When Starship Troopers was first released, it was pegged as a senseless action flick for 11 year-old boys (Ebert, 1997). Under the surface, however, it’s ripe for analysis. It could function as a blunt science fiction monster film; humanity travels at light speed to fight mindless swarms of Others – aliens which are simply called “Bugs.” As an exploitative horror film, it consists of tropes like gratuitous nudity and decapitation. Machine guns, grenades, and spaceships dominate the combat scenes, featuring a bombastic score by Conan the Barbarian composer Basil Poledouris. However, at its core, Starship Troopers is a thinking man’s war film, and a layered commentary that critics like Roger Ebert couldn’t quite grasp in 1997. It’s ultimately a movie with a message – one that is being unearthed as it became more and more relevant in the 2000s, 2010s, to the present.
Johnny Rico (Casper Van Dien) is a high school football star in a post-democracy Buenos Aires governed by the United Citizen Federation. He seeks more commitment from his girlfriend Carmen (Denise Richards), but she is determined to join the military after graduation. Johnny claims he wants to be a Citizen – service guarantees citizenship! – but it’s clear he is enlisting just to chase Carmen. More friends join up and enter the Federation’s ranks in different branches, facing horrific consequences at the hands (legs?) of the Bugs. But the Federation must continue on. Neil Patrick Harris tells his friends, as they mourn the loss of their own, “We’re in this for the species, boys and girls.” The patriotic oorah of the Federation and dozens of gruesome on-screen deaths juxtapose as our heroes work together toward a victory with a tenuous undercurrent.
While based on Robert Heinlein’s novel from 1959 – the golden age of pulp science fiction – the flavor of the film plays on the pro-military source material to point out its absurdity. The script was written by Edward Neumeier, with Paul Verhoeven directing. The two previously partnered for Robocop (1987), which was a criticism of the police state; another film with a satirical tone. Long after the release of Starship Troopers, film critics have finally come to realize that it is not a brainless, campy action movie, but another of Verhoeven’s satires. It is a satire of war propaganda with multiple layers, some of which were not at first recognized (Marsh, 2013). In fact, it is a pointed critique of the cheap but effective conformity of fascism and those who are doomed to embrace it. What was meant to be a satire and a warning was overlooked by many. Now, it’s becoming reality (Usher, 2017).
Starship Troopers deserves its R rating, rich with titillation and violence as Verhoeven’s other popular films of the ‘80s and ‘90s, such as Basic Instinct. By no means is this a film that would pass the 1930s’ puritan Production Code in any way, whether enforced or socially implied. Meanwhile, the computer-generated images are needed to depict the tens of thousands of insectoids teeming into view and dozens of gleaming spaceships dodging ballistics; Verhoeven aimed for an element of realism in the depiction of alien worlds (Simon, 2009, para. 20). Such scenes would have been technically impossible in Heinlein’s era of Ray Harryhausen movies.
As far as the social context of the film, male and female cadets shower together without a second thought. There is no G.I. Jane struggle for women to hold their own in a male-dominated arena. Race is also not addressed. While there are handful of people of color present, there’s no commentary from these secondary or tertiary characters like other war movies – pointing out socioeconomic inequity like Platoon or planting a jovial “my black ass” (insert film of choice here). The Federation in Starship Troopers draws a single division in the social order: the Citizen (one who has served) and non-Citizen (second-class member of society), and even this fades. As the story progresses, it becomes the division of Us and the Bugs.
All told, the film requires the 1990s. This is reflected in the increasing normalization of violence and sex in the media; the political commentary as a mature reflection on World War II; as well as a look toward a future that has turned out to be quite relevant to the generation that originally viewed the film.
Starship Troopers is shot in a fairly straightforward way. There is no shakycam, no Dutch angles, no POV, no looming shadows. The key light shines bright on our young, pretty actors and their perfect hair. The depth of the film’s message actually comes from the unnerving plastic quality of what we see – the lack of expressive cinematography. Other production elements deserve examination, too. Roger Ebert notes in his original review, “…the sets and costumes look like a cross between Buck Rogers and the Archie comic books, and the characters look like they stepped out of Pepsodent ads” (para. 5). However, scholars of World War II may notice the similarity of uniforms to Schutzstaffel (SS) troops of Nazi Germany (Grimsley, 2014, p. 75). This is something that Ebert misattributed.
