There’s a funny amount of overlap between the EDF (Earth Defense Force) games and Starship Troopers. So much so I wouldn’t be surprised if Starship Troopers was a direct inspiration for EDF. Both properties are about soldiers for a sci fi Earthen defense organization, hundreds of hundreds of alien bugs die, splattering our heroes and the audience in buckets of blood and goop, and both have a weird love of the hoo-rah military sci fi jarhead trope ala Aliens. But there’s a hard line between EDF and Starship Troopers, and that line is tone. EDF is campy, fun, and has an ultimately hopeful tone as we, the good guys, triumph over the alien bad guys, protecting our home and our civilization from a violent threat. Starship Troopers on the other hand, is about the government *telling* you that’s what we’re doing… but actually it’s just fascism.

Let’s get the obvious part out of the way first, no, Starship Troopers the film is not pro-fascist. It’s just a straight faced depiction of fascism at its worst, one you’re supposed to laugh at. It’s hailing Hitler with one hand and spinning a finger around its ear with the other. But that’s a problem satire has always had, hasn’t it? A smart satire knows not to show its hand, it knows it can’t just spoon feed the audience its message, otherwise it would just be soap-boxing, not storytelling. If the characters in Starship Troopers stopped and looked at the camera and said “boy our fascist, militaristic government sure is evil. Anyone watching this should surely not do things like use human lives as meat for the grinder in a pointless war” that just wouldn’t be much of a story now, would it? But of course, in not showing its hand that leaves the door open for idiots to not get it and either decry Starship Troopers as pro-fascist propaganda, or to praise the movie *for* being pro-fascist. Both of which are stupid because again, the film isn’t pro-fascist!

But I don’t want to get too side tracked talking about the satire. Like I said it’s the most obvious part of the movie, and I find it a bit pointless to talk about what most everyone already knows. I also find it reductive to berate people for not getting it. I wanted to discuss Starship Trooper’s merits as a film, not just as a sly dig at militant fascists. From that perspective, Starship Troopers *mostly* holds up. I say mostly because just about everything I can praise about it, satire or otherwise, really only applies to the first half of the film. Right around the 2nd half, once we the audience have seen the worst it can get when swarms of giant bugs meet swarms of lightly armored heroes, the film starts to peter out a bit as it struggles to find a goal beyond just “fight more bugs until the movie is over”. That’s not to say there is nothing worth praising in the 2nd half, just that it’s not as tight as the first half.

I think the problem with the 2nd half stems from the fact that once you’re on board with the satire part of this movie, there really isn’t much more it can really do with its premise except find excuses to shoot more bugs. Certainly a valid option when you’re trying to make a point about the endless excessive violence of military fascism, but in a 2 hr movie it gets a little grating once that point has been made. Johnny Rico, our main character, has already bought in to the idea of the Federation being in the right, and not a single thing that happens to him changes his mind or puts his loyalty into question. Again, it’s intentional, Rico’s mind isn’t going to be changed because fascists drinking the kool aid won’t ever have a “hang on are we the baddies?” moment, but it doesn’t exactly make for a deep character. The best it can do with its shallow characters is to keep finding ways to mock them in some way, hence why Rico ends up getting 3 promotions in the span of like 10 minutes (under 12 hours in universe), and we as the audience can only look on and guffaw as he accepts each new position formally occupied by a thinking feeling human being who is now a mere stain in the dirt, with a big bold smile and a gung-ho attitude.

No, deep storytelling is not Starship Troopers’ strong suit. The technical side of things is were Starship Troopers really shines. Some of the CGI can look a tad dated, but I think that’s mostly due to watching it on a higher resolution screen. I feel like at full resolution, with uncompressed visuals, I can see the lines where the green screen ends at times, and the really poor gunplay coming from most of the extras, triumphantly waiving their guns vaguely in a direction where a monster will definitely be in the future doesn’t help either. The bugs have a properly alien design, looking like an amalgamation of every type of beetle you can think of, and there’s tons of practical effects that prop up the CGI, giving the bugs a much more real and physical presence up close than in the distance. Not to mention all the goo. Like, christ, this movie must give The Fly a run for its money as far as gross out visual effects go. Blood and guts and goo fill by the buckets as Paul Verhoeven zooms in on the carnage with glee. It’s viscerally satisfying, if a bit tacky at times. It’s not some of Paul Verheoven’s smartest or well thought out action scenes, but the excessiveness lends itself a certain degree of charm. It’s so excessive it starts to justify its own existence after a while. Though to be fair, the violence does have its high points. The aftermath of the carnage always stuck out to me as being particularly gruesome yet engaging. Something about a simple pan across a valley or even a small room filled with dismembered corpses covered in blood cuts a lot deeper than it probably should at times.

While I’m on the subject of gore and violence, I’m not much of a gore hound, but rarely does gore in a movie actually upset me. I’ve seen every Saw movie, I can handle a few CGI bugs impaling fascists…right? Turns out, no. That first battle scene still makes me deeply uncomfortable. Bodies get ripped and torn apart, people scream in terror before being dragged to their doom, it’s very upsetting. I had to keep telling myself “it’s OK, they bought in to fascist propaganda, they’re the bad guys, they deserve this” just to keep myself from turning it off. Again, though, it’s intentional discomfort. Partly because Paul Verhoeven wanted to make me squirm, but partly because the satire wouldn’t work without it. The gut punch I still feel watching that scene is the movie finally showing its hand. You wanted a big sign saying “fascism is bad”? Well here it is, in the form of 9 minutes of brutal action and dismemberment, written in the blood of fascists.

I think the reason why the violence bothers me so much is because ultimately, I still find Rico and his friends to be tragic characters. Rico fell for fascism, yes, but only because fascism ensures that no other options are available. It’s all solidified by that ending. “They’ll keep fighting… and they’ll win!” It’s yet another moment of the film showing its hand. Yes, everything that just happened will keep happening, over and over and over again. Because the Federation isn’t at war with some scrappy rebels who will most assuredly save the day in the end, they’re just steamrolling every living thing in their path. They’ve already won, they’ve already written history and are currently writing anew.