around at all. Like, I'm just saying.

Yeah. Literally any. Well. And like, the thing that I remember from the beginning of Starship Troopers, the book sticking out to me. Yeah. When it first became clear that, oh, there just aren't women in the Mobile infantry, literally at all.

Yeah.

He goes into this whole thing about, like. Well, yeah, like, most of the pilots are women because they are like, Uniquely suited to. He's doing some whole bile essentialism about how women are better pilots for XYZ reasons.

Yes.

And that's bonkers also.

That's a thing I think aged a little bit more poorly because this was the 1950s and there was literally the idea that women could be really, really good pilots is revolutionary in 1950.

Yeah, totally, totally.

The fact that they have a place in war at all and that they would not only be good as good if not better than men is like kind of revolutionary in 19 at anything.

Right.

And like he's making that argument and. But like society left him behind, you know, and so. And we'll also talk about him and race later because that's a whole thing. But so yeah, so he like, his idea is that like he doesn't like he didn't meet. He doesn't look like objectively at the world and see like the value that actually exists in the like great plurality of the world. He just has a very clear idea of what a good person in his mind looks like, which is this super ultra capable, like uber. I don't want to say ubermensch, but like kind of like it's a person who can do anything. He's stated publicly that that's his ideal version of a man. And he also thinks that women can do that too. But like his idea of it is so closely tied to being a man that like women can. It's basically comes down to women can be just as good men as men can be. Is his idea.

Yeah. In the exact same ways.

Yeah, in exactly. And like they're not that there's any value in femininity other than how fucking sexy they are, but rather that like they. There's nothing stopping women except for, you know, not a lack of trying or society that keeps them from doing all the cool things men do. But they would be doing them as men would be. It's. It's a different sort of fucked up, but it is a very specific kind of copy.

It's goofy and I do think it is a product of its time as well.

100%. And he changes over time. I won't launch into the three hour thing about him and gender and sexuality and all that stuff. So yeah, but like this and Starship Troopers is in much the way that people think. Starship Troopers, the movie is about fascism. Starship Troopers, the book is about masculinity. To me, like it is so much the idea of like here is how you grow to be a man. Like here is the. Like here is A template you could follow and a way to move through the world that will lead you to being a successful man. And it is to be like, to do the hard things, to do them on your own as much as possible and not ask for help. To, like, be violent, but not capricious with violence. Like, to be capable of violence, but not actually be violent necessarily unless it's necessary.

Violence is like a tool of control.

Yes. And that, like, it is. I mean, not just like, in many ways, violence is a expression. Certain kinds of violence are expressions of love is a thing that is actually.

Yeah. Violence is a communicative tool.

Yeah. Where like. Cause there's a huge law. He goes off several things about, like how you. This is where we got to where this movie loves corporal punishment.

But he.

He is so bought in onto the idea that you need to actually punish people in order to teach them to be good people because they are little animals by nature. So you have to beat morality into them. And failure to do that is not just literally like you're failing a child if you don't beat them enough that they turn into a good person. There's a huge rant about it, and it's like long.

It's many pages.

And the. The plot, such as it is, grinds to a halt so that we can talk about this multiple times to the.

Point where, like, there's a couple points where the plot grinds to a halt so that we can get a little rant that you can picture him at his keyboard, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, clacking away like he had so much to say about.

He did. And like, I know enough about his own. His actual real life politics to know that, like, what he says in this particular book doesn't 100% match up with, like, his real life views.

Interesting. Okay. But, like, I was curious about that.

It's not good. It's just different in a bad way or bad way in a different way. He's a very ultra libertarian kind of guy.

Interesting.

Okay. Interesting in a way that like, a white dude in the. Only a white dude in the 50s can be, like, as libertarian as.

Right, right.

And sometimes that went in a good direction. He's actually pretty good on, like, LGBTQ issues, for example, for somebody from the 50s. And really. And actually really quite good on race in a lot of ways, with some notable exceptions. But, like, also, like, no, everybody should be able to, like, go off into the woods themselves and farm, make a little farmhouse. And that's like the ultimate freedom. And that's the best Way to be a person kind of thing. Very, very weird. Anyway, okay, we were talking about getting back on topic. I don't know.

You were talking about the mobile suits and how they aren't in the movie.

Yes. And then. Okay, so the movie, like, again, it was. Because it's something else. This was meant to be a different thing. And they glommed Starship Troopers on top of it. Okay. So that was all the writer that I was talking about, where he, like, like, wrote the script and then they. They put Starship Troopers on top of it. And then when Paul Verhoeven got involved, the writer handed him the book. He read the first two chapters and then said, I don't like this, and threw it away and didn't.

I don't like this.

Yeah. And just completely dismissed it.

Oh, my God.

So, like, no wonder this movie doesn't have anything to do with Starship Troopers at its heart. Like, the director was actively working against what few, like, things that we've been trying to be introduced from the writer. Like, he didn't care.

I'm not. I'm not dealing with all that. We're gonna do something else.

Yeah. And to the point where, like, he continued rewrites the Paul Verhoeven did. And, like, to the point where he added a scene where Carmen abandoned, like, apparently had sex, and there was a topless scene for her, and Denise Richards just refused to do it because it wasn't in the contract. And she's like, fuck this.

That's so valid of herself.

But, like, that says something about pal Verhoeven that he's like, I need more tits in this movie. And he just like, yeah, well, she can't be in the shower scene because she's a pilot. She's not Mobile Infantry. So let's write a different scene for very, very bro energy. Yeah, I like this. I still like this movie. We haven't even talked about, like, special effects and production design yet. Because, like, this is where the movie fucking goes off the rails in a good way to me. Because, like, it looks. Well, again, when we get to the point where the movie starts being itself, the movie looks great. Like, the point where, like, is a thing about the Mobile infantry fighting bugs on a big desert planet. Like, suddenly this thing, all of this clicks together. And, like, I love. I love the props. I love the costumes. Famously. By the way, you will notice that the Starship Trooper armor shows up all over the fucking place.

Yeah, I've seen it.

It's in Firefly. I think we talked about this. But like, they made so many of these. Of these slush cast armor pieces.

Well, you would have had to because there were hundreds.

There were so many extras and then also dead bodies and stuff. So they just needed tons of these things and they made a ton of them. And they just had them in a warehouse somewhere and it went to a prop rental store. And so anytime that anybody was making needed slightly sci fi armor for the next 20 years for their like, low budget thing until literally, like probably the polyurethane rotted away, they still brought these things out and used them. So they're all over the place. I think they're in Stargate too. Like a bunch of TV shows used them.

And like, I feel like Farscape maybe has them. And that's an Australian production. I don't know.

I wouldn't be surprised because, like, again, they just went to a prop house somewhere. So they were choosing. And the thing is, they look great. Like, they really work. Like, it's this. It's sufficiently futuristic, but still very, very grounded version of like, of a. Of a body armor.

Yeah. For people who haven't seen these things, you probably would recognize them if you saw them. They're like a segmented carapace looking like armor piece for the chest.

They look. Yeah, it's. They got. Again, they're made out of polyurethane rubber. So they look a little bit like tire texture, you know. And they've got to like kind of tread kind of pattern to him.

That's always when you'll see them finished up different ways in like different pieces of media.

And they have these absolutely massive rifles.

These chonkus.

Yeah, these huge things, literally. And again, they were. They were pulling from like aliens. So they've got DNA from the pulse rifle in the sense that they have both a top barrel and an underslung shotgun thing that they can. That they do use in the movie. But these things are like. They're like both a bullpup, which is supposed to. The reason why you make bullpups is because they're smaller, so the actions behind the hand. But nonetheless, these things are fucking like five feet long. Like, they're the longest rifles in the world.

They're so big, but no sights, but.

It makes a really good outline. Yeah, it's like super menacing and stuff. It looks great. Like they, you know, it's a. It's a really iconic look. And then we get to the bugs, their version of the arachnids, which are like, I don't know, like kind of a quintessential design in, like, monster design. Like, it's super influential. This very insect. Like they're modeled after, like, rhinoceros beetles and stuff. The. Okay, so I'm going to take it back a. We're going to back up for a second. Jurassic Park. All right. Came out two years ago.

Yeah, that does have the vibes.

So when they were doing Jurassic park, when they were spinning up Jurassic Park's production, they were thinking they were going to use some digital monsters or digital dinosaurs for a few shots, but that most of the stuff was going to be done stop motion. They were going to make stop motion dinosaurs. And they were doing early productions on these things. So they hired Phil Tippett Studio to do the stop motion stuff because he's famously. He's the guy who did like the. Like, even the chess pieces in Star wars and stuff, like these old school.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

And so they hired this entire studio and then that really never came together. They were doing an early motion test and stuff, and the stop motion just didn't ever look right. It looked. To Jason and the Argonauts, it looked too old and not working right. And so ILM developed, like, how to do 3D creatures in photorealism for Jurassic Park. But during the course of that, they already had Filt a bit studio and they'd given them a bunch of money and they had animators who could do stop motion work, but they couldn't use a. They knew how to animate, but they couldn't use a mouse and keyboard to animate a creature. So they built armatures. They took a stop motion armature and they put little sensors over the top of it and you could move a physical Tyrannosaurus rex into various poses, hit a button, and that would get inputted into the computer. The next movie they went to work on was Starship Troopers and they actually built little armatures to do the exact same thing for a lot of the bugs, which made it faster and easier for them to animate the bugs that you see in this movie. Movie.

That's amazing.

Yeah. So about 30% of the animations were done that way. And. Wow. I mean.

And it works. It really fucking works.

There are a ton. An absolute ton of. And they. They also worked out. I think this is one of the first things where they decided to do. They didn't hand. Like when you see the giant field of bugs, you don't see those aren't all hand animated. They animate copies of them and then copy paste and then change the Parameters and stuff. But they wrote algorithms to do all of that so they didn't have to do it all by hand. Which allowed them to use. Instead of spending 100,000 man hours to animate every single one of those things, they could just like plug it into formulas and get these huge amount of insects which. To get these beautiful shots.

Well, yeah, it looks very convincing. Like you don't see them moving in batches or like in sync with each other. They're all just sort of teaming and.

Chittering and they're also very, very smartly. All of the bugs are sort of hard edged because they don't have a lot of biological parts to them for the most part. So they're kind of like. It's just a, like when, when a, when a segment of a segmented arm is moving, you're not having to like articulate individual. Like these. They can move a little bit like robots. Basically. Those are insects and it plays to that thing. It's also the texture of itself. Being hard means that you can use that. It's easier for rendering and stuff. So like it's really great. Also it meant that all of the shots with bugs in them are motion controlled, which means that like you have a robot arm controlling the camera so that you know exactly what that movement is. So you can put it into a computer and do the compositing later. And it looks fucking beautiful.

Like it looks so good.

They do such a good job. They also had a couple of full size, not exactly robotic because they were. They're controlled by rods, but you had a couple of full size warriors that they could use for scenes where those monsters interact with people. They also, I love this, hired a bunch of extras who were missing limbs specifically to do certain stunt works.

Oh, wow, that's awesome.

So like there's a scene where one of the named characters who is. It's. I think it's the guy, it's the Japanese guy who's supposed to be Japanese but isn't for some reason who like gets his leg bitten off and then gets like torn apart. And so that actual scene involved the guy with, you know, an actual amputee. They had a fake leg that they then ripped off. And then like, it's just. And the guy who plays field Sergeant Ho is a really famous character actor who actually has amputation on both legs. And so like when you see him like scoot out from the, from the desk and you see that he ends at a certain point. Yeah, he ends at that point. That's the actual actor that's really cool.

Because it is kind of hard to do, like, missing limbs with, you know, tricks and makeup and stuff when you do need the physicality of the limb not being there. Like, I'm thinking specifically of a shot in Chinese, like, drama where the character gets their arm whacked off and you can see the outline of the arm pinned against their body under their clothes. It's just like. That's the best they could do.

Yeah. But, like, they actually were able to also do it. So think about Michael Ironsides in the classroom where he, like, has the stump of an arm. Yeah.

And he's pointing at people with it.

Well, he, like. He, like, hits a person with it. That was a. Like, not hit, but, like, he, like, taps them.

He, like, taps them with it.

Yeah, that was a. That was an armature that they created. So Michael Ironside had his arm behind him and was actually the one controlling the puppet. So he's fully able to act with it. He wasn't having to work with a second puppeteer. He could control the rod to control the stump arm. They did a bunch of stuff like that. You know the scene where the guy's like, put your hand up against that wall and.

