Starship Troopers SPECIAL EFFECTS REMOVED! - VFX Breakdown
66.5K views · Published January 20, 2022 · 6:57
Starship Troopers is a big-budget film from 1997 that barely grossed more than the $100 million it took to make and received negative reviews from both film critics and the general public. However, just like Van Gogh's work wasn't appreciated until decades after death, Starship Troopers was also, a bit too far ahead of its time!
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One of the main reasons for its flop was the manor in which it was sold.
The trailer, print advertising, and TV spots all sold the film as a "Big-Budget Action Movie" with lines like [put on deep movie trailer voice] "In every age, there is a cause worth fighting for!" and "From the Director of Total Recall and Robocop!"
This meant that the audience and critics entered the theatre expecting to watch a cross between Star Wars and Total Recall and instead found themselves watching a gory action film that "in their eyes" was promoting fascism, when in actual fact it was supposed to be satirical and Ironic.
Oddly enough the biggest irony of the film was that it warned us about how the use of propaganda and the media could make the general public accept a fascist state, and yet the film itself failed because of the propaganda the media had generated against it.
Unfortunately, all this confusion inhibited people from seeing the extremely clever way this movie was written, directed, and made, and the way it brought to light the fascist nature of most action films and indeed war itself, the way it made the protagonists oblivious to their own fascism, and the way it made the audience unaware that they were actually rooting for the characters who were the biggest fascists of them all.
The Bugs.
In the original 1959 novel, the enemy was Pseudo-arachnid, but for the movie the director wanted to have them more like alien bugs, he felt that people had an instant dislike for bugs which would automatically cast them as the enemy, also, in films, books, comics, and indeed throughout history, the winning side is always portrayed as justified heroes and the losing side is always completely inhumane, 100% bad or evil, and something that needs to be exterminated or squashed, just like a bug.
Tippet Studio and VFX legend Phil Tippett were brought in to design and build the alien bugs, following the director's vision, Tippet decided to create a military hierarchy within the alien bugs.
The warrior bugs were the infantry, the Hoppers were the Airforce, the Plasma bugs were heavy artillery and the Tanker bugs were, well, tanks, there was even a commander that was known as "The Brain Bug".
The Starships.
The majority of model ships were produced by Thunderstone (Sony's model shop) with ILM and Boss also contributing, and even though all the smaller attack ships were CGI, they still had to build 13 large ships, including a 5.5 meter model with removable sections for the destruction sequence, 6 x 2.75m models, 4 x 1.4m models, 6 x 50cm models, as well as a Retrieval Boat, a Fighter, a number of damaged ships, and the 2.5m tall Ticonderoga Station, 2 hue asteroids, including a massive 6.75m section for close-ups and the lunar ring, there were in fact so many models to build that it took them a total of 14 months to complete them all.
Motion-Control Shots.
For the Classroom sequences where Michael Ironside had an amputated arm, a practical prosthetic arm was created. This prosthetic arm was attached to his side, the scene was then filmed with a motion-control camera, the camera then repeated the pass without the actor. Later in post, Ironside's real arm was roto'ed out and replaced with the clean background plate.
A similar process was used for when Johnny Rico is undergoing underwater surgery, the actor was shot immersed in the tank for one motion-control pass, then the prosthetic leg was placed in the tank and a clean pass was shot, both shots were then digitally composited in post.
In showing a society that responds to any perceived threat with violence, and that can only continue to function by moving from war to war, regardless of the final outcome.
A society that sends young people to war by making them think they are defending their society's freedom when in reality they are the invading force.
Starship Troopers didn't fail because it was badly made or badly written,
It failed because not only did it show the flaws of a fascist society, but it also showed just how similar that society is to our own.
It failed because it's easy to hate a society full of ugly beings that speak in a foreign tongue, but it's a lot harder to hate it when it has pretty young people that you can understand. It failed because in this movie the "Good Old American Heroes"... turned out to be the Bad Guys.