Regarding similar films of the mid-1990s, multiple cheese-flavored films carry arguments regarding a necessity of violence similar to Starship Troopers. Demolition Man (1993) might be an apt comparison to a utopian/dystopian future (depending on who you ask). In this film, Sylvester Stallone, a loose cannon cop, wakes from a cryogenic sleep into a world where officers patrol with nothing to do while merrily singing commercial jingles. Stallone injects brazen violence as a solution into this peaceful society… and it’s celebrated. This aligns with the world of Starship Troopers, wherein a teacher tells his students, despite missing an arm from combat, “Naked force has settled more issues in history than has any other factor.” Demolition Man has Stallone to balk at the absurdities of this future world and a chipper Sandra Bullock to criticize the past, ultimately forming a kind of consistency throughout the film.
Meanwhile, Starship Troopers’ fresh-faced teens function as a gawking audience surrogate at first. One of these students proposes the argument that violence never solves anything, and it’s readily called “wishful thinking at its worst,” with the follow-up that “people who forget that always pay.” Our cast, in a linear arc, comes to conform to the Federation’s warped values. They steadily shed their individuality to become part of the military machine and march to their inevitable deaths. This arc is presented as a happy ending of sorts, but is in fact far from it.
A tribute to the 1950s B-grade science fiction movie, Mars Attacks! (1996) has a tone that resonates with the camp of Starship Troopers. In this film, humans who work toward peace with the aliens are presented as imbeciles, which would seem to follow the narrative of the aforementioned armless history teacher. At the first peace talks between Martians and humans, a flock of doves is released, and the alien commander blasts them out of the sky with a laser, then turns the weapon on humans. Natalie Portman argues in their defense, “Maybe to them, doves mean war.” What saves Natalie Portman and our world is the revelation that a cheesy, yodeling cowboy ballad makes the aliens’ heads explode – not unlike the conclusion of Starship Troopers, wherein a Bug is comically probed beneath a superimposed CENSORED box.
However, we must ultimately look to war films to get at Starship Troopers’ seemingly pro-military, pro-fascism core and how the deeper message works (or doesn’t) in the film. Saving Private Ryan was released following Starship Troopers in 1998. Aging World War II veterans famously crowded into the theaters expecting something else – maybe a John Wayne film of old – only to end up sobbing in their seats, ultimately escorted from the theater (Varadarajan). A flurry of calls came into the Veterans Affairs Department in Washington D.C. as veterans, suddenly in psychological crisis, were reliving traumatic memories reflected in the film (para. 5).
Saving Private Ryan dealt with death, sacrifice, and the horror of war in a dark and human way. In some scenes of Verhoeven’s film, gory deaths are sometimes laughed at. For example, a careening Bug crushes a disliked officer and leaves a broad streak of blood on the ground; the infantry members grin at each other in response. In Starship Troopers’ world, Saving Private Ryan’s Tom Hanks would have given an Aryan moppet’s thumbs-up for his service, followed by a state-sponsored PSA announcing yet again, “Service guarantees citizenship.” Instead of visiting a grave, Private Ryan would have saluted the Federation flag. While both films utilized death and gore to make a similar argument about war, it was against opposing backdrops.
Through all of these comparisons, we see that the most notable contrast is that of Verhoeven’s tone with gut-wrenching post-Vietnam war films. In a 2009 interview, Paul Verhoeven explains of Starship Troopers, “It was an attempt to upgrade the old style Fox Movietone newsreels… and Third Reich propaganda films…” (Simon, para. 22). This comes from direct experience; as the Germans occupied his home country of the Netherlands, many films were prohibited. What were shown to Hollanders: Nazi newsreels.
As an example, a 1943 short film titled Fallschirmjager – Sturmsoldatern der Luft, (Paratroopers – Assault Soldiers of the Air), depicts the invasion of Holland with bombastic, even glorious music (Associated Press). Smiling Nazis wave at the camera between scenes of rattling machine guns. Media in this context is not something to which many Americans can relate.
Traveling to 1997 – the original release of Starship Troopers – critics eyed the film while lacking all of this context. Roger Ebert gave it two out of five stars, and though he does recognize “sly satire” (para. 5), he overlooks some aspects. Describing the combat scenes:
Three or four troopers will fire thousands of rounds into a Bug, which like the Energizer Bunny just keeps on comin'. Grenades work better, but I guess the troopers haven't twigged to that. You'd think a human race capable of interstellar travel might have developed an effective insecticide, but no. (para. 3)
But perhaps this was the point of such a scene: the futility of a blunt, primitive attack, ultimately resulting in hundreds of thousands of casualties. While Heinlein describes futuristic technology in his book, like jetpacks and specialized spacesuits, Starship Troopers depicts the blind machine-gunning and useless helmets that we might have seen in 20th century wars – wars to which we can relate in a post-Vietnam film culture as questionable in intent… at best.
