STARSHIP TROOPERS
IT'S ONE OF THE GREAT MISUNDERSTOOD SCI-FI MOVIES: A MANKIND VS GIANT BUGS WAR FILM THAT MANAGES TO BE BIG, LOUD, BRASH... AND BRILLIANTLY SATIRICAL LUKE DORMEHL ENLIST
Twenty years on we revisit Paul Verhoeven’s darkly satirical bug-fest. Misunderstood classic, we’re saying.
critics attacked Paul for being a pro-nazi even though it was an anti-war movie
Starship troopers is the title of one of sci-fi legend robert a heinlein’s most controversial novels: a far-future story about young people joining a war to fight killer alien insects on a far-off planet. this takes place in a militaristic world in which only those who take on the personal responsibility to fight are rewarded with the rights of citizenship. in the hands of RoboCop and Total Recall director paul Verhoeven, its movie adaptation becomes something else: a 1997 action sci-fi blockbuster which viciously (but humorously) satirises the way that war makes fascists of us all. sounds like the kind of thing hollywood would spend millions of dollars on? Nor does it to us! But we’re sure glad they did...
Nazis in space
edward Neumeier, the screenwriter for Starship Troopers, first read the 1959 robert heinlein story when he was a young teenager. “Starship Troopers was the greatest book i’d ever read when i was 14,” he says. “over the years, i often thought, ‘Gee, if only i could make a movie out of that it would be great.’”
he didn’t think too much about it, though, until his early adult life when he was working with director paul Verhoeven on RoboCop. During a break in filming, Neumeier and Verhoeven struck up a conversation. Verhoeven began telling him about an idea he had for a movie with one hell of a good hook. the idea was that we’d follow a group of idealistic young kids who sign up to war, hankering after some noble adventure. the only problem is that they’re in Germany in the 1930s and, although they don’t yet realise the significance of it, they’re signing up to fight on behalf of the Nazis. Neumeier agreed that it was a hell of an idea, but he also knew enough about the workings of the studios that no one in their right mind would ever greenlight it.
But then he had an idea. What if the Nazi party wasn’t actually the Nazi party; what if it wasn’t based in 1930s Germany but rather in, say, the 23rd century on some totally different planet, against a completely different enemy? suddenly Starship Troopers popped into his brain. in Neumeier’s mind it could be a group of teenagers who go to space to fight giant bugs and become metaphorical Nazis. Working with producer Jon Davison, Neumeier got a deal and started working. “the most fascinating part to me is it turned out that no one had ever optioned [the novel] Starship Troopers before,” he says. “it was like the prettiest girl in school and no one has ever asked her out.”
With Verhoeven’s interest secured, Neumeier worked to flesh out the “very thin” story contained in the novel. in particular, this meant adding motivation and plot to the human characters, who were little more than undeveloped vessels for heinlein’s ideas about personal responsibility. his brilliant idea was to structure the movie like a World War ii propaganda film, making it stylistically similar to 1943’s Action In The North Atlantic or 1942’s Wake Island. “in american propaganda movies, the structure is [typically] that it starts before the war and you’re a regular Joe, hanging out and trying to figure out what you want to do with your life,” he says. “then suddenly pearl harbor comes along and, oh my god, you’re joining up with a bunch of other guys, just like you! then you go into basic training, where you meet a tough, but wise sergeant, who trains you into a group of men – and the ultimate lesson that you’re going to learn is that it’s good to die for your country. those are honourable, glorious values.”
Neumeier’s script bolstered the roles of female characters private isabelle “Dizzy” Flores and Captain Carmen ibanez to fight alongside Johnny rico and the other male characters. the ensuing love triangle gives an outlet to the low-level eroticism that frequently thrums in the background of novels and films about comradeship in combat. Director paul Verhoeven – fresh off his commercial flop Showgirls – highlighted the soap opera aspects of the screenplay by literally hiring soap actors. Casper Van Dien, Denise richards and Dina Meyer were all Beverly Hills, 90210 alumni. they were joined by Neil patrick harris, then best known for Doogie Howser, MD.
Neumeier says that, as written, the transition into space Nazis was somewhat more subtle than it appeared in the final film. “For me, the scene which really showed that was when Johnny and Carmen run into Carl, just after they’ve captured the Brain Bug on planet p,” Neumeier says. “he starts talking about people and deaths as numbers, which is a bit like robert McNamara [the former secretary of Defence, who played a big role in escalating the Us’s involvement in the Vietnam War].”
paul Verhoeven obviously didn’t get the subtlety memo. one day, Neumeier was sitting in a wardrobe fitting session, watching the costumes being fitted for the film’s actors. “out came Neil patrick harris in a full-on Gestapo uniform,” Neumeier recalls. “there was a gasp in the room. this is what paul’s idea was for how he should look in the third act.” Neumeier thought Verhoeven may have gone too far.
