This article is part of a directory: Game Rant's Ultimate Sci-Fi Guide
Table of contents

Dutch director Paul Verhoeven is likely best known among mainstream moviegoers as the director of RoboCop, the 80s action classic that combined a thrilling futuristic world with biting social commentary. However, RoboCop isn’t the only Verhoeven movie that blends sci-fi and satire. The same can be said for his 1997 film Starship Troopers.

Upon its initial theatrical release, Starship Troopers enjoyed mediocre box office results, just barely making back its budget. Even worse, it was met with scathing reviews, with critics widely regarding it as a generic action movie with morally objectionable themes. But in the years to come, Starship Troopers found an audience that appreciated its clever, subversive messaging, earning it a place in film history as a cult classic that’s only grown better with time.

RELATED: 5 Old Movies Set In 2022

Bug Hunt

starship troopers 1997 rasczak

The Starship Troopers film is based on the 1959 novel of the same name, written by prolific sci-fi author Robert A. Heinlein. The story is set in a far-off future where a united humanity wages war against the alien Arachnids — or “Bugs”, as they’re more often called — and follows the young Johnny Rico as he rises through the ranks of the Terran Federation’s Mobile Infantry. The book’s depiction of spacefaring soldiers taking on a legion of bug-like aliens has influenced countless other works of sci-fi, from Aliens to Warhammer 40,000 to StarCraft. But despite the book’s dramatic premise, Heinlein’s characters spend just as much time holding philosophical discussions as they do fighting the Bugs.

It’s unclear how many of the ideas presented in the novel reflect Heinlein’s own beliefs, but the book certainly takes some strong stances. Perhaps unsurprisingly for a war story, Heinlein’s Starship Troopers glorifies and romanticizes the military, painting warfare and brutal violence as heroic ways of ending conflict. In fact, Federation citizenship, including the right to vote, is only awarded to those who serve in the military. This policy is presented as rational and even righteous within the novel. At the same time, the Bugs — portrayed as a vile, all-consuming scourge who must be exterminated to preserve humanity’s future — are directly described as a communist society.

When one combines these elements with the novel’s praise of corporal punishment, dismissal of the concept of inalienable rights, and arguably sexist views of women, it’s not hard to see why the Starship Troopers novel has been controversial among critics for its extremely right-wing themes over the decades. Some have even described Heinlein’s book as fascist in nature — including Paul Verhoeven himself, who intentionally used his film adaptation to satirize and deconstruct the ideas presented in the source material. Indeed, while the Starship Troopers movie ostensibly tells the same story as the book, the subtext it carries couldn’t be any more different.

Doing Their Parts

The main cast of Starship Troopers

When viewed uncritically, Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers is just another sci-fi action flick, with one-dimensional characters, clunky dialogue, and a paper-thin plot. But look beneath the surface, and it becomes a chilling glimpse at a future where humanity has fallen to fascism, becoming a brutal, warmongering empire. Right off the bat, Verhoeven sets the tone for the film by opening with a Federation newsreel, influenced by the infamous Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will. However, the entire film plays out as if it were a work of in-universe propaganda. The Federation and its troops are never framed as anything but heroic, even as the subtext points out how monstrous their actions truly are.

One of the movie’s most controversial scenes features a group of Mobile Infantry trainees showering together, with both men and women fully nude. However, the scene isn’t presented in a sexual manner. Matters of the flesh couldn’t be any further from the young recruits’ minds. Instead, they discuss the reasons they enlisted in the military, and the answers provided are quite revealing. One recruit joined so he could pay for college; another wants to be a citizen so she can go into politics. Another states that she can’t get a license to have children without full citizenship — the chilling implications of this statement are never elaborated on. But tragically, almost none of these young soldiers make it out of the film alive, leaving their dreams shattered.

Of course, the characters who do survive are arguably even worse off. Johnny Rico begins the film as a naive teenager who only enlists to be closer to his high school crush Carmen, but quickly becomes disturbed by the harsh realities of military life. Before long, he’s traumatized by the untimely death of a squadmate, who meets his end in a training exercise. Blaming himself, Rico decides to leave the military and return home to his parents. But before he gets the chance, his home of Buenos Aires is destroyed by an asteroid sent by the Bugs, leaving Rico with nothing to live for but revenge against the Bugs. By the movie’s end, Rico is a completely different person. Any warmth and humanity he had is once gone, replaced with absolute loyalty to the Federation. He seems himself not as a human being, but merely as a soldier. And most horrifically, he sees this as a good thing. The story of Johnny Rico is a tragedy masquerading as comedy.

Meanwhile, the Bugs are naturally depicted as the faceless, mindless enemy of humanity, who must be fully eradicated for the sake of peace. To our human protagonists, genocide is a noble, justified pursuit. But while the Bugs may seem like inhuman monsters, the film makes it clear that they’re intelligent beings. They have thoughts and feelings of their own, with one brief scene showing them mourning their dead after a battle. The Bugs may not be human, but they’re still people. But of course, the Federation doesn’t care. One propaganda clip shows a group of children gleefully stomping insects to death to show their hatred of the Bugs, while the film’s final battle ends with the Mobile Infantry cheering triumphantly once they realize that the Bugs are afraid of them. One throwaway line even indicates that the humans are the original aggressors in the war, but it doesn’t matter. The Bugs are the enemy, and are thus treated as vermin.

Would You Like To Know More?

Starship-Troopers-NPH

Starship Troopers is not a subtle movie. It never drops the act and directly calls out the Federation, but it’s hard to miss the subtext when Neil Patrick Harris’ character walks on screen wearing a full Nazi uniform. But in a way, the fact that so many people missed the satire of Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers upon release only strengthens its point. The film is all about how easily people become indoctrinated by propaganda, blinding them to the injustices of the systems they’re trapped in. Good people become cogs in the machine, happily throwing away their humanity to attack an enemy who has done no wrong.

Ultimately, Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers is a brilliant satire that vividly illustrates how fascism manipulates and victimizes the innocent. But of course, fascism and misinformation are far greater threats to the world in 2022 than they were in 1997. And while that’s certainly an unsettling thing to think about, it’s also a testament to how well Starship Troopers holds up after all these years.

MORE: Star Wars: Andor Is The Best Show On TV Right Now