Shaun Watson reviews�

Movie poster from the Internet Movie Database Starship Troopers Directed by Paul Verhoeven Starring: Casper Van Dien as Johnny Rico Denise Richards as Carmen Ibanes Dina Meyer as Dizzy Flores Neil Patrick Harris as Carl Jenkins Michael Ironside as Raszcak Jake Busey as Ace Levy Seth Gilliam as Sugar Watkins Clancy Brown as Zim Patrick Muldoon as Zander Eric Bruskotter as Breckenridge Amy Smart as Cadet Lumbreiser Dale Dye as Random General Rue McClanahan as the Biology Teacher and Z�e Pouledoris as School Prom Lead Singer

Dear Reader, The review you are about to read is FOR EVERYONE'S EYES and FOR NO EVIL AGENDA. Although quite obvious that the underlying basis for the movie imagery is Nazi Germany and World War II, I do not endorse the Nazi Party, the Neo-Nazi Party or any permutation or splinter group related to the Nazi Party that teaches or follows its doctrine.

This is the story of four friends. Four friends going to school in the middle of a war that they didn't ask for or want. The world wants them to fight and win, or die trying. It's the only way to vote and get a good job, so they go in hoping to just make it out alive. They know who the enemy is and what the enemy can do; they've seen it on TV. But will they be prepared to learn the truth about the enemy when the two sides meet face to face?
OK, mad generic opening, but I had to bring the tension in the first few paragraphs. Starship Troopers is a great movie, but ultimately it just boiled down to the same kind of war movie made before the Viet Nam conflict but with more minorities. It shines in three parts: special effects, the acting and the subtext of a movie about exterminating bugs through intergalactic warfare.

First, the special effects. To put the movie's effects in context, the villain must be revealed. The people of Earth are fighting an alien race of giant bugs from the Klendathu system. The aliens are bombarding the planet with asteroids from the orbit of Planet P, sending them across the galaxy to strike our planet. To take out the enemy artillery, our planet sends its armed forces against every planet in the Klendathu system. To achieve the tension of a ground war and to maximize its indirect relation to the second World War, the writers and special effects team didn't follow the source material--Robert Heinlein's Startship Troopers--and decided to use dropships from larger spececraft instead of the powersuits dropped from orbit in the book. The enemies on the ground are, as I said before, gigantic bugs bent on destroying their enemy. These quadraped monsters strike, rend and swarm like mad alongside their larger fire-breathing counterparts, bombadier beetles. They all had movement indicative of mass, making each monster a living breathing creature. All of this work was achieved by great CG, monster makers and make-up crews.

Second, the acting. OK, the acting was kinda bad. It wouldn't have been easy to buy a crazy future society full of beautiful people fighting giant bugs if not for the energy of the actors in the Mobile Infantry, the ground division of earth's future armed forces. Each of the actors went through a mock military boot camp taught by Dale Dye, military trainer for the movies whose resume includes Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line. Although many actors needed the training, the lead could've done without.
Casper van Dien("Titans"[TV]) plays the lead Johnny Rico. He was cast for his acting experience and his prior experience as a military school graduate. It becomes quite evident that he's an underused actor with great potential as he transitions from love-sick, civic-minded schoolboy to battle hardened soldier. To watch Rico pine over his high school sweetheart Carmen Ibanes(Denise Richards, Undercover Brother, Tammy & the T-Rex) as his infantry bunkmates act up in the background is classic in its depiction of the GI experience. In that number are people like Sgt. Zim(Clancy Brown, Highlander, Pet Sematary II, "Earth 2"[TV] and "Carnivale"[TV]), Ace Levy(Jake Busey, Tomcats), Sugar Watkins(Seth Gilliam, Jefferson in Paris) and former sports teammate with a crush on Rico, Dizzy Flores(Dina Meyer, Johnny Mnemonic and "Birds of Prey"[TV]). While Johnny and Dizzy made Mobile Infantry and Carmen made Fleet, the acting goes nuclear in the hands of Neil Patrick Harris("Doogie Howser, M.D."[TV], Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle and Undercover Brother). He plays Johnny's friend Carl Jenkins. Carl's psychic abilities qualify him for recriutment by Psi-Ops. Carl's appearances are limited throughout the movie, but they are worth it. Of all the cast members, none other makes the greatest impact than Michael Ironside.
Michael Ironside(Total Recall, Highlander II: The Quickening and the "V" mini-series[TV]) is no stranger to chewing scenery. He's done it time and time again as the heavy and in his character of Rasczak(pronounced "RY-chek"), he gets to be the hero and chew on different planets. The one-armed Rasczak is Johnny's teacher who instills a sense of civic duty in the young man. When Johnny, Dizzy and Ace get to their main craft, the Rodger Young, Rasczak is their commanding officer. His missing arm has been replaced with a robotic prosthesis; it flashes gunmetal gray and blue in pride of its artificiality a la RoboCop. With more control over Johnny Rico et al., the grizzled Rasczak leads his platoon--"Rasczak's Roughnecks"--into battle after battle to take Planet P from the bugs.

