And the mask comes off.

[Codewalker]

It's pretty simple, really.

Marvel Movies = Fun, good time, smiles from start to end with plenty of 'laugh out loud' moments and one-liners to break up the action. Nothing earth shattering or really thought-provoking, but consistently good quality throughout. Individual director and writer creativity is secondary to maintaining a cohesive universe that people can get invested in.

DC Movies = Darker, grittier. Hit or miss quality -- ranging from really good to really bad and everything in between. Lots of director freedom to put their own spin on it, which can either be a good thing, or a very, very bad thing if you're a fan of the source material. Little to no universe consistency at all, and frequent reboots.

It's personal preference, but I'd rather have the cohesive universe over the rare gem of something interesting. The latter I'd rather see from an occasional one-off film than an entire franchise.

I guess bottom line is that I'd like to see more variety in the comic book universe movie-wise. Right now it's all "Michael Bay style." With the exception of the Nolan trilogy, it's ALL been "bubble gum pop." All of it.

Watchmen?

[AlienOne]

It's pretty simple, really.

Marvel Movies = Fun, good time, smiles from start to end with plenty of 'laugh out loud' moments and one-liners to break up the action. Nothing earth shattering or really thought-provoking, but consistently good quality throughout. Individual director and writer creativity is secondary to maintaining a cohesive universe that people can get invested in.

DC Movies = Darker, grittier. Hit or miss quality -- ranging from really good to really bad and everything in between. Lots of director freedom to put their own spin on it, which can either be a good thing, or a very, very bad thing if you're a fan of the source material. Little to no universe consistency at all, and frequent reboots.

It's personal preference, but I'd rather have the cohesive universe over the rare gem of something interesting. The latter I'd rather see from an occasional one-off film than an entire franchise.

Watchmen?

I realize it's "simple." That was my point, actually. It's entirely too simple. There needs to be a bit of variety. Everyone knows the difference between the two universes, and they can easily point to it--both universes contain a ton of action--they just present it in a different "light," if you will. One is dark, the other light. But, they're both action. That's *still* limited to one movie genre. My point was to suggest that there can be many ways to tell a story--and there is plenty of source material to choose from to support that.

Watchmen is somewhere between Sin City and Sucker Punch. Zach Snyder is great at stylizing things (and slow motion/hard-hitting action), but I am not a big fan of his storytelling ability. Man of Steel just proved that further. I LOVED the casting for Superman, I liked that he spent a good deal of time to start out the movie on Krypton, and I thought the action was something the Superman universe needed (after 4 movies and a TV series of a Superman/Louis Lane romantic comedy)... But, the storytelling (and the acting on most people's parts) was a bit lackluster/rigid.

[Codewalker]

But, the storytelling (and the acting on most people's parts) was a bit lackluster/rigid.

Don't get me started on the Man of Steel "plot". The How it Should Have Ended spoof for that one nailed it.

[Remaugen]

They are heavens forbid - ENTERTAINING!

I don't always want a message, a depressing look into someone else's misery or to be preached at for being rich, happy or good looking (none of which apply - except happy).

Sometimes I want to see the Hulk ragdoll Loki. Sometimes I want to see Captain America stand up for what is right. Sometimes i want to see a small grumpy raccoon shoot stuff.

Sometimes.

'Specially seeing Hulk ragdoll Loki! 

[Twisted Toon]

Personally, I think any movie company should get writers/directors who are fans of the material that the movie is about. And who will not try to put their own interpretive spin on the story. I understand that there are limits to what a movie and portray compared to a comic book. However, that is not a good enough reason to make a movie called Starship Troopers and then totally disregard the story, which the movie is based on, in favor of your own. Joss Whedon did a very good job of keeping the characters, in the Avengers movie, in line with the characters in the Avengers comics.

I think that is partially the problem that DC movies have. The characters in the movie aren't the same as the characters in the comics.  Of course, with 52 billion DC universes out there, it's hard to keep up.

For the record, I despise the DC 52 universe. They totally ruined many of the characters just for the sake of political correctness and affirmative action.

I also have a beef with Marvel for doing similar things with their characters.

