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I used to just think that Starship Troopers was just a harmless sci-fi action movie. It had some cute moments, a lot of silliness, and a fun satirical look at a possible future society.

But then I went and read the book by Robert Heinlein (an excellent science fiction author - he's the one who wrote Stranger in a Strange Land.) The book wasn't great, but it did have a lot of interesting ideas in it. So after I finished the book I went back a watched the movie again.

I was a little disgusted by it. This is mostly for two reasons. The first is the overall feel of the movie. These people are at war, and occasionally very bad things happen to them - but after about a millisecond of sadness everything is all better and they're back to smiling. This doesn't jive with me as I remember that my country is at war now.

But more importantly is the way they chose to transfer the book to film. The book talks about this future society with a new and interesting government structure. It talks about a ruthlessly efficient military - including how they operate and how they train. It talks about one soldier's experience in moving through that military. The movie ignored all of this, and doesn't take any of these ideas seriously.

The worst part is the movie does reference all these ideas. Female pilots, why knives are important in a nuke war, why you need to serve to be a citizen, the moral implications of war, the guy at the recruiter desk with no legs and only one arm, Zim capturing the brain bug, and more. All of these things lack meaning in the movie, but had significant meaning in the book. It felt like the movie was rubbing my face in it's disregard for the whole purpose of the book (it's interesting ideas.)

Plus, the Mobile Infantry (they wear powered jump-suits in the book, that's why they're mobile - but I'll let that one go) in the book are the pinnacle of human fighting efficiency. They are true bad-asses. The MI in the movie are a bunch of no talent ass clowns (to borrow a classic line from a classic movie.) Seriously, it doesn't work for me that in a future society with advanced training and technology the soldiers would have gotten absolutely owned by the guys in Black Hawk Down.

Like I said, it used to be that I viewed this movie as a harmless bit of no-brain action and some satire. Now it just annoys me greatly.

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