![Starship Troopers (+ BD Live) [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51zjnTKLh6L._SL160_.jpg) | |
List Price: $28.95 | | Label: Sony Pictures
Salesrank: 6090
Released: August 5, 2008 |
| Our Price: $13.39 |
| Used Price: $10.99 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: Blu-ray |
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Editorial Review:
From the bridge of the Fleet Battlestation Ticonderoga, with its sweeping galactic views, to the desolate terrain of planet Klendathu, teeming with shrieking, fire-spitting, brain-sucking special effects creatures, acclaimed director Paul Verhoeven crafts a dazzling epic based on Robert A. Heinlein's classic sci-fi adventure. Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, Denise Richards, Jake Busey, Neil Patrick Harris, Patrick Muldoon, and Michael Ironside star as the courageous soldiers who travel to the distant and desolate Klendathu system for the ultimate showdown between the species.
Description of Starship Troopers (+ BD Live) [Blu-ray]:
In the first and finest
RoboCop movie, director Paul Verhoeven combined near-future science fiction with a keen sense of social satire--not to mention enough high-velocity violence to satisfy even the most voracious bloodlust. In
Starship Troopers, Verhoeven and
RoboCop cowriter Ed Neumeier take inspired cues from Robert Heinlein's classic sci-fi novel to create a special-effects extravaganza that functions on multiple levels of entertainment. The film might be called "Melrose Place in Space," with its youthful cast of handsome guys and gorgeous women who look like they've been recruited (and in some cases they were) from the cast of
Beverly Hills 90210. Viewers might focus on the incredible, graphically intense action sequences (definitely
not for children) in which heavily armed forces from Earth go to off-world battle against vast hordes of alien "bugs" bent on planetary conquest. The attacking bugs are marvels of state-of-the-art special-effects technology, and the space battles are nothing short of spectacular. But
Starship Troopers is more than a showcase for high-tech hardware and gigantic, flesh-ripping insects. Recalling his childhood in Holland during the Nazi occupation, Verhoeven turns this epic adventure into a scathingly funny satire of fascist propaganda, emphasizing Heinlein's underlying warning against the hazards of military conformity and the sickening realities of war. It's an action-packed joy ride if that's all you're looking for, but Verhoeven has a provocative agenda that makes
Starship Troopers as smart as it is exciting. The DVD includes an above-average commentary by the director and Neumeier, several deleted scenes, a behind-the-scenes documentary and promotional featurette, cast bios, production notes, and more.
--Jeff Shannon Starship Troopers (+ BD Live) [Blu-ray] Reviews:
This is a so bad it's good movie. 
2009-11-09 - This movie is almost NOTHING like the book it is based on. It's a Paul Veerhoven explosion of ideas all thrown into the blender and set to frappe. It is chock full of bad acting but has great effects. Love it or hate it, you must own it.
Also it looks and sounds great on Blu
Humans vs. Bugs
2009-10-07 - 4 stars of 5 for this classical sci-fi movie. Yeah, I've seen Starship Troopers lots of times. It is a unique story with great characters and well produced. This is a really fun sci-fi movie to watch. Great special effects and a nice future look. As always, my only complaint is why send ground troops with under-powered weapons to attack the "bugs" without air support? Oh, well. I do recommend this movie.
Troopers shines brighter in blu-ray
2009-09-10 - There are a plethora of reviews of the movie, but my review is mostly a comparison of the BD vs DVD version. Troopers has more pluses, but the BD version does highlight flaws more that were less noticeable in DVD.
I can now discern details on the actors make-up, such as battle injuries, that are no longer realistic. The CGI lacks texture and resolution, some battle cruisers look like toy models others like CGI, and I can discern the difference between CGI insects or set models. Some insects had obvious spray paint, and remind me of the toys you'd buy at a Discovery Channel store or a museum gift shop. The video was a bit grainy, as I had my BD player set for high sharpness, and I was able to select a less sharp setting to reduce this artifact. Actor's clothing no longer looked space-age, but the material seemed somewhere between WalMart and Lands End. Note, the better BD programs, such as Brad Pitt's Troy or HBO's Band of Brothers, is so well made my fine setting does not create such artifacts.
The audio is clear and sharp but lacks imaging, so the effects do not use 5.1 sound to great effect.
Disk extras are identical to the DVD version, and in DVD quality. The BD-Live supports picture in picture, and what it does is play commentary with video simultaneously with the main movie, but in a tiny PIP. It hardly does anything more that had the commentary audio track played simultaneously, like in the DVD.
Many BD player manuals state clearly you need external memory, usually an SD card or USB drive, to run BD-Live. Knowing that ahead of time, my disk ran without a hitch, but it took over 1 minute to boot longer than none BD-Live disks. I simply put whatever SD card I had lying around, a 32MB card ran fine, but maybe it needs more to run speedier. Note, if you remove the extra memory the disk will not boot.
While BD-Live seems like a nice addition, I find the software and game like capacity it provides crude compared to any DVD or online game, thus its more annoying than a benefit. These extra features never really caught on in the DVD world, so I am not hopeful for BD-Live.
BD is best as a high quality movie transport medium, so I hope makers focus on this and make all video on BD disk as best quality available as the main movie, and pay less attention to the effects that we see in BD-Live.
Guess I need to read the reviews! 
2009-08-10 - Starship Troopers (+ BD Live) [Blu-ray]
Just received copy number 3 and Dito - it didn't load/play. Really felt like a "Dolt" for not reading the reviews. Like all the other folks we've got about 100+ Blu-ray movies and this is a first. My complaint is - "Amazon.Com" should read the reviews as well and tag the product when there's a glitch. All they had to do is direct me to the reviews and I'd have either returned the original or proceeded on. Used a 250MB flash drive and a USB cable from my digital camera accessories used to download the memory card to my computer and - "Bingo"
What a movie addict won't go through for his entertainment.
Awesome, After Getting It to Play on Sony S350
2009-08-05 - It's just what I was looking for, since I lost my non blu-ray Starship Troopers. I was really surprised by the great picture quality, since some older movies I've seen on blu-ray don't seem to be that much better than the standard DVDs. The movie is released by Sony.
I thought it was defective at first too, it loaded and all I saw was a black screen. I had to look on the internet to figure out how to play it. That was lame. But on my blu-ray player Sony BDP-S350, I had to put a USB drive in the back of it, which is how you extend the memory on that model. Don't know how much it needs, but I put a 2 GB drive in and that worked for me.
If you like the movie, I'd recommend getting the blu-ray. You surely won't be dissapointed with the quality.