Yeah.

Then throws a knife. Same thing. They put the guy's arm behind him. And then they had a special. Basically was on a fishing line to, like, fly into it. Yeah. So they did a lot of that stuff. And. And I mean, it's great.

Like, it looks really good. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, like, the. There's a. There's a very. I mean, it's part of Paul Verhoeven's style that I gotta. I gotta praise him for. If you like it, you will like it. But that sort of, like, hyper violent, you know, nature of, like, we're gonna show and, like, blood's gonna splatter everywhere and we're gonna, like, show a guy's. The top of a guy's head get blown off.

Yeah. Right.

That's like, if it's in. I don't know if it's in service to a higher message or not, because I'm not sure this movie has a higher message or not. But, like, they did a fantastic job. Like, every time.

Yeah. It's well done.

Yeah. Every time that, like, we're in the action. I feel pretty good, like, about the movie. I think its quality really goes up when, like, we're dealing with monsters and stuff. And, like, I just don't. I don't like all the stuff around it.

Yeah.

So, yeah. Paul Paul Verhoeven did not like Starship Troopers, the book. He didn't care about it at all. And he fucking made.

You can really tell.

Yeah. And you can tell, I think, that it's so. It's so impossible to properly adapt any kind of media if you don't have some love for it.

Like, yeah.

At that point, just make your own thing. Like just. Just commit to making a different thing. Make.

Make the thing that's in your heart, not the thing that some executive was like, this will make us so much money, blah, blah, blah. And also, like, really quick, I just want to say, in the, like, 90s, when I was a little kid growing up, it was still, like, sort of uncool to be into sci fi. Like, that was a whole different subculture than the mainstream, whatever sports and whatnot. Like, it's not like integrated into society the way that it is now. So that was a whole.

It would be a couple of years. I think we were still a few years off from the Matrix. And when did Independence Day come out? Because Independence Day really crossed over.

Mm.

Oh, no, this is after Independence Day. Okay, so we're in that transitional period then. Because Independence Day, I remember being the first, like, sci fi. Sci fi movie that was like that, to my young memory, was really crossed over. And everybody saw that movie. It was a huge blockbuster. Everybody saw it. Everybody loved it. There was no shame in liking Independence Day in the way that there was kind of like liking Star wars at the time.

Yeah.

And. Or Star Trek or anything else. There's like the first big crossover event. So we're still in that transitional period. And Starship Troopers is very much not approachable in the way that Independence Day kind of is. Because Independence Day at least takes place in, like, our world. Starship Troopers is very much not.

Yeah. I mean, even when they're like, this is Buenos Aires, you're like, okay. You're saying that you're not demonstrating it to me really in any way, but okay.

I don't. Paul Verhoeven. Why didn't you just change that?

Why didn't you just change it?

I don't. He very specifically went out for his casting. He's like, I'm gonna get blond haired, blue eyed, Aryan ideal guys for this movie. And kind of did. I mean, Casper Van Dien does look kind of does fit that mold a bit. Denise Richards. But again, there's not that many blonde people actually in the movie, now that I think about it. It could have been San Francisco, you know, like, if you had told Me in the movie, if they just never mentioned Buenos Aires, if he just said San Francisco or you know, upstate New York or Vancouver or something, I would have been like, yeah, of course, you know, yeah, it's perfectly fine.

Well, so I was talking about this with my wife because she had read the book before but not seen the movie and she watched it with me and she was sitting there going, wow, this is kind of freaking my bean. Because they could be saying something in the casting of this film that's like, yeah, we're to the far point of the future where the whole planet is like, so like, what word am I looking for? Homogenized. That everybody looks like this now. But that doesn't even track because you can see in the crowd scene some of the extras are people of color. So you're like, okay, they can't all be white. So like, why are all of these white folks with like names like Flores and Ibanez? What's going on in this movie?

And the answer is that the script writer wrote it to be a little bit closer to the book. A little bit. Not that much better. Because the book. Fame. Okay, yeah, but, but Paul Verhoeven's like, I want to do a Nazi thing and we're gonna do Nazi stuff. And like, so he hires, you know, frickin Doogie Hauser and Casper Van Dien and Dina Myers and like these people who like you know, just, just white people. Which. Yeah, like, but didn't bother to change all the names because.

Yeah.

Or its location. Because he doesn't care. He just doesn't.

Yeah, no, he just wasn't interested in that.

Wasn't interested. Or he was. Or he was fighting with the writer. Really fighting with them. And maybe that's one where he caved or whatever. But in the sense that like, that doesn't serve the narrative anymore. Like if you're trying to make it this thing. I don't. I don't know.

Or if it does, then say that or make it somehow explicit that like, yeah, the reason you're seeing all of these blue eyed folks with these names that don't match the way that they look is because like, what are we now? The 23rd century is when the story takes place and it's like, yeah, we're all homogenized. There's like not that many brown people left for summer reason. And I'm like, okay, that's still all. A whole can of beans.

And it's weird because this is a very specific thing they're doing. And again, it's a place where you're gonna piss off the people who like the book. Because the book is actually like, again, for the 1950s.

Yeah.

Pretty good on race. It's like, it's of its time, but it's also like. So here's the narrative that comes out that I remember hearing from tons and tons of people is so many people don't realize, like, were so caught up in their own heads, they didn't realize Johnny Rico wasn't a white guy until the last page of the book.

That's so bonkers.

Right. But like, that's a thing that Heinlein did on purpose. This character's name is Juan Rico.

It's Juan. They don't ever call him that in the movie, by the way.

Yeah, yeah. But his parents call him Juanito all the time. And then in the last page of the book, he's revealed to be Filipino and that like, at home they all spoke Tagalog.

Yeah.

And like. And this is a very particular thing that Heinlein was doing. He was like, you the reader. I know you because I've been writing this shit for, you know, 15 years at this point. I know exactly what's going to happen when I put this character on the page. You're going to imagine him to be a little white dude and you're going to like, despite the fact that I'm going to tell you he's not very clearly at various points in the book. And then I'm going to make it very, very clear at the last minute and then that will cause you to reevaluate. That is a deliberate thing he was doing on purpose and it worked. And then like Paul Verhoeven just threw it away. And also, mind you, that particular reveal doesn't. Would not work in a. In a. Yeah.

Cuz you're looking at him.

You're looking at him all the time. But like, that's a specific thing. It's probably the like, even if you can't do that particular idea, but like, at least put a Filipino in the, like in the role. It's like one of the main points of the book. Like, it's not. I will not say that it is. Again, when looking at it from 2024, like, no, like, it's pretty reductive. Of course, the one Japanese dude is a little karate master.

Yeah.

But interestingly, is treated super, like, respectfully by the narrative and is like, he shows up and the sergeant is like, oh, hey, I recognize your dad. He trained me. And like, they like, do their. They Fight for a minute. And then, like. Like, okay, great. And they bow at the end of it. And then, like, that guy is shown to be an instructor.

I'm trying to remember what the term is for, like, the trope of the, like, you know, Asian person with superpowers. Basically. I'm like, that's a trope as well.

But, yeah, yeah, it's a very Orientalist thing. But, like, if you're imagining the 1950s where we, like, we're just at war with the Japanese, like, that's. I mean, treating them with, you know, quite kindly by the narrative, almost nobody's race is mentioned. I don't think there's. I don't think it's ever mentioned specifically. You can kind of surmise some stuff about some characters based off of, like, hints and things. Like, there's a couple of German characters. There's a couple of. You know, I think that Zim is mentioned to be, like, from the Steppes. I think he's mentioned to be, like, Asian. But, like, specifically mentioning these things and then treating everybody very much the same and not making it a big deal in the 1950s is a very particular, like, it's kind of a radical stance in the 1950s.

Well, and it is interesting in the audiobook because the. The person narrating the book does voices for, like. Does accents for some of the characters.

For a couple of them. Yeah.

So you're getting a little more information from. From the audio version. But, yeah, it's still like.

But, like, it's clear. It's very much. And again, this is a very particular kind of person trying not to be racist, who maybe still has a bunch of biases built into his brain, but is, like, trying to write the, like, colorblind version of a story, which. But nonetheless still acknowledge that, you know, I don't know. It's a thing that, like, you can't. It's making a point in 1957, 59 that, like, kind of doesn't work anymore because it doesn't surprise anybody because we've moved on so far. But, like, it actually is making a very particular point in a way that, like, Star wars would go on. Not. So Star Trek would go on to make in a few years about, like, how international and, like, humans are humans. It's. It does run into problems with things like it uses the term skinnies for the. For one of the alien races, which is. I don't. I don't have my timeline. I know for a fact that was a very common usage in the Vietnam War. But that would have been after this. So I don't know if I would surmise that we were probably using a term very similar to that in World War II for the Japanese and Koreans and Korean War. So I'm not going to. I will not, like, say that this was pre that. I'm just saying, like, yeah, he's definitely. He's definitely a white guy living in the 50s when he wrote that.

Yeah, that's all the time.

Yeah. And didn't reevaluate.

Yeah, yeah.

But like, again, it's like this is. You can't like. But Paul Verhoeven's racist in a completely fucking different way.

Yeah.

You know, like he approaches it in such another. In a. Like again, just like you have to weigh these things on their own. And I really wish they weren't associated with each other because then I can get actual criticism of the real one. Do you have any other questions about production? Because I do. I do have a bunch of information about the production of Starship Troopers. That move.

I have. Basically what I want to do is set you like open the fucking starting gate here and just let you loose and tell me everything that you know about the production. Because I have questions about all of it. And I don't think I could even like, single out specific things that I have questions about. I just have a lot of questions.

So we covered casting a bit. The fact that Jake fucking Busey's in this movie just like. Like, he's such a weird looking dude. I'm sorry. He looks like Gary Busey so much. He looks so much like his dad. Sorry. It's just a thing. Okay. I mean, I can tell you like, you know, there's various things about like the production of various props and stuff like that.

We talked about the armor.

Yeah, the armor. It was used all over the place. A bunch of the sets were reused from other movies as well too. So there's like corridors that get. That were themselves reused or that got reused. So there's stuff in this movie that shows up in like Alien 3 and then like Alien Resurrection uses some of the ship models from this one as well. Because, like these are all these like rather relatively low budget movies that they're like, they can't even pay to have their own ship models built.

We talked about the, like, bugs and the design. Oh, really quick. I want to say it was kind of wild in the book. It seems like the bugs by and large are kind of knee height or maybe waist height in general. But then there are like larger ones occasionally. Yes, in the movie they're huge. They're like 8ft tall. Like the standard.

Well, and also in the book they. We mention at most four types, but one of them is in conjecture. So there's like the workers, the warriors, the brains. And then I think there might be queens.

Yeah. But they've never seen them.

But they have never seen a queen. And then the movie, actually, I think this is a smart move. They went like, like Pokemon version or like full on. Like there are a bunch of different subtypes. So there's like these like little sand beetle things that carry the brains. There are the warriors, which are the ones that we see most of which have these big like rhinoceros beetle grabby things. Very cool looking. There's flyers which are like warriors, but they have razor sharp wings. They can cut people's heads off, which are fucking rad. There are tankers which are these big beetle guys.

Those are crazy.

Yeah. Which like they shoot like flamethrower stuff out of their mouth, which is awesome. That like melts. And like, like the shots, it's like acid.

It's like hot acid.

The shots of like various people getting like. There's one where a woman gets her arm burned off. Another one where like two guys get completely flamethrowered. Like.

Yeah, it gets. The arm just melts.

Yeah.

In front of your face.

Yeah. The. The amount of care that went into making that look fucking rad as hell is so like, it's like. It's very much like splatter house. Like such a good job. Then there's also the like anti aircraft bugs, which are these giant like bombardier beetle things which shoot plasma out their buttholes.

Yeah, it's like boom. Like a giant ball of plasma goes up into the sky.

And then the. And then we have the brain bug, which, man, that. That fucking brain bug looks like so disgusting and good.

It looks so gross.

It looks so gross. He's got all the eyes and all slimy and stuff. And that's.

That's so slimy.

Yeah, they got like both a digital model and a version where they. That was actually on set that people could interact with for doing things like the, the brain sucking.

Brain sucking.

And so like they have like fully cat they cast. I do not remember the actor's name. The guy plays Xander. They fully cast his head so that they could have a. They could have guts. They got brains coming up out of the top of it, out of the tube. And you get to watch them go down the semi translucent tube.

