Starship Troopers (+ BD Live) [Blu-ray]

I originally purchased this movie on laser disc, then DVD. There was little or no difference; however the Blu Ray provides clarity and sound that I feel was missed on the previous releases. Excellent movie.
Thanks
Mills

I hen defense of our world, school kids from Argentina join the military upon graduation. Military service is required for full citizenship. During their term they learn their new environment and grow together or apart as they battle big bugs from outer space.

Yep it is another bug movie. And the bugs are very big. Too bad for the people that read the book. There is no way to justify this movie to you.

However this is a great parity on military types with the grunts being boxy shaped faces and bodies to match, the elite having pointy accouterments. And the gung-ho getting their brains sucked out. This looks like a pilot for a TV series. Male associate soldiers from the book were replaced with female soldiers who improved the shower scenes.

If you just have to take the 'Fascist Utopia' thing seriously then watch a serious movie where there is still a Paul sucked into the same situation by his teacher and others in "All Quiet on the Western Front" (1930).

All Quiet on the Western Front (Universal Cinema Classics) ~ Louis Wolheim

Great commentary by the director and producer in the special features section. This movie is a cult classic!

This movie is worth purchasing if you like Sci-Fi. Great graphics along with strong musical backgrounds. There is both comedy and action throughout.

When it comes to great looking titles. Sci-Fi movies can either be average or amazing. Blade Runner and Close Encounters are older titles that have never looked so good. Starship troopers in much newer and filmed with tons of CGI. It has never looked better. Super clean and sharp picture on this one. It really has that 3 dimentional pop to it. The effects look very crisp. The detail is awesome. From the landscapes to the bugs, it is reference quality. Or very close to it. The daylight scenes are very bright and sharp. The darker scenes in space have very nice deep blacks and still remain clean and detailed. The skin tones are right on, and there are no specs of dirt or artifacts to be seen. I am very happy with this title.

As far as the sound goes, it is a great sounding movie. Tons of shootouts and explosions to take full advantage of your audio system. Voices are clean and clear. No complaints here either. Your subwoofer will get some use many times throughout the movie. Rear sound effects are cool during shootouts also. Simply cant do much better in my opinion. A good buy if your a fan of this movie. Best quality release of this movie to date, hands down.

Version: U.S.A / Sony Pictures / Region Free
MPEG-4 AVC BD-50 / High Profile 4.1 (1080p) / High Profile 3.2 (480p)
Running time: 2:09:27 [could be due to an editing error that trims the running time by 4 to 6 seconds]
Movie size: 35,201,273,856 bytes
Disc size: 44,711,666,541 bytes
Average video bit rate: 23.00 Mbps

Dolby TrueHD English 1834 kbps (5.1/48kHz/16-bit)
Dolby TrueHD French 1971kbps kbps (5.1/48kHz/16-bit)
Dolby Digital 2.0 192 Kbps

Subtitles: English / English SDH / French / Spanish
Number of chapters: 16

* 2 Audio Commentaries
* Documentary
* Featurettes
* Screen Tests
* Deleted Scenes
* FX Comparisons
* FedNet Mode Picture-in-Picture Commentary (Profile 1.1)
* BD-Live Content (Profile 2.0)
* Recruitment Test
* Blu-Wizard

Movie: 4.5/5 Picture Quality: 3.5~4.5/5 Sound Quality: 3.75~4.5/5 Extras: 2/5
Version: E.U / BVHE Touchstone / Region Free
VC-1 BD-50
Running time: 2:09:37
Movie size: 37,491,136,512 bytes
Disc size: 40,984,117,470 bytes
Average Video Bit Rate: 26.56 Mbps
LPCM 5.1 4608Kbps English
DD AC3 5.1 640Kbps

* Deleted Scenes (8 min. SD)
* Scene Developments with Audio Commentary (9 min.SD)
* Making-of Featurette (8 min.SD)
* Screen Tests: Johnny and Carmen (4 min. SD)
* Teaser Trailer (2 min. SD)

FYI - From Joshua Zyber at High-Def Digest (I have not confirmed this myself. I'm waiting for word on the resolution of this before buying my copy):

"A bizarre editing problem has been discovered on the Sony Blu-ray. Thanks to reader Tim for sending in the following description of the issue, which I can verify is also present on my copy:"

"At 1:31.43 - 1:31.49, a bug climbs into the base and gets shot to pieces by the troopers, followed by a shot of Michael Ironside and Jake Busey shooting rounds into some (off-screen) bugs. After that, Casper Van Dien screams to Michael Ironside that help is on the way. Then at 1:32.00 - 1:32.06, exactly the same footage with the bug getting blown to pieces and the shot with Ironside and Busey is repeated! This time Ironside can be heard (not seen) saying, "Fall back into the compound. Fall back!" Also missing this second time is the sound of the guns tearing up the bug. I remember that on the DVD version, after the shot with Casper Van Dien and Dina Meyer, Michael Ironside says (and was seen on screen too) the "Fall back" line and then jumps off the barricade. All of this is missing on the Blu-Ray version."

"Indeed, I checked the Superbit DVD and the UK Blu-ray edition and both are edited differently, with Ironside voicing his line on camera and then jumping off the barricade. The repeated footage on the new disc is a strange anomaly and must be the result of an error in the source materials that Sony used for their transfer. For what it's worth, the problem lasts only six seconds, and the scene is edited so quickly that I didn't even notice until it was specifically pointed out to me."

