Paul Verhoeven Show Girls,Starship Troopers,Basic Instinct

With the exception of Hollow Man, I hope that was just a momentary dip in quality.

I saw Showgirls at a friend's house....I had a hard on an hour before we even popped it in.....I watched Saved By The Bell religiously and the alumni factor had my pecker raging......the scene where Nomi gives the dude a lap dance and you can see her pooter line (in a non- porn? amazing!), I pulled out the covert techniques, baby.....forced my thang 'tween my legs and used my things to bust a nice one....took a bathroom break and buddies were none the wiser.....haha.

showgirls is the best exploration of femeale exploitation to hit/tit the big screen in yrs, thoruough itniguing analysis of gender relationships, the selling of flesh, the forced comeptition, masculinst meanderings etc

esterhastz's (sp?) book american dream (title? i dunno - i only reviewed it a few weeks ago) isf ucking birlliant - the guy is amagical writer

His Dutch films are assaultive, occasionally chaotic. His American films can be equally hard to take, but they are beautifully put together, absolutely controlled. It helps when he has a good script. Ed Neumeier's scripts for RoboCop and Starship Troopers are without flaw. The script for Showgirls is well-constructed overall, but there is, um, trouble in the details. I don't know if the trouble is mine or not though.

Also, Dick Jones = Donald Rumsfeld?

I also saw Total Recall again a couple of years ago. Man, does that production design set a new standard for ugliness. As for Hollow Man--I'd been really looking forward to it, and found it a real let-down. Drives me crazy that dude goes back to the lab.

I haven't seen Robocop since it first came out (and so, not since long before I would've known who Verhoeven was). Now I'm gonna have to rent it, since I remember so little of it.

Are you associated with the Seminar in some way, Tep?

Verhoeven has always been pretty frank with his childhood experiences about growing up during the German occupation and then subsequent American occupation of the Netherlands during WWII and he touches on fascist/ritualized violence quite a bit whether it's Spetters, Soldier Of Orange, Robocop, Starship Troopers - hell, even Flesh And Blood (which I think is due for a re-evaluation)

Verhoeven is ultra-Classic for being the first person ever to show up at the Razzie Awards to collect an award (for worst director - Showgirls).

I like the trash of basic instict too. haven't seen showgirls.

Uh, I just woke up and I realized I can't articulate myself properly. Will post again later.

Re-evalutation - Nah, it's still shite.

-- ethan (ethan...), July 24th, 2001.

Action movies are politics! I didn't sit through Judy Butler seminars fer nuthin'!

I think Verhoeven's fixation with American (or American-influenced) media is pretty neat too--obvious point of reference being the TV stuff in Robocop and the news media in ST.

Another great touch is that everyone speaks English with an American accent, even though the protagonists are Argentinean (and have Spanish surnames).

http://www.williamshockley.com/showgirl.jpg

It's amazing how many people I talk to who, despite having never seen Showgirls turn up their nose and presume I'm some kind of smug contrarian when I start in defending it. The critical assassination of this film was so swift and so thorough that I doubt that critical appreciations of it will ever be untainted by defensiveness. Case in point: the only recent local screening of Showgirls was at some drag fest where people were encouraged to hoot and holler at the screen a la Rocky Horror. I mean, I'm not suggesting it be greeted with a Passion of Joan of Arc-like solemnity, but still it is obvious to me that the film is not in the "so-bad-it's-good" category. At. All.

I have to give major props to one of my best friends, who worked up the courage to rent Showgirls (having been skeptical of my reports of my professor's enthusiasm) and called me to say "It's awesome." He then zeroed in on what was best about the film without being caught up in the camp factor: its scuzzy integrity, its formal confidence, its harshness.

It's a road sign pointing the way to Los Angeles (or Hollywood, I forget which).

Also, aside from its scuzzy integrity, its formal confidence, and its harshness, what I enjoy most in the film are the script and the acting.

Hell, they should read Heinlein's original book. Verhoeven tones the fascism down a bit by playing up the satire.

Totally, that's why the movie is so great. He really takes Heinlein to task and points out how Heinlein satirizes his own project.

(Also I'm totally not an auteurist. Totally.)

http://filmlinc.com/wrt/onsale/fcs07/blackbook.html

Oh that note, I hate Babette's Feast so intensely, I hope I never have to see it someday.

uh so guys apparently 172 minute cut of Showgirls out next month

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/51gzBnlog7L._SS500_.jpg

Good god. What's left to show?

(Oh right, never mind, we find out Nomi's a replicant.)

man i watched starship troopers last night and that movie is fucking ridiculous. i think it was made by an alien. or a god.

