Welcome to A Vampire and an Explosion. A Monthly blog about: cult film, bad movies, TV, comics, and everything in between.It’s a good day to die in the mobile infantry.
Okay I’ll admit it the first Strarship Troopers kicked ass. It was an absurdly over the top satire of military propaganda films and an awesome special effects extravaganza. Of course the movie bombed in theaters because no one really got it. It did become a cult hit on video and spawned two direct to video sequels. One “Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation” which everyone hated, and the movie in question “Starship Troopers 3: Marauder”.
The film starts off as the first movie did with the News Broadcast meets webcast thing. We are told that the Federation has been fighting the bugs for 11 years, people are getting tired of the war and being hung for saying so. Religion is outlawed, I guess the Federation hasn’t entirely figured out that religion could be an effective propaganda tool, oh wait that’s really the story of this flick, sorry if I ruined it for you.
In any event it’s been 11 years the bugs are still bugging it up with new and improved bugs like grenade bugs and scorpion bugs that we never get a good look at because, well, the movie had a budget of 10 million bucks.
Oh we also learn that the sky marshal is also a pop star(!). Singing ra ra anthems about killing bugs and how it’s a “Good Day to Die”. I understand that popular music can be used for political advantage it’s just hard to buy that this guy would actually to appeal to anybody. I understand he’s a military commander and in the Starship Troopers universe that demands respect and celebrity I just can’t buy him being a pop star. Now if he were a girl and looked like Britany Spears or one of her clones I’d totally buy into it. Is that sexist? Maybe it is.
Now we learn that Jonny Rico the hero from the first film is still alive and well and fighting on the home front of a farming planet. Where the farmers hate the Federation makes their world awful and a war zone. Now okay, but if giant insects show up on your front door and start killing and impaling your friends, neighbors, and children I think the problems lie more with the bugs and not the team sent in to kill the bugs. Of course the mobile infantry fucked up the world too,. The message is of course “war is hell” especially in the pastel world of Starship Troopers.
From here on in the film starts making less and less sense. Jonny Rico tries to stop his friend Dix Hauser(yup his name is Dix) from killing a farmer, and is court marshaled. The bugs attack there are tons of explosions and yelling and blood and bugs exploding in green goo. A group of people starting with Jonny’s Ex-Girlfriend, some other troopers, a coke named Jingo, and the sky marshal escape from the farming planet and then crash on some other planet.
Rico is all set to be hanged but due to some conspiracy that’s not rightly explained he is set free at the last possible second to head up the top secret Marauder program. That’s right a half hour before the movie ends we get the title of the movie.
Meanwhile back on desert world, things are getting well odd. When the hapless survivors are not being chased by the bugs they engage in circuitous and inane chatter about God and weather or not he exists. Of course the blonde stewardess is in fact a bible thumper even though the Federation has outlawed religion. Oh I forgot to tell you that there’s this subplot involving the brain bug and apparently it has brainwashed the sky marshal into believing that he is under heavenly command to let the bugs take over the universe or something. Anyways, one of the higher ups in the Federation says “The bugs have something with this religion thing”.
Now that Starship Troopers has taken “sense” and skewered it on its bayonet of justice, we can get a: COMPLETELY GRATUITIOUS NUDE SCENE! Rico and his Marauder squad have to all strip and get ready to hop in the Marauder suit. What follows is a scene that feels like when the Power Rangers get into their “Zords”(why are they called Zords anyway?), but just imagine the rangers naked while they do it.
Back on hostile alien world. The cook Jingo is dead, and this other guy who blond stewardess had the hots for is now dead as well. We also learn that the GOD BUG OF DOOM is in fact the planet and can stick its tentacles into people and possess them.
Blondie and Jonny’s Ex girlfriend sit down and start praying. Blondie says the lords prayer. Before you can say Deus Ex Machina, Rico and his Marauders show up and wipe out the god bug. This is all overlayed to the lord’s prayer. Which begs the ultimate question…JUST WHAT THE HELL IS THE POINT OF THIS SCENE!? Is it to show that religion is part of ultraviolence? Is it trying to make an ironic point? I don’t know, and the thing about it is I don’t think the movie knows either.
The bugs are destroyed, the Maurader suits which are part of the book this franchise is based on are seen for maybe all of six seconds(remember budget was 10 million dollars). They blow up the world with a nuclear bomb everyone goes home happy and some people get married.
Okay so I glossed over a few plot points, mainly cause I didn’t exactly care, and the movie never tried to make me care, so why should I write about them to you?
Starship Troopers 3 is fun. It’s just a confused movie. In the end nothing is really worse than bad satire done badly.
