Perguntas frequentes

It's possibly not prom either. It's only referred to Carmen as "the dance". Zander went to a different school, earlier as Johnny is leaving class with Carmen to see their math scores, a friend says to him, "Hey, Rico we gonna take Tesla" (referring to the Jumpball game) to which Rico replies " we're gonna kill 'em."

It's likely Zander either crashed the dance, because he was interested in Carmen, or he came to the dance with someone else.

They probably do, but this was something taken from the book. In the book, the recruiter is similarly crippled and takes applications exactly like that. Immediately after he clocks out for the day, he puts on prosthetics that work perfectly and explains to Rico that he goes without them while on the job so that potential recruits know exactly what they're getting themselves into, as a way to weed out the squeamish.

Because winning the war as quickly and bloodlessly as possible isn't actually the goal. The society runs on perpetual warfare. In the book, this question is asked and the answer is a combination of a couple things. One is that what they're really fighting over is real estate - the Federation doesn't really want to kill the bugs, per se, it's just that both sides want the same real estate and they are unable to peacefully coexist since their societies are so completely different. The other is that the MI's purpose is described as, essentially, kicking down the enemy's door, punching them in the face, and sitting there declaring, "This is mine now and there's nothing you can do about it." It's about sending the message that the MI is strong enough and tough enough that you shouldn't bother attacking them.

Think of it as if you went swimming in the ocean and got bitten by a shark. So you declared a war on the sharks and sent many more people in to the ocean, which would just attract more sharks, leading to more people getting bitten.

If someone says that it will cost "an arm and a leg" it essentially is saying that something is so expensive that you'd have to sell your arm and your leg to afford it. It's a darkly humorous expression. But not literal. In the film, Shujumi saying this resonates with Johnny Rico. Because, despite his poor grades, Johnny's rich parents were paying his way in to Harvard. But Johnny rejected this to join MI. Where as Shujumi got accepted to Harvard and his family couldn't afford it. So Shujumi joined MI so the Federation would cover his tuition.

The phrase also has an ironic meaning, given that the processing officer Johnny met lost an arm and both legs in the Mobile Infantry.

There are two songs, both performed by Zoe Poledouris (daughter of the film score's composer, Basil Poledouris). First, "Into It" was composed by Poledouris herself, and is available on the Starship Troopers soundtrack CD. The second song is a cover version of David Bowie's "I have not been to Oxford Town", with the word "paradise" instead of "Oxford Town". Zoe's version is unavailable; Bowie's original version is on his album "Outside".

The Workprint is a pretty final cut of the movie. Some scenes, which focus on Carmen's love life have been removed for the Theatrical Release. In the Workprint it is clear that she sleeps with Rico, but after his supposed death shares some intimate time with Zander and finally gets back to Rico at the end. These scenes were removed because they caused a lot of animosity towards Carmen during test screenings(according to Paul Verhoeven, some viewers even asked him to "kill the slut"). Otherwise there are minor extensions/alternate scenes.

Yes, Rasczak's provocative dialogue about Hiroshima has been cut out.

Yes, and Paul Verhoeven proudly confirms this fact on the commentary track of the dvd, saying that "everything you've heard about this scene is true".

Verhoeven wanted to show that equality between men and woman in the military had come to the point where they even shower together. For realism, he therefore demanded that the actors leave their modesty behind, and do the scene together and completely naked. However, the actors kept stalling and when Verhoeven kept insisting, they dared him to do the same. Without hesitation, Verhoeven and director of photography Jost Vacano undressed and the scene was filmed.

In the audio commentary, Ed Neumeier states that once Paul and Jost undressed, one of the cast said "*please* put your clothes back on". Given how old Paul and Jost were at the time, the jury is out on whether Ed was joking.

Yes and no. It is true that Paul Verhoeven was interested in doing a sequel, so leaving the movie open-ended was partially intentional. However, Verhoeven intended the sequel to be a big-budget movie comparable to the original. Due to the somewhat disappointing box office result of Tropas Estelares (1997), this idea was scrapped; the two sequels that have since been released were produced for the direct-to-dvd market on a significantly lower budget.

But more importantly, on the dvd commentary, Verhoeven explains that the final scene was primarily intended as a very cynical coda: it shows that Johnny Rico has become a full-blown mindless war machine just like Lt. Rasczak (he has even copied his war cry "Come on, you apes, you wanna live forever?") and that mankind still thinks they can win this war through superior firepower. In this context, the final tag line 'They'll keep on fighting' can be read as 'They still haven't learned anything'. Verhoeven admits that many viewers and critics entirely missed this subtext of the movie, and misinterpreted the final scene as a statement of militarism, or a simple allusion to a sequel.

It's not so much a card game as it is a test to see if Johnny has psychic abilities. Carl is shown to be highly intelligent and to possess strong psychic abilities (such as mind-tricking his ferret to go Crawl up his mother's leg). The card test is supposed to have Johnny thinking of the card (seen behind him on the screen.) He's supposed to predict the 6 of diamonds, but guessed the Ace of spades. Leading to a "no match".