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Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/focusfame
Like the music in this video? I made it!
Support me by getting it on any of these sites :P
Get it on iTunes: ► https://apple.co/2ENGfu9 ◄
Listen on Spotify: ► https://spoti.fi/3boTfCl ◄
Buy it on Amazon: ► https://amzn.to/2QVJZfk ◄
One of the main reasons for its flop was the manor in which it was sold.
The trailer, print advertising, and TV spots all sold the film as a "Big-Budget Action Movie" with lines like [put on deep movie trailer voice] "In every age, there is a cause worth fighting for!" and "From the Director of Total Recall and Robocop!"
This meant that the audience and critics entered the theatre expecting to watch a cross between Star Wars and Total Recall and instead found themselves watching a gory action film that "in their eyes" was promoting fascism, when in actual fact it was supposed to be satirical and Ironic.
Oddly enough the biggest irony of the film was that it warned us about how the use of propaganda and the media could make the general public accept a fascist state, and yet the film itself failed because of the propaganda the media had generated against it.
Unfortunately, all this confusion inhibited people from seeing the extremely clever way this movie was written, directed, and made, and the way it brought to light the fascist nature of most action films and indeed war itself, the way it made the protagonists oblivious to their own fascism, and the way it made the audience unaware that they were actually rooting for the characters who were the biggest fascists of them all.
The Bugs.
In the original 1959 novel, the enemy was Pseudo-arachnid, but for the movie the director wanted to have them more like alien bugs, he felt that people had an instant dislike for bugs which would automatically cast them as the enemy, also, in films, books, comics, and indeed throughout history, the winning side is always portrayed as justified heroes and the losing side is always completely inhumane, 100% bad or evil, and something that needs to be exterminated or squashed, just like a bug.
Tippet Studio and VFX legend Phil Tippett were brought in to design and build the alien bugs, following the director's vision, Tippet decided to create a military hierarchy within the alien bugs.
The warrior bugs were the infantry, the Hoppers were the Airforce, the Plasma bugs were heavy artillery and the Tanker bugs were, well, tanks, there was even a commander that was known as "The Brain Bug".
The Starships.
The majority of model ships were produced by Thunderstone (Sony's model shop) with ILM and Boss also contributing, and even though all the smaller attack ships were CGI, they still had to build 13 large ships, including a 5.5 meter model with removable sections for the destruction sequence, 6 x 2.75m models, 4 x 1.4m models, 6 x 50cm models, as well as a Retrieval Boat, a Fighter, a number of damaged ships, and the 2.5m tall Ticonderoga Station, 2 hue asteroids, including a massive 6.75m section for close-ups and the lunar ring, there were in fact so many models to build that it took them a total of 14 months to complete them all.
Motion-Control Shots.
For the Classroom sequences where Michael Ironside had an amputated arm, a practical prosthetic arm was created. This prosthetic arm was attached to his side, the scene was then filmed with a motion-control camera, the camera then repeated the pass without the actor. Later in post, Ironside's real arm was roto'ed out and replaced with the clean background plate.
A similar process was used for when Johnny Rico is undergoing underwater surgery, the actor was shot immersed in the tank for one motion-control pass, then the prosthetic leg was placed in the tank and a clean pass was shot, both shots were then digitally composited in post.
In showing a society that responds to any perceived threat with violence, and that can only continue to function by moving from war to war, regardless of the final outcome.
A society that sends young people to war by making them think they are defending their society's freedom when in reality they are the invading force.
Starship Troopers didn't fail because it was badly made or badly written,
It failed because not only did it show the flaws of a fascist society, but it also showed just how similar that society is to our own.
It failed because it's easy to hate a society full of ugly beings that speak in a foreign tongue, but it's a lot harder to hate it when it has pretty young people that you can understand. It failed because in this movie the "Good Old American Heroes"... turned out to be the Bad Guys.
Read more here: www.famefocus.com
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/focusfame