I like how they've abandoned the old DVD cover approach and it's all sparkles and red leopard print and gay gay gay now
x-post

wtf isn't this like the 4th DVD release of this

can there be too many?

yeah that pull quote is sort of deflating

3rd I think, did anyone buy the one with the shot glasses and the playing cards?

I think Verhoeven's fixation with American (or American-influenced) media is pretty neat too--obvious point of reference being the TV stuff in Robocop and the news media in ST.

What? ST is *all* about America. Not only the media is attacked, but everything is about how America sees the world, how it attacks,... ST is a criticism on American politics.

I think it's one of the best films EVAH made.

My favorite line from any movie, ever:
"You LIKE that BURGER!"

did anyone buy the one with the shot glasses and the playing cards?

HI DERE. Chaki held a used copy for me at the old place he worked at.

how are the commentaries? I wanted to hear them but I wasn't sure I wanted that thing in my house

I hope there's an Elizabeth Berklee commentary

I mean ILX is one thing but a fuckoff Showgirls box set might be hard to explain to most non-insane people

David Schmader's commentary is one of the funniest performance pieces ever. I've played that at people and literally had them falling out of chairs roffling at the results; I can only imagine what the live screenings were like.

examples, plz

It has a lot to do with the delivery, trust me.

What? ST is *all* about America. Not only the media is attacked, but everything is about how America sees the world, how it attacks,... ST is a criticism on American politics.

I think it's one of the best films EVAH made.

-- stevienixed

Yes, that's it. I was asked what my favourite movie of all time was today, and I said something like 'I've Heard the Mermaids Singing' or something. But now I wish I'd said ST. It's certainly one of the most hard hitting, ascerbic, Swiftian, aggressively critical films on the subject of US foreign policy of all time. Not to mention the funniest. 'Team America' ploughs the same field and is almost, but not quite, as funny and brilliant.

i love Starship Troopers

Yeah, since there's no camp value in this one I may like it (or even see it).

-- Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 18 January 2007 16:00 (5 months ago) Link

ahahahaha o how wrong you were, Black Books has got campness up the wazoo

I actually kinda fear a giant extended cut of Showgirls will ruin the whole thing by including all the basic character development that was hilariously missing from the original.

Probably just boobs and slapping, though.

man i watched starship troopers last night and that movie is fucking ridiculous. i think it was made by an alien. or a god.

-- max, Tuesday, June 19, 2007 8:37 PM (2 days ago)

i will assume, for the sake of our facebook friendship, that you mean 'ridiculously AWESOME.'

hopefully both at the same time

xpost

starship troopers is post-awesome

What the hell does 'post-awesome' mean? So beyond awesome it isn't awesome?

i can roll with that xpost

beyond even the restrictive categories of "awesome/not awesome"

This I accept gladly.

Can someone please Starship Troopers or explain to me why and how it wasn't horrible? It was extremely lumbering and heavy-handed as satire; it was embarassingly obvious and lacked any subtlety or nuance or whatever. Also the writing and acting and p much everything else was, like, bad in a way that seemed unintentional and in a manner that its target audience wouldn't even notice or question and not, like, a commentary on other dumb obvious sci-fi films.

Can someone please defend* Starship Troopers

It came off like a really low-budget cable drama with an inexplicably large production/sfx budget

I watched it back to back with The Fifth Element (I've always linked them in my mind, maybe bcz they're both huge sci-fi summer blockbusters made in 1997) and T5E seemed to do everything right (it was fun and wacky and didn't take itself too seriously and had legit lols and was really interesting to look at) where ST did everything wrong (took itself seriously in the wrong kinds of ways, came off as painfully formulaic and phoned in, looked blah)

Subtlety and nuance aren't actually drivers in satire.

well, Juvenalian satire

also the score was totally inane and stupid and the whole film just came off like it was trying way too hard, really.

well okay it can lack subtlety and nuance but it should at least still be clever in some way which ST very much was *not*

For me, a large part of what makes Starship Troopers work so well is that you are essentially spending the whole movie rooting for the vacant pretty people who reveal themselves to be equivalent to Nazis, which is a sharp, pointed inversion and commentary on the original story as well as a broader comment on the authoritarian aspects of American culture. If you don't like that aspect of the movie, there isn't much there to enjoy.

i kinda feel like these movies are fun to have watched but not to watch

been a long time on all three tho

what's not to like?
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xplav8_starship-troopers-nude-group-shower_sexy#.Ua4z3JXdAZY

xp no, Showgirls is definitely fun to watch

I can't really fathom preferring something as deliberately stupid as T5E to ST tbh

and I am a huge Moebius/Heavy Metal fan

DJP otm basically

there's a whole thread about starship troopers that should answer stevie's questions

fifth element is prettier than starship troopers. it would make for a better theme park.