But it plays well on screen. “Now i just love it,” he says. “i adore it. i’ve said to paul a couple of times that he just nailed it!”
Making the Movie
Starship Troopers began principal photography on 29 april 1996 at Wyoming’s hell’s half acre Country park. other scenes were shot in Fountain Valley’s Mile square park, orange County, Malibu, a Delta airlines hanger and sony pictures’ Culver City studio. in the end, shooting lasted six months. the bug army depicted in the movie was a combination of excellent practical effects and early CGi. handling visual effects was phil tippett, who had worked on the first two RoboCops, before his celebrated role as the “dinosaur supervisor” for Jurassic Park. his bugs are distinctive, varied, and provide the requisite spasmodic jerking motions as they explode into globs of green goo under the Mobile infantry’s guns.
the movie debuted on 7 November 1997, having been pushed back from its original summer release date to accommodate Men In
Black and Air Force One. Neumeier says that he grew increasingly worried as the film got closer, fearing he had made a misstep. “i was a mess,” he admits. “i was convinced it was not going to go well. at one point, i got a lecture from one of my friends who told me i was just incapable of enjoying myself. so i stopped talking about it. i don’t know what it was, but i was very worried that it wasn’t going to do what some people were hoping it would do.”
Starship Troopers wasn’t a bomb, but it also wasn’t a smash hit. it made $54 million in its seven weeks at the box office, against a production budget of $105 million plus marketing. the reviews were vicious, though. Leaving little room for ambiguity, a review of the film is reprinted in critic roger ebert’s 2000 book I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie. he wrote: “What’s lacking is exhilaration and sheer entertainment. Unlike the Star Wars movies, which embraced a joyous vision and great comic invention, Starship Troopers doesn’t resonate. it’s one-dimensional. We smile at the satirical asides, but where’s the warmth of human nature? the spark of genius or rebellion? if Star Wars is humanist, Starship
Troopers is totalitarian.” Many critics had got the joke with Verhoeven’s RoboCop but, as with Showgirls, they missed it here. suddenly Neumeier and Verhoeven were accused of not just making a bad movie; they were accused of making a pro-Nazi movie. the ensuing media storm was no fun at all. “You can kind of hear it in our voices if you listen to the DVD commentary, which was done one or two weeks after release,” Neumeier says. “paul was being attacked for [supposedly] being a pro-Nazi anti-semite in the press. he was trying to tell people this was an anti-war movie.” the resurgeNce
Viewed in retrospect, some of the blowback is understandable. the fact is that, despite being an anti-Nazi movie, Starship Troopers isn’t just a clear analogue for 1930s Germany, transposed into outer space. it’s a movie about the way that war makes fascists of everyone – and, yes, that includes wholesome, all-americans. sure, there are visual nods to military choreography straight out of Leni riefenstahl’s Triumph Of
The Will. But it also presents a future in which american culture has seemingly become the de-facto earth culture, and is spreading outwards around the galaxy. it’s really a movie about the media-saturated moral quagmire of 1970s Vietnam. Fortunately, in the years since, Starship
Troopers has had a resurgence. Neumeier says that “almost immediately there was a small group of people who got it”. But this small trickle of fans has become if not an entire army, then certainly a battalion. Neumeier thinks one reason the film has struck a chord is because of world events in the decades that followed. Watching the film today, it’s difficult to see the destruction of Buenos aires that triggers the outbreak of war and not be reminded of the destruction of the World trade Center: an event that dragged much of the western world into a nighunwinnable “war on terror”. Neumeier says that, in the years since the film’s release, he’s heard from many serving members of the military, who tell him that Starship
Troopers in on heavy rotation in war zones around the world. in some ways, this makes Starship Troopers feel far more relevant than many of the other similar blockbusters which preceded it. its cynical take on war, american cultural imperialism and the military-industrial complex plays a lot better today than the similarly aged Independence Day: the film that the studio no doubt hoped Starship Troopers would more closely resemble.
“it’s a bit meta, but i always liked playing around with movies about movies,” Neumeier reflects. “the expectation is that it looks like a big, stupid movie. in a way, it is kind of a big, stupid movie – but it’s using that B-movie trope with quite serious intent. it’s a meditation on war and propaganda, and in some ways there’s some truth told. But on the surface it’s big and shiny and stupid, which i think makes for a fun idea.”