Roughnecks - The Starship Troopers Chronicles

Amazon.com

Paul Verhoeven's dark, satirical adaptation of Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers seriously strayed from the novel. This Verhoeven-produced TV series--part sequel, part remake, all CGI animated--hews closer to the spirit of the novel, a space-age twist on a World War II battle adventure. Roughnecks: The Starship Troopers Chronicles--The Pluto Campaign is a mini-platoon epic comprised of the initial five episodes of the series, essentially a series of skirmishes and assignments leading up to the climactic confrontation at Bug City. The episodic nature works perfectly within this framework, and the mix of Marine grit ("No retreat, no surrender!"), military jargon, and understated melodrama give a feel somewhere between the steely seriousness of an old-fashioned war comic book and the spectacle and romance of a Japanese anime space opera. The excellent voice cast includes the inimitable E.G. Daly (who also contributes to Rugrats and Powerpuff Girls) as the gung-ho Private "Dizzy" Flores.

The CGI animation is less ambitious than in such feature films as Toy Story, but it's one of the most impressive examples of the animation made for TV. The detailed designs, rich textures, 3-D modeling, and awesome sense of scale (not to mention the pumped-up action and whiplash speed of the bug army) give it the look of an impossibly sophisticated video game, with the rat-a-tat editing and soaring camerawork of a Hollywood movie. The budgetary shortcuts are evident in moments of blurring and jerking, but overall it's startlingly effective. The PG-level violence (no humans are killed, only demonic-looking bugs) may not be appropriate for younger viewers, but it's aimed at an older crowd and has won a loyal adult following. --Sean Axmaker

Description

Battling seemingly invincible forces primed to take over the universe, "Roughnecks: The Starship Troopers Chronicles: The Pluto Campaign" is a state-of-the-art CGI feature length story that features elements of action, humor, coming-of-age, teamwork and fantasy.

Customer Reviews:

The Pluto Campaign.......2007-02-28

The Best Anime I have seen. Wonder why they stopped making anymore series. I hope they make these more.

Initial Impression: Better than the movie, great graphics, still not "there" .......2005-12-06

I bought this used since the movie didn't deserve the Starship Troopers title/tie-in to the book based purely on technical merit alone (politics aside). So I was leary of anything Verhoeven produced. The cartoon is better than the movie and beautifully animated, but still has differences from the book that are irritating/puzzling.

First is the portrayal of the bugs as...bugs. Bug warriors in the book carried a beam weapon that would slice through the powered armor and the description made them sound more human-sized than either the movie or the cartoon portray them. No beam weapon is apparent. The dangerous but hard-to-kill "tanker bug" also appears in the cartoon but never appeared in the book. I'm not sure why these changes were made but they seem unnecessary and "dumb down" the bugs.

Second is the conversion of the "Marauder" suit from the standard armor that most of the grunts in the book wear (recon and command suits were the other two types) to a suit from Heavy Gear. Why add 'em? OTOH, having some heavy support weapons makes sense for the infantry units.

Third is the wooden voice overs and lines and changes to characters. Think "Sands of Iwo Jima" depth at best. Rico, who in the book always got the "shakes" before a drop is a SGT Rock kind of guy in his first action. LT Razak (vice Raczak in the book) is dual-hatted as the Mr. Dubois character from the book--again, why, and seems less "fatherly" than was portrayed in the book.

O.k., so it's a purists review from a purist that's still waiting (perhaps the Sci Fi channel will come through someday with a mini-series). Despite the criticisms I find the animation and artwork first class with the exception of the faces--first place still belongs to Final Fantasy The Spirits Within. My kids find it entertaining and it's not a complete zero. A big step up from the movie.

Excellent CGI Animated Series.......2005-07-12

Starship Troopers started off as a novel written by Robert Heinlein that chronicled an interstellar war in the eyes of one of a soldier. The book was a bit controversial in its politics, which apparently became fodder for Verhoeven in the movie version of Starship Troopers. The problem with the movie is the focus went too much on social and political satire and gory violence and not nearly enough on what made the book great. The thoughts, feelings and relationships of the soldiers. This is where Roughnecks fills in what's missing.