Can I say the scene where they get into that ambush, and there's the guy who was in the closet or whatever, and he kept stumbling out like, oh, my God, we're all gonna die. I was so confident that the hole in the top of that corpse's head was an exit wound and not an entry wound and that there was something in that dude's head. Like, the way that he was acting and his crazy eyes. I was like, there's a bug in there. I was so convinced that's.

And, like, they even talk about how, like, they make you do things. They made. They made so and so call for the.

And I thought they were flagging.

Like, that's just never addressed ever again.

No, it doesn't come up well, because he doesn't. He never. A bug never jumps out of his skull. He never, like, flies off the handle.

He just gets squished.

He just gets squished. But, like, they were flagging so hard that it was gonna be like a chest burster situation, but through the top of his skull. And then I was really surprised when there was nothing in his head and he was just traumatized.

Yeah. Yeah. Again, maybe another relic from a different part of the script. Because, like, having that in there would have been really, like. That could have been a fun element. I would have loved to have seen a version of the bugs where, like, they could, like, bring. Just bring some alien in. It's fine.

We can just do it just as a treat.

Yeah. Just as a.

Just as a little snack.

Yeah. So, like, they had the. They had a real version of that brain bug, but they also had a.

Digital version, the Proscus thing on the brain bug. Like, the way that it doesn't come straight out of the, like, orifice, but it unfolds like an elbow. Oh, my God. It's so horrible.

Yeah. So good. And then they have. I love the scene where they're dissecting the beetles. Giant, they say, these big cast versions of the little beetle creatures and, like, they cut them down in the middle and, like, with their bare hands. Not gloves, by the way, just bare hands.

Yeah, no. No PPE whatsoever.

Casper Van Dien's just like, like, piling guts into Denise Richards hands, covered in what I am almost certain is birthing lubricant used for cows.

Oh, yeah, I could see that. I could see that.

To the point where she.

Then when you have to help a cow give birth and you have to reach your whole arm in up to the shoulder and get it in.

50 gallon drums.

Oh, my gosh. Why do you know that? Scott, why do you know that?

I think I got that one from Mythbusters, but.

Oh, good.

It's also just a fun thing to know, but. And then we have Denise Richards do the least convincing throw up I've ever seen on screen. Her where she is so obviously holding one mouthful of vomit, of like chunky vomit in her mouth and she's bleh. And just like spits it out.

See, we skipped that scene because I'm a metaphobic, so I didn't even have to see it.

Yeah, yeah. It's so bad. It's like for as good as everything else in this movie. Her particular, like, she's doing a fine job, but they did not spend any money on that.

They didn't make it convincing.

Yeah, yeah. And again, I know that the writer brought in the whole romance subplot because of his own experiences with high school, I guess. And because, I guess you have to have a romance in a 90s movie. It doesn't. It doesn't.

A quadrangle, no less.

Yeah, quadrangle. No. And like, we talked a bit about, like, how Johnny Rico is like the horniest dude in the world, but also just like the least observant. And, like, he is. He's so weird. I don't know. Again, this is the cusp between Heinlein's juvenile stuff and his later stuff where we just talk about sex, but, like. So like, he's super fucking horny, but, like, it doesn't ever seem to actually have sex or talk about actual sex itself. He just, like, loves women sort of in an ethereal way.

Yeah. Just sort of abstractly, ambiently loves women.

Yeah. And his relationship with Carmen is so different in the book where it's like. Like she was never his girl. Like, she was never anybody's girl. She had her own thing going on. And like.

And her own thing was, I want to be a pilot.

Yeah. And I personally think that you're talking about how she's like kind of not a character in the book, which I agree with. But I do think that it is done on purpose to a certain extent because you can tell that Johnny doesn't think of her as a serious person all that much. There's even a line where he's like, she's so small and ornamental that you kind of think of. You don't ever think about her being useful, but, like, that's like one of the very few self aware moments where you're like. Where like, it's like, yeah, dude, think about that some more and maybe you can understand Her a little.

Think about that with your brain.

But like, apparently she just like, dates every dude in high school and like, never does two. Never dates any two of them in a row. And. But is also very sweet and nice and it's just like a cool person who has her own life going on.

I'm like, she's just hanging, she's chilling.

She's just off in a different book, basically. So, like, mad respects to Carmen abandoned as of the book.

Yeah, she's. She's getting it, like, good for her.

She showed like, I do like the fact that she shows up at his. At his OCS and is like, I need to take him on a date real quick. Because I just can and, like, managed to do it.

Like, she's like, oh, this is the one I missed in high school. So I'm gonna take him out real fast.

It was a fun date. And like, whether or not, like, they're gone for three hours, so who knows if they actually. But she could just be like, I'm horny. Where's Johnny? Oh, hey, cool. He's nearby.

He's here. Convenient.

Come on. And just like, does not mention, I guess good on Johnny for not kissing and telling. But also, like, again, I don't know again, I think it's deliberate that he just is super unobservant and doesn't understand.

His brain is smooth. He's not thinking.

Okay, let's talk about Dizzy.

Okay. Yeah, I was gonna say we have to talk about Dizzy now because we've brought up this horrible quadrangle high school romance a couple of times.

So I'm low key obsessed with Dizzy from the movie because, A, I like Dina Myers. She's also in Johnny Mnemonic as she's like a. She's a little bit like a sci fi and like scream queen kind of person. She like. She's been in a bunch of the Jigsaw movies, the Saw movies.

Wow.

That's like her thing now. So at the beginning, the things that we learn about Dizzy is that a. She's like fucking head over heels for some goddamn reason with Johnny Rico.

Inexplicable.

Inexplicable. But like, she. She's the cap. Like, she's like the quarterback of the football team.

Of the football team. Yeah.

Which she's the one who calls all the shots.

Sexy of her, first of all.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. They're also. Their version of football is. So this is the 90s and we need the future version of football. Like where they're wearing these really weird costumes and like it's kind of rugby kind of football thing going on. It's played indoors. Very strange.

It's crazy. They were like future space football.

Space football with a silver ball. Yeah, that's how you know it's the future.

That's how you know it's the future.

And so she's like, she's the. Okay, so Cass, Johnny Rico claims that he was the captain of the team, but like Dizzy is very clearly calling the shots, literally calling the play. And like he's like not paying attention because he's in a dick measuring contest with Xander who's also on the other team for some reason. Because this universe is four people wide.

Universe four people wide. And it's all high schoolers who are 29 years old.

Yes. And she like smacks him on the head and is like, come on, fucking pay attention. We're gonna, we're gonna win the game. They win the game based off of her call. But Johnny is like the person who, you know, does the thing. So he gets all the credit. And then she manages to get a half of a dance with him at the dance because she wants to jump on that D and wants to jump.

On it so bad.

Like bad.

So bad.

He's like. And it's very clear that she's going to go off and like have a career as a professional football player. Like she's being scouted by college is. And she's like, yeah, I'll take whichever one lets me start. You know, like she's like got a story that she wants to do on her own. Then Johnny joins the, joins the Mobile Infantry. And I guess she does too later because she shows she's not there when they join up. She shows up.

She joins up because of him, doesn't she?

Pretty much.

She shows up like, I followed you here.

And then like specifically, not just there but like follows him specifically to Camp Curry.

Yeah, to his specific boot camp.

She says, she says the zim because I heard it's the. But like I like the only narrative we see so far is that she wants Johnny so bad that she must be following Johnny, I guess.

Well, it has to be that too because that's exactly what he did with Carmen. Except then they ended up in different companies because she's gonna go be a pilot and he's gonna be a jar head.

But then when she shows up, we learn that she's like actually a really super competent fighter. Like she's a hand to hand combat person who likes. Okay, as an aside, the zim of that of the movie universe is, like, so sadistic in a way that is not present in the book.

Yeah, he's a whole different guy.

Like, so, like, in the book, there's a guy named Breckenridge who goes off to fight, like, at the very beginning, Zim's like, who wants to fight me? Anybody who thinks they can fight me, you can fight me. And this guy named Breckenridge comes in, and he ends up with his arm broken. And Zim apologizes like, I'm sorry, son. You rushed me. And that's why I accidentally broke your arm.

Yeah, this was an accident.

It was an accident. And in the movie, he very clearly knocks the guy on the ground, has him pinned, grabs his arm and breaks it. Like, specifically breaks his arm on purpose. On purpose. And it's like, why, like, why is this guy meant to be, like, in one, he's, like, trying to forge these people, but not, like. But like, with the. It's as hard as possible, but, like, only because they need to make sure that these people are actually capable versus, like, I'm just going to break people's arms and stab them in the hands with knives, like, for the hell of it.

Okay, so you said, like, near the beginning of this podcast that the boot camp in the movie is like a. Like a torture camp that's meant to disable or kill as many of the recruits as possible.

Yeah.

And it starts at the very first second when Zim is like, I'm just gonna break this guy's arm and then yell for the medic, and they'll put him in the tank and he'll be fine. And. Yeah.

Yeah, I don't. I don't get that. It doesn't. It only is sensationalist to me. It doesn't even seem to fall into the themes of the way they've elsewise changed the book to make the movie. It's just a thing they did because, I guess that allowed them to show a guy's head, get blown off later and show.

Okay, so the way that they changed all of the stuff that happens at boot camp and the stuff they invented for the movie, because the drills are totally different. They can't be doing the same types of combat drills because they're not in the power suits. And so they have this whole setup where it's like, oh, yeah, we're, like, doing this training exercise, but with, like, live ammunition. And if you fuck up, you could get actually, genuinely killed. And then this guy fucks up and gets killed and Johnny takes the heat for it because he was in charge.

He took the helmet off.

And that's not in the book because they're in power suits the entire time.

That being said, I think the way that Johnny fucks up in the movie is one of the few ways I think the movie reads better because I understand clearly what Johnny did in the movie. He took the guy's helmet off in a live fire exercise and he got shot in the head. That being said, that live fire exercise is totally fucking weirdly designed where, like, they all have live ammunition, they're shooting real targets, but, like, they can be disabled. And when they fall, apparently when they get hit with the lasers from the targets, they can fall down and just like spray their bullets however they want.

Yeah.

There are other people on this camp, like in, like, like on the sides that are, like, just standing around.

Yeah, like just around.

This is so dangerous.

Yeah, well, and that's what you're saying, like, there is no effort or care being put into preserving the lives of anyone on this base in the way that it's designed in the movie, which is just kind of bonkers. And it's like, I guess the point that they're trying to make leading from the recruiter being like, yay, more meat for the grinders. Like, they just don't give a fuck about any of these people's lives.

Apparently not. Yeah.

And on the one hand, that's a point that you could be making with this movie. It's a totally different point that's being made in the book.

Yes.

It's as if they're trying to say we're deterring people from achieving citizenship by doing this. Like, the more, you know, young people go to the military and just get stupidly killed in a drill or are killed in combat, are less people that are going to have the opportunity to vote and make policy later. And that's good. Yeah, like, that's by design.

Yeah. Whereas in the, Whereas in the book it's more of. We want to make sure, especially for the mobile inventory, that, like, we have only the most competent people here doing this.

Yeah. And the most, like, devoted, committed.

Yes, exactly. You have to be. You have to want it super bad and you have to be super competent. And then. But it's also made very clear that if you flunk out of the mobile inventory, you can refuse to be kicked out of the military and they'll just put you. They have to find someplace to put you.

They'll find a fake job for you to do.

Yeah, but like, they make one guy cook. They say that like, you can't. Like, if you want it, we'll figure out something to do because it's there. It's your right to try to get citizenship. And we're not gonna, like, unless you like, break one of the rules and get flogged.

Yeah, there's the 31 rules that you can't break.

But even then they're not trying that hard. Like, they try really hard to ignore the guy who hits them.

He gave him so many outs.

And the guy kept saying, like, just stupidly kept, like, said twice, like, no, I hit him. And they're like, you. You know that's against the law.

You shut your fucking mouth. I'm trying to give you the out here. He won't take it.

Yeah, and then they flog him and drum him out. But yeah, okay, so we're talking about. We got, we got off again because we're talking about fucking fizzy dizzy floor dizzy.

Oh, God, there's just a lot.

