A quarter of a century ago, in November 1997, Paul Verhoeven's sci-fi action film Starship Troopers, based on Robert Heinlein's 1959 novel of the same name, was released. Unfortunately, it did not become a hit, but over the years it gained cult status and gave a powerful impetus to the careers of several young film stars... 
Need a big name
The project was born back in 1991 - and then there was no talk of adapting the famous book, which was awarded the Hugo Award. Screenwriter Ed Neumeier dashed off the script “Bug Hunt at Outpost 7” about the war between humanity and a race of arthropod monsters from outer space.
Producer John Davison noticed the similarity of the plot proposed by the playwright with Heinlein's bestseller and begged him to rewrite the text for the characters of the popular author, so that his famous name would appear on the posters.
Neumeier took the advice, but it still took a long time to launch the movie based on the updated script. Studio officials saw that the film needed sweeping special effects, expensive battle scenes and large crowds - and were afraid to risk the budget, which was supposed to exceed $100 million. Although the famous hitmaker Paul Verhoeven (RoboCop, Total Recall) was ready to direct Starship Troopers. . 
There are five types of arachnids in the film: warrior, tanker, plasmar, jumper and brain
Things got off the ground only after the director, with the help of his favorite special effects master Phil Tippett, filmed a test scene of a soldier fighting two insect-like monsters. The producers were shocked and did not even realize that the arachnids were drawn on a computer. They thought they were cool animatronic dolls! 
Michael Ironside's characters always lost their hands in Verhoeven's films
The devil's horns 
The combat base on the Moon is named after Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova
In general, it was decided to allocate $105 million for the filming of the sci-fi action, and the production costs were divided by two studios: TriStar and Touchstone. Meanwhile, Verhoeven, as it turned out, was indifferent to Heinlein’s work - with all his love for the libertarian streak of the noble militarist - and abandoned reading the original after a couple of pages. Having survived the bombings of World War II as a child, the author’s far-right overtures were not close to him. Therefore, he immediately told Neumeier that he would make not so much an action film as a satire on the fascist utopia of the future disguised as one. 
The director began work in earnest in the fall of 1995. Over the course of several months, detailed storyboards were created for the future film (4,000 sheets). Over the winter, the core of the film crew was hired and locations were identified, the main one being the exotic-looking desert area of Hell's Half Acres in Wyoming, designed to depict the bleak landscapes of the evil-bug-infested planet Klendatu. The “striped” hills from Badlands National Park in South Dakota also served as the backdrop for the arachnid world.
Due to the need for location filming in the wilderness, filmmakers had enormous problems with logistics. They had to build roads to some particularly remote areas at their own expense. And deliver actors and equipment by helicopter to other hard-to-reach places. 
Clancy Brown (Sergeant Zim) became a mentor for young colleagues on the set
Gathering of blond beasts 
Dina Mayer received a concussion and passed out while filming one of the action scenes
At the casting for Starship Troopers, Verhoeven gave preference to actors who embodied the poster “Aryan” type of appearance from Goebbels’s propaganda. That is why the main roles were given to such “blond beasts” with blue eyes as Casper Van Dien (Private Johnny Rico), Denise Richards (pilot Carmen Ibáñez), Neil Patrick Harris (Secretary Carl), Jake Busey (Private Ace) and Clancy Brown ( Sergeant Zim). And brunettes Patrick Muldoon (pilot Zander Barkalov) and Dina Mayer (Private Flores) were specifically asked to lighten their hair so that they would not stand out from their colleagues. And they were all forced to take a 12-day young fighter course in April 1996, so that they acquired soldier bearing.
At the request of Denise Richards, her “naked” scene was removed from the script.
Brown-eyed and bald Michael Ironside did not look like an Aryan, but he had been a friend of the director since their collaboration in Total Recall (1990), which is why the role of the stern Lieutenant Raszak went to him. True, Michael Douglas, who was also friends with the director after Basic Instinct (1992), wanted to play this role, but the producers did not meet his fee for a class A star.
