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From: Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: (ReacTor) Five Works of SF That Undermine Their Own Thesis
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2025 08:34:02 -0700
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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.