I've enjoyed owning Starship Troopers on Blu-Ray for over 2 months now. I bought it from Amazon.com France. This was a rare instance of a region free Blu-Ray being sold overseas. There are many Blu-Ray titles available in Europe months ahead of availability in the USA. Unfortunately they are 99.9% region 2 and cannot be played on US players. Frankly I despise this region scheme cooked up by corporations to milk more profit out of consumers.

The picture quality totally eclipses the inferior DVD version. The PQ is clear, razor sharp and colors pop off the screen. There is a bit of grain visible in a few scenes, but it's barely noticeable.

The sound quality is great as well. The surrounds are fairly active, particularly in battle scenes. The subwoofer gets quite a workout, adding a lot of presence to the music, explosions and such. The 2 English soundtracks offered on my French disc are: 5.1 uncompressed (PCM) and 5.1 Dolby Digital. The French and Spanish soundtracks are in 5.1 DTS or 5.1 Dolby Digital.

There are several extras, for those of you who insist on such. Included are development cels, deleted scenes, making of featurette, screen tests, and a teaser trailer. There is a menu entry for "original DVD features", but that selection is disabled on my disc.

If you are a fan of the original Starship Troopers movie, then I recommend buying this without reservation.

It's humans versus giant space bugs! In the 23rd century, humans live on a crowded, militaristic Earth with fascist overtones. Three friends from high school join the military and serve in a war against grotesque insect-like aliens. We see war propaganda, training for war, sci-fi warfare (mostly not so different from current warfare), gung-ho attitudes set against the human (and bug) costs of war, and some romance. The action is well done, with impressive special effects, the plot compelling enough, the cast good-looking, the mood ironic/tongue-in-cheek mixed with realistic/gritty violence, and there's more, though the value of the "more" is debatable.

Director Paul Verhoeven had a serious purpose in mind, to show that "war makes fascists of us all," and it's clear he is satirizing militarism. But the film is such fun as a popcorn movie and sticks so close to a typical war movie plot, with a basically triumphant outcome, that the intended moral is undercut, or at least its cogency made less apparent. There's much in the film to make us uncomfortable about war/militarism, but there's as much or more that invites us to merely enjoy it, cheer it on, or otherwise see it as attractive, it seems to me. The lesson we can take from that is rather muddy. Shows war propaganda works, I suppose, but doesn't show that's a bad thing. (The "Put Yourself in the Film: Join the Fight!" feature described below seems to encourage us to participate in the war as fun.)

Among those who wish to take the film seriously, it also suffers from comparisons to the Heinlein classic novel it was uncomfortably married to. Verhoeven had limited interest in being true to the book, which he didn't even finish reading (though the screenwriter did). It's probably best to approach the movie initially without much of the baggage that would come from either a serious purpose or the book, and then if you can get more out of it from those connections (as some do), all the better.

The new Blu-ray edition will be released on August 5th. It will carry over special features from previous releases and add a few new ones. The new ones, exclusive to the Blu-ray release:

-- "FedNet Mode," described as "bonus view picture-in-picture with enhanced graphics," includes pop-up video, text and graphics that go into more detail about the movie, characters and story
-- BD-Live feature "Put Yourself in the Film: Join the Fight!," which allows you to insert yourself, or rather your uploaded image (internet connection to your player required), into some scenes from the movie
-- "Recruitment Test" trivia challenge
-- Blu Wizard, which allows easy, customizable access to features

The features carried over from older releases:

-- audio commentary by director Paul Verhoeven and screenwriter Ed Neumeier
-- audio commentary by Verhoeven and stars Dina Meyer, Casper Van Dien and Neil Patrick Harris
-- "Death from Above" documentary about the movie and its production, including interviews about what the filmmakers intended and how it was received (30 minutes)
-- "The Making of Starship Troopers" (7 minutes)
-- "The Spaceships from Starship Troopers" (4 minutes)
-- Special Effects Comparisons: 8 sequences showing the raw footage with the final version superimposed in picture-in-picture format
-- Storyboard Comparisons: 3 sequences showing original storyboards with the final movie versions superimposed picture-in-picture
-- Bug test film ("Don't Look Now"), with introduction by Verhoeven
-- "Know Your Foe," a five-part text and video clip featurette on each of the major types of bugs (Warrior, Tanker, Hopper, Plasma and Brain)
-- Scene Deconstructions: 2 scenes with commentary by Verhoeven
-- behind-the-scenes footage
-- 5 deleted scenes
-- screen tests

There isn't any mention of the isolated score audio track with comments by composer Basil Poledouris that was included on the 2-disc standard DVD Special Edition.

Video/sound: Amazon has waited so long to put up this page (July 31st) that I've already been looking over the early professional reviews to see about video and sound quality, so I'll pass along what I've found for anyone else interested. The reviews are generally quite positive, with some dissent. The consensus is that most of the movie is very sharp, clear, with realistic color. Grain and loss of detail are said to be problems in some scenes. One review complains that the high-def makes the special effects look awful, though it gives an overall 8/10 to the video. The sound is generally reported to be very good if not always spectacular, with a strong use of surround effects. The one dissenting review says the sound is like a bad TV movie(!), calling it "flat." Sounds like a good bet to me, overall. The video is 1080p (movie and new extras only) 1.85:1 widescreen, the audio TrueHD 5.1 (in English or French), with optional subtitles in English, English SDH, French or Spanish.

Not really a five-star movie for me, but I think the outstanding extras and the good transfer quality are worth bumping it up to five overall for an excellent package.

This release coincides with the release of Starship Troopers: Marauder (=Starship Troopers 3). As Starship Troopers 2 was in 2004, it will be released direct-to-DVD (which judging from the reviews means just what you'd expect). The Amazon page for ST3 on Blu-ray is here, the whole trilogy here.