``Starship Troopers'' What does the controversial science fiction war action story convey?

The director was also completely naked!? What was The Truth about filming the shower scene?

As mentioned earlier, the society depicted in Starship Troopers is an evil world ruled by fascism, but the only ideal element is the realization of complete equality between men and women. Women can become soldiers if they wish and if they have good aptitude and ability, and in fact there are many female soldiers.

The heroine, Carmen, is recognized for her excellent qualities as a pilot and is assigned to pilot a battleship despite being a rookie. Also, the new supreme commander of the Earth Federation Forces is a woman (and black). A very unique situation has arisen here: liberals on the far right.

One scene that symbolizes this is the scene in the shower room at a military training school. Here, boys and girls share a shower room, and everyone is naked as a matter of course. Well, there is a famous legend regarding the filming of this scene. In order to scold the shy young actors, Verhoeven and the cinematographer stripped naked...

According to the audio commentary on the DVD, Verhoeven and Newmayer's memories differ, with Newmayer saying that he may have taken it off halfway and then stopped, but Verhoeven testified that he took it all off. By the way, when I interviewed Casper Van Dien, who plays Johnny, he said, ``The only thing the director took off was his pants.'' We stopped him and said, ``It's okay, I don't want to see it.'' (laughs)"

"Starship Troopers" (c)Photofest / Getty Images

``Starship Troopers'' was produced at a huge cost of over 100 million dollars, but unfortunately it only made half that amount, 54 million dollars at the US box office, and is considered a box office failure. The negative publicity may have had an effect. However, it still enjoys enthusiastic support from fans, and was even made into a series, albeit on a low budget.

Quentin Tarantino is said to be such a big fan that he even held a screening of the film. Van Dien says that when they first met, Tarantino went on and on for three hours about how great this movie was, which is crazy.

But the craziest of all is Verhoeven. In addition to his willingness to be completely naked in front of young actors, I would like to add one thing that struck me when I interviewed him. Verhoeven answers each question with great earnestness and ferocity. Although I wasn't able to ask even half of the questions I wanted to ask within the time limit, I was still able to feel the incredible energy within this director.

``Starship Troopers'' can be said to be a work in which his artistry and humanity overflowed with such force that it almost exploded.

Text: Manabu Soma

After working as an information magazine editor, became a freelance writer. He writes articles and reviews for magazines such as ``SCREEN,'' ``DVD & Video Distribution,'' and ``Cinema Square,'' as well as theater pamphlets and the movie site ``Cinema Today.'' Currently appearing on Star Channel "GO! Theater". I host club events as a hobby.

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(c) Photofest / Getty Images