Andrew: 0:13

hello and thank you for joining us for another episode of I freaking love that movie. I'm andrew, joined by my buddy, rob, as we dive into another movie that we all freaking love. This isn't a podcast for those quippy cynics, just love for movies and the people who make them. We're pivoting hard this week because we're doing a pirate. No, that's not it. We're pretty hard because, having covered Dune Part 2 on our last episode, no sir, we move away from that sweeping epic and bring you a different kind of dessert Desert, desert, desert, planet Scrumptious, a different kind of massive alien bug we are striking out on our own and enlisting to become citizens to take the fight to those ding-dang bugs. In case you haven't guessed it, that's right, rob and I are talking those. Starship to Rupers.

Rob: 1:21

From the bridge of the fleet battle station Ticonderoga, with its sweeping galactic views, to the desolate terrain of planet clendatum, teaming with shrieking fire, spitting, brain sucking special effects, creatures, acclaimed director paul verhoeven crafts a dazzling epic based on robert a heinland's classic sci-fi adventure, starship Troopers.

Andrew: 1:51

Now that there is a synopsis that really razzles my dazzles, mr Fudge Razzles them dazzles as I'm Starship Troopering. Yes, as I'm trooping my Starship.

Rob: 2:06

We joined up to become citizens. That's right, so that you know we could show our commitment to the federal. There's only a citizen can vote. Only a citizen can vote, and apparently preferential treatment in the lottery to have children. Well, I think you just need to be a citizen to yeah Something like that.

Andrew: 2:31

I think I'm mixing my metaphors here with hell divers.

Rob: 2:35

I think you're just going to get the form, but that's hell divers.

Andrew: 2:40

Yeah, because obviously John and Rico's parents were able to have kiddos, kidsies, that's true.

Rob: 2:47

And they, one lady, had done anything.

Andrew: 2:49

Well, they were not citizens. That was the big point. That was why Carmen's daddy didn't like him. Well, rob, as you know, since it is on, I freaking love this movie. It is a movie that I freaking love, and so do you, and I know that we like to have a lot of, uh, you know, we talk about fandom moments. I guess we didn't really in dune 2, but we did kind of use all of our our moments for when we talked about dune 1, so I did want to talk about a little bit of a fandom moment. As you know, when I was younger, uh, with mr james davis, we had this lego universe that we did, where we had made models and did things and all that kind of fun stuff. And you know I don't know for sure that, like that, with the lego um opponent we had created were based fully on starship troopers, but they're pretty much based on starship troopers we had the buggers.

Andrew: 3:42

They were called the buggers and we had these really cool lego models and they were very much like the arachnids and they had like our the base unit, had like these lego spiky things and had like swords for legs and it would like slice up the lego guys as they were fighting and it was. It was pretty amazing. So I mean, it's just, it's just always warms my heart when there's things from my childhood, especially when they have to do with like Legos or pretending or something. I remember how they came from these movies and those kind of things.

Rob: 4:13

I didn't get to see it when it originally came out, like in the theaters. I wasn't quite sure about the theatrical response, but I do remember seeing the trailers for it and seeing the arachnids and the bugs and the, the stabby things as you're, as you're talking about with your lego universe and your buggers. I didn't really keep up with it because I was just like a slightly too young to have really, um, been there for the theatrical part of it. But, uh, I was wondering when you first got to see it, what was like your initial thought when you saw it.

Andrew: 4:46

So I remember seeing the trailers in the movie theaters as well and I remember telling my dad I want to see that movie. It looks, you know, it's sci fi, it's sci fi action, it's sci fi war, like it's everything that's going to be amazing. And my dad went on a business trip and when he was on his business trip trip he saw it. And he came back and I was a little disappointed to find out that he went and saw it without me. He said, yeah, I'm not gonna take you to that one. And I found out it was because of the, which you know it's kind of a good call, because going to a movie with that much it was your father would be kind of strange.

Rob: 5:21

That would have been strange at all. I think we can all agree that that would have been an awkward, an awkward movie going experience. Now I don't think we would have freaking loved that experience right, uh no.

Andrew: 5:34

I ended up seeing stars for troopers for the first time when I turned 18 and I was sent one of those columbia house buy or get two movies for free and you know you got to buy whatever for the next rest of your life.

Rob: 5:50

So they got you, they got me.