The deliberate stupidity is what makes The Fifth Element great IMO

I see no reason to choose between T5E and ST

I just meant I agreed w you about what makes ST work. but yeah T5E is a separate issue

You've devoted so much time to defending ineptly bad stuff that you forgot to find joy in the expertly bad, Stevie.

Like it still angers me that you love 99 things from a goddamned Diet Coke ad from 1995 but can't find one thing to love about Creepshow.

xps I will take playfully/delibarately stupid over unintentionally stupid any day

but ST is ineptly bad and not expertly bad!

I'm sure I could find something to love about Creepshow if I finished the whole thing. Also that Diet Coke ad is amazing.

I saw Showgirls at a friend's house....I had a hard on an hour before we even popped it in.....I watched Saved By The Bell religiously and the alumni factor had my pecker raging......the scene where Nomi gives the dude a lap dance and you can see her pooter line (in a non- porn? amazing!), I pulled out the covert techniques, baby.....forced my thang 'tween my legs and used my things to bust a nice one....took a bathroom break and buddies were none the wiser.....haha.

― Ramosi, Thursday, March 14, 2002 1:00 AM (11 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

:O

wait what's inept about ST? it's totally an ept movie.

well... Denise Richards

but part of that is that the entire cast are supposed to be fascist Ken and Barbie dolls so her ineptitude works

perhaps Stevie objects to Busey's neon violin playing

from AV Club

In the scheme of Starship Troopers, it’s important that the actors be pretty and vacuous, and their characters’ romantic dilemmas of the most banal variety imaginable. Hence the casting of Van Dien and Richards in the lead roles, instead of Hollywood stars with more history and substance, who might have torpedoed the film with any hint of self-awareness. (Neil Patrick Harris, as a brainy military intelligence officer who struts around arrogantly in a Gestapo-like trenchcoat, is the only young cast member who seems in on the joke.) It’s barely worth talking about the romantic quadrangle that consumes these characters when they aren’t fighting off bugs. Rico and Carmen are high-school sweethearts whose separate military tracks—he’s a Mobile Infantry grunt, she’s training to pilot massive warships—find them pairing off with people in their station. Their shallow conflicts give the film shape and direction, but it’s obvious Verhoeven and Neumeier find them petty and stupid

arright I can fuck w/ that

It's a movie about blonde, Aryan space Marines from Buenos Aires, Argentina who speak perfectly unaccented English. What's not to like?

hilariously, the vast majority of Argentinians I've met have been dirty blondes of Jewish descent

The only Argentinian I know was a José Mengele and it turns out he was into some bad shit.

hilariously

ST is a near-perfect movie, IMO.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ROXhnUxNyvs/TiOpETbLrDI/AAAAAAAAAXg/iqCi35gKP0E/s1600/3_starship-troopers_electric-violin-serenade-1.png

as w DJP I also really appreciate how it inverts/interrogates the source material, which is something few film adaptations really successfully do (Wise Blood springs to mind)

I'm absolutely baffled that anyone would consider "Starship Troopers" inept, especially in a thread with "Showgirls" in the title. "Showgirls" is inept, which is why it can only be enjoyed as camp. But "Starship Troopers" is a masterpiece, not least because of the effects (which have aged as well as "Jurassic Park") but also because of the satire (which is brilliant; Verhoeven's audio commentary is must here as he bangs his head against the wall that no one understood they were rooting for the Nazis).

Whomever Denise Richards had as an agent to cast that doorknob in "Starship Troopers" and 'Wild Things," two brilliant subversions/satires of genre, deserves her own special achievement Oscar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkOqiweYfwQ

showgirls is great, SST is great

i want to defend denise richards a little: who would have done a better job in starship troopers or wild things?

bangs his head against the wall that no one understood they were rooting for the Nazis

maybe he should have gone with space rats instead of space bugs lol

if you come out of the other side of Starship Troopers and don't realize that the good guys are Nazis, god help you

"Showgirls" is inept

mmmm... no.

Maybe inept/ept isn't the right dichotomy but disposable/enduring camp.

Gosh, I've never read a convincing defense of "Showgirls" as anything more than enjoyably terrible. Which is cool, if that's what your into, but I've never got anything out of it other than unintentional laughs. It's pretty much the definition o inept. It's like someone saw "All About Eve," noted its ept-ness, then retro-fitted it into ineptitude. Like I said, even if you don't dig it, at least "Starship Troopers" has FX going for it. "Showgirls" has nothing intentional going for it. IMO.

You're into. Or you can read my your/you're mistake as intentionally, entertainingly, subversively wrong.

