Starship Troopers

How do you satirize a self-serious sci-fi staple? Any way you can! This week, Chris & Lizzie drop in on Paul Verhoeven's widely misunderstood anti-fascist spectacle and try to figure out how the cast of 90210 was employed to battle some of Phil Tippett's best-looking creations on Klendathu. Come see us live! Oct. 8th and 9th at the Caveat Theater in Manhattan! Head to cheerfulearful.com/podlifeevents.com and click on our show dates for tickets! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• 0:00Chris Winterbauer?

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• 0:31Lizzie Bassett?

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• 1:15Lizzie Bassett?

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• 1:54Lizzie Bassett?

  Hello and welcome back to What Went Wrong, your favorite podcast full stop that just so happens to be about movies and how it's nearly impossible to make them, let alone a good one, let alone, ah, potentially a misunderstood sci-fi magnum opus? I don't know if that's the right way to describe this. I'm one of your hosts, Lizzie Bassett, here as always with Chris Winterbauer. And Chris, what do you have for us today?

• 2:21Chris Winterbauer?

  Today I have 1997's Starship Troopers. Yes, a misunderstood film, or at least misunderstood upon the time of its release. A film that I watch every five years or so, just to marvel at both 90's symmetrical faces, chiseled jawlines, and the integration of practical effects and CGI. I think this film, moments of this film are remarkable in how they hold up to this day, especially the giant bug hordes. We'll discuss how those were made. And speaking of giant bug hordes, we released a little primer on bugs and their representation

• 3:02Chris Winterbauer?

  in film this Friday. So if you guys are interested, check out that episode on our feed, Bugs: A Primer for Starship Troopers. Don't worry, you don't need to listen to it to enjoy this episode, but it might enhance your listening experience. All right. Now, Lizzie, had you ever seen Starship Troopers before? And what were your thoughts upon watching or re-watching it for the podcast?

• 3:25Lizzie Bassett?

  I had seen it once before because David forced me to watch it probably, I don't know, a year, maybe two years ago. I had passed this movie many times in Blockbuster and, you know, on streaming services. I always assumed, because of both the visual marketing and the title of this thing, that it was like a Spaceballs-esque sci-fi parody starring Denise Richards. And all of the above at the time made me say, no, thank you. However, the older I get, the more I appreciate Denise Richards. So now I'm all in. But when we finally watched it, I was like, oh, that's not what this is? Question mark? Because

• 4:09Lizzie Bassett?

  there are elements of it that do sort of feel like a bit of a parody of sci-fi. There's also elements of it that I think are very... Forward looking in terms of the way that the news broadcasts happen. It's very sort of Tik Tok-esque. And I think that's really interesting that they kind of nailed that as early as 1997. I have one problem with this movie. I should say, I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed it the first time we watched it. I enjoyed it even more this time. I think it's great. To your point, I think that the mix of practical effects and CGI is pretty fantastic in this. I love the brain bug. I love it's horrible.

• 4:47Chris Winterbauer?

  I drink your milkshake, as the bug says at the end.

• 4:51Lizzie Bassett?

  Opening its horrible, many eyed mouth vagina and stabbing that poor man in the head. Yeah, I think it all looks great. It's really fun. It's not boring. So many fun little cameos from people who would become much bigger stars down the road. My one big problem with this is I think Denise Richards is miscast, which she I think constantly was over the course of her career, with the exception of possibly Wild Things and Drop Dead Gorgeous, both of which I think she's great in. There is just something very sinister about Denise Richards. And for some reason, they kept casting her as like the most bone dry, boring, hot lady, who's also very smart. I'll leave that there, but I'll just gonna say, I think that may not be the best use of her talents. And I do think she's talented.

• 5:36Lizzie Bassett?

  My other big issue with this is Casper Van Dien. I think the lead, he's so campy and the rest of the movie is also so campy. I wish there had been somebody in that role who could have held it down with a little bit more of a sense of humor about what they were doing and a little bit more groundedness. But instead, he's very elevated, even the way that he looks like he doesn't look real. So that's my take on it. I think he does a great job. I just don't think he really holds down the movie for me. Chris, what about you?

• 6:10Chris Winterbauer?

  I think you nailed a lot of my thoughts as well, so I'm not going to reiterate anything and we'll get to casting. This is very much Verhoeven in his showgirls phase of his career, as we'll discuss. That release coincided quite nicely with the beginning of production on this film. Uh oh. As you mentioned, Lizzie, the tone of this movie is tricky. This is a satire. It is a satire through and through. It is not a parody. It's not technically camp. It's not an outright comedy, but it's also not serious. Yes, exactly. And I think audiences really struggled with it when the film was released. I still think it can be a struggle. And I think because of the casting, it's difficult to figure out who you have a rooting interest in, in this movie. One person.

• 6:55Chris Winterbauer?

  There's one person I root for in this movie. Dizzy Flores? Yes. Deanna Meyer. Yes. She's great. She really gets it. I really wanted more of her throughout. She was also in Dragonheart, which folks know I'm a big Dragonheart fan. And I do think she's an underrated talent. We'll get to her and all of the 90210 alums that graced the screen in this film. So I saw this young. I loved the visual effects. I was completely lost otherwise. I did not understand the tone of this movie at all as a youngster. Did not understand the conversations around citizenship, the obvious riffs on fascism, why Doogie Howser was showing up in a Gestapo uniform later in the film. Like a Nazi, like a full-blown Nazi. I didn't understand much of that.

• 7:40Chris Winterbauer?

  My appreciation for the film grew as my prefrontal cortex came in and I started to understand the satirical elements later, shamefully later in my life, more in my twenties. And as I said, I return to it now every few years. It's kind of a 90s comfort film for me. I still think the visual effects are amazing. I think of this moment in Hollywood, and this movie very much encapsulates this, as a time when the integration of visual effects, CGI, and practical effects were at their peak. Close-ups, cutaways, interactions with actual live humans are mostly done with practical effects. Wide shots, battle shots, showing off the scope of the bugs is handed off to visual

• 8:25Chris Winterbauer?

  effects. It's such an effective marriage. It feels like such thought is put into every camera angle as a result, and I really loved this movie for that. But before we dive into the production of Starship Troopers, first, the details. So Starship Troopers is a 1997 sci-fi satire directed by Paul Verhoeven, written by Ed Neumeyer, and based loosely on Robert Heinlein's novel by the same name. It was produced by John Davison and many more. It stars, as you mentioned, Casper Van Dean as Johnny Rico, Denise Richards as Carmen Ibanez, Neil Patrick Harris as Carl Jenkins,

• 9:05Chris Winterbauer?

  Deanna Meyer as Dizzy Flores, Michael Ironside as Lieutenant Rajak, Jake Bucy as Ace Levy, Patrick Muldoon as Xander Barklow, Lieutenant Dreamy Eyes 40-year-old senior in high school Xander Barklow, and Clancy Brown, in yet another Clancy Brown classic, as Sergeant Zim. We just spoke about him in The Shawshank Redemption. Sources for today's episode include, but are not limited to, Paul Verhoeven, the authorized biography by Rob Van Sheers, The Making of Starship Troopers by Paul Salmon, Grumbles from the Grave by Robert A. Heinlein, and many more articles, retrospectives, interviews, behind-the-scenes footage from the film.

• 9:50Chris Winterbauer?

  As always, the IMDb log line reads, "Humans in a fascist militaristic future wage war with giant alien bugs." So Lizzie, how did our favorite Dutch director, fresh off a career-altering flop, America's most Aryan-looking youthful television stars, and a book written off as too conservative when it was released in the mid-20th century, come together to make one of the 90s most misunderstood science fiction films? And what went wrong?

• 10:25Lizzie Bassett?

  I mean, I'm just gonna say everything that you just said. I'm not surprised it's one of the most misunderstood science fiction films.

• 10:32Chris Winterbauer?

  It is an unusual cocktail, to say the least. So let's see how all of these ingredients coalesced into something for the ages.

• 10:41Chris Winterbauer?

  We got a start back in the late 1950s. Some would say this was still at the tail end of what's been referred to as the golden age of science fiction. So the genre of sci-fi had, for the most part, in fits and starts, shed its reputation as lowbrow juvenile escapism and gained acceptance into mainstream media. And one big crossover artist who contributed to this shift was American writer Robert Heinlein. Lizzie, had you ever heard of Robert A. Heinlein before?

• 11:13Lizzie Bassett?

  Potentially because my dad is a huge, huge sci-fi fan. Did he write "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"?

• 11:18Chris Winterbauer?

  He did.

• 11:19Lizzie Bassett?

  Okay, so then, yes.

• 11:21Chris Winterbauer?

  So Heinlein is, I would argue, the most forgotten of what are considered the big three of the golden age of science fiction: Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, and Robert A. Heinlein. So sci-fi stories had typically been confined to pulps within the magazine world, and pulp magazines were produced on cheap wood pulp paper: rough texture, cheaper cost, more of a lowbrow audience, genre fare, westerns, gumshoe detectives, the magazines that, for example, George Lucas loved as a child and would eventually, you know, base Indiana Jones and even Star Wars on.

• 11:55Lizzie Bassett?

  Right.

• 11:55Chris Winterbauer?

  You have things like Amazing Stories, Weird Tales, astounding science fiction.

• 11:59Lizzie Bassett?

  Sure. L. Ron Hubbard content.

• 12:01Chris Winterbauer?

  Space jazz.

• 12:02Lizzie Bassett?

  Space jazz.

• 12:03Chris Winterbauer?

  Slicks, on the other hand, don't love the name. Slicks were produced and printed on more expensive glossy paper, hence the name, and they aimed for a broader, more mainstream audience. Lizzie's face is the disgusted meme. Vanity Fair, Harper's, and The Saturday Evening Post. Now Heinlein was one of the first science fiction authors published in a slick. He had a run of four short stories published in The Saturday Evening Post, starting with "The Green Hills of Earth." He was also a produced screenwriter. His film, 1950's Destination Moon, was the first American science fiction film attempting to seriously and realistically tackle space travel. It went on to win an Academy Award for Special Effects.

• 12:46Chris Winterbauer?

  So, Lizzie, tonally, Heinlein is a pioneer of the sci-fi subgenre called- Hard sci fi, where a lot of attention is paid to the math and science and engineering of what would it realistically look like to have a society set up on the moon and the moon is a horse mistress, or to have a man return from Mars in Stranger in a Strange Land. But he was probably best known for his young adult novels, which were called The Heinlein juveniles and published by Scribner. He'd written 12, under like the same general framework. So coming of age stories for boys, set against space as the next frontier, there's real science, math, engineering, problem solving, and of course, moral lessons on civic duty, tolerance, teaching rational skepticism. And Heinlein assumes that teens can handle complex problems, but the books are kind

• 13:31Chris Winterbauer?

  of notably light on sex and romance, while they're heavy on weapons, death, science, and philosophy. So heading into the late 1950s, he has writer's block. He's trying to write what would become the novel Stranger in a Strange Land, which is a much more complicated book, and it does deal with sexuality, and it would be kind of a center point of controversy during the 1960s and the counterculture movement. But at this point, Heinlein is stuck. So one day, he's reading the local paper, and he comes across a full-page ad sponsored by the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy. The ad is urging the United States and President Eisenhower to stop testing nuclear weapons, to which Robert Heinlein says, "Not on my watch."

• 14:16Chris Winterbauer?

  In his eyes, this threatens the principle of mutually assured destruction and weakened the position of the United States during the Cold War. So Heinlein actually wanted a career in the military, the Navy specifically. He went through the Naval Academy. He got pulmonary tuberculosis. He was retired medically at age 27. He had a second career. He wanted to go into politics. And Lizzie, he flopped out of that in 1938 after he failed to secure the 59th Assembly District seat. Any idea where that seat is? No.

• 14:48Chris Winterbauer?

  Hollywood.

• 14:49Lizzie Bassett?

  Oh.

• 14:49Chris Winterbauer?