There's just a lot. Okay, so now even in boot camp, she still calls the shots, right? Like, she is the one who tells Johnny what to do so they can win that little simulation with the laser guns. And he gets all the credit again, which is like. They did this twice in the space of, like, it's not that far off from when it happens in the, in the football match to when it happens again in boot camp. And it's like, oh my God, like you could be saying a thing here about like, there, there is a point of view that could come out of this particular idea, which is that, like, dizzy, the woman keeps feeding, like, proper, like, good advice and stuff to Johnny, who then gets all the credit for it and never throws it back to her. Even to the point where later on he. I don't remember if he. I don't know if she feeds him the advice again or not, but he, like, gets promoted to corporal after he, like, kills one of the big bugs and he offers the job to Ace, who's a fucking dipshit. The dumb, like canonically dumber than everybody else in the movie.

Possibly more smooth brained than Johnny himself.

And that guy is smart enough at least to refuse it and be like, nah, man, I already had my chance. I fucked that up.

Well, yeah, that character is also different, right, in the, in the book because in the movie he's introduced very early as just like the asshole in the chow line who's trying to jump the line and get ahead of everybody. And he's like asking for no reason even at all.

Yeah, at this point. Whereas Ace in the. In the book is an older career sergeant or corporal who, like, basically convinces Johnny, hey, you need to just go career on this. Like, this is where you.

Yeah, this is a whole different character.

Yeah, that character doesn't. Not. They share a name, but in any. Every other way do not matter at all.

Yeah, no, they just needed some other guy to, like, cause problems at the outset for Johnny and then have him be his homie later so that when he gets killed, we're all really upset.

Yeah. And so then we have. Wait, who. Ace doesn't die, does he not? No, he's in the last. He's in the very last scene of the movie. Yeah. Not that he matters, but, like, because none of that really matter. So Dizzy then gets made corporal after Johnny gets made, you know, section leader or something. I don't know. They all move up a rank or whatever. And then they have the. Oh, God, we gotta talk about the recreational scene between the two. The first bug hunt and the second. And the. And the. And the outpost scene where his ratchet comes in. He's like, I expect the best. So I give the best. And he shows up with, I guess, a party in several boxes, which is kegs of beer.

Mm.

A violin and footballs.

A fucking sick electric violin. I love it.

Which then Ace proceeds to play. Fucking Dixie.

Yeah, it's.

I Wish I Wasn't Dixie. Like, the most racist song in the world. Which, like, okay, I guess yet you're trying to call back to the ancient in this point. Like, not. Not so ancient past for us about, like, what Dixie means. But it. Like it doesn't. I don't know. I just. Something about that. I'm like. I'm like, you're not. If you're gonna use Dixie, you gotta start talking about race, man. Like, and you just have to. You just didn't.

Okay. Oh, my God.

So Dizzy is still obviously fucking head over heels for Johnny.

And she's been waiting in the wings. He's like. Everybody's watching him break up over the phone with Carmen. And she's, like, lurking there like, I'm gonna jump on that fucking.

And like. And, like, claiming that she's not doing it, but very obviously is. There's even the scene where in the shower scene, she comes in.

Yeah, yeah.

Tells everybody that Johnny joined for a girl. And then somebody asked, is it. Was it you? And she just, like, does this little, like, shrug of, like, tosses her hair.

She's like. But it's like, super.

Very obviously not you, because he like, is trying to tell you off every fucking minute.

And they've all seen him, like, getting the phone, like, the message. The video messages from Garmin. Everybody's watching over his shoulder every time he opens one, so they know it's not her.

I will. I will say the way that on the video, like, they're not video calls because they're just, like, video messages.

It's messages.

Yeah, they're mails. They're like. They're like voice memos. But, you know, with video, it's like sending a YouTube video to people. But the way that, like, the moment that he turns on the camera, every person in the entire camp tries to fucking, like, fuck with him and, like, starts mooning the camera and, like, singing and stuff is that. That is 100% exactly what boot camp people are like, I am sure.

Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah, that's.

I've known those fuckers.

Right, right.

Even in college. And, like, that's a. That's such a dumb, dumbass energy that actually, they, like. They nailed that one.

They actually killed it. Yeah. Like, those scenes that. Where they're just fucking around at boot camp are, like, very realistic in that way, or everybody's trying to cause them problems moving the camera. But, oh, I have to say, I love when she breaks up with him on the call or like, on the video memoir. And everybody who was, like, crowded around watching just sort of, like, drifts away slowly. Like, okay, we're gonna give homeboy some space. Like, this just got serious all of a sudden. Yeah, Awkward.

Awkward. And so, yeah, but, like, just tizzy is there, like, in the shadows, like, ready to pound. She's waiting to the moment she gets a chance. And eventually, like, Johnny keeps, like, rejecting her because he doesn't like her, I guess, for real. And then, like, fucking Lieutenant Ratchak is like, like, dude, like, don't pass. Like, you are. No, you are not good enough. Like, you should be saying, like, stay away from her. You're not good enough for her. But, like, realistically, he's like, do you not understand how what you're passing up here? And he's like, okay. And he goes and sleeps with Dizzy. And then they're like, the. It's one of the better parts in that movie with little, like, he pulls the T shirt up overhead. It's like the one time they're, like, being. And it's like, it properly works. And then Ratchet shoves his head and in the tent and is like, we got a discuss call. Be on the bounce in 10 minutes. And he's like, oh, wait, you're about to have sex. Make it 20 minutes.

It's so funny. He's like, who's that with you? And she pokes her head out from under the blanket, and it's like, flores, sir. And he's like, okay, 20 minutes.

Yeah. And then, like, Rico's like. She's, like, laughing. Okay, I guess we're not having sex. And three goes like, we can do it.

And then they're like, we can do it. 20 minutes. I ain't gonna last 20 minutes. What are you talking about?

This bugs me. Ratcheck leaves the fucking tent flap open.

Yeah. He was like, everybody's gonna know.

Just like. I guess they might as well all watch.

Might as well. They were all gonna. They were all gonna listen outside the tent anyway.

Yeah. And then. So she. So there we have the final. The final. But we have the outpost mission where, you know, some stuff happens. We see the flyers. This time some more people die. Dizzy fucking throws a grenade into the mouth of a tanker, One of the most badass things that happens the entire movie. And then, like, turns around and the plot comes at her with a fucking laser scope to kill her.

Such a bomber dude. Because, like, yeah, the. The triumphant moment of her, like, getting that big fucker with the grenade and then turning around like, I got it. And you're, like, screaming at her. This is the scream queen moment where you're like, oh, my God, there are more bugs like, you can't turn your back on.

You just had sex. This is a horror movie based. You're gonna die. And she dies. And she died. And she. They haul around to the. Onto the landing craft inexplicably piloted by Carmen and the other dude.

Yeah. Why is Carmen there? We don't know. It doesn't make any sense. She's.

Because this movie only has five people in it.

Yeah.

Except for all the extras. And then Dizzy dies. And she fucking says, like, it's okay that I'm dying now because I got to have you. And I'm like, yeah, Dizzy.

Dizzy, do better.

You deserve a better movie than this because you're a more. You're the most capable person in this whole goddamn movie, and you spent the entire movie inexplicably wanting this, like, flat toast, man.

Yes. A piece of white bread.

Yeah.

Wonder Bread ass, man.

It's just like, God damn it, I don't.

I would treat her right.

Yeah. Like, fucking. The movie that centers like this is again, reinforces my idea that when this movie is trying to be itself and not trying to be Star Trek troopers. It succeeds because Dizzy isn't a character from the book at all. They just, they slap a name on her. But like, yeah, they made her up. And like, she's an. Like when they did that, they make an interesting character. She's like a super competent, like, football player. And then also, like, also, you know, just like super athletic and all these things. She has the good ideas. She's like the most competent person. Like, if I'm script doctoring this thing, like, I could change. I could have the exact same movie up until the moment that she maybe that she like, right up until somewhere in there, in the range of those outpost areas. And when Ratchet comes up to Johnny and is like, I need a sergeant or whatever, and he's like, I'm your man. If at that moment he was just like, no, dude, like, I am dumb.

Why are you talking to me? Go to Dizzy.

You've been ignoring Dizzy this whole time, who is so much more competent than me. And then have him step away from what he wants, which is a promotion, in order to make sure that she is the right person in the right job. And then in the next scene pay that off by having her be more competent than they've ever been before and save a bunch of people's lives. And I'm like, that's a movie that says a thing. It's not what you're doing, but it says a thing in the way this movie kind of doesn't.

Right, Right. Well. And I think like, poor Dizzy, her character has done a disservice by like one of her main character driving, like, points and characteristics. Is wanting that D from Johnny so bad? Yeah, because why, like, first of all, it doesn't sell because he's the way that he is. And second of all, she's got a lot else going for her that could have made that character more convincing overall. Because it just doesn't follow to me that she like follows him to boot camp because she wants the D so bad, when in fact she would just have been a very good soldier and been able to do the job well.

Yeah, or like you could have, you could almost not change the script. Almost not change the script. Just a couple of lines and have the. Have it be that she isn't concerned. Like she doesn't want the D, but like, she happens to follow Johnny there and he's so convinced that she wants the D like that. Like he's so self absorbed that he thinks that and he keeps rejecting her and she's like, dude, I don't fucking care.

I don't care. I don't give a fuck about you.

Like, it's fine. Like, you could you that. And I'm like, that also says a thing about, like, our main character who, like, has to make this story about him because, like, the only reason why she would be at boot camp is because she's following me. But the real answer is that, like, no, she saw what was happening and wanted to fucking help out, you know, and she's a good soldier. And, like, that's also, like. That's also a thing you could say with this movie. But instead, they do the boringest thing.

Yeah, well, it's very, like. It's. So when you said, like, oh, yeah. Homeboy was like, oh, I had some high school experiences. I'll just put them in this movie. It really, really feels like that. But Dizzy is, like, such a specific type of, like, Rambo girl character who. So, okay, funny personal story. My mother did a year of ROTC when she was in college because her father was, like, a career Navy man. He loved being in the Navy. He was so convinced. Convinced that she would enjoy it, that he was like, tell you what, I will pay for all of your schooling as long as you do ROTC for a year, and if you like it, you'll stay in and they'll pay. And if you don't like it, you can drop out. I'll pay. But he was convinced that she would love it, and she hated it. She was, like, so fucking over it after years. She's like, there were other women, but they were all that, like, Rambo type where they were so macho and they were like, they wanted to hang with the guys and be cool, but that meant that they were just, like, rancid to other women. And it was like a whole fucking thing. So she hated it. She dropped out after a year. She turned in her special order tiny combat boots they had to order for her. Her platoon sergeant was furious. He was like, you have the best grades at everyone in my platoon. And she's like, yeah, but I simply hate it. Yeah, I'm not doing it. And then my grandfather stopped speaking to her for, like, a year. But he got over it. He did pay. It was all, you know, it squared up in the end. But it's funny because I know those people exist who are like, the women who want to hang so bad with the boys that they, like, sort of turn tail on the other women in their life.

The common parlance is the pick me girl. I Guess now.

Yeah, yeah. My, my 13 year old ceramic student had to explain to me what that was. I was like, what the hell is.

A pick me girl? Am I the. This might have been a little bit ma after me, but like I remember it being the. I don't like, I'm not like other girl girls.

Not like other girls is what it was when I was a kid.

Yeah, yeah. Which is a. I mean like, I actually kind of don't want to criticize kids who are doing that because that's such a like common thing of like, that's just like some people when you don't grow out of stuff like that is when, you know, that's when it turns into a problem. But like young kids being dumb and like doing dumb and like having bad opinions is just like, that's so normal.

Yeah, well, but there's also something in a kernel in here somewhere, right, of like people who when they're young sort of manifest as pick me girls. I'm making big what marks again? Or you know, like not. I'm not like other girls and then they grow up and it turns out it's because they're not a girl and they just didn't have the vocabulary for that. Like that was me when I was a kid. I was out here like, oh yeah, all my friends are boys and like I just fit in better with boys and all this shit. And I had like friends who were female as well, but I grew up to be extremely non binary. And then I was like, oh well, maybe you should have realized when I was a child that the reason I didn't feel like a girl and didn't feel comfortable being feminine in certain ways and around people who were feminine in certain ways is because I wasn't feminine in those ways and I'm still not feminine in those ways.

But like, it's just funny. And there's also a way, like there's. And there's also a way for like, I don't know, it's the language just doesn't exist in a lot of ways for young people to really express some of these ideas because like what they're trying to say with I'm not like other girls can be so different based on the person. You know, sometimes that means like I really am not like other girls. And sometimes it means that like I have internalized the idea that women are something you don't want to be, you know?

Yeah, exactly. There's a lot of shades of not like other girls that are possible.

Yeah, it's a broad Brush that, like, can encompass a lot of things. And, like, part of learning what you mean by that kind of stuff is growing up, you know, become.

