STARSHIP TROOPERS (1997): A Look Back

Introduction

Over 25 years since its release, Starship Troopers (1997) is now considered a bona fide cult classic. The film’s odd combination of action, innovative visuals, over-the-top violence, and political satire have made it one of the most popular films from the late 1990s. As such, it’s worthwhile to take a look at the making of the movie and the place it holds in director Paul Verhoeven’s filmography.

Background

During the early 1990s, Paul Verhoeven was considered one of Hollywood’s most bankable directors. He had three major hits in a row: Robocop (1987),1990’s Total Recall (1990), and Basic Instinct (1992). He then encountered his first major flop. That was when Verhoeven attempted to make Hollywood’s first successful big-budget NC-17 film: 1995’s Showgirls.

The film met with scathing reviews and poor box office returns. Showgirls also went on to win a record number of Golden Raspberry Awards: Worst Music, Worst Original Song, Worst Actress, Worst New Star, Worst Screenplay, Worst Picture, and of course…Worst Director. At least Verhoeven showed he had a sense of humor when he became the first director in history to show up at the Razzies to collect his award in person. He later ruefully remarked:

“I always read the reviews. And of course, it’s annoying and painful when they trash your movie.  But sometimes – and this is even worse – you know they’re right.”

Back to Basics

As part of his recovery, Verhoeven decided to get back to basics.  He sought out screenwriter Ed Neumeier – who had written Robocop nearly a decade before. Together, they decided to work to bring Robert Heinlein’s classic sci-fi novel Starship Troopers to the screen.

In a nutshell, it’s about a bunch of good-looking young people who battle giant bugs in outer space. In Heinlein’s novel, the bugs stood upright, wore clothes, and carried weapons. But Verhoeven thought that would come across as looking ridiculous. So, in his version, the bugs would be “icky,” frightening, and realistic.

Icky Bugs Galore

Verhoeven was given an enormous budget to work with – over $100 million. And an astounding $40 million of that was earmarked just for the special effects. It had only been five years since Jurassic Park (1993) revolutionized the use of CGI in Hollywood. Starship Troopers was intentionally designed to take it to the next level. The film would feature over six hundred CGI shots…two hundred of which would depict life-like animated “bugs.”

To help bring them to life, Phil Tippett was brought on board. Tippett was the visual effects artist who had helped bring “ED-209” to life in Robocop using stop-motion animation. But in the decade since Robocop had been made, Tippett had started using computers to enhance his stop motion models.

The models’ movements were linked to a computer program that converted them to a digital facsimile. In addition  to allowing more intricate types of action, this also gave Tippett and his team the ability to create more realistic-looking “characters.”

Starship Troopers Sets Records

Basically, a sci-fi war movie, Starship Troopers contains several visually impressive sequences. Such as one where a mass of bugs are carpet-bombed after being caught in a canyon.  The animated insects were combined with actual fireballs to create the longest rolling explosion in special effects history.

But the records didn’t stop there. In perhaps the film’s most elaborate scene, thousands of “bugs” swarm over a fortified encampment where a group of humans battle for their lives. There were so many bugs in fact, that Tippett spent over 60 hours just layering the insects.

The resulting sequence almost plays like a homage to older movies such as Beau Geste (1939) or Zulu (1966) where a small group of defenders hold out against overwhelming odds. Keep in mind that in 1997, such elaborate CGI sequences were still relatively new. They represented an extremely work-intensive endeavor as various CGI technicians worked out the “kinks” in the new technology.

In fact, so many artists were involved in the aforementioned scenes that Starship Troopers contains what some people claim is the longest roll of closing credits in film history.  The list of modelers, graphic designers, and programmers seems nearly endless. To the point where Verhoeven likened the making of the movie to the building of Notre Dame in Paris.

Good Looking Actors

As for the “real” actors in the film, almost all of them were extremely good-looking.  Many of them were consciously pulled from soap operas such as “One Life to Live” and “Days of Our Lives” as well as prime time offerings such as “Beverly Hills 90210” and “Melrose Place.”

