"This year we explored the failure of democracy, where the social scientists brought our world to the brink of chaos. We talked about the veterans, how they took control & imposed the stability which has lasted for generations since.."

Verhoeven actually has precious little to say about fascism which we don't already know (at least in the context of 2017) - but even moreso than the advertisements which resemble propaganda of both Republican and Democrat alike, what remains interesting is the dime-store teen angst plot devices, which in their generic qualities reveal to us the propagandistic nature of these devices themselves. More than a film about fascism, it remains relevant because it's a film about the nature of propaganda, media & spectacle.…

François Truffaut once said, “It is impossible to make a true anti-war film, because the act of looking at violence is inherently exciting”. Robert A. Heinlein wrote, “Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor”. Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers would have had them both rolling in their graves. Verhoeven’s 1997 adaptation throws good taste — and Heinlein’s original novel — out the window. The rare film that indulges the horrors of war and the joys of watching it vicariously, Starship Troopers makes the wrong feel so appealing because, quite simply, it is.

Starship Troopers opens with what might well be 90210 in space. As the sensitive jock, doe-eyed love interest and the brainy joker,…