  So, writing became a way to incorporate military, political, philosophical ambitions into stories for young men. I believe he wrote to a publisher early in his career. This is a way for me to effectively proselytize my philosophical ideas onto the next generation.

• 15:05Lizzie Bassett?

  Cool.

• 15:06Chris Winterbauer?

  Let's get back to nuclear testing. So he and his wife, who was also pro-nukes, take out a nuclear counter ad to try to create a nationwide grassroots league to support nuclear testing. Tea party movement for nuclear testing. It is not successful. In fact, some sources claim they were only able to gather about 500 signatures. Remember, this is the guy who just lost his bid to be assemblyman in Los Angeles. In fact, his conservatism ruffled a lot of feathers in the left-leaning sci-fi community, but I do want to note, he's a complicated figure to pin down politically. Every time I feel like you think you have an understanding of him, there's something about his books that's actually a little revolutionary, especially in terms of dynamics between the sexes, for example.

• 15:51Chris Winterbauer?

  But he did cure his writer's block, Lizzie, because he sat down and started to write a new story. The story of a young soldier named Juan or Johnny Rico fighting a bug war in a futuristic society. Very light on plot, heavy on ideology, and Heinlein called it "Sky Soldier."

• 16:09Lizzie Bassett?

  It's not a worse title than Starship Trooper, I'll tell you that.

• 16:13Chris Winterbauer?

  It's not. So I'll read you a couple of quotes. I did read the book for this episode, and I enjoyed the book. It feels like a moral philosophy handbook for young men with a couple of loosely described battles interspersed throughout it. You're effectively just watching Johnny Rico progress through the mobile infantry. This is, would later be referred to as a space marine, but for right now, think of it as like paratroopers dropped from space onto foreign planets. And really what the book is, it's kind of like a pro-militarist manifesto.

• 16:47Lizzie Bassett?

  Okay, that's what I was gonna ask, is like, what is, it's just gung-ho military? That's the theme of this? Or is there like a deeper?

• 16:55Chris Winterbauer?

  Well. Again, I think it's tough to pin down, but let me read you some quotes and you can tell me what you think. So, much of the philosophy of the book is impressed upon Johnny Rico and the reader by his history and moral philosophy teacher, Jean V. Dubois, who is effectively the Michael Ironside character composited in the feature film, if you remember. Here are some quotes, a couple of them are both used in the book and the film. "War is not violence and killing, pure and simple. War is controlled violence for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force." "Two, violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst." End quote.

• 17:40Chris Winterbauer?

  "The noblest fate that a man can endure is to place his own mortal body between his loved home and the war's desolation." End quote. So, there's a lot of debate about how much these were representative of Heinlein's actual politics, or if they were him exploring what it might look like to have a militarist society in the future engaged in interstellar warfare with mostly the bugs, but there is actually a second alien race that's also involved in the events. That being said, if you read Stranger in a Strange Land, I think that it's really tricky to kind of figure out what exactly Heinlein felt and thought, which was a big problem with the publisher.

• 18:22Chris Winterbauer?

  So, in '59, he submits the manuscript to Scribner, and here's what they wrote back. "One, use it only as an adult cereal. This is not for children, Robert. This is not for children. Children will not like this." "Two, publish it elsewhere. This is not for us, Robert. We do not like this." "Three, put it away for a while. This is not for anyone, Robert. Nobody wants this." Now, how did Heinlein take the news? It basically ended his relationship with the publisher, who at this point had released a dozen of his books. So, this is a longstanding relationship. He finds a new publisher and a new name. Sky Soldier becomes Star Soldier, then Shoulder the Sky, and then finally, Starship Troopers.

• 19:06Chris Winterbauer?

  Starship Troopers was published later that year. It went on to win Heinlein his second Hugo Award. And it was an unexpected win because reviews of the books had been mixed. Nobody knew what to make of it. There was one critic who first praised it, then reached out to Heinlein's editor to confirm, "This is a satire, right?" And the editor said, "No." And then the same critic turned around and wrote, quote, "Quite evidently Heinlein is projecting his own justification of the moral validity of war, of a proper military order dictated by reason, of a moral philosophy which advocates capital punishment, military violence dictated by older and wiser heads, and a virtual reign of terror by force," end quote.

• 19:49Lizzie Bassett?

  This is bizarre because it feels like the movie that I watched is doing exactly what that critic did.

• 19:56Chris Winterbauer?

  Yes, I will get to why Verhoeven is such an unusual fit for this material. I do get the sense that Heinlein was interested in the idea, the kind of core controversy of the book, which is, "Enfranchisement, a voting right, should not be a birthright." I do feel like he was interested in that idea. And that is the core controversial concept of the book, which is, you only get the right to vote through federal service.

• 20:31Lizzie Bassett?

  Right.

• 20:32Chris Winterbauer?

  It's debated whether or not that means military service or non-military service. You guys can get into that if you'd like online.

• 20:40Lizzie Bassett?

  Can I ask, are the, because there's very fleeting elements in the movie of, you know, perhaps this is happening because they encroached on the bugs' land and territory. Whether it's global warming or, you know, kind of colonialism that I think the movie does comment on, is that in the book at all, or was that added for the movie?

• 21:02Chris Winterbauer?

  The idea that someone else may have fired the first shot.

• 21:07Chris Winterbauer?

  To me, I did not find that in the book. That felt added to the movie. There is an extensive discussion of what is mankind's responsibility to grow or simply maintain its borders? Is offense the best defense? Is it immoral to be a colonial nation? The military, the answer the military characters provide is, man is an animal and morality stems from survival instinct. I'm simplifying. And there are moral justifications to colonize the bugs in the same way that they would colonize us. I think in the end, Orson Scott Card wrote Ender's Game as largely a direct response

• 21:48Chris Winterbauer?

  to this book and this idea. And that is, of course, a book that ends with a radical act of empathy instead of war. That being said, despite the controversy, the book was given out to Marines as part of the Marine Corps reading list after this.

• 22:08Lizzie Bassett?

  I don't know if that's good.

• 22:11Chris Winterbauer?

  We'll get there. It is considered a hugely influential work within the science fiction genre. And reading it, you can absolutely feel that. It is considered a defining work for the concept of space Marines and Mecca or powered suits. Lizzie, you recently really enjoyed Fallout, the television show.

• 22:28Lizzie Bassett?

  I did.

• 22:29Chris Winterbauer?

  So, one of the big differences between Starship Troopers, the book, and Starship Troopers, the film, is in the book, the mobile infantry, as they're called, wear 2,000-pound powered suits that turn them into individual war machines. They can fire nukes, they can, they're loaded with flamethrowers and guns, and they are nearly impenetrable. They are built, in a way, very similarly to those giant machine suits that, excuse me, I can't remember the character's name, wears in Fallout, for example. That is very much the direct lineage.

• 23:00Lizzie Bassett?

  Cool.

• 23:00Chris Winterbauer?

  Other examples include like Warhammer 40,000, Doom. And, Lizzie, one of our favorite directors on this podcast, James Cameron, made the book required reading for actors playing the colonial Marines in a classic 80s sci-fi movie about human colonists. And deadly bug like aliens. Which movie, Lizzie? Aliens? That's right, James Cameron's Aliens from 1986. He made all of the space marines, colonial marines, excuse me, read the book so they could understand the mentality of the marines that Heinlein had created. I do want to note, James Cameron, notably pretty anti-military, anti-police in his films. Definitely. And so I don't think he was doing it as a form of worship, but rather to show the fallibility of this mindset through those characters.

• 23:45Chris Winterbauer?

  If you remember, Ripley becomes the leader of that group.

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• 25:02Chris Winterbauer?

  Now, around the same time as Aliens, Lizzie, director Paul Verhoeven was getting started on a little movie called Robocop. Have you ever seen Robocop? I'm embarrassed to say I have not seen Robocop. It's great. It's about a cop who's also a robo. It's very fun. It's also just tonally wild in kind of a great way. And it was Dutch director Paul Verhoeven's first American film. Now, we covered Verhoeven in our episode on Showgirls, which Lizzie you helmed, but we do need to talk about a couple of aspects of his childhood because they're very important as to how the film Starship Troopers came about. So Verhoeven was born in Amsterdam in 1938.

• 25:46Chris Winterbauer?

  As a child, he lived in the city of The Hague when it was occupied by the Nazis during World War II. So in an interview in 2007, he said, quote, "These big rockets were launched a block from our house from trucks, so you could see them going overhead. Our street was not bombed, but the next street and the quarter behind it was bombed. I remember that because there was an enormous fire. I remember seeing dead people. I remember when I was with my father, being forced to walk past a group of Dutch people who had been executed by the Germans in a reprisal." End quote. Verhoeven also goes on to talk a lot about how he had been exposed to Nazi propaganda film as a youngster as well. Like Robert Heinlein, Verhoeven was a bit of a STEM-oriented artist.

• 26:28Chris Winterbauer?

  Before coming to the United States, Verhoeven earned a degree in math and physics, and then he made films in the Netherlands for about 15 years. But while Heinlein seemed to take everything seriously, Verhoeven took nothing seriously. Verhoeven seemed to be willing to make fun of absolutely anything, and he viewed nothing as sacred: not sex, not the Catholic Church, not anything. His first film, Business is Business, is a comedy that follows two female sex workers, their work and day-to-day lives in Amsterdam. It was one of the most popular films in the Netherlands in 1971. He followed it up with Turkish Delight, which starred Rutger Hauer,

• 27:10Chris Winterbauer?

  and which features, again, graphic sex, nudity from both leads, was protested by women's groups, and became the most popular Dutch film of all time.

• 27:21Chris Winterbauer?

  He is an extremely successful director in his home country. Like Heinlein, again, he was tough to pin down. He was very controversial and unafraid to take this blasphemous approach to nearly every subject. There were no sacred cows that he was not willing to go after. He's the enfant terrible of the Netherlands and he's ready for his American debut. So Robocop is his first American film, the second movie he directed in English, and he ends up battling the MPAA over an X-rating. Lizzie, you have not seen the film. I will spoil it a little bit. The main character is shot a bajillion times about 20 minutes into the film. Hence, he is then turned into a robot. And it is, oh my God, it is so graphic. And that is the cut down version just to get to an R-rating. Okay.

• 28:04Chris Winterbauer?

  They just keep shooting him and like chunks of his arms get blown off and he's just, it's so over the top. It was produced by John Davidson of Airplane with Orion Pictures. And most important to our story, perhaps, the screenplay was written by a young Ed Newmeyer, a junior executive turned screenwriter. It's his first produced script. And who did the stop motion animation? Lizzie? Puppet animator? Oh, Phil Tippett. Phil Tippett. He'd won an Oscar for his work on Return of the Jedi and he brought a robotic character called Ed 209. It's this giant, very funny, bipodal robot with machine guns for arms. Great. To life in the film. Now, Verhoeven was drawn to sci-fi. He says, because, quote, "In the beginning, I felt making a sci-fi movie would protect

• 28:49Chris Winterbauer?

  me better against my lack of knowledge about American society." Which I don't entirely buy because if you've watched Robocop, it's basically a satire of everything American, from privatization to corporatism, to the police state, to Reagan era politics, to urban decay. I mean, that's what Showgirls feels like, too. I agree. So, take everything Verhoeven says with a little grain of salt. He's very cheeky. He's got a very good sense of humor. And again, he takes nothing seriously. So, Robocop was an extremely unusual instance in which the producer's last choice director, who the studio also didn't want, who didn't actually want to do the movie, ended up being the perfect fit. For the studio side, Orion had invested $7 million in Verhoeven's first English-language

• 29:33Chris Winterbauer?

  film, Flesh Plus Blood, which had made a measly $100,000 at the box office. And Verhoeven had not been producer John Davison's first choice either. According to Phil Tippett, quote, "John Davison had gone out to every single director in the director's guidebook and everybody refused it. Then he finally got down to V and sent it to Paul, and Paul refused it. Then his wife, Martine, I think, talked him into it." End quote. Of course, Robocop would change the careers of everybody involved, but before it would, a couple of important conversations took place on set. According to Ed Neumeyer, during the last week of production on Robocop, he and Verhoeven were chatting about what they wanted to do next.

