A review on Yahoo called "The Tomorrow War" ..
"Starship Troopers" for dummies. That seems fairly accurate.
shareIt has almost nothing in common with Starship Troopers.
shareWhy do you say that?
First, both are Science Fiction.
Second, both are is about an alien existential threat.
Third, both follow soldiers in the infantry.
Fourth, The swarming action of the aliens was very similar.
Fifth the ineffectiveness of the infantry's weapons was very similar.
Is that enough?
All of those, except perhaps the fourth, could apply to any number of alien invasion movies, of which there are a shitload. I believe, if you tried, you could come with more ways in which they are NOT similar than ways in which they are.
The Tomorrow War, ultimately, is a family drama wrapped in the guise of an alien invasion movie. Starship Troopers is a satirical warning about the dangers of the military-industrial complex.
You said "It has almost nothing in common with Starship Troopers" and I showed you it has quite a few things in common. Then you changed it, again, without any proof or exposition that it has more ways it is not similar ... whatever that means.
To have things in common does not mean there are not differences. And as far as your summation of the two movies, it sounds more like you are parroting things you've heard before that things you believe or perceived on your own.
What I'm saying is that I've watched both movies and I don't regard them as being particularly similar.
I mean, if you want to say that The Tomorrow War is more like Starship Troopers than it is like On Golden Pond, I would be forced to agree. But to say that The Tomorrow War is "Starship Troopers for Dummies," then no, I don't agree. I think the films are fundamentally different at their core and trying to accomplish different things and send different messages.
As I said, The Tomorrow War is essentially a family drama. The alien invasion element is more of a MacGuffin meant to provide a framework for the REAL story, which is Dan's relationship with his family.
Starship Troopers is Verhoeven waxing philosophically about the nature of war and the way that nation-states propagandize their own people. Verhoeven himself has talked about this.
>> What I'm saying is that I've watched both movies and I don't regard them as being particularly similar.
"Particularly similar" is not what you said.
"Particularly similar" is just your opinion, which is fine, I disagree, but I do not begrudge you your opinion on non-factual matters of taste. I see your point, but you expressed it wrong, and did not back up what you said. You really still are not, rather you are trying to change your statement. Better if you think about what you write before you hit submit.
What I do disagree with you on, and am right about, is that you said they have nothing in common, and I proved you wrong on that, and proved that they have several things in common.
So, forgive me, but after the sentence, I stopped reading because I don't need to read anything more of what you said, assuming you wrote in any kind of expository format ... which I doubt as well.
They both are also in a way family-centric, though not in the same way. Johnny was rebelling against his family, and joining the Mobile Infantry was a reaction to his family's perishing.
In terms of theme, seriousness, artistic importance, etc, they don't have much in common if anything.
As usual, I made a correct statement in an attempt to engage you in conversation and you got defensive to the point of irrationality and negating you initial claim.
I also think that The Tomorrow War, bad as it was, provoked a reaction in you that you didn't bother to look very deep into it. There was quite a bit borrowed from Starship Troopers, Alien, maybe even the Tom Cruise/Emily Blunt movie which I can't think of. TTW was a Hollywood hodgepodge trying to push a whole lot of other memes and images into one movie to pander to viewers. While I think it was bad, it does not negate everything about it, and if it bears analysis you have to look at it honestly.
The On Golden Pond comment was uncalled for and plain stupid. No one would do a comparison/contrast on two such different movies of different genres, and your latest fallacy was reductio ad absurdem, and you are indeed absurd.
Graduate from High School English and Critical Thinking before you try to make statements. Until them stick with opinions and questions and learn, do not tell.
LOL. You sound upset.
Ironically, since you speak of fallacies, you engaged in one in your very discussion of fallacies: an ad hominem attack.
Anyway, you're correct that my first statement wasn't literally true, but I was making a point via exaggeration, and that point was that any similarities are superficial. You yourself acknowledge that "in terms of theme . . . they don't have much in common if anything."
My question to you then is this: If that is accurate--and it is--then how could it be "Starship Troopers for Dummies"? At least in the way that a reasonable person would interpret that assessment, the film would need to be trying to do what Starship Troopers did, but just do it in a less intelligent, more basic, more amateurish way.
If you did NOT mean to imply that The Tomorrow War carries the same message and theme of Starship Troopers, then I'm forced to feed your own words back to you: "You expressed it wrong" and "better if you think about what you write before you hit submit."
In any case, you seem to have taken my reply as an attack on you personally, when if it anything it was aimed at the Yahoo reviewer you referenced.
