Starship Troopers (1997) is an unlikely blockbuster - divisive by design. Director Paul Verhoeven has called it the most expensive art film ever made - a movie that ostensibly looks on the surface like any other big summer action film, but one that intentionally baits and switches over and over again.

It’s a movie meant to make you sick to your stomach - to set off all kinds of alarm bells. And yet, many fans have championed its fascist ethos at face value.

Yikes! Will the real proto-fascists please stand up?

Starship Troopers follows a young soldier named Johnny Rico and his exploits in the Mobile Infantry, a futuristic military unit. Rico's military career progresses from recruit, to non-commissioned officer, and finally to officer, against the backdrop of an interstellar war between mankind and an insectoid species known as Arachnids. (via Wikipedia)

***

If you can, please support the show on Patreon! (https://www.patreon.com/join/progressivepop)

You can find a list of books that informed this show at
(https://bookshop.org/shop/progressivepopepop)