• 30:15Chris Winterbauer?

  And he says that Verhoeven told him, quote, "I would like to do a movie about what it was like for young people in Germany in 1934 and 1935, because they were young people and they didn't know what was going to happen. And everybody was joining the Nazi party, and it was the cool thing to do if you were, you know, you would have done it too, if your friends were all doing it. I remember saying to him, 'They'll never let us make this movie.'" Remember that. So then Phil Tippett has a similar conversation with Verhoeven, and Verhoeven pitches him an entirely different movie. Quote, "We were doing the scene where Ed 209 falls down the stairs. We're sitting in the stairwell and everybody started bitching about how there were no good movies anymore. And I said, 'Well, I have an idea for a movie about dinosaurs.'" Tippett said Verhoeven then told him, quote, "There could be meteors and the death of

• 30:58Chris Winterbauer?

  the dinosaurs and huge battles and geysers of blood." And according to this source, Tippett also said that he and Verhoeven agreed that the dinosaurs would, quote, "poop and have sex and rip each other's heads off." End quote. I'm in. I'm in. I might be in for both of those movies, to be honest. Yeah. Well, that's kind of what Starship Troopers becomes. Yeah. So Robocop was released in the summer of 1987, and Verhoeven is now on the map. It grossed $54 million on a $13 million budget. It won an Oscar for sound effects editing. And in 1990, Verhoeven follows it up, proving he is not a one-hit wonder in the United States with Total Recall, which is a wonderful science fiction film produced by Carolco Pictures and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

• 31:42Chris Winterbauer?

  But what he really wanted to do was get the friends. He wanted to make movies with his friends. He wanted to get his friends from Robocop back together. Phil Tippett, Ed Neumeyer. So he decided to make the, quote, poop, sex, head ripping dinosaur movie.

• 31:54Lizzie Bassett?

  Great.

• 31:55Chris Winterbauer?

  Now, there was reportedly some sort of outline or script that had been written by noted screenwriter Waylon Green, famous for The Wild Bunch, Sorcerer, War Games, and a bunch of television that would follow. And Tippett was planning on creating the prehistoric world of these head ripping poop, sex dinosaur movie using models and puppets. So Verhoeven goes to Disney and he pitches Jeffrey Katzenberg, who says, absolutely not. I don't want dinosaurs pooping or having sex or ripping each other's heads off. And according to this version of the story, they would have needed a lot more than the $20 million that Disney was willing to spend on a live action film at this point in time. So the project apparently falls apart and Verhoeven gives Tippett his blessing to go

• 32:40Chris Winterbauer?

  and make a different dinosaur movie. Lizzie?

• 32:42Lizzie Bassett?

  Of course. Jurassic Park.

• 32:45Chris Winterbauer?

  Three years later, Jurassic Park would gross over $900 million on a budget of $63 million, earning Tippett his second Oscar and marking his, reluctant, if you remember, a transition from stop motion to CGI.

• 33:00Lizzie Bassett?

  Reluctant, but also groundbreaking. I mean, he really figured out how to marry practical effects and CGI in a way that nobody really had prior to that movie. And as we've said a million times, Jurassic Park still looks absolutely fantastic, men in raptor suits aside, which I'm fine with, but...

• 33:20Chris Winterbauer?

  It remains a pinnacle of human ingenuity and it blows me away every time I watch it.

• 33:27Lizzie Bassett?

  It looks so good.

• 33:28Chris Winterbauer?

  While all this is going down, producer John Davison and screenwriter Ed Neumeyer are still eager to work together and to get Paul in and to get Phil in. And they have an idea for a story about bugs.

• 33:42Chris Winterbauer?

  As Newmeyer told the LA Times in 1996, quote, "I wanted to do a big, silly, jingoistic, xenophobic, let's go out and kill the enemy movie, and I had settled on the idea that it should be against insects," end quote. For more on bugs and their portrayal in film and use as villains, check out our little primer on bugs that we released on Friday. Lizzie is shaking her head, and I will die on Primer Hill. Does this concept sound familiar to you, Lizzie? A jingoistic xenophobic romp against the bugs?

• 34:13Lizzie Bassett?

  Men in Black?

• 34:15Chris Winterbauer?

  Sure, I was thinking Starship Troopers, the book.

• 34:17Lizzie Bassett?

  Oh, sorry. Yes, Starship Troopers, the book. But also, it's literally the plot of Men in Black.

• 34:22Chris Winterbauer?

  It is, which we discuss in the primer. So, Newmeyer said that he had read Starship Troopers when he was 13 and, quote, "It was the greatest book I ever read," end quote, to which I say, "Well done, my little fascist."

• 34:35Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 34:35Chris Winterbauer?

  But back in 19... I can imagine, this would have been, as a 13-year-old, I think this book would have made a big impression upon me. I think I would have thought it was very cool, it's very macho, it's very interesting, it doesn't talk down to you in the way I think other young adult fiction does. Back in 1990, Newmeyer assumed that Starship Troopers had been optioned. Like, this was a Hugo Award-winning book from one of the biggest three science fiction writers of all time. It was one of the seminal works within the space marine subgenre. There's no way this is available. So, he just started writing his own version, loosely similar, called Bug Hunt at Outpost 7.

• 35:11Lizzie Bassett?

  Not a worse title, I'm just gonna say.

• 35:15Chris Winterbauer?

  Especially kind of if it was a little bit more of a B-movie, I would love that. It reminds me of Assault on Precinct 13 is the movie that it reminds me of.

• 35:21Lizzie Bassett?

  You know, it's Plan 9 from Outer Space, like, it's, yeah.

• 35:24Chris Winterbauer?

  Right. He had two goals. One, use his wife's catatonic fear of insects as a model to make a war movie, but he also wanted to make a teenage romance movie.

• 35:35Lizzie Bassett?

  Okay.

• 35:35Chris Winterbauer?

  Two tricky things to tie together. Now, according to Paul Salmon, who wrote a book about the making of Starship Troopers, Outpost 7 was "about a planet overrun with giant insects, and there was this Earth outpost that was completely automated, except for one person who ran the machines." And he comes under attack by these alien insects. This is also extremely close to James Cameron's Aliens. At one point in that film, if you remember, Lizzie, they are trapped in the medical tower, I believe it is, and they use automated turrets in the hallways to fend off a large attack of the aliens as they're coming down the hallways before they get in through the ceiling. So, Davidson and Newmeyer take the project to TriStar, and TriStar says, "We're good. We don't need bug-hunted Outpost 7."

• 36:18Lizzie Bassett?

  I don't need bug hunt teenage sex romp yet.

• 36:21Chris Winterbauer?

  Right. It's a hard sell as a spec script, so they very smartly decide, "Well, let's just see if maybe the rights are available to Starship Troopers." And they are shocked to discover that nobody has optioned them. I couldn't figure out exactly why they weren't optioned. It seems like there are a few things working at the same time. One, I read a couple of reports that Heinlein and his wife were reluctant to license the live-action rights to his works while he was alive, and he had just passed away in 1988.

• 36:46Lizzie Bassett?

  Is his wife still alive? Because this happens all the time, where they die, and then the wife is like, "Take it, take it. What do you want, $10?"

• 36:52Chris Winterbauer?

  She was still alive. She goes, "Can you get them to start testing nukes again? Take the book!"

• 36:57Lizzie Bassett?

  Take it!

• 36:58Chris Winterbauer?

  Now, the other reasons that I could think of, these may be wrong, but they're just ideas. Budgetary issues. You have giant insects, right? This is going to be very expensive to make. Aliens was relatively expensive, but now Jurassic Park was much more expensive. You have the genre being eclipsed by other entries that are a little similar. Dune comes to mind, which Dune was not a big success as a film, David Lynch's 1984 version. And then, of course, Ender's Game, which was an extremely popular book, published in its novel form in 1985. So it seems like Starship Troopers maybe took a backseat behind some of those other books.

• 37:34Lizzie Bassett?

  Well, and I think also, I mean, I haven't read the book, but the scale of this is bigger than most of the movies you just mentioned. It's just the sheer number of bugs you would have to produce. Like, that's way bigger than what you're looking at in Jurassic. Jurassic Park.

• 37:49Chris Winterbauer?

  Absolutely. I will say, it's not that that's not in the book. The action is just very sparsely described in the book. It's very different. You get snippets of him during his drops discussing dropping grenades down bug holes and, you know, watching one of his comrades die or trying to get a comrade back to the ship. I think one of the issues with adapting the book is there's not a lot of plot there. This is very much the internal progression and growth of a single young man as he is indoctrinated into a military way of life and eventually chooses to stay in the military and pursue an officer's path. It's really like his journal entries more than anything else. But they go back to TriStar and they say, "We want to do Starship Troopers."

• 38:33Chris Winterbauer?

  And they say, "Okay, great. It's not like bug hunt." And they said, "No, no, no, absolutely not. It's Starship Troopers. They're very different." TriStar says, "Great, great. Yes, we're in for now." To give you another sense of the tonal shift that would happen in adapting the book, Newmeyer has said that while he was writing the script, he would visit different bars around town. And whenever he shared what he was working on, someone would inevitably tell him Starship Troopers was the reason I joined the military.

• 39:00Lizzie Bassett?

  Man, I'm so interested what this book is like then because watching the movie, that is certainly not the feeling you take away leaving the movie. In fact, it's like, you know, the whole theme throughout is that the mobile infantry are just used as absolute throwaway and it's, you know, these people...

• 39:18Chris Winterbauer?

  They're ants.

• 39:18Lizzie Bassett?

  They're ants, basically. It's the people in the higher positions of power who are making decisions without thinking about them at all, without caring about them, making stupid decisions, uninformed decisions, which I think is a lot closer to reality. Yeah, that does not make me want to join the military.

• 39:33Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah, and there are still elements of that in the book. To Heinlein's defense, I don't think he tries to present the military as completely infallible, although it's held a bit of a pedestal in the book. I think that, like you said, the difference is, I get the sense he has a romantic view of the military based on his own experience with the military. And I'm sure living through World War II and the Red Scare and the idea that a belligerent USSR could have nuclear missiles, and so it's just... A very different perspective than Verhoeven, who came up under fascist subjugation in the 1930s and 1940s.

• 40:04Lizzie Bassett?

  Right. And of course, you have Neil Patrick Harris's character, who, as you mentioned, straight up shows up wearing a SS by Hugo Boss outfit.

• 40:12Chris Winterbauer?

  He's a Nazi scientist. Exactly.

• 40:14Lizzie Bassett?

  But he literally says, you know, I had to make a calculated risk. I was fully aware that this many people were gonna die. I do it all the time. That's worth it in order for me to get this one thing that I need to understand how their brains work.

• 40:26Chris Winterbauer?

  Arguably, not exactly that, but shades of that are very much present in Heinlein's book. They're simply flavored a different way. I do think reading the book and watching the movie is a really interesting exercise in two different artists approaching similar scaffolding and crafting completely different outfits or looks, you know, based on it. Now, Newmeyer, it seems like, was a little bit more trying to split the baby. He was trying to accomplish two things at once with the story. Quote, "The idea was to turn it on its head without stating it too much. It was the intention to do propaganda and look at war movies and in some ways to honor the military at the same time as making fun of the politics of war." End quote. I think Verhoeven says, "Nice try. We're making fun of all of it the whole way through."

• 41:11Chris Winterbauer?

  That's my interpretation. He has not said that, but that's my interpretation, having watched the film and read the book. So as early as February of 1993, Verhoeven's in talks to direct the movie. And he is a hot ticket director, Lizzie, because in 1992, he released a little film called Basic Instinct.

• 41:32Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 41:33Chris Winterbauer?

  And that movie pulled in over $300 million at the box office.

• 41:39Lizzie Bassett?

  I'm sure we'll cover it.

