STARSHIP TROOPERS
US, 1997, 124 minutes, Colour.
Caspar van Dien, Dinah Meyer, Denise Richards, Jake Busey, Neil Patrick Harris, Clancy Brown, Michael Ironside.
Directed by Paul Verhoeven.
Futuristic films are still the go, especially with younger audiences. Older audiences, faced with these scenarios might be glad that they are not going to be there!
Starship Troopers is about young people trying to save, well, the universe. Based on some cold-war novels, they offer a ra-ra jingoism where young men and women go through Officer and Gentleman/GI Jane training to combat a monstrous invasion from a planet of intelligence-controlled killer bugs (and effective special effects make them horrible, especially in their massed hordes and the literally rip-roaring destruction they wreak on us humans!) The action sequences, the attacks of the bugs and the strewn dismembered corpses may be too gory for some tastes, but the modern sensibility sees it all differently, sees cartoon absurdity and gets the message via laughter at over-the-top mayhem.
But Paul Verhoeven, who made Robocop, Total Recall, plays a double game. Interspersed amongst the po-faced sincerity, performed by models inc. would-be stars in daytime soaps style, are mock TV spots and interviews which ridicule the popular media and their vacuous spiels. Which means that the film is giving two messages at the same time and leaving the audience with action and ironic ambiguities.
1. The work of Paul Verhoeven? In Holland, in America, a European perspective on American stories?
2. The science fiction literature of the '50s and its popularity in the 1990s? The ethos, the nationalism, the right-wing civics? American spirit? The final apocalyptic tone?
3. The city of the future, the academy, the planets and the galaxies, the spaceships? The world of advertising - recruitment, the military, the kids, the advertisement for the execution, the stamping on the bugs, the talkback session? The rousing musical score?
4. The tone with the advertisements, the special effects, the youth story, the comic strip style?
5. The special effects, for space, for the military, for the Arachnids themselves, for the battles?
6. The opening and the information about the Arachnids? The battles? One year earlier, the students in class, the civics and citizens lectures, the exams, passes and failures? The biological study with the bugs, Carmen and her queasiness?
7. Johnny Rico and his failure, Carmen and her cleverness, Carl and his scientific bent, Carmen wanting to be a pilot, Carl working in intelligence, Rico and the challenge to sign up? His motivation?
8. The Arachnids, the theories of evolution, their intelligence, colonising by hurling their spores through space? Verbal descriptions at the opening, then the visuals?
9. Aspects of toughness, playing sport, the service, the oath, the pilot training, the crippled desk clerk saying that this had made him what he was, Zim and the severity of his training, breaking the wrist of the soldier, knifing Ace's hand?
10. Johnny Rico, rich, Buenos Aires, his parents, their not wanting him to go into military service, but to Harvard? His joining up, his relationship with the other students, they thinking him rich, his being cut off by his parents? His promotion, the training, the helmet crisis, his being flogged? Ringing his parents to come home?
11. His infatuation with Carmen, the pact with Carl, friendship despite distances, the training, her exhilaration, the visual letters, the letter of the break-up, three weeks in training, her relationship with Zender?
12. Rosczak and his sternness, his lectures, his support of Rico? His being the commander in the field, his resolutely shooting the soldier with the Arachnid, Rico shooting him? The spirit of this kind of warfare? Zim, the trainer, harsh, tough, obeying orders, in the field, capturing the chief Arachnid?
13. Carl and his scientific bent, statistics and his study and observation, going to games and theory, military intelligence? His arranging for Carmen and Johnny to meet? Present at the end - and his vision of a war-free and scientific-bound culture?
14. The other members of the group: Ace, tough, supporting Johnny? Dizzy and her infatuation with Johnny, signing up, military training, the encounter with him before going into battle? The discussions of their various ambitions and motivations?
15. The Arachnids, the meteor attack, the disappearance of Buenos Aires and Geneva, the all-out war?
16. The combat detail, the infantry attacks, the nuclear destruction, the individual confrontation with the Arachnids? Zender and Carmen taken? Zender's being killed after the Arachnid taking his intelligence? Carmen and her fighting back? The political parties, the change of strategy? Johnny leading the search for Carmen? The capturing of the main Arachnid, the intimidation? In captivity?
17. The finale with the final television advertisement capping off the tone of the film and its issues?
