Starship Troopers is a 1997 action/satire movie set in an alternate universe where the Earth is controlled by a military government and a race of creatures known as The Arachnids menace earth and it's territory in space. The movie follows the story of Johnny Rico, a rich kid who joins the military to follow the girl he loves. He sees plenty of things that make him question whether it was ever worth leaving Earth. Featuring Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, Jake Busey, Neil Partick Harris, Denise Richards, Clancy Brown, and Michael Ironside, Starship Troopers has plenty of action and plenty of satirizing of over the top nationalism.
First off wow, it's hard to believe it's been more than 20 years since this came out. I saw it for the first time when I was around 10 and I didn't understand all of it but I was hooked. The effects were great, the action was top notch and the actors really made it feel like you were going through a war. The newsreel style of filming and editing really stood out to me as I re-watched it when I was older, as well as some of the parody of fascist states like Nazi Germany. The blend of advanced tech into a seemingly contemporary world is also quite interesting. The use of "futuristic" video chat and video mail is a funny reminder of the film's age for me, like in Transformers The Movie when they say " In the year 2005", it doesn't detract from my enjoyment but it is fun to notice nonetheless. Let's look at how this movie got started and how it was received initially vs. it's status now.
Starship Troopers actually started off as a script called "Bug Hunt at Outpost 9" and had nothing to do with the original novel by Robert. A. Heinlein. In fact the novel is much more of a political commentary than an action book and other than a few superficial similarities it has nothing to do with the movie. The licensing of the novel only came about after producers pointed out the similarities between the bugs in Edward Neumeir's script and Heinlein's novel. Director Paul Verhoeven(also directed Total Recall and Robocop to name a few) confessed to only being able to get through a few chapters of the book due to being bored and depressed by the subject matter. I would recommend reading the novel as it is a unique experience to the movie though I do warn you it can be a bit of a slog at times to get through.
The actual production and filming of the movie were fairly uneventful. Most of the "Alien" planet shots were done in Hell's Half Acre in the Wyoming badlands. Verhoeven wanted to cast younger actors that would be closer in age to actual soldiers but the studio didn't think it would work ( honestly the cast is great so 1 win for studio interference), and had to agree to film the boot camp co-ed shower scene naked to get the actors to agree to it. The real issues came when the movie was test-screened. Audiences reacted poorly to the on going love-triangle between Rico, Ibanez, and Flores, and to the love triangle between Rico, Zander, and Ibanez. These scenes required major reworking but Verhoeven ultimately decided to leave the Rico, Ibanez, and Flores scenes the way they were filmed changing only the latter love-triangle.
When Starship Troopers was released it was panned by critics( because of course it was) because it was too well made for a B-movie but not quite an A list movie. Despite this the film manged to at least make it's money back and gained a substantial cult following. Due to the excellent effects work( that still holds up) the movie was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and won Saturn Awards for effects and costumes. The movie spawned several sequels (that we may talk about some day) and video games. In 2012 the film magazine Slant ranked it in the top 20 for it's 100 Best movies of the 1990's, not bad for a movie called " shallow and only appealing to teenage male sci-fi fans" by several prominent critics including Roger Ebert.
I really enjoy Starship Troopers and if you haven't seen it I urge you to give it a watch. I wouldn't let very young children watch but around 10-12 ( I turned out mostly ok) should be fine. It has some brief sex and nudity ( but what doesn't these days) and some hardcore sci-fi violence so you can make your own judgement on that. If you think this movie is just a big dumb action movie watch it again with a more critical eye and you will be pleasantly surprised. Starship Troopers is an effects driven action movie wrapped around a cautionary tale about school romance and the dangers of ultra-militarization . Remember, never leave home and join the military unless you really want to, because if you do it for someone else you might end up ass-deep in alien killing machines with no girlfriend and no ammo.