• 41:40Chris Winterbauer?

  Oh, yeah. So if you look at his trajectory, Robocop, sub $100 million box office, but still very successful. Total Recall, I believe, around $250 million. And then Basic Instinct, $350 million. So he's just scaling up at the box office. He said he wanted Starship Troopers to be, quote, "Eat your cake and have it," end quote, meaning have your cake and eat it too. He wanted the audience to be asking, quote, "Are these people crazy?" End quote. There was only one problem. He hated the book Starship Troopers.

• 42:13Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, sounds like it.

• 42:15Chris Winterbauer?

  Quote, "I stopped after two chapters because it was so boring. It is really quite a bad book. I asked Ed Neumeyer to tell me the story because I just couldn't read the thing. It's a very right-wing book." End quote. So, this is a separate quote, quote, "I decided to make a movie about fascists who aren't aware of their fascism." End quote.

• 42:34Lizzie Bassett?

  Okay.

• 42:35Chris Winterbauer?

  That is the core approach that we need to understand for Verhoeven and this film. So to answer your question, Lizzie, why does the movie feel so ridiculously on-the-nose, anti-fascist, anti-military, yet the book feels very military? This is very much Verhoeven's intention. I also should mention, I believe Heinlein was very aware of criticisms of the book, saying, "You have created a society in which military rule turns everybody into warrior bugs as a result. Do you not see the irony of that being our response to a threat that is very much a representation of the ant-like organization of communism?" And I believe Heinlein's defense was, "Well, at the end of the day,

• 43:20Chris Winterbauer?

  the characters who join this military are making a choice. They are allowed to make a choice. They are not conscripted, and that choice alone is the difference between communism and bugs and humanity and liberal democracy." Whether you agree with that or not, I think that's Heinlein's perspective.

• 43:35Lizzie Bassett?

  Sure, but the whole thing of like not getting the right to vote unless you serve kind of takes choice out of it to a certain degree.

• 43:42Chris Winterbauer?

  It does, but one thing that's interesting is there is a line where he basically says, "They do not restrict the right to vote based on any other differentiating factor of an individual." Doesn't matter sex, race, creed, disability. The only way you can be denied entry into the military or federal service is if you are mentally incapable of understanding the oath that you're signing into. And this was at a time, this was pre-civil rights movement. This was at a time when the right to vote was not universally held in the United States. Again, not saying I endorse it, but it's just, it's interesting. It's not as simple as he is trying to disenfranchise everybody.

• 44:25Lizzie Bassett?

  Right.

• 44:26Chris Winterbauer?

  In my mind. Now, Neumeyer and Verhoeven wanted Tippett to do the bugs. They needed him to do the bugs, and Verhoeven reportedly included a clause in his contract that said, "I will not do this movie." If Tippet does not do the bugs. So, Tippet's in. The Robocop team is back in action to make Starship Troopers a very different movie. Now, Tristar was a little harder to pin down. They're hot and they're cold, they're yes and they're no. They'd say they were in and then they'd suddenly be out. And it's very much because of turmoil at the studio.

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• 46:15Chris Winterbauer?

  I don't know if you know much about Tristar. I did not, Lizzie. It was the youngest studio in Hollywood as of the early 90s. It was the first studio formed since RKO in 1928. Basically, Sony was taken over by John Peters and Peter Guber, which we've discussed before. Sony bought Columbia, and they bought Tristar, and then Tristar became independent. And Tristar had kind of become successful during the mid-eighties, built on mid-budget releases. Muppets Take Manhattan, Real Genius, Look Who's Talking, Steel Magnolias, not $100 million sci-fi action CG. GI heavy war films. No. So in 1992, the studio released only nine movies and three were considered flops. Husbands and Wives, Chaplain and Wind.

• 46:59Chris Winterbauer?

  A big part of their problem was their partnership with Carolco Pictures, which was having its own financial problems. So all of a sudden, Carolco couldn't be relied upon to give TriStar the four movies a year that it had been. At the same time, TriStar chairman Mike Metevoy came in with a new production team. So we had regime change, which Lizzie, we've discussed always slows things down because the old slate is thrown out and they want to bring in the new slate and only be responsible for new things. And Mike Metevoy had been at Orion when Flesh Plus Blood had flopped. And so maybe was a little skeptical of Verhoeven. And at the same time, he was very involved in Bill Clinton's presidential campaign. There was a perception that Metevoy was more focused on politics than making movies. And the whole situation had gotten so bad that according to the trades,

• 47:44Chris Winterbauer?

  quote, "Because Sony already owned another studio, Columbia, many insiders questioned the need for TriStar's continued existence." End quote. So while this is going on, Verhoeven's trying to get another movie going. For over a year, he'd been trying to make a movie with Carolco, another studio in financial straits, a big project about the Crusades starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Summer of 94, Carolco pulls out. This is a big, you know, unfinished, what could this movie have been sort of thing? And Carolco pulled out, Lizzie, because they had another surefire hit under their belts that they were gearing up to make. We just talked about it in our Pirates episode. Any guess? It's a pirate film. Cutthroat Island?

• 48:27Chris Winterbauer?

  Cutthroat Island, starring Geena Davis and Matthew Modine, which would eventually lead to the dissolution of Carolcope anyway. So everybody breaks up. Verhoeven shifts on to another movie, one that he thought was going to be a massive hit. One that would definitely solidify his reputation as the king of sleaze. Lizzie, any guesses as to what that film is?

• 48:48Lizzie Bassett?

  Showgirls.

• 48:50Chris Winterbauer?

  Showgirls.

• 48:52Lizzie Bassett?

  Which we have covered here. Worth mentioning, oftentimes Paul Verhoeven's infamous scandalous moments, whether in Showgirls, Basic Instinct, or, and I'm imagining potentially in this movie as well, but I don't know yet, can come at the expense of the actresses on screen. Just throwing that out there, but.

• 49:10Chris Winterbauer?

  We'll get there. It's a bit of an open question on this film, although there's one quote we'll go to specifically. So Metavoy resigned. Tristar has a comeback year under Mark Canton, who was also running Columbia. This is a very weird time at Sony. John Peters and Peter Guber are playing fast and loose, as we'll later learn. So Verhoeven, producer John Davis, and Newmeyer and Phil Tippett realize they're never going to just get like a green light from the studio without showing them that they can do these bugs. They need to show them what the bugs can look like. So in July of 1994, with a budget of roughly $200,000 and a crew of 25 people, they go out for a one-day shoot at Vasquez Rocks to shoot the bug test. Now Vasquez Rocks is a unique rock formation north of Los Angeles that you guys have probably seen.

• 49:55Chris Winterbauer?

  It's been in a bunch of Star Trek episodes and movies. It's got these really unique angular rocks. It's also in my first movie, Worm. Anyway, the bug test is basically a scene where a couple of warrior bugs, animated by Tippett Studios, kills a soldier. It's about a minute long. You can see it online. And Lizzie, I would love to show it to you right now so you can describe it to all of our listeners.

• 50:16Lizzie Bassett?

  Sure.

• 50:20Chris Winterbauer?

  Lizzie, could you describe what you just saw?

• 50:21Lizzie Bassett?

  I can. First of all, it looked great. You have one soldier dressed, honestly, very much like they end up being dressed in the film, running away from two bugs that, again, look very much like they end up looking in the film. They look great. Obviously, there's, you know, a little bit of like color correction, rendering, et cetera, et cetera, that's missing, but like, really? This is impressive. It looks awesome. And they sort of, he shoots at them, he kills one of them. The other one chases him down. And then naturally, it rips him to shreds while also splattering his blood all around.

• 50:51Chris Winterbauer?

  By the way, fun fact, the already-dead soldier on the ground is writer Ed Neumeyer.

• 50:55Lizzie Bassett?

  Nice.

• 50:56Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah. So, I had always heard this story, that they shot this test and they showed it, and everyone was so blown away at Tristar that they immediately greenlit the movie. That could not be further from the truth. Apparently Davison would carry a print of that film in his pocket, and they would just go around the studio, and anybody that had any vague sense of power, they would just say, "Hey, you with me!" And they'd drag him into a screening room and show them the test. And they just kept doing it, and then for months, until they went up and up the chain, until finally, they get to Mark Canton, head of the studio. He brings in the entourage, he watches it, he turns around, and this is a quote, "Well, is this movie going to be fun?" We're like, "Yeah, sure, it'll be fun." So he said, "Okay, go ahead and make it," end quote.

• 51:35Lizzie Bassett?

  Okay.

• 51:36Chris Winterbauer?

  That's the green light. But Tristar still wasn't willing to foot the entire $100 million bill. So this movie was going to be very expensive, over half the budget was going to go to VFX. Studios are scared of the movie. Varhoven has said that he was really banking on Waterworld to do big numbers to prove that spending over $100 million on a film would be worth it.

• 52:00Lizzie Bassett?

  Oops.

• 52:01Chris Winterbauer?

  Now, that timeline's actually, does not line up. So Waterworld would not do well at the box office, as we know. It actually would not do nearly as badly as people like to think. But Tristar found a partner. Davison showed the bug test to Disney. Katzenberg was gone by this point, so he showed it to Joe Roth, and Joe Roth loved it. So Disney put up half the budget for Starship Troopers. Specifically, Disney would get the foreign distribution rights, and Sony Tristar would get the domestic American rights.

• 52:31Lizzie Bassett?

  Interesting. Joe Roth, the same Joe Roth who would eventually turn Gilei from mob drama into-

• 52:38Chris Winterbauer?

  Yes.

• 52:39Lizzie Bassett?

  Rom-com? Okay.

• 52:40Chris Winterbauer?

  He apparently sent one of those bugs into the editing room.

• 52:42Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 52:43Chris Winterbauer?

  And this is, we got Gilei.

• 52:44Lizzie Bassett?

  And it went...

• 52:47Chris Winterbauer?

  So, let's talk about casting. Lizzie, you mentioned a couple of issues you have with casting. Whatever issues you have, they are Paul Verhoeven's fault. And Paul Verhoeven, I do think, to his credit, has always taken responsibility. He, Elizabeth Berkeley in Showgirls, I think he has tried to say, "Listen, she gave me exactly what I wanted." Whether or not you think that's good- He did. -that is on me. It didn't end up mattering, unfortunately, for her career. Some people have suggested that Verhoeven purposefully cast stiffer actors in order to enhance the satire of the movie. That's what it looks like. Verhoeven says that this is not true. But he has confirmed that his top priority was looks. Quote, "I took them because I wanted them to look like the people you see in Lenny

• 53:32Chris Winterbauer?

  Riefenstahl's movie, The Triumph of the Will. So it was a ploy, but more based on a visual aspect." Briefly, Triumph of the Will, very famous or infamous Nazi propaganda film from 1935. And this is one of the main reasons he hired so many ridiculously symmetrical 20-something year old TV actors. The other reason is because when they were looking for movie stars, they couldn't find anybody in their 20s. Most of the actors that they were interested in were actually too old for the roles from Verhoeven's perspective. Now, one of the first roles cast, kind of by accident, was your favorite character, Lizzie, Dizzy Flores. 27-year-old Deena Meyer was perhaps best known at this point in time for playing Lucinda

• 54:16Chris Winterbauer?

  Nicholson in Beverly Hills 90210, but she had crossed over into film at this point, most notably opposite Keanu Reeves in Johnny Mnemonic from 1995. And of course, she had a main role in the fantastic dragon-based adventure film Dragonheart from 1996, starring Dennis Quaid and a CGI dragon voiced by Sean Connery and worked on by Phil Tippett. Deena Meyer said, quote, "Initially, my agent had sent me the script, and I thought I would be better for the Carmen character. When I read the script, I just gravitated more toward Dizzy." End quote. So Verhoeven agrees to let her read for the part of Dizzy. And as Meyer tells it, quote, "Right afterwards, I just dodged Paul and tackled him in the room.

• 55:01Chris Winterbauer?

