Starship_Troopers_(1997)

Starship Troopers is a 1997 film directed by Paul Verhoeven, written by Edward Neumeier, and starring Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer and Denise Richards. The movie is loosely based on the novel Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein.

There is a vast divergence between the original book and film. A report in an American Cinematographer article contemporaneous with the film's release states the Heinlein novel was optioned well into the pre-production period of the film, which had a working title of Bug Hunt at Outpost Nine; most of the writing team reportedly were unaware of the novel at the time. According to the DVD commentary, Paul Verhoeven never finished reading the novel, claiming he read through the first few chapters and became both bored and depressed.



The film was also characterized by a conspicuous absence of anything resembling Heinlein's mechanized Mobile Infantry; troopers wore an unpowered ensemble which seemed to differ only slightly from modern-day army gear, most probably due to the reason that the original suits of the novel would obscure the view of the actors.[citation needed] Their weaponry was not far advanced considering that humans were depicted as having fleets of starships, but the MI fought as unsupported light infantry for most of the movie being unable to call on armor, artillery, air, or space support, all while moving mainly under their own motive power and using projectile ammunition fired using an explosive charge. A substantial portion of the soldiers' anatomy was left unprotected, and what little armor was present seemed to be of little use. Critics and fans of the film often comment on how tanks and cars are never used, in such a high-tech force.



Some dialogue is straight out of the book, or some variation of it, while much of the dialogue and many of the themes are not from Heinlein's story. Additionally, most of the characters have been significantly altered. In the novel, Juan Rico speaks Tagalog at home and does not originate from Buenos Aires. Flores is female in the movie in order to add a love interest sub-plot. In the book, Dizzy Flores is male, has no relation to Rico save the fact they were soldiers in the same platoon, and is only mentioned in the first chapter, due to the fact that he dies at its conclusion. Additionally, Carl Jenkins serves an even lesser role in the book, with a one sentence mention about his death far away from the narrator halfway through the novel, while he survives the movie. Further, the movie was criticized in that the many of the characters are described as just graduating high school, despite the fact that the actors who played them were in their late 20s/early 30s at the time the movie was filmed. The character structure of the film is similar to Archie Andrews American comic books with Rico as Archie Andrews, Carmen as Veronica Lodge, Dizzy as Betty Cooper, Zander as Reggie Mantle, and Jenkins as Jughead Jones. The professor and leader of the "Roughnecks" in the novel are combined into one role played by Michael Ironside.