Wing Commander Movie Night: Starship Troopers

I guess you could say we really earned our… wings of Glory… this time! The Wing Commander movie club had an exciting Friday night enjoying the 1989 Civil War epic and now we're ready to go back to the future. So this week we'll be sharing a familiar favorite: Starship Troopers. We've all seen it, we all love it… and we can't wait to talk about it again! You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

Starship Troopers is Paul Verhoeven's 1997 adaptation of Robert Heinlein's classic novel of galactic warfare and political science lectures. Initially derided as pop culture trash that was distinctly unfaithful to its source material, Starship Troopers has since attained cult status for both its spectacular filmmaking and its unique, cutting satire and anti-war message.

But Starship Troopers came out in 1997, after almost every Wing Commander game was finished. What, exactly, is its connection to the series beyond that it's a movie that just about every Wing Commander fan seems to particularly love? Well, there might be more connections than you know! The most obvious is that the Wing Commander movie was famously sold to audiences as 'Top Gun meets Starship Troopers', with that specific phrase included heavily in its home video marketing:

But the connection wasn't just something FOX came up with after the fact. Starship Troopers, which released to a smaller than expected box office during Wing Commander's development, was treated as both the gorilla in the room during production interviews and as a huge point of comparison by reviewers on release. Sony's plans for Starship Troopers figured heavily into Wing Commander's financing and the subject of whether the failure of one predicted the failure of the other was on movie folks' minds in 1998. The March 1999 Starlog asks Chris Roberts to explain the situation:

According to Roberts, the disappointing box-office performance fo Starship Troopers is unlikely to have a negative effect on Wing Commander. "We're not a huge, high-profile $100 million movie," says Roberts. "This movie doesn't have to do $200 million at the box office to be a hit. There's a strong audience of SF fans that go to see space warfare films, and if it's decent science fiction, then you're going to do quite well. And it's not like it's a huge risk or gamble - if Wing Commander does $50 million at the box office, it will probably be considered a success. Obviously, I would have liked Starship Troopers to have done more business because I could have said, 'Hey, people go and see science fiction no matter what!'"

The actors were particularly happy with how Wing Commander's script compared to Starship Troopers, too. They both discuss this in an August 1999 SFX article, with Matthew Lillard sticking up for it in particular:

Hair colour aside, the actor's enthusiasm for Wing Commander is infectious, and, like Prinze, he clearly sees parallels with the current trend for war movies. "I think this is a really interesting take (on SF), a Second World War movie in space - its like the classic war movies of the '50s and '60s, based on relationships during wartime. With a film like this, an actor is supported by the special effects without having to depend on them, which seemed to happen with Starship Troopers. We've a lot smaller budget, and we're hopefully a lot more personally driven."

Looking back in 2012 Chris Roberts still believed he had a stronger script than Verhoeven:

As for the script quality – it's a better script than the film ended up being and by Hollywood standards (and I know as I've been making films for a while) especially for this genre it didn't suck. It wasn't Oscar material delving into the inner struggles of pilots in a futuristic war, but next to Starship Troopers or other genre work, I think script wise it stands up. I've certainly read worse scripts that have gone on to earn hundreds of millions at the box office with the right stars, over the top action, lots of VFX and a big marketing budget. But I think the producer of "Barbed Wire" really shouldn't be relied on for good script feedback.

Was he correct? We'll discuss this during the screening… no of course he wasn't. But it's an interesting comparison! There WAS a more literal link between Starship Troopers and Wing Commander, too: the latter's SFX supervisor Chris Brown had worked on the former. An August 1998 SFX article highlighted this: "Brown, or 'CB' as he's known, is no stranger to flying, having worked on Starship Troopers, and put the jets and 747s through their paces in Turbulence and Air Force One."

Chris Roberts WOULD end up borrowing a little bit of magic from Starship Troopers: legendary movie artist Jim Martin, who designed everything from the Morita rifles to the Federation corvettes for Starship Troopers, was one of the first converts to Chris' Star Citizen… when it was still a Wing Commander reboot! Martin would go on to design countless ships but he got his start with the Dralthi which eventually became the Vanduul Scythe.

Martin also designed the famous 'Death from Above' tattoo… which I have myself! Here I am showing it to him after a meeting about Star Citizen's Endeavour:

And when my brother Silas, a film reporter, mentioned this story to Casper Van Dien he insisted on recording this video for us:

Speaking of Johnny Rico, there's the curious case of Freddie Prinze Jr. as Johnny Rico. Wing Commander's production notes include a discussion with Chris Roberts about why he thought the movie's script was so strong. At one point he claims: "Freddie had even turned down work on STARSHIP TROOPERS because he thought the script was too weak." That would've been an interesting connection between the projects and it was, indeed, repeated throughout the press in 1998… but Freddie Prinze Jr. sets the record straight in a May 1999 Starlog interview.

Prinze's comments recall the rumor that he had been offered a part in Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers but turned it down. Not so, he insists. "I've heard that before, but it's not true. The thing is, I did read that script, and I wasn't crazy about it. I've always felt, even when I wasn't working, that I never wanted to be part of a film that I wouldn't be particularly proud of. I'm not trying to rag on anybody, this is my own personal thing. I wasn't nuts about the Troopers script, so I didn't even want to go in and read. Everybody was like, 'What, are you stupid? You're not getting offered a ton of parts.' And you know what? I'm still not getting offered a lot of parts. But I will not do a movie that I can't be proud of. That's just my thing. Everybody else can do their thing, and that's all fine with me. But somehow over the last year, this has been misconstrued into, 'Freddie was offered the lead in Starship Troopers and he turned it down.' That's not cool.

I wonder if he ever figured out who started the rumor! There is a roundabout connection in the other direction, though: even before his star turn, Casper Van Dien was a family friend of Mark Hamill which led to his appearing as Confed Redshirt #3 in Wing Commander IV's introduction. Here's a podcast in which he discusses the story.

And here's a weird final connection: you can actually spot Mag Force 7 "Star of the Guardians" cards used as set decorations in Starship Troopers! This was their first game which introduced the LANE-to-LANE system which would go on to form the basis for, you guessed it, the Wing Commander TCTG. We unraveled the whole story earlier this year.

Where can I find a copy of the movie for the watch party?

Starship Troopers is currently available for rental or sale digitally at all storefronts. Copies are available from the Internet Archive of the DVD and the BluRay... or for the truely brave, the VHS! If you're interested in tracking down a physical copy, a UHD version was released in 2017 and remains in print today. If you are unable to track down a copy please ping a member of the WCCIC staff on the Discord in advance of the watch.

How do we watch the movie together?

It's pretty low tech! Simply join the Wing Commander CIC Discord on Friday and we will be chatting (in text) along with the film in the main channel. Everyone who wants to join in should bring their own copy and we will count down to play them together at 10 PM EST. Everyone is welcome and we encourage you to join in the conversation; sharing your thoughts helps make the experience better for everyone!