[LaughingAlex]

Personally, I think any movie company should get writers/directors who are fans of the material that the movie is about. And who will not try to put their own interpretive spin on the story. I understand that there are limits to what a movie and portray compared to a comic book. However, that is not a good enough reason to make a movie called Starship Troopers and then totally disregard the story, which the movie is based on, in favor of your own. Joss Whedon did a very good job of keeping the characters, in the Avengers movie, in line with the characters in the Avengers comics.

I think that is partially the problem that DC movies have. The characters in the movie aren't the same as the characters in the comics.  Of course, with 52 billion DC universes out there, it's hard to keep up.

For the record, I despise the DC 52 universe. They totally ruined many of the characters just for the sake of political correctness and affirmative action.

I also have a beef with Marvel for doing similar things with their characters.

To be fair, from what I read and whatnot, the book starship troopers itself was, besides just more about the main characters life in the military, but the only battle was closer to a "Mary Tzu" victory, in that it had only like 1 casualty the entire war, which would have probably been boring on film.  I didn't read the book, but did read that the battle in the book itself was way to lopsided.

[Twisted Toon]

To be fair, from what I read and whatnot, the book starship troopers itself was, besides just more about the main characters life in the military, but the only battle was closer to a "Mary Tzu" victory, in that it had only like 1 casualty the entire war, which would have probably been boring on film.  I didn't read the book, but did read that the battle in the book itself was way to lopsided.

I understand. it still doesn't invalidate the point that established characters (or stories) shouldn't be totally gutted and rearranged just to suit the whim of the writer and/or director. I also understand that most (if not all) of the Marvel movies have tweaked the characters and stories of the movies that have been (and will be) made. However, those tweaks, for the most part, haven't totally changed who the character is or what he's done, so that he, or his story, is unrecognizable.

[Arcana]

It's pretty simple, really.

Marvel Movies = Fun, good time, smiles from start to end with plenty of 'laugh out loud' moments and one-liners to break up the action. Nothing earth shattering or really thought-provoking, but consistently good quality throughout. Individual director and writer creativity is secondary to maintaining a cohesive universe that people can get invested in.

DC Movies = Darker, grittier. Hit or miss quality -- ranging from really good to really bad and everything in between. Lots of director freedom to put their own spin on it, which can either be a good thing, or a very, very bad thing if you're a fan of the source material. Little to no universe consistency at all, and frequent reboots.

It's personal preference, but I'd rather have the cohesive universe over the rare gem of something interesting. The latter I'd rather see from an occasional one-off film than an entire franchise.

I think a lot of people are overgeneralizing a bit when they talk about the "Marvel" and "DC" movies forgetting that we're talking mostly about a set of movies from a stretch of time of only about fifteen years.  Are the Marvel movies more "fun" and less "gritty?"  I'm not sure: the Marvel movies run a very wide range from Guardians of the Galaxy on one end to Winter Soldier on the other.  Meanwhile the DC movies tend to be associated most with Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy (primarily) and Man of Steel (secondarily) ignoring, say, Green Lantern (which, I'll beat everyone to it, most people want to ignore).  Frankly, unless you go back to the Burton/Schumacher Batmans and the Donner/Lester Superman movies, DC doesn't have enough cinema material I think to really characterize it yet.  Its basically Nolan + MoS, and even MoS has Nolan as a producer.  Marvel has the benefit of a wider range of directorial visions to date.

I think some of the comic book debates are leaking into the cinema debates.  It was always that Marvel was the more popcorn popular books and DC the more "serious" books in terms of story, but I don't think the movies reflect that.  Marvel has its popcorn Iron Man movies, but it also has a much more serious, almost Vertigo-like (by comparison) Captain America storylines.  It has its fantasy Thor movies and its space-adventure Guardians movie.  We'll see where Ant-Man and Inhumans (not to mention Dr. Strange) land, but I think for all that people sometimes complain about Marvel being "safe" movies they are wisely diversifying their slate.  I think eventually DC will do the same - or they'll be out of the game pretty quick.

[Arcana]

To be fair, from what I read and whatnot, the book starship troopers itself was, besides just more about the main characters life in the military, but the only battle was closer to a "Mary Tzu" victory, in that it had only like 1 casualty the entire war, which would have probably been boring on film.  I didn't read the book, but did read that the battle in the book itself was way to lopsided.

