20140312: SciFi Review--Starship Troopers

Starship Troopers

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Japanese/American animated feature length film, 2012, rated R, 88 minutes, scifi, thriller, horror.
2. IMDB: 5.9/10.0 from 6,383 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No score yet...', and 49% liked it from 902 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.3/5.0 from 58,396 audience ratings.
5. Directed by Shinji Aramaki, screenplay by Flint Dille, from a novel by Robert A. Heinlein.
6. Starring: Luci Christian as Carmen Ibanez, David Matranga as Johnny Rico, Justin Doran as Carl Jenkins, David Wald as Hero.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The film's name comes from Robert A. Heinlein's 1959 novel, Starship Troopers.  A live action theatrical film of the same name was released in 1997 directed by Paul Vanderhoeven, followed by Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation (2004, straight to video), and Starship Troopers 3: Marauder (2008, directed by Ed Neumeier).


2. The book was excellent, the first movie was good, the second movie sucked rocks, and the third movie was somewhat better than the second.  This Japanese movie is truer to the American novel than the 2nd or 3rd movies.


3. The Terran Federation consists of humans who are fighting hives of giant insect colonies ruled by intelligent queens.  The initial point of contention for this film is on an asteroid.  On the asteroid is the Terran Fort Casey, which is under attack by a colony of Bugs.


4. The huge warship John A. Warden is docked at Casey.  The Warden has become infested. The much lighter vessel Alesia arrives for evacuation if needed.  The high-ranking psychic Carl Jenkins (played by Neil Patrick Harris in the first film) has taken command from Major Hero just before the Alesia's arrival.  The Mobile Infantry brought by the Alesia join with the survivors of the Warden to try to retake the Warden.


5. Through a series of misadventures, the Alesia is lost, and the Warden is taken over by the Bug queen.  The Bug-controlled Warden heads to Earth (Terra) to start infestation and eradication of humanity there.  The few surviving Mobile Infantry aboard the Warden contact General Rico in orbit around Earth.


6. Will the remnants stop the infestation?  Will Carmen get another command after losing the Warden?  Will Carl's treacherous actions be revealed, or will they be classified as 'research essential to the war' against the Bugs?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: As good as the first film, but with different strengths; looking forward to a sequel.
2. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Art: 9/10 About 60 percent of the time, I thought this film looked wonderful. The other forty percent, I thought it looked fine, but the movements were a bit wooden/slow.


2. Sound: 9/10 No problems.  Loved the music in the closing credits.


3. Voice Acting: 9/10 Just fine.


4. Story: 7/10 The film was set as a film for adults, just as the book was and the first film was.  It is animated but it is rightfully rated R, just as the first film.  I do wish that more exposition had been done about the class warfare between the psychics (the entitled one tenth of one percent) versus everyone else.  Perhaps the biggest positive I could say is that I would like to see another one from the same group (Japanese/Korean, not so much American) who seemed to understand the material well.  The next film should be about whether Carl Jenkins' research was actually worth the betrayals that he wrought against his allies in the Navy and the Mobile Infantry.