A would-be blockbuster from 1998 that saw director Paul Verhoeven, screenwriter Edward Neumeier and much of the crew of ROBOCOP (1987) trying to recapture the elusive magic of that classic. The attempt, based on a novel by Robert A. Heinlein, was a failure, but the film that resulted is not without its pleasures.
“To all sergeants anywhere who have labored to make men out of boys.“
Heinlein’s STARSHIP TROOPERS, published in 1959, was intended (but not released) as a juvenile novel of a type Heinlein turned out regularly in the 1950s. It’s now viewed as a key text in the militaristic science fiction cannon, as signified by the dedication “To all sergeants anywhere who have labored to make men out of boys,“ and a narrative that pivots on a futuristic civilization in which all citizens must serve in the armed forces to attain citizenry. This armed force battles extraterrestrial “bugs” whose society and organization are distinctly communistic—a comparison that was fully intentional on the part of Heinlein.
A great deal of Heinlein’s text is taken up with philosophical discussions about warfare and morality, the gist being that war and aggression are necessities that keep mankind from going too soft; or, as the novel’s most famous passage proclaims, “Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor.” Verhoeven and Neumeier sought to satirize those views (which had already been done in Joe Haldeman’s THE FOREVER WAR and Harry Harrison’s BILL THE GALACTIC HERO, left-leaning novels that were written in direct response to STARSHIP TROOPERS).
…the novel’s most famous passage proclaims, “Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor.”
In the film, as in the novel, the hero is a young “South American” man named Johnny Rico (the very Caucasian Casper Van Dien), a good looking punk who joins the armed forces in order to be close to Carmen Ibanez (Denise Richards, who’s likewise a far cry from the Hispanic character she plays), the pretty girl he likes. Rico’s ex-classmate Dizzy Flores (Dina Meyer), who’s none-too-secretly in love with him, also decides to join up, transferring herself to Rico’s squad so she can be in his presence.
Carmen becomes a pilot while Johnny and Diz are trained as infantry soldiers. After some time in basic training, overseen by a borderline-psychotic drill sergeant (perennial eighties bad guy Clancy Brown), Buenos Aires is decimated by a bomb from the bug planet Klendathu, leading to a formal declaration of war. Rico, whose parents were in Buenos Aires when the bombs hit, has just quit the force in the wake of a training exercise gone bad, but upon learning of the bombing he immediately rescinds his resignation.
Our heroes are flown out to Klendathu, where, wearing Nazi-like field uniforms (as opposed to the robotic super-armor described in the novel), they battle the bugs directly. This entails plenty of gore and slime on a planetary surface that looks like an Arizona field, a tame sex scene between Rico and Diz (who subsequently utters the unforgettable deathbed line “at least I got to have you”), and the once-controversial spectacle of Carmen stringing along several suitors at once (and so treating men in the way male action movie heroes tend to treat women).
All this is captured in toneless, shade-free lighting (nobody in this film has any pores or wrinkles) by Verhoeven’s frequent cinematographer Jost Vacano. Also featured are copious CGI effects supervised (in part) by another frequent Verhoeven collaborator, the great Phil Tippett; allowances will have to be made for the fact that those once-groundbreaking effects now barely qualify as groundscratching.
…nobody in this film has any pores or wrinkles…
Fun fact: the lead actors Casper Van Dien, Denise Richards and Dina Meyer all appeared in BEVERLY HILLS, 90210 prior to landing STARSHIP TROOPERS (while co-star Neil Patrick Harris made his name on the popular kids’ program DOOGIE HOWSER M.D)., and the film’s airheaded acting style is very much in keeping with the vapid 90210 aesthetic. Verhoeven and Neumeier like to claim that vapidness was intentional, it being a realistic depiction of life in a fascist utopia. That may be true, but it doesn’t excuse the stultifying blandness of the so much of the film, which in the manner of other late 90s/early 00s releases (such as TITANIC and PEARL HARBOR) insists on foregrounding its epic events with a silly love triangle. That approach that may have worked in CASABLANCA, but it doesn’t work here.
Verhoeven and Neumeier like to claim that vapidness was intentional…
Verhoeven’s action sequences are in keeping with the ultra-kinetic aesthetic developed in ROBOCOP, TOTAL RECALL and BASIC INSTINCT—and inspired, reportedly, by multiple viewings of RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II (whose editor Mark Goldblatt not coincidentally did the same job on STARSHIP TROOPERS). This means the action is extremely fast and brutal, and isn’t muddied by reaction shots or multiple set-ups. Its a far cry from the European art film aesthetic from which Verhoeven emerged (and to which he later returned), although one element uniting the two traditions is Verhoeven’s love of shock, expressed via gratuitous nudity (in a most unlikely co-ed shower scene) and envelope-pushing gore. The latter element isn’t too upsetting these days, but the depictions of heads lopped off, bodies ripped apart and a man’s brains sucked out of his skull were unprecedented for a big studio release in 1997.
…the action is extremely fast and brutal, and isn’t muddied by reaction shots or multiple set-ups.
Most interesting are the mock commercials and news segments the recur throughout. Infected by ridiculously pro-war, anti-bug propaganda, these are the film’s most overtly satiric portions (and the one area in which STARSHIP TROOPERS outdoes ROBOCOP), simultaneously harkening back to the newsreels of old and forecasting the far more insidious online propaganda that in the decades following this film’s release has become the depressing norm.
Vital Statistics
STARSHIP TROOPERS
Tri-Star Pictures/Sony Pictures Releasing
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Producers: Jon Davison, Alan Marshall
Screenplay: Ed Neumeier
Cinematography: Jost Vacano
Editing: Mark Goldblatt, Caroline Ross
Cast: Caspar Van Dien, Dina Meyer, Denise Richards, Jake Busey, Neil Patrick Harris, Clancy Brown, Seth Gilliam, Patrick Muldoon, Michael Ironside, Rue McClanahan, Marshall Bell, Eric Bruskotter, Matt Levin, Blake Lindsley, Anthony Ruivivar, Brenda Strong, Dean Norris, Christopher Curry, Lenore Kasdorf