Starship Troopers (1997) | Sci-Fi Saturdays

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Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers is one of the finest crafted sci-fi films from the 90s. It has point on satire, top tier special effects, and an equally fun adventure story. However, one of its biggest problems may be that it’s too good.

First Impressions

The trailer for Starship Troopers promises an all-out war between humans and bugs. There’s not much to go on except that the film is directed by the same director that did Total Recall and Robocop. It’s made up of dozens of shots of human space warriors, the titular starship troopers ‘natch, fighting some giant insect looking aliens. There’s lots of gun fire, explosions, and mayhem. But no one would expect less from Paul Verhoeven.

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

The Fiction of The Film

A Federal Network video introduces the state of the universe. Humans are at war with a group of “Bugs” on the world of Klendathu where the aliens attack Earth with meteorites. A FedNet reporter is on the ground with the troops but is killed on camera during the fight. One year earlier at the Buenos Aires Education Center, a one-armed teacher/veteran named Rasczak (Michael Ironside) is instructing the students about the differences between civilians and citizens. Students Johnny Rico (Casper Van Dien) and Carmen Ibanez (Denise Richards) are sweet on each other and plan on joining the Federation for military service.

Rico’s parents, especially his father, don’t want him to join, but he enlists anyway, along with his friend Carl Jenkins (Neil Patrick Harris), who gets picked for military intelligence, due to his latent psychic abilities. Carmen becomes a pilot with Zander Barcalow (Patrick Muldoon), a boy from a rival school that has been hitting on her. Rico and a number of other new recruits, including Dizzy Flores (Dina Meyer)–another girl from Johnny’s school that has a crush on him, meet their firm, yet fair, drill instructor Sergeant Zim (Clancy Brown).

Carmen sends a video message to Johnny breaking up with him, since she has decided to go career Federation, and become a ship captain. During a training exercise a soldier in Rico’s squad, and under his command, accidentally kills a fellow private. Rico receives ten lashes in the square for his failure. He submits his resignation, but reconsiders when he discovers that Buenos Aires has been decimated by a bug meteorite. The Federation goes to war! The fleet mobilizes dozens of ships to attack Klendathu, or Big K, but the attack is a failure and 100,000 soldiers die within an hour. The troops retreat and Carmen sees that Johnny is listed as killed in action.

Fortunately he was saved by Sgt. Rasczak, who has re-enlisted. He leads the Roughnecks, which includes a few of Johnny’s boot camp cohorts including Ace (Jake Busey) and Dizzy. They attack a bug settlement on another planet which includes a Tanker Bug that spits flaming acid. After the successful mission, Rico gets a promotion, as the Roughnecks head towards Planet P, the source of a distress call. The settlement on the planet, Whiskey Outpost, is discovered decimated. All the people are dead except General Owen (Marshall Bell), who is a quivering mess. One of the troopers even had his brains sucked out by a bug.

They are soon attacked by thousands of bugs. Rasczak and Dizzy are both killed in the battle and Rico and a small group of survivors luckily escape with the help from Carmen and Zander on board a shuttle. Back on the fleet ship Rodger Young, a funeral is held for Dizzy and Rico gets promoted to Sergeant of the Roughnecks. He is now in charge, and uses all the rules, and mottos that were used on him. Rico’s Roughnecks take the fight back to the bugs. A series of plasma launches from the planet hit the Rodger Young, and Carmen and Zander are able to escape in a shuttle. Unfortunately, they crash into an underground bug city.

Carmen is injured and Zander has his brains sucked out by a Brain Bug, a giant potato bug-looking beast. Just as Carmen is about to be killed, Rico, Ace, and Watkins (Seth Gilliam) find her and threaten the bugs with a nuke, before running away. Watkins is injured so he stays behind with the nuke to kill as many bugs as he can while his friends escape. Outside, the trio is greeted by a large contingent of enthusiastic troopers. Carl, now a leader with military intelligence, greets his childhood friends and tells them “private” Zim captured the Brain Bug, and the war is finally turning in their favor. A final propaganda video explains that the Federation will win once they understand how the bugs think, and asks the viewer to join up. Do you want to know more?

“Figuring things out for yourself is the only freedom anyone really has. Use that freedom. Make up your own mind Rico.” – Rasczak

History in the Making

Starship Troopers was a return to sci-fi action for director Paul Verhoeven after seven years. He might be best known for his previous genre films. Robocop and Total Recall. In the interim he went an entirely different direction working on Basic Instinct and Showgirls, two dramatic films that shocked audiences and critics with the amount of sex in them. Here, he returns to the world of ultra-violence, but also crafts a film that definitely has a point of view. The film, as many may know, is based on a book by Robert Heinlein, which was originally published in 1959. And as with many literary adaptations, various elements were modified and changed from the novel.

