“Starship Troopers” cast remembers the film's 'lousy reception' before becoming cult classic

"Today’s young audiences will come up to us and go, ‘there’s no way they missed the satire, it’s so blatant!’" Casper Van Dien said at New York Comic Con.

Not every movie succeeds at the box office, but some initial failures can still live to see their reputations improve. Such is the case with Starship Troopers, the film adaptation of Robert A. Heinlein’s classic sci-fi novel that was directed by RoboCop mastermind Paul Verhoeven.

Upon its initial release in 1997, Starship Troopers — which depicts an interstellar war between the human Federation and an army of alien bugs — was rejected by American movie critics, and barely made its budget back at the box office. Why, then, would such a film inspire a well-attended cast reunion panel at New York Comic Con 27 years later?

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The primary answer, as the cast explained during the panel, was that many people in the initial audience simply didn’t understand Verhoeven’s vision for the film. Michael Ironside, who played teacher-turned-squad leader Jean Rasczak in Starship Troopers and had previously worked with Verhoeven on Total Recall, remembered being surprised that the filmmaker would even want to adapt the work of Heinlein (whom Ironside described at the panel as "very right-wing" and compared to the modern-day Republican policies outlined in Project 2025).

"I said, ‘you’re gonna do this right-wing novel, Paul?’ We had gotten to know each other pretty well on Total Recall," Ironside said, before launching into an impression of Verhoeven’s Dutch accent. "He said, 'alright I’ll answer your question one time. I’m going to make a perfect world, a beautiful world, where everyone is so f—-able, but it’s only good for killing bugs!’ I said ‘oh cool, I’m in!'"

Related: A close read of the Starship Troopers shower scene

Ironside continued, "it was not received this way in the United States. I had people asking, why are you running around in this Nazi uniform? But in Europe, they got the satire."

One reason that initial American audiences didn’t understand that Verhoeven was satirizing his source material and turning a militaristic manifesto into a mockery of fascism is that this country had a very different experience of World War II than Europeans did. Verhoeven grew up in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands — Ironside recalled the director talking about playing as a kid among unexploded bombs and other war debris. Even by the ‘90s, the experience of World War II was still fresh in European minds, and they knew exactly what conclusions to draw from the Federation’s Nazi-esque regalia.

Thankfully, now that years have passed, Starship Troopers have accumulated generations of fans who do understand the satire and love Verhoeven’s evisceration of military culture.

"Like Michael said, when you went to England, you’d still see these posters plastered down the Tube going 'war!' The propaganda, they understood it so wonderfully," said Casper Van Dien, who played young Federation soldier Johnny Rico. "Today’s young audiences will come up to us now and go, 'there’s no way they missed the satire back then, it’s so blatant!' I’m like, 'well, you guys have the internet, and people who showed you!' The brilliance of Paul Verhoeven and Ed Neumeier is they created a film that is still being watched all this time later, and still gets people to debate and talk about it."

Related: Basic Instinct director Paul Verhoeven blasts critics who call his new lesbian nun film 'blasphemy'

The initial lineup for the panel consisted of Ironside, Van Dien, Denise Richards, Dina Meyer, and Seth Gilliam. But about halfway through, they were joined by another former castmate: Clancy Brown, who was coming fresh from The Penguin panel elsewhere at the convention. Brown had a very specific memory of the film’s release.

"Just how great it was, and what a lousy reception it got. I had a bet with a guy who worked for Roland Emmerich," Brown mused, "He said, ‘your movie’s not gonna make $60 million.’ I said, ‘are you kidding me? It’s Paul Verhoeven and all these people and special effects.’ Sure enough, he won. But nobody remembers the movie we were betting would make more. Everybody remembers this one.”

Starship Troopers is currently streaming on Netflix, for anyone who wants to either revisit or finally watch for the first time.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.