Rob: 5:52

I picked up my two free movies.

Andrew: 5:54

I got Tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie and Starship Troopers with Kaspar Van Dyne, and those were the two movies they got for free the free, not so free yeah, kaspar van Dyne, and uh and um, those were the two movies they got for free, the free not so free yeah, I had those two movies when we, uh, when we got to college together, and it was the summer, the summer where I met you, I think, is when I actually got to watch Starship Troopers for the first time.

Rob: 6:19

Yeah, so I think my first experience with Starship troopers was probably watching it on like tnt or tbs. So welcome home. A lot of the as you would say had been edited out, as well as a lot of the gore.

Andrew: 6:34

I remember in re-watching this there are scenes where they look over the battlefield and you'll see just like pieces of people I do remember watching this when I had cable uh, I think right after I got out of college and I had the dvd, so I don't know why. It was probably something I was just flipping through and I watched it and I remember they had edited the final scene. So you never saw zander getting his brain sucked out. So he just went from crawling there and like spitting on the guy and then all of a sudden he was like laying dead on the ground next to the creature. When it was coming for him. They completely cut that scene out and it was like you're like what happened?

Rob: 7:13

Oh, I guess he's dead yeah.

Andrew: 7:15

And they think that I knew the movie at that point, but it was like that was a weird choice in the editing. One other kind of fun thing I found out about this movie, I would say later in life I, but I, you know, I think it was on like a special feature, like when I was behind the movies things or whatever, but where they were like they're talking about, uh, the song they play at their prom is david. It's a cover of david bowie's. I've not been to oxford town, but they changed it to. I've not been to paradise, which I think was one of the planets in the um, in the universe, and I just I always thought that was fun to like because you know, so often in like star trek or whatever, it's like they use our current culture or like you know, as as a musical point or whatever.

Andrew: 8:06

It was just fun like having a unique song to like this future era and, like you know, and you kind of think, you kind of think like the musical person who was singing it at that time probably like dug up an old david bowie record and was like no one remembers this anymore and they just changed the cover.

Rob: 8:22

Right, I'm going to do a cover and change the original yeah, I just.

Andrew: 8:27

I love, I love that. And so one other thing I thought I'd mentioned and I was. It was just kind of I was thinking about it and there was an editor, the gaming website bug, one of the editors on there or one of the writers on there, or whatever you call them uh, his name is Charlie Hall. He tweeted a picture he had like a playing card of Johnny Rico in his high school, like football outfit and stuff. And I was like man, I want, I want to get my hand on one of those.

Rob: 8:54

It was like this really interesting rendition of like arena football. So it's like a little smaller indoor rendition of like arena football. So it's like a little smaller indoor, but johnny rico is also like superhuman, he can like right flip six three hole.

Rob: 9:11

Yeah, I was like whoa flip six three hole he's like I can do this in combat.

Rob: 9:15

I was like well, of course, man, you're like daredevil or something but you know, he does it in training.

Andrew: 9:19

He never actually does it in combat.

Rob: 9:21

That's true. He couldn't never do it again because it, you know, had been scarred from the training mishap.

Andrew: 9:28

So, rob, tell me, was there anything that stood out to you about this, the filming, coming back to it for this rewatch?

Rob: 9:36

So I didn't watch the like full legit version until we watched it in college. I enjoyed it then as well. I think I was probably taken aback by the violence then because I had finally seen the actual version. But in re-watching it now I'm thinking back to the year that it was theatrically released, in 1997. So putting in that in perspective, it's like it's this in-between time we had the Star Wars special editions come out in the theaters and then it was like almost a Phantom Menace. So Phantom Menace came out in 99.

Rob: 10:10

You see, almost, I want to say like one of the higher points of visual effects as it was like the benchmark at that time. This was before the phantom menace and like lucas film like took another giant leap forward with visual effects and filmmaking and just all the stuff they were able to do with the prequel trilogy. The way that paul verhoeven kind of took the like gritty charm of, like his practical effects there's a lot of the practical gore and and stuff that he did. That reminded me a lot of like his work with Total Recall and RoboCop and he does like to use like the same actors you have, like Michael Ironside being the gritty First he's the teacher and then he's, he becomes a. He comes back as a lieutenant with his big metal arm, red Jacks Roughnecks, yeah, and then just so perfectly segued into Rico's Roughnecks.

