Chiasmus cult cinema trailers - "Starship Troopers" (1997). *These will be ongoing posts, courtesy of the A.Glass DVD collection. As I offer via Chiasmus Cult trailers, my summarized overviews*

 

Directed by Dutch/European arthouse heavyweight Paul Verhoeven, and his sixth Hollywood film, "Starship Troopers" (1997) was part of his redemption and what once could deem 'payback' driven attempt at winning over the American audience after his box office flop, "Flesh and Blood" (1985).  Which followed by the ultra violent comic book adaptation of "Robocop" (1987), then the reworking of the late science fiction writer Philip K Dick's  "Total Recall" (1990).  Followed by, whilst topping it off by reintroducing American audiences to his renown pychosexual, and graphic violence with "Basic Instinct" (1992).  Then 'bombing out' again with "Showgirls" (1995), which seemed deliberately trying to pitch itself to be a lost-in-translation representation of Verhoeven's greatness, as a European arthouse director of the late 1960s throughout the 1970s and 1980s.  So, was Starship Troopers Verhoeven's bipolic attempt at redeeming himself once again to Hollywood and the fickley, and, yes at times bipolic American cinema audience?  Maybe.

Based off the late Robert A. Heinlein novel of the same name, written in 1959 as the Cold War with Russia was heating up, and influenced by Heinlein's dislike of the emerging countercultures of the 1960s, to which the ex-naval officer and later a science fiction writer, wished upon an autocratic futurist world of compulsory military service to wipe out the 60s hippies, if you truly want to become a "citizen", then you'll have "rights" manifesto written into the novel.  Which will, in turn, propel humanity to be an advanced and dominate space faring society.  Sound like a certain billionaire's rhetoric?  Heinlein's "Starship Troopers"  is very much a Proto-Fascist militarist bedtime story, to which Verhoeven, with a screenplay closely resembling Heinlein's original 1959 novel, went to work in satirizing Heinlein's Far Right pro-militarist Cold War desires.  With a big Hollywood budget, and selling it as a blockbuster space action flick, yet it is Verhoeven's critique of unchecked Right Wing merging into Fascism, which appears subtle within the context of the film.  But overall cleverly portrayed, if you are aware of Verhoeven's premise, in his adaptation of Heinlein's novel.

With a cast of young (at the time) 1990s television to movie hopefuls playing Verhoeven's Starship Troopers "Aryans", which were Casper Van Dien, who plays the lead "Johnny Rico" and his two way love interests, played by Denise Richards ("Carmen Ibanez") and Dina Meyer (Dizzy Flores).  Verhoeven's 1997 revamp of Heinlein's story, within all of its satirizing of a militarist society, is also a warning that Fascism once embedded and not questioned, begins to maintain a cycle of justified preemptive violence.  With the human race at war with its main galactic enemy, the "Arachnids" portrayed as ugly bug like creatures.  Verhoeven's subtext for Starship Troopers views the human race as the rabid aggressors, rather than the "bugs".  Did we start the war with the "bugs"?   

Also, watch for the actor Michael Ironside who plays "Jean Rasczak" a veteran turn history teacher who later reenlists into the military again to kill more "bugs", only to be (*spoiler*) decapitated by a bug towards the end of the film, deliver one of the standout dialogues from "Starship Troopers", "When you vote, you're exercising political authority. You're using force. And force, my friends, is violence, the supreme authority from which all other authority derives."    

And now Twenty Seven years later, the dead and buried Heinlein may have gotten his wish, with Three decades of 'baby boomer' countercultures forgotten (and yes we can right off all of the 1990s and 2000s to date) as a Far Right militaristic world has emerged.  It is time to dust off Verhoeven's 1997 "Starship Troopers" make some popcorn, sit back and enjoy the show.  Because remember, it's only a movie.

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(A.Glass 2025)

All CHIAMUS Cult Cinema trailers/commentary to date: chiasmusmagazine.blogspot.com/search/label/Chiasmus%20cult%20cinema