Along with Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, and Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein was one of the leading science fiction writers to emerge after World War II. He was praised for the accuracy he brought to the science part of his fiction. Heinlein was also the rare writer who seemed to be praised on both sides of the political aisle (reflecting his own political journey from left to right to being a libertarian). Stranger in a Strange Land (which I’ve never read) was widely praised by the counter-culture for its views on the sexual revolution. Starship Troopers, on the other hand, was praised by right-wingers for its unabashed militarism. To its detractors, the latter novel is a fascist novel disguised as science fiction. I’m not sure I’d go that far – when I initially read it in the 1990’s, I took it as being Sands of Iwo Jima set in the future – but there’s no question it is very gung-ho about war and the military (along with being gung-ho about corporal punishment and believing only certain people had the right to vote). So it makes you curious if producer Jon Davison and screenwriter Ed Neumeier secretly knew what they were doing when they pursued Paul Verhoeven (whom they had worked with successfully on Robocop), who had grown up in the Netherlands when it was occupied by Nazi Germany during WWII, to direct the movie version of Heinlein’s novel, because the resulting movie, Starship Troopers, took that pro-militarism attitude and turned it entire on its head.* When it came out in 1997, Starship Troopers was a box-office bomb, and critics weren’t much kinder (Gene Siskel was one of the few critics who liked it, and he only gave it a mild recommendation). Today, however, it’s become a cult hit for those who realize it was a satire on the novel, and while I don’t love it, I think it’s terrific.
As with the novel, the movie is set in the 23rd century, where Earth is ruled by the military under the guise of the United Citizen Federation, and they’re at war with bugs, who are fighting the Earth on planets Earth is trying to colonize from their home base on Kiendathu. It’s at this time Johnny Rico (Casper Van Dien), a star athlete, enlists as a mobile infantryman, over the objections of his parents. Also joining up are Carmen Ibanez (Denise Richards), an ace space pilot and Rico’s girlfriend (at first), Carl Jenkins (Neil Patrick Harris), a psychic who ends up in military intelligence, and Izabelle “Dizzy” Flores (Dina Mayer), who joins the mobile infantry unit because she’s in love with Rico. While Carmen joins the space air force, breaks up with Rico, and becomes close to Zander Barcalow (Patrick Muldoon), another pilot, Rico goes through training with Izzy, under the command of Sgt. Zim (Clancy Brown), who respects Rico because he was taught by Jean Rasczak (Michael Ironside), who later joins the military again. While Rico initially impresses Zim enough to be promoted to squad leader, he later quits military training after an exercise he supervises inadvertently causes the death of one of his men. However, Rico goes back to the military when a bug attack kills his parents, and he and Izzy, along with Ace Levy (Jake Busey), who was in the training class with Rico, and Sugar Watkins (Seth Gilliam) to be part of the Roughnecks (led by Rasczak) fighting unit, who does the bulk of the fighting against the bug army., though the fight turns out to be tougher, and bloodier, than anyone expected
In his Dutch films, Verhoeven was allowed to explicitly show sex and violence, along with a satirical edge in movies like Soldier of Orange, Spetters, and The 4th Man. In Hollywood, on the other hand, Verhoeven had to dial down the sex part, except for Basic Instinct and Showgirls (both movies have a cult following and are considered in some circles as being as subversive as Verhoeven’s Dutch films, but I think that’s giving too much credit to Joe Eszterhas, the screenwriter of both films) – he does have the nude shower scene here, which he got the cast to agree to when he and cinematographer Jost Vacano agreed to shoot the scene while nude – but has been allowed to show explicit violence. Yet as in Robocop and Total Recall (my favorite of Verhoeven’s Hollywood movies), the violence in Starship Troopers never feels gratuitous, but necessary to the story. Forgoing Heinlein’s novel, Verhoeven does not try to make war glorious, but makes it a living hell, yet at the same time, showing a society that produces people who seem to be equipped to do little else except fight bugs and maybe even get killed by them.
Of course, part of what makes the violence work so well in the movie – aside from the way Verhoeven, Vacano, and editors Mark Goldblatt and Caroline Ross help stage it – is the satire Verhoeven brings to balance the movie out. Verhoeven stated in interviews he took inspiration from movies Hollywood made during WWII, but especially the movies of Leni Riefenstahl, specifically Triumph of the Will and Olympia (George Lucas, of course, used imagery from the former in the final scenes of Star Wars: A New Hope, but Verhoeven takes it to another level here). Part of that comes through in the pro-military commercials and news segments that appear throughout the movie (similar to the ones in Robocop), with narration by John Cunningham (a veteran stage and TV actor who has also appeared in such movies as Mystic Pizza, School Ties, and Nixon) that always ends with, “Would you like to know more?” Part of that also comes from the costumes designed by Ellen Mirojnick, who outfits most of the characters in military uniforms that wouldn’t look out of place in Triumph of the Will. Part of that also comes from Neumeier’s dialogue, which also wouldn’t seem out of place in a military propaganda film (when experts are debating the war on TV, and one mentions the bugs may have developed intelligence, another one snorts, “Frankly, I find the idea of a bug that thinks offensive!”). Still, most of the satire comes from how Verhoeven cast the movie with actors who would have fit right in on Melrose Place, being blond and blue-eyed – and if you’re wondering about folks from Argentina (which is where the Earth scenes take place, though that part of the movie was shot in Los Angeles, where the bug planet scenes were shot the South Dakota and Wyoming) being blond and blue-eyed, remember a number of Nazis who fled Germany at the end of WWII to escape capture settled in Argentina.
In the years since the movie was released, a healthy debate has sprung up among fans of the movie as to which of the cast members were in on the joke. Although Van Dien had stated in interviews at the time that he recognized the film was meant to be a satire, his subsequent career choices (he was in one of the first Christian-themed movies, The Omega Code, as well as daytime and prime time soap operas on TV) doesn’t give you much confidence in that statement. On the other hand, it’s clear Brown, Harris, and Ironside recognize what kind of movie they’re in – Ironside especially when he’s espousing pro-military attitudes that even Gunnery Sergeant Hartman from Full Metal Jacket might have blanched at – and I would argue Mayer also seems to get that it’s a satire, even if her character was changed from the novel (Dizzy was a man in the novel) to give Rico a love interest. Richards is an interesting case. In the DVD commentary, Verhoeven insists Carmen was meant to be a feminist character, while test audiences didn’t react well to her, even wishing she had been the one who dies. While a lot of that can be seen as the misogyny of the audiences of the time, and Carmen certainly gets shown as being capable of what she does, I always thought she should have been a more compelling character, and I’m not sure if it’s the fault of Richards, Verhoeven, the writing, or a combination. That said, based on the movies she did after this, particularly Wild Things and Undercover Brother, which are both tongue-in-cheek genre pieces (the former for the erotic thriller, the latter for blaxploitation movies) – and while I don’t think much of The World is Not Enough, the James Bond movies pre-Daniel Craig were tongue-in-cheek – it’s likely Richards did get the humor of the movie, even if she doesn’t come across that way. Regardless, the actors for the most part are good, particularly Brown, Harris, and Mayer. Starship Troopers doesn’t rank as my favorite Verhoeven, but I admire its audaciousness in turning the militarism of Heinlein’s novel on its head.
*-Neumeier had actually written an original screenplay called “Bug Hunt at Outpost 7”, but when he showed it to Davison, Davison pointed out the similarities to Heinlein’s novel.