Rob: 11:01

But the way that Paul Verhoeven was able to kind arachnids and then they had cg for stuff that they couldn't really get kind of reminded me also drastic park, where they had the cg amazing cg in drastic park, which we've talked about so much. Like drastic park, where they used what they needed to, depending on what the shot called for. I felt like throughout this film there were times where, like, the transitions to that weren't exactly seamless, like you could tell when things were changed CG versus practical. Like there's times where Rico's like jumps on top of the tanker bug and at one point it's him and then like a second later it's like the CG version of people that's a little plasticky and kind of moves, really kind of funky. But it's like, even though that that those scenes were still kind of there.

Andrew: 12:04

I really love seeing how that stuff blended together, and I think you could feel that with phantom menace too, where there were a lot more practical stages and stuff in phantom menace before that was something I noticed recently watching the phantom menace with my kids as well is that there was the, the kind of I mean I know that the trivia that there was more practical effects in Phantom Menace than in the other Star Wars is, but I think the interesting thing was that you could still see, like the, the blending between the, the CG and then the practical effects. And there was things like like the fire and I. I was just struck by when I watched the Phantom Menace and then the practical effects. And there was things like like the fire and I.

Andrew: 12:45

I was just struck by when I watched the phantom menace and then starship troopers again recently, like they didn't have a good way to do like explosions, so all explosions feel kind of muted and kind of like opaque and they don't.

Andrew: 12:54

And it's funny because, like you can tell that they were done at the same time and it's it's funny because it's it's the only thing that I think for me, I mean, I guess, other than like you talked about some of the models, but it's the only thing that kind of like takes you out of, like the this is really well done cg, because they relied also so heavily on practical effects, and I think now we're getting to the point where cg is like good enough, it can get past the uncanny valley, but even still a lot of directors opt for in-camera effects as opposed to doing all cg, which I I think is a good thing. I'm all about in-camera effects as much as possible. You go back to the episode where we talked about mad max fury road. We talked about how much in-camera effects are done with that as well. So just interesting, you know, interesting kind of seeing that circle back to all that again.

Rob: 14:02

One of the things that I really freaking love about this movie was something that I didn't really I I don't want to say I didn't pick up on it, but I wasn't really of. That just stemmed from I just was watching it for what I had seen in that trailer, which was like bugs and shooting and and like some aliens vibes, and then I kind of got thrown off by the dialogue delivery because some of it was kind of like campy sci-fi and at the time I took that as like lower quality. But I think now rewatching it, oh this is what he was going for. He's emulating this older sci-fi aesthetic where the acting is a little over the top and it's like poking fun at at a, at a war movie in essence. And I think also what I really wasn't paying attention to was like the opening school scene. Maybe that was because I was in school and I didn't want to pay attention to school scenes, but he was very open and openly parodying like fascist ideas like that.

Rob: 14:52

Oh, these, this is like the army had led like a coup at some point in their history. They they called democracy like a failed state and they're like and the veterans saved us and then it wrapped all of their ideology around this idea that only people who should be citizens and be able to vote are people who, as they would kind of deem it like, have skin in the game. So anybody who's like been in the military are the only people who can be citizens. Marrying the idea of military service and violence to like obtain your political ideals. Everything that's so great about Paul Verhoeven you know classics is like he does the grotesque violence. That's how it like grabs you because it's like very visceral. And then he has like these great one liners, but then he has this thick social commentary that is there really easily for you to to digest. I think for me I've come to appreciate it afterwards.

Andrew: 15:51

Yeah, and I think I had very much the similar story in that when I first watched it it was very much a you know, a sci-fi war film for me. You know you are rooting for Johnny Rico. By the end you're cheering with them as they're capturing the brain bug.

Rob: 16:07

You know, you know.

Andrew: 16:08

Zim got a bug and you know, I think it took watching a special feature where paul verhoeven basically said you know, hey, this is a, you know, an anti-fascist piece for me to be like oh, yeah, yeah, okay but then you see you did.

Rob: 16:27

But then you see how, uh, you see how doogie hauser is dressed and the like, the like, military brass, the way that they're dressed in their gray outfits, and you're like, oh yeah, that's like german high command type, like you know I was, I was, I was, I was a blind to the uh, you know the, the autocracy of the government.