The cast included such names as Casper van Dien, Denise Richards, Dina Meyer, Patrick Muldoon, and Neil Patrick Harris. Verhoeven wasn’t shy about exploiting this “eye candy” in order to keep his film visually interesting.

He added a sequence in which all of the movie’s young cadets participate in an extended co-ed shower scene. He wanted the audience to see bare bottoms and breasts galore. But predictably, most of the cast balked at this suggestion. So, to help ease the tension, both Verhoeven and his cameraman stripped down naked behind the camera.

The idea was to show the cast that the director wasn’t asking them to do anything he wasn’t willing to do himself. But given the fact that Verhoeven was nearly 60 years old at the time, most of the actors’ feelings of embarrassment quickly turned to something else. Still, the ploy worked and the director was able to film the sequence as planned.

Glorifying the Military?

The film has these young soldiers firing over 300,000 rounds of ammunition – again, another record for the time. Which led to some added controversy. When Robert Heinlein, who had been a former Navy Officer, wrote the original story back in 1959, it had met with some criticism.

Many accused the original story of Starship Troopers of being too “militaristic” and “glorifying” war. And even though the movie version eschewed a lot of the original book’s plot, a lot of these criticisms were transposed to Verhoeven’s vision. Especially since it was aimed at a younger audience.

Yet Verhoeven and screenwriter Ed Neumeier had taken things a step further. In the film, it’s obvious that all the characters inhabit a fascist society. They have to join the armed forces in order to become “citizens” and earn the right to vote.

Being in the military is viewed as a badge of honor. It gives even good people a license to dispense mayhem – and smile while doing so. “The only good bug is a dead bug!” is the military’s mantra, echoing a famous line from World War II. And to top it all off, the insignia all the cadets wear bear a striking resemblance to the SS emblems worn by the Nazis.

Starship Troopers Satire

This sort of stuff didn’t sit well with some mainstream outlets at the time. The Washington Post, among others, attacked the film for being…

“…spiritually Nazi…psychologically Nazi.  It comes directly out of the Nazi imagination and is set in the Nazi universe…”

Of course, this reaction was the exact opposite of what Verhoeven and Neumeier intended.  Their idea was to “make fun” of fascism and illustrate just how ridiculous some of its ideas were. The shallowness of the characters stems from being force-fed militaristic nonsense from an early age.  All they seem to understand is “duty” and “sex.”

Just as with Robocop, the film satirically includes lots of humorous newscasts and commercials. They’re interspersed throughout the proceedings while mixing reality with propaganda. Ed Neumeier even makes a cameo as a man arrested in the morning, judged in the afternoon, and executed that evening.  At no point does anyone question what they’re told by the government, even when it’s self-contradictory?

Missing the Point…

As such, Verhoeven was actually offended by some of the pro-fascist accusations leveled at the film. Especially given the fact that his own sensibilities lay on the opposite end of the political spectrum. Specifically, on the DVD commentary for Starship Troopers, he and Neumeier talk about their shock and disappointment with how clueless The Washington Post review had been.

During the 1960s and 70s, they recalled that the paper had been known for its “anti-establishment” hipness and willingness to mock displays of power and arrogance. But in their review of Starship Troopers, they claimed it had shown itself to be “tone-deaf,” incapable of recognizing satire, and only able to absorb things literally.

Starship Troopers’ Sense of Play

Verhoeven’s sense of play is evident throughout the film.  And he seemed to enjoy “motivating” his actors. In a lot of cases, they used poles as stand-ins for the yet-to-be-created CGI insects. Actor Casper Van Dien says his most significant memory from the making of the film was Paul Verhoeven standing behind the camera yelling at the top of his lungs:

“I’m a 14-foot warrior bug and I’m going to kill you!  STRIKE!  STRIKE!” 

Despite all the gratuitous violence, there are a lot of humorous scenes…such as when a government agent rams a rod into the orifice of a captured “brain bug” during a televised propaganda segment and a banner labeled “Censored” immediately flies in, to cover up that part of the image.

