Development as Bug Hunt at Outpost 7 Since the release of
RoboCop (1987), producer Jon Davison had aimed to develop another project that would reunite key members of its creative team, including writer Edward Neumeier and
stop motion animator
Phil Tippett. Neumeier and his co-writer Michael Miner had struggled to develop new story ideas in the intervening years and, realizing their partnership was no longer effective, Neumeier began working alone on a
story treatment titled
Bug Hunt at Outpost 7. His treatment was intended to be a comedic,
jingoistic, and
xenophobic war film pitting the heroes against insects—chosen due to his wife's fear of them—set against the backdrop of a teenage romance story. In December 1991, Neumeier brought his treatment to Davison at
Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank, which also headquartered
TriStar Pictures, with whom Davison had a pre-existing development deal. Davison realized the treatment bore similarities to the 1959 science fiction novel,
Starship Troopers, by
Robert A. Heinlein. The novel had received a strongly divided reception on its release for promoting military power and necessary violence while criticizing
liberal social programs, but had remained a popular work. Neumeier and Davison considered directly adapting
Starship Troopers, but Davison assumed the film adaptation rights would already be taken and encouraged Neumeier to continue with his treatment, retitled
Outpost 7. By late 1992, Neumeier had completed the
Outpost 7 treatment, alternatively known as
Bug Hunt. Davison presented it to TriStar executive
Chris Lee, who rejected it. Neumeier and Davison learned that the rights for
Starship Troopers were available and instead pitched an adaptation of the novel using elements of
Outpost 7. Lee was more receptive, and the pair also gained support from other executives, including TriStar head of production
Mike Medavoy, who had supported their work on
RoboCop. The rights to
Starship Troopers were purchased and Neumeier began adapting
Outpost 7 to more closely fit Heinlein's novel.
Development as Starship Troopers Progress was slow as TriStar regularly replaced executives, including Medavoy, and high cost or risk projects, like
Starship Troopers, were more closely scrutinized. Davison spent much of 1993 securing several key crew including Tippett and
RoboCop director
Paul Verhoeven. Neumeier and Davison said Verhoeven was their only choice to direct
Starship Troopers because they determined the fantastical creatures, genre, and political subtext suited his creative sensibilities. Verhoeven recruited
Alan Marshall as a producer, having worked with him on
Basic Instinct (1992) and his most recent project
Showgirls (1995). Despite Verhoeven's previous successes leading into the early 1990s, he was in need of a promising project as his efforts to develop the pirate adventure
Mistress of the Seas and the
Arnold Schwarzenegger-starring
Crusade had failed.
Showgirls would go on to fail financially and earn him the worst reviews of his career. By 1994, TriStar remained reluctant to move
Starship Troopers into pre-production. Key crew members, including Davison and Verhoeven, decided to produce test footage to demonstrate their intended visual style and tone. TriStar paid $225,000 toward development of the "Bug Test", a brief scene filmed at
Vasquez Rocks near Los Angeles on July 21, 1994. Although still busy filming
Showgirls, Verhoeven directed the sequence, which was filmed by
John Hora and a 30-person crew. The sequence depicts a soldier (played by
Mitch Gaylord) being pursued and killed by two Warrior Bugs, which were animated by
Tippett Studio; Neumeier makes a cameo appearance as a dead soldier. The visual effects were finished by September, and the footage screened for TriStar executives in early October. Executives including Lee and
Mark Canton were impressed with the visual effects and did not realize they were
computer-generated imagery (CGI). They approved moving into pre-production, but other executives remained non-committal on providing any substantial funding. In early 1995, Davison developed a detailed budget totalling $90 million, based on Neumeier's third draft. TriStar rejected this amount, citing the financial failure of the $200 million-budgeted
Waterworld (1995), which resulted in the firing of several executives at
Universal Pictures. TriStar executives determined that, to move forward, the cost of
Starship Troopers had to be split with a business partner. Davison screened the Bug Test for potential suitors, attracting the interest of
Walt Disney Studios. An agreement was reached between TriStar, its parent company
Sony Pictures, and Disney to produce
Starship Troopers via TriStar and Disney's
Touchstone Pictures, splitting the budget costs and box office profits evenly, in exchange for Touchstone receiving all distribution rights to the film outside the United States and Canada. Each studio was also given creative input on the film and its marketing.