That's not my recollection.  Its been a while since I picked up that book, but the movie does superficially touch on the fact there's two major military encounters that are significant to the story: the first one where they get their butts kicked, and the second one where they attempt to capture the brain (in the novel they are just trying to capture important aliens, possibly including alien "royalty" comparable to insect queens).

The battle of Klendathu, the fight the movie opens on, is described in the book as being so incredibly one-sided - but against humanity - that Earth's ability to project military power is almost annihilated: until they can rebuild the main character finds himself part of a unit that is conducting guerrilla-like hit and run missions against the aliens as the only thing humanity can do after the disaster.  In fact, Rico is one of the very few survivors of that battle from his ship and unit.

its worth noting that Verhoeven did not set out to make a cinematic translation of Starship Troopers.  He was originally going to make a movie based on a totally unrelated script about space marines fighting an insect-like alien race when the superficial similarities between that script's aliens and the Starship Troopers aliens were pointed out to him.  He and his scriptwriter decided to license the Starship Troopers novel but Verhoeven admitted in interviews he couldn't even read it - he felt it was too jingoistic.  They tweaked the script to superficially line up characters and events, but Verhoeven put a distinctly anti-fascist spin on the story that essentially eliminates all but the most cursory similarities to the novel.  Basically, Verhoeven's Starship Troopers is a political satire in the same vein as Robocop is (in fact the original script pre-Starship Troopers was written by Edward Neumeier, who wrote the script for Robocop).

[LaughingAlex]

That's not my recollection.  Its been a while since I picked up that book, but the movie does superficially touch on the fact there's two major military encounters that are significant to the story: the first one where they get their butts kicked, and the second one where they attempt to capture the brain (in the novel they are just trying to capture important aliens, possibly including alien "royalty" comparable to insect queens).

The battle of Klendathu, the fight the movie opens on, is described in the book as being so incredibly one-sided - but against humanity - that Earth's ability to project military power is almost annihilated: until they can rebuild the main character finds himself part of a unit that is conducting guerrilla-like hit and run missions against the aliens as the only thing humanity can do after the disaster.  In fact, Rico is one of the very few survivors of that battle from his ship and unit.

its worth noting that Verhoeven did not set out to make a cinematic translation of Starship Troopers.  He was originally going to make a movie based on a totally unrelated script about space marines fighting an insect-like alien race when the superficial similarities between that script's aliens and the Starship Troopers aliens were pointed out to him.  He and his scriptwriter decided to license the Starship Troopers novel but Verhoeven admitted in interviews he couldn't even read it - he felt it was too jingoistic.  They tweaked the script to superficially line up characters and events, but Verhoeven put a distinctly anti-fascist spin on the story that essentially eliminates all but the most cursory similarities to the novel.  Basically, Verhoeven's Starship Troopers is a political satire in the same vein as Robocop is (in fact the original script pre-Starship Troopers was written by Edward Neumeier, who wrote the script for Robocop).

Go figure, in the movie the humans are about as bad at warfare as it got in the battle of Klendathu, a whole rout happened after only a small number of casualties, they didn't use any air support ect.  It was made more for the humans to lose, granted the humans losing was fine and to again, it'd have been far less entertaining if they won with only a single casualty thanks to power armor.  It was one of the few cases that, odds are it was a smarter over in a way.  What I read of the book was a wikipedia article about it, and they did mention complaints focused on the jingoism and generally pro-fascist tendencies in it.

Speaking of Robocop, watched the 2014 movie today.  I was surprised at how well they did, surprisingly.  While they didn't do everything the same, that was a good thing to me, the story wasn't wholly a clone of the original, but they did capture the very funny parodied political satire the original had in a way.  You had the extremely corporate-bribed biased news media that'd do anything to get a story to the general greed and corruption of omnicorp.  I did read that reviews were mixed, and I can see why, the general fanboy trend is to dislike anything of any slight difference, but looking at the movie more objectively I felt it was pretty solid.

I did feel they missed some of the humor within omnicorp, but honestly I think it was more that the movie had to adapt to the times, as many jokes in the original robocop done today would probably have offended some people.

