I recently re-watched the movie Starship Troopers. Remember? The movie about the space marines fighting the giant bugs? Think back all the way to 1997, and the real career launcher for Denise Richards (I personally prefer her performance in Wild Things). The last time I had seen this movie I was still in high school and all I remembered about it was a lot of action and some cheesy, funny news bits. Upon re-watching the movie, it's apparent that the entire film is a satire of a militarism or the doctrine claiming the development and maintenance of a powerfully military is essential for the benefit of society and that society itself is best governed by the concepts embodied in military culture (like discipline, authoritarianism, rank and hierarchy). A militaristic society is based on the principle that prosperous civilizations are the result of military actions, specifically the threat of force and war, therefore a strong military is of utmost importance and is what the civilian populations are dependent upon or subservient to in order for their world to prosper. You could use the word fascism instead of militarism, and actually the director and screenwriter both do in their DVD commentaries but unfortunately the word fascism seems to have lost a specific meaning and is now a buzz word that is loosely applied to any societies or actions people judge to be "evil". So I'm not going to use it. If you look up the definition of fascism you'll get a stream of other words with similar ambiguous meanings . here is the first line from the Wikipedia entry on it: Fascism is a radical political ideology that combines elements of corporatism, authoritarianism, nationalism, militarism, anti-anarchism, anti-communism and anti-liberalism. What??? I think you just lost me in anisms. Please don't comment on what you believe fascism means, I do have a good understanding of how it should be used, but I believe it's too often used as an ambiguous buzz word and is defined in a completely ridiculously way like above, so I refuse to use it. I'll use militarism to describe the satire of Starship Troopers instead with the definition stated above. Specific examples of the militarism satire include: uncompromising war mongering attitudes towards the alien race including genocide ("only good bug is a dead bug"), glorifying soldiering and violent death, in-adequate weapons and war strategy resulting in extreme causalities, continued military actions even in the face of extreme causalities, military maneuvers that appear pointless, propaganda videos encouraging children to kill bugs, and the most visual of all, the intelligence officers wore uniforms modeled after Nazi uniforms in WW2. After re-watching the film, I think it fails miserable to make any significant points and comes off as just an over the top action thrill ride without any deep meaning. I still enjoyed it for what it was, but instead of my initial thoughts of "woah cool movie" I believe it could have done a lot more, especially with a 100 million dollar budget. The craziest thing about this film that I bet most of you don't know is that movie is based off a novel that actually promotes military culture and is for the idea this film mocks. Isn't that interesting? They option the rights to an award winning novel on military science fiction to change it into a satire making fun of what the original book promoted. Wow, I wonder if the author Robert A. Heinlein was pissed off about that? Now I haven't read the book ,but what I find interesting here is that the original novel used advanced mechanized armor and such detailed military tactics that even though it's was written in 1959, it's still on the reading list for the US ARMY and Marine Corps. So here you have a book that was so influential in military culture, is talked about by major generals, is on the reading list at west point and you butcher it by making a light satire? Man, I would have liked to see this redone with a more serious tone. You could still point to the horror of warfare and shed light on problems inherent in a militaristic society in a serious way like how a WWII or Vietnam War movie can illustrate the horrible reality of warfare. I would go even further though; people watch movies to escape, to experience and to learn. If everything is the same old cliché ridden crap, it losses it's effect and dramatic appeal, why not make Starship troopers the way it was originally written and take you into a militaristic future based on authoritarian ideals. Yes it would probably scare people and piss them off, but would that be so bad? I think that would make for a very interesting movie, even if I personally disagree with the philosophy of the future society, I could still be entranced in the film if the science fiction fantasy element and dramatic tension were executed properly. Interesting concept. Are human beings intrinsically violent? In many science fiction movies the future societies are utopian where all internal , but if human beigns are intrinsically violent and warlike, then any future society that is to survive the atomic age will have to work around and satisfy these primal tendencies. There have been a few spins on this plot that took this into account, most notably the "mech warrior" type movies, where humanities wars are determined by mechanized gladiators. Resources: Wikipedia on Starship Troopers (Novel) Wikipedia on Starship Troopers (Movie) Rotten Tomatoes Starship Troopers Rating Wikipedia on Militarism Wikipedia on Fascism