Ebert nit-picks the science fiction aspects, like what the Bugs eat, how it is that they evolved certain traits, and so on. He does eventually half-dismiss this to focus on the combat of the film in the context of a dumb flick for pre-teen boys. He describes the action scenes as without joy and lacking in “the warmth of human nature” (para. 10). This is, of course, not by accident either, considering Verhoeven’s intentions and personal experience. Regarding his youth in Holland, the director says: “…because I was so young when war broke out, seeing fighting and bombing and ruins and grenades and dead bodies and planes going down in flames seemed like the norm” (Simon, 2009, para. 6). There’s nothing joyous about such a childhood. While what is seen on screen may look exploitative, it in fact carries realism; it’s simply something that Americans have never seen on their home soil.
Paul Verhoeven noted that World War II is perhaps one of the very few wars that can be rationalized as a “good” one, combating evil empires that simply had to be defeated (Simon, 2009, para. 22). American war films have fluctuated from anti-war during peacetime to the subsidized pro-combat movies like Sergeant York. The propaganda imperative of the latter was held in such regard that deviation could be punished with jailtime (Belton, 2017, p. 192). What’s interesting about Starship Troopers is that it is a pro-war anti-war film that was released in 1997 – peacetime in America, lulled by the passing of the Persian Gulf and having yet to see the collapse of the towers on 9/11.
As a 12 year-old at the time of its release - who was still afraid to cross a dark hallway in the wake of Aliens - it was a few years before I experienced Starship Troopers. I was keenly aware of my family’s reaction, however. My mother and father were peacetime Navy vets who displayed photos of 1970s Australia as they rode motorcycles and flew hanggliders for just a few years; they would then spend their civilian days complaining they didn’t get this or that on Veteran’s Day as they deserved. My older brother saluted the American flag and repeated the Pledge of Allegiance in earnest before going to sleep. To them, Starship Troopers was a heartening celebration of their values. They were Citizens of the Federation who would cheer as hundreds of thousands of high schoolers marched to their cheap deaths. These are Americans that Starship Troopers might have attempted to reach on a “thinking” level – ultimately failing, as illustrated by the War on Terror and fanatical Trumpism of the present. It’d be extreme to say that Starship Troopers caused or hastened this – but it did foretell it.
This is the most eerie aspect of Starship Troopers. It’s difficult to see a similar layered satire in films that followed. Team America: World Police (2004) might mirror the message, but the absurdity is more obvious. (A pair of pelvically-devoid Thunderbirds-era puppets engage in raunchy sex in one scene.) Without a thinking satire, the fictional Federation broadcasts have steadily moved toward reality, and it’s more difficult to spot. A growing polarization between left and right deepens a tribalist narrative that echoes the concept of the Other in storytelling, as described by John Belkin: es:
It is against the nonhuman Other –
the Other as radically other; the Other as monster or alien
– that the self of humanity is defined in the horror and science fiction film …
The space pods that take possession of people in Invasion of the Body
Snatchers (1956) lack human emotion or feeling. (2017, pp. 261-263)
Not only does the Other exist in science fiction and horror, but arguably the war film as well. Is the enemy a people we can empathize with, or a stereotype that an audience can innately rally against? One indication of this true-to-life treatment of the Other (and a fascist trajectory) is the War on Terror that began 4 years following Starship Troopers. In the book Reel Bad Arabs, author Jack G. Shaheen analyzes a plethora of films negatively depicting Arabian culture. These span from Abbot and Costello Meet The Mummy to Lawrence of Arabia to Gladiator. The crass depiction of Middle Easterners in Hollywood has a long history indeed. One particular film, released in 1993 – the same year as the World Trade Center bombing – is True Lies. Despite the depiction of all Arabs as monstrous, unfeeling killers – the ultimate Other – lead actress Jamie Lee Curtis responded to this in an interview: “It’s just a funny film. It’s funny. It has no ramifications for me. It’s funny, funny, just funny” (Shaheen, 2001, p. 435). Film critic Vicki Roland, though, said of this depiction, “The film’s message is clear: When the world is rid of Arabs, we will at last be safe” (p. 434). This echoes the sentiment of a Federation broadcast: “The only good bug is a dead bug.” True Lies’ broad-brushed villainy only escalated after 9/11, reflected in real-life retaliations. A sharp uptick in Islamophobic assaults against American Arabs – or those mistakenly perceived as Arabs – gripped the United States (Disha, 2011, p. 29).
The mindless, murderous Bugs have been re-cast during the Trump presidency as Latinos seeking asylum, those promoting public health, or even any dissenting American. The President has even commented that the free press is “the enemy of the American People,” using phrases normally reserved for troubled authoritarian regimes (Grynbaum, 2017).