[AlienOne]

I think a lot of people are overgeneralizing a bit when they talk about the "Marvel" and "DC" movies forgetting that we're talking mostly about a set of movies from a stretch of time of only about fifteen years.  Are the Marvel movies more "fun" and less "gritty?"  I'm not sure: the Marvel movies run a very wide range from Guardians of the Galaxy on one end to Winter Soldier on the other.  Meanwhile the DC movies tend to be associated most with Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy (primarily) and Man of Steel (secondarily) ignoring, say, Green Lantern (which, I'll beat everyone to it, most people want to ignore).  Frankly, unless you go back to the Burton/Schumacher Batmans and the Donner/Lester Superman movies, DC doesn't have enough cinema material I think to really characterize it yet.  Its basically Nolan + MoS, and even MoS has Nolan as a producer.  Marvel has the benefit of a wider range of directorial visions to date.

I think some of the comic book debates are leaking into the cinema debates.  It was always that Marvel was the more popcorn popular books and DC the more "serious" books in terms of story, but I don't think the movies reflect that.  Marvel has its popcorn Iron Man movies, but it also has a much more serious, almost Vertigo-like (by comparison) Captain America storylines.  It has its fantasy Thor movies and its space-adventure Guardians movie.  We'll see where Ant-Man and Inhumans (not to mention Dr. Strange) land, but I think for all that people sometimes complain about Marvel being "safe" movies they are wisely diversifying their slate.  I think eventually DC will do the same - or they'll be out of the game pretty quick.

I totally respect you, your intellect, and your opinion, but I'm going to have to disagree on the Marvel movie bit. I don't see a whole lot of difference between Iron Man and Captain America other than they have two different heroes attached to the project. They're both "epic action." The events that happen in each of them may be different, but they're both the same genre movie. Marvel studios themselves don't even argue that point.

Iron Man: http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/paramount/ironman/
Captain America - Winter Soldier: http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/marvel/captainamericathewintersoldier/

Under the details for each of them, it states specifically that the genre is "action and adventure."

They're both action movies.

Maybe I'm not being clear enough. I'm not stating that Marvel has no capability for creating different stories (although some may argue that point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g42r-ZlIRjI). I'm stating that the genre (action) is the same. Comic book stories aren't all action. The way *most* of the movies are made (DC is just as guilty as Marvel is), the "story" is just the vehicle to carry you from one action scene to another. In my opinion, better stories are ones that concentrate on personal conflict for longer, so you can better relate to the character before he/she does his/her "epic things." In most of the action comic book movies, not nearly enough time is spent on character introduction and development before "ACTION SCENE!!!" The Thor movies are especially guilty of this.

[Felderburg]

Regarding comics themselves being sillier or not: I'm pretty sure any of DC's Silver Age comics would be pretty silly and non-serious, so saying DC's movies are like its comics is a bit odd... maybe in the last few decades, but it hasn't always been that way.

Regarding movies based on books: for the most part, adapting a book for a movie isn't all that great, but I will say that Minority Report was done really well. I think they took the basic premise (precogs finger the police chief for a future murder) and took it in a really great, 21st century spin on the story. Yeah, they made the ending a bit happier than any Phillip K Dick story has a right to be, but for the most part, it was a really great adaptation - arguably because it didn't stick straight to the story, but only took the premise and went from there.

[Ironwolf]

To be fair, from what I read and whatnot, the book starship troopers itself was, besides just more about the main characters life in the military, but the only battle was closer to a "Mary Tzu" victory, in that it had only like 1 casualty the entire war, which would have probably been boring on film.  I didn't read the book, but did read that the battle in the book itself was way to lopsided.

Starship Troopers was a story about people. Robert Heinlein (one of my favorite authors) wrote a story that does not play well with the Hollywood crowd. It was about self sacrifice and duty and in a similar vein to Superman - the people making the film hate the All American hero story. The values on some people have changed and not for the better and that is why movies like American Sniper don't win awards very often. In the box office they are huge hits but the crowd in Hollywood can't stand them. While a non-christian the Christian Bale Moses story was the warped and twisted Hollywood version on an Old Testament tale.

I am seriously thinking of trying something myself after playing with UnReal 4 engine - an animated film instead of a game. It has all the tools you should need to tell some of the stories I would like to see.

