Cool News
"Starship Troopers" CGI series ((a few details and a little news re: voice casting))
Glen here...
...with a follow-up report from DINGLE BERRY.
Regular readers may remember DINGLE's HREF="http://www.aint-it-cool-news.com/display.cgi?id=3039">last message to Coaxial,
which pretty much blew the lid off of Sony's forthcoming CGI series adaptation of Starship
Troopers. You can access vast quantities of series plot breakdown HREF="http://www.aint-it-cool-news.com/display.cgi?id=3039">by clicking here, or you can
read more about the plans of Starship Troopers' visual effects overlords (Foundation
Imaging and Flat Earth) by
clicking here!
DINGLE just wrote me again, this time with an update regarding the project's status, how the
series is shaping up structurally, and some voice casting which has already been done for the show.
Here's what Dingle Berry had to say:
Dingle Berry wrote:
Most of the main voice cast are made up of unknowns, but there are a couple
notable names:
Kristy McNichol will be the voice of one the generals in charge of the
Earth military forces.
Clancy Brown (the voice of Lex Luthor on the Superman animated series) will
reprise his role as Sgt. Zim. I say reprise because Clancy also played
Sgt. Zim in the Starship Troopers movie.
Bill Fabberbake (from Coach and the voice of Broadway from Gargoyles) will
be playing one of the Mobile Infantry.
Now on to some series plot points:
The series seems to be straying away from the movie and using the book as
its story guide. But they are throwing in a lot of stuff that never appeared
in either the book or movie.
I must make a correction from my previous post, in that Johnnie Rico and
Carmen will be main characters in the series (I originally stated that
Johnnie and Carmen would only be supporting characters).
The series will incorporate something like the "eggshell delivery system" from the
book, but it isn't exactly like how it is described in the book.
A new type of power suit has been added to the series, the "Marauder II". I
wouldn't really call it a power suit, it's more like a small tank designed
for 1 man. It won't really appear until about 1/2 way into the series.
The final battle during the last week of the series will take place on Earth...
Glen again...
...special thanks to Dingle Berry for the updated and revised news. Your efforts are profoundly
appreciated by many, and we're looking forward to more reports...
Glen
Or call:
(512) 347-1992
Mail can be sent to:
Glen Oliver
P.O. BOX 160812
Austin, TX 78716-0812
USA
P.O. BOX 160812
Austin, TX 78716-0812
USA
Austin, TX 78716-0812
USA
USA
-
+ Expand All
-
I don't know why I like him as an actor but I do. Maybe it's the intensity he puts into hs roles? Anyway Brown was THE ONLY palatable thing about the movie so its good that he will be part of this series. PUT YOUR HAND AGAINST THAT WALL SOLDIER!
-
Yeah ever since I was a little kid and saw Highlander I have loved Clancy Brown. He seems to improve anything that he is in just with his presence.
Wow, when I first heard that this series was being made I said that they would be better off just dumping the film and going with the book as their guide, but I never thought that it would happen. Thank god it did. It sounds like some fans of the book were just able to pull together the right influences to convince someone to back this show, mainly the success of CG and ongoing story in Beast Wars, and the public awareness of SST from the film. I am very excited about this show. Now if only I can find out when it will be on. -
Mar 23, 1999 4:52:19 PM CST
A serious (god forbid) discussion of Verhoven's Starship Trooper
by morgannelson
This post is about the film, not the book or the forthcoming series. This film has been nearly universally discarded as a terrible movie. Indeed, when I saw it, I was sickened, annoyed, and bored. I have a general distaste for the action genre in general, and this film seemed at the time to be the epitome of a bad action flick done terribly. Recently, however, I have come to what I believe to be some rather provocative conclusions about the subtext of the movie. It occurs to me now that many of the "flaws" in the film may have been intentional. The terrible acting- Verhoven (sp?) casted very clean-cut all-american 90210 kids with no acting talent, speaking incredibly corny lines of dialogue. This points directly to the idea that he was making a parody of the classic propaganda war film. The plot also is a direct parallel of this: Johnny goes to war after his home town is destroyed by the enemy. Thrown into this, the humans are set, very unappologetically, in a fascist society. There is no irony in this whatsoever. He simply sets it up as a fact that is taken for granted, as we take our government. There are subtle hints of past fascist societies in the look of the film. Ex: the Millitary Intelligence (including the Doogie Howser guy) wear SS trenchcoats at the end of the film. The news feeds tie into the idea propaganda central to the film. What this boils down to is a satire done without a hint of irony or humor, something that has never been done like this. Granted, the movie is not at all fun to watch, but as a piece of post-modern deconstruction of our ideology, it triumphs as one of the most misunderstood movies of the 90's. If anyone would like to respond to what I have said, or simply to tell me I'm being a pretensious prick, feel free.
