Every once in a great while, for reasons largely unknowable by mere mortals but which are certainly more likely related to dumb luck or Mercury being in retrograde than to anything driven by economics, Hollywood gets it right. From the recent “Battle: Los Angeles” to “Iron Man” or the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, Hollywood does, occasionally, capture the values and spirit that have made America and the west ascendant and free.
They just can’t be counted on to do it on purpose or with any consistency.
But what happens when our elite betters get their hands on a property, an underlying work, champions western values? A project so infused with pro-military, pro-Republican, and pro-civilization ethics and themes that they simply cannot be denied?
The answer is: They turn it into 1997’s farcical, self-hating flop: “Starship Troopers,” which Bill Whittle discusses on this week’s TAKE A MOVIE TO WORK segment at Declaration Entertainment.
In his 1959 novel, Robert Heinlein celebrates the idea of the Republic – a nation where the citizen holds supreme power. Like our Founding Fathers, who call for a Republican – and not a democratic – government in the Constitution, Heinlein sees direct democracy as an untenable form of government where the mob rules, voting themselves more and more power and resources at the expense of the perpetual “other.”
In Heinlein’s vision of Republican government, by contrast, only those who serve their society – not only militarily, but through various forms of service that require personal sacrifice – for two years are given the right to be citizens, and only citizens can vote. No member of the population, regardless of color, creed, sex, or religion, can be turned away from service if they are willing, and every person has fundamental rights protected from lawmakers (what a novel concept!), but only citizens can vote.
Of course, to Dutch director Paul Verhoeven, these beautiful ideas are, wait for it, FASCIST!
Says Verhoeven said in an interview with AV Club, “all this playing with fascism or fascist imagery to point out certain aspects of American society…” He goes on to say, “If you were very nice to the movie, you would call it prophetic,” because of what he sees as the, “‘Let’s all go to war and let’s all die,” jingoism of the War on Terror. BushHitler, BushHitler!
So Heinlein’s political sci-fi classic is reduced to a cheep-shot at the author’s own beliefs. Verhoeven says he never even finished reading the novel. He didn’t have to. He knew what kind of story he wanted to tell, but lacked the creativity to come up with a compelling setting for his diatribe. So he borrowed it from Heinlein, and he destroyed it.
Which is why we started Declaration Entertainment. If Hollywood won’t make the kinds of movies we want to see, we think maybe we should just make them ourselves. Stop by and consider joining us, and see Bill Whittle’s new video on “Starship Troopers,” “Destination Moon,” and Robert Heinlein.
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