“Frankly, I find the idea of a bug that thinks offensive!”
Next and last on our brief look on Verhoeven’s scifi outings comes one that’s a little more divisive. Some see it as brilliant, some as campy silliness—I say, why not both? It’s a take on militarism and fascist propaganda…that just happens to involve giant space bugs. Here’s my take on 1997’s Starship Troopers.
The film is nominally an adaptation of Robert Heinlein’s 1950s novel—Heinlein, while very influential in the genre, was also just a teeny bit bugnuts. The book’s concepts, of elite futuristic soldiers who have to earn their citizenship through military service, reach over the decades—but as for readability? Well, a lot of it is essentially the literary equivalent of listening to a tipsy conservative relative at a family dinner rambling about how liberals should be sent to fight in the Middle East, far as I’m concerned. And believe you me, this wasn’t the last time Heinlein got preachy, even if it was with entirely different ideologies.
Verhoeven obviously felt the same way as I do, and took a far more sardonic approach at the novel’s ideas, as well as Hollywood war films in general. This is made very obvious from the get-go, with the satirically cheesy recruitment ads and propaganda interspersed starting at the beginning. There are some who took this one entirely straight, which confused me—sure, you can quibble about whether it’s an effective satire or not, but believe you me, the film wears its deadpan tone very much on its sleeve from the opening shots.
Anyway, our story follows young Johnny Rico (Casper van Dien), one of several high schoolers who are of course played by actors in their twenties all trying to find their way in the future Terran Federation where citizenship can only be granted by service. The opening school shenanigans are probably the film’s weaker parts, and you can say it takes a little longer to find its footing than say Robocop did. Eventually, Rico and the others decide to join the military and its different branches, with that being where the tone starts to properly kick in—with quick shots of bitter recruiters, and gung-ho cheerful training soon broken up by a brutal flogging.
Soon, Rico and the rest find themselves at war when space bugs throw an asteroid at Earth, and are shipped off across the galaxy to blaze their assault rifles at oversized creepy-crawlies. You can take the over-the-top military drama at face value, but there’s also the little nuggets that hint at just a bit more going on—like the suggestion that the humans did what humans do best and provoked the conflict by barging into a foreign ecosystem. And in terms of spectacle? The infantry invasion in the middle of the film is still all kinds of fun—Verhoeven consciously pastiched the cinematography of the likes of Riefenstahl, with wide shots of hundreds of troopers charging forward, just to add another undercurrent for those that are on his wavelength.
After all, more often than not, historically it was states like Nazi Germany or the USSR that championed military service above all and yet simultaneously treated their soldiers like living bullets. As for the idea of these young people shipped across to desert environments to stumble around haphazardly fighting an enemy they barely understand? Well, isn’t that another thing that rings true here, perhaps a little more today also…
The campy-yet-sincere atmosphere is also enhanced by Basil Poledouris’s excellent score—over the top, yet all kinds of memorable and enjoyable, and paired with the likes of Michael Ironside as a grizzled sergeant growling deliberately silly dialogue with a completely straight face? That only enhances the entertainment value for me.
But if you just want to take the film as a silly thing about good-looking people shooting up bugs—well, you can do that too. The last sequence has some great shots, like warships bisected by plasma in some truly spectacular combinations of model work and CGI, as well as the ridiculous action you come to expect from Verhoeven. It’s all deliberately an over-the-top apeing of war films that can be enjoyed on a a popcorn level—but if you pay closer attention, even the cheery closing propaganda segments leave you considering some of the undercurrents we just take for granted some kinds of productions, be it dehumanization or empty jingoism...
Ultimately, while I wouldn’t say it’s quite as tight as some of Verhoeven’s other films, I’m on the side of getting a kick out of Starship Troopers—you do have to match its wavelength to get the most of out it, but if you do, it’s a hoot. There were of course continuations—like Starship Troopers 2…which was a dreadful wannabe horror knockoff, and best avoided. Starship Troopers 3, on the other hand, bought back the original writer, and cranked up the satire until it was beyond in your face, starting out with the Supreme Marshal performing a propaganda pop concert. It was even more silly, and the effects took a major downgrade, but on a schlocky level, there’s some entertainment value at least.
After that, we had several CG anime films, and more recently, a video game adaptation that I’m happy to see kept the satirical tone of the original film (where pretty much anything is spun as an inevitable stride to victory regardless of what happens!). Either way, point is, the film’s legacy continues—and even now, you can see essays going into its possible takes on Hollywood, fascism, and more…or you can just enjoy some bullets-on-bugs action. It’s that kind of film where you can take it on different levels, and even if it’s flawed, that alone makes it a perennially interesting one for me. Would you like to know more? Well, check it out for yourself…
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