Finally finished the last of the (published) Roughnecks: Starship Troopers DVDs.
Lying somewhere between the original Heinlein book and the near-camp movie, these CGI animation episodes — 96 minutes per disc — are good, clean, bug-hunting fun. There’s a decent amount of character interplay, and plenty of bug-blasting. I think RAH would be pleased.
The Klendathu Campaign is the weaker of this pair, with Razak’s Roughnecks bringing the war to the Bug homeworld of Klendathu. Various complications — including the snarky Lt. Zander turning into a human/bug hybrid — ensue.
There’s an episode gap before the second disc, The Homeworld Campaign. That disc opens up with the war apparently over, but it turns out the bugs have managed to embed themselves on Earth. Plenty of action follows, along with some tragic losses and decent character growth. It’s ironic that a “juvenile” animated series would show more heart and sophistication than a Hollywood film from the same source — particularly with Paul Verhoeven as the executive producer.
Alas, this is the end of the series as produced. Three final episodes were never finished, though the success of the DVDs may dictate whether that happens. While there are times when the episodes show the limitations (especially on a time and money budget) of computer animation, particularly when it comes to showing human movement, there are some brilliant instances that show you just how far such animation has come. The Roughnecks series is a satisfying set of discs for Heinlein fans and folks who enjoyed the film, as well as sf fans and CGI afficionados. I heartily recommend it.
Hmmm! I never knew about this series! Have to look into it.
Say, did we ever play the Avalon Hill Starship Troopers game? I still have my copy, of course. Alas, I have no opponents left out here. You’ve all fled to other locales! I have downloaded the gamebox for CyberBoard, though, so I can play by e-mail.
I don’t know if we ever played it, though I recall playing it with someone even deeper in my shrouded past. Don’t recall being all that impressed by it — the mechanics were pretty reasonable, but it wasn’t as much fun as the book.
The animated, on the other hand, though clearly a “parallel universe” version of the movie, is mercifully a version which has a lower level of ambient stupidity, testosterone and heavy-handedness. Well worth watching (and worth listening to the commentary tracks, too, which are very enlightening as to CGI production and what you can and can’t do with a “juvenile” show about war).
We have the complete set now as well, but haven’t watched them all. Of course, we saw most of them when they aired on TV, with the Homefront ones being those only seen perhaps once.
But Lou and I should really sit down and watch them in the order they were intended to air, not how they were shown.
And I do want the last three eps. I hoe that some day we’ll get them.