{"id":1998,"date":"2011-04-15T07:06:54","date_gmt":"2011-04-15T12:06:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greatsociety.org\/?p=1998"},"modified":"2018-10-30T15:22:40","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T19:22:40","slug":"top-20-sci-fi-defenses-rottingcorpse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/?p=1998","title":{"rendered":"Top 20 Sci-Fi Defenses: Rottingcorpse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rottingcorpse’s list can be found right here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s just get the main point out of the way up front, shall we? Your list of the twenty best Sci-Fi films of all time doesn\u2019t look anything like mine. That\u2019s the way it should be. To be honest, if your list did ape mine I\u2019d actually be concerned enough to get a restraining order against you. Great minds think alike, but to be that exact would have to have required some kind of illegal surveillance on your part.<\/p>\n

See, everybody has different tastes. I know people who love to eat tripe. Me? I think it tastes like what it\u2019s often used as a synonym for: shit. On that level, defending six of the twenty films on my list is a useless exercise. If you\u2019re coming into this thinking Robocop is total crap (or tripe), there\u2019s not anything I\u2019m going to say here that\u2019s likely to change your mind.<\/p>\n

We love lists, don\u2019t we? Forced to guess why, I\u2019d say because they affirm our opinions while at the same time emphasizing our independence. The items on a list that coincide with our own feelings and thoughts vindicate those feelings and thoughts. The ones that differ wake up the snotty debate team champ that lives in every one of us. Lists are an excuse to bring the old chap out of retirement for a few rounds of \u201cYes, but.\u201d<\/p>\n

When first confronted with the directive to make a list of the twenty best sci-fi films, my original concern was whether or not I could even think of twenty good ones. I\u2019ve mentioned my love of bad films before. A lot of the movies I enjoy are never going to get mistaken for high art. I try to justify this lapse in good taste by saying I recognize that there\u2019s a difference between what I like and what\u2019s good. Sometimes you just want to fuck a skank. However, for a list of the twenty best, I felt like I had to err on the side of quality. Only high class call girls need apply. Of the six films I\u2019ll be defending, four of them could be accused of being questionable in that regard.<\/p>\n

Once I\u2019d made my list and shared it with my co-conspirators in this experiment, it was noted I kept coming back to alien invasion\/flying saucer films. Part of the reason for this was that I, more than the other two authors ,felt the need to dig deep into film history, particularly sci-fi\u2019s \u201cgolden age\u201d of the 1950s, in order to build my list. I\u2019ve noticed a trend with younger genre fans in which they tend to ignore films made before the mid to late sixties. \u201cOMG! You want me to watch one of those slow paced, pre-feminist, black and white movies with overacting and crappy effects?! ROFL! You\u2019re old, mister!\u201d<\/p>\n

As my tastes have matured, I\u2019ve developed a great love for sci-fi and horror films of the black and white (and silent) era. When we inevitably get around to making our list of the \u201c20 Best Horror Films of All Time,\u201d I\u2019m sure most readers under the age of twenty will wonder if I really am a rotting corpse the GS editors dug up from somewhere. I fully understand these older films are an acquired taste. They come from an era where both filmmaking and acting styles are quite different from how they are today. However, if you can get over that mental hump of cultural differences, theatrical acting, and primitive effects, you can find some great stories being told. (And some of the acting, filmmaking, and effects are still pretty revolutionary, even by today\u2019s standards.) I can make the jump pretty easily, but I\u2019m a well-trained movie junkie. I encourage you to train yourself as well, young filmgoer. You won\u2019t be disappointed.
\nAnyway, my original intent for my defense article was to write a lengthy piece along the theme of \u201cWatch the Skies\u201d which was to discuss six alien invasion films and their influence. Why didn\u2019t I? Time got the best of me. I didn\u2019t get a chance to re-watch all the movies on my list. Plus the more I thought about it, the more I realized that a thorough discussion of the alien invasion sub-genre needed to include movies not on my list (E.T., Invaders From Mars, Independence Day<\/em>) as well as ones that I consider more horror than sci-fi. (The Thing From Another World<\/em> from which the phrase \u201cwatch the skies\u201d originates, John Carpenter\u2019s 1982 remake of that film, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Alien<\/em>.) I also felt that no discussion of the invasion film would be complete without talking about the 80s phenomenon V<\/em>, which being television is a totally different beast from its cinematic counterparts. Rather than half ass what I think can be an interesting and informative piece of pop-culture analysis, I\u2019ve decided to postpone the \u201cWatch the Skies\u201d experiment for a later date. Look for it\u2026 I don\u2019t know, someday.<\/p>\n