  That was the moment when he said, 'Yeah, you know what? She's our Diz.'" End quote. I guess he just saw her as one of the guys. For the role of Johnny Rico, Verhoeven auditioned two very different white boys for this part. Lizzie, one of them was more known as the frontman for a rap group slash Calvin Klein model at this point in time.

• 55:23Lizzie Bassett?

  Oh, no. Macky Mack?

• 55:24Chris Winterbauer?

  Macky Mack and the Funky Bunch. He did audition.

• 55:29Lizzie Bassett?

  Sorry, Mark Wahlberg in this movie?

• 55:33Chris Winterbauer?

  Don't you want to know what's going on with the bugs? What's going on with the bugs?

• 55:36Lizzie Bassett?

  The bugs.

• 55:37Chris Winterbauer?

  We basically see Mark Wahlberg in this movie when we see him in The Happening later on. The other one was known around this time for his turn as a math genius.

• 55:48Lizzie Bassett?

  Matt Damon?

• 55:50Chris Winterbauer?

  Matt Damon.

• 55:51Lizzie Bassett?

  Okay, see, I think Matt Damon would potentially-

• 55:56Chris Winterbauer?

  Could have been interesting.

• 55:56Lizzie Bassett?

  Could have been good. I kind of think that's what's missing from this movie.

• 56:01Chris Winterbauer?

  I have one other pitch. It's not in my research. Lizzie, Jude Law as portrayed in Talented Mr. Ripley-

• 56:09Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 56:10Chris Winterbauer?

  -rich boy, but then kind of goes through it. I think he would have been really fun, too.

• 56:14Lizzie Bassett?

  He's great.

• 56:15Chris Winterbauer?

  Casper Van Dean, on the other hand, was, quote, "as close to the image as I remembered from Lenny Riefenstahl's films," end quote. And Van Dean had a recurring role in 90210 as Griffin Stone. He'd had some TV shows and TV movies, but this was by a mile the biggest movie that he had ever been involved in. He had come from a military family, gone to a military school, in fact, and he had read Starship Troopers. Quote, "When I read the script, I went, 'Oh, God, how did I not understand this is satire when I was 12? And I went back and reread the book and I went, 'Oh, because it's not there,'" end quote.

• 56:48Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah. I want to be clear, like, he doesn't do anything wrong. I don't think he's a bad actor. I just think it's like, there's something about him, energy-wise, that it leans too far in the, like, cartoonish direction.

• 57:01Chris Winterbauer?

  I watched his behind-the-scenes interviews. I watched Denise Richards' behind-the-scenes interviews, Deena Meyer. They all seem like lovely, intelligent, thoughtful people, not just empty vessels. We'll get to Denise Richards. I have a couple of thoughts on her, too. Neil Patrick Harris was arguably the most famous

• 57:18Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 57:19Chris Winterbauer?

  of the four right now. TV, though, specifically, trying to get back into movies. He's best known for Doogie Howser, the teenage doctor in the Emmy Award-winning TV show, Doogie Howser, M.D. He joined to play Carl Jenkins, Nazi brain scientist, and then psychic Nazi brain scientist.

• 57:35Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes.

• 57:36Chris Winterbauer?

  For the role of Carmen Ibanez, Verhoeven chose yet another 90210 alum. Technically, Denise Richards had been in just one episode.

• 57:43Lizzie Bassett?

  Okay.

• 57:43Chris Winterbauer?

  She'd also had some small roles in a string of TV shows and movies. Most of them were either parody movies or just smaller unsuccessful films. So Loaded Weapon won, starring Emilio Estevez, Sam Jackson, and John Lovitz, which was a Lethal Weapon spoof, which never got a sequel. So they just should have pulled the one from the title. A serious mafia drama called Lookin' Italian from 1994, starring Matt LeBlanc, aka Joey Tribbiani, before Friends first aired. And of course, the cult classic Tammy and the T-Rex, in which she plays a high school student whose boyfriend gets murdered and then brought back to life when a mad scientist puts his brain in a dinosaur body. If you guys haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. But again, Lizzie, to your point, she's going from guest spots on TV shows

• 58:26Chris Winterbauer?

  to a $100 million studio feature film.

• 58:29Lizzie Bassett?

  So this is pre-Wild Things, because I can't remember what year that is.

• 58:33Chris Winterbauer?

  Wild Things was 98, I believe.

• 58:35Lizzie Bassett?

  Okay, and then Drop That Gorgeous is 99, I think.

• 58:37Chris Winterbauer?

  Yes. She had actually auditioned for Showgirls, and she would later say that it was a blessing that she did not get that role.

• 58:44Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 58:44Chris Winterbauer?

  So Showgirls, meanwhile, grossed less than half of what it costs to make, which was probably somewhat of a relief to the rest of the Starship Troopers team. There was actually concern that Verhoeven, if he had another huge hit, wouldn't want to do Starship Troopers anymore. He would just go find a more interesting, bigger movie to do. But now he was trapped because his name was a little bit toxic after that box office bust. Verhoeven, though, as you mentioned in your episode, Lizzie, took it in stride. In March of 1996, he was the first director to show up to Razzies in person to collect a record-breaking seven Razzie Awards. And as he said at the time, "If you make a movie that everybody considers is bad and it disappears into no man's land immediately, that's much worse, I think, than being glorified for the worst movie of the year." End quote.

• 59:29Lizzie Bassett?

  That's right. Also, I can't imagine that was the worst movie of the year.

• 59:33Chris Winterbauer?

  No.

• 59:33Lizzie Bassett?

  It's bonkers, but it's not boring.

• 59:35Chris Winterbauer?

  Two weeks later, he started principal photography on Starship Troopers. Oh, boy. I just love collects his razzies and he's off to the next set. Great. So principal photography takes place from March or April, depending on the source, to October of 1996. Van Deen did eight months of training, lost three and a half inches off his waist, gained five pounds of muscle. He looks great when they stretch him out and flog him in front of everybody. Many of the actors who would play mobile infantrymen went to a boot camp to train and bond, including Denise Richards, who talked her way into it, even though technically she was not supposed to be there because she was a Starfleet pilot. The boot camp was led by actor and military veteran Dale Dye. He's credited as a technical consultant on the film. He said that he loved the book, of course.

• 1:00:20Chris Winterbauer?

  It was a 12-day boot camp and it was really difficult because it was at very high elevation, very thin air. Everybody slept outside in tents. They had to endure a snowstorm. They had military rations. Apparently, the actors and the extras were treated equally and some people even quit. And Dale Dye was the real deal. In the mid 80s, he'd created his own company with some fellow Vietnam War vets to train actors like professional military, and his first project had been Platoon. So shooting takes them across Wyoming, South Dakota, the Badlands, and California. They also shot at the Sony lot in Culver City. They apparently used some of the same sound stages as The Wizard of Oz. Now, in Wyoming, most of the shooting took place at Hell's Half Acre,

• 1:01:02Chris Winterbauer?

  which is a massive geological formation made up of more than 300 acres of crevices, ravines, and unique rock formations. Cinematographer Yost Vakano, who had shot Robocop, Total Recall, and Showgirls, and a couple of Verhoeven's earlier Dutch films, notably not Jan de Bont, who had worked with Verhoeven early on. I was gonna say, I thought. On Turkish Delight, yes. Now, he said, quote, "That was the biggest set I've ever lit in my life," end quote. According to him, it was about a mile long and a half a mile wide. Wow. They had to build their own roads to navigate the rocky terrain. They had to use helicopters to lower lights onto one of the cliffs and then clear a path up the cliffs so that the electricians could reach them. Oh, my god. That climb would take 45 minutes every time.

• 1:01:47Chris Winterbauer?

  In case that wasn't bad enough, the ballast for the lights, which regulate the flow of current from the power source to the light itself, would heat up and stay incredibly hot for hours after shooting. So you couldn't touch them. That heat then attracted, quote, "hundreds of small, young scorpions," end quote. So everyone started calling the area Scorpion Hill. And then there was the weather, Lizzie. Just two days in, the extreme heat caused a third of the lights to go out. And apparently, the production had to fly in new fixtures all throughout the shoot because they just kept going out.

• 1:02:18Lizzie Bassett?

  Oh, God.

• 1:02:18Chris Winterbauer?

  While the days were hot and dusty, it was the desert. So the nights are freezing cold. As Alec Gillis, who had come on to do the practical effects, later said, "If you don't like the weather in Wyoming, wait 15 minutes," end quote. At one point, they had to wait 14 days because there was a two-week stretch of nonstop rain that forced everyone to evacuate the set. Could you imagine just shutting down for 14 straight days, saying,

• 1:02:46Lizzie Bassett?

  That's a lot.

• 1:02:47Chris Winterbauer?

  "I hope it stops raining tomorrow." Or Paul Verhoeven, "Stop raining!" As he yells at the skies.

• 1:02:53Lizzie Bassett?

  I see him outside in the rain, arms stretched, white shirt open, blowing in the wind.

• 1:02:57Chris Winterbauer?

  Doing his best Shawshank out there.

• 1:02:59Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes.

• 1:03:00Chris Winterbauer?

  So during that time, production was on an evening schedule. So they ended up shooting daylight interior scenes in a warehouse nearby at night. The combination of weather, the harsh environment, and the restrictive militaristic wardrobe, although I will note, they did not decide to do the power suits because I think that would have been prohibitively expensive.

• 1:03:18Lizzie Bassett?

  That would have been a nightmare, yeah.

• 1:03:19Chris Winterbauer?

  And it also would have hidden the actors' faces.

• 1:03:22Lizzie Bassett?

  Right. I mean, even thinking about Fallout, like, they take them in and out of the suits. You can't just stay in there the whole time.

• 1:03:27Chris Winterbauer?

  And there's also basically one suit.

• 1:03:29Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:30Chris Winterbauer?

  Not a whole battalion of suits. Michael Ironside passed out in that scene where he's in the pit and his legs are cut off. So if you remember, Lizzie, when they are trapped in that little pillbox, basically, and the bug burrows out from under him, he gets tremors and split in half. He's like, "Rico, do it!" I love Ironside. He's such a hard bastard.

• 1:03:48Lizzie Bassett?

  He's great.

• 1:03:48Chris Winterbauer?

  He just apparently, it was 105 degrees. He's sitting there and he says, quote, "All I remember is kind of being pulled out." What happened evidently is I- I got sunstroke very badly and every orifice in my body opened up. That Kevlar suit does not breathe. So when they cleaned it out, they turned it inside out and had to steam clean it. Oh. They took me to the hospital and put me on an IV. And Van Deen had said that he knew something was wrong because Ironside never dropped a line. And apparently looked up to him and asked, what do I say? I'm guessing not a great look on his face. So when Van Deen and Meyer tried to pull Ironside out of the pit, Meyer slipped, hit her head and quote, knocked herself out. Oh, no. End quote. And Jake Bucy too, suffered from heat stroke.

• 1:04:31Chris Winterbauer?

  Quote, "They had to shut down production for a week at a cost of 1.5 million dollars a day. It was 115 degrees and I was standing in the sun in a suit that didn't breathe. I'm from a pretty fair skinned, white Nordic bloodline and I can't handle the sun like that." Yeah. End quote. But that is why he got hired for this movie. There was also the scene where Van Deen gets stabbed in the leg, if you remember, Lizzie, very graphically. He apparently had a high fever and was throwing up into a bucket between takes. And he wasn't the only one. So if you notice, Lizzie, the giant, amazing, practical warrior bugs that Alec Gillis and his team, Amalgamated Dynamics, built, could lift a full soldier and shake them around. Oh, wow.

• 1:05:09Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah. That caused one of the stuntmen to just throw up continuously in his mouth and swallow it while filming the scene where the warrior bug thrashes him around. Mr. Stuntman, whoever you are. You don't have to do that. You don't have to do that. You could just throw up. Verhoeven would have loved it. That's true. You could have thrown up on the outside. Speaking of vomit inducing gore, I do want to give a shout out to Kevin Jaeger Productions, who did all of the human gore in the film. So the fake head getting its brains sucked out, all of the dismembered Marines lying everywhere. Really incredible work. I don't think anybody was permanently or seriously injured on the actual production of the film.

