When it was released in 1997, no one knew what to make of Starship Troopers. Was it a big dumb summer popcorn movie or was that deception, and it was actually a brilliantly cutting satire about movies like that? Was it pro-military or actually anti-military? Was it pro-nationalism or highlighting its incompetence? In the years since, the movie about Earth's soldiers going on an intergalactic bug hunt has become a cult classic and people have pretty much stopped debating its nuances (except on Reddit).
Still, for the sake of argument, looking analytically at the film, there's a lot more that doesn't make sense than just its message. Like why the military of the future still uses regular ammunition that comes in magazines that never run out or why Life-Size Ken doll Rico gets continuously promoted over the extremely competent Dizzy. Below you'll find these and other things that make no sense about Starship Troopers.
THE STUDENTS DON'T WEAR GLOVES DURING DISSECTION
Before Rico, Diz, Carmen, and the gang figure out what they're going to do with their lives, they're just a bunch of high school kids doing some dissections in the lab and getting grossed out. They get to cut open a bug and see what makes it tick.
For some reason, they decide to do this without any gloves. They reach all up insides its slimy innards, which could contain everything from a venom sack waiting to detonate or something to give you space rabies, and they just do it like it's no big deal.
RICO'S ENLISTMENT
In the film, Captain Hair (Johnny Rico) wants to "join the military to travel." Really? As though interstellar backpacking isn't a thing? As though in the future, kids don't still go off to Europe with a rucksack and some friends after graduation to find themselves?
Furthermore, Rico's parents are well off and they hate that he's enlisting. I'm sure if he just wanted to travel, they'd give him a wad of cash and the keys to the space convertible to see the rest of the universe. Especially because the alternative is gruesome death by bugs.
CARMEN AND DIZ
Carmen and Diz are the competent heroines of the film, who dutifully serve their planet, and who both share feelings for Rico. However, Carmen is in flight school for all of what seems like a few minutes and she's already flying a giant ship? How does that work?
Clearly, these women are capable because Diz is like Hermoine in space. She's the most well-versed in all military tactics, performs the best in training and on missions, and somehow wastes her time pining after someone who will never love her and got someone killed during basic. We just don't know where and when they learnt everything.
HOW PROMOTIONS WORK
Apparently, in the space military of the future, promotion works a little differently than in the real one. Rico can be responsible for the death of a man under his command during a routine training exercise, and yet still get promoted over Diz. And when he gets demoted, and Jake Busey takes over, Diz still doesn't get promoted despite being the most capable leader.
Rico effectively gets promoted 3 times and made an officer with no additional training in what basically amounts to a day and a half. What exactly qualifies Rico for this sort of recognition? He's just in the right place at the right time and everyone keeps dying around him.
THE COMPLETE LACK OF POWER ARMOR
In the book (which was written in the '40s) there was mobile armor. As crazy as it sounds that something like that could be conceived of for the military far in advance of it actually having any, it seemed a logical defense mechanism against the bugs. So where was it in the film?
The military is part of a futuristic society with loads of advanced technology. This armor is said to have inspired the Space Marines of the Warhammer 40k universe and would have not only saved lives in the movie, but it would also have looked damn cool.
UNLIMITED AMMO
Like in video games, where reloading is unnecessary because ammo is unlimited, the military in the film seems to hand out bullets like candy (literally, bullets are given to children on one of those jumbotron screens). Whenever a soldier goes after a bug, they can just spray bullets in their general direction.
They don't really need to aim, as the bullets seem to always find their targets (and bugs are big). Why do they even still have bullets at all in the future? Where's the laser gatling guns and ion canons? Why go after bugs with puny 21st-century weapons?
HOW THE BUGS GET FROM PLANET TO PLANET
The drone bugs that seem to comprise their attack force seem relatively hive-minded, performing actions based on whatever the Brain Bug/Queen decides. The bugs don't seem to have any intelligence more or less superior to humans, and they have a carnal need to destroy (something they also have in common with humans).
How is it that they travel from planet to planet attacking its inhabitants? Do they have ships? Are they also bug-like? Does one giant bug bus shuttle them across the universe and let them off at different stops? This isn't really explained in the film.
THE TACTICS
The future looks bright in Starship Troopers. Everyone lives in a near Utopian society, and as long as you do your part in this society, you'll be rewarded with certain benefits. Joining the military is a great way to get ahead in this society, and it seems to be patterned off of the US military albeit with some advancements in technology.
However, the tactics of this military of the future leave something to be desired. They don't even resemble real military tactics. It's just grunts on the ground with puny assault rifles running and screaming in the general direction of bugs.
WHY DIDN'T THEY NUKE THE BUGS
We get it from the first ten minutes of the film, with all the government "Do you want to know more?" videos advocating extreme military action against other species that this is a film satirizing nationalism in First World militaries. How could it not with its, "If you don't fight, I'll kill you myself" message?
But why not go all in? Why mess around with throwing grunts on the front lines with primitive weaponry and no chance of survival? They took the fight to the bug homeworld, so to quote Ellen Ripley and in true gung-ho fashion why didn't they nuke the suckers from orbit? Or was it because, like the Company, Earth scientists really wanted to study them...
NEIL PATRICK HARRIS
Having Doogie Houser all grown up on the screen is certainly a treat, and well before How I Met Your Mother. A big deal is made at the beginning of the film about all his crazy psychic powers, and yet that doesn't amount to much of anything later in the film.
He becomes a walking talking mood ring that gets big snaps for declaring the Brain Bug "is afraid". That's it. Why couldn't they have harnessed his power to start mind-controlling bugs or something and make them stop attacking? You know, something useful. Too bad he didn't have the foresight to see where his powers would lead him.