I don’t throw around the title of masterpiece lightly, but Starship Troopers by Paul Verhoeven deserves it. The extremely entertaining, bitterly evil science fiction film that was once indexed for 19 years is a Masterpiece of its genre. And at the same time so much more.
You can find out what you need to know about the sci-fi masterpiece Starship Troopers on Disney+ in the article here:
Sci-Fi masterpiece: Starship Troopers is still absolutely unique to this day
The only one who can beat the 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 80s and 90s. To this day, the three films with their bitter social criticism stand the test of time.
This is what Starship Troopers is about: In the 25th century, democracy has been abolished and people have to conscript into military service in the authoritarian federation. What begins as a teen film about three young friends soon becomes an ultra-brutal war satire. Because humanity is fighting an interstellar battle against giant beetles with millions upon millions of soldiers as cannon fodder.
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Teen romance in Starship Troopers: How much kitsch can you fit into a war film?
Starship Troopers can be described as a sci-fi masterpiece, but also as an anti-war film, Teen film-that-becomes-a-war-satire and as a bitterly evil action festival. Deeply anchored in the film is a strong aversion to fascist societies and a lot of cynicism towards military structures and media propaganda.
All of this is garnished by the most innocent acting facesthat you can imagine. When Casper van Dien as Rico and Denise Richards as Carmen shine with their flawless facial features during military training, they look like little children with atomic bombs. Dead colleagues are almost as bad as heartbreak.
Ultra-brutal satire as a disgust-fest: Starship Troopers is as funny as it is disgusting
This is what makes Starship Troopers so special immense disgust fest, which Paul Verhoeven is organizing 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 conducts experiments and the “brain bug” sucks out brains.
However, the director is a master at it, as are his bitterly evil statements and his dislike urgent to illustrate. People are nothing more than cannon fodder in the war machine. The aliens are reduced to emotionless killing machines and only the tough survive military training.
Again and again we see an information program intercut with How I Met Your Mother star Neil Patrick Harris, who experiments on the aliens in the spirit of science. Verhoeven also uses it in his other films exaggerated media contributionsto keep us entertained alongside all the bizarre violence.
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Neil Patrick Harris conducts experiments on aliens
Cynicism often comes across as bitter and unnecessarily harsh. With Verhoeven, however, the cynical criticism is like this clever and exaggerated at the same time that it makes Starship Troopers a maximally entertaining (disgusting) viewing experience.
19 years in Germany on the index
Verhoeven films this in an extremely cynical way in the cult film controversial book template by Robert A. Heinlein from 1959. He was exposed to accusations of militarism and fascism. Ironically, Verhoeven’s cynical adaptation subverts exactly that, but was indexed in Germany in 1998 for similar reasons.
After 19 years, Starship Troopers became In 2017 it was finally uncut in Germany released on Blu-ray with an FSK 16 rating. After years of editing for television and unnecessary “defusing” during dubbing, we can now enjoy the disgusting festival on Disney+ in full length in the stream.