• 1:05:50Chris Winterbauer?

  But I do want to mention that during Memorial Day weekend, some of the crew drove out to Yellowstone Park. On their way back to set, a car coming from the opposite direction drifted across the center line and crashed into them. Two crew members and the other car's driver were killed in the accident. Those two crew members were Tom O'Halloran and Gavin Garrity. Heading into Starship Troopers, Paul Verhoeven was very famous, or infamous, for movies that featured a lot of nudity, especially a lot of female nudity. As we discussed in Showgirls, there is an absurd amount of arguably unsexual, or even comedic nudity. I'm thinking about that insane pool sex scene that will never leave my mind.

• 1:06:33Lizzie Bassett?

  Lot of nudity in Showgirls, and then very specifically, of course, we are referencing the moment in Basic Instinct with Sharon Stone, where she crosses and uncrosses her legs, which is something I'm sure we'll talk about when we cover that movie, but she was led to believe that shot would not be what it was, I think, is my understanding of that.

• 1:06:50Chris Winterbauer?

  That is correct. That is what Sharon Stone has said about that scene. And we will definitely, definitely cover that. Interestingly, it doesn't seem like that was entirely the case here. I don't know if it's that Verhoeven had learned, you know what I mean, from that experience.

• 1:07:04Lizzie Bassett?

  I hope so.

• 1:07:05Chris Winterbauer?

  But let's talk about the shower scene. So, Lizzie, the film has an unusually egalitarian, not sexual shower scene, co-ed shower scene between all of the grunts in the mobile infantry. And if anyone's sexualized in the scene, it's Van Dean as he's walking out of the room, and he gets his ass slapped by one of his female infantrymen.

• 1:07:24Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes and no. I mean, they're focusing quite a bit on the women's bodies and, you know, their breasts being out. I would not argue he's the only one being sexualized in that scene, but it's fine.

• 1:07:34Chris Winterbauer?

  Man, I would not read it that way, with the exception of Dina Meyer's entrance. At 100%, she comes in and I think is trying to show off to Johnny Rico. So I totally grant that, but the rest of the characters, to me, feels very non-sexual. But I might be totally wrong.

• 1:07:51Lizzie Bassett?

  Totally. And yes, like, the scene is honestly fun, and it's not played for salaciousness, I don't think.

• 1:07:57Chris Winterbauer?

  I don't think so either. Now, there have long been rumors that this scene, which was an 11-hour shoot, it's a lot of dialogue, that the crew, including Verhoeven himself, was naked behind the camera while shooting this scene. Basically, as an agreement with the actors, if you're gonna be nude, we'll be nude too.

• 1:08:15Lizzie Bassett?

  I don't want that.

• 1:08:17Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah, well, let's talk about that. Several members of the cast have clarified that this was not the case.

• 1:08:22Lizzie Bassett?

  Okay, good.

• 1:08:22Chris Winterbauer?

  So according to Meyer, who plays Dizzy Flores, "Despite what some of you may have heard, Paul and Yost, the cinematographer, didn't do this scene naked behind the camera. What happened was, he was laughing at us that we were so reluctant to take our clothes off in mixed company. And he says to me, 'Come on, I don't understand. What's wrong with you Americans? What's the big deal? It's your body, just take your clothes off,' end quote, as I do my Italian Paul Verhoeven. And I said, 'Oh yeah, you're a big shot? Because you're able to wear your clothes behind the camera while everybody else has to do a scene like it's no big deal that we're naked? I said, 'Well, if it's not such a big deal, why don't you, why don't you take your clothes off?'" And he looks over at Yost, and Yost goes, "Okay." He just shrugged his shoulders, and the two of them dropped their pants briefly. And they said, "Okay, you guys ready to shoot?"

• 1:09:05Chris Winterbauer?

  And you're like, "Oh, God, no, please, for the rest of my life, I have to know what they look like naked."

• 1:09:10Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, please, please, put your clothes back on.

• 1:09:12Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah, so I'm not saying that's appropriate at all, but it's certainly more appropriate than them being nude for the entire scene, you know, behind them.

• 1:09:21Lizzie Bassett?

  Also, if she did set it up, obviously, she wasn't serious, but like, yeah, then you do it, then yes, sure.

• 1:09:26Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah, but Verhoeven will never pass up an opportunity, apparently.

• 1:09:30Lizzie Bassett?

  I'm not surprised.

• 1:09:31Chris Winterbauer?

  Now, there was supposed to be more nudity in the movie. Denise Richards had said that Verhoeven tried to add a topless scene that wasn't in the original script. She refused to do it because she didn't see the point. I'm gonna read her full quote. Quote, "To his credit, when Paul asked, he did it with no strings attached. He truly left it up to me, and after careful consideration, I said no. I didn't think it related to my character or the movie, which had more than enough going on between the actions and the undercurrents of social and political commentary. Though he tried to persuade me otherwise, Paul didn't try so hard that I felt pressured, and ultimately, I didn't do it. Thankfully, I never experienced any fallout," end quote.

• 1:10:08Lizzie Bassett?

  Good for her.

• 1:10:10Chris Winterbauer?

  Very well spoken, good for her, for Denise Richards standing up for herself. And I'm glad, it sounds like Verhoeven dropped it, you know, pretty quickly. I think if an actor tells you no, and they're not comfortable, it's time to move on. I do want to mention here, Lizzie... Denise Richards, I agree. I think she's a bit miscast. And I was watching her interview for Behind the Scenes, and I got such Sharon Stone vibes. I got such-

• 1:10:33Lizzie Bassett?

  Totally, because she's got a sinister undercurrent.

• 1:10:37Chris Winterbauer?

  She does.

• 1:10:37Lizzie Bassett?

  That's very fun.

• 1:10:38Chris Winterbauer?

  It's so fun. It's so great. And she actually, like, you say her playing a smart character. I think when she has to play chipper and like naive and Pollyanna-ish-

• 1:10:47Lizzie Bassett?

  It doesn't work.

• 1:10:48Chris Winterbauer?

  And smart at the same time, it doesn't work. She comes across very smart in her interview from Behind the Scenes.

• 1:10:54Lizzie Bassett?

  I think she is smart.

• 1:10:54Chris Winterbauer?

  I agree.

• 1:10:55Lizzie Bassett?

  I'm not saying that because I think she's stupid at all.

• 1:10:57Chris Winterbauer?

  No, it's a performance quirk, I think, of some kind.

• 1:11:00Lizzie Bassett?

  Well, also, when I say smart, like, she's been cast as like scientists in several things.

• 1:11:05Chris Winterbauer?

  Genius, yes.

• 1:11:05Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, and like, that doesn't fit. But yeah, I totally agree with you. I think Denise Richards, like, as a murderer, yes, great. Give it to me all day, every day, and we have evidence that she's great at it. I also have to say, one of my favorite additions to The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills ever. Chris, I know you don't watch that show, but-

• 1:11:27Chris Winterbauer?

  My sister put it in. She was excited to make that reference.

• 1:11:30Lizzie Bassett?

  I love her.

• 1:11:31Speaker 06

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• 1:11:46Speaker 03

  Love the crown molding.

• 1:11:48Speaker 02

  Oh, wait until you see the walk-in closets and the bathroom tile.

• 1:11:52Speaker 03

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• 1:11:55Speaker 02

  No FiOS, but it looks like it's got cable. Let's check out the kitchen.

• 1:11:59Speaker 03

  No FiOS? Yeah, no, thank you.

• 1:12:02Speaker 02

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• 1:12:47Chris Winterbauer?

  Now Denise Richards' big concern going into Starship Troopers was acting in front of green screens and CGI monsters that weren't really there on set with her. Verhoeven was also very concerned about this, specifically eye lines. What are the actors gonna look at? So he calls Robert Zemeckis, who done Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and says, "Do you have any sort of special device or a laser?" And Zemeckis goes, "No, what you need is a stick."

• 1:13:11Lizzie Bassett?

  Yep.

• 1:13:11Chris Winterbauer?

  And you put a piece of tape on it, and then you need a good actor and you say, "This is where you're looking." And that's what he did. So according to Denise Richards, he would just be jumping up and down with a broom in the air. "Bugs, look, I'm here." And that's what you get. You can see that in the behind the scenes footage. He even considers himself one of three directors on the film. He used to say Vic Armstrong directed the action, Phil Tippett directed the bugs, and he directed the actors. And that's very much how films have long been done. There are multiple directors for different specialties.

• 1:13:38Lizzie Bassett?

  Totally. I have to share one story from my time at IMDb based on what you just said about there just being a stick with a piece of tape on it. I did a lot of interviews and I started out doing very straightforward junket interviews, you know, not super fun, just like the bare bones. And I did them for that Winnie the Pooh movie that came out with Ewan McGregor. And, right, so my interviews that were scheduled for that day were with Ewan McGregor and some of the other actors. And it was great. I got to go talk to them. They were so lovely. It was really fun. And then as I'm trying to leave, they were like, "Wait, don't you want to do your interviews with the characters?" And I was like, "What?"

• 1:14:16Chris Winterbauer?

  No.

• 1:14:18Lizzie Bassett?

  No, but they were like, I think they were having trouble getting people to do it. And so I get herded into this room and they're like, "Okay, congratulations. Here's your, you know, tennis ball on a stick." And I had to sit there and they were, they had like pre-programmed answers. So you had to be like, "What was it like working opposite Ewan McGregor?" As you have to stare at the little tennis ball. What drew you to this project?

• 1:14:44Speaker 07

  It's like the role was written for me. I mean, stripes and all, which is why I never read the script. Why mess with perfection?

• 1:14:53Lizzie Bassett?

  Anyway, I can say from my minimal experience, very difficult, not my finest interview performance.

• 1:14:59Chris Winterbauer?

  Well, you were no Denise Richards. That's all I'll say.

• 1:15:01Lizzie Bassett?

  I wasn't.

• 1:15:03Chris Winterbauer?

  Now, let's talk a little bit about the effects in this movie before we hit post. So Sony ImageWorks created all the spaceships. Those are largely miniatures, but they got as big as 20 to 30 feet long. They were suspended by cranes in front of green screens.

• 1:15:14Lizzie Bassett?

  They look so good.

• 1:15:15Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah, the bugs, of course, were mostly digital. They were designed and created by Phil Tippett and his team, and they used the direct input device, the D I D, Lizzie, which we discussed in Jurassic Park. It's a tool that was developed for Jurassic Park. You can listen to our episode on that for more on that innovation. So the bugs in Heinlein's novel actually were armed. They had weapons. But I agree with Verhoeven. Verhoeven told Newmeyer early on, quote, "I just can't see a bug with a gun in his hand." So Tippett and his collaborator, it's just a bit odd.

• 1:15:43Lizzie Bassett?

  It's done. Yeah.

• 1:15:44Chris Winterbauer?

  Spider guns. Tippett and Craig Hayes watched countless nature shows about insects, and then they invented these elaborate hierarchies and backstories for each bugs. You have, you know, the warrior bugs, the ground-based tubes, the plasma bugs, the heavy artillery, the hoppers are the air force, the tankers are flamethrowing tanks. And they create this entire, you know, set of alien adversaries. And so one of the things, the decisions that they made early on, was limiting the number of legs. So even though the warriors were called the arachnids, they only had four legs. And that's because they needed to keep the number of legs down, so they didn't have to render all these legs for all of the battles. And so four legs allowed the bugs to move in the way that they liked, but they could, you know, keep it relatively simple for rendering. Because Starship Troopers contained four times

• 1:16:29Chris Winterbauer?

  as many character animation effects as Jurassic Park.

• 1:16:33Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, there's a ton.

• 1:16:34Chris Winterbauer?

  So you mentioned scale, Lizzie. Some of the battle sequences had swarms of 1,500 individually articulated insects.

• 1:16:41Lizzie Bassett?

