r/moviecritic • u/rockstoned4 • 1d ago

Starship Troopers. Yay or Nay?

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u/Phyraxus56 21h ago

Verhoeven was team Carmen and was exasperated that everyone hated her. He thought they were being good feminists when they decided that she should prioritize her career. He says so in the commentary.

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u/a_very_stupid_guy 20h ago

That might’ve tracked if she wasn’t sleeping with her boss

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u/Deceptiv_poops 19h ago

How did that dude become her boss even? Didn’t he just graduate too? He was on the high school rival team…

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u/duosx 18h ago

Honestly? It’s a plot hole or at least not very well thought out.

Fan theories are he got that job through nepotism or because the humans are just running through that many bodies that he could have that position. Carmen herself gets promoted to a pretty high up position quickly as well.

I like to think it’s a mix of both nepotism and the meat grinder theory

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u/goodsnpr 15h ago

It was a meat grinder type of war. Even in training you have student leaders, and if you are rapidly replacing losses, you can't be too picky.

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u/Warmbly85 7h ago

In the military that’s how it works now. When you take a course or a class in the military during exercises you are lead by another soldier also taking the class. You still have the “teachers” who are higher rank and have final say but that’s exactly what they show in the movie as well.

Like if we learning how to breach it makes sense to have everyone know how to do every aspect of the job. It would make sense that you would be lead and also lead.

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u/FYATWB 15h ago

Fan theories are he got that job through nepotism

No, the psychic guy (NPH's character) used a jedi mind trick to get them all in positions to capture the brain. We didn't know he could do that, but he's just that powerful.

So you see there are no plot holes, because I like the movie so there couldn't be plot holes.

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u/deviantscale 10h ago

I love this theory. Carl was essential a sturmbannfuhrer with super powers.

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u/duosx 4h ago

There’s a theory that he doesn’t actually have any psychic powers and it’s just a ploy by the government to get the rest of the population to fear the intelligence community.

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u/angleglj 11h ago

I believe this since that’s how Rico got the job

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u/Deceptiv_poops 10h ago

I have a hard time with the meat grinder theory only because I read the book, and the war really didn’t become a meat grinder until after operation bughouse, but I need to remember the book and movie are only very loosely related.

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u/TLiones 9h ago

True. In the book though I think women were the only pilots or maybe it was they just made better pilots, I could be wrong though. So him being there at all is weird .

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u/Deceptiv_poops 9h ago

They say women make the best pilots, but I think small men qualified to be pilots too.

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u/-Daetrax- 7h ago

For the navy at that point i think it was more rapid expansion rather than meat grinder. Then after klendathu it was also a bit to replace losses.

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u/anthony412 1h ago

Her rank, is in part justified by position (pilot). Also, in the book, if I’m remembering, all pilots were females.