Red Nails - Robert E. Howard (a Conan story)
Legend - David Gemmel (a Druss story)

A few others that would be awesome to frame right out of the book.

[Codewalker]

I am seriously thinking of trying something myself after playing with UnReal 4 engine

As someone who goes way back with some of Epic's founders, and who beta tested Unreal when it was a first person shooter game with a single-player campaign, I feel compelled to point out that the 'R' is never capitalized. Even when they started licensing the engine separately, the trade name was always 'Unreal', or simply the stylized 'U'.

Sorry for the tangent, I've just seen it a lot lately and it's really starting to grate.

[Vee]

Regarding comics themselves being sillier or not: I'm pretty sure any of DC's Silver Age comics would be pretty silly and non-serious, so saying DC's movies are like its comics is a bit odd... maybe in the last few decades, but it hasn't always been that way.

Regarding movies based on books: for the most part, adapting a book for a movie isn't all that great, but I will say that Minority Report was done really well. I think they took the basic premise (precogs finger the police chief for a future murder) and took it in a really great, 21st century spin on the story. Yeah, they made the ending a bit happier than any Phillip K Dick story has a right to be, but for the most part, it was a really great adaptation - arguably because it didn't stick straight to the story, but only took the premise and went from there.

If the end of minority report was happy i read it completely wrong.

Spoiler for Hidden:

I assumed he was still in the prison as the happy ending would be exactly the ideal he'd dream of if he were in one of those machines.

As to the marvel/dc movie thing - i'm not a huge fan of any of them (apart from watchmen which i thought was well done even sans squid, especially the extended version that had the comic book scenes included.) but i'd like if there was a bit of mix between the lighthearted style and the nolan style. if you could take nolan's grittier filming style, take out the freshman nietzsche and add in some of marvel's sarcastic quips that'd just about work for me. my guess would be the next films would be more mixed, as age of ultron looks to be quite a bit more dark and no one's going to be able to take bats v supes completely seriously with affleck as bats. I'm just hoping for crazy one-armed green arrow in that one.

[LaughingAlex]

Starship Troopers was a story about people. Robert Heinlein (one of my favorite authors) wrote a story that does not play well with the Hollywood crowd. It was about self sacrifice and duty and in a similar vein to Superman - the people making the film hate the All American hero story. The values on some people have changed and not for the better and that is why movies like American Sniper don't win awards very often. In the box office they are huge hits but the crowd in Hollywood can't stand them. While a non-christian the Christian Bale Moses story was the warped and twisted Hollywood version on an Old Testament tale.

I am seriously thinking of trying something myself after playing with UnReal 4 engine - an animated film instead of a game. It has all the tools you should need to tell some of the stories I would like to see.

Red Nails - Robert E. Howard (a Conan story)
Legend - David Gemmel (a Druss story)

A few others that would be awesome to frame right out of the book.

Aye, thats kind of what I was trying to say about starship troopers as a book.  In that it wasn't about the battle with the arachnids but more about Rico's life in a military state.

Eh, you should try playing spec ops the line, you'll end up hating those kinds of stories to (actually more end up liking stories that aren't that even more, as it's anything but an "America saves the day" story).  I don't think though it's that people hate the "All american hero" stories but more they don't like stories where it's very very clear who'll win long beforehand.  They tend to be very predictable, and often tend to ignore the kinds of problems with the character and most frequently in movies lack character development, hastily leading towards the dreaded "mary sue" story.

Ahem

Non-american badguy shows up, does something bad without any remorse to show how bad the non-american badguy is.

American steps up to eventually challenge badguy, they may include some journey in there to prolong the story of american killing non-american badguys.  Non-amerian badguys also commit atrocities but never, ever the american good guy.

Non-american badguy henchmen can't hit the broad side of the barn(especially vs main hero).  Standard for other action movies to.

American hero finally has some struggle against badguy, but he comes out scott-free without any character development because he's the hero, and he'll win no trouble.

Mary sue stories are often the same.  And people are not generally jingoistic, only a small number tend to be anymore.

It's predictable.  And it's been deconstructed, see the movie Apocalypse now.  We saw it in video games to alot, leading to the creation of the game Spec Ops: The Line, specifically to deconstruct the many pro-war, jingoistic modern military shooters out there such as modern COD, Battlefield and Medal of honor games.

