starship troopers

We've been trucking along with our new Sci-Fi Movie Club every week, and I've been thinking a lot about the eventual moment when it comes around to my turn to "host" the film. One choice that keeps popping up in my head is Godzilla: Final Wars from director Ryuhei Kitamura (Midnight Meat Train). It's loud, dumb fun with more monster mayhem than any film in the Godzilla series. (It even features a delightful cameo by Roland Emmerich's American Godzilla, whereupon the lame CG abomination has the holy crap smacked out of him by the original Godzilla's tail.)

Right now, it's free to watch on Crackle as part of their "Attack! Attack!" series, which includes nine recent Godzilla films (and Starship Troopers, which isn't short on its own brand of rampaging creatures -- giant bugs). Along with Final Wars, they're offering Godzilla Vs. Destoroyah, Godzilla Vs. King Ghidorah, Godzilla Vs. MechaGodzilla II, Godzilla Vs. Megaguirus, Godzilla Vs. Mothra, Godzilla Vs. SpaceGodzilla, Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S., and Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack.

That's hours worth of panic and destruction right at your fingertips!

Earlier this week, we told you about how scientists are trying to ruin our science fiction fun by denying us the possibility of safe, speedy intergalactic travel. It turns out that was only the beginning of what appears to be an ongoing attack on the film-going audience, a vicious assault that plans to deprive us of fantasy and replace it with textbook fact. The scientists are here for your movies. And if one movie falls, others will fall and soon enough, all of us will be victim to cold hard realism. Films will obey the rules of physics. All science will be plausible. Things will make sense.

Cats and dogs, living together! Mass hysteria!

Removing tongue from cheek. The Guardian has an interesting piece about Sidney ­Perkowitz, a physics professor who has compiled a list of "guidelines" that he believes Hollywood should follow when making science fiction films. Perkowitz is a member of the Science and Entertainment Exchange, a group that advises films and TV shows on their scientific accuracy and he apparently takes it very personally when a film disgraces science, saying that Starship Troopers' giant bugs would "collapse under their own weight" and that audiences hated The Core because of its preposterous science.

A few quick notes for Mr. Perkowitz:

1. Giant bugs are awesome. Giant bugs trump science.

2. I think audiences hated The Core for a lot more than wonky science.

I watched Starship Troopers on Blu-ray last week for the first time in probably over a decade, and I'd almost forgotten just how sly and silly that film is. It's the closest director Paul Verhoeven ever came to recapturing the lunacy of his modern classic Robocop, and he's past due for a return to sci-fi action. (You're missed, Mr. Verhoeven!)

The craftsmen at Yamato Toy USA are fans as well -- they're selling a 9" replica of the Starship Rodger Young (the ship where Carmen Ibanez, played in the film by the young, uber-kissable Denise Richards, is stationed). The solid pewter replica (which comes with a base for mounting) is available for order through the Yamato website. It's a no-frills toy, but it's unique and well-sculpted (and nine inches of pewter is quite a heavy duty model). Your very own Rodger Young will set you back $129.99. Your very own Denise Richards is not available for order.

This week finally sees the release of Youth in Revolt, the film version of C.D. Payne's 1993 novel. Considering the book's length (about 500 pages), director Miguel Arteta and screenwriter Gustin Nash faced the unenviable task of deciding what should remain and what should be excised. How do you make a 90-minute film that pleases the novel's legion of fans while remaining accessible to a larger audience that has never read it?

It's a challenge familiar to sci-fi fans. We've probably all experienced that moment of utter disbelief that a favorite story or novel has been twisted and mangled beyond recognition. But when the filmmakers get it right, honoring the spirit and creating a work that lives apart from its inspiration, it's magical. Regrettably, I don't read as many novels nowadays as in my earlier years, so I've never read the source material for some of my favorite science fiction films (e.g. Children of Men, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Planet of the Apes). Still, it was difficult to narrow my choices down to just ten. Here's what I ended up with: a list of my ten favorite sci-fi adaptations. What are yours?

1. Slaughterhouse-Five
Screenwriter Stephen Geller took on a near-impossible job, adapting Kurt Vonnegut's wondrous novel, which was inspired by Vonnegut's real-life experiences during World War II. Oddly enough, George Roy Hill's direction is as sprightly as you'd expect from the man whose previous film was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Yet Hill's jaunty approach was exactly the right way to capture the spirit, the basic trajectory, and much of the flavor of the novel, producing a picture that feels both tied to the year in which it was released (1972) and transcendent of time and place.

Say what you will about Starship Troopers, but I make no apologies for my unerring love of Paul Verhoeven's very loose adaptation of Robert A. Heinlein's novel of a futuristic, military driven society. People can pick apart the acting or the script all they want, but at the end of the day there is no denying how intriguing some of its cultural norms and ideas are. And while some of these elements may seem idealistic and well-intended, it's tough to rigidly define what is and isn't considered progress in the future.

It at first seems outwardly progressive that women are not only allowed to, but encouraged to serve in the armed forces as everything from fleet commander to bug-fodder grunt. But in reality, service is also the only way women can get the citizenship license to have babies, which, as we all know, is a bit of a step backwards (unless this is done purely as a means of sustainability population control; in which case who are we to judge their planet-critical needs?). So I guess we're not off to all that progressive of a start.

Ah, but there are also the coed showers to consider, a sign of sexual openness the likes of which our current military knows not. This also has the added bonus of dispelling some of the perceived gender inequality that currently exists between men and women. Though, to play Brain Bug's Advocate, "Ally McBeal" also had co-ed bathrooms, and that was 1997 (coincidentally the same year Starship Troopers came out), so I guess we're not all that progressive yet.

But there's one last bit of futuristic acceptance that Verhoeven and co have up their sleeve, and it has a little something to do with an extreme-to-the-max game of arena football.

After an advance screening of Drew Barrymore's rollicking, entertaining, and heartfelt Whip It, which opens tomorrow, some real-life roller derby players were asked about the movie's realism. (Ellen Page plays a teenage beauty pageant contestant who gets involved in the sport.) They all chimed in: "We don't get to give anyone bloody noses!"

Yes, sports movies based loosely on real life and set in the modern era tend to take liberties with the levels of violence involved in their sport. But sci-fi movies tend to ratchet up the bloody-nosed action to incredible levels, taking murder for granted. Life is cheap in the future, I suppose. With images of Ellen Page in roller skates and a faux-Girl Scout uniform in mind, not to mention the thought of Drew Barrymore herself with a bloody nose, I set off in search of the very best future sports movies -- and discovered that relatively few of any quality have been made. Thus, consider this list a sketchy compendium of what's out there. What am I missing? What future sports are not properly represented?

1. Rollerball in Rollerball
An easy choice, featuring James Caan at the height of his hard-bitten, rueful stardom in the 1970s. Norman Jewison's film is a self-righteous sermon about the dangers of thrill seeking, and a broadside against sports and popular entertainment in general. But when you have such exciting action in a sport that combines a hopped-up version of roller derby with football, chaos, and murder, who's complaining?