QWhat are the songs played during the high school prom dance?
AThere are two songs, both performed by Zoe Poledouris (daughter of the film score's composer, Basil Poledouris). First, "Into It" was composed by Poledouris herself, and is available on the Starship Troopers soundtrack CD. The second song is a cover version of David Bowie's "I have not been to Oxford Town", with the word "paradise" instead of "Oxford Town". Zoe's version is unavailable; Bowie's original version is on his album "Outside".
QWas the final scene meant as a prelude to a sequel?
AYes and no. It is true that Paul Verhoeven was interested in doing a sequel, so leaving the movie open-ended was partially intentional. However, Verhoeven intended the sequel to be a big-budget movie comparable to the original. Due to the somewhat disappointing box office result of Starship Troopers, this idea was scrapped; the two sequels that have since been released were produced for the direct-to-dvd market on a significantly lower budget.But more importantly, on the dvd commentary, Verhoeven explains that the final scene was primarily intended as a very cynical coda: it shows that Johnny Rico has become a full-blown mindless war machine just like Lt. Rasczak (he has even copied his war cry "Come on, you apes, you wanna live forever?") and that mankind still thinks they can win this war through superior firepower. In this context, the final tag line 'They'll keep on fighting' can be read as 'They still haven't learned anything'. Verhoeven admits that many viewers and critics entirely missed this subtext of the movie, and misinterpreted the final scene as a statement of militarism, or a simple allusion to a sequel.
QWhat are the differences between the film and the novel?
A- The novel features an all-male Mobile Infantry and very little actual combat is described, while the film focuses on heavy action scenes and the love triangle between Johnny, Dizzy and Carmen. The romantic subplot does not appear in the novel; The Mobile Infantry is an all-male unit and the character of Dizzy Flores is a male trooper who dies in the first chapter.- The novel is told exclusively from Johnny's point of view, describing his hero's journey from indifferent high school student (Appreciation of Television is listed on his transcript) to elite cap trooper, and details the maturation process that entails. The film changes point-of-view focus between Johnny and Carmen (who in the novel never had any relationship beyond friendship).- The absence in the film of the power armor that was a central plot device in the novel, and had an entire chapter devoted to its description and use (the power armor was eventually used in Starship Troopers 3: Marauder).- While the original novel has been accused of promoting militarism, fascism and military rule, the film satirizes these concepts by featuring news reports that are intensely fascist, xenophobic and propagandistic. Verhoeven stated in 1997 that the first scene of the film (a conscription advert for the mobile infantry) was adapted shot-for-shot from a scene from Leni Riefenstahls Triumph of the Will (an outdoor rally for the Reichsarbeitsdienst). Other references to Nazism in the movie include the Gestapo-like uniforms of commanding officers, Albert Speer-style architecture and the propagandistic dialogue. (Violence is the supreme authority!)- The Bugs in the film are portrayed as generally mindless insectoid beings, ruled and organized by an extremely intelligent overmind. However, at the beginning of the film, when Rico and Carmen dissect Arkellian sand beetles, the biology teacher states that the Bugs have millions of years of evolution behind them and are, in the case of survival capability, the perfect species. They have the ability to colonize planets "by hurling their spore into space" and possess a social structure which fits their mental capabilities. In the novel, it is established that the Bugs have spacecraft, beam weapons and other advanced technology, far from the mindless insects of the movie. The book also describes them as looking like "a madman's conception of a giant, intelligent spider." Interestingly, the book also reveals that the Bugs "see by infrared:" though pitch dark to human eyes, the underground corridors of a Bug colony are well lit when viewed by the infrared "snoopers" used by the Mobile Infantry. Bug society is based on a caste system in both the films and the books. In the book, the "Worker Caste" and the "Warrior Caste" are both mentally controlled by the "Brain Caste", which works on behalf of the "Queen" of each Bug colony.- Johnny Rico (Juan) is Filipino in the book, although this isn't clarified until the final chapter. He specifies his native language is Tagalog and he suggests that there should be a starship named after Raymond Magsaysay (former President of the Philippines) due to his actions clearing Japanese soldiers from the Philippines in WWII.- the characters of Mr. Dubois (one of his high school teachers) and Lieutenant Rasczak are separate individuals in the book (Mr. Dubois was a former MI Colonel before becoming a schoolteacher and at some point lost one of his arms; Lt. Rasczak is an able-bodied commander that leads Rasczak's Roughnecks before being killed in action).- Many elements from the book were used in the film, sometimes in a different context or way. These include: the book also opens in the middle of the story, and then makes a flashback to the beginning; Johnny's father disowns him after Johnny enlists in the army; school teachers trying to discourage students from enlisting in the army (a tactic to scare off applicants without sufficient conviction; Johnny Rico getting flogged as punishment for making a tactical mistake; Buenos Aires getting destroyed in a bug attack (which is a culmination of a string of earlier incidents with the bugs); Johnny's mother dying in the attack (but not his father, as is implied in the movie - in the book it turns out later his father also joined the MI following the destruction of Buenos Aires); the defeat at the battle of Klendathu.
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