Johnny Rico tells the rest of the Roughnecks to run from the giant Bombadier Beetle.

Third, the subtext. The whole concept, as thought of by Dutch director Paul Verhoeven(dir.: Flesh & Blood, Total Recall and RoboCop), was "what if the Nazis had won World War II?" Thus the imagery of Starship Troopers is decidedly fascist in nature; it even went so far as to emulate the Nazi SS and Luftwaffe uniforms with minor adaptations for the Psi-Ops and Fleet respectively. Even the black eagle crest and Nazi propaganda posters were changed and streamlined for the future. The people who made this movie knew this, and they tried to defuse it by injecting love triangles into the story: Johnny loves Carmen, but she's being wooed by fellow Fleet crewman Zander(Patrick Muldoon, Stigmata). Alternately, Carmen loves Johnny, but so does Dizzy. Unfortuantely, Johnny doesn't return Dizzy's affection the way she wishes. Many people ignored the love triangles and focused on the fascism and found it disturbing imagery.
Many people saw this movie and thought it cloaked praise of Nazi Germany. Other viewers took the next step and imposed the ideaology of Adolf Hitler's "Final Solution" against the Jewish people in 1940s Europe onto the Mobile Infantry's quest to eradicate the bugs from the Klendathu system. This idea further defames the Jewish people, as it compares them to bugs or pests to be eradicated. I don't know if anything else came of these allegations, short of a lower box-office take than what would have been. Perhaps if these people had taken the time to notice the similarity of the movie's recruitment/propaganda shorts to American propaganda shorts of the 50's and Nazi propaganda shorts of the 40's, THEN they might not have been so hasty to skip this movie based on their blind hatred of the Nazi menace and its atrocities.

"Would you like to know more" about the great sci-fi movie that is Starship Troopers? You'll have to see it for yourself.

• Johnny Rico. He's far too pretty to be Mobile Infantry, but he does fit the Aryan ideal of blond hair and blue eyes�
• �as well as his girlfriend Carmen. They are such the perfect Aryan couple, it's pratically a given that Carmen and Johnny survive no matter how impossible the situation.
• Neil Patrick Harris as Psi-Ops. He looks like shit when you see him in his SS get-up, but then again he trains his mind constantly.
• Dizzy and Rasczak. Two die-hard soldiers who fought with every last breath to defend humanity.
• The propaganda shorts in the movie not only inform but provide intentional humor.
• The music by Basil Pouledoris is amazing. It's enogh to make a man wanna join Mobile Infantry. Look for his daughter Z�e as the singer at Johnny's high school prom.
• The use of the adrenaline-pumping "Song 2" by Blur in the TV ads for the movie was a big factor in reaching the proper demographic of young men. Hell, it got me.
• The direct relationship to the PC game StarCraft is uncanny. See PRICELESS QUOTES for a funny tie-in.
• Don't let the initial setting of Buenos Aires fool you as being arbitrary; it's rumored to be the refuge of many a Nazi war criminal.
• The climactic battle scene between men and bugs at the outpost makes the movie.
• Look for Rue McClanahan( of "Golden Girls"[TV] fame) early in the movie.
• Strangely enough, if the idea that people had of this move was that the Nazis had won then why do people like Sugar Watkins exist?
• Make a point to see the 3D cartoon "Roughnecks: Starship Troopers"; it's far more faithful to the source material than the movie.

PRICELESS QUOTES:
(Note: this is the same speech I'd give to my Space Marines befoere I sent them against the Zerg in StarCraft.)
A dropship general(the aforementioned Dale Dye) gives the soldiers orders in the dropship prior to release:

"We're going in with first wave! Means there's more bugs to kill. You go for the enemy; you shoot anything with more than two legs, you get me?"
"WE GET YOU SIR!"

"For all you new people, I have one rule: everyone fights; no one quits. If you don't do your job, I'll shoot you myself. Do you get me?"

"We couldn't afford to launch an operation if there wasn't one. You disapprove? Well, too bad! We're in this for the species, boys and girls. It's simple numbers; they have more. And every day I have to make decisions that send hundreds of people like you to their deaths."

"Medic!"

"Would you like to know more?"

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