Like, I saw "Starship Troopers" opening night in Winnipeg (of all places), and I totally "got" it. It took years for "Showgirls" to marshall any degree of support in the notion that there was anything to get, iirc, and even then, it's pretty restricted to camp circles.

idk after doing a research paper on Showgirls and reading a ton of interviews w/ Verhoeven from 1995 and articles in Variety abt its marketing campaign and all this stuff it's hard to argue that he wasn't in on it

I am of the opinion that Verhoeven knows exactly what's going into his movies and that he by and large achieves the effect he's going for; I'd say that's definitely the case for the three namechecked in this thread

^^^^^

Also I think Showgirls definitely has a message and point of view beyond its campiness

Verhoeven was the quickest to come to its defense as intentionally bad. But no one bought his line, since it clearly followed the overwhelmingly negative reaction to its release. And it's not like Verhoeven lacked cred. If anything, the negative reaction to "Showgirls" might account for the mixed reception to "Starship Troopers."

"Showgirls" may have a message, but if someone thinks that "Troopers" is too on the nose, I'm all ears for the former's deeper meaning.

It may be the only of his films not to get a commentary track from him on DVD, conspicuously.

stevie d, youre otm about showgirls, and just apply that same rationale to SST and you'll 'get' SST

Verhoeven has no compunctions about being gaudy and over-the-top even when he's serious about the subject matter, and that's what I love about his movies

I totally agree. I just think in the case of "Showgirls," the Eszterhas touch trumps his.

Like, the badness of "Showgirls," unfortunately, stems from than just being over the top or gaudy. It's terribly written and acted, too, and not in service of satire.

Showgirls (1995)—“Zack Carey”

KM: Uh… yeah. (Laughs.) That was a decision that was sort of a tough one to make, but I was enchanted with Paul Verhoeven. Particularly Robocop, which I loved. I look back on it now and it’s a little dated, but it’s still fantastic, and I think it’s got some of the great villains of all time in there. It was Verhoeven and (Joe) Eszterhas, and it seemed like it was going to be kind of dark and edgy and disturbing and real. I signed on, and… I think they’d wanted Dylan McDermott and he’d passed, so then they came to me and asked, “Do you want to do this?” And I was like, “Yeah!” Because I was really into that mode. And I worked hard, I came in and did my scenes, but then I wasn’t really involved in anything else until it finally came time to do the press for it.

It was about to première, I hadn’t seen it yet, and I wanted to. So I went to see it and… I was absolutely gobsmacked. I said, “This is horrible. Horrible!” And it’s a very slow, sinking feeling when you’re watching the movie, and the first scene comes out, and you’re like, “Oh, that’s a really bad scene.” But you say, “Well, that’s okay, the next one’ll be better.” And you somehow try to convince yourself that it’s going to get better… and it just gets worse. And I was like, “Wow. That was crazy.” I mean, I really didn’t see that coming. So at that point, I distanced myself from the movie. Now, of course, it has a whole other life as a sort of inadvertent… satire. No, “satire” isn’t the right word. But it’s inadvertently funny. So it’s found its place. It provides entertainment, though not in the way I think it was originally intended. It was just… maybe the wrong material with the wrong director and the wrong cast.

AVC: But apart from all of that…

KM: Apart from all that, it was great. (Laughs.) It has a couple of moments in it that are pretty wild. And I gotta say that, when I was watching the actual shows that they created, I was like, “Hey, this is a Vegas show!” I was watching it from the audience, and it was amazing, what they were able to create. But reduced down to its elements, it was, uh, not one of my finer attempts. But it was done initially for all the right reasons; it just didn’t turn (out) to be what I anticipated. Everybody has one of those in their repertoire, I think. It’s just that this one has stayed around. Even Ishtar eventually disappeared. But this one keeps coming back!

xp dayo I kept trying to do that the whole movie and I just couldn't make it click

I'd think that after Robocop, folks would know to keep the satire light on for ST.

From http://thehollywoodinterview.blogspot.com/2008/01/paul-verhoeven-hollywood-interview.html

I always felt that Starship Troopers was your unheralded masterpiece: no one on this side of the pond understood that it was a satire.
Not only that, but there are several different layers to it. The one that we added to (Robert) Heinlein’s novel, which was a satire on American society, was also a real stab at Fascism. I think it was too unusual a film, and not what people expected. Perhaps we should have pointed out that these elements existed before we screened it. In many countries, including the U.S., the film was accused of being Fascist or neo-Nazi. It addressed what I felt were the possibilities of American Fascism, but it was anything but pro-Fascist.

