NOT LONG after announcing that Total Recalland Robocopare getting the remake treatment, it seems Hollywood is about to reboot another Paul Verhoeven movie, Starship Troopers.
This is strange news. A remake should be a second stab at a film that didn’t get it right the first time. John Carpenter’s reworking of
The Thing,
David Cronenberg’s
The Fly
and Steven Soderbergh’s
Ocean’s 11
spring to mind.
Starship Troopersis the exact opposite. Based on a sci-fi novel by Robert A Heinlein, Verhoeven's movie centres on a war between humans and giant alien bugs. On one level, the film delivers an explosive popcorn movie with phenomenal special effects. The action scenes are both rousing and disturbing, taking cues from diverse films such as Zulu Dawn and Star Wars.
But what makes Starship Troopersparticularly special is the satire. Just as Verhoeven inserted spoof ads into Robocop, the makers slid a number of sly jokes into the mix. It was misinterpreted at the time, with some US media believing it was pro-fascist. Had they read it properly, they may have been even more offended; the prescient film was an indictment of man's warmongering ways.
It's hard to picture a mainstream studio making such a film in our post-9/11 world. The remake is being produced by Neal Moritz, best-known for his work on The Fast and the Furiousseries and making the Total Recallrehash.