Because it could be, like, toxic masculinity stuff and, like, you know, internalized misogyny and all these things. And then it could also be that you're trans. You don't know. We'll find out till you're older.

Yeah, like, trying.

I don't think Dizzy's trans, though. Like, Dizzy as much as she was, like, sprung out of. Of nowhere, fully formed, like Athena with the name of a dead man from the book. Like, there are characters. I think it's interesting to, like, read a little cheeky trans narrative into. And then Dizzy's like, you can if you want to, but I. I don't read it.

Yeah, I'm not there. That being said, the fact that she came out of a male character and the original version of the script or the original version of the story involves a completely male. All male infantry. All male infantry. Mobile infantry, presents to me an interesting version of the script. I don't think this would work now, but in the 90s, how fucking bold would it have been if Dizzy had been a dude the whole time and then just everything plays out basically the same.

Yeah, like, Dizzy, the guy, like, I need to jump on that dick so bad.

I want to jump on the dick so bad. And then, like, eventually, rat check is like, hey, dude, that fucking, like, go fuck that dude.

That guy is like. He wants it so bad. I can't believe you haven't noticed.

Yeah, and then, like, Johnny's like, okay, I guess I will. And he fucking, like, now, that's not that. I mean, like, that's not revolutionary now, but in the 90s, oh, my God.

It would have been.

It would have been amazing. People would have lost their shit. If you want to be transgressive, Paul Verhoeven, that's the movie.

That's what you should have done. Now we would have lost out on, like, the Dizzy that we did get, who I like as a character.

But yeah.

Yeah, man. What a fun version of that to be like. I think the stuff about, like, following him to the army and, like, getting into the same platoon on purpose because how horny he was would have been, like, a way more compelling story.

Yeah, in that case. In that, like, in the version, like, if I want to script Dr. It, if dizzy stays a female character, then, like, I really downplay, like, her following Rico around or, like, I don't know. I don't know how that can't be her only motivation, you know, because she's such a more interesting character. And then. But like, in the version where we retcon, it's back to being a man. I think the fact that he's so fucking horny really work.

It really, really works. All of a sudden I'm like all the way here for. It's so funny.

It's so dumb. But like, it. It. People are.

But I would enjoy it.

Yeah. You know, and honestly, because you change the gender dynamics of like so often in media, women are portrayed as like, being secondary to a man and like, having to follow what you know, like that you no longer. You drop that baggage when it's two dudes.

Well, because you have different baggage now. Like if. If it's. If it's bro Dizzy showing up to camp and being like this guy who's like, otherwise very competent, but his one downfall is he is blinded by how bad he wants that D. Yeah. And then he's also still making all these other calls and like, you know, leading the platoon more effectively than Johnny ever could, but still getting passed up for promotions and stuff like that.

Yeah.

Then you're. Then you're still saying something.

You're still saying a thing and you just gotta.

Not the same thing.

Yeah, yeah. And even then, I still like the version of it where like, Johnny eventually realizes what a dipshit he is and like steps and let's.

Dizzy, man, this hot twink who's been here this whole time.

Like, we end up with like, you know, Lieutenant Flores and then like Sergeant Rico or something like that at the end story. And like they're like this badass battle couple who like, you know, oh, man. Like, there's a ver. There's a. There's a. There's a cool way to go there, you know?

Yeah. I have to bring something up really quick that doesn't really have much to do with Star Trip troopers other than. Okay, I'm about to show my ass. Actually, I may have talked about this on a podcast with you before. There is a webcomic called Starfighter.

Okay.

That is. It's just a porn web comic. Like, it's about like a sleek sci fi military where all of these, like Starfighter pilots work in pairs. And it's like one, you know, one navigator and one gunner, basically.

Yeah.

And all of the pairs of guys are like bonded soulmate. Like pairs of guys. And that's the premise of the whole thing. And later you find. This is a big spoiler. But later you find out the reason it has to be two pairs of guys who are fucking each other is because the ships run like their drives run on. Gay love, basically.

I love it.

It's so goofy.

Yeah.

But, like, I eat that shit up. It's delicious. I'm eating that food. It's so dumb, but I love it.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've not. I have not come across this. That's so funny.

I don't know why you would have, but, I mean.

Yeah, I don't know. But, like, one thing, it's. That's. We've got so much dumb straight media that, like.

That's what I'm saying. But, like, I just want the goofy gay shit.

Yeah. But I'm saying, like, let the gays have their dumb stuff, too. When it's just, like. It's just like, this is rad, actually. And let's throw old toxic tropes in here and just see how they rattle around when we change.

It's super toxic. Especially at the outset of this story. It's like, wow, these vibes are horrible. There's so much. There's so much power station abuse going on. It's really wild, but it's fun. It's a fun time.

Yeah. Okay, so I think we've covered movie Flores. Okay. What else do we want to cover? There's just so much here.

Okay, here's what I'll say.

Yeah.

There's a scene in the book that I want to make sure we cover regardless of what else gets covered here. And it is the scene where he reunites with his dad.

Yeah. Oh, my God. Yes. So, again, I think this is the thesis of the book, because. Yeah, the. So the. We didn't. We didn't really cover the plot of the book. It's mostly the same as the plot of the movie, but, like, it's so. There's so less action in it. It's mostly just like.

It's not a war story, really.

I mean, it's a war story. It's not a battle story. Like, it doesn't have any action in it. It's about, like, the drudgery of war.

And how, like, rather than the, like, brutal horrors of war, it's, like a totally different type of war story.

And. But unlike the movie. Well, like, in the movie, his parents are very much against him joining the service. His dad, like, disowns him and, like, can't even talk about him. And then his mom dies at Buenos Aires. Johnny assumes that his dad has died, too, because the person who tells him that his mom died. Was his mom's sister, who just, like, would not even have mentioned his dad.

Because she hated him even if he was dead.

Yeah. She wouldn't have cared. So he just assumes that, like, because his parents always went inside someplace together, they'd be dead. So he's just, like, written off his whole family. He's been like, my family is the Mobile infantry now. I'm Mobile infantry, man. That's what I do forever. And then he's going off to Officer Candidate School, and a guy taps him on the shoulder and says, like, hey, is that boat for the Roger Young? And he turns around, and it's his dad who's like.

And he's like, oh, my God, Dad. And they burst into tears.

They burst into tears and kiss each other, and then they go to talk for a while, but they're like, a ship's passing in the night thing. We find out that, like, the reason why his dad was so pissed at him for joining the Mobile infantry is because his dad always real, like, kind of secretly harbored that he should have done this, that he should have gone off and become a man.

He feels, like, guilty and ashamed that he didn't do it sooner.

And then he's like, oh, my God, my boy can do this. And I couldn't. And when the mom is killed, he's like, fuck it. That's it. I'm done. And gives his business over to his number two man and then goes and joins the Mobile infantry at what must be, like, the age of, like, 40. Like, he's old, dude. But okay.

Because he says he was 22 when he had Johnny, and Johnny's now 18 or whatever.

Johnny, I think, by my count, he's actually 20.

Okay, so, like, some time has gone by.

Yes, because he. Because at least a year has gone by. Two years.

So he's what, 42?

Yeah. Yes.

Joining up.

Yeah, you got it right.

So the other interesting thing about the dad, I think, is that he, like, the way that he speaks to Johnny and, like, the whole his attitude around Johnny going off to join up at the beginning is a little tonally different in the book. It's not as, like, harsh and vitriolic as, like. Oh, I don't know how to describe, like, in the book. He's more of sort of, like, a calm, paternalistic antagonist to Johnny.

In the beginning, I would say. I would change it. Very slightly patronizing.

Yeah. Yeah. Very patronizing.

Yeah.

It's like, son, you just don't know what's good for you. You're Gonna drop out. It's not gonna work out. Like, just save us all the trouble and don't, like, do this right now. And in the movie, he's very like, I will kick you out of my fucking house. Like, do not come back if you do this. And he's, like, more aggressive about it at the outset. But I think it's really interesting that in the movie that character does not come back. Like, nope. He gets killed when Buenos Aires.

We watch him die, basically.

Yeah. And then in the book, like, reuniting with him is, like, this beautiful, touching moment for both of them because they parted on bad terms and they haven't spoken since. Like, he's gotten calls from his mom or, like, letters from his mom.

Yeah.

But his father's never written him. And she's like, telling him in these letters, like, yeah, it's because he misses you and he's really upset and he still hasn't really forgiven you. Or like, he wishes he could forgive you, but he can't.

Can't.

And so he can't write to you yet. It's too painful. She tells him all this in the letter. And then his mother dies. And then you find out, too, that his dad was also a wife guy. Because he's like, I got along with your mom, like, way better than most people get along with their wives. I didn't feel like she was a ball and chain. I loved her. Like, when I lost her, I was like, it. I'm going to join the army. Like, the wife guy pops out.

Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And also, like, this. Like, I. I feel like I missed my chance because I met my wife before. I should have done this before so that I could have. But, like, by the time I loved her, I'm like, I'm not going to leave her for the. For this thing I think I should have done. So he's like, trapped. Felt trapped. So he's like, okay, well, now I'm going to go buff and do the thing that I should have always done and join the mobile inventory and become a. Become a meathead. And like, this is. I do not. So there's certain things about the father character I don't understand. So, for example, he's Harvard. Harvard educated. Right. And like, but yet is very clearly in the story, only going to ever be a sergeant is kind of the. Where it ends off. But I'm like, dude, like, this dude. Like, they should be like, he should already be an officer candidate school based off of, like, what they've been talking about. Like, this is a smart.

You should have skipped straight to office.

Yes. This guy who used to run a giant mobile, like, multibillion dollar culture Corporation. Like, how is the. How did they not see this guy coming in through boot camp? Be like, okay, he's going to spend like one week as a private, then he's going to be a corporal, then he's going to be a sergeant, then we're going to send him to opposite candidate school, and then he's going to be a field marshal by the time we're done here. Because, like, this is a guy who knows how to run an organization. But that's fine. It doesn't match with the themes because the theme is that Johnny is so much of a man by this point that he has inspired his own father to become a better man. That's the actual thrust of the narrative. Right, right. Which is such a. I don't know.

That'S where it maybe tips into satire for me. It's like, where we're going, oh, yeah, Johnny's such a big man now. Even his own dad is emasculated by.

It's not satire. It's like. It is so earnest is the thing is that it's so earnestly, it's crazy. It's selling a particular kind of masculinity to a particular audience where it's like, yeah, if you go off and do this, not only will you, like, you know, is it the grandest thing you can do to put your precious body between beloved home and the desolation of war? Like, not only is that the highest thing you could possibly do, but like, your own father will want to follow in your footsteps. That's how badass you are. Which is. I mean, like, that's a fucking take.

But it's a take.

Yeah, it's a take. That being said, I do. I mean, I don't know, I kind of like the. I do like the scene because the Johnny is like, not just like the like least observant person in the world. He's also incredibly intro. Like, not introspective. He has such a lack of introspection that he is. I've been hearing his voice the entire book and I still have very little idea how his mind actually works. Because he doesn't understand how his own mind works.

His mind don't be working. No, it's smooth. The ball of his brain is rolling around the inside of his skull to.

The point where he even is talking, asking himself the questions he should have asked two years ago where he's like, why Did I join the mobile? Why did I do this? I don't really understand.

Oh yeah, readers, by the way, listeners in the book, he joins up because Carl joins up because he wasn't friends with Carmen originally. Carl is his best homie, his closest homie, who is like, I want to go be in the military. And he's like, oh my God, I will go with Carl.

That's one, that's definitely one interpretation of it. He also, no, I'm not entirely sure he does join up for Carl either because like, they know they're not going to go to the same unit so they're not going to be together. And then also like, he's like at the moment, up until the moment that he's actually like, does the sign up. He's kind of like, no, he. I'm not going to go. I'm, I still, I'm saying that to Carl, but I'm not going to go. But like to his parents, he's like, well, I am going to go, but they think that I'm not going to go. Like, he's still so wishy washy right up until the bar moment. And then it's just like, okay, I guess I'll do it. And then later on it's like, I guess I'll go career. This is, this is where I live now.

I might as well. He's might as well letting it happen.

To the point where he even like is asking himself the question. He's like, why did I do this? And then he doesn't really answer the question. He's just kind of like, why did I do that?

Oh, well. But like, guess I'll go for officer training. Yeah, whatever.

