Movies

Novelist Isaac Young Triggers Bug Sympathizers By Explaining Why ‘Starship Troopers’ Failed As A Parody

February 19, 2024  ·
  John F. Trent

A scene from Starship Troopers (1997), TriStar Pictures

Novelist Isaac Young, the author of The Matrioshka Divide, trigged a mass of bug sympathizers by succinctly explaining why director Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers film failed as a parody.

A scene from Starship Troopers (1997), TriStar Pictures

Young explained his theory in seven posts on the social media platform X, He began, “Why the first Starship Troopers movie failed as a parody, a thread: Watching the movie, it was clear the director was aiming for a campy, over-the-top depiction of the Terran Federation. Perhaps not an outright mockery, but certainly a drastic departure from the serious novel.”

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Second, he said, “First, let’s tackle a writing pitfall that irks Leftists to this day. If you make your characters naturally handsome, fit, and well-groomed, then it becomes increasingly difficult to properly mock them. Beauty is self-evident, and all the characters in ST are good looking.”

“This extends to the overall Terran Federation as well. We see clean, beautiful streets. Life seems good for Rico in his polite high school,” he continued. “This is a far cry from the crime ridden and drug addicted cities we know today. Where are the homeless encampments, the ghettos?”

Fourth, Young added, “Can we nail the Terran Federation for being cruel? I guess. But when you play off cruelty as a joke, you are undermining your own message. This isn’t a dialogue about the brutal conditions for training soldiers in a futuristic setting. This is a gag, and it’s hilarious.”

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“All right, what about a critique of comparison? Perhaps the enemies of the Terran Federation have a better system. Oh wait, no, they’re bugs,” he pointed out. “I’ve seen people genuinely argue that the bugs are supposed to be sympathetic. But they’re still bugs…”

“THIS is not a face I can relate to, sympathize for, or even have a dialogue with. This screams at me to kill it with fire. Even IF I didn’t want to kill this thing, I want to be in orbit, far away from this creature. It’s horrific, and only a contrarian can argue against that,” he declared.

Finally, Young concluded, “The only thing you can really critique about the Terran Federation is the propaganda and incompetence. But when everything is so slapstick, it fails at landing a serious point. These guys are badasses in a funny movie, not a warning about the dangers of fascism.”

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Numerous individuals were triggered by Young’s analysis, which as of writing has achieved 6.1 million views on X on the very first post.

One individual responded, “I’m not going through it piece by piece but this is a comedically bad thread. There’s still time to delete it before it breaches containment and more posters with media literacy see it.”

Minignu1 on X

Another responded, “This is a super lengthy thread about you not understanding the movie. I didn’t either when it first came out. I even read the book multiple times. But the older I got and more familiar I grew with what militaristic fascism is, it’s extremely obvious this is a satire.”

SouthpawLeftist on X

User MaxCulbertson posted, “This whole thread is just a very lengthy way of saying “I have the media literacy of a ten year old.”

MaxCulbertson on X

Another wrote, “Perfect satire. It works as an in-universe propaganda film to sucker in new recruits, this is why everyone looks glamorous and shower together, and the aliens look so unrelatable. Once you’ve signed up, you’re blowing up other poor people on distant planets, for oil, most likely.”

DiaBraveSid on X

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In response to these and the numerous other posts responding to Young’s breakdown of the film, he wrote, “Recent events have reaffirmed my long held belief that you should never use textual evidence when debating Leftwingers, primarily because the Left does not actually care about examining anything. They’ll just reframe and shout you down.”

He added, “Case in point: the asteroid attack on Earth during Starship Troopers. Every Leftist came out and screeched that it was obviously false flag. I saw a lot of Rightwingers write out whole essays, citing tons of evidence from the movie why it was not so. But…”

“Their arguments were either ignored or nitpicked until one side gave up,” he continued. “The Left did this because it was not in the interest of their narrative to yield this point. In fact, Buenos Aires was rather central to their thesis. So the line had to be held regardless of the facts.”

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He then concluded, “What we need to internalize is that facts are not enough to win the discourse. No amount of evidence will ever win the Twitter discourse. In fact, to bring evidence is often playing in their hands because no argument is bulletproof.”

Young finished, “What worked, however, were the tens of thousands of Leftists aggravated into openly siding for the bugs. The memes were far more effective than the actual arguments over the movie because they exposed where the Left’s priorities were. It was never about Starship Troopers. It was about their hatred for healthy modes of human existence.”

It’s likely this tactic will need to be used for Prime Video’s upcoming Warhammer 40,000 universe when the same people who were triggered by Young’s breakdown of Starship Troopers will do the same for the Imperium of Man in the grimdark of Warhammer 40k.

What do you make of Young’s comments?

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Author: John F. Trent
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