  Wow.

• 1:16:41Chris Winterbauer?

  Which is ridiculous. So they would oftentimes be reviewing the hundreds of computer graphic shots, and there were times where, like we talked about in Shrek, there'd just be a bug in the corner of the screen, just like freaking out and not understanding its code and just going.

• 1:16:56Chris Winterbauer?

  I mean, this it's probably fine in this case. The stress got so bad that Phil Tippett started having nightmares, very elaborate nightmares. Quote, "One night I had a dream, and in the dream I had an 18-foot piece of bamboo, thick bamboo. On each end of the bamboo was a macrame set, and John Davison got in one seat, and Laura Buff, the visual effects producer on the studio side, got in the other seat. I got in the middle. I had to walk them up a very tiny path that went up thousands of feet over a sheer drop into the ocean. Then the path took a 90-degree turn, and it was like, I don't think I can manage it because I have a horrible fear of heights. Then the idea just dawned on me. It's like putting one foot in front of the other. Don't think about anything else. I woke up and went, thank you, Lord." Oh, God. Oh, man, did he sound stressed. Yeah. Now, I'm gonna simplify a little this practical effects

• 1:17:41Chris Winterbauer?

  because I want you guys to listen to our interview with Alec Gillis, one of the creators of the company Amalgamated Dynamics Incorporated, which he founded with Tom Woodruff Jr., their team, who are responsible for incredible effects on so many movies. We talked Tremors, we talked Jumanji, we talked Alien 3, Alien Resurrection, Predator, Prey, Smile 2. Listen to our interview with Alec Gillis. And I should mention that he and his partner, Tom Woodruff Jr., had already won an Oscar in 1993 for their work on Death Becomes Her. So for Starship Troopers, they had to build two full-size warrior bugs, which I believe were between 14 and 20 feet tall. They were operated mechanically, and they had to be able to physically pick up an actor. As well as 10 dead and five burned warrior bugs,

• 1:18:26Chris Winterbauer?

  they also had to be full-scale and posable with 34 separate parts, one section of the back of a tanker bug, nine sand beetles, and of course, the brain bug. They're working on other films at the same time. Alien Resurrection and The Angel Wings for Michael, with John Travolta, in which he plays an angel. And with all these projects happening at the same time, Gillis says they needed more space. So they rented an empty warehouse in Canoga Park that was, quote, "right next to, I believe, where they shot pornographic movies." So it was very interesting when the food truck would arrive and the crew of the pornographic motion picture company would go to the same truck as my monster-making fellow nerds. That's what we call them, nerds. End quote. They worked on a bunch of things that you don't even see in the film,

• 1:19:08Chris Winterbauer?

  including a giant larva that sounds a little bit like the graboids in Tremors, Lizzie. But the big massive bug that we talked a lot about with Alec is the brain bug, if you remember, Lizzie. And the brain bug, Alec tells a very fun story about how the brain bug was a complete pain in the ass to move around this set. Let's listen to a clip of Alec talking about some troubles they had with the brain bug and how Paul Verhoeven handled them as a director.

• 1:19:34Speaker 08

  There was one story where we had the brain bug, right? We built the front half of the brain bug for the scene. You know, it's afraid, that whole thing.

• 1:19:42Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah, with the smoothie proboscis at the front, which I love so much.

• 1:19:46Speaker 08

  Yes. So we had to like, um, drive that thing down in a big gradol, which is like this massive industrial forklift, right? So the brain bug is on it, and you know, and it takes a long time to traverse these. And there had been rains, as there always is down in Hell's Half Acre in Wyoming. So there was mud and all. And the idea was, okay, on, you know, on Monday, you guys are gonna move the brain bug into position. And you're gonna rehearse. And then we're gonna shoot it on Tuesday. It took us all frickin' day just to get the thing there. And we didn't have our stuff set up. And I said, I gotta

• 1:20:29Speaker 08

  call this. I gotta let the ADs know that we are behind schedule and it's, you know, this is what happens. And I said, we are not going to be rehearsed tomorrow. We would like to take tomorrow to rehearse if you can move the schedule around. And then we were like, you know, setting up. And Paul comes down with a contingent, you know, of worried sweaty producers. And, um, and he comes, he comes right up to me like inches, you know, half an inch from my nose. And he says, he says, um, are you telling me that you are not prepared to shoot this bug tomorrow? And I said, we can shoot tomorrow.

• 1:21:14Speaker 08

  And he says, I understand that that is not the case. Well, we won't be rehearsed. Then you cannot shoot. And he, you know, his eyes are looking. You cannot shoot. And I said, I have confidence that my team will give you a performance that will be really great. And he's looking at me like, kind of confused, because I had to set the tone. I can't just say, "No, we ain't ready, dude." And then I said, "If you can reschedule anything to give us time, why don't you have, why aren't you on schedule?" Well, it took us all the, you know, I explained it. And, and he, and he's looking at me and I said, "Uh, we would really love that to, to, you know, to, but it's up to you. We can shoot or not shoot."

• 1:21:55Speaker 08

  And he looks at me and he, and he realizes that there's no, there's no victim here. He's not, he's not, you know, I, and he, and he spins on his heels to the producers that I thought were all ganging up on me. And he says, "Shame on you for not giving him enough time to rehearse." And I'm like, "Wow, so he really..."

• 1:22:15Chris Winterbauer?

  That's great.

• 1:22:16Speaker 08

  He's not out looking for blood.

• 1:22:18Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:19Speaker 08

  Well, he kinda is, but he, he just wants to make sure that it's as excellent as possible, right? We're going to a lot of trouble.

• 1:22:25Chris Winterbauer?

  I love this quote from Alec Gillis. I think that when we think of movies, we often think of the hurdles that the directors or the actors are facing, and it would be easy to look at this moment from Verhoeven's perspective, right? He gets to set and the big bug isn't ready. But the truth is, the person actually dealing with the stress of it is Alec Gillis and his entire team. And I think it speaks to both Gillis's sense of humor and his ability to manage upward, which is a real skill, but also Verhoeven's ability to manage upward with his producers and eventually get Gillis the time that he needs to do the job right. So in July of 96, the cover of Time Magazine announced, "The aliens have landed. Sci-fi makes a comeback. This is going to be a huge year of science fiction."

• 1:23:06Chris Winterbauer?

  So not only do you have Independence Day, Lizzie, you have the upcoming Mars Attacks, you have Star Trek: The Next Generation, you have Alien Resurrection, Lost in Space, starring Joey Tribbiani, Matt LeBlanc, you have Contact, you have Sphere. Wow. And you have Starship Troopers. Yeah, a couple of those were big hits. A couple of them were, and a lot were flops. Yeah. Now, in September, just a month before Principal Photography wrapped, the LA Times visited the set and they reported, quote, "Published reports say $100 million is being spent on Starship Troopers. In the wake of mega-hit Independence Day and the upcoming Christmas extravaganza Mars Attacks, moviegoers may have maxed out on aliens whipping Earthling butt and vice versa

• 1:23:50Chris Winterbauer?

  flicks by next July 2nd, when Troopers marches into the nation's theaters," end quote. So the pressure was on. And it started to get to everybody. The effects work started to spiral out of control. They had to bring in more visual effects houses. Industrial Light and Magic, VCE, Boss Film. The film was edited by Mark Goldblatt and Caroline Ross in close collaboration, of course, with Verhoeven. They'd also worked on Showgirls, True Lies, The Last Boy Scout, Terminator 2. I think, perfect editors for this type of material. But a big problem was, they didn't know what was going on in the visual effects shots. They were largely just plates that they had to put into the movie and say, "I guess it's gonna be this long that we see, you know, these bugs scurrying by," or this sort of thing.

• 1:24:35Chris Winterbauer?

  They get through it. They do an early test screening. And according to Paul Salmon, the teenage boys in the audience love it, but they've got one important suggestion. Lizzie, which character do you think they think should have died instead of one of the characters who does die? I think they think Carmen should have died, and Dizzy should stay alive. You nailed it. The audience said, "Kill Denise Richards, let Dizzy live." They hated her, that she had the gall to jump Johnny to pursue her career and then date that 40-year-old high school senior Lieutenant Xander Barklow? That's ridiculous. And then, I think what really pissed them off is in the cut they saw, right after Danny gets milkshake-brained drunk to death by the brain bug, she kisses Johnny Rico at the end of the movie. Wow, rude.

• 1:25:20Chris Winterbauer?

  And this is after Dizzy had died too. But Verhoeven was adamant. Dizzy had to die, Carmen had to live, and the audience's discomfort was what he was going for. As a bit of a compromise, they did cut the final kiss between Carmen and Johnny Rico. Yeah, good. The studio was not as enthusiastic. There's Verhoeven's quote. "And then, when it was done, I remember Lucy Fisher, who was vice president at the time, looking at me and saying, 'Well, these are Nazi flags.'" And I remember saying, "Yeah, but it's a different color." Really, they were stunned. They were flabbergasted that this movie was made. Yeah. So he basically slipped an anti-Nazi propaganda film under the radar because there was so much regime change at Columbia Pictures.

• 1:26:04Chris Winterbauer?

  Potentially a little too under the radar. I think that's maybe the only mistake here. Now, what happened next depends on who you ask. One source says that Starship Troopers was supposed to release on July 2nd, but pushed to July 25th due to needing more time for VFX. It's also possible that it pushed initially because it didn't want to go up against Men in Black, which was also being released by Sony and was coming out on July 2nd. Paul Verhoeven says that the studio decided to postpone it until November because they weren't happy with the movie and they thought that Air Force One with Harrison Ford at the helm was more commercial. John Davison, at least according to Verhoeven, seems to agree with this and felt that the American audiences weren't going to understand the satire and that the movie wasn't going to make its money back,

• 1:26:49Chris Winterbauer?

  so they might as well move it out of tent pole position. Now, Paul Salmon, in his book, says that the studio delayed the release because this was an R-rated movie and they thought it would perform better in the fall than in the summer. But Alan Marshall, one of the producers on Starship, later said, "Nobody was happy with that decision. They felt they'd made a movie for a summer audience and now it was going to be playing in the fall." Other sources claim that it was just a matter of needing more time to complete the 500 special effects shots that the movie demanded.

• 1:27:17Lizzie Bassett?

  Sure, all makes sense.

• 1:27:18Chris Winterbauer?

  Could be all of those things combined.

• 1:27:20Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:21Chris Winterbauer?

  Starship Troopers pushes out three months to November of 97. It premieres on November 4th, 97. It's released wide three days later. Phil Tippett remembers, quote, "Davison called me and said, 'We tanked.' He was like, 'We only made $15 million.' We were like, 'What do you think happened?' He said, 'What happened was we made an R-rated movie for kids and they couldn't get in,' end quote." He does say that he thinks kids were buying tickets to Mr. Bean to sneak into Starship Troopers, but a lot of these films have claimed that. It's entirely possible, but I don't think it would be at the level needed to make the film profitable.

• 1:27:56Lizzie Bassett?

  No, and also I gotta say, like, on the surface, we just talked about this last week, I snuck into many screenings of Kill Bill, but that's because, like, we knew what we were getting with Kill Bill and we knew it was something that we would not be allowed to watch. I don't think you necessarily know that on the surface about Starship Troopers in any way from the marketing or the trailers or anything.

• 1:28:17Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah, I don't think so. It seems like even though the film was quickly eclipsed by Titanic, at the end of the day, audiences just didn't get it.

• 1:28:26Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:26Chris Winterbauer?

  They didn't understand that they were watching satire. The trailers don't feel like satire. The trailers feel serious if you go back and watch the trailer. The Washington Post called it a "squishy, senseless, putrescent romp", and referred to the director as "lap dance maven Paul Verhoeven".

• 1:28:43Lizzie Bassett?

  Come on, dog food maven. Let's give him what he deserves from showgirls.

• 1:28:48Chris Winterbauer?