Starship Troopers may have been viewed as a banal action film on its release, and even a funny, fist-pumping battle cry to those who easily identify an Other (similar to True Lies). But 23 years on, it’s becoming more historically and politically relevant. It stands in many “best of” lists, with the A.V. Club describing it as “one of the greatest of all anti-imperalist films” (Marsh, para. 5).
In our age of remakes, reboots, and reimaginings, Starship Troopers has been eyed by other filmmakers. It was slated for a remake in 2016, and Paul Verhoeven warned that in the Trump political climate, it would be pro-fascist not in satire, but in earnest (O’Falt, 2016). Robocop was rebooted in 2014 lacking the weight of the original’s satire of militarized police – as real-life police violence against blacks escalated. In July 2020, talk of a Starship Troopers remake resurfaced yet again, with critics warning of the consequences of a re-release into this problematic climate (Child, 2020).
Just
as Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son” would be blared at Trump
rallies, the irony of the silver spoon lyric completely lost on attendees, this
is what is at stake: if an audience lacks the ability to recognize a film’s
context, and the intent is ultimately lost in the genre, the work may be doomed
to obscurity when society needs it most. Or worse: the film may serve as a
model or tribute with devastating sociopolitical consequences. Satire is a
powerful tool in storytelling, but it requires many different factors for it to
be truly “seen.” For films like Starship Troopers, we can only hope that
the message arrives on time.
Works Cited
Associated Press. “German Newsreel – Reel 1.” YouTube, uploaded by AP Archive, 29 October 2018. www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKMe07UzYCo. Accessed 5 December 2020.
Belton, John. American Cinema/American Culture, 5th Ed. E-book, McGraw-Hill, 2017.
Child, Ben. “Please, Hollywood, Leave Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers Alone.” The Guardian, 17 July 2020. www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jul/17/starship-troopers-remake-joseph-kosinski-paul-verhoeven. Accessed 5 December 2020.
Disha, Ilir, James C. Cavendish, and Ryan D. King. "Historical Events and Spaces of Hate: Hate Crimes Against Arabs and Muslims in Post-9/11 America." Social Problems, vol. 58, no. 1, 2011, pp. 21-46. ProQuest, http://grcc.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.grcc.idm.oclc.org/scholarly-journals/historical-events-spaces-hate-crimes-against/docview/859580152/se-2?accountid=11183, doi:http://dx.doi.org.grcc.idm.oclc.org/10.1525/sp.2011.58.1.21.
Ebert, Roger. “Starship Troopers.” RogerEbert.com, 7 November 1997. www.rogerebert.com/reviews/starship-troopers-1997. Accessed 5 December 2020.
Grimsley, Mark. "The Fascist Gleam of Starship Troopers." World War II, vol. 29, no. 3, Sep, 2014, pp. 75-76. ProQuest, http://grcc.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.grcc.idm.oclc.org/magazines/fascist-gleam-starship-troopers/docview/1550489382/se-2?accountid=11183. Accessed 5 December 2020.
Grynbaum, Michael M. “Trump Calls the News Media the ‘Enemy of the American People’.” New York Times, 17 February. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/17/business/trump-calls-the-news-media-the-enemy-of-the-people.html. Accessed 5 December 2020.
Marsh, Calum. “Starship Troopers: One of the Most Misunderstood Movies Ever.” The Atlantic, 7 November 2013. www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/11/-em-starship-troopers-em-one-of-the-most-misunderstood-movies-ever/281236/. Accessed 5 December 2020.
O’Falt, Chris. “Paul Verhoeven slams ‘Starship Troopers’ Remake, Says It’ll Be a Fascist Update Perfect for a Trump Presidency.” Indiewire, 16 November 2016. www.indiewire.com/2016/11/paul-verhoeven-slams-starship-troopers-remake-fascist-update-perfect-trump-presidency-1201747155/. Accessed 5 December 2020.
Shaheen, Jack E. Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Villifies a People, 2001. E-book, 2009.
Simon, Alex. “Paul Verhoeven: The ‘Starship Troopers’ Hollywood Flashback Interview.” The Hollywood Interview. www.thehollywoodinterview.blogspot.com/2010/09/paul-verhoeven-starship-troopers.html. Accessed 5 December 2020.
Usher, Tom. “Watch Starship Troopers Now: It’s Reality, Not Sci-Fi.” The Guardian, 9 November 2017. www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/09/starship-troopers-reality-west-war-terror-paul-verhoeven-science-fiction-genius. Accessed 5 December 2020.
Varadarajan, Tunku. "Spielberg war film reawakens veterans' fears." Times [London, England], 29 July 1998, p. 10. Gale Academic OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A59829114/AONE?u=lom_grandrapid&sid=AONE&xid=e15a9e40. Accessed 5 Dec. 2020.
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