Funny / Soldier

• Todd's highly trained economy of motion is good for some chuckles.
  • In the dining hall with the other colonists, Todd is shoveling food into his mouth, barely pausing to gnaw off a bit of his dinner roll. Everyone else is watching him stunned, Mace takes this to mean Todd is ravenously hungry, scrapes his food onto Todd's tray. Todd barely pauses to acknowledge this and goes right back to eating.^note And since Todd is still recovering from pretty serious wounds, and has his very muscular soldier's body to fuel, Mace may be right that Todd really needs some calories.
  • Todd is with Sandra in the garden, watching her do some planting. She offers to let him try. Todd takes the small plant from her, plunks it in the hole, then shoves dirt over it with a simple sweep of both hands. Even Sandra has to chuckle.
• Meekum is hilariously ineffective as a commanding officer, strutting around in a dress uniform with a nickel-plated pearl-handled revolver as a side arm, wearing a pencil mustache, his whole bearing screams "officious twat."
  • Rather dark, but the whole reason for the conflict between the colonists/Todd and the soldiers? "We don't want paperwork and we certainly don't want passengers." Since they're patrolling what's supposed to be an uninhabited system just to confirm it is uninhabited, if they do find anyone there they are officially classifiable as hostile and so should should be killed for Meekum's new soldiers to cut their teeth.
  • When Todd takes out the first three-man fireteam to go into the colony complex, Meekum states that "Obviously we are dealing with a significant military presence." Because his tiny little REMF brain can't grasp the idea that maybe his soldiers aren't as good as advertised, so the only way such awesome and efficient one-man armies could be dispatched is by a military force that ludicrously outnumbers them. He clings to this logic throughout the film, stating that, after Todd has wiped out all Meekum's soldiers, "For all we know there could be a couple of divisions out there!"
  • Lt. Sloan notes that they don't even have the weapons to arm the old soldiers. Meekum immediately pounces on her. "Was that a recrimination, lieutenant? Because if that was a recrimination I'll have you court-martialed!" Sloan quickly assures him that's not what she meant.
  • Finally, when coming face-to-face with Todd, Meekum wets himself, finally seeming to understand that this soldier he dismissed as obsolete has obliterated his entire command, and is about to do the same to Meekum.
• Black Comedy to be sure, but when Todd is surprised by Jimmy, who just wanted to give Todd a scarf as a Christmas present, while Todd is choking him all Jimmy can do is squeak "Scarf." When Todd finally lets him go a hairsbreadth away from killing him, Jimmy raises the scarf in his hand from flat on his back before passing out.
• After Todd takes down the first of the fireteam, he's seen loading up on the dead soldier's weapons. Slade, the colonist who'd accused Todd of being a deserter, approaches, asking "Do you need any help, partner?" Todd pauses, turns and gives Slade one of the most eloquent Death Glares ever committed to film. Slade swallows, backs away, says "Okay," and books it, clearly having gotten the message: Todd neither needs nor wants help.
• At the end of the movie, Nathan goes to find Todd on the bridge, where Todd is telling Riley to set course for the Trinity Moons. The soliders see Nathan, who holds his arms out to Todd. Todd picks the kid up, and the other soldiers, including Riley, look at Todd very confused. Todd stares back with an expression that screams "You got a problem with this?" before leaving the bridge. The other soldiers stare at each other for a beat before getting back to work, apparently having decided to completely ignore this weirdness.

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