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Well. That was ... interesting.
Today was another TV day - I can't help it, I didn't have a TV at school and I missed it. *hugs TV* (Side note: HOLY SHIT I CAN'T WAIT FOR BURN NOTICE TO COME BACK. I keep seeing commercials for it, like, every five minutes on USA, and they make me squee like a freak every time. BURN NOTICE. OMGGGGG.)
Anyway, I ended up watching Starship Troopers. For the first time ever; I'd heard of it before, certainly, but had never watched it. I haven't read the book either, actually, even though I kind of love Heinlein - not for any particular reason, I just hadn't gotten around to it. Judging by its Wikipedia page, it's pretty chock full of social and military philosophy, which'll probably go over my head. Or else make me kind of uncomfortable. And also it doesn't really have any female characters of note.
Which is too bad, because I actually loved the women in this movie. I would love to get my hands on an AU where Carmen and Dizzy meet and actually spend some time with each other, because, dude. They were awesome. ... Possibly I have begun to ship them a little.
I loved that Dizzy was more competent than the big muscley recruit, but still couldn't take the sergeant; she would've felt pretty Mary Sueish if she'd just waltzed in and taken Zim down, and I would've rolled my eyes hard if he'd taken her down even faster than he did the guy. I loved that she - and all the rest of the women in the unit - joked around, messed with, fought with, and showered with the guys, and I loved that she got the "death" tattoo, too. Needless to say, I was pretty annoyed when she died, especially because it felt kind of pointless - it seemed like the only reason was because it was a way to jerk Johnny around emotionally, which ... yeah. That's not gonna fly.
As for Carmen: also extremely awesome. I loved that she had a natural aptitude for piloting, that she was better at course plotting than Zander, that she agonized over leaving Johnny for a shot at earning a command position on a starship but decided she wanted it enough to do it anyway - and that she stayed in the story afterwards. I was half expecting her to get dropped after she broke up with Johnny, and was pleasantly surprised when we stuck with her.
I have more to babble about, but we're leaving for the Star Trek movie in about two minutes, so I should get moving. Also: a thunderstorm moved in during the last half-hour, complete with hail, and damned if it didn't sound like God was emptying a big bucket of marbles on the house. Yikes.
ETA: I was planning to natter a little more about the circumstances of Dizzy's death, I think. Not only was it kind of pointless, and mostly a device to make Johnny all sadface, but it also just had to come relatively soon after Dizzy and Johnny have sex, which, in a meta sense, ended up making it come across almost as punishment. Carmen kisses Johnny a few times, and I think near the beginning she makes an overture that ends in sex, but that one's a total fadeout, as in Carmen whispers to Johnny that her parents are out of the house for the night, follows up with a kiss - and then there's a scene change to something totally different. Dizzy and Johnny's sex scene is much more visible; I actually missed most of it because my mother came home and I decided it might not be a bad idea to change the channel for a bit. Carmen lives; Dizzy dies. Not good.
Most of the meta on race and color was pretty mixed, as far as I could tell. I was pleased that Johnny was from Buenos Aires, that they kept his last name as Rico, and Dizzy's as Flores, and gave Carmen the last name Ibanez. But I'm pretty sure all three of the actors were white, even though the characters were - lightly, at least - coded as characters of color, which kind of sucked. Similarly, I was pleased that there were both men and women of color in Johnny's training unit, and in his later combat units; I was somewhat less pleased that the black woman in his training unit was also the one trainee to get kicked out for accidentally shooting another trainee, and I'm fairly sure that the overtly Hispanic guy died (it was a little hard to keep track, a lot of people died).
Sadly, I can't really comment on the ending. I'm not really all that good at watching movies that involve a lot of really gratuitous physical violence: I can practically make myself throw up just by thinking about the one five-minute section of the Kill Bill movies that I actually saw, and the sheer sadism in The Dark Knight has made me cry through the entire thing both times I've watched it. I hung on pretty well through this one, but then I got to the part where the "brain bug" or whatever basically sucks Zander's innards out through his skull like a kid with a milkshake, except, you know, this milkshake is SOMEBODY'S VISCERA, and that was just it for me. No more. :P So.
