Hi Fi Writer - R4 DVD Reviews: Starship Troopers

Region 4 DVD Reviews: Two Starships of Troopers

Originally published in Australian HI-FI, Feb/Mar 2002, v.33/1

Starship Troopers
1997
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Starring: Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, Denise Richards, Neil Patrick Harris Starship Troopers (Special Edition)
1997
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Starring: Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, Denise Richards, Neil Patrick Harris
Movie: D, Picture: A, Sound: A, Extras: D Movie: D, Picture: A, Sound: A, Extras: A
In the rush to get the DVD version of 1997's Starship Troopers on the Australian shelves a couple of years ago, Warner Home Video committed two sins unforgivable in the eyes of many DVD enthusiasts. The first was that the DVD was a 'flipper'--half the movie on one side, half on the other. The second sin was absence of the extra features contained on the US release.
As Roadshow has recently done with a new release of Se7en (since the first version was presented in, gasp, 4:3 format), Buena Vista Home Entertainment, now distributing its own releases, has issued a 'Special Edition' of Starship Troopers which includes all the extras of the US release and keeps everything on one side of the dual layer DVD.
Even though a flipper, the first version was universally acclaimed for both its picture quality and its sound quality. The new version does not disappoint on this front, remaining an exceptionally high quality presentation. It deserves and gets As on both fronts. Note, though, that Buena Vista has made some mistakes on the cover: the movie is not presented, as claimed, in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1 for the simple reason that the original aspect was 1.85:1. And 1.85:1 is how it is presented on the DVD.
Likewise, the covers of both versions of the movie share an error which DVD distributors should, by now, have worked out of their systems. The movie is neither the 130 minutes in length claimed on the original, nor the 129 on the new version. It is 124 minutes and 18 seconds long in the PAL version, thanks to the four per cent speed-up adopted for PAL presentation of film-sourced material.
If you can overlook the appalling physics, silly military science and horribly contrived situations, Starship Troopers is an engaging sci-fi action piece. It's also an interesting satire on the values espoused in the movie, thanks primarily to propaganda interludes that look like the work of a latter-day Herr Goebbels. If this looks and sounds familiar, remember that director Verhoeven, screenwriter Ed Neumeier, music writer Basil Poledouris, cinematographer Jost Vacano and special effects master Phil Tippett were largely responsible for 1987's Robocop.
Robocop was a genuinely funny, black, original piece of work. Starship Troopers, though, is based on Robert A Heinlein's 1959 novel. Controversial from the start, the publisher of his previous dozen novels rejected it out of hand. Heinlein swapped publishers and the book went on to win Science Fiction's top award, the Hugo.
Knowing the book I found the movie intensely disappointing. It would be nice to say that the disappointments are for the usual reasons--poor compression of a complex story, making a novel better fit the two-hour movie format, sheer incompetence--but these do not apply. As the commentary track makes clear, Verhoeven and Neumeier were intent on making the piece an anti-fascist parable, with the implication that the novel was, indeed, fascist.
But it wasn't. Controversial, yes. As intended. Heinlein, upset by a declaration by President Eisenhower of a unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing and what he saw as a rising tide of pacifism, wrote the book to argue that fighting in defence of one's nation and ideals is a morally worthy enterprise. This view is open to argument (Harry Harrison responded with an excellent satirical novel, Bill the Galactic Hero) but should not be subverted in a movie allegedly based on the book. Especially not when the hero of the novel was the Filipino Juan Rico, compared to the movie's whiter than white Casper Van Diem.
Features
Running time: 124 minutes
Aspect: 1.85:1 anamorphic
Sound track: English, French, Italian all Dolby Digital 5.1, 384kb/s
Subtitles: English, Dutch, French, Italian, English for the hearing impaired, French (for screen titles), Italian (for screen titles)
Features: Nil Features
Running time: 124 minutes
Aspect: 1.85:1 anamorphic
Sound track: English, German, Spanish, Dolby Digital 5.1, 384kb/s; Russian, Dolby Digital 2.0 (with Dolby Pro Logic encoding) 192kb/s; Commentary, Dolby Digital 2.0 192kb/s
Subtitles: English, English for the hearing impaired, French, Italian, German, German for the hearing impared, Spanish, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Icelandic, Portuguese, Hebrew, Greek, Croatian, Slovenian, Estonian, German (for screen titles), Spanish (for screen titles), German (commentary track), Spanish (commentary track), Swedish (commentary track), Norwegian (commentary track), Danish (commentary track), Finnish (commentary track)
Features: Commentary track, Actors' Screen Tests (3:32), Trailer (1:48), Featurette (7:49), Three scene developments (8:26 in total), Five deleted scenes (7:48 in total)