As for values changing, actually it's more people are aware of the kind of atrocities that can actually happen in war and that realistically they are always committed by both sides.  Even people in the military know that.  People aren't all "Go to war so we can kill non americans!" like the guy below.

Such as this jerk I saw on dateline murder mystery.  The guy was a generic "I want to be a hero by killing someone that isn't perfectly matched to my views of the world".  He believed everyone not only has to follow his religion in the country but they had to be the same race as him and was generally a psychopath.  He joined the military but was dishonorably discharged for pretending to be a ranger, and had very, very unhealthy hero fantasies of killing non-americans as a ranger.

When a few young adults decided to play a prank on his property for his especially aggressive sign, he went out, chased them while shooting at them.  He killed one of them, then tried to make it look like they shot at him.  Course, his lack of ballistics knowledge lead to a critical mistake, considering he'd never killed anyone in the military or saw any actual combat it would have been easy for him to make such a stupid mistake as simply dropping the casings in the same spot, not to mention there was no gun anywhere in the possession of the people he shot at.

He was charged with murder and sentenced to 50 years to life.  Because he wanted to feel like something he wasn't nore will ever be; a hero.

Most people are not like that.  Because most people are realistic about war and the nasty things that can happen in it.  And they know that people are people regardless of their nationality.  We may have been that in the 1950s in the McCarthy days, but people have gotten smarter.

Human beings of the 21st century.

[Codewalker]

(apart from watchmen which i thought was well done even sans squid, especially the extended version that had the comic book scenes included.)

I was impressed by how faithful it was to the source material, with the notable large exception at the end (well, and the omission of the Tales of the Black Freighter, but I admit I never really liked that anyway). There were several scenes that looked straight out of the graphic novel, evoking specific panels even.

I would have still preferred the squid, as an unknown alien threat makes for a better rally cry than a force that the governments all know they have zero chance against IMO. But other than that I thought it was an excellent adaptation.

[MWRuger]

I've read Starship Troopers many times, as I have most of Heinlein's books and I think that people look at Starship Troopers and see way more than there is in there regarding the author. After all , this is the same guy that wrote Stranger in a Strange Land. He was complex writer who could write from many points of view but never forgot that he was a product of his time. He believed in personal integrity, self sufficiency to the point of mania and honor. You see these traits in almost every book he wrote, his 50's juveniles all the way through The Cat Who Walked Through walls and Job: A comedy of Justice.

Starship Troopers is not about a military state. It is in fact a republic democracy with one huge difference, the only people who can vote or hold office are those who serve a term in the military. The theory is that those who are willing to risk their own lives for society have a better understanding of exactly what they are willing to do and that they understand what they are asking of the military. To me, this is a book, that has more in common with Plato's Republic than a jingoistic propaganda piece.

Many people die in the course of the book, but it might not seem that way because there is essentially only one character that matters to us, Rico. The other characters are for the most part fellow soldiers and soldiers die. You may miss them but the focus is on staying alive, helping the living and fighting the enemy. It focuses on life in the military, the way Heinlein thinks it should be, but is actually more interested in the philosophy of military service. There is discussion about exactly why does one person agree to be in harm's way for people who can't understand them and essentially think they are suckers? That is  until they need someone to defend them. It also discusses how loyalty in the unit works, chain of command and why soldiers sometimes obey orders they know are bad ones. All in all, people who dismiss it as mere jingoism probably think WWI was a little dustup in France.

Regarding the war, in the book, it is very clearly analogous to WWII, which Heinlein served in. There are other battles that are mentioned, but we only see the one Rico participates in. The War starts with a a sucker punch and is followed by Earth getting to it's feet, following initial missteps, eventually starts fighting, island by island...er, I mean planet by planet until the book ends right before the invasion of the home isl..planet of the bugs.

The movie had none of these qualities and was disappointing to me. Even as a satire of fascism it was a failure. Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game does a much better job of this, showing the consequences of this kind of war than this awful, awful movie does.