OK, someone who does no understand what an ad hominem is and uses it wrongly is not smart enough to bother discussing or arguing with.
You go into the whole discussion thing with antagonism like its a fight, and a right you don't even bother to work at. You are like the annoying child who misbehaves to get attention, so they only thing I can communicate to you is that you don't get it when you act like a child.
No, nothing at all ad hominem about this post. . . No attacks on the man, just logical, coherent arguments.
Ad hominem is fair game after you repeatedly attack me and make stupid arguments. That's just the way the cookie crumbles.
shareWell, as I stated earlier, my intention never actually was to attack you. If I was taking aim at anyone, it was whoever you were quoting from Yahoo.
Though I guess being that you agree with him (or her), you might take it personally.
The comment made sense. I don't take nonsense posts on the internet personally, I just resent getting a notification of reply and finding nothing there
shareWell to be fair, your eight-word OP is not exactly bursting with substance. If you wanted an intelligent, thoughtful reply then maybe you should've given us more to think about and provided some reasoning for your comment.
shareIt's called efficiency ... hearing ""Starship Troopers" for dummies." uses 4 words to tell you all you need to know about this movie. Whine, whine, whine is all you're good for. Is that a skill anyone pays for these days?
shareAs I said, The Tomorrow War is essentially a family drama. The alien invasion element is more of a MacGuffin meant to provide a framework for the REAL story, which is Dan's relationship with his family.
Starship Troopers is Verhoeven waxing philosophically about the nature of war and the way that nation-states propagandize their own people. Verhoeven himself has talked about this.
I think that's fair, except that both films feature extremely dumb and unrealistic segments. While ST does it satirically to point out the stupidity of it all, the TW features those extremely dumb segments due to utter incompetence of the writer/director. Furthermore, as you've pointed out, ST aims at philosophizing about the nature of war and propaganda, while TW is all about the simpler things - father/daughter/blablabla. So, I'm confused why you are disagreeing with the notion that TW is a dumbed down ST.
I disagree because, thematically, the films have nothing in common. The goal and message of each film is entirely different.
Starship Troopers is not seeking to comment on the importance of family, and "being there," and how broken homes can leave scars on children long after they've grown up. Likewise, The Tomorrow War is not trying to say anything about the military-industrial complex or the government's use of propaganda to keep the war machine churning.
In my view, in order for The Tomorrow War to be "Starship Troopers for Dummies," as it stated in the OP, or to be "a dumbed down ST," as you put it, TTW would have to be trying to do, and say, the same thing as Starship, but end up doing it in a more basic, clunkier, more stupid way.
As I see it, the movies are in fact very different at their core, despite whatever superficial elements they might have in common, elements that I must say are pretty commonplace in sci-fi actioners. For instance, we saw many of the same tropes in films like Battle: Los Angeles, A Quiet Place, and a huge swath of other alien invasion movies. Aliens come, they invade, humans have to fight back (often with firearms), very often the aliens have a grotesque non-human appearance and other such physical qualities, and so on.
Would you agree that ST was a satire and the dumb elements in it were there to make a point, while the dumb elements in TW were just that - dumb - due to incompetent writing/director?
shareWhat dumb elements are you referring to exactly in TW?
I actually thought the film was pretty rad. A favorite so far in 2021.
All the dumb elements they list here
https://youtu.be/Om-T1rzr30s
Yes ... incompetent writing, concept ... incompetent because it stole things from Starship Troopers in a dumbed down way ... hence the comment.
share> I disagree because, thematically, the films have nothing in common.
Theme is just one dimension of a movie.
These days you could say movie are similar if they used B&W.
Or if they had the same troop of actors, as for example a lot of Bogart's movies used to, because there is often, not always, but often an underlying similarity.
No reason to limit oneself to just theme.
Star Wars has similarities to pirate movies, or westerns. Some Japanese samurai movies are similar to Westerns.
Most movies today are superficial. So ruling out discussing superficial aspects of movies is itself superficial.
Within the theme of human versus aliens, Starship Troopers had more dimensions to it and was a deeper more well thought out movie than Tomorrow War which was vapid exploitation of the Science Fiction genre, but what else would you call it?
Lol they aren't similar at all, you may as well have said "they are both movies" as one of your similarities...
shareThey are, but the reason not to mention that is that it would be moot, which is why I would not make that argument ... which is probably too big a word for you to know. My comments were not moot, which apparently is too hard for you to conceive.
shareJust a classic case of doubling down.
