I must defend “Starship Troopers” after the absolutely poor review it got in the Daily on Monday.

I do not deny that Mike Milik is entitled to his own opinion about a movie; even for the greatest movies of our time there is always one in 10 people who dislikes it. When it comes to reviewing a movie, however, one must be careful not to let personal expectations get in the way of reviewing a movie.

Mike and I have about one thing in common regarding Starship Troopers — we’ve both been looking forward to it for a long time. I was under the impression that Starship Troopers would be a movie with an attitude, but to what extent, I didn’t know. Every review I had heard or seen about the movie in the weeks prior to its release touted it as the best science-fiction film since Star Wars.

Gene Siskel, Roger Ebert, USA Today and Mancow couldn’t all be wrong, could they? Nonetheless, I went into the movie theater with an open mind because a few science fiction films have disappointed me in the recent past, such as “The Fifth Element” and “Stargate,” to name a couple.

What laid out in front of me was unbelievable — I had never seen a science-fiction film like this before. First, the point of view is what excited me the most. Take the “Empire” from the Star Wars series and look at a war from their point of view, and that’s what the movie is all about.

Earth has become a giant empire (a “federal” entity, to give it a more palatable name) and has adopted the attitude of “we’ll tell you what to do and if anyone stands in our way we will eliminate them.” Finally! A movie that isn’t about going against the political system!

What I found especially humorous was the propaganda which made me think immediately of the World War II newsreels from the United States, illustrating our superiority and the quickness with which we were defeating the enemy. I knew right then and there that movie was out to do more than tell a story. It was setting a mood and environment as well.

One of the best things to happen in the movie was the character development, even though Mike claims that this was minimal. I must defend by saying that my friend Jeff, who never remembers a name or a face, came out of that movie saying “That’s the first time I saw a movie that I was able to keep all the characters straight.”

Usually a science-fiction movie or an action movie plunges right into the action and does a poor job of introducing characters as they come along. “Starship Troopers” did the opposite. The first half hour of the movie was dedicated to developing the characters and giving them distinct personalities.

They didn’t merely come across as asskickers one through six. You actually watch the characters grow from naive fools to experienced soldiers.

About a third of the way though the movie, war breaks out against the “Bugs” and the action everyone’s been waiting for finally arrives. It quickly turns into the goriest and most violent movie I’ve ever seen.

Multiple decapitations, limb severings and bloody stabbings fill the battle scenes, and a few characters die along the way. Unlike most science fiction movies where the good guys always win, I’ll just say that in this movie, that is not the case.

I won’t go through and review the entire movie, but I want to get one point across — just because a movie isn’t what you expected it to be doesn’t mean it’s a bad one. Mike Milik “enjoys huge, silly, special effects-driven … extravaganzas that may be short on credibility but are long on fun.”

I won’t apologize for “Starship Troopers” taking itself seriously; it adds a sense of dignity that I respect. And if “Starship Troopers” didn’t seem fun, then the movie served its purpose because war is NOT fun. People die, governments lie and life sucks for the soldiers. Find any Vietnam Veteran on this Veteran’s Day and ask him if he had a good time. I can guarantee the answer.

That’s not to say the movie doesn’t have its share of humor, but the movie takes the concept seriously. At no time do you think to yourself “that was pretty cheesy — they shouldn’t have done that.”

If a movie is not credible and silly, I would tend to think of it as poor movie with little meaning. But when a movie like “Starship Troopers” comes along and shows a war for what it really is — hard work from the grunt’s point of view, lots of effort and a conflict which isn’t resolved in the last seven minutes, I would highly recommend seeing it.

Five stars out of five.

God bless our veterans.

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Eric S. Vymyslicky

Freshman

Veterinary medicine