Writing Neumeier began adapting the
Starship Troopers novel at the beginning of 1993, working from his office in
Eagle Rock, Los Angeles. He was concerned about how to translate the tone of Heinlein's work because of the controversy surrounding its release, which identified Heinlein as alternately a
conservative,
militarist,
libertarian, and
fascist. The novel espouses the benefits of military service, citizenship, and masculinity. Heinlein described the central theme as being "that a man, to be truly human, must be unhesitatingly willing at all times to lay down his life for his fellow man. [This theme] is based on the twin concepts of love and duty—and how they are related to the survival of our race". Neuimeier and Davison wanted to accurately depict the novel's viewpoint and believed that audiences would appreciate the concept of a failing democracy and stricter cultural controls. Certain aspects of the novel were challenging for Neumeier to adapt. While he considered the first and third acts narratively strong, he felt the middle act—focusing on Rico's boot camp experience—was an overly long piece preaching to Heinlein's readership, which would not translate well to film. To address this, he identified key elements such as the high school opening, boot camp, battles, and the underlying philosophy and sociopolitics. To compensate for the slower second act, he expanded on certain themes, including the teenage romance, drawing from his own experiences of pursuing women who had no interest in him. The first draft was completed on July 8, 1993. It remained generally faithful to Heinlein's novel, including a secondary alien race known as the "Skinnies"; the "Bounce", a technology allowing infantry members to make jet-assisted superhuman jumps; and power armor, which granted the troops superhuman strength. A copy was sent to Heinlein's wife, who was pleased with it. Verhoeven tried, and failed, to read the novel, finding it uninteresting and too politically
right-wing. He had Neumeier summarize the narrative, and found it militaristic, fascistic, and overly supportive of armed conflict, which clashed with Verhoeven's childhood experiences in the
German-occupied Netherlands during
World War II. Verhoeven decided to use the basic plot to satirize and undermine the book's themes by deconstructing the concepts of
totalitarianism, fascism, and militarism, saying: "All the way through I wanted the audience to be asking, 'Are [the characters] crazy? His contributions to Neumeier's second draft included developing the romantic subplot between Rico and Carmen, and combining the male character Dizzy with a Neumeier-created female character called Ronnie who was romantically interested in Rico. This, in turn, led Neumeier to develop
romantic triangles between Dizzy, Rico, Carmen, and Zander. The Skinnies were removed, because Verhoeven thought depicting an additional alien race would be confusing, while queen bugs and advanced canines called neo-dogs were considered financially unviable. Other financially motivated changes included the removal of the Bounce and the Drop, a method of inserting troops from orbit in capsules that shed consecutive layers during landing. Preliminary designs were made of the capsules, but attached to parachutes, which did not match the intended aesthetic, and adding rockets was deemed impractical, because it would have required numerous different visual effects and taken too much time to accomplish. In addition to cost, the Bounce was removed, because the troops would look like they were on pogo sticks and it made it too easy to avoid Arachnid attacks. The Arachnids were made more insect-like, as Verhoeven did not want them to wield weaponry or act like humanoids. The most controversial omission from the novel, for fans, was the power armor. Davison said that despite the importance of the armor, it was financially impossible to create hundreds of suits for the cast and extras. He and Verhoeven initially agreed to use the power armor sparingly, and integrate various different ideas such as the Bounce into them, but later determined it gave the troops too much of a combat advantage. The FedNet sequences, the main source of information in the future, were invented for the film, representing how Neumeier believed television and computers would eventually be combined. Neumeier completed his third and final draft by early 1995. Verhoeven described the script as being about contemporary American politics, such as a lack of
gun control and increasing
capital punishment under
Texas governor George W. Bush, which he believed could potentially lead to fascism. The characters of
Starship Troopers, he said, were "fascists who aren't aware of their fascism". He said: "If I tell the world that a right-wing, fascist way of doing things doesn't work, no one will listen to me. So I'm going to make a perfect fascist world: everyone is beautiful, everything is shiny, everything has big guns and fancy ships but it's only good for killing fucking Bugs!"