An Underlying Dark Message

It’s definitely a fun movie. But like the best of Verhoeven’s films, it also contains a dark message.  All the harmony depicted in a perfect society populated by attractive twenty-somethings comes at a price. Namely, the need to fall in line with a military dictatorship and the culture of death that’s associated with it. Most of the main characters in Starship Troopers meet their ends in particularly gruesome fashion – many are decapitated, dismembered, disemboweled, or ripped in half. As Verhoeven explains:

“It’s subversive of course. Starship Troopers lures you in and then presents you with the bill… People die in this movie.

This isn’t one of those comfortable movies where everybody survives.”

Starship Troopers at the Box Office

Somewhat surprisingly given its current popularity, Starship Troopers underperformed at the box office when it was originally released. Having cost over $100 million, it only brought in $55 million at the domestic box office.

Many analysts felt the film was marketed incorrectly. A lot of potential theatergoers apparently thought it was a simple “kids in space” movie aimed at teenagers.  But it soon gained a cult following on home video as viewers recommended it to their friends. That, combined with robust overseas sales eventually helped Starship Troopers turn a modest profit with a final take of $121 million.

Art vs. Commercial Appeal

There’s a well-known saying in Hollywood that “You’re only as good as your last picture.”  And the perceived failure of Starship Troopers combined with the Showgirls debacle had the effect of removing the luster from Verhoeven’s star in Hollywood. Still, in an interview, Verhoeven seemed to totally understand the need to strike a balance between innovation and commerce:

“You have to acknowledge that it is not only art.  Like building a house where we cannot live. Skyscrapers look absolutely great from the outside, but what if there is no toilet?…

For a $90 million movie you need an audience. Otherwise it collapses…”

Hollow Man

In 2000, Verhoeven tried once again to make a movie that would push the envelope while attracting a mass audience. It was called Hollow Man (2000) and starred Kevin Bacon as a scientist who experiments with invisibility in a super top-secret government lab.

It’s interesting to note that the film would go on to bring over $200 at the box office and was Verhoeven’s most financially successful effort since Basic Instinct (1992), which is sort of ironic. Over two decades later, Hollow Man is now probably considered one of Verhoeven’s least critically acclaimed films.

Ground-Breaking Visuals

The film features some truly astounding visual effects. With a budget of $95 million, over half of that amount was devoted to them alone. Using state-of-the-art technology, Bacon’s body was scanned and a computer model was created which contained information about every bone, muscle, and organ he had.

The data was then used to create a CGI recreation that depicted specific “layers” of Bacon’s insides. This in turn led to the rendering of scenes that depicted astonishing displays of partial invisibility.

Unlike earlier films which conventionally made use of floating drinks, pencils, cigarettes, and the like, Hollow Man took the invisibility idea quite a bit further. Even when Bacon is completely transparent, you can see him eerily outlined in several scenes by smoke, water, steam, or even blood. There were also some really inventive visual bits where among other things, his invisible fingers catch a fly in mid-air.

In many ways, this was exponentially more complicated than animating dinosaurs or giant bugs – simply because there were often twenty times more surfaces for the CGI technicians to keep track of. Each shot was done at least twice: first with the actors and then without. A computer-controlled camera was used each time to precisely match the shots before they were “layered” in post.

Hollow Man’s Critical Reception

This took a tremendous amount of work and planning. And the results on screen are nothing short of amazing. But you don’t have to be a genius to figure out where the narrative is headed. Soon enough, right on cue, Bacon’s character goes off the deep end and decides he likes his newfound power. From there on out, the movie becomes totally predictable…like some sort of technological “slasher” film.

Even the ground-breaking visuals couldn’t convince some critics that Hollow Man was worth their time. Most described it as beautiful to look at but nauseating to sit through. One even quipped:

“Who exactly, apart from ghouls and third year medical students, wants to see it?” 

Insightful Commentary

Verhoeven claimed that despite the film’s financial success, he just couldn’t win with the critics.  At the time, he even offered this insightful bit of commentary:

“American critics always complain about the blandness of mainstream movies.  But when you do something more ambiguous and ironic, they are p***ed off too…

The irony is that when “Starship Troopers” came out, the American critics condemned it.

But now, three years later, they’re saying: How could the director of such an interesting multi-layered film as “Starship Troopers” make a simplistic piece of s*** like “Hollow Man”?”

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