And like, well, like he signs up for career and then like the officer training decision happens off screen. Like we just meet him on his way out. But like seeing his dad, who definitely has like some much more, some a greater amount of like introspection and emotional intelligence is like sitting there going like, oh, I understand why I felt the way that I do. I did before all this started. He's talking about how he was miserable running a giant corporation and that he was working with his therapist all of the time and like, couldn't figure out what it was, was the cause. He's like, but truthfully, I really knew what the cause was. I just didn't have an out until like, you know, until your mom died and then you had gone. So I knew that what I must do, you know, like this whole thing and like basically breaking it down to like, because he Says he's like, I knew I should have gone off and done this to prove that I was a man and be more than just like a capitalist consumer part of this thing. I should have gone to what I think is a higher purpose. And in the universe of the book, a higher purpose is to be in the military and to save your planet. Right. So, like, he is the moment where we see a version of Johnny who actually is able to understand why he does the things that he does, instead of the version of Johnny we actually see all the time, who's just kind of like, I guess I'm. I guess I'm going this way now. Just come bouncing along. Yeah, yeah, he's just, like, kind of following the. Just getting blown by with the wind, basically. But, like, so it's like, I really do like the scene also. I like the fact that they're, like, actually sweet to each other. That's something that, like, one of the very few times that, like, they. He ever gets any, like, positive feedback from a man, like, anywhere.

Yeah, well, and it's really interesting because, like, in the book, as we spoke about earlier, the sort of use of violence as a love language in these books and, like, the tough love military. Okay. I'm behaving this way toward you because I'm caring for you in the only way that I know how to do, which is to beat the shit out of you until I know you can take it. And you can take it from people who aren't me. Yeah. And, like, having his. The last we'd seen of his father being like, you know, oh, son, you don't know what's good for you. You'll realize, like, blah, blah, blah. And then hearing from the mother, like, he. He cannot admit how bad he feels, like he fucked up and failed you and how much he misses you and how much he wishes he could rectify all of this. He can't admit it. He can't even talk about it. All this. And then to have him, like, embrace and kiss his son and burst into tears feels overblown almost in that moment. It's like, wow, we have walked all the way over to the other end of, like, actual real human emotion being demonstrated by this guy and by Johnny, who also has not acted this way any other point in the book.

Yeah. Yeah. And so it's like, that is touching. Yeah, it's super. Yeah. Yeah, it's. And part of me wonders if would the book be improved by that being a more common thing where, like, he does have, like, positive emotional relationships with the men around him who often all very much matter to him. The closest thing we get is the way they talk about the lieutenant where, like, the language they use for Lieutenant Raczak. The whole. Apparently, the whole unit is just, like, in love with this dude.

They love him, so I'll die for him, like, in a moment.

And. And they do that because they know that he loves them back and, like, that he, like, frets over them and, like, worries about all of them and, like, will not leave the planet if any of them are not on the ship. Like.

Yeah. That's a crazy difference also between the book and the movie is, like, they are completely prepared to leave anybody and everybody behind.

Yeah. Yes.

On any planet.

Yeah. And shoot you yourself. If you don't do your job, I will shoot you yourself.

But, like, in the book, it's so, like, we do not leave unless we have everybody. Even the corpse. We can get the corpse back. We will.

It's, like, 100% wrong. And it's, like, not wrong, but it's 100%, like, the other way. Like, they've just completely gone. A 180 reverse. On what? On the main character qualities of that character.

Yeah.

It's wild, very strange. And so. Yeah. But, like, I like that there's a certain part of, like, accurately depicting the way that men treat each other in this book that, like, this is very, like, all of that, like, we're gonna rag on you because we love you is a very. That's something that gets taught to you, you know, from. As a young man. And it feels toxic.

Masculinity starts at birth.

Yeah. Yeah. And it feels super accurate. And I mean, obviously, that's the way. That is the way that men have communicated up until, you know, not up until. But for the most part. Yeah.

Still to this day, a lot of them.

Yeah. And so. But also, like, I know that, like, seeing that scene with his dad where, like, they were able to express these things to each other openly and, like, you know, talk about their feelings and all those things that, to a certain extent, also is like, oh, geez, that's not something I even. That I haven't seen in fiction elsewhere. Just, like, even one moment of, like, within the rest. Saying that, like, within the rest of all of this, there is a place where you can have that with another man is, like, kind of revolutionary in and of itself to If. Depending on what you're. What kind of. What kind of young man you are.

Yeah, no, totally. Totally.

And so, like, I'm glad that it is included and I wonder if it would be better or worse to have more or less of it because like, if it had more of it, would I have identified less with it? Like if I, if I had seen more of that, would this book not have struck me the same way? Because it seems unrealistic. But to have one moment of it is like. I don't know, I, Like I can't.

I think the single moment of genuine human. Yeah, like un. Oh my God, what word am I thinking of? Like without. It's without pretense.

Yes.

Like there's no. The rituals have all been stripped away. It's just two guys who are really glad to see each other again. Yeah. That one single moment of that existing in the book really throws into such sharp contrast all of the rest of the masculine behavior in the rest of the book. I think if there had been more of those like human moments of connection between Johnny and whoever. Other guys, it wouldn't like, it wouldn't have hit the same A and B. It would have said very different things about the society and about the way that like men communicate with each other in that society.

Yeah, I'm just thinking about like. Because the whole, I mean the whole thesis of this entire season of the show that we're actually doing now is like, what can I, what can we take away from these works that like mean like what. So. And I'm thinking about like if I was gonna, if I was gonna do a Starship Troopers, which fucking whoever owns that ip, I think it's still Sony. Sony fucking give me a billion dollars. I'll make you the best show of all time. It'll be a 10 episode premiere television show. I will fucking get you some Emmys. I will spend all of your money. It will not make money, by the way. Also you're going to lose all that money, but it's going to be fucking amazing.

But it'll so worth it.

It'll be so good. But yeah, like, if I was going to do it, like how would I do it? And I'm thinking about like, because now like I don't. I wouldn't want to do the. I would feel a responsibility to tell something a little bit different than like this is the way it is. Because I would show their hat. They're part of my body. Part of my own instinct is like, no, I gotta show at least a little bit of how it could be. Right. And that means that you have to put more in. Now maybe it's the. Maybe it's like you meet your dad, he meets his dad. And then we open the floodgates or something like that where it's like, he's seen this and he goes, oh, man, that means so much to me that I was able to have this moment with my dad. Is there a reason these other guys are my family? Is there a reason why I don't do it with them? And then like, maybe that's what makes him a good commander. As Lieutenant Rico, you know, later on.

Yeah, he's kissing the homies on the mouth.

Yes.

Oh, I have an agenda and it's kissing the homies on the mouth.

Why not? I mean, the. In my. As I was reading it this last time, I was thinking about. Because I was thinking like, man, this is so 1950s, you know, heterosexual, straight guy, like, heteronormativity to the max. Doesn't ever consider the fact that like. But also Johnny Rico is so incredibly obtuse that like. Like the dudes could be in the next bunk over fucking each other. And I don't think he would have.

He would not notice. He would not.

The Mobile infantry could be the 500 band of thieves who like, are gay ass lovers who love each other so much. And he would just not know.

He would not know. I'm thinking about like. Like, this is kind of a wild poll. But I did several years of like, you know, kids, like, high school astronaut training camp in Hutchinson, Kansas. There's a. Like a NASA center there.

Cool.

And it was super cool. But there's There's a. There's a cool museum in the basement of that facility that is like all space flight history stuff. And there's a really cute little exhibit about these two astronauts. I don't remember their names. The early astronauts. And it's a little like diary entry from one of them who's like. Yeah, I can always tell when my partner is, like, getting nervous when I'm on a spacewalk because he'll start calling me babe. He'll be like, okay, babe, come on back. Pass me that wrench, babe. You're doing great. Come on inside, babe. Just leave it. Nope, nope. The flare's coming. You gotta come in, babe.

Like, that is so sick.

I think about that so much.

That's so sweet.

So sweet. So like, that existed, like.

Yeah.

In that time period even. But it's. It's just such a. Yeah, well, like there.

It's not approached at all within Starship Troopers, but there is a. There's a whole genre of like, a particular kind of story that we're going to tell where we're allowed to show the like, emotional intimacy between men because we are in war or sports.

Right?

If we put it within this context of this thing, we know these guys are straight because they're at war or they're.

They're only like this because there are no women around.

Right? But like, but that gives. Because we have, like, we've crossed so far into what we think is like, okay, we can't. This is unassailably straight. Now that gives us the freedom to actually like express emotions and stuff like that. I mean, to a certain extent that's, that's. It's interesting because when you saw like the reaction to the Lord of the Rings movies is fascinating to me because the like, there was a huge reaction at the time about like, oh man, they made the hobbits gay. Oh man, they made the hobbits gay. And like, this gets such a gay movie. Everybody's like, but I'm like, have you read the books? Like, this is not. This is not different. They like accurately reflect the way that these characters act.

And the hobbits are just sweet little guys, right?

But like, in the intervening time, like it was the. What had come. What had happened in the intervening time from when the original books had come out to when to the early 2000s when the movies were coming out, was that like those unassailable fortresses of heterosexuality had become assailed. Like they had. There was. It was much easier to imagine gay characters in these scenarios now because we knew more about what gay people actually.

Were, like the existing all that time.

Right.

Well, I was recommend.

So like, when it come out, like, nobody questioned, they're like, oh yeah, like, of course, they just love each other very much. And like, because they've been through all of the stuff and it's like this big emotional thing. And then by the time you do the exact same thing, but in the 2000s, everybody's like, oh shit, this is gay as hell. And like there's like a recoiling from it now or at the time. I think those have also gotten reevaluated and there are lots of people now are looking at them like, oh man, I don't care if it's gay. But I like the fact that like, they are sweet and nice to each other. Well.

And a lot of the queer people I know are like, thank God it's gay. Like, this showed me like loving relationships between men in a way that I hadn't seen them before and like, gave me a good example of what that looks like. I really recommend anybody who hasn't read it. Go find and look up and read Molly Ostertag, I think is her name. Nate Stevenson's partner wrote a beautiful retelling of the Lord of the Rings where Sam and Frodo are just in love. And, like, that's the only thing that's basically different.

Yeah.

Like, textually in love with each other.

Yeah.

And it's so beautiful. I, like, bawled my eyes out at multiple points reading it.

Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. I'm have to look that up because I already know Molly Asterisk work. She's great. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah.

The illustrations, there's little drawings of them being cute and gay. Oh, my God, that's so cute.

The. And so, like, it's interesting. You could do a version of Starship Troopers. That was that now, too. Like, you could have gone so far.

Watch it.

Yeah. Like, I don't know. Like, the. Again, this is this. The book itself is so, like, I've been mentioned. I'm still internally struck because I've seen so much discussion of Starship Troopers, the movie that then bleeds over into discussions about the book, such that I think that it is essentially impossible to have a good criticism of the book. Not impossible, but you have to try really hard to talk about the book with people because they bleed in this narrative about, like, this pastiche of fascism and talking about how the book itself is fascist and stuff. And, like, the book has political problems, but, like, it is. That's not it. Like, that's not. Like, it could fit within that framework. Sure, it could be, but lots of things can be fascism if you use them in a fascist framework. But, like, it's so concerned with masculinity and, like, being a man and, like, what the community, like, how it is to, like, be brought up and then crafted into a man that, like, that. Like, that's not the right framework to criticize it. You need to be looking at what it's actually doing rather than trying to think about what Paul Verhoeven, a guy who didn't read the book, was doing. And because, like, that's an like. Because, like, it's. It's so blatantly untrue. Like, it presents this version of things. And I do say I absolutely. To identify with a lot of the stuff that goes on in this book with the idea of, like, you can't. Like, a genuine affection between men and to men, even by women sometimes is like. Can only happen within very particular frameworks. And everything other than that needs to be some form of violence is real. Like, that is a thing that I have experienced. But, like, the book itself doesn't criticize that. It's very clearly the way things are and the way things ought to be, and that's how you make real men. And that's not true. That is so incredibly wrong. And I've, like, spent the last 40 years, like, being subject to that and then, like, trying to unlearn it.

Yeah. Like, desperately trying to unlearn all that.

Yeah.

And there's a whole section where he goes off about child psychologists and how he's, like, so mad about child psychologists telling people not to hit their kids. And I'm like, are you okay?

