Meanlevee

Every so often, my doom scrolling uncovers a new man that has a similar enthusiasm, to mine, of the 1997 film Starship Troopers, yet has the opposite takeaway from the film's message. These men are many, but have the same personality and worldview, and I can't help but see them as one person, diametrically opposed to me on some spectrum of Verhoeven film analysis. A nemesis. A shadow version of myself. I am sure I did not understand this film upon first viewing circa 97-98; I was about ten years old. The effects were good for the time, and it's an exciting action/creature movie for a ten year old; at the plot level, the cool, attractive young troopers were the heroes. Yay.  In high school, I turned on the movie* because I was starting to form opinions about politics and film (uh oh). At the tender age of 15ish I decided I could not stand the jingoism of the characters in this film. My understanding of Starship Troopers had somehow grown poorer. I mistook the film's por...