Starship Troopers 1997 Director: Paul Verhoeven Starring: Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, Denise Richards, Neil Patrick Harris	Starship Troopers (Special Edition) 1997 Director: Paul Verhoeven Starring: Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, Denise Richards, Neil Patrick Harris
Movie: D, Picture: A, Sound: A, Extras: D	Movie: D, Picture: A, Sound: A, Extras: A
In the rush to get the DVD version of 1997's Starship Troopers on the Australian shelves a couple of years ago, Warner Home Video committed two sins unforgivable in the eyes of many DVD enthusiasts. The first was that the DVD was a 'flipper'--half the movie on one side, half on the other. The second sin was absence of the extra features contained on the US release. As Roadshow has recently done with a new release of Se7en (since the first version was presented in, gasp, 4:3 format), Buena Vista Home Entertainment, now distributing its own releases, has issued a 'Special Edition' of Starship Troopers which includes all the extras of the US release and keeps everything on one side of the dual layer DVD. Even though a flipper, the first version was universally acclaimed for both its picture quality and its sound quality. The new version does not disappoint on this front, remaining an exceptionally high quality presentation. It deserves and gets As on both fronts. Note, though, that Buena Vista has made some mistakes on the cover: the movie is not presented, as claimed, in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1 for the simple reason that the original aspect was 1.85:1. And 1.85:1 is how it is presented on the DVD. Likewise, the covers of both versions of the movie share an error which DVD distributors should, by now, have worked out of their systems. The movie is neither the 130 minutes in length claimed on the original, nor the 129 on the new version. It is 124 minutes and 18 seconds long in the PAL version, thanks to the four per cent speed-up adopted for PAL presentation of film-sourced material.	If you can overlook the appalling physics, silly military science and horribly contrived situations, Starship Troopers is an engaging sci-fi action piece. It's also an interesting satire on the values espoused in the movie, thanks primarily to propaganda interludes that look like the work of a latter-day Herr Goebbels. If this looks and sounds familiar, remember that director Verhoeven, screenwriter Ed Neumeier, music writer Basil Poledouris, cinematographer Jost Vacano and special effects master Phil Tippett were largely responsible for 1987's Robocop. Robocop was a genuinely funny, black, original piece of work. Starship Troopers, though, is based on Robert A Heinlein's 1959 novel. Controversial from the start, the publisher of his previous dozen novels rejected it out of hand. Heinlein swapped publishers and the book went on to win Science Fiction's top award, the Hugo. Knowing the book I found the movie intensely disappointing. It would be nice to say that the disappointments are for the usual reasons--poor compression of a complex story, making a novel better fit the two-hour movie format, sheer incompetence--but these do not apply. As the commentary track makes clear, Verhoeven and Neumeier were intent on making the piece an anti-fascist parable, with the implication that the novel was, indeed, fascist. But it wasn't. Controversial, yes. As intended. Heinlein, upset by a declaration by President Eisenhower of a unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing and what he saw as a rising tide of pacifism, wrote the book to argue that fighting in defence of one's nation and ideals is a morally worthy enterprise. This view is open to argument (Harry Harrison responded with an excellent satirical novel, Bill the Galactic Hero) but should not be subverted in a movie allegedly based on the book. Especially not when the hero of the novel was the Filipino Juan Rico, compared to the movie's whiter than white Casper Van Diem.
Features Running time: 124 minutes Aspect: 1.85:1 anamorphic Sound track: English, French, Italian all Dolby Digital 5.1, 384kb/s Subtitles: English, Dutch, French, Italian, English for the hearing impaired, French (for screen titles), Italian (for screen titles) Features: Nil	Features Running time: 124 minutes Aspect: 1.85:1 anamorphic Sound track: English, German, Spanish, Dolby Digital 5.1, 384kb/s; Russian, Dolby Digital 2.0 (with Dolby Pro Logic encoding) 192kb/s; Commentary, Dolby Digital 2.0 192kb/s Subtitles: English, English for the hearing impaired, French, Italian, German, German for the hearing impared, Spanish, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Icelandic, Portuguese, Hebrew, Greek, Croatian, Slovenian, Estonian, German (for screen titles), Spanish (for screen titles), German (commentary track), Spanish (commentary track), Swedish (commentary track), Norwegian (commentary track), Danish (commentary track), Finnish (commentary track) Features: Commentary track, Actors' Screen Tests (3:32), Trailer (1:48), Featurette (7:49), Three scene developments (8:26 in total), Five deleted scenes (7:48 in total)