LJ Frezza takes a loving look back at how Robocop, Total Recall, and Starship Troopers are wry commentaries on mass media's normalizing effect on sexism, militarism, climate change, corporatism, and state-sponsored terrorism.
Last year, just in time for a Trump presidency, producers announced a non-satiric Starship Troopers remake was in the works, hewing closer to the fascistic ideology of Heinlein's book. Verhoeven went off at a special screening:
Our philosophy was really different [from Heinlein's book],we wanted to do a double story, a really wonderful adventure story about these young boys and girls fighting, but we also wanted to show that these people are really, in their heart, without knowing it, are on their way to fascism. […] We are living in a very interesting, or you can call it scary times, and of course you would like to do something about it, too. But I think if you go to directly into the now you have no distance… you need to have a certain distance as an artist to the project and not be in the middle of it. So [with] all [that] started to happen lately, I started to read about Hitler and studying 1933 and 1934 in Germany, [which] could be a metaphor that you could use to talk about now.
• Paul Verhoeven's Mass Media (Vimeo / Fandor)
• Paul Verhoeven Slams 'Starship Troopers' Remake, Says It'll Be a Fascist Update Perfect for a Trump Presidency (IndieWire)