Any. This is. It's. It's funny. I'm so glad that Heinlein decided to stop writing kids. Not kids, but he wrote juveniles is what they were called. But they were, like, stuff for, like. They were put in magazines for, like, young boys. That was the whole idea. It's in Boys Life and shit. And eventually he could go to be. Because he doesn't understand children at all. He doesn't. Like, he didn't have them and he didn't. Like, he didn't remember what it was like to be one. So obviously. Yeah. So, like, he has these really weird ideas, and he. Whenever he writes a child character, they're just like a little man. They're just like a smaller. Like a smaller adult man.

Well, I feel like this guy himself came out of the womb, like, 13 years old. You know what I mean? Like, he never was a little boy. And you can tell by the way he writes.

Yeah. Like, the. I. And I've been rereading some of his stuff, and. Yeah. Like, he's scared. He doesn't understand. Like, in a certain respect, that really works when you're a kid to read a character who's presented as a child but is really a little adult, because that's what you think you are. Are. But it is a fundamental misunderstanding of what a child is like and, like, what it means to, like, bring up a child. So, like. Yeah, he just. So he. Eventually, he abandons that and is like. I don't. I mean, there are. There are occasionally kids characters in his later books, but, like, they are not. They're weird, man. Can I just.

Okay, go on.

There. There is a whole. There's a whole subplot in one of his later books where they'll say, there's the old guy, Lazarus, long guy who's lived for thousands of years. That's his whole deal. He never ages and dies. And he's like, I've experienced everything in the universe. I'm going to kill myself. That's the whole point. He's like, I'm done. I fucking did everything. There's a bunch of people around him being like, but we love you. We don't want you to kill yourself. So let's come up with some ideas for you to do some new things. And one of them is, we're going to clone you, but change the gender to female. And then you're going to be able to raise a little you. That's a. And he's like, okay, that sounds new. Let's do that.

That sounds new.

And I'm like. And then it's like, those characters are around, so they're like. Because they're actually two of them. So he's got little twins and, like, they're little monsters, and. But, like, he loves them a lot. And I'm like, I don't understand this whole fucking plot. And I really need. I need somebody who is not me to, like, read some of these books that I can talk to them about. And you could be like, okay, I.

Don'T know what's happening here.

What's happening here? You. Yeah. Like I said, he's weirdly good on LGBT issues. He's got several trans characters who are treated kind of like, oh, yeah, that's just a thing that happens sometimes, which is really surprising for a 50s guy. Right?

Yeah.

Although one of them is. Okay, if you. I would be. I don't want to subject you to this, but there is a book called I Will Fear no Evil, in which you have a dying billionaire there who's like, the medical technology keeps, like, keeping me alive, and I am like a former corpse of myself, so I would like to die. So he signs up for a plan whereby if a suitable donor shows up, they will have his brain transplanted into this person as a super, like, experimental thing. But he does this explicitly, as this is not likely to work, they will allow me to die. You know, I guess suicide comes up a lot in his books. Anyway, we're not going to unpack that right now.

Right now.

Yeah. But he. So. And the. The body that shows up, and apparently they didn't establish preferences, but the person whose body he's transplanted into is his young secretary who was in a car accident. And so he's put into the body. His old dudes put in the body of a hot young woman and spends the rest of the book being a hot young woman. And you know what Fucking is totally fine with it. He's just like, I guess I'm a woman now. Cool. Now I can have sex with dudes without people thinking it's weird. And that's like his main takeaway.

Preach.

Yeah. Which like, oh, okay. But then, like, also he's haunted by the ghost of the dead woman whose body he's in, who's not, like, haunting him, like, in a, like, you took my body way. But, like, dude, here's how it'd be. A woman is like, just like, giving it, like, little shoulder advice. Angel on his shoulder. It's very strange.

It kind of rips, actually. Hold on.

Yeah, so, like, I don't. I don't. It's been 20 years since I've read this book. I need to check it again. But, like, that's. Those are what I remembering. And it's. It's a very. So I need to. I need to, like, have queer people read this book and then tell me, because I'm sure. I'm sure it's wrong in certain. It doesn't rip in certain ways. But, like, I need to hear it from, like, people who know what they're talking about because I can't hear straight dudes talk about this thing because it's the queerest fucking book written by a straight guy I've ever come across.

Piqued my interest. I would at least look it up because that does sound wild in ways that could be really interesting and could just be really offensive.

I don't know. And I'm kind of scared. Eventually the character dies because I think the body rejects the brain, you know, organ style. There's a whole thing, but there's. There's some weird ass shit in it. It's a very. It's a bonkers book.

Okay.

Yeah. Okay.

So sick.

All right, what else? We. I feel like there's. There's still stuff we haven't talked about. We talked about the dad, finally.

Yeah, we talked about the dad.

Yeah, we've. Yeah. So the. I. Oh, did I ever. Okay, so. So no. At some point, I also want to watch Showgirls with you because that's the movie that came out right before this one. It's also Paul Verhoeven.

It's the one where I'll show my ass. But I have seen none of those other movies you listed of his. Not even Robocop.

Yeah, Showgirls is. Do you remember Saved by the Bell?

Very vaguely. I was a little too young for it.

Okay, so there's the three girls in there. There's a preppy girl, the popular girl, and then the nerdy ish girl. That was Elizabeth Berkley, and she's like, I want to be. Do serious roles now. And so she signed up for Paul Verhoeven's Showgirls, which is as far from what I have seen of it, is a trash fire wall to wall. But it turns out that there are a lot of people who love trash fires. And it's gotten, like. It's very camp now, is the idea. It's very.

Like, it swung back around to being.

It swung back around to people really liking it. And I have not seen it, but I want to watch it with somebody and be like, let's talk about this movie, because it's very strange.

Okay.

But. Yeah, okay. I don't know where I was going with that, but. Oh, yeah, that's why I mentioned Drag Race being the other good thing that happened to Paul Verhoeven's reputation, because I think that, like, the popularity of drag made people go back to Showgirls, which is basically just straight people doing drag in a lot of ways, or at least the aesthetics of drag carry over the camp. I think that allowed a reevaluation of that to happen. And so now he's thought of as being better director than. Than he actually is.

Oh, my God. Wild. Yeah. Is there anything that's still bothering you that we haven't talked about?

If you want to watch a better version of Starship Troopers, then go watch the movie Aliens.

So fair.

Yeah. So the. James Cameron, when he was making Aliens, he loved Starship Troopers kind of unironically and was like, hey, gave this book to everybody on the cast who are playing the space Marines and were like, read this book. This is the movie you think you're in. You're not in that movie. You're in a different movie. But here's the movie you think. Here's the story you think you're part of, and they give you a background of what these guys are like. And I'm like, when I knew. When I found out that fact and I was watching Aliens again, I was like, oh, yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. Oh, yeah, that, like, this is. And I kind of like that where, like, you've taken characters from one genre of story and shoved in another, and.

Then they're, like, given them propaganda from a different genre.

Yeah. So they act like they're in an action movie, but they all get killed because they are actually in a horror movie. And I kind of love that.

Yeah. Yeah, well, and I feel like in Starship Troopers, some of the characters in Starship Troopers are in Aliens. Yeah, like, they are actually in Aliens, but they. Like, Johnny Rico isn't. He's in Starship Troopers. But, like, all of the guys who get killed around him are in Aliens.

Yeah, yeah.

They're in a different genre, too.

And we didn't even talk about the dog, which is one of those very interesting stories that gets sublimated by the fact that our character isn't paying attention to them. But, like, there's a whole big. There's a whole bunch of. They spend a bunch of time talking about the, like, genetically engineered symbiotic dogs that they've developed for.

Yeah, the canine units, where the dogs and the humans are. It's like a Dragon Rider situation where one of them dies, the other one goes mad with pain and blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, yeah.

That's not in the movie.

And it's all of that to pay off one single moment of horror. To me. Like, I think that whole setup where he talks a lot about. Because Johnny, in the book wants to join the canine corps, and the guy is like, you know, like, where's your dog now? He's like, I don't have a dog. He's like, well, you did your dog sleep in your bed with him? And he's like, no. And he's like, okay, you're not. If you're not ready to be married to a dog, then you can't be part of the dog.

If you're not, like, ride or fucking die for your dog right now, then what do you even hear talking about.

Like, this guy apparently was a part of a canine pair, and when his canine partner died, they kept him sedated for, like, six weeks. And then, like, had to put him together with, like. Like, they had to, like, sit there and give him, like, intense therapy for, like, implied years so he could function again. He's still not really back. And that's, like, this whole thing. And they're like. And he talks about, like, the kinder thing to do would be to shoot the man. Like, we shoot with the man dies. We shoot the dog. If we. Like, the kinder thing to do would be to shoot the man, but we can't do that. So we have to, like, do our best. And then they talk about later on when they drop on for the first time on Klondathu. Every single dog, the Canids, when they see a bug, immediately suicides. They have a little bomb so they don't get captured and every single one of them dies, like, immediately. And I'm like, oh, my God. You have just told me enough information that I can extrapolate the story of what happens to all. Like, your entire canine corps. All of the men are completely broken men now. Like, you have all of these dudes who, like, all of their partners all at once. And, like, you don't have the infrastructure to deal with that shit. And, like, I'm like, oh, my God, there is a. There is such a tragic story right there that you only tell.

Yeah. Like, right off screen, where Johnny doesn't give a shit about it.

He never mentions it. But I'm sitting here being like, oh, my God, I feel so bad for all.

Like, you're a dog guy, too. You're out here, like, that would be me. I'm the canine unit guy who got my dog.

Yeah, I know. And like, like, yeah, yeah. It's like, oh, my God. Just like this one moment of like, oh, fucking hell.

Yeah. God, that's fucked up.

And there's the. What's the name of the planet where the. They have their R and R on in the books?

Sanctuary.

Sanctuary, yes. Where there's a giant long discussion about how, like, this planet lives, is around a star that doesn't produce enough radiation. And in 1950s understanding of science, which is not true, just not true, that means that nothing on this planet is going to evolve very quickly. And so there's this whole discussion about, like, is it, like, should people on this planet, like, irradiate themselves so they can have mutations and, like, therefore that.

They develop as a species?

Yeah. To develop those species, which is like an interesting conjecture, but also just completely wrong. Like, it's just everything about this entire conjecture is wrong because, like, that's not how DNA work.

That was so bonkers. I. I feel like this is the part of the book where I was listening late at night, trying to finish in time to do this podcast, and I started nodding off around that point where I was like, what the hell.

Is he talking about? I mean, like, it. It dovetails into some of the philosophy in the book about how, like, there are going to be times when. When humanity. Humanity by nature is going to rub up against other species. If you want to extrapolate symbolism out from this, you have. You can talk about, like, this is the height of the Cold War. So, like, America versus the Communist west is a whole thing. And, like, the fact that the bugs are a quote unquote, perfect communism, I mean, that's not an accident. Like, he's Saying some stuff about, like.

In their history lessons and stuff, they talk about, you know, like, oh, yeah, the union against the, like, Communist China, like, state that has developed. And you get all this, like, extrapolated false history about that.

So, like, that's. There's a whole message in there which again, I'm like, the criticisms of the movie don't dovetail well with that. But there are criticisms to be done with that within that of like, is conflict inevitable? And it's very much obviously the theory of the book itself that conflict is inevitable. You will have to do it. You better be good at it because if you don't, you're going to get killed.

You better be the best at it.

Yeah, you better be the best because somebody will come along better than you otherwise. And that's kind of morally right in a lot of ways, but if not even right, at least unavoidable. That's not looking at the way that our outlook on this, on the world is now. Like, that's just not true. Like, there are times when, like, yeah, we're. I mean, like, I don't know. I can't say that I am a 100%, in all cases, pacifist person in my own philosophy like that, you know, that that is. That is. That is not in terrible. You know, being unwilling to fight back does mean that you will get steamrolled by somebody who's willing to fight. Doesn't mean that. That's right. It's just the lesser of two evils in a lot of ways. It's a much more nuanced approach, coach. But like. Right, but like, the. For sure, his idea of, like, we better be ready to stomp other people, otherwise we won't. And you're absolutely right. You brought it up before I could. About like he was mad about the fact that the US Wasn't ready to use nuclear weapons. Like, kind of at the drop of a hat. He was like, kind of warmongering. And that comes through, like, all the way through this book. It's like very clear. Like, yeah. Which is gross to a modern ear, to lead to my ears now. But like, that being said, I am not immune to, you know, the. The coolness of a badass soldier. Like, I fucking love this shit, but.

I love Mass Effect.

Yeah.

To be Commander Shepard.