And of course, if you look at what’s going on now, it was prescient.
Yes, we didn’t realize that at the time, but we could see the beginnings of it even in the late ‘90s. I mean, these last five years didn’t come out of nowhere. It was ways of thinking that had been rampant in the ‘80s, even before Clinton. The whole neo-Conservative philosophy has a long history in this country. I was aware of that, and certainly (screenwriter) Ed Neumeier was too. We went that way to counter Heinlein’s narrative a bit, which was very militaristic, and perhaps a bit Fascistic, as well. So the ironies were invented to counter the original narrative in some way. We borrowed a lot of imagery from Nazi propaganda, like Leni Riefenstahl’s films, and the designs of the uniforms, so perhaps that’s where the accusations of Nazism came from. What I like about the film, is that we did it in a playful way: I don’t think we were grabbing the audience by the throat, trying to choke them with our viewpoints.

Jacques Rivette (supposedly):

“Like every Verhoeven film, it’s very unpleasant: it’s about surviving in a world populated by assholes, and that’s his philosophy. Of all the recent American films that were set in Las Vegas, Showgirls was the only one that was real — take my word for it. I who have never set foot in the place!”

Gotcha implications aside, I think Resnais knows a thing or two about how to read a movie.

not resnais, rivette.

re. verhoeven's films, i think the screenwriters really matter here.

verhoeven is a superb director. he's a natural, i think. his shots are tight and carefully composed, he gets real rhythms going in the editing, his films are visually efficient, exciting, and nice to look at. showgirls is a very well put-together feature from an audiovisual perspective. i really mean that. however, the story and screenplay are frankly a disaster. the main plot never gets beyond a riff on all about eve, and the dialogue is supposed to be some kind of frank and sleazy Las Vegas argot that just comes across as completely false. as for the acting, that's verhoeven's fault I think. he seems to have decided to orient the performances as a kind of hyperactive pastiche. he's done that before and since, but for some reason in showgirls it just doesn't come off because there's no real sense of danger, no sense of emotional stakes, emanating from the characters that would ground the stylization.

but ultimately showgirls is kind of a shitty script, and both esterhasz (sp?) and verhoeven seem confused about the sort of the film they're trying to make.

there's a reason robocop and starship troopers are stronger, richer movies than basic instinct and showgirls, and it's not because verhoeven just happened to be having "off days" on the latter two.

"Showgirls" has nothing intentional going for it. IMO.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, June 4, 2013 5:31 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

who cares. what a tedious point of view

and the dialogue is supposed to be some kind of frank and sleazy Las Vegas argot that just comes across as completely false.

i view this as a positive tbh

Showgirls > ST > Robocop > Basic Instinct

Showgirls is a model of renewable energy. Every humorless attack on it only tops off the tank of its revised cachet.

i think nomi may be the only sympathetic character verhoevens ever directed (nb havent seen black book or hollwo man & some other randoms)

black book is v good

You should see Black Book.

Black Book is great.

Showgirls>Hollow Man.

who cares. what a tedious point of view

Ha. This should just be inserted at random at some place in every single ILX thread. Probably already is!

I think I'd go

Robocop > ST > Showgirls > Flesh and Blood > Black Book/Soldier of Orange > Turkish Delight > Total Recall >>>>> the rest

i think nomi may be the only sympathetic character verhoevens ever directed

you don't find Weller in Robocop sympathetic?

Or Midget Hooker in Total Recall?

well, weller ends up on top at the end xp

or the guy who wished he had three hands :(

favorite bit about showgirls is mark paul gosseler was on loveline and when asked to comment on saved by bell co-star's performance he said, "naw i didn't see it." then mario lopez calls up and says, "dude you totally saw it with me."

Hahaha

hollow man is definitely the worst of the hollywood verhoeven films but even that one has some pretty outstanding individual moments of ultraviolence that give it a slight kick, and if viewed as sort of a take on what your average dbag alpha male might do with such a power it's kind of interesting. but it's not close to a good film.

soldier of orange and black book make for a great double bill.

i am always a bit fucking staggered when people think the Showgirls isn't perfectly and deliberately formed

intentions are unknowable

That's for the best!

believe Showgirls isn't perfectly and deliberately formed

I confess, it's Eszterhas who gives me pause. That guy is shitty, and his stamp is all over the movie. "Basic Instinct" is its own brand of witless sleaze, but "Showgirls" comes conspicuously between "Sliver" and "Jade" in the Ezsterhas oeuvre. There's only so much you can do with him. Like good ol' Kyle said, it's just the wrong team assembled for the wrong movie. I blame Verhoeven the absolute least.

Joe Eszterhas came up with the idea for Showgirls while on vacation at his home in Maui, Hawaii. Based on the idea he scribbled on a napkin, he was advanced $2 million to write the script and picked up an additional $1.7 million when the studio produced it into a film.

I confess, it's Eszterhas who gives me pause. That guy is shitty,

to be fair he wrote "telling lies in america" (quasi-autobiographical) which is a pretty good movie

favorite bit about showgirls is mark paul gosseler was on loveline and when asked to comment on saved by bell co-star's performance he said, "naw i didn't see it." then mario lopez calls up and says, "dude you totally saw it with me."