[LaughingAlex]

I've read Starship Troopers many times, as I have most of Heinlein's books and I think that people look at Starship Troopers and see way more than there is in there regarding the author. After all , this is the same guy that wrote Stranger in a Strange Land. He was complex writer who could write from many points of view but never forgot that he was a product of his time. He believed in personal integrity, self sufficiency to the point of mania and honor. You see these traits in almost every book he wrote, his 50's juveniles all the way through The Cat Who Walked Through walls and Job: A comedy of Justice.

Starship Troopers is not about a military state. It is in fact a republic democracy with one huge difference, the only people who can vote or hold office are those who serve a term in the military. The theory is that those who are willing to risk their own lives for society have a better understanding of exactly what they are willing to do and that they understand what they are asking of the military. To me, this is a book, that has more in common with Plato's Republic than a jingoistic propaganda piece.

Many people die in the course of the book, but it might not seem that way because there is essentially only one character that matters to us, Rico. The other characters are for the most part fellow soldiers and soldiers die. You may miss them but the focus is on staying alive, helping the living and fighting the enemy. It focuses on life in the military, the way Heinlein thinks it should be, but is actually more interested in the philosophy of military service. There is discussion about exactly why does one person agree to be in harm's way for people who can't understand them and essentially think they are suckers? That is  until they need someone to defend them. It also discusses how loyalty in the unit works, chain of command and why soldiers sometimes obey orders they know are bad ones. All in all, people who dismiss it as mere jingoism probably think WWI was a little dustup in France.

Regarding the war, in the book, it is very clearly analogous to WWII, which Heinlein served in. There are other battles that are mentioned, but we only see the one Rico participates in. The War starts with a a sucker punch and is followed by Earth getting to it's feet, following initial missteps, eventually starts fighting, island by island...er, I mean planet by planet until the book ends right before the invasion of the home isl..planet of the bugs.

The movie had none of these qualities and was disappointing to me. Even as a satire of fascism it was a failure. Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game does a much better job of this, showing the consequences of this kind of war than this awful, awful movie does.

Ahh, I was hoping someone with a bit more knowledge of it would step in, thanks for clearing some things up.  A funny thing about books and stories, actually just any kind of story, is how things can change based on the eye of the beholder.  Make no mistake about me and war I'm not one who's a generic anti-war guy, more of a realist about it.  Soldiers go to war, things happen and their personality can change and whatnot.  Sometimes you end up with someone who is able to see things in perspective far more, sometimes you end up with an extreme case of "yeah I got to kill people who were different than me".  A favorite series I'd watched recently, down to one episode left I think, was Generation Kill.

The reason I like it?  Besides being based on a true story you also get to see how the war affects those fighting in it.  Some guys go in having an expectation to "get to kill arabs" and you end up seeing them change in ways you wouldn't expect, ending up more balanced individuals.  A couple are insane to the point of "why is this guy in the service?".  It shows a surprising amount of character development as the characters deal with the general nature of war; it's disgusting, messy and can be very confusing and mistakes happen, really bad ones to even.  Not necessarily the kinds that result in injury to the soldiers themselves but also the kinds that lead to our side committing atrocities of our own on accident.  And understand I'm not being anti-war so much as being the realist.  Try as anyone does crap can and does happen.  It's why the military doesn't like people like the guy I mentioned in my previous post.  It's why rules of war exist to try and prevent atrocities or minimize the chance of atrocities happening.

The same can be said about Spec Ops: The Line, granted it's a fictional story, and even surreal, but the focus of it's story is more a deconstruction of modern military shooters, and also focuses heavily on the character development that happens from the kinds of things they end up doing.  The delta squad goes from being stable-minded individuals to broken war criminals that are no better if not worst than the damned 33rd(who are also war criminals themselves) they ended up fighting.

The way you described the book Starship Troopers honestly makes me want to consider reading it. 

[Ironwolf]

I would highly recommend it.

He said it much better than I did. Starship Troopers is how I think government should be handled. If you have not been in the position to put even your existence on the line - you lack a comprehension of what your peoples lives mean. It is not pro-military or even pro-America because Rico is Brazilian (Pan American) and yet the story shows both the hatred of the silliness of the military at times and the glory and courage of the common soldier rising up to meet the threat.

It could have been the US vs Japan/Germany/Italy or humans vs bugs. Same conflict and the story is done a terrible disservice by the movie. They made the honor and duty part a mockery.