Re: (ReacTor) Five Works of SF That Undermine Their Own Thesis

On 3/17/2025 8:19 AM, Paul S Person wrote:

On 16 Mar 2025 17:42:03 GMT, ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan
<tednolan>) wrote:
 

In article <hiqdtj5rsuitbs2se6hu1kt0ev28qi7aav@4ax.com>,
Paul S Person  <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:

On 15 Mar 2025 16:07:37 GMT, ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan
<tednolan>) wrote:
>

In article <20250315a@crcomp.net>, Don  <g@crcomp.net> wrote:

Lynn McGuire wrote:

James Nicoll wrote:

Five Works of SF That Undermine Their Own Thesis
>
Stories that lead to different conclusions than the author intended...
>
https://reactormag.com/five-works-of-sf-that-undermine-their-own-thesis/

>
Wow, three for five today !  "Starship Troopers", the totally awesome
"Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles", and "Star Trek: The Original
Series".

>
Lynn, stories set in Wyoming (in one way or another) automatically
attain a more favorable review by me in a manner similar to Texas
settings for you. Colorado also works for me in a pinch. So THE
PROBABILITY BROACH (set in Denver) is worthy regardless of its
shortcomings.
    They shot spidery STARSHIP scenes at a location called Hell's Half
Acre - about fifty miles down the highway from my hometown. Here's a
rundown fit for Ted's blog (if only Hell's Half Acre was in Columbia):
<https://county10.com/jeep-rides-starships-and-coffee-hells-half-acre-store/>
    The notion of an infantry soldier in a Powered Suit, shot from a
space vehicle, down to a battlefield, is the most essential part of the
story, in my opinion. But in a fan magazine from back in the day
Verhoeven admits his shoestring budget prohibited Power Suits, so he
focused on bugs instead.
    Afterward the cheap production values were hand-waved away with a
satire cover story. And a touch of T&A thrown in to titillate and
distract from STARSHIP's silver screen scat show. (Another case where
movie porn trumps a woman's right not be seen soley as a sex object.)
>

>
I actually liked the shower scene.  Yes, it was good eye-candy, but
it also made the point these weren't contemporary Americans.

>
I don't recall if that's in /Starship Troopers/, but it (and more) is
in /The Forever War/.

>
There is no sex or casual nudity in the book.  As I recall the military
does include women in combat roles, usually as spaceship pilots, but not
in MI.  Rico admits to liking girls, but nothing any further than that
develops.

 Thinking about it overnight ... I concur.
 So, someone making the movie (and able to influence the script) may
have read Haldeman.
 The spaceship pilots (and other crew) would have been Navy, not
Marines.
 Indeed, military spaceships in SF are often modeled on naval vessels
and their terminology and their traditions.

Something to remember about the SST movie is that it didn't start out as an adaptation of the book.  The producers were already well into pre-production for a low-budget SF movie when they found out that the movie rights to the book were available.  So they bought them for the name recognition and did some last minute changes before filming to kinda-sorta make the movie fit the title.
--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky dirty old man.