― Philip Nunez, Wednesday, June 5, 2013 5:03 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this amuses me greatly

thing is, i can sympathize w/ someone trying to head off talking to adam corolla about his old coworker's boobs

can i fix the misspelling in the thread title please because its driving me fucking crazy

also i HATED showgirls when i saw it in the theater (although largely because i was on a date with a woman who picked the movie not realizing it would kick bunches of her unresolved latent sexual violence issues into high gear. its hard to pay attention when somebody is breaking down in sobs in the seat next to you. yeesh) but i have come to really appreciate it over time. still going to rank them ST>robocop>showgirls, and i find basic instinct to be pretty much a shitshow

ok changed the title if you dont like it too bad

there should be a #1 mod rule that no one is allowed to touch anthony's typos imo

maybe just put "[verhoeven -ed.]" in there?

I can accept that

what happened to verhoeven's career btw? could he still get a movie made in hollywood, or is he just not interested? i know he's been trying to make a Jesus movie for years and it hasnt been happening

i think he'd have a very hard time getting a film made in hollywood

he's in his mid 70s btw--he might just be chilling out, slowing down

GQ: You're not involved in the reboot of Total Recall. Are you curious to see it?
Paul Verhoeven: Moderately.

GQ: That's it?
Paul Verhoeven: I saw the trailer. It's difficult to judge a movie off of three minutes. But I had the feeling there was an essentially different look—more serious, in fact. I had the feeling there was not much, let's say, funny things happening.

GQ: The director, Len Wiseman, has admitted as much. Was there humor in the original script?
Paul Verhoeven: That had a lot to do with the choice of Arnold. Before we started, Patrick Swayze was involved. Arnold had been pursuing the project for years. In the original script, Quaid was an accountant. He was boring. Arnold is not an accountant. It would not work that way. We felt we should adapt the script. With Arnold, the tone should be a touch lighter. A little bit winking.

GQ: Total Recall, Starship Troopers, and RoboCop are all being remade. Do you feel vindicated?
Paul Verhoeven: I feel completely depressed.

GQ: Really?
Paul Verhoeven: It's depressing in the way that you feel that you're already dead and buried. Basically, you are transported out of the window.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/tribeca-paul-verhoeven-tricked-hollywood-444642

he seems pretty lively and still interested in making movies, but maybe investors aren't as interested in being in the paul verhoeven business anymore :(

His experience with reboot culture is now quite intimate; this summer will see a re-launch of Robocop, while last summer a gritty re-telling of the semi-campy Total Recall starring Colin Farrell was released to less-than-appreciative audiences. While Verhoeven's original version of the conspiracy sci-fi actioner took in over $261 million worldwide -- in 1990, no less -- the 2012, Len Wiseman-directed reboot earned just $198 million. The domestic numbers provide an even more stark contrast; Verhoeven's original version grossed $119 million in the United States, compared to $59 million for the new one.

The mention of that failure to launch clearly delights the Dutchman.

"That was fun," he says with a smile. "Also because they had been arrogant in interviews. Both the producer and Colin Farrell both had been bashing the old one. Colin Farrell called it kitsch, and people sent it to me immediately of course."

Depending on the strength of your memory, any number of Arnold Schwarzenegger ’s one-liners from the iconic 1990 sci-fi film Total Recall might spring to mind. ‘Screw you,’ was a good one, uttered with gusto when Arnie impaled a baddy on a large drill. As was ‘Consider that a divorce,’ as he dispatched his wife-cum-would-be- assassin, played by Sharon Stone , with a bullet to the noggin.

‘That is a really funny film,’ recalls Colin Farrell. ‘Arnold was the king of the one-liners.’ Farrell is stepping into Schwarzenegger’s old size nines (or size 16s, possibly) in this month’s Total Recall remake, though he says the witty one-liners have been given the heave-ho. This version of Total Recall, while drawing from the same source material as the original, is an altogether darker and more dystopian action movie.

‘Ours isn’t as funny as the original,’ says Farrell. ‘The original was intentionally funny and I’m glad they didn’t make me do lines like “Consider that a divorce”.’ Although they made me say a version of that – “I think we’re separated” – but I don’t think it’ll get many laughs.

‘Tonally, it’s played a lot more seriously than the original was,’ adds the Irishman. ‘I think we should be comparing it to The Dark Knight, Chris Nolan’s stuff – the last two or three films he’s done.’

Total Recall director Len Wiseman (Underworld; Underworld: Evolution; Live Free Or Die Hard) would be flattered by the comparison and he certainly feels as though his vision for the movie is closer to the atmosphere of Philip K Dick’s 1966 short story We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, than director Paul Verhoeven’s kitsch original.