Pre-production Under the company name Big Bug Pictures, the
Starship Troopers team worked in a large suite in the Astaire Building at
Sony Pictures Studios in
Culver City, California. While pre-production began in earnest by September 1995, after Verhoeven concluded work on
Showgirls, he had already spent several months producing over 4,000 storyboard images of the
Starship Troopers script. Conscious that the Arachnids, among other CGI elements, would be added after filming, he wanted a detailed image of how each scene would be set out during filming. Storyboard artists Robin Richesson and Giacomo Ghiazzi refined Verhoeven's storyboards, the majority of the comic book–style art being done by Ghiazzi. Many key crew members were hired in 1996, including Verhoeven's long-time cinematographer
Jost Vacano, as well as
Vic Armstrong (
second unit director and
stunt coordinator),
Mark Goldblatt (
editor),
John Richardson (
special effects supervisor),
Basil Poledouris (
music composer), and
Robert Latham Brown (production manager). Tippett also hired the nearly 100 additional staff required to realize the Arachnids, including
Craig Hayes (visual effects artist) and
Trey Stokes (animation department head). Davison's responsibilities focused on the special effects, while Marshall was concerned more with the filming. Production designer Allan Cameron and location manager Bill Bowling scouted several filming locations, but rejected most as they did not consider them particularly unique. Others, such as the
Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada, had too many environmental restrictions which could delay filming, and obtaining the necessary permits was slow due to an
extended period of U.S. government shutdowns. Bowling identified
Hell's Half Acre, located just outside
Casper, Wyoming, which offered colorful
buttes and pinnacles to portray the alien planets of Klendathu and Planet P, although it was rife with rattlesnakes. The location was remote, about or an hour's drive from the production office and hotels for the cast and crew. It offered other logistical challenges as it was generally undeveloped land, requiring the production to build roads for the trucks carrying gear into the canyons for filming. Anything that could not be transported by road was lowered by helicopter. Construction of some on-location sets such as Whiskey Outpost camp began in February 1996 and took six weeks. The local government was supportive of the project, subsidizing the building of the roads and camp. Another, more easily accessible location, Barry Barber Ranch near
Kadoka, South Dakota, and the
Badlands National Park, featured little vegetation and a smooth, undulating landscape, which was chosen to portray Tango Urilla. As pre-production continued, Davison remained concerned about TriStar's ongoing executive turnover and its inconsistent commitment to funding. Verhoeven believed the repeated regime changes at the studio worked in their favor, as the project was overlooked until it was too late to cancel it.
Casting Verhoeven wanted a cast who visually embodied the
Aryan, blonde, blue-eyed, and beautiful image he had perceived in the
Nazi propaganda films
Triumph of the Will (1935) and
Olympia (1938) by
Leni Riefenstahl. He focused on popular film actors in their late teens and early twenties, but realized that many of the contemporary stars he wanted, such as
Chris O'Donnell and
Christian Slater, were already in their thirties—which would make the characters seem less naive—or committed to other projects. Although television actors were still generally overlooked when casting films, the production looked at shows such as
Melrose Place and
Beverly Hills, 90210, which featured young, photogenic, but less well known actors, such as Casper Van Dien, Denise Richards, and Dina Meyer. Van Dien performed five auditions for the Rico role, and underwent eight months of training after securing it, gaining of muscle and losing from his waist.
Mark Wahlberg and
Matt Damon also auditioned, but Verhoeven believed Van Dien closely fit the Riefenstahl aesthetic. Richards also performed five auditions to portray Carmen in November and December 1995, before finally
screen testing against Van Dien. Meyer's agent recommended auditioning for Carmen, but she wanted to portray Dizzy because she thought she could convey the character's "heart" and vulnerability at being overlooked by Rico because her toughness makes her seem like just another guy. Neil Patrick Harris was mainly known for portraying a child doctor on
Doogie Howser, M.D. (1989–1993), and wanted a project that would shed that image as he moved into his adult career. He described Jenkins as almost two separate characters, Rico's geeky and funny friend who becomes worn, pale, and troubled by his responsibilities. Making his feature film debut, Patrick Muldoon described his character Zander as ambiguous and competitive, while Verhoeven and Neumeier saw him as possessing a darker side. Jake Busey considered Ace Levy to be an integral character necessary for releasing the tension for the audience by finding the humor in macabre situations. Seth Gilliam said his character is like a
Vietnam War veteran who cannot adapt to life outside war. Clancy Brown portrays Sergeant Zim, a "crusty, macho, jingoistic, ultimately admirable drill instructor". Brown based his performance on archetypical drill instructors from military films such as
The D.I. (1957) and
Full Metal Jacket (1987), as well as taking guidance from retired Marine captain
Dale Dye, who said that Brown should act as if his soldiers are watching his every move. Verhoeven was a fan of Michael Ironside, having attempted to cast him in
RoboCop and giving him a central role in
Total Recall (1990). Ironside's Jean Rasczak appears early in
Starship Troopers to set the tone, and was an original creation combining two characters from the novel: Rico's teacher, Lieutenant Colonel Jean V. Dubois, and Lieutenant Rasczak, a heroic soldier. Members of the principal cast, including Van Dien, Meyer, Busey, Gilliam and Curnal Aulisio, and 24
extras undertook twelve days of
military training, led by Dye, from April 17, 1996, to the start of filming. Conducted in Hell's Half Acre, the training included basic combat skills and tactics as Dye perceived they may evolve centuries in the future. Activities included a daily 3-mile (4.8 km) run, marching, and weapon handling. Those involved slept in open-air military tents, dealing with the harsh conditions, including of snow and ice following a blizzard, and windstorms. Extra Julia Rupkalvis's experience during the training led to her becoming a key assistant to Dye while training the hundreds of extras portraying troopers. As Richards was not in the infantry cast, she did not have to participate, but chose to anyway, later remarking how she, Van Dien, and Busey bonded while huddling together for warmth during the blizzard.