  For heaven only knows what reason, the outsized insects are bent on destroying humankind, and only Doogie Howser and the cast of Beverly Hills 90210 can stop them. "It's exactly like Star Wars: If you subtract a good story, sympathetic characters, intelligence, wit, and moral purpose. The mayhem is so cartoonishly conceived and overblown, it's not so much gross as it is numbing." Verhoeven draws parallels with vintage WWII movies, right down to a reenactment of the D-Day landings at Normandy, but he seems more drawn to Nazi chic than Yankee gumption. "Alas, Verhoeven's tone, which varies from camp to cynical, is so inconsistent that it's impossible to decide whether he's sending up the Third Reich or in love with it." End quote.

• 1:29:29Lizzie Bassett?

  I don't disagree with that. I think very clearly, knowing him and knowing what he was trying to do, it's very much the former and not the latter, but it doesn't lean hard enough in any one direction to be able to fully make sense of what is going on and what he's trying to do. And the Nazi visual references are really quite jarring.

• 1:29:50Chris Winterbauer?

  The message was lost, but the visual effects, Lizzie, were undeniable. Phil Tippett, Scotty Anderson, Alec Gillis, and John Richardson were nominated for the Oscar for Best Visual Effects. The movie, though, was a flop at the theaters. It grossed $121 million and a budget of $105 million. But you mentioned seeing it in video stores.

• 1:30:15Lizzie Bassett?

  Sure did.

• 1:30:17Chris Winterbauer?

  So like The Shawshank Redemption, Starship Troopers found a second life on VHS. In fact, it was so successful on home video that in 1999, Tristar spun it off into an animated TV series called Roughnecks: The Starship Troopers Chronicles. There have also been four low-budget, straight-to-video sequels,

• 1:30:38Lizzie Bassett?

  Wow.

• 1:30:38Chris Winterbauer?

  Two live-action and two animated, most with some level of involvement from members of the original team. Phil Tippett directed the first one, which Newmeyer wrote. Newmeyer directed the second. Van Dean and Meyer lent their voices to the fourth. So over the years, Starship Troopers has become unexpectedly successful. It's become more widely understood as a satire, and it's made its way onto several lists of top films from the 90s. Phil Tippett has even said, "Troopers was the last project that I could say I was proud of doing, and then it was kind of like the era of auteurs doing sci-fi movies kind of dried up." End quote. Now Verhoeven went on to direct Hollow Man, starring Kevin Bacon. It did win an Oscar for Best Special Effects,

• 1:31:20Chris Winterbauer?

  but it is considered to be another relative low point in his career. He then shifted away from big-budget American films to smaller European films like Black Book, Elle, Benedetta, which were generally better reviewed. Neil Patrick Harris and Denise Richards did become household names. Denise Richards would go on to become a nuclear scientist and Bond girl.

• 1:31:40Lizzie Bassett?

  Of course.

• 1:31:42Chris Winterbauer?

  But, in a sign of our ever-changing times, as of March of this year, Variety reported that director Neil Blomkamp of District 9 and a number of less-well-reviewed films is attached to write and direct a reboot of Starship Troopers for Columbia, with one important distinction from the Verhoeven outing. Quote, "The new Starship Troopers is said to draw inspiration from Heinlein's original military story, rather than pulling from the fascist send-up that characterized Verhoeven's satirical adaptation." End quote.

• 1:32:15Lizzie Bassett?

  Very interesting. I loved District 9. That's an interesting take from the director of District 9.

• 1:32:22Chris Winterbauer?

  We shall see. Is fascism back in style? Or does Blomkamp have something else in store for us?

• 1:32:27Lizzie Bassett?

  I have to imagine he has something else.

• 1:32:30Chris Winterbauer?

  We shall find out. And that concludes our coverage of Starship Troopers.

• 1:32:35Lizzie Bassett?

  That was great.

• 1:32:36Chris Winterbauer?

  Lizzie, what went right?

• 1:32:41Lizzie Bassett?

  Well, I don't want to take yours. I feel like I'm gonna take yours.

• 1:32:43Chris Winterbauer?

  No, no, no, no, no, no. I think we actually need to institute a hard rule. The guest gets first dibs.

• 1:32:48Lizzie Bassett?

  All right. Well, then it's very easy for me. I think that the work of Phil Tippett's studio and, you know, Alec Gillis, who we interviewed as well, is just fantastic. This is a great example of how good it looks when you do not rely entirely on computer-generated imagery. It's a great marriage of the two. And I believe Alec said this in the interview, that in this movie, they actually let the CGI drive the practical effects because they knew what they needed, but they still used both pretty heavily, I think. And it just looks really good, especially for 1997. It's just fantastic. It's fun to watch and it makes it, I think, more timeless than it would be otherwise because it's already hokey in certain levels. So you kind of need the special effects to look as good as they do in

• 1:33:34Lizzie Bassett?

  order for it to be watchable. So fantastic visual effects.

• 1:33:37Chris Winterbauer?

  Great choice. The best choice, in my opinion. I would, I also would have done that, but I'm glad that you did it. I think it would be easy to give it to Paul Verhoeven. I would like to give mine to screenwriter Ed Neumeyer. I, having read the book, he did a lot of heavy lifting. And then to take that book and Verhoeven says, I want to do a, basically a spoof on that book and then have to not only graft a story onto a very formless book, but then do a complete tonal rewrite on top of it, is a real accomplishment. And I would have no idea how to approach adapting that book. And Ed Neumeyer, I think, did a completely respectable, difficult job there in serving two masters as both a fan of the book, but

• 1:34:21Chris Winterbauer?

  also obviously a fan of Paul Verhoeven. So my what went right goes to Ed Neumeyer. And I love the tone of this movie. I just think it's so ridiculous. It's just so silly and over the top. And we don't really get silly movies made at this budget. And I understand why. This movie didn't make any money. I mean, it seems like it did on home video eventually. So my what went right goes to you, Ed Neumeyer. Congratulations. Well done. And may your residuals ever be fat in that inbox of yours. All right, Lizzie, can you tell the people what we have coming up next week for them?

• 1:34:57Lizzie Bassett?

  I sure can. And boy, is it a doozy. Because mama, just kill the man. Yep, we're gonna go.

• 1:35:07Chris Winterbauer?

  I don't wanna die.

• 1:35:10Lizzie Bassett?

  Dive into the absolute behind the scenes mess that was Bohemian Rhapsody.

• 1:35:15Chris Winterbauer?

  Brian Singer won't come to set at all.

• 1:35:19Lizzie Bassett?

  No, he sure won't. Yeah, and Brian Singer, honestly, I'm working on the outline. He doesn't show up until like two thirds of the way through.

• 1:35:28Chris Winterbauer?

  Right.

• 1:35:29Lizzie Bassett?

  Because that's how big a mess this thing is from the beginning. And just so you know, I know we're laughing about it. We are not gonna shit on Rami Malek. So just go in knowing that there is a hero amongst the mess. So I'm excited to talk about that with you next week, Chris.

• 1:35:44Chris Winterbauer?

  Thank you, everybody, for checking out our coverage on Starship Troopers. And if you guys are interested in learning more about the movie and some other amazing movies, check out our conversation with creature and practical FX designer and artist Alec Gillis this Friday when we release our full interview with him. He has incredible stories, an incredible career. He came up with James Cameron. He's worked for a ton of incredible directors and worked with a lot of prominent below the line folks that we've referenced on episodes before. He's had an amazing career. We had a great talk. He was so generous with his time. So tune in on Friday for our full interview with Alec Gillis. If you're enjoying this podcast, there are five easy ways to support us. Number one, tell a family member, tell a friend, tell some bugs.

• 1:36:26Chris Winterbauer?

  Number two, if you're listening on one of the pod catchers out there, Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon, whatever feeds your cat, you can hit subscribe or follow and our episodes will automatically download every Monday. If you are on one of those platforms, go ahead and give us a rating or review. Five stars, five stars. And of course, if you guys are interested in attending our first ever live show in New York, in Manhattan, at the Caveat Theater on October 8th and October 9th, that's a Wednesday and Thursday at 9:00 PM. Head to cheerfulearful.podlifeevents.com, scroll down until you see the dates, click on November 8th or November 9th, and click on what went wrong. That's our. Our logo. You can buy a ticket to our show and we're gonna be doing,

• 1:37:11Chris Winterbauer?

  drumroll please, our first ever versus film double feature. It's gonna be Deep Impact versus Armageddon. We're covering both films on both nights, same show, both nights. We might be a little better on night two, but maybe we're gonna be a little punchier on night one. Maybe you should get a ticket to both and see what it's all about. So come and learn, should humanity have listened to the scientists or the oil drillers? Come find out on October 8th and 9th at the Caveat Theater in Manhattan. Once again, cheerfulearful.podlifeevents.com/festival/what-went-wrong? Or just go to cheerfulearful.podlifeevents.com and scroll down, click on our dates, click on our logo.

• 1:37:54Chris Winterbauer?

  If you don't live in New York, or you're not interested in traveling, or you just don't like other people, you can always join our Patreon and be part of our digital community. Patreon is a platform that connects podcasters like ourselves to listeners like you. Head to patreon.com/whatwentwrongpodcast. You can join for free. You can get updates, musings, reviews. For a dollar, you can vote on films that we will cover in the future. For $5, you can get an ad-free RSS feed and some bonus episodes, including a fun review we just did of Fantastic Four: First Steps. For $50, you can get a shout out, just like one of these, from one of the Roughnecks.

• 1:38:31Speaker 09

  Come on, you apes. You wanna live forever? I'm talking about you, Angeline Renee Cook, Holly Ho Yan Evan Downey, Amy Olgerschlager McCoy, Noah Centenell, Jory Hill Piper, Slipknot's Nine. I got one rule: everybody fights and no one quits. If you don't do your job, I'll kill you myself. I don't actually mean that. Kay Cabana, James McAvoy, Cameron Smith, Suzanne Johnson, Ben Schindelman, Scary Carrie, The Provost Family, where the O's sound like O's. Zack Averton, Galen and Miguel, The Broken Glass Kids, David Friskalanti, you ask me for advice, want some now?

• 1:39:16Speaker 09

  Never pass up a good thing. Film It Yourself, Adam Moffett, Chris Zaka, Kate Ellington, MXodia, C. Grace B., Jen Mostromarino, I Need A Corporal, You're It, Until You're Dead Or I Find Someone Better, Christopher Elner, Blaze Ambrose, Jerome Wilkinson, Rural Jur, Lance Stater, and Nate The Knife. You know when you need a knife? When you need to disable the enemy's hand. Lana, Half Gray Hound, Brittany Morris, Darren and Dale Conkling, Jake Killen, I Expect The Best And I Give The Best,

• 1:39:57Speaker 09

  Matthew Jacobson, Grace Potter, Ellen Singleton, Brian Donahue, J.J. Rapido, Scott Gerwin, Adrian Pang Korea, Sadie, Just Sadie, Chris Leo, Kathleen Olson, It's An Ugly Planet, A Bug Planet, Brooke, Leah Bowman, Steve Winterbauer, Don Scheible, Rosemary Southward, I doubt anybody here would recognize civic virtue even if it reached out and bit you in the ass. Tom Kristin, Jason Frankel, Sol Manchinani, Michael McGrath, Lon Relod, and Lydia Howes.

• 1:40:38Speaker 09

  They're doing their part, are you?

• 1:40:43Chris Winterbauer?

  Alright guys, thank you so much for joining us. We will see you in one week for Bohemian Rhapsody. Until then... Goodbye.

• 1:40:51Lizzie Bassett?

  I see a little silhouetto of a man. Scarrables, scarrables, could you do the fun dango?

• 1:41:03Speaker 10

  Go to patreon.com/whatwentwrongpodcast to support What Went Wrong, and check out our website at whatwentwrongpod.com. What Went Wrong is a Sad Boom Podcast, presented by Lizzie Bassett and Chris Winterbauer. Editing and music by David Bowman. Research for this episode provided by Jesse Winterbauer, with additional editing from Karen Krebsaw.