Andrew: 16:49

I mean it was. You know they they were, they were airing the execution of the criminal live on tv. You know you could see like, oh yeah, it was like okay, well, yeah, the government's not great in this, you know. Right, like you knew that. But you're also like cheering along for an action movie, yeah, um. So I think you know, it was one of those kind of strange moments for me where I just kind of realized it was something more and it really just made me love the movie all the more.

Rob: 17:23

So it's funny that you mention the. We were talking about the executions or whatever. On those like federal bulletins or whatever they had this it looked almost like early web kind of content in those little snippets that they would kind of segue into and out of those segments. So clearly, remind me of this game that we both freaking love that just came out not too long ago. It's a brand new game 2024. We wanted to add a little bit of a wrinkle to our format and we've talked about a movie that we freaking love, but we wanted to talk to you all about a game that we freaking love.

TRAILER: 18:05

Prove to yourself that you have the strength and the courage to be free. Join the Helldivers, become part of an elite peacekeeping force, see exotic new life forms and spread managed democracy throughout the galaxy. Become a hero, become a legend, become a Helldiver.

Rob: 18:47

That game today is Helldivers 2. We wanted to give it a special shout out because not only one we freaking love it but also the entire game in general really pays homage to Starship Troopers, all the way down to the design of the enemies. Right now I don't know if I want to date it too much, because I don't know if we're going to have a third enemy, but right now, as of as of this point, they changed this game so much and that's one of the reasons why it's so amazing. That's right is where we are defenders of managed democracy, which in itself sounds very starship troopers like, uh, but we are fighting robots. So those, those aren't very starship troopers like.

Rob: 19:38

But the whole other enemy section is all of these different bugs and they remind me so much, they remind us so much of the arachnids uh from like the tankers that like spew, like napalm, like, like acid on guys uh, to like the hunters remind me of, like the regular arachnids uh that you see a lot of in the starship troopers movie. Um, and just the way the flying ones there's flying ones in the in the flying ones. There's flying ones in the in the game too. So there's just so much love for the Starship Troopers movie in Hell Divers too, that we wanted to be able to share that with you. Um, and if you're not playing it and you like co-op, third person sci-fi shooting, uh, then I would definitely say to go for it. But, andrew, I wanted to know what do you freaking love?

Andrew: 20:36

the most about hell divers 2. I mean it is. I mean it's, it's a pve game. You know, with with the, the idea that you are going down and like everything in there makes sense. You know, missions are 40 minutes and they explain that because your superstore can only stay in low orbit. The stuff you call in and the upgrades to your ship, you know, you actually see them appear like. You know the terminals change and you can, you know, put on different armors and capes and and just the, the tongue-in-cheek, uh, like federal bulletins and things like that are just, they're so perfect and even their community managers and teams are are so perfect too, when they're posting on twitter or discord or whatever and they're talking about things like they say this massive bug in one of the most recent things where we were, we were pumping this dark matter into this planet to blow it up and the enemies were a glitch bug yeah, not an enemy bug, it was a glitch right.

Rob: 21:33

So those are bad.

Andrew: 21:34

Those are really bad, and the um, the enemies were spawning right underneath your thing and making it almost impossible, and I almost was very, very difficult to the missions and so when they released their patch for it, their emergency hotfix, in their tweet and I don't remember the exact wording, but they were like we have updated the things to emit a subsonic frequency to keep bugs from spawning directly underneath it just like the.

Andrew: 22:00

The playing into it is just so good and I like the way they they have monetized the game, but not in like a terrible way, like everything you want you can get. You can earn other ways and to the point where they're having things I've wanted to get, where I have spent like three or four or $5 on it because it feels good to like support them and get that stuff and you don't feel like you have to, like you do with so many games.

Rob: 22:23

So it's just like you don't. You don't feel like the developer is like trying to milk the money out of you, right, they're just like, hey, you don't actually need this to play the game, but you would be supporting our smaller studio and we think it looks cool and you'd like to use it right, so it's, and I it is.

Andrew: 22:43

That's the great mentality behind them I think the other thing that's really cool too is that they have set it up so they've basically got a game master running the game and it's not like. It's not like the game master is our opponent, like as a true good game master. They are trying to make the story more interesting. So they are, you know, sending enemies certain ways, they're doing stuff, you know whatever. They're giving us reinforcements and and you just really good things to make the game more interesting and more engaging, which is really, really fun and and your home planet is called super earth.