Filming , Natrona County, Wyoming, where parts of
Starship Troopers were filmed.
Principal photography began on April 29, 1996, with six weeks of filming in Hell's Half Acre. The area featured extreme weather conditions, including hot days, frigid evenings, blizzards, and wind storms that affected much of the on-site equipment, requiring replacements to be flown in on a regular basis. It was also temporarily evacuated after torrential rain mixed with
bentonite in the soil, creating a slick surface. The crew returned two weeks later to find that miles of electrical cables, some equipment, and even cars had sunk into the mud. Only a few days of filming were lost, however, as a local warehouse had been converted into a soundstage. The conditions also caused respiratory and exhaustion issues among the crew, and many were treated for
heat stroke after wearing heavy costumes in the heat, including Busey. Production was paused for a week while he recovered, costing $1.5 million a day. A Klendathu night battle sequence filmed there featured about 1,300 background trooper extras for each night of filming. A
steadicam was used for most filming, with occasional handheld footage for battle scenes, inspired by the 1944
Normandy landings, to make the audience feel like a part of the scene. Most effects scenes were shot early in the schedule so there was sufficient time for the effects team to complete their work. The cast struggled with scenes in which they had to interact with blank space that would later be filled with CGI creations. Cardboard cutouts, tennis balls, flags, and even Verhoeven wielding a broom were methods used to indicate where the creatures would be. In May, during the
Memorial Day holiday weekend, an oncoming driver struck a car carrying crew, resulting in the deaths of two crew members, their driver, and severely injuring television personality
Rachel Campos, the girlfriend of one of the dead crew members. Counselling was offered for the remaining cast and crew, who provided donations towards Campos's recovery. Filming moved to Barry Barber Ranch on June 14, for scenes set on Klendathu and Tango Urilla, before returning to Casper on June 26. The post Tango Urilla battle celebration was filmed at Vasquez Rocks. On the crew's flight to Los Angeles on June 29, an intoxicated crew member mentioned a bomb, resulting in the plane being evacuated, cargo searched, and all passengers being detained. The crew member was arrested while the remaining team waited another day for a flight, losing a rest day and a day of filming. Filming on sets began in early July, including the Buenos Aires education center classroom, biology lab, and Jenkins's basement sets, which were built at Sony Studios. The Jump Ball scene was filmed at the
Long Beach Pyramid arena. Van Dien, Meyer, and Muldoon performed many of their own stunts for the scene, apart from flips and somersaults, and encouraged each other to be physically rough. The exam results scene and the prom were both filmed at
Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in
Baldwin Park. The Federal Recruitment Center scene and following segment in which Carmen leaves by train were filmed over four days at the
Los Angeles Convention Center, which Verhoeven chose because he considered its architecture to be futuristic and clean. Some scenes were also filmed at the
Park Plaza Hotel. Camp Currie boot camp scenes were filmed at
Mile Square Regional Park in
Fountain Valley, which Cameron favored for its abandoned World War II blimp runway onto which they installed a top coat of tarmac and paint for a parade ground. It also fit their image of a low-pollution Earth, being surrounded by flat ground and trees. The co-ed nude shower scene was filmed on a set at Sony Pictures with about fifteen cast members. The set was cleared of all but the cast, Verhoeven, and Vacano, who also undressed at the cast's request. A separate nude scene was written for Richards, but she refused to take part, as she did not see the purpose. Armstrong's
second unit filmed action sequences as well as the complex stunts and special effect scenes that would be time-consuming for the main unit. He delegated much of the main unit stunt work to Dickey Beer to avoid overworking himself. The fight between Rico and Zander was mainly performed by Van Dien and Muldoon while wearing padding suits. Van Dien was injured during a stunt that involved him riding on the back of a gigantic moving fiberglass "Tanker Bug" shell. The movement kept slamming him into the shell as he was held in place with ropes, chipping one of his teeth and bruising his ribs over the three and a half days of filming, but he refused to mention the pain and risk stalling filming. One of the more dangerous stunts came near the end of filming, involving Van Dien, Busey, and Richards running out of an Arachnid tunnel followed by a real explosion. Only one take was done and they were told that, if someone tripped, they should pick them up and keep moving. Despite the difficult conditions and obstacles, principal photography concluded on October 16, 1996, only slightly over schedule, after six months of filming generally six days a week. Second unit filming concluded a week later on October 23, after filming various explosions and background scenery.