‘I always thought the source material had a very different feel to Verhoeven’s film,’ says Wiseman, who has ditched the journey to Mars in the new movie and made a lot more of the futuristic landscape in which the story plays out. ‘I wanted to go with a realistic future.’

He also wanted to go with a sexy cast and recruited both Jessica Biel and his wife, Kate Beckinsale, to star opposite Farrell. Biel is his love-interest and would-be saviour and Beckinsale is his missus and would-be killer. ‘Kissing the director’s wife was tricky,’ says Farrell, smiling, ‘although beating her up was OK.’

I love Total Recall in an entirely healthy way. We have a company that comes to our office every Friday to take and securely store our server backups offsite. It's called, I swear to god, Recall Corp. It took all my power not to greet their courier with "Get youh ass to Mahs!"

UN-healthy way

a "sexy" cast

wth, they're remaking robocop? and its coming out this year? fml

the total recall remake was one of the most joyless pieces of shit i've ever seen

being able to cast walking perfume ad kate beckinsale in that key villain role sure was a casting coup

is nu recall worth it for the cgi dystopia city shots tho

pretty sure i can guess without having to sit thru it

Wasn't Aronofsky making "RoboCop" at one point? That could have been cool.

Another Verhoeven pet project that never got off the ground was his "Crusades" movie.

http://www.flixist.com/from-hell-paul-verhoeven-arnold-schwarzenegger-s-crusade-207103.phtml

wth, they're remaking robocop? and its coming out this year? fml

― 乒乓, Wednesday, June 5, 2013 8:43 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

pretty sure you can safely ignore it

that movie makes no sense w/o ed neumeier and paul verhoeven

the robocop remake has some interesting things going for it, primarily that jose padilha is directing and he's a really sharp, talented guy - but its hard not to be skeptical/cynical about it

what exactly is less than perfect about the original robocop, there's not enough text messaging scenes in it or something

Comparing the new work to the 1987 film, Padilha said in 2011, "the environment nowadays is different than the environment in the 80’s and the way to explore the concept is different."[15]

I suppose there's something to be said for remaking a prescient movie in the context of the world it predicted.

Regardless, I think we can expect more CGI. The tactile quality of "RoboCop" is partly what makes it so successful.

ed-209 could certainly use updating

Here ya go: http://i.imgur.com/kCm6ykA.jpg

Happy?

I had the feeling there was not much, let's say, funny things happening.

this has been posted to ilx before and it is the best

ed-209 is perfect the way it is and you take that back

well its animation looks really dated

I don't want ed209 animated like fantastic mr fox.

I love the dated animation. Remember, ED-209 was a failure! Serves them right for developing it in stop motion.

I disagree that it's dated, other than after a certain date they stopped using stop-motion for those kinds of things. robocop could have been made anywhere from 1960s-1990s

the stop motion makes the staircase moment all time imo, would suck with cgi

Who is our modern equivalent of Kurtwood Smith who can sell a line like "Bitches leave?"

stop motion makes the movements of ed-209 a lot more herky jerky and kind of uncanny valley creepy in a way

xp Shia

Who is our modern equivalent of Kurtwood Smith who can sell a line like "Bitches leave?"

They should cast Nicky Katt in this as any of the bad guys.

stop motion makes the movements of ed-209 a lot more herky jerky and kind of uncanny valley creepy in a way

― christmas candy bar (al leong), Thursday, June 6, 2013 2:31 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it takes me out of my suspension of disbelief

They need to redo starship troopers with Jim Henson muppets as bugs with Michael Shannon in the Denise Richards role if we're going this route.

Denise Richards should play RoboCop.

she has the same lips as Peter weller.

Comparing the new work to the 1987 film, Padilha said in 2011, "the environment nowadays is different than the environment in the 80’s and the way to explore the concept is different."[15]
― fit and working again, Thursday, June 6, 2013 2:11 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

except RoboCop is amazingly prescient for a sci-fi film

directors say dumb things while promoting a movie, news at 11

This looks like some bullshit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdhUIC5EWl8

Years from now, we're going to think Padilha was prescient when, in 2001, he noted that "the environment nowadays is different than the environment in the 80’s and the way to explore the concept is different."

or 2011, even

Comedian Rory Scovel had a hilarious bit on his first standup album about Detroit, and the fact that Robocop accurately predicted what the city would be like in the future. He has the city council sitting around in 2012 saying, "I know this sounds crazy, but . . . should we go ahead and build a robot policeman?"

Be funny (sad) if the movie was him patrolling half-empty Detroit, trudging his way through overgrown flora and boarded-up neighborhoods.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/10/02/article-2211498-154CB4AD000005DC-978_964x744.jpg

it's not like detroit wasn't a poster child for urban decay and white flight in 1987, you know?

counterfactuals: what if robocop had been set in cleveland?