Casting aside that idea, I took a look at my remaining films, cross-referenced them with what the other two authors were writing about and pretty much was left with these six films: Metropolis, 2001: A Space Odyssey, THX 1138, Robocop, Total Recall<\/em>, and Starship Troopers<\/em>. Is there a running theme? Not really. The first three films are all historically important in my opinion. (Yeah, I know. I\u2019ve got a job to do on THX 1138.<\/em>) The last three were all directed by Dutch auteur Paul Verhoeven. If there is any other underlying thread tying them together I guess we\u2019ll \u201cclassify\u201d it as we go along, eh?
\nAll right then. Enough stalling.<\/p>\n

Metropolis<\/em> (1927)
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Movies from the silent era are more likely to be viewed as historical artifacts than narratives in their own right. The obstacles of the early camera technology as well as staging and acting styles still very much linked to the world of theatre make it hard for anyone who isn\u2019t \u201cahem\u201d a film and theatre snob to lose themselves in the moment. Even I had trouble seeing A Trip to the Moon<\/em> (1902), widely accepted to be the first sci-fi story ever filmed, as anything other than a filmed theatre performance with archaic (yet still pretty cool) visual effects.<\/p>\n

(I\u2019d like to note that Charlie Chaplin is one of the few consistent exceptions to the silent era\u2019s inability to translate to modern sensibilities, but he was also a friggin\u2019 genius. Those folks tend to tweak the curve a bit.)<\/p>\n

Metropolis<\/em> is noteworthy as a precursor to the big budget, sci-fi extravaganzas of modern cinema. At its time, it was the highest budgeted film ever made. (5 million Reichmarks, whatever the hell that translates to.)The sets are huge. The number of extras in the crowd scenes is ridiculous. Upon re-watching it, I more than once found myself wondering how many people either drowned or trampled to death in the movie\u2019s climactic scene where our heroes Freder, Maria, and Josaphat lead the children of the rioting worker class away from the flooding underground city beneath Metropolis.<\/p>\n

In many ways, Metropolis<\/em> is the link between the literary fantasy worlds of the 19th century to the cinematic ones of the 20th. You see shades of H.G Wells\u2019 morlocks from The Time Machine<\/em> in the underground civilization of the worker class that powers the luxurious Metropolis above them. The mad scientist, Rotwang, is the descendant of Mary Shelley\u2019s mad doctor in Frankenstein<\/em> as well as the father of Colin Clive\u2019s interpretation in James Whale\u2019s film adaptation made less than ten years later. Much has been made of the Machine Man\u2019s influence on the design of C-3PO from Star Wars. Metropolis\u2019<\/em> themes of class warfare are felt in films as varied as THX 1138, Planet of the Apes, Logan\u2019s Run, Escape from New York, Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome<\/em>, and The Matrix<\/em>. (In fact, Metropolis<\/em> at times plays like an older but far better version of the crappy second sequel to The Matrix<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

The theatrical conventions of the era are still readily apparent in Metropolis<\/em>, particularly in the acting. The \u201cDelsarte System\u201d of movement and emoting which was insanely popular in the Victorian era was still very much in vogue in the 1920s. If you\u2019re not prepared for it, it can come off as rather hysterical and overwrought. (My wife in particular had quite a giggle over the actors need to emote in about a dozen different ways over the course of thirty seconds before making a hasty exit. \u201cTalk about \u2018taking your moment\u2019 to the extreme,\u201d she noted.)<\/p>\n

The most well-known sci-fi element to Metropolis<\/em> is the Machine Man, a robot with the ability to \u201cclone\u201d the image of another person. Rotwang kidnaps Maria (spiritual leader of the worker resistance) and creates a clone of her that will lead a worker\u2019s rebellion, destroying Metropolis. Much credit needs to be given to actress Brigette Helm who embodies both the pure and kind Maria as well as her evil, erotic machine doppelganger. \u201cDelsarte System\u201d aside, when this chick starts raising hell you believe it.
\nI could probably prattle on about various aspects of Metropolis<\/em> forever. There\u2019s the interesting period of German history between the end of World War I and the rise of Hitler in which it was produced. Somebody could write a book on the major cuts, lost footage and restoration of the movie in its long career.<\/p>\n

