I don’t throw around the term masterpiece lightly, but Starship Troopers by Paul Verhoeven deserves it. The extremely entertaining, bitterly angry and once indexed science fiction film is a masterpiece of its genre. And at the same time so much more.
What you need to know about the sci-fi masterpiece Starship Troopers
Brutal sci-fi cult on TV: Starship Troopers is absolutely unique to this day
The only one who can beat Dutch director Paul Verhoeven is Verhoeven himself. With his Sci-Fi Trinity (At least that’s what I call them) Robocop, Total Recall and Starship Troopers he made three of the best and most cynical entries in the genre in the 80’s and 90’s. To this day, the three films with their bitter social criticism have stood the test of time.
This is what Starship Troopers is about: In the 25th century, democracy has been abolished and people have to be drafted into military service in the authoritarian federation. What begins as a teen film by three young friends soon turns into an ultra-brutal war satire. Because humanity is fighting an interstellar battle against giant bugs with millions upon millions of soldiers as cannon fodder.
Get an impression of the unique sci-fi masterpiece in the trailer:
Starship Troopers – Trailer (English)
Starship Troopers can be described as a sci-fi masterpiece, but also as an anti-war film, Teen film-turned-into-war-satire and as a badass action festival. Deeply anchored in the film is a strong aversion to fascist societies and a great deal of cynicism towards military structures and media propaganda.
All this is garnished by the most innocent acting facesthat you can imagine. When Casper van Dien as Rico and Denise Richards as Carmen beam with their flawless facial features during military training, they come across as little children with atomic bombs. Dead colleagues are almost as bad as lovesickness.
Ultra-brutal satire as disgusting: Starship Troopers is as funny as it is gross
A particular appeal of Starship Troopers is that immense disgust festival, which Paul Verhoeven organizes here. His preferred mode of expression has always been very explicit and drastic. It’s not subtle when a scientist in a quasi-SS uniform carries out experiments and the “brain bug” sucks out brains.
However, the director is a master at it, his angry statements and his dislike as well to be illustrated urgently. Humans are nothing more than cannon fodder in the war machine. The aliens are broken down into emotionless killing machines and only the tough survive even the military training.
Again and again we see an information program interspersed with How I Met Your Mother star Neil Patrick Harris, who experiments on the aliens in the sense of science. Verhoeven also uses it in his other films exaggerated media reportsto keep us entertained alongside all the quirky violence.
© Touchstone
Neil Patrick Harris
Cynicism often comes across as bitter and unnecessarily harsh. With Verhoeven, however, the cynical criticism is like that witty and exaggerated at the same time that it makes Starship Troopers a highly entertaining (disgusting) viewing experience.
19 years in Germany on the index
In the cult strip, Verhoeven films the in an extremely cynical way controversial book by Robert A. Heinlein from 1959. He was accused of militarism and fascism. Ironically, Verhoeven’s cynical adaptation subverts just that, but was delisted in Germany in 1998 for similar reasons.
After 19 years, Starship Troopers was finally released uncut on Blu-ray in Germany in 2017 with an FSK 16 rating *. After years of cut-mutilation for television and “defuse” when dubbing, we can the disgusting festival enjoy in full length.
a notice: We published this article in a similar form at the start of Starship Troopers on Disney+.
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