Coroner’s Corner
The Milky Way Massacre
by John Bikowski
illustration by Eric Johnson
Have you ever wondered what the Star Wars trilogy would have been like if Princess Leia got naked or if Jabba the Hut were graphically disemboweled? Or what E.T. would have been if he snapped and jammed his glowing finger into Elliott’s cranium, yanked out the brains, and messily gobbled them down? Well, wonder no more, because Starship Troopers provides a wild ride through alien-filled terrain and tosses in bulging amounts of gore and nudity. Troopers is directed by Paul Verhoeven, who previously helmed RoboCop. If you recall the graphic scene in that flick where the pre-robo Murphy is slowly shotgunned to pieces you will only be slightly prepared for what awaits in Troopers. The number of effects scenes is overwhelming and most of them are carried out rather superbly. You will delight to such sights as human bodily remains in assorted smashings, giant nasty-looking insects gooily bursting into multi-colored goop, people violently impaled and shredded with bug pincers, flesh seared right off the bone, brains sucked through a tube, a gratuitous biology lab barfing, and much more! One courtesy that Verhoeven offers is that he allows us to meet some of the characters before ripping them into bloody piles. Not that many people will notice, but there is a thin story holding together the mega-violence.
Starship Troopers is basically a war movie that follows a group of great-looking high school seniors through graduation, boot camp, and into intense battle. From what I could gather, the human race consists of civilians, citizens, and the armed forces. Citizens get the most respect and the most rights, but in order to become one you must first serve a couple of years defending Earth. It seems that there is a planetary system on the other side of the galaxy inhabited by giant bugs that hate humans. The bugs attack Earth by sending over meteorites that annihilate huge amounts of people and land. Johnny Rico (hot GQ stud) signs up for the Mobile Infantry, his girlfriend (hot mama with perfect teeth and other stuff) signs on to become a flight commander, and their buddy Doogie Howser (super-smart psychic guy) hooks up with the intelligence division. Incredible coincidences fly when these three keep meeting up, but who cares… it helps advance the story.
Troopers‘ interest level benefits from having a variety of aliens because you never know what the hell powers each bug has. Out of the blue some huge dragonfly thing books on by and Lop!!! off goes your head. Another plus is how dangerous the aliens are even when they are almost dead. You can pump 75 rounds at close range into this spasming monstrosity, see it fall flat on its face, and then still get decapitated for your trouble. Now imagine a swarm of thousands of these monsters charging at you and you will begin to feel the suspense of this film’s battles. The war scenes lead up to the capture of a giant intelligent “Brain Bug” that looks like a gargantuan testicle embedded with female genitalia (curious, aren’t you?). If you want to be entertained, this is your film, but if you are in a critical mood then stay the hell away because you will only upset yourself. For example, the flight commander chick, Ibanez, gets drilled right above the heart by one of the arachnids but seems to nonchalantly forget about it five minutes later. In reality, she would have been crying nonstop for a week. But remember… we are not in reality… just shut up and enjoy.
