Roughnecks - The Starship Troopers Chronicles - The Pluto Campaign
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Features
• Animated
• Closed-captioned
• Color
• Dolby
• DVD-Video
• Full Screen
• Subtitled
• NTSC
In Theaters : 30 August, 1999
DVD Release : 13 March, 2001 |
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Roughnecks - The Starship Troopers Chronicles - The Pluto Campaign description
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 ... review details
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Roughnecks - The Starship Troopers Chronicles - The Pluto Campaign Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥
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Excellent CGI Animated Series
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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.
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Roughnecks - The Starship Troopers Chronicles - The Pluto Campaign dvd movie.