I remember how excited I was to see this flick when it opened. Unlike the dozens of Heinlein purists (aka, closeted Fascists/Libertarians), I enjoyed it immensely and quickly remembered that director Paul Verhoeven was a master of satire. He demonstrated this before in his earlier Sci-Fi masterpiece Robocop.
Over the years, I think many have come to enjoy Troopers as the dark satire which sadly came true. The destruction of Buenos Aires is the 9-11 moment, the Arachnids are surrogates for al-Qeda/Daesh/Taliban and the Federation’s hubris/propaganda is on par with America’s blind militarism while our civil liberties have been clipped via the NSA. There are other elements Verhoeven threw in as a warning sign, notice how the Federation uniforms are modeled after the Nazi era Wehrmacht and Gestapo. Whenever there’s a commercial break, the catchphrase of “would you like to know more?” is perfectly Orwellian. Finally comes my interpretation of Troopers‘ ending; the war isn’t going well despite the capture of a brain bug. If humanity were clearly winning, why are Johnny and Carmen leading pre-teens into a battle; another parallel to the Nazi regime, Berlin was defended by children dressed in army uniforms to stave off the Soviet invasion.
I’m not sure if Troopers enjoyed much success via cable/DVD/streaming. It does have sequels, avoid 2 but check out 3 (it has the first’s dark sense of humor). I’ve never bothered with the spinoff cartoon. There’s been talk about remaking the movie for all the whining Heinlein worshippers.
Another fear the movie brings up is my fear of the American military taking over in a coup. It remains a bad possibility given the moron residing in the White House when he’s not at his Florida resort. Many Americans would see the spendthrifts in the Pentagon a welcome change. The government would then “work,” and the dumb citizens can keep shopping.
If you’ve never seen Starship Troopers, give it a try. It’s somewhat gorey and there’s some gratuitous nudity, the latter destroyed the film’s capability to make its money back. The ugly truth is that few R-rated movies with big budgets rarely succeed. Verhoeven could’ve used something other than a co-ed shower scene to demonstrate the equality between genders, receive a PG-13 rating and boom, the movie would’ve come closer to breaking even at the box office.