tommyuk

After watching James Cameron's film 'Aliens' in 1986 (which I believe was loosely based on the Starship troopers novel) I have to admit I wasn't really all that impressed with 'Robocop' in 1987.At the time I thought the best parts of Robocop where the ED209 boardroom scene and the in-between TV Commercial shorts which where quite funny.I have to give credit to Robocop though because I really like the way Paul pushed this idea to the limit and incorporated it into Starship Troopers with the satirical Federation broadcasts.He has an amazing talent for visualizing classic Sci-Fi and I think he did a fine job on Total Recall based on Philip K Dick's short story 'We Can Remember It for You Wholesale'. I think Verhoeven is a fantastic director who is not afraid to poke a bit of fun at Heinlein's fictional idealistic future and us also at the same time in our own crazy world.Don't get me wrong I love Heinlein's novels and hope some day that another Director might try and visualise the Mobile Infantry closer to the MI in the novel.I would hope that such a director might adopt some of this film's brilliant concepts such as the Arachnids organic weaponry.I think Heinlein would have been just a little bit impressed with the CGI in this fine film

I remember when this one came out back in 1986 or 1987 because it was a trailer that was on lots of videos that I rented out back then.I never actually bothered renting out Space Camp, I always thought it looked quite lame and as a teenager I was more into B horror movies.Watching it for the very first time this morning some 20 years on made me feel quite old, It reminded me of BMX bikes, spiked haircuts and Coin operated video games .I have to admit I did kind of like it, which is unsurprising because I tend to find that films targeted at family audience's usually do have quite high production values.The plot was quite predictable but it was enjoyable and there where some funny one liners.I have to say that I only realized that Max was played by Joaquin Phoenix or rather Leaf Phoenix after checking it out here.Incidentally I don't think that Space Camp had a theatrical release in Cinemas in the UK and Ireland in 1986.It was sad that the Challenger shuttle disaster occurred that year and that event may very well have affected the films theatrical marketing internationally.