Certainly worth mentioning is the strange politics of Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou, the married director and writer team who created Metropolis<\/em>. They divorced when Harbou joined the Nazi party, which banned the films of Lang (a Catholic Jew) from screening in Germany and forced the director into exile in France. The film is pretty Marxist in its views of the symbiosis of a united worker class and wealthy ruling class. I guess they were called the National \u201cSocialist\u201d Workers Party, but Harbou\u2019s script preaches the necessity for cooperation between various classes of people which wasn\u2019t exactly the Nazi\u2019s stance. Though to be fair, maybe that idea was Lang\u2019s. Who knows? Watch it and draw your own conclusions.<\/p>\n

2001: A Space Odyssey<\/em> (1968)<\/strong><\/p>\n

First off, let\u2019s toss out any auspices toward a deep Stanley Kubrick discussion. I don\u2019t have the time or space to get into the \u201cKubrickian\u201d aspects of 2001<\/em>, though for a lot of cinephiles it\u2019s hard to look at this film for anything but. Forget about the nature of the monolith(s), the star child, or what the hell the significance is of the last twenty minutes. (My answer? I have no idea.) I don\u2019t want to get in a debate about Kubrick\u2019s use of spheres, circles, and repetition. Nor do I want to try and figure out if HAL-9000 was possessed by the monolith(s), controlled by Dave Bowman\u2019s superiors, or simply had a nervous breakdown.<\/p>\n

2001<\/em> is on my \u201cbest of sci-fi\u201d list because it\u2019s a mind blowing visual experience which even today has few peers. This is as much the achievement of visual effects supervisor, Douglas Trumbull, as it is Kubrick\u2019s. The filmmakers took great pains to emulate the physics of actual space travel. Designs used for the ship and costumes are incredibly accurate from a scientific standpoint. (NASA says that in terms of Aerospace, 2001<\/em> is the most scientifically accurate film ever made. Thanks Wikipedia!) The use of matte paintings, models, and camera effects weren\u2019t necessarily revolutionary at the time. Yet never had they been employed so successfully.<\/p>\n

What I\u2019m about to say isn\u2019t going to be very popular amongst my filmmaking peers. However, I never really shined much to the \u201cdeeper\u201d meaning of Kubrick\u2019s sci-fi film. For me, 2001: A Space Odyssey<\/em> was about Dave Bowman\u2019s back and forth with one of film\u2019s greatest antagonists ever, HAL-9000. In HAL, Kubrick (and author Arthur C. Clarke) foreshadowed all our anxieties about the technology we\u2019ve created, that someday it may act on its own because it thinks it knows better than we do what\u2019s good for us.
\nFrom HAL we get the omnipotent ship computer \u201cMother\u201d and malfunctioning android Ash in Alien<\/em>. James Cameron physicalized the threat of machines taking over for his Terminator<\/em> films. You see the idea expressed later everywhere from The Black Hole<\/em> and Virtuosity<\/em> to Colossus: The Forbin Project<\/em> and The Matrix<\/em> to even the 80\u2019s slasher film Chopping Mall<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure author Harlan Ellison, who sued Cameron for a chunk of The Terminator<\/em> money, would say the \u201cself-aware computer\u201d idea wasn\u2019t new with Kubrick and Clarke. However, 2001<\/em> presented it in a way that has affected the culture most readily. When Apple commandeered HAL for their Y2K commercial a decade ago, my sadness at the sellout was only matched by the reminder of how much that voice creeped me out.<\/p>\n

Even today 2001<\/em> still works; maybe more so now that computer technology is a part of our daily lives. For anybody who ever watched in horror as the blue screen of death appeared on their monitor, or whose cell phone craps out during that important call, or whose virus protection failed on that funny video your friend sent; they can see in HAL a perceived maliciousness from our machines. We personify our gadgets in a way we probably aren\u2019t even aware of. \u201cStop dropping calls, you shitty phone!\u201d \u201cQuit freezing, you crazy program!\u201d \u201cGo faster, you stupid computer!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry, Dave. I\u2019m afraid I can\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