The bones of both stories are similar, but the film takes several liberties with the story for various reasons. The detailed accounts of various battles and technology is not up to the same levels of representation as in the book due to budgetary and design purposes. Additionally the themes of the book were altered to be more satirical and hyperbolic, representing more of Verhoeven’s opinions on the source material–which he viewed as right-wing and boring. This alteration upset some fans of Heinlein’s story, but makes for a stronger film overall. Instead of presenting a gung-ho film about the recruitment efforts for the Federation, and their war with an alien species, the film becomes a parable about the evils of fascism and the pitfalls of propaganda. In some cases it may may overshadow these themes with the action and adventure aspect, which leads some individuals to view the film as a pro-war movie.

Genre-fication

Military science-fiction films are nothing new. The previous decade saw the advent of sci-fi films with military themes, which was usually only reserved for books or comics. The idea of military sci-fi is different than the battles of the Empire versus the Rebellion in Star Wars, or other films with spaceship battles. This type of film usually deals directly with a military squadron and has correlations to the war genre, rather than straight science-fiction. Films like Aliens, Screamers, or Soldier are all examples of military sci-fi. They are all futuristic films, entrenched within an advanced space-military group. This is not always the case as films like Independence Day or Stargate, which take place in the present with traditional military, can also be considered with this genre. With the release of Starship Troopers, a new pinnacle was achieved within the military sci-fi realm. The film tracked multiple characters through their time with the Federation, from recruitment to training, and finally into multiple battles with hostile alien forces. To correlate this film with a more traditional war film, Starship Troopers is most like Full Metal Jacket. Both films showcase the extended training of recruits, some not lasting through the training, and then follows the lead characters into the current war, Vietnam in the case of Full Metal Jacket, and Planet P for Troopers.

Having waited until the late 90s to make this film provided several benefits to the production. The biggest of these was the ability to utilize CGI visual effects in bringing the war to life. While traditional, practical effects were utilized for many aspects of the battles (miniatures, makeup effects, pyrotechnics, and stunt work), the alien bugs were realized with visual effects. This avoided the “man in a suit” problem, where all aliens end up looking humanoid in some fashion, but also allowed for hundreds, or thousands, of these creatures to swarm the human encampments. This ability, to showcase a large group of human troops fighting arachnid-like aliens, created an epic scope to the movie. The special effects also helped provide Verhoeven with the ability to take his penchant for over-the-top violence, as showcased so well in Robocop, and utilize it in this war film. Some of the graphic killings were aided by makeup effects and life sized mannequins, but this may also have been one of the first films to utilize digital blood effects when characters were injured. A particularly noticeable take, which may include digital blood effects, is Jake Busey’s character Ace getting a knife stuck into his hand. The hand and knife are practical effects, but the moment the blade penetrates his “hand” the blood spray seems a little off, and not as realistic. Effects like this have become commonplace in recent years, replacing the explosive squib effects of older films with fully digital injuries.

Societal Commentary

Even though Starship Troopers might seem at first glance to be a pro-war film, this is far from the case. It has the same recruitment feeling as films like Top Gun do–exciting the audience in order to drum up support for the military. But what separates this film from others is the commercials for the Federation interspersed throughout. There are also clues that everything else is not as it seems. It shows a number of young people claiming that they are all doing their part, to protect the planet. Their upbeat nature is supposed to excite viewers about service in the Mobile Infantry. The commercial goes on to remind the viewer that planetary defenses are better than ever. So, there’s nothing to worry about, right? Except, that’s not the case. This footage, even though it starts the film, follows the first attack on Planet K, which was precipitated by a meteor strike from the bug planet in Buenos Aires. These video commercials sprinkled throughout the film represent propaganda from the Federation to convince the population that everything is fine, even though the war is not going their way.

Verhoeven has made it very clear in interviews that he was creating a satire of war films, and particularly of a fascist society. His embellishment of Heinlein’s world, depicts a military state where nationalism and fascism reign supreme. It was the director’s intent to show how scary and dangerous a “perfect” fascist state would be. Young students get brainwashed into believing that the state is correct in its actions. Actions that might be against the interest of the majority of the populace. The film introduces the concept of the two parties in this world: the citizen and the civilian. Citizen’s get rights, such as voting, attending college, getting a license to procreate, and more. These rights are earned by service in the military, if you survive. On the other side are the civilians who have no say in much of their life. Not much is made about these people, but it would appear that Johnny’s parents are both civilians. They are shown as the bleeding hearts in contrast to the gung-ho right wing establishment. The people that tell Johnny what he can’t do, instead of offering him amazing opportunities.