-
No Morgan, you got it right. Nuff said. Here's hoping for the show.
-
I can't believe all the bad comments regarding Starship Troopers - an amazingly uncompromised piece of Sci Fi action that ONLY Paul Verhoven good have made.
When I heard about the series I was upset until I realised that it's better than having nothing to follow on from the movie because it is unlikely that Vaerhoven would ever get around to a Troopers 2. -
Hi Morgan. The points you noted really weren't that subtle, but I did like the way you summed it. I completely agree, and that sentiment seems echoed by the controversy of the book. Was it a utopia or a dystopia? In the end it doesn't matter, because nature doesn't care about the moral and political questions we pose to it. It is precisely the amorality of it that seems to repulse the critics of its politics. It still doesn't make the movie Shakespeare, but it did add an interesting twist to what could have been a banal film.
-
In fact I liked it and was surprised at how well the fascist feel of the book was brought through. In fact my one problem with the film is that they didn't have the power armor (yeah I know that they couldn't afford it with their budget, but at least they could have thrown one in at the end when they are talking about the new weapons. How hard would it have been to do one 10 second CG shot of a power armor blowing up the mountain instead of the Marine with the new fangeled gun) Even though I thought the movie was good I still stand by my statement that they should dump the film (except, of course, for the great bug designs, which they kept. Yay!!) and start fresh using the book as their guide, because as good as the movie was it wasn't even close to being as good as the book. I wouldn't want to see an opportunity like this series turn into nothing more than a forty episode television adaptation of the film.
-
I think that aside from the film making decisions, bad acting, super model kids, ect. (though I thought that the reason that everyone, except of course Jake Busey, looked like a supermodel was probably because of things that they would have in the future, like genetic engineering) all of the story elements that Morgan points out were just Verhoven (sp?) being faithful to the issues focused on in the book, and not his own ideas. IMHO him keeping faithful to those issues from the book is what made the movie successful, though it would have helped if he would have included the blue Skinnys battle scene to show that it wasn't just the good humans against the evil bugs, and in fact the humans might have been just as bad, or worst than the bugs in many ways.
-
I think that aside from the film making decisions, bad acting, super model kids, ect. (though I thought that the reason that everyone, except of course Jake Busey, looked like a supermodel was probably because of things that they would have in the future, like genetic engineering) all of the story elements that Megatron, if you think it was just good jumans vs evil bugs, you really missed a big portion of the movie. The Nazi overtones were quite obvious. Verhoeven cast the blonde beautiful people specifically for their aryan look. Doogie's Gestapo getup should have tipped you off right away. I think the book, taken directly, would make a terrible movie, as it is mostly a philosophical treatise -a fascist Utopia or Dystopia, depending on how you read it.
The book was smart. To quote Roger Ebert, the movie was probably 'the most violent kids movie ever made.' It seemed juvenile, but had just enough of an edge to keep it interesting. Was it 'unbearable'? Not really. It met my expectations. The book gave me something completely different than I expected. -
I never said that I thought the film was just the good humans verses the evil bugs. All I said was that including the very important "Skinny" battle scene from the book would have clarified the humans role even more, especially for the many people who didn't get it, and did think that it was the "good humans verses the evil bugs". After all IMO the reason that Heinlein started the novel that way was not only to introduce the characters and technology, but to let the reader know right off the bat that they might not be rooting for the humans after all, because in that scene the humans are the ones commiting the atrocities. It shows that in war there are no set good and bad sides, and that Heinlein wasn't going to bullshit the reader by making the humans good guys. This scene was needed in the film very much to really push that idea further than just making the human uniform designs and symbols mildly resemble the Nazis.