Rob: 23:15

That's right. So I mean, like, what's what's cooler than that we're spreading managed democracy throughout the galaxy?

Andrew: 23:21

yeah, and it's so fun too is finding things on the planets. When you find, like, like colony things, and it kind of reminds me of of starship troopers, especially when you know they go and they find the, the, the, what was the new mormon settlement? Or no new fort smith or whatever, and, like all the guys, were like chopped up and stuff you, you'll find some it's like yeah but you'll find some colonies and held I've referred.

Rob: 23:46

It's like everyone's chopped up and stuff and you're like, oh my goodness we wanted to share it with you, you all, because not only do we love movies, but we also freaking love games, and, you know, forming community together around games, that's part of their. You know, what jammer itself is about is about community and games, exercising our creativity and finding enjoyment together and creating experiences that we can all enjoy, and so we love that a studio was able to to pay homage to this other property while doing their own thing, and I'm really happy for them that the, that the community of gamers have really come out and shown a lot of support to them for it. But that was our new segment. I freaking love that game where we'll be from time to time, kind of playing with our format a little bit to to bring in other um types of media that we really love. Um, we might talk about television, we might talk about more kids programming because, uh, just about everybody on all the podcasts that we've been on are, all you know, we're all parents and so we like to share, uh, what our kids like to watch, um, and so there's going to be a lot more of that stuff coming up in season three. That, will you know, we're going to be excited to share with you all.

Rob: 25:04

So, in lieu of a listener segment this time around, I did want to remind you that if you have any comments and it may be a comment about the episode you just listened to you can share your comments or your questions anytime you like by visiting jammer J-A-M-R dot fun F-U-N, slash I-F-L-T-M, and then you can share an audio message or a text message and we like to treat it just as we are bringing back the blockbuster be kind, rewind. We're also bringing back the radio call in to our podcast. So, if you want to, you want to give us your own radio call in. We would love to take your comments and questions. It doesn't have to be on the the exact episode, so you can talk to us about Starship Troopers and we'll answer you on the air on some other episode.

Rob: 25:58

But we really appreciate the listener feedback we've gotten and all of the engagement that folks are showing for us and our social media channels, which you can find in the show notes. We have come to the end of our programming. We've talked about how much we freaking love the game hell divers 2 and the movie starship troopers, but, andrew, now is the time. Where does starship troopers fall on your list?

Andrew: 26:24

well, I think starship troopers on my list, starship troopers is gonna land right at number 10, just below empire strikes back and just above aliens, all right wow, that is amazing.

Rob: 26:42

Okay, so for me, I'm gonna actually call an audible on this. I'm gonna say that, uh, I was gonna have it down at 29th on my list, but the more I've gotten to talk about it and gush about Starship Troopers, I feel like it deserves to be at a higher spot than that, so I am going to put it at number 19. Ooh, nice, so it's going to go right after Interstellar and before Elf Perfect. I really enjoyed this movie and I think it's a movie that I will enjoy more and more as I watch it, because it's definitely a great time, wow well, there you have it, and if you'd like to see more of our movie lists, you can once again visit us at jammerfun slash ifltm.

Andrew: 27:33

That's JAMR. fun/IFLTM, and there you can see our lists, and you can always share your list with us by emailing us at info at jammerfun or follow us on our social channels that you can find in the show notes yeah, we're enjoying this episode.

Rosie: 27:54

We look forward to having fun back next week. In the meantime, please remember we love different movies and that's a good thing. So, as blackbuster used to say, be kind where you want. As always, we encourage you to share with everyone who will listen that movies you freaking love that's's right.

Andrew: 28:33

So that's my daughter giving us your little outro there today, and she has no idea what Blockbuster is, but that's okay. Well, thanks for joining us in this episode, like my daughter said, and we will see you next week. Bye, bye.

Rob: 29:06

Are you Rob?

Andrew: 29:08

Mm-hmm, yes, that's Mr Rob.

Rob: 29:10

So does he have Thea Thea's asleep? He has, that's Mr.

Rob: 29:12

Rob, so does he have Thea, thea's, asleep?

Andrew: 29:14

He's in bed, like you should be.

Rob: 29:16

I don't want to be in bed for a couple minutes.