They aren't even remotely similar, you're resorting to personal attacks because you've made a fool of yourself.
Let's see both are movies ... applies to every movie.
Why do you say that?
First, both are Science Fiction.
Second, both are is about an alien existential threat.
Third, both follow soldiers in the infantry.
Fourth, The swarming action of the aliens was very similar.
Fifth the ineffectiveness of the infantry's weapons was very similar.
Applies to maybe 5-10 movies out of hundreds of thousands.
Conclusion: You are an loudmouth idiot without intellectual capacity.
The aliens aren't similar and neither is their behaviour.
Not to mention that this takes place on Earth with the aid of time travel and troopers takes place way into the future on an entirely different planet.
But it's all good guys, any movie that has an alien in it is basically the same movie now. ET is basically this.
> The aliens aren't similar and neither is their behaviour.
That is horseshit and you know it too. In certain shots with masses of the aliens in both movies coming over hills certain scenes looked exactly the same - just to show you what a putz you are. That was a definite attempt to channel ST.
But these two movies do not have to be exactly the same for the metaphor to be applicable ""Starship Troopers" for dummies".
Metaphor - a figure of speech where a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.
I guess there is a misbegotten feeling of relief when you are so stupid you don't feel stupid when it is demonstrated over and over that you are.
You must be the dumbest fucking cunt on these boards if you have taken that metaphor literally.
You're either the same dumbass or they just might be stupider than you are, which would be quite a feat.
This isn't even a good film but a throw away line from a single movie review is the hill you've chosen to die on?
Absolute fucking moron.
The two films have nearly nothing in common. You've listed a few generic traits that numerous films share. If you actually watch The Tomorrow War you'll find it vastly different from Starship Troopers.
shareWatched it ....""Starship Troopers" for dummies" is right on the money.
shareFirst, both are Science Fiction.
Second, both are is about an alien existential threat.
Third, both follow soldiers in the infantry.
Fourth, The swarming action of the aliens was very similar.
Fifth the ineffectiveness of the infantry's weapons was very similar.
Generic: characteristic of or relating to a class of group of things. That described very few movies. If you gave that list to anyone group of SciFi watching people they'd probably think you were talking about either Starship Troopers or Tomorrow War right now.
You got a screw loose, or maybe you were dumb enough to invest in this dog and are singlehandedly trying to troll your money back troll comment by troll comment.
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The first two points apply to something like a thousand of fiction works every year. The third point also applies to half of thse.
I disagree on the fifth point. Infantry weapons were effective in Starship Troopers. Its just that there were literally thousands of bugs. They built ramparts to go over the wall from the bodies of their fallen comrades. Starship trooper bugs were a representation of the "communistic hive mind". Not as direct as Zombies though.
> Infantry weapons were effective in Starship Troopers. Its just that there were literally thousands of bugs.
No way. Those plasma rifles, or whatever they called them took many shoots, and they were projectile based with what seemed like too small a bore to do any damage to the bugs unless they were close up, and if they were close up it meant there are a lot of them. That was totally ineffective armamentation.
Exploding shells, preferably guided by AI with armor piercing heads are what was needed, or that nuclear guided missile that they shot down the cave entrance.
> Starship trooper bugs were a representation of the "communistic hive mind".
I've always thought that whole super-imposition of some kind of anti-Communist message in science fiction moves was total BS. They take the monsters and then always try to write up some connection to some level of communism, when meanwhile it is our brand of capitalism that is chewing up the world, stomping all over people and spitting them out.
This is one of the common ways "military intelligence " tried to subliminally manipulate us with propaganda and set our minds within a certain frame. Remember Invasion of the Body Snatchers, same thing, same thing with zombies, same thing with aliens. Hive mind? What a bunch of crap.
Pretty sure in Starship Troopers universe they had no AI guided exploding shells and evne that nuke was a rarity.
Well, Zombies were invented as a way to portray communism, so they didnt have any connection to write up. As far as ST goes, in the book there are a lot of politics and there are quite clear vibes of federation of humans vs hivemind communal aliens. The movies tried to portray humans as fascists instead (the director flat out said he hated the book) so you dont see it that much.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers had the author himself say it was about communism.
> Invasion of the Body Snatchers had the author himself say it was about communism.
The government control of the media in this country, remember McCarthyism and the Blacklist ... they had to push certain things in the media or be declared part of the problem ... so, for me, I don't trust anything they say.
So the author has lied so he would not get black listed by government controlled media? Thats quite a claim you got there.
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