MovieChat Forums > Soldier (1998) Discussion > 20 things I learned from 'Soldier'.

20 things I learned from 'Soldier'.

posted 13 years ago by KarlDude555
14 replies | jump to latest

These are in the order that they happened in the film:

1. Only babies that cry loud will grow up to become "Super Soldiers".
2. When Super Soldiers are using their firing range, a placard with their name on it will be placed in front of them. In order to read the front of the placard, one must be in the soldier's line of fire.
3. Super Soldiers fighting tactics are so refined that they don't need to aim or take cover. They just walk forward and shoot.
4. The best camouflage to use in an arctic environment is red, white and blue.
5. In the year 2036 Argentina will have multiple moons.
6. One of the best ways to show that your new breed of Super Soldier is better than the old is to have the soldier spin around in an elliptical exercise machine.
7. When a soldier hanging from a chain is shot in the head he will begin to smile in a creepy manner.
8. Kurt Russell has an entire universe inside of his left eyeball.
9. On planet "Arcadia 234", dead bodies are small enough to fit in graves that are just a few feet apart.
10. Super Soldiers are very efficient eaters and do not waste any time chewing their food.
11. A Super Soldier's blood can double as seasoning on chopped vegetables.
12. Christmas parties can trigger post traumatic stress disorder.
13. A sociopath with violent tendencies will be forgiven for prior infractions if he teaches a villager's son how to kill a snake with a boot.
14. If an enemy is approaching your village, the best way to warn everyone is by ringing the dinner bell.
15. On "Arcadia 234", the best way to negotiate with a more powerful enemy is to just stand there and stare at them until they fire a rocket at a you.
16. The best way to prepare for battle is to switch the ammo drum from one gun to another.
17. Watching Kurt Russell walk by with guns in hand and face camouflage on will cause women to orgasm.
18. Peaceful remote villages will keep a snake pit nearby just in case an enemy needs to be thrown into it.
19. On "Arcadia 234", trees explode when they are hit by vehicles.
20. When dealing with a mute kid, a Super Soldier will adopt the kid's ways and will point at things and not speak.

[–] tbeller80 13 years ago

21. A soldier raised from birth to not speak, move, or shoot without following orders will take the initiative needed to ambush and hunt down an entire platoon based solely on a moral judgement.

22. This PTSD riddled super soldier will after 40+ years of discipline, military training, and war go soft and develop emotions, morals, and make friends in the space of a few months. He'll even be willing to maroon his senior officers based on his new feelings.

23. Future officers won't think it's a waste of time to install a planetary monitoring system and a planet-busting bomb at the same time.

24. Future colonists will be so detached from their military that a)finding out someone is a soldier is an OMG moment and b)they'll think soldiers must love fighting.

[–] MisterZed 13 years ago

25. There may only be a minute number of planets in the universe with an Earth-like climate, but when humanity finally finds one, they use it to dump their garbage.

[–] 13 years ago

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] MIKELOGAN1975 11 years ago

30. Performance enhancing drugs of the future are still not as good as the real thing.

31. Highly trained Super Soldiers of the future can not count to 17.

32. Jason Isaacs and Sean Pertwee have a hard time living through ANY movie.

33. Even after several years stranded on a garbage planet, Connie Nielsen still looks like she just came from an all day spa.

34. Apparently, genetic engineering does not compete with getting your eyeball ripped out - Cane was the last 'new' soldier left standing.

35. In the future , you only get medals and awards if your old character names are mentioned on them.

Miskatonic University - Go Pods !!!

[–] JungleHyena 11 years ago

36. In the future... it will only take removing a soldier far away from his comrades and *beep* commanding officers... for the soldier to become interrested in women and their tits.

[–] Krush_Varrok 11 years ago

37. The United States only needs about 20 soldiers.

[–] wisecracker72 10 years ago

38. Somewhere, somehow, and for reasons unfathomable to me, somebody has invented a body armour that stops bullets, but not flying crosses.

[–] shadesofhades 9 years ago

39. Soldiers of the future will wear New Rock boots.

[–] Satantangoandcash 9 years ago

40. Body armor that can stop bullets can't stop snake bites.

41. In 2036 space travel is so cheap and efficient that it's economical to ship unwanted CDs, aircraft carriers, and casino advertising lights to a garbage planet many light years from Earth.

42. They solved all the difficult problems necessary to make interstellar travel possible - artificial gravity, faster-than-light speed travel, navigation, etc. - but nobody remembers how to check a man's pulse to confirm if he's dead or alive.

43. Earth in 2036 no longer needs coin-operated parking meters.

44. Nobody recycles any more on Earth in 2036.

45. Grabbing a snake behind the neck with your bare hand as it jumps several feet in the air is one of the skills of a supersoldier.

46. It's possible to crash land on an inhabitable planet on your way to a different planet.

47. Sandra is a snake-killing Ninja when armed with a garden trowel.

48. Nathan is slow to figure out the smash-the-snake-with-a-boot clue in a game of charades.

49. In 2036 veteran's cemeteries and Memorial Day observations are no longer needed because deceased veterans are simply dumped out with the garbage.

50. Messy garbage planet Arcadia 234 could use a visit from WALL-E.

51. Kurt Russell could have starred in silent pictures.

[–] darren-oconnor 9 years ago

As far as point 1 goes, I got the impression that it was the other way round -- the babies that were the literal crybabies were eliminated (you see them being taken out of the nursery), while the others remained.

[–] tbeller80 8 years ago

The crying ones were showing aggressive qualities and were essentially stolen by the government from the hospital which is why the attending nurse looked so sad whenever a number was assigned to a baby.

[–] darren-oconnor 8 years ago

That's one possible interpretation, but only if you automatically equate crying with aggressive. Crying could just as easily be interpreted as weak or needy, and therefore unfit, and therefore the sad looks when they were removed was because they were going to be culled from the program (i.e. taken out and euthanized). It also strikes me as more consistent with what we see in every other part of the program -- the camera stays with the trainees and follows them, while the culls are taken out of view and disposed of off screen.

[–] funpig (20) 2 months ago

I have re-watched the first scene several times and had a hard time deciding which interpretation is correct.

Is a crybaby considered weak and should be eliminated leaving calm and confident babies to be super soldiers? Todd and all the soldiers were calm and devoid of emotion. The expression on the nurse seems sad as if the crybaby will be put to death. The remaining babies were still under the watchful eye of the military. This was my original interpretation.

On the other hand, is a crying baby a sign that the baby is hungrier, wants more and will grow up to be more aggressive? The focus was on the crying baby from the beginning of the film. The military only selected a few (cry)babies and labeled them 1A. They left the vast majority of the babies behind, all of whom were passive. The expression of the nurse would then be interpreted as her sadness that this baby was going to end up in a military experiment. Was Todd one of the select few or one of the many that were left behind in the nursery?

I looked up military classifications on Wikipedia. "1A" means "available for unrestricted military service". I now lean towards the latter interpretation.

I think the scene would have worked better if the majority of babies were crying and they focused on and selected the non-crying baby to be the super soldier. I think the director probably went with the original scene because it would have been cruel to force the majority of the babies to cry for the scene.