Big, Stupid Boom - Booms

Far in the future, humankind must defend itself against a terrifying race of insects--hordes and hordes of incredibly tough and resilient bugs. The brave and fearless men and women of the Mobile Infantry, the awe-inspiring Starship Troopers, must make it their singular goal to destroy every last one of these hideous threats to humanity.

With machine guns they should do this. Machine guns, whose puny bullets pick away at the bodies of the giant carnivorous bugs with all the expediency of a hailstorm tearing apart a large tree, so that half a dozen troopers are required to fire for fully a minute and a half into just one of these creatures to kill it--never mind that there are literally thousands more swarming behind it. Imagine the audacity, then, the presumption, the unmitigated gall, for the movie Starship Troopers to expect the audience to be stunned, shocked, dismayed, titillated at the notion that these guys are going to eaten by the bugs. "See, look," the movie seems to say to you, "they're being eaten by bugs. Aren't you horrified?"

Well, no, of course not. The movie contrived a situation, independent of any rational thought, in which people could be eaten by bugs. The entertainment value is commensurate with that of a magician handing you the six of clubs, face up, and then expecting applause when he deduces that your card is the six of clubs.

The idea of fighting an alien race of insects isn't even an original one. The movie is based on the Robert Heinlein book of the same name, although one might claim with equal credibility, and affront to the author, that Batman Forever was based on Crime and Punishment. Heinlein, a masterful and highly respected science fiction author, created a futuristic republic in which people had to join the military to be deemed citizens, and the concept of civil responsibility was a matter of great importance and controversy. This, juxtaposed with the fact that the race was at war with insects--the classically ideal example of a perfectly communal society--made for an intelligent scrutiny of the way society should be set up, while examining the effects of propaganda and extensive government control.

In the movie, however, such considerations are merely hurdles on the way to the sight of bugs eating people. Some half-hearted references are made to the setup of this quasi-socialist republic, and there are several clips of propaganda-type films, which seem to be poking fun at Frank Capra's "Why We Fight" series of publicity movies for World War II. More than anything, the film seems confused at these points, as if going through the motions of something it would rather not bother with. The political concerns are therefore glossed over with alacrity and a minimum of depth and discussion. Someone obviously took a quickly decided that it would make a fantastic opportunity to have people eaten by bugs on screen. The movie seems positively relieved to put aside the socio-political aspects of the book in favor of carnage.

Curiously enough, though, the movie waits almost an hour-and-a-half before the thick of the bug battles begin. Audiences might wonder during this time: if they're not watching bugs eat people and they're not watching social commentary, what are they watching?

The answer is that director Paul Verhoeven has decided to "develop" the "plot" of the movie by creating what amounts to a long, tortured, protracted, hyped-up episode of "Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers." The film has all the profundity and credibility of this celebrated kiddy sci-fi vehicle. We must sit, restlessly, as actors whose most memorable feature is their ridiculously large and white teeth wax sentimental about leaving the bonds of friendship, as they compete for girls, as they experience the trials and tribulations of the rigorous military training, yet learn to laugh it all off and put their arms around each other, in short, as they sicken us.

It's almost as though the movie is purposely trying to put the audience's brains asleep so that they can better appreciate the entertainment potential of bugs eating people by the time the actual warfare rolls around.

Yes, yes, I know: people don't go to see movies like Starship Troopers to be intellectually stimulated. They don't go for profundity, for acting, or for socio-political commentary. They go to see special effects, explosions, action, and carnage. And although this movie does deliver these things with not insubstantial proficiency, it also lays bare the dangers of separating these pursuits from simple quality movie-making and of relying completely on effects to stimulate audiences. Even with the advent of computer graphics and more impressive special effects than ever--indeed, because of such advances--such an approach is bound to backfire.

Nobody is impressed with the extraordinary and supernormal events which transpire in cartoons. Cool as it looks, nobody ever says "Wow, how did they make such a great effect as to have Wile E. Coyote seem to fall off a cliff like that?" They drew it, that's how. And they can draw anything they want. Computer Generated Imaging gives special effects artists similar powers. Although GGI enables fantastic and beautiful sequences which could never before have been attempted, it also destroys the bewildering mystique of being able to portray something which the audience knows cannot actually happen.

Movies like Star Wars, the pioneer of effects-laden movies, engendered "The Making of..." specials in which audiences saw that the production of the special effects was sometimes as interesting, and requires as much ingenuity, as their placement in the actual movie. Now, it's simply: "Oh, they did that with computers." We are by now so numbed to realistic-looking explosions and sci-fi stuff in movies that we take their existence for granted.

CGI is an extremely powerful tool with enormous potential to improve the quality of storytelling through movies, but it also puts an increased burden on the storytelling itself. Very soon, if not already, audiences will demand that the effects be supported by characters, plots and situations that they care about. This is why the Star Wars Trilogy has maintained such constant and long-lived popularity. Unlike GGI, the then ground-breaking, now obsolete, special effects did not free the filmmakers from craftily having to introduce, present, disguise and surround the illusions they created. As a result, the battle sequences in Star Wars abound with solid directing, editing and score-writing; indeed they required these skills to make the analog effects technology not come off as cheesy. The recent release of the Special Edition Star Wars movies, in which select passages were upgraded with computer technology, is a powerful example of how good story-telling can mesh with terrific effects.

The makers of Starship Troopers were so enamored with themselves for creating swarms of giant bugs, big fancy space-ships, and massive explosions, and so sure the audience would be equally taken, that they neglected to try to make a passable movie. The admittedly impressive effects are not supported by any other aspect of the movie: not plot, directing, editing, characters or acting. They are presented so blandly and matter-of-factly, and so isolated from any other elements of storytelling, that they are barely enjoyable even in and of themselves.

If you've seen the preview for this movie, then you've enjoyed it considerably more than anyone who actually sat through the whole thing. What a waste of celluloid.