Roughnecks - The Starship Troopers Chronicles

Amazon.com

The Complete Campaigns is a four-disc compilation of the Roughnecks: The Starship Troopers Chronicles series that was originally released on eight DVDs: The Pluto Campaign, The Hydora Campaign, The Tophet Campaign, The Tesca Campaign, The Zephyr Campaign, The Klendathu Campaign, Trackers (including the four bonus episodes), and The Homefront Campaign. While 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 is a series of military skirmishes and assignments on a variety of fronts, such as Bug City, water-dominated Hydora, the desert planet Tophet, the jungle planet Tesca, fiery Klendathu, and good old Earth.

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 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 may not be appropriate for younger viewers, but it's aimed at an older crowd and has won a loyal adult following.

The packaging is very convenient (a shelf-space-friendly four discs in Thinpaks), but unfortunately, serious Roughnecks fans will want to hold onto their old discs. Cramming the eight discs of content plus bonus episodes (granted, Trackers was a short disc) onto four single-sided discs apparently left no room for the producer/technical commentary tracks that accompanied most of the previous discs. The only bonus features are photo galleries and a fold-out illustration. --Sean Axmaker, David Horiuchi

Beyond Roughnecks at Amazon.com

Listmania: The Military in Space
More Films from Paul Verhoeven
The Book

Stills from Roughnecks: The Starship Troopers Chronicles (click for larger image)

Customer Reviews:

Good CG for the day bad dialogue.......2007-08-23

That sums up most of my feelings towards this rewrite of the Starship troopers universe. It didn't have the harshness or brutality of Heinlen and lacked to proactive scenery and violence of the movie (I know it is a cartoon) additionally all the stories wrap up to neatly to early and the ending to the series is nonexistent, 1 more hour and the show could ahve finished but instead you are left with a cliffhanger.

Better than the movie(s) by far............2007-08-06

Had they actually completed the last 4 episodes, this would have gotten 5 stars.

I feel this treatment of the excellent Heinlein novel is more "accurate" than the two movies. We get the bugs, the Skinnies, and some decent storytelling as well.

The technical presentation is good. Clean images and sound throughout.

If you've seen the movies, but haven't read the original novel, you should. I'd bet you'll like Roughnecks a great deal afterwards.

Only lost one star since the series NEVER ENDED - they stopped 2 episodes short and quit making them.......2007-07-04

I own this and frankly it is pretty good if you liked the starship troopers movie (first one primarily since it follows that line, not the second and pretty cool one in the fortress).

This is very well animated, and the HUGE and ONLY problem is that the series never finished - the plug was pulled TWO EPISODES SHORT OF THE END. The bugs get to earth and start attacking, then we find out that they are taking over people, and we just found a way to strike back and BAM job's done series over.

I would recommend renting - this is not the kind of series you will watch over and over, or buy and resell, but it is worth the watch and is very good overall.

Awful animation, poor physics shouldnt be allowed!.......2007-07-04

Like my title says, even when the technology was new, this looked god-awful. I'm a hardcore fan of the books as well as the movies, but this is just garbage. No extras, nothing. Plus you have to watch these guys and other objects bounce around, defying all physics. It looks worse than Captain Planet (the late animated crap)

Great.......2007-06-27

This is a great DVD box set. It has the whole season including some of the extra shows that were created when the series was taken off the air. If you liked the show you will love this collectible box set. Just be aware that if you buy the box set you will not get the extra behind the scenes footage found in the individual campings found on DVD. If you like me and just enjoy the show, this box set is one easy payment and is one nice box set!

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