If Veterans Ruled the World | Starship Troopers

The Starship Troopers movie has long been accused of being an unfaithful adaptation of the book, but its politics match the sci-fi military classic more closely than you may realize.

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Thanks to AlternateHistoryHub for helping spread propaganda.

Thanks to Not Just Bikes for reading semi-fascist quotes.

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-Books-

Starship Troopers (1959) by Robert Heinlein

The Forever War (1974) by Joe Haldeman

-Movies and TV-

Director's Commentary by Paul Verhoeven and Ed Neumeier (DVD/Bluray Extra)
Cast Commentary by Paul Verhoeven, Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, and Neil Patrick Harris (DVD/Bluray Extra)

-Youtube Videos-

-Websites-

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Video Credits -

Photo Credits -

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Produced with the assistance of Rozarah

Researched with the assistance of Jesspsettle

Armor and Ferret Helmets by Donnythenuts

Helmet by PoppedPrinting

Intro/Outro and Background Music by Michael Cotten/Nomad

Intro Art and Channel Avatar by PoetheWonderCat

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Hashtags: #starshiptroopers #sciencefiction #politics #veterans #literature #books #scifi #infantry #army #military #veteran #citizen

0:00 Intro
1:16 Movie
17:52 Book
43:01 Author
54:44 Legacy

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This video was sponsored by CuriosityStream and Nebula.

[KnowingBetter]

Be sure to check out the Director's Commentary on Twitch tomorrow - twitch.tv/knowingbetteryt
Starcraft was inspired by Warhammer 40k, which itself was inspired by Starship Troopers. It's Starship Troopers all the way down.

[MichieHoward]

Alternate title to this video; *This most anti-war anti-authoritarian movie ever produced inspired me somehow to join the military.*

[AlternateHistoryHub]

That voice sounds familiar. Fantastic video! I'm so glad to have been apart of it.

[jessew]

Fun fact about the shower scene, the actors agreed to do it only if the director and camera crew were also naked.

[fritzthecat]

starship troopers 2 has the best directors commentary quote which (its been a couple decades) but was something along the lines of "our budget was 2$ and we spent 1.5$ on the bus ride to the studio"

[Leitis_Fella]

The part about a crime surge being caused by unspanked juvenile brigands was absolutely hilarious

[therealuncleowen]

I think the book Jarhead described it best. No matter how anti-war a movie might be, young men will still be inspired by it, missing or dismissing the deeper message while humming along to Ride of the Valkyries.

[renard]

One of the most meaningful scenes was deleted from the movie: If I remember correctly, Rico finds the legless recruiter outside work, using some prosthetics that let him walk normally. He says everything is an act meant to discourage people from joining the military: If they are truly committed, they will see this mutilated man and still join regardless.

[Baldwin-iv]

My personal theory for Rasczak going from teacher to soldier again is that he wasn't actually retired, just in reserve, and was called to active duty after the bug rock strike, which he survived since he went on vacation for the school summer.

[matthewmcneany]

"They get into a fight in the shower and agree to mutually respect each other" - not a euphemism.

[paranoiawilldestroyya]

I took my son to see "Starship Troopers", but was kind of concerned about the R rating. I asked a theater employee about he reason for the rating. She said there was a shower scene in the movie with some nudity. I was okay with that; everyone has seen a naked body, and most will see at least one of each sex. She didn't say anything about people being ripped in half; I think we have become far to inured to violence and too sensitive to natural human reproductive functions.

[kirkdarling]

In the book, Zim gives Rico something to bite down on during his lashing with the clear implication that Zim himself had also suffered a lashing early in his own career.

[Rukhage]

Be prepared for the deluge of Helldivers 2 players coming here to get more info.

A real life "Do You Want To Know More" moment.

[day]

12:37 Actually Rasczak's presence is easily explanation as you're ignoring the 3rd option: Rasczak, for whatever reason, was away from Buenos Aires when the meteor hit, saw his family get smushed, and decided to re-enroll in the military out of anger. The movie even hinted at this potentiality when Rico discusses why Rasczak never smiles anymore.

[flameblade]

KB: “I want to stop making hour long videos and get back to 20-30 minutes”

Also KB: makes every video exactly 1 hour

[gaillewis]

When this movie came out, a friend of mine who read the book (now a pandemic shut-in) suggested we see it. I thought the propaganda satire was hilarious. It's scary how advertisement for both consumer goods and the military look like this now. Every once in a while, I'll hang out with my sister and while watching TV and she'll whisper, "Do you want to know more?" We both crack up.

[Violaphobia]

I don’t want to accuse Heinlein of not thinking too hard about the Sci-Fi part of his story, but if women have faster reflexes and can also use power armor then they should absolutely be in the mobile infantry

[CocoHutzpah]

It's amusing that the mobile infantry of the book are heavy inspiration for Warhammer 40k Space Marines (and if you go back to Rogue Trader, even more so) yet the movie turned the mobile infantry into the Imperial Guard.

[VidVoyager]

What I remember from the book about the K9 unit was that the handler and the animal became so attached to one another, due to the fact that it was usually the handlers own dog and the physic implants, that if the animal were to die in combat/recon, the handler would soon follow due to a mental breakdown.

[FranTRf]

As someone from Argentina, some insight about the blonde blue eyed person in Buenos Aires: that's actually not quite uncommon here.

Due to being a port city, the number of immigrants that arrived here was HUGE, more so around World Wart 2 and shortly after. Lots of ukrainian, polish, Italian, Spanish, swedish, french... Lots of small hubs for each country formed in Buenos Aires and not all of them ended up mixing with the local populace, hence the spectrum of skin color in Argentina is HUGE.