Anyway, I ended up watching Starship Troopers. For the first time ever; I'd heard of it before, certainly, but had never watched it. I haven't read the book either, actually, even though I kind of love Heinlein - not for any particular reason, I just hadn't gotten around to it. Judging by its Wikipedia page, it's pretty chock full of social and military philosophy, which'll probably go over my head. Or else make me kind of uncomfortable. And also it doesn't really have any female characters of note.
Which is too bad, because I actually loved the women in this movie. I would love to get my hands on an AU where Carmen and Dizzy meet and actually spend some time with each other, because, dude. They were awesome. ... Possibly I have begun to ship them a little.
I loved that Dizzy was more competent than the big muscley recruit, but still couldn't take the sergeant; she would've felt pretty Mary Sueish if she'd just waltzed in and taken Zim down, and I would've rolled my eyes hard if he'd taken her down even faster than he did the guy. I loved that she - and all the rest of the women in the unit - joked around, messed with, fought with, and showered with the guys, and I loved that she got the "death" tattoo, too. Needless to say, I was pretty annoyed when she died, especially because it felt kind of pointless - it seemed like the only reason was because it was a way to jerk Johnny around emotionally, which ... yeah. That's not gonna fly.
As for Carmen: also extremely awesome. I loved that she had a natural aptitude for piloting, that she was better at course plotting than Zander, that she agonized over leaving Johnny for a shot at earning a command position on a starship but decided she wanted it enough to do it anyway - and that she stayed in the story afterwards. I was half expecting her to get dropped after she broke up with Johnny, and was pleasantly surprised when we stuck with her.
I have more to babble about, but we're leaving for the Star Trek movie in about two minutes, so I should get moving. Also: a thunderstorm moved in during the last half-hour, complete with hail, and damned if it didn't sound like God was emptying a big bucket of marbles on the house. Yikes.
ETA: I was planning to natter a little more about the circumstances of Dizzy's death, I think. Not only was it kind of pointless, and mostly a device to make Johnny all sadface, but it also just had to come relatively soon after Dizzy and Johnny have sex, which, in a meta sense, ended up making it come across almost as punishment. Carmen kisses Johnny a few times, and I think near the beginning she makes an overture that ends in sex, but that one's a total fadeout, as in Carmen whispers to Johnny that her parents are out of the house for the night, follows up with a kiss - and then there's a scene change to something totally different. Dizzy and Johnny's sex scene is much more visible; I actually missed most of it because my mother came home and I decided it might not be a bad idea to change the channel for a bit. Carmen lives; Dizzy dies. Not good.
Most of the meta on race and color was pretty mixed, as far as I could tell. I was pleased that Johnny was from Buenos Aires, that they kept his last name as Rico, and Dizzy's as Flores, and gave Carmen the last name Ibanez. But I'm pretty sure all three of the actors were white, even though the characters were - lightly, at least - coded as characters of color, which kind of sucked. Similarly, I was pleased that there were both men and women of color in Johnny's training unit, and in his later combat units; I was somewhat less pleased that the black woman in his training unit was also the one trainee to get kicked out for accidentally shooting another trainee, and I'm fairly sure that the overtly Hispanic guy died (it was a little hard to keep track, a lot of people died).
Sadly, I can't really comment on the ending. I'm not really all that good at watching movies that involve a lot of really gratuitous physical violence: I can practically make myself throw up just by thinking about the one five-minute section of the Kill Bill movies that I actually saw, and the sheer sadism in The Dark Knight has made me cry through the entire thing both times I've watched it. I hung on pretty well through this one, but then I got to the part where the "brain bug" or whatever basically sucks Zander's innards out through his skull like a kid with a milkshake, except, you know, this milkshake is SOMEBODY'S VISCERA, and that was just it for me. No more. :P So.