Just about twenty-five years ago, a sci-fi action movie like no other marched onto big screens. Met with criticism and rejection upon release, Starship Troopers has since grown to cult classic status. The movie concealed messages of irony and satire beneath an intentional supermodel cast and hyper-violence. It is argued that those two facades are dialed up too much for audiences to be able to recognize the critique and political themes beneath. For several years, Hollywood has gone back and forth on whether Starship Troopers should be remade. Is a remake just a pipe dream, circling the drain of Hollywood? Or will they finally pull the trigger and revive the property to meet the modern zeitgeist?
Directed by Paul Verhoeven, Starship Troopers was based on Robert Heinlein’s 1959 novel of the same name. The movie was not received well by critics nor did it do well at the box office, but it was praised for its special effects, earning an Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects. The franchise was popular enough with fans, however, to spawn an animated TV show (Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles), two live-action movies (Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation and Starship Troopers 3: Marauder), and two animated movies (Starship Troopers: Invasion and Starship Troopers: Traitor of Mars). The movie deliberately cast young actors who primarily starred in soap operas or teen dramas, like Casper Van Dien, Denise Richards, Dina Meyer, Neil Patrick Harris, and Patrick Muldoon, to play heroic action characters. It was a choice of contrast made intentionally for satirical purposes.
A Starship Troopers remake has been bandied around since 2011, when the rights were acquired by Neil H. Moritz, one of the producers of the Fast & Furious franchise. In 2016, Moritz was joined by screenwriters Mark Swift and Damian Shannon, who wrote the screenplay for 2017’s Baywatch. The most recent news, from this summer, is that Joseph Kosinski, director of upcoming Top Gun: Maverick, is eyed to direct the remake. Whether the most recent update is an official greenlight for the remake or another deflated rumor remains to be seen. Rumors of a new television series have proven empty as well.
Starship Troopers is set in the 23rd century, a time when humans colonize other planets, and the Earth was ruled by a militarized fascistic regime called the United Citizen Federation. While expanding the outer reaches of space, the Federation engage in, and celebrate, a war of annihilation against the Arachnids. The people of the Federation are superficial and shallow. They glorify violence, domination, and abhor critical thinking or intellectualism. Their society is divided into two classes: citizens and civilians. Only those who do military service are granted the rank of citizen, which enjoys perks such as childbearing, political association, and a variety of other social and career opportunities. Civilians are everyone else, the second class. By incentivizing military service, it forces the population to ignore the cause of war, to not question the direction the war is going, or to inquire what the end goal of the war is. To get ahead is to fight the war. Regardless of the cost or the high number of casualties, the war must go on.
Why are the UCF fighting giant bugs across the galaxy? The movie’s commercials and characters present the war as defensive, that the bugs attacked Earth first, but the movie also proves that this is not true. If the humans ceased their expansion efforts in the Klendathu System, the war would end. Furthermore, UCF propaganda repeatedly states that the war is a zero-sum game. The victory condition is the entire eradication of the Arachnids, lest humanity be wiped out in consequence.
Like Pierce Brosnan’s run as James Bond, Starship Troopers asks the question, “who do we fight now?” The era in which Starship Troopers released was post-Cold War America, a time when the United States had no more major enemies (that is, movie villains). This theme was raised in GoldenEye and concluded in Die Another Day. Where GoldenEye asks the question, Die Another Day answers it. In GoldenEye, James Bond adjusts to the purpose of MI6 in a world without the Soviets. In Die Another Day, the Soviets are simply replaced by slotting in North Koreans as the new cinema bad guys (albeit a much lesser foe). Without enemies, who will the army oppose? Starship Troopers suggests that in a state of peace, society must invent an enemy. In this case, bugs. The military-industrial complex marches on. Paul Verhoeven lived through the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during the Second World War. His experiences of this time are what he draws from in this political satire. In these ways, Starship Troopers lampoons ultra-nationalism by portraying what society looks like if regimes like the UCF come to power.
Sony Pictures intends for Starship Troopers to be a launchpad for a new sci-fi movie series, much in the vein of their Goosebumps or Jumanji properties. Some causes for delay may include fan comparisons to Verhoeven’s film. The new movie seeks to go back to the source material and consciously chooses not to emulate the satire or the action style of the 1997 original. Other people feel a remake of Starship Troopers is unnecessary, especially after prior attempts to remake Paul Verhoeven’s work have not turned out so great. Total Recall (2012) and Robocop (2014) were met with lackluster returns. Others, like the original’s screenplay writer, Ed Neumeier, believe the extent of the original film did enough to satisfy fans and that nothing could ever recreate the magic. It was lightning in a bottle.