As the world comes to grips with a Donald Trump presidency, there are some already hoping to find a silver lining in the arts, where they believe that having the “Apprentice” star running the country will inspire provocative, political works. We’ll see how that pans out, but one movie that won’t stir the pot is the upcoming remake of “Starship Troopers.” Based on the book by Robert A. Heinlein, when Paul Verhoeven made his version in 1997, he used the material to satirize militaristic jingoism. However, the makers of the new movie have made it clear “one man’s fascism is another man’s patriotism” and plan to make a more sincerely flag-waving movie that’s truer to the source material. And Verhoeven has a few thoughts about that.
“We succeeded to do this movie, that is so subversive, and politically incorrect [because] Sony changed [leadership] every three, four months. Nobody looked at the rushes because they had no time because they were fired every three, four months. So we got away with it because nobody saw it,” he told Indiewire about his version.
“….we really, really tried to get away from the novel, because we felt that the novel was fascistic and militaristic. You feel that going back to the novel would fit very much in a Trump Presidency,” he added. “Our philosophy was really different (from Heinlein’s book). We wanted to do a double story, a really wonderful adventure story about these young boys and girls fighting, but we also wanted to show that these people are really, in their heart, without knowing it, are on their way to fascism.”
Those are all good points, but I suppose if the explosions are good enough, most audiences won’t particularly care about whether or not the film contains politically subversive subtext or not. Perhaps the truest indicator of a Trump presidency in Hollywood might be how much nothing else matters but the bottom line.