Dragon V's Ramblings

that movie disturbed me (in a brilliant way) for exactly that same reason when it first came out. a lot of peolpe didn't get it, thought it was cheezy, but now i think they may appreciate it more...!

Well, unfortunately many people who don't get it, don't realize that it was made with the intent to mock the gung-ho millitary nature of Heinlein's book. To do this, Verhoven apparently went over the top with a lot of the scenes. Not surprisingly, a lot of people who thought it was cheesy didn't understand that it was meant to be that way

It's supposed to make you think and laugh uncomfortably when you see how easily we can start to act that way. Unfortunately, since it came out in '97, we where several years removed from the Gulf "War" and there wasn't really any major conflict on the horizon.

Relative to 9/11 though, it's interesting (and rather frightening) to see how many parallels there are in the way that Starship Troopers Earth reacts to the bug menace and how the West reacted to the threat of terrorism. Unfortunately, I doubt that many people would be open to evaluating their reactions relative to a movie. I suspect most folks will think that it's inappropriate to compare the "serious" events of 9/11 to the "trivial" events depicted in a movie.