Yeah. And like, I mean, Mass Effect takes from this too. I mean, like, totally the Reapers and all that is not a. Is not. Yeah. I mean, like the one that.

Oh, my God. What are the, like, bug guys in Mass Effect?

The erectile not the Arachnid. The Arachni.

The Rachni. Yes.

Yeah, The Rachni. Yeah. So it's like, come on, just. You're just gonna do it? It's just like, that's fine. Like, and, like. And the. And the buggers from Ender's Game. Yeah, and there's. I mean, like, that's another one of those things that, like, he did. I don't know that he's the first person to do that, but he. Like, this was an immensely popular book when it came out, so it's definitely like a bunch of ideas coalesced into a certain thing. And, like, you can. You can look around and find Starship Trooper clones. All. I like fucking Halo is also, like. It's just. It's everywhere. It's ubiquitous. So, like, being unwilling to grapple with the value within this book is unfortunate. Like, I would love to do another. Like, there's some stuff in this story that I would love to do another pass at myself and that I probably should be thinking about because it's not like, the concepts of gender and how people communicate with each other are like a million miles off from. It takes a wolf. So, like, there's probably some shit I should be thinking about about how men are created and used for wolf. Like, I mean, like, are we.

Okay, wait, hold on. Are we.

Editor Scott here? This is the point in the conversation where we just fully talked about one of my upcoming projects and basically did an episode of a different podcast called behind the Locked Doors where we talk about that. So I just kind of excised like an entire half hour separate section here and put that over on that feed, and then we're going to drop back in after all of that was talked about for a while and sort of sum up here. So. Hey, look, this episode could have been longer. That's all I'm saying. Okay. We've been at this for three and a half hours almost, so I'm getting.

Kind of sweaty in my little closet.

Yeah. I'm out of water and stuff. And I need a break for lunch. Like, it's like tooth tea.

I mean, I haven't eaten a meal. Maybe.

Yeah, I probably should. Like, okay, so I don't know if that whole thing about it takes a wolf is going to be part of this episode or if we're going to cut it out and put it on the other one. So it's possible that, like, I'm now cutting this out right now and putting it at the end or like, that we're now Cutting in. I don't know what's going on. So, like. But as of right now, we are back into the real episode for sure. So just so that we can say, like, our final thoughts about these two pieces of property. And so is there anything you want to. Like, what's your takeaway from either or both of these pieces of media that.

I've seen your underwear now? No, it's that I really appreciate the impetus to actually consume this piece of media finally, because it is very cornerstone, foundational to all of modern sci fi, basically. And I feel like a huge puzzle piece of, like, every other piece of sci fi media I've ever consumed has slotted into place. Now having read this movie. Read this movie and seen this book. Yeah, it's been three and a half hours, everyone. Yeah. No, it was very enlightening. Even if it was like a wild, bonkers ride.

Well, it's like when you. If you ever watch. Have you ever seen Citizen Kane?

Nope.

So if you ever watch Citizen Kane, half of the jokes in the Simpsons make sense all of a sudden. Or like the.

Okay.

Right, right. It's one of those things where it's like, it's such a cornerstone piece of media that, like, other pieces of media make more sense.

I love intertextuality. I love it when pieces of media reference other pieces of media. And I feel like having consumed this piece of media has enhanced my appreciation for many other pieces of media.

I would. I'm. I would. If you felt like reading more Heinlein, ask me for recommendations if that comes up. You're like, I want to see what more about this guy is about, because I can give you some. Some, like, some guidance in. Towards, like, the things that, like, some of them are like, Stranger in a Strange Land is super influential, but also, like, I'm not sure that it's the one that I would recommend anybody read because it's very strange.

Yeah.

It's very hippie. It's like almost the antithetical point to this. To this one. It's like the whole thing. It's a very Martian Jesus kind of thing going on there.

Wow.

Tattooed ladies and stuff. It's bonkers. But I think I would love to hear your input on I Will See no Evil or like.

Yeah. That I'm really interested in looking into because it does sound like there's a fascinating discussion to be had.

Yeah.

About that.

And so far the only thing I've ever seen in response to that one is, yikes. But I'm like, but there's stuff going on here.

There's something in there. Dig around a little bit.

There's something in there. So if you're, if you're, if you're, if you want to go into Heinlein, I can give you recommendations. You know, stay away from blah, blah, blah and all that stuff.

Yeah, yeah.

So if you want to do more. And also the same thing with Verhoeven because he's also like, like super influential.

I should see RoboCop. It's goofy that I haven't watched RoboCop and Total Recall.

I'd actually recommend more than RoboCop.

Okay.

Do you know Philip K. Dick, who's the one that was based.

That was based off of Android Stream of Electric Sheep.

Yeah, that's right. We had a whole discussion about. So Total Recall is based off of. We can remember it for you Wholesale by Philip K. Dick.

Oh, I've heard of that.

So it's got some weirdness baked into it in a way that RoboCop kind of doesn't. And to that end, it's also like fully into just being a goofy movie where there's like three tit. There's three titted alien. Not alien, but three titted women. And like, hell yeah. It's like, it's bonkers and it's not taking itself super seriously and it's a bit weirder. So I'd actually like. That's the one that I think you would love.

Okay.

And it's Arnold Schwarzenegger being his most. Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's great.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, okay. Yeah. Super, super consequential movie and. Or not movie. But he's his, his work is interesting. And then. Yeah, Heinlein's like one of the big three. And so having some context for him is useful in terms of other science fiction people. I like. The thing that I'm taking away from it is that like the. Just don't adapt things that you don't like if you're not meaning to adapt, like, it's not something you can pass on.

You're not so hype about adapting something. Make your own shit. Like, God damn it. I'm always saying.

And like I'm. Because I'm like, I'm super here for this movie when it's doing its own thing.

Yeah.

And it tried. Or like, I don't know, it's one of those things where like, if you would. If you just abandoned all pretense, even if it's still been called Starship Troopers, but you just gave up all the character Names and references to the plot and stuff and just let it be its own thing. I still would be here for it. It's not the name that bothers me. It's that, like, you're trying. You diluted what that movie could have been by trying to make it Starship Troopers, and you didn't even approach trying to make Starship Troopers the movie. So why bother? Like, I would.

Why call it Starship? Well, you explained why. It was, like, marketing decision.

Yeah, it was a marketing decision. And it. But, like, the, you know, like, it also had these plot consequences where they tacked on this giant early section of this movie that, like, that feels like it's only there because they want to follow over, like, the boot camp sequence and they want to, you know, they want to cover a little bit of the stuff with Carl Jenkins and all that stuff. But it's like, you could have cut that way down. You could have, like, gotten us to the points where this movie starts to pop off sooner and we could have spent more time in its own original IP and we would have liked. You know, like, I think it would have been really. I think it would be a really good movie, you know? Yeah. And that being said, it's still. There are certain things about it which I still love and that I'm happy to take away from them, but. Yeah, I definitely don't think that. I don't think it's the satire masterpiece that people claim it is. I think it's. Yeah, no, I think it's Babies first satire. I'm trying to think of if I could even recommend, like, a proper takedown of fascism. I mean, like, honestly, like, if you want a trashy action movie that properly takes down fascism, watch V for Vendetta.

Yeah, like, that's a good movie.

Yeah, that's a. That's a good movie. It's like. And that, like, actually says some shit about fascism in a way that Starstruck Troopers just doesn't.

Natalie Portman is there with her shaved head. She looks amazing. Like, it's all. It's all dubs.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, I don't know if that's actually true. It's been a minute since I've seen that.

No, no, she. No, she's Great. Yeah. Yeah. 100% totally recommend V for Vendetta. And that is as. Also, as relevant today as it was when it. When it came out. So, like, yeah, fuck it.

And I feel like I've heard that that's a good adaptation of the source material as well.

Ooh. I think it's better than the source material.

Interesting. Okay.

Alan Moore is one of those creators that I think says interesting stuff, but that the people blow. People spend too much time sucking his dick.

Sure.

Because he is not as good as everybody says he is, but he's interesting. He does interesting stuff. And I like. I do. Man. That's a whole nother thing. So long. We're, like, supposed to be wrapping this up, so. Okay.

I'm, like, in my closet sweating right now. You can see the sheen of my sweat.

Let things be what they are. And also, like, you know, when I can still, like Starship Troopers, the book, it's fine. It's still there for me. And also, like, again, I still think that engaging with stuff like Starship Troopers, the book, which is, like I said, it's. It's. There are some giant yikes in this book and stuff that, like, just does. That's just a whole thing. And. But, like, engaging with them and understanding why it's like that and what does it have to be like that? And, like, what can you take away from it anyway? And all these things, like, that's all super important to, like, understanding how to, like, put your own point of view into the world and can be super useful. So, like, it's not, you know, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. You know, Sometimes you gotta get in there with the. You gotta. Sometimes you gotta drink the bathwater because.

Like, guzzle that shit down.

Yeah, sometimes you have to guzzle that bathwater shit down because, like, that's the only way you learn about it. Like, you can't just throw it all away. You've. You've. You also throw away all opportunity to improve both yourself and also art in general. So.

And understand what about the art it is that isn't working or is bothering you or is morally reprehensible or whatever.

Yeah, yeah. Like when. When you, you know, like, would Starship Troopers be a better book if they just didn't do all of the child beating, like, justification, you know? And I'm like, yeah, probably, perhaps. Yeah, that's possible. It's not intrinsic. It's just something that Robert Heinlein felt strongly about and so shoved it in there.

Well, and this is like my last, absolute last point here. It's hard to tell, especially when the author is dead, whether that was something that they genuinely believed was morally correct or whether this was part of the satire and being like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna go on this big, long rant about beating kids and how like, we absolutely should be doing that, morally speaking, otherwise society will be corrupt. And it's like, okay, well, did you believe that for real? For real. Or are you just saying shit, yeah. Banging away at your typewriter?

He. And Robert N. Heinlein is the answer. One of his answers is that he probably believed it at the time and then never felt beholden to it ever again. Because, like, I went from being a communist to being a libertarian over the course of his career. So, like. And again, death of the author. The author is dead. Let's take away from it what we actually just.

Homeboy is dead.

And, like, look at the things that make. Make sense and that, you know, because, like, I can look at Starship Troopers and understand why I feel. Feel like, why it sells to me because it does things that society has done to me. I've lived parts of that same life and understand what it means. And also I have to understand that the way that it's selling that to me and it's using that narrative to work, but that I don't have to take away its conclusions about that narrative. And I can look about. Would this book be better if we had more conversations, like Johnny with his father talking about. About their, like, feeling. You know, like. Like the most basic thing, like, would. Would Johnny have been a better person if he had, like, had some introspection and willing to, like, talk about his emotions with some people? Is like, yeah, honestly, that book would be better. Like, literally, legitimately, in every way be better if, like, he just had some more emotional intelligence. And in fact, because it's first person, we could see him develop that over the course of the novel.

It would be super cool written that book.

Yeah. And maybe I will write that book. I don't know.

I mean. Okay, again, I keep saying this is my last point, but you've already done that type of work in Breathing Space where I can see it, like, just having two men speak to each other honestly and without pretense and without all the intricate rituals about their traumas and their experiences and all that shit. Like, hey, everybody, go listen to Fable of the Family, which is airing right now. There's one more episode to go. It's really, really good. And there's stuff in there about the ways that men relate to each other that are gentlemen and caring and, like, trying to support each other through the traumas of their past.

Yeah, but, like, I couldn't. I could not have written that stuff if I hadn't also read Starship Troopers and a bunch of stuff.

Yeah, totally. You are a conglomeration of your prior experiences in the media.

The important bit is to not watch anything blindly ever, basically. Unfortunately, that's. It's really nice to turn your brain off and just watch a thing, but like never you, you gotta be cognizant.

Of turn your brain on and think with it a little bit from time to time.

Or if you. Otherwise if your brain is off, then you might as well have been watching a screensaver, basically, like it's nothing. Nothing of value is gained at that point. So. Okay, okay, I'm stopping. Well, here we are three hours later and yeah, so that was not particularly coherent, but we did talk about a lot of things and a lot of things that I wanted to talk about and I am really grateful to you, the audience for listening to it and I am extremely grateful to Jack for engaging with me on this and like both watching the movie and reading the book, which was like way above and beyond. So thank you to them. And next week we're going to come back with something that I think is actually will improve you to experience the Wolves of yellowstone by Rick McIntyre, joined by my wife. Let's Get Weird about is a production of the Library of Cursed Knowledge.