We'd have elected Robocop as mayor.

Or built him a football stadium. Probably that.

He'd be patrolling the burning banks of the Cuyahoga.

Speaking of prescient, irrc MIchigan is in fact currently under some degree of Martial Law.

http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/11-things-you-learn-after-spending-a-week-with-neil-patrick-harris-20140512

11. The rest of the cast of Paul Verhoeven's cult-classic 1997 sci-fi satire "Starship Troopers" didn't understand the "satire" part – and NPH won't quite admit to being in on the joke.
"We filmed that movie with no intention of it being funny," he says. "Casper [Van Dien] and Denise [Richards], they all thought that it was a big, franchise action movie they were doing. Which I think was necessary, because had they known that there was an element of ... not parody, but, stilted reality? I think they would have played into that. I was just excited to be on a big movie!"

NPH is such a dude.

A couple years ago there was some ridiculous recruiting advertisement for the National Guard that played in theaters before movies that featured some band playing a rock song about "citizen soldiers" and every time I just kept thinking out maybe Starship Troopers was too real.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgV6VUinDEA&feature=kp

A couple years ago there was some ridiculous recruiting advertisement for the National Guard that played in theaters before movies that featured some band playing a rock song about "citizen soldiers" and every time I just kept thinking out maybe Starship Troopers was too real.

― a strange man (mh), Thursday, May 15, 2014 9:17 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's an excellent example of satire for that reason. by making what the film depicts just a little more ridiculous than what we actually have, it can help people to recognize the absurdity/horror show that we live in.

though as often is the case the thing the film is parodying is a little old--starship troopers relies a bit too much on parodying outdated tropes IMO. although the alibi for that is "we were parodying the cold-war context of the original novel," that seems like a reduced achievement.

i'd like to dedicate that last post to the word "parodying."

I don't think they went far enough

though as often is the case the thing the film is parodying is a little old--starship troopers relies a bit too much on parodying outdated tropes IMO. although the alibi for that is "we were parodying the cold-war context of the original novel," that seems like a reduced achievement.

i can see why one might have been inclined to say this in 1997, but half a decade later, the satire of rah-rah patriotism and demonic othering of the enemy seemed pretty prescient (or at least perennially fresh), imo.

fascist militarism is like the one thing that's always in style. why do you think they wear black.

Great (but very short) interview with Verhoeven in the Guardian today about Starship Troopers

I was looking for the prototype of blond, white and arrogant, and Casper Van Dien was so close to the images I remembered from Leni Riefenstahl’s films. I borrowed from Triumph of the Will in the parody propaganda reel that opens the film, too. I was using Riefenstahl to point out, or so I thought, that these heroes and heroines were straight out of Nazi propaganda. No one saw it at the time. I don’t know whether or not the actors realised – we never discussed it. I thought Neil Patrick Harris arriving on the set in an SS uniform might clear it up.

There was so much regime change at Columbia Pictures at the time that we slipped through the net. When the executives finally saw it, they said: “Their flag – it’s a Nazi flag!” I said, “No … it’s completely different colours.”

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/jan/22/how-we-made-starship-troopers-paul-verhoeven-nazis-leni-riefenstahl

love this film

i remember the Washington Post piece he's referencing, it was written by Stephen Hunter. it was amazing, it was like watching someone rip into Dr Strangelove bc it's pro-nuclear war. i think reactions to this film are a perfect litmus test to see how good you are at watching films; if you think this was a story of Nazi wish fulfillment, you're not good.

I found it. Wow.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1997/11/11/goosestepping-at-the-movies/83272787-18ae-4126-b8c4-3d46b1b31277/

How can you get it so completely and at the same time not get it at all? Reminds me of that review on pitchfork of I Get Wet.

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/starshiptroopers/images/9/99/Oathtothefederation.jpg

starship troopers gets more relevant every year - it’s a classic

i saw some chud tweeting the other day that dreamers under age 27 could be allowed to stay if they joined the military and i immediately thought of those SERVICE GUARANTEES CITIZENSHIP infomercials

It's kind of amazing that a film like this could get made at that scale and budget, and with such good special effects, such that the satire was bound to go over some people's heads. I definitely didn't get it when I saw it at age 13.

I got all the satirical intentions; it's just really silly.

Whoa, that WaPo review really is next level not-getting-it.

luv2join all but one of the dots and proceed to embarrass myself in the pages of the new york times

Rewatching Showgirls and I realize now in 2025 why I’ve always loved his version of satire so much: “because it seems AI generated”

Also Gus Van Sant should direct a shot-for-shot remake of this movie

And Von Trier should challenge Verhoeven in a “Five Obstructions” sequel