-
This is a great discussion everybody! But I'm stuck with a concern that kids won't get the Nazi satire at all. I love animation, and I don't think it should just be for kids, but the rest of our society has yet to arrive at that way of thinking. So this cartoon is probably beind designed for kids with toys and everything. Is as show based on Heinlein's book really something that should be shown to kids? Will they(5 to 10-year-olds) get it? If not, well, isn't that very bad!? Unless some of the characters realize the evil side of humanity in the war, the message won't be clear to kids--and I don't have a lot of faith in Johnny Rico's mental apprehension abilities. Maybe Clancy Brown will figure it out...um, after he pulls a knife ...out of another...student's...
never mind. -
Wow. Thank you to everyone for your feedback. In my opinion, this is the kind of discussion these forums should be used for, rather than simply making inflamatory statements for shock value or for general bitch sessions. In regard to some of your comments, in hindsight, I agree that my points were perhaps not all that subtle, but everybody I talked to seemed to have an awkward interpretation of the film, none exactly as I stated. That's just my fault for living under a rock. As to your comments about some of the more questionable aspects of my assessment (i.e. bad acting, moral incongruities), I think this points to the extremely experimental nature of the film. I wish I could speak of the book (which I have not read, but I will when I have time), but from what I know of it, Heinlein was asked to do a children's adventure novel, and the satirical aspects were not expected, asked for, or generally appreciated. This makes me wonder as well what kind of series this will make, though I admit I am extremely disinterested and will probably not watch it. I could go on and on, but I have to go meet Neil Gaiman now. Yay!
-
I was disappointed when coming across the page that it only listed the "recognizable" actors on the series that people would know. I haven't seen the cast list anywhere yet and apparently the others are not "well-known" actors, but they ARE part of the series... famous or not. I thought it a little ignorant to assume no one else would know the actors... How is anybody going to GET to know them, unless they're given the attention they deserve? Unfortunately, Hollywood gives more attention to the people we can see... not the "invisible actors" who work behind the scenes. The voice actors are equally, if not more talented than a lot of the "celebrities" today. They deserve a lot more credit than they receive.
Thanks for listening... Kristy at Voice Chasers - Dedicated to the Recognition of Voice Actors
-
I think you're missing a fairly important point here by saying that Heinlein was trying to show the humans as being "not entirly good". This book was written not too long after the end of WWII. This would be the war in which the US Army Air Corps completely erased Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki from the maps of Germany and Japan simply to show the civilian population of those countries that their armed forces couldn't protect them. To a modern viewer, that is reprehensible, and would be considered a war crime. Up until the mid to late 1960's, however, that was considered to be a _good_idea_, and was part of our national defense policy, with almost complete support of the citizenry. The actions taken by characters within the book are certainly no worse than anything like that. Remember to take what you read in the context of when it was written, not when it's being read. Heinlein's main point in the book is simply the glorification of the dirty doughboy who is called upon in every war to fight and die for his home, and to show what a noble fate that can be. I've read the book more than 30 times, and I've never caught a hint of irony - but then, I read it from the perspective of late-1950's American science fiction. Considering when it was written, the main thing I always notice when reading it is how it doesn't feel particularly dated at all. That's one of the reasons I consider Heinlein to be a master of the sci-fi genre.
-
Heh... I forgot to check the dates of the postings - I'm willing to bet precisely _no_one_ reads a word I've written....
Readers Talkback
User Login
Top Talkbacks
- Whitney Houston 1963 - 2012 -- 419 total posts 209 posts
- WTF HOLLYWOOD: SOLARBABIES -- 131 total posts 129 posts
- Herc’s Seen Tonight’s Return Of THE WALKING DEAD!! Discuss Also DOWNTON ABBEY, FEAR FACTOR, PAN AM, ONCE, SIMPSONS, DYNAMITE, LUCK, SHAMELESS, BAIT CAR, THE GRAMMYS And More!! Sunday Is Sweeps Day 11!! -- 123 total posts 122 posts
- New JUDGE DREDD post production footage pops up -- 124 total posts 58 posts
- There's a STAR TREK video game that is going to lead into JJ's STAR TREK 2 apparently... -- 191 total posts 47 posts
- Avid Comic Reader Hercules Does Battle With Tedium During Kevin Smith’s COMIC BOOK MEN! -- 43 total posts 43 posts
- If the Behind the Scenes Pics of the Day drops her pen, pick it up, but don’t look at her legs or else it will be on your record. -- 60 total posts 42 posts
- I am The Behind the Scenes Pics of the Day! No, I’m the Behind the Scenes Pic of the Day! -- 27 total posts 27 posts
- To Commemorate The 3D Release Of STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE, George Lucas Wants You To Know...Greedo Shoots First!! -- 506 total posts 26 posts
- HANNA's Saoirse Ronan to boss around seven little people -- 77 total posts 24 posts