Post-production Post-production began in late October 1996, and concluded in August 1997.
Starship Troopers was edited by Mark Goldblatt with co-editor Caroline Ross. Goldblatt described Verhoeven as very collaborative, allowing them to interpret his footage in their own way and to provide input during filming on how special effects may be staged. Even so, Goldblatt said Verhoeven was conservative with what he filmed and generally only captured what he wanted with no
coverage footage. Some scenes were changed for the release, including trimming the scene of the Brain Bug sucking brains. A separate scene of a soldier being decapitated by an Arachnid was removed preemptively to avoid a restrictive
NC-17 release rating. Another scene, of Carmen kissing Rico during the finale, was cut, because
test audiences thought it was immoral after Zander's death, and were unconvinced that Carmen could love both men simultaneously. The audiences were also unhappy with Carmen choosing her career over her relationship with Rico and wanted her to die instead of Dizzy. Additional supplemental scenes were filmed during this period, primarily the FedNet propaganda sequences, as there was no time to complete these during principal photography. Filmed over a week in late January 1997, with many of the same crew, including Verhoeven and Vacano, mainly on location in and around Los Angeles, the FedNet sequences included survivors digging through the remains of Buenos Aires, shot on a vacant lot in downtown Los Angeles that was dressed with broken concrete and flame effects. Another scene of a psychic with a third eye was filmed in a
Delta Air Lines hangar at the
Los Angeles International Airport. Two
rough cut screenings were held for executives on May 29 and 30, 1997, receiving a positive reaction with discussions of a sequel.
Starship Troopers is reported to have had a final budget of $100–$110 million.
Visual effects About half of the budget for
Starship Troopers was dedicated to realizing the required 500 visual effect shots. Tippett Studio was mainly responsible for producing effects relating to the Arachnids while
Sony Pictures Imageworks (SPI) was tasked with spaceship effects. Davison wanted to use other studios, but it was made clear to him by studio executives that the film would not receive financing without using the in-house studio. Jim Martin and SPI art director Michael Scheffe were mainly responsible for the design of the crafts, with Martin providing broad outlines which were given greater detail and a more consistent appearance by Scheffe. Using SPI would lead to production problems, with their contributions falling months behind schedule and those effects that were completed being deemed insufficient by the filmmakers, resulting in the hiring of
Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) and
Boss Film Studios to complete the effects work. Many miniatures were made of the ships for different scenes, some of them measuring up to long. Designing the Arachnids was a collaborative process between Tippett, Hayes, Davison, Neumeier, and Verhoeven. The final designs included the Warrior, Tanker, Plasma, Hopper, and Brain bugs. While CGI was the main method of realizing the creatures, some practical appliances were built by
Amalgamated Dynamics, including two full-scale mechanized Warrior bugs capable of lifting an adult in their jaws.
Music The score for
Starship Troopers was composed by Basil Poledouris over six months. Poledouris intended to score the film as an action movie, but Verhoeven wanted the music to offer a realistic background for the characters' experiences. As a result, Poledouris focused on creating a sense of excitement, passion, and poignancy. Verhoeven chose Poledouris's theme for the
Rodger Young spaceship, titled "Klendathu Drop", as the basis for the overall score. Poledouris developed themes for specific characters and relationships, including the one between Rico and Dizzy, whom he considered the "heart" of
Starship Troopers, but did not create a theme for the Arachnids as he wanted their distinct noises to contrast with the score. The score was recorded on a Sony Studios recording stage between June and September 1997, with a full orchestra of 97 musicians using acoustic and percussion instruments. Evelyn Oz, a band including Poledouris's daughter, Zoë, performs two songs during the prom scene: an original song, "Into It", and a lyrically modified "
I Have Not Been to Oxford Town", composed by
David Bowie. ==Release==