Starship Troopers (film)/YMMV

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• Adaptation Displacement: For better or for worse, more people (especially young people) are familiar with the film than they are the novel.
• Anvilicious: Paul Verhoeven knows of no other way to present a message.
• Better on DVD: Ya think?
• Cliché Storm: A force five hurricane, especially the death scenes.
• Crosses the Line Twice: The time bomb that announces it's a time bomb and reads off its own countdown is hilarious. Even Rico winces over it, as he's dropping it. It is described as a terror weapon. It isn't intended to kill the enemy, its purpose is to scare the shit out of them.
• Crowning Moment of Awesome: Amazingly enough, from the second film: Sgt. Rake's Roaring Rampage of Revenge after suffering an Orifice Invasion from a Puppeteer Parasite and shooting herself up with a ridiculous amount of adrenaline.
• Crowning Music of Awesome:
  • Klendathu Drop, played several times in the film during battle scenes and over the end credits.
    • It's since become a staple of other movie previews and some award shows.
  • From the sequel, Hero Of The Federation, we have "Dax's Last Stand". It doesn't compare much at all to "Klendathu Drop", but it's still quite awesome as used in the film. Hey General!
• Designated Hero: Done deliberately with the humans.
• Ear Worm: There's a good reason why Sky Marshal Omar Anoke's song "It's a Good Day to Die" in the third movie is such a hit...
• Fanon Discontinuity: The more devoted fans of the book hate this movie. Of course, the reverse is sometimes true as well...
• Fan Nickname: For Neil Patrick Harris' character -- "Doogie Howser, SS".
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Johnny and Dizzy.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The nickname for the alien race that T'Phai belongs to, "skinnies", was originally from the novel. It was later used as a term denoting enemy combatants in the Mogadishu conflict of the '90s.
  • This article on Cracked explains it.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: NFL wideout Jerome Simpson actually pulled off the Flip 6-3 hole. In the same uniform, no less!
• Internet Backdraft: The merits and validity of the Terran Federation's political system.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Would you like to know more?"
  • "They sucked his brains out."
  • "The [X] cannot do [Y], IF YOU DISABLE HIS HAND!"
• Misaimed Fandom: The movie is decidedly antiwar, portraying the humans as an fascist regime committing genocide on an alien race demonised through propaganda...and yet, it's one of the predominent Trope Codifiers of heroic Space Marines in science fiction played completely straight.
• Recycled Script: This film was originally to be an Aliens ripoff called "Bug Hunt", then Verhoeven got the rights to the Heinlein story. Many wept that day.
• Rooting for the Empire: A lot of people were rooting for the Bugs. In the first movie this might have been the filmmakers' intention, but in the sequels the Federation were supposed to be the good guys and audiences still found a bunch of giant cockroaches to be more sympathetic.
• Spiritual Licensee: Aliens is often considered to be the most faithful adaptation of Starship Troopers ever made, with plenty of similarities between them.
  • Halo owes a lot to ST, especially with the armor and ODST's drop pods.
  • StarCraft has plenty of references to and points of inspiration from ST as well.
  • Space Marines in powered armour fighting large bugs? Warhammer 40,000
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks: The opinion of the novel's fans.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: Played straight by most of the main cast. In fact, Michael Ironside seems to be the only person who knows what kind of movie he's doing. Neil Patrick Harris might also have realized.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The script is an entirely intentional affront to Heinlein. But every single Bug is Crazy Awesomely cool.
• What the Hell, Casting Agency?: Casper Van Dien, Denise Richards, and Neil Patrick Harris playing Argentinean high schoolers... Verhoeven aimed for a Do Not Do This Cool Thing-baiting feel with the casting, going for stupidly beautiful people who would be far more at home in a soap opera—and then not telling them the film was a satire, leaving them to play their roles deadly serious.