On the surface, the words and actions might appear as moral. The humans are defending themselves from an alien invasion, and the rhetoric and jingoism is necessary to maintain morale. The morale is a very important part of the State’s tools since it keeps a healthy amount of recruits flowing into the system to be used as cannon fodder. The first battle seen in the movie lists 100,000 dead in one hour. That’s 100,000 young lives that were promised rights in exchange for their service. Reading between the lines, perhaps the war is not going as well as the newsreels say it is. Did the bugs really attack first? Or was there a non-invasive event that caused an accident in Argentina that was used as provocation to enter a war? Maybe the humans are the ones seeking to wipe out the bugs. Either way, the Infantry and other warriors all seem to be two steps behind the aliens, and pay for it with their lives.

All the media descriptions use derogatory slang to make the aliens seem worthless to the humans. Calling them bugs, and other terms, is one of the first tools in making the enemy of the state an “other.” One talking head in a news interview is aghast at the suggestion that there is something called a brain bug. His elitist response is that he finds the “idea of a bug that thinks offensive.” Yet, the film then shows that such a creation exists, and it uses its powers to out strategize the Federation. After the capture of one of these aliens at the film’s conclusion, the final propaganda video claims that once the Federation understands the bug, “we” will learn how to defeat it. This is not a society that seeks peaceful coexistence with others. This is a militaristic state that wants to crush other, different, societies under its bootheel.

The Science in The Fiction

The film makes several attempts to show that the bugs are smarter than the humans. They have a distinct hierarchy as the soldier bugs are in the forefront. The giant beetles that fire plasma bursts from their rear are fewer, but stay to the back. Later in the war, flying insects arrive to provide air support, like the planes used by the humans to nuke large groups of aliens. There are also acid/fire spewing tanker bugs, small drones (like the one dissected in the classroom scenes, which also serve as footmen) and the brain bug–one of a few, but serving as generals to the other creatures below them. The humans, in an attempt to belittle the threat of the aliens, decry them as stupid, while lifting themselves up as smart. Yet at every turn, the humans seem to do dumb things that get thousands of soldiers killed or maimed. It’s a wonder that there are any veterans left alive to come home from the war.

These brain bugs are able to understand humans, perhaps only in a limited way. When Rico shows up with a nuke, the brain bug understands what it is and communicates that to the other assembled aliens. Conversely, the humans have no basic understanding of the bugs. That’s why military intelligence is seeking out a brain bug so they can experiment on it and figure out how it works. Like reverse engineering a weapon, but with a sentient being instead. This is usually called torture and is frowned upon by many species. But the Federation shows that it has no time for that. It has dismissed the soft, previous generations where democracy failed, and the “social scientists brought [the] world to the brink of chaos.” Hopefully, the film provides a lesson to audiences watching as well. There’s never a wrong time to be reminded of what fascism looks like, and how easily it can corrupt others.

The Final Frontier

In the film, Carmen’s fleet ship is called the Rodger Young. That’s a very specific reference to a very real veteran from World War II. Rodger Young was part of the Battle of Munda Point, on New Georgia island in 1943. His patrol of 20 men was pinned down by a Japanese machine gun nest, and several men in his group were killed. Young was wounded, and when the order came to withdraw, he ignored it, instead crawling towards the Japanese installation. He drew their fire and managed to kill most of the Japanese troops in the location with his rifle and grenades. Unfortunately, he was killed during this action, but his actions allowed the remainder of his troops to escape. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his service. His story is also referenced in the film by the actions of Watkins, who was also injured when rescuing Carmen from the bug nest. He stayed behind with a nuke blowing up the pursuing bugs while Rico, Ace, and Carmen escaped.

Starship Troopers was not a wholly successful film upon its initial release. Over the years it has found a larger fan base on home release, and is now considered  a cult classic. It spawned at least five sequels, all direct to video, with two of those being animated. There was also a short lived TV series on SYFY called Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles. These sequels do not share the same audience goodwill and thematic satire that the film does, having much lower ratings.

The film acts as a great companion piece to Verhoeven’s Robocop, with both having satirical edges; one on capitalism and consumerism, and the other on politics and the military. And while these themes provide a lot of enjoyment, there’s also a lot of fun action and dry humor. There’s so much more going on in the film as well, and this article has only scratched the surface. If you want to know more, please re-watch Starship Troopers as soon as you can. That’s an order!

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