It is curious that such stars as Mark Wahlberg, Keanu Reeves, Matt Damon, Neve Campbell, Josh Brolin, James Marsden, Rebecca Gayheart and Jason Priestley did not audition for the project. Paul felt that their faces were not suitable for conveying the pompous and heroic pathos of the military utopia of the future. 
Because of his Gestapo uniform, Neil Patrick Harris was teased as “Himmler” on set.
Alien heat
Filming started on April 29, 1996. We were the first to decide to do battle scenes on the planet Klendatu, until the “young fighter course” they had completed wore off from the actors (and in order to quickly give the guys from the special effects department the footage where the arachnids should be to work). But still, the young stars had a very hard time: working in fake, but heavy soldier’s equipment at 46 degrees of heat led to massive heat strokes. The producers lost a lot of money due to the fact that filming had to be interrupted for a week at the peak of the temperature, largely due to the fact that Jake Busey was hospitalized. The artist suffered exhaustion due to overheating and an eardrum injury. The latter was ensured by Dina Meyer, who accidentally fired a blank cartridge at her colleague’s temple. 
Jake Busey learned to play the violin especially for the role.
The director and his team lost a few more days when the stifling heat suddenly gave way to a powerful downpour, drowning a considerable amount of expensive equipment and electrical cables in the mud. A new disaster occurred in May: two members of the film crew died in an accident and the girlfriend of one of them, the famous reality and talk show participant Rachel Campos, was seriously injured. Another incident happened in June: one of the filmmakers, drunk as a cobbler, joked about a bomb on board the plane he boarded, which led to a flight delay and the arrest of the culprit. 
Amy Smart's character's name is Stack Lambreser, but her name is not in the credits.
Carrot without a stick
In July, work began on the quiet episodes that were included at the beginning of Starship Troopers. In them, Johnny Rico and his friends graduate from high school in Buenos Aires and prepare to enter adulthood. The futuristic school building is actually the Kaiser Permanente medical complex in Baldwin Park, California. The home of the main character's parents is the Henman House mansion in Malibu. The spaceport depicted the Los Angeles Convention Center. Well, the jumpball sports match was filmed at the Walter's Pyramid arena in the resort of Long Beach. As for the interiors of the starships, they were built in the hangars of the Sony studio. 
Camp Curry
The rest of the summer was spent filming the Camp Curry training camp. This location was built in 6 weeks on an abandoned airstrip in Fountain Valley, California. The most dangerous scene of this period was the flogging of the guilty Rico. It is often claimed that Casper Van Dien was actually whipped, but this is not true. The experts carefully checked the distance from which the whip was used, so that it barely reached the artist’s back. And they removed the hard tip of the whip, fluffing up the striking part. And yet, a couple of times the poor guy almost got a proper blow. The shots where the wounds appear on Johnny's back were made using a piece of rope, which was dipped in paint to simulate blood. 
At the same time, the famous scene of cadets of both sexes washing together in the shower was filmed. The actors were terribly shy, so director Paul Verhoeven and his cameraman Jost Vacano agreed to work naked on set so that the actors would not feel so awkward and could act normally.
The people didn't understand
There are still supporting tie-in episodes left for the fall—for example, the one in which Rico fights with Zander on the Ticonderoga space station. By the way, Van Dien accidentally hit Patrick Muldoon for real and broke his lip. The victim then said with a grin, rubbing his cheekbone, that Kasper “hits really powerfully.” However, Van Dien himself had previously suffered more severely: in the fight scene with a flamethrower beetle, he injured his ribs and broke a tooth. But he hid it from his colleagues and played all the takes to the end.
Oddly enough, such complex and constantly disrupted filming was completed on schedule - October 23, 1996. After which many months of post-production began with the creation of a large array of computer graphics. Nowadays such a volume of digital special effects (500 frames) can be drawn 5 times faster, but 25 years ago the technology was less advanced. Only a couple of arachnids were not virtual: roboticists assembled them in metal and plastic - for scenes of direct contact between actors and monsters. 
Starship Troopers premiered on November 4, 1997. Alas, the film only lasted one weekend at the top of the box office. Stupid American viewers and critics mistook the action satire for a real glorification