THX 1138<\/em> (1971)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Right now, somebody out there is reading this and saying to themselves, \u201cTHX 1138<\/em>? Are you fucking kidding me?!\u201d
\nMaybe I\u2019m off my rocker here, but as dystopian fantasy THX 1138<\/em> is one of the best movies of its type. As in Metropolis<\/em> before it, we\u2019re back underground with a subjugate working class forced to play by the rules of an unseen authority. Even with its sterile environments and the protagonists drugged to the gills in order to repress their emotions and sexuality, in its own way THX 1138<\/em> is as emotional a movie as George Lucas has ever made.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s really hard to separate the guy who made the movie from the movie itself in a lot of ways. It\u2019s not my intention to tear Lucas down for ruining Star Wars<\/em> with his misguided prequels, but I\u2019m going to anyway. The sterility of THX 1138<\/em> seems apt for its cautionary tale of repression. Yet when confronted with the sterility of the Star Wars<\/em> prequels, you get the feeling that repressed emotions are all Lucas knows how to do. I always liked to believe that Star Wars<\/em> and even American Graffiti<\/em> were just detours along the way for a guy destined to travel the same road as Kubrick, Jean Luc Godard, and later David Lynch and David Cronenberg. However, the prequels almost empirically disprove that notion.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s try to stay positive though. THX 1138<\/em> is Lucas at his most visionary with imagery that\u2019s still striking when viewed today. The use of (and lack of ) color emphasizes a world where lies are built solidly on top of each other in order to keep control of an over worked and over medicated populace. (Sound familiar, America?) The lesson of THX 1138<\/em> is that truth rises. The longer you keep something down, the more powerfully and violently it will come back.<\/p>\n

THX 1138<\/em> takes most of its cues from George Orwell\u2019s 1984<\/em>. And there are uncomfortable parallels to the media driven world we live in now. The unseen \u201cpowers that be\u201d are given their authority by a technologically fueled religious zeal. Fear of disease and of the scorched over world are utilized to control behavior. (The scorched Earth scenario is a staple of sci-fi that dates back to the nuclear panicked postwar years of the 1950s.) The fact that the unseen authority is given no political or religious affiliation makes it all the more powerful a symbol. You can insert whatever tyrant du jour you\u2019d like.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a perfect movie. While the emotional context is present, it\u2019s subtle in a way that can alienate some viewers. Of course alienation is what keeps the world of THX from breaking down. The characters have an illusion of connectivity without true communication. This too mirrors the internet life we all now lead. We feel connected, but in some ways aren\u2019t we more alienated from each other than we would be without all this social networking? How many times have you seen two kids sitting beside each other communicating via text message?<\/p>\n

I could easily be ascribing more meaning to Lucas\u2019 first feature than it deserves, but to me that the achievement of THX 1138<\/em>. It allows you to project meaning onto it. Dystopia has certainly been done clearer and more thrilling before and since, but in many ways it\u2019s never been done with as much truth.<\/p>\n

Robocop<\/em> (1987)<\/strong><\/p>\n

More dystopian class warfare? I guess a theme is<\/em> developing.<\/p>\n

With Robocop<\/em>, we begin our exploration of the sci-fi \u201ctrinity\u201d of director Paul Verhoeven. This was totally accidental on my part, but since the last three films being discussed all originate from the same artistic mind, a little background on Verhoeven is probably in order, no?<\/p>\n

While a young child, Vehoeven lived in The Hague, which housed a German base in the Netherlands during the last years of World War II. The base was bombed repeatedly by the Allies during Verhoeven\u2019s tenure there, and in interviews he has recounted vivid memories or death and dismemberment. These events very obviously inform Verhoeven\u2019s use of violence in his films. He\u2019s known for portraying graphic violence in such a direct way as to seem cavalier about it. The important thing to note is that Verhoeven almost never romanticizes the violence. His take on it is very matter of fact and obviously comes from someone who has seen violence firsthand. You can easily envision the director saying, \u201cThis is what it looks like.\u201d There\u2019s almost an emotional detachment from the brutal acts he depicts in his films.<\/p>\n

Robocop<\/em> is no exception. In the first fifteen minutes, we\u2019re treated to the sight of the film\u2019s protagonist, Alex Murphy, as he\u2019s tortured, mutilated, and \u201ckilled\u201d at the hands of Old Detroit\u2019s criminals. Only he doesn\u2019t die. Instead, the corporate overlords of OCP use Murphy\u2019s body to create the prototype for Robocop, a cyborg designed to uphold the law.<\/p>\n

The film has a lot to say about the \u201cmilitary\/industrial complex\u201d and the shady line where political interests end and corporate interests begin. The police force is privately owned and run, and is used more as a gentrification tool for OCP\u2019s city revitalization project than an actual crime solving unit. Again, we\u2019re treated to the unmet needs of a working class by a wealthy ruling class who doesn\u2019t care one way or the other about the people it uses as fodder for its money making machines.<\/p>\n

