I love this film. I saw it 4 or 5 times in theaters. I also love that Paul Verhoeven once again utterly failed to make a satire (just like with Robocop). The man is an outstanding action filmmaker, and the most incompetent satirist of the 21st century.
The fact that he didn't even read the book, misinterpreted a radical Libertarian utopia as fascism, and then tried to satire it in film, only to accidentally make another stellar gung-ho action film beloved by millions, is almost as good as the film itself.
That having been said, this film has basically NOTHING to do with Robert A. Heinlein's masterpiece 'Starship Troopers'. Verhoeven took tiny number of very superficial elements of the society, the general "there's a war between humans and aliens!", and the names of characters, and then completely made up his own thing. None of the characters even remotely resemble their namesakes from the book. The aliens don't even remotely resemble their namesake from the book. The combat doesn't even remotely resemble the book. And, well, neither does anything else. I love this film, but it's a Starship Troopers book skinsuit.
The fact that he didn't even read the book, misinterpreted a radical Libertarian utopia as fascism, and then tried to satire it in film, only to accidentally make another stellar gung-ho action film beloved by millions, is almost as good as the film itself.
That having been said, this film has basically NOTHING to do with Robert A. Heinlein's masterpiece 'Starship Troopers'. Verhoeven took tiny number of very superficial elements of the society, the general "there's a war between humans and aliens!", and the names of characters, and then completely made up his own thing. None of the characters even remotely resemble their namesakes from the book. The aliens don't even remotely resemble their namesake from the book. The combat doesn't even remotely resemble the book. And, well, neither does anything else. I love this film, but it's a Starship Troopers book skinsuit.