Roughnecks: Chronicles of the Starship Troopers is as good a mix between the movie and the book as you are going to get. Verhoeven's interpretation of the politics behind Heinlein's novel are put aside in favor of being truer to the book. At the same time you get the awesome alien and spaceship design from the movie. Most imporantly you get some subtle, yet important character development.

You also get a very cool aspect of the book that was left out of the movie and is put back in: the powered armor. Verhoeven didn't have the budget to make the "ape" armor, but with the magic of computer generated animation we finally see it. While the book makes the powered armor turn the marine into a walking tank Roughnecks makes them more like armored environmental suits. I think it's a good balance.

The animation was ahead of its time then and it's still better than any CGI cartoon out there, save for maybe Heavy Gear (which is made by the same producers as Roughnecks). They used a lot of motion capture which makes the character movements more authentic and the voice acting is perfect. The scripts are intelligent and well thought out. This doesn't feel like a cartoon of some sci-fi military. It reads like the real thing (futuristic that is).

The way the DVD is laid out is you get four episodes all rolled into one big feature. No opening and closing credits in between episodes. Just quick fade out/ins between them to make it seem like one big movie. The only problem with this format is these first four stories were very much separate from themselves and as such the flow of this combined eps isn't as strong. Not to worry though because the individual stories are indeed better writing than you see with just about any other cartoon out there.

You don't get much in the way of extras. No commentaries. No featurettes aside from some trailers. There is a section where you get to see production sketches, which is okay. I think the coolest thing about the extras is the fact you can hear this DVD in English, Spanish, Portugese and French. You're lucky to get a major motion picture DVD in Spanish and this one gives you four languages. Add to that subtitles in all these languages plus Thai and Chinese and you have a really cool International DVD.

This first DVD in the Roughnecks collection is a good start. It has great animation and solid storytelling. The fun part is the series just gets better from here so even if this DVD seems a bit redundant story-wise it's recommended you keep going. Like most television series that build on character and plot development over a few episodes (X-Files, Babylon 5) this one will not disappoint.

Disappointing fluff. No heart, no brains........2005-05-27

Heinlein was a brilliant writer in many ways. However his knack for writing believable characters within the philosophical and moral framework of his stories is what really makes him a favorite of so many people.

The live-action movie saw Starship Troopers as an excuse for explosions, CGI, and gun porn, completely ignoring everything that made the book worthwhile. This series attempts to correct that, returning the focus to the characters and how the war shapes them as individuals.

Unfortunately it fails. The voice acting is wooden, reminiscent of the lowest of the low-budget Hanna Barbara cartoons. The noncoms and officers sound and act like caricatures of caricatures; the Intel man in Operation Bug Drop lacked only a big black moustache to complete the image of a cheesy cartoon super villain. E. G. Daly's over-the-top style is perfect for her role in the tongue-in-cheek Powerpuff Girls series; here it just seems lazy.

Regarding character development, Juan and Dizzy get fleshed out a bit, but the effort is half-hearted, without the skill or poignancy of Heinlein's original effort. I simply could not bring myself to believe in or care about the characters.

As often as this show gets compared to the WWII epic serial Band of Brothers, I feel the need to point out one major difference: in real life, main characters die. In war, real people get shot in the neck, lose arms, get their faces burned off. Yet nobody dies (or even stubs his toe) in the animated Starship Troopers. The characters are invincible, and as a result I was never emotionally drawn into the story. I never believed that the characters faced real danger, and apparently the voice actors didn't believe it either.

Some reviews trumpet this lack of violence-on-humans as a positive; such a claim entirely misses the point of the story, and would likely draw harsh words from Heinlein himself. Viewers who have problems with cartoon violence would probably find The Smurfs much more enjoyable.

computer animation at it's best.......2005-02-04

I was around nine years old when this tv show came out. I haven't forgot it ever since. that is in fact why i logged on to amazon,because i want to buy it. it was one of the best shows using computer animation of it's time.and i mean that by how it was a new type of animation of it's time. the stories are complete and understandable.i was so dissapointed when they took it off the air after about only a year.so now i get to watch it on dvd. try it out...Definatley try it out! 5 stars all the way with tons of spider splatting action!

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