Robocop\/Murphy is just meant to be a Public Relations cog in the larger part of OCP\u2019s moneymaking machine. However, they don\u2019t count on Murphy\u2019s humanity. Like THX 1138<\/em> and Metropolis<\/em>, we\u2019re faced with a character that, through his trials, discovers a way to exercise the free will forbidden to him and ultimately removes himself from the confined space a \u201csystem\u201d has put him in lest he threaten the integrity of that system. (This is also true for 2001<\/em> if you look at it literally. HAL the system physically confines Dave Bowman the human outside the Discovery One because it views him as a threat to the overall mission.)<\/p>\n

Murphy\u2019s programming requires he \u201cserve the public trust, protect the innocent, and uphold the law\u201d as well as an unrevealed fourth directive. In many ways, the entire film is one long set-up for a punchline at the end of the movie involving this mysterious fourth directive. (It\u2019s a pretty awesome pay off, so I won\u2019t ruin it for you.) The black comedy aspects of Robocop<\/em> (as well as Verhoeven\u2019s other films) shouldn\u2019t be overlooked. Even the over the top violence can be seen as having an almost slapstick quality to it. Robocop<\/em> is also the film where Verhoeven pioneered his satire of media propaganda that many would say he perfected in Starship Troopers<\/em>. More on that later.<\/p>\n

Critics accused Robocop<\/em> of betraying its comic book atmosphere by using excessive violence. However, as any fan of \u2018Heavy Metal\u2019 magazine will note, comics can be pretty damned violent. At its heart, Robocop<\/em> is indeed a superhero romp, albeit one crafted with higher themes for the taking if you decide you want them.<\/p>\n

Total Recall<\/em> (1990)<\/strong><\/p>\n

At this point, you\u2019re thinking I must have known I was sitting on a bunch of sci-fi films dealing with class warfare, but I really hadn\u2019t connected the dots until now. Like the other movies I\u2019ve mentioned, the plot of Total Recall<\/em> also revolves around a wealthy elite taking advantage of lower classes for motivations based on greed and self-preservation.<\/p>\n

In this case, the villainous Cohaagen is the elitist, a corporation supported autocrat of a Martian colony. He\u2019s sitting on an alien terraforming device that could improve the life of all the Martian citizens in order to steal a huge cut of Martian profits. Meanwhile, the Martian citizens live in deplorable conditions with limited amounts of oxygen and levels of radiation high enough to cause deformities, which the corporation of course deems \u201cnatural.\u201d This (again) Marxist political world is the backdrop for a story of manipulated memories, mistaken identity, and Arnold Schwarzenegger doing what he did best in the late 1980s, kicking ass.
\nThe plot revolves around a construction worker, Quaid, who dreams of exploring the now colonized Mars. Unable to afford the hefty price it takes to get to Mars, Quaid opts to have the less expensive option of a implanting a memory of a fake Martian vacation. Only when the technicians go to do it, they find out that Quaid may or not be a Martian freedom fighter (or corporate G-Man) who has already had his memories tampered with. What ensues is an almost non-stop chase as Quaid tries to outrun the various parties who want him detained or dead while trying to get to Mars and figure out who he really is.<\/p>\n

I view Total Recall <\/em>as the last great sci-fi film of the post-Star Wars<\/em>\/pre-CGI era. Somewhere in the forums, I\u2019ve gushed about Dan O\u2019Bannon and his influence on many of the genre classic of the 1980s. (In addition to Total Recall<\/em>, he was involved on some level in the development of Dune, Alien, Heavy Metal<\/em>, and Return of the Living Dead<\/em>, just to name some of the good ones.) I won\u2019t harp on it too much here, but O\u2019Bannon is one of those guys in the trenches (a \u201cWorking Class Hero\u201d if we want to stick with the theme) who despite never achieving the accolades of many of his peers, helped shape the evolution of sci-fi cinema.<\/p>\n

Drawing inspiration from a Phillip K. Dick story, Total Recall<\/em> was conceived by O\u2019Bannon in the 1970s, and was developed over the course of fifteen years. (The original pitch was \u201cJames Bond on Mars.\u201d) O\u2019Bannon apparently had mixed feelings about the results that finally made it on screen feeling that the whole thing kind of falls apart (and was rewritten) in the third act. I\u2019m inclined to disagree as the \u201calien artifact\u201d device elevates it beyond the mind bending actioner it had been up to that point. It\u2019s less a \u201cdeus ex machina\u201d than an implication that there are more powerful forces afoot. But I don\u2019t want to give away the ending.<\/p>\n

Total Recall<\/em> has all the tropes and elements of classic sci-fi: Martian exploration, terraforming, brain manipulation, and hints toward alien cultures, all of which are executed with the utmost respect to the genre. The often cited flaws are often related to the over the top violence and the acting. And indeed, one gets the impression that the script may have been altered to suit \u201cAh-nuld\u2019s\u201d less emotional sensibilities. Still, in a genre where dumbed down has almost become the rule rather than the exception, Total Recall<\/em> is as much thinking man\u2019s sci-fi as it is an action film.<\/p>\n

Starship Troopers<\/em> (1997)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Utopia, at last? Even if it\u2019s of the pseudo-fascist variety?<\/p>\n

My two main rules for inclusion on a \u201cbest of\u201d list, which you\u2019ll remember are scientific accuracy and historical importance, are least supported by Verhoeven\u2019s third and arguably best sci-fi outing, Starship Troopers<\/em>. I guess my strongest argument would be the historical one. It\u2019s based (loosely) off a Robert Heinlein novel of the same name. And\u2026 Um. Okay that\u2019s pretty weak. Maybe I\u2019m better off looking for scientific support. It\u2019s about Earth\u2019s future war with, uh, giant telepathic bugs.<\/p>\n

Okay, forget history and science. Let\u2019s try and tie this back into our themes of classism. In Starship Troopers<\/em>, the wealthy and working class is replaced by a military based society made up of \u201ccitizens\u201d and non-citizens. Citizenship and all its privileges are not a birthright in the world of the movie, but must be earned by military service. \u201cService guarantees citizenship\u201d is the oft repeated refrain on the brilliantly conceive faux propaganda used in the movie.<\/p>\n

Starship Troopers<\/em> very cleverly apes war propaganda films and newsreels of the 1940s at various intervals within the film. It illustrates that war is just another product that has to be sold, a very expensive product that literally costs lives. These faux ads make it very clear that the people fighting these wars are not from the upper castes, but from the working classes and the poor. The ads are laughable in Starship troopers because they harken back to a style of propaganda long dead. But the message is the same. War is hell, but in order to facilitate it we offer you the promise of heaven, be it honor, patriotism, or \u201ccitizenship.\u201d<\/p>\n

The quasi-fascist idea of citizenship in the movie has an added layer of the class duality with the disparity between infantry (Read: worker class) and officers and pilots (Read: wealthy class). Our hero, Johnny Rico goes against the wishes of his parents and enlists with the promise of citizenship. However, unlike his enlisting friend Jenkins and girlfriend Carmen, both of whom qualify for officer and pilot training respectively, Rico is only considered good enough for mobile infantry. (Read: cannon fodder). What follows are the trials and travails of Rico\u2019s bumpy career as an infantryman. In training camp, he accidently kills a fellow grunt. Shortly before this, he loses Carmen\u2019s affections to another pilot. Rico is about to quit when the enemy Bugs attack, requiring every able bodied infantryman to do his or her duty.<\/p>\n

If it all seems like a hokey war movie from the 1940s, that\u2019s the exact vibe the movie elicits. Except instead of a bit of smoke and pained expressions when a soldier dies, Verhoeven treats us to all the horrors that war injuries can bring. Heads explode. Limbs are torn off. Beloved characters die covered in gore while gasping for breath in fear and terror. Even the officers and pilots aren\u2019t spared the brutality.<\/p>\n

\u201cWar makes fascists of us all,\u201d was Verhoeven\u2019s response to criticism that the film glorified fascism. I look at it in a different way. Officers or infantrymen, rich or poor, wealthy or worker, everybody is equal when they\u2019re dead. In the final analysis, no matter its cause, war in its purist form doesn\u2019t recognize class.<\/p>\n

If all this seems a heavy burden for a cheesy sci-fi to bear, I\u2019ll remind you that Starship Troopers<\/em> is a hell of a lot of fun. Ultimately, it makes my list for that reason more than any other.<\/p>\n

# # #<\/p>\n

I guess that\u2019s about it. The only summing up I can do is to say that the class wars of the past hundred years are still being waged today. If our sci-fi movies are any indication, it sadly seems those battles will be fought for a long time to come.<\/p>\n

Agree? Disagree? I (Nacho and Cass too) welcome all conversation and debate or \u2018Best of Sci-Fi\u201d lists. Comment below or join us in the forums<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rottingcorpse’s list can be found right here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,273],"tags":[403,274,406],"class_list":["post-1998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cult-culture","category-gs-10th-anniversary-2001-2011","tag-cult-culture","tag-gs-10th-anniversary","tag-rottingcorpse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1998"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2037,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1998\/revisions\/2037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}