Starship Troopers

Verhoeven's wicked revision of Heinlein's reactionary novel is a key film in modern cinema and the last word in Hollywood's large-scale sci-fi production. In the fa-schist utopia of the future, young people yearn to join the army in order to take part in an inter-galactic campaign against giant alien bugs whose desert planet is suspiciously reminiscent of scenarios from the first Gulf War. Flawless model warriors go through merciless basic training for battlefield carnage, framed as a recruitment advert. The visual arsenal of science fiction and war film bundled into a pop spectacle of propaganda history, at the same time a perfect expression of the increasing unreality of the American way of life. (Christoph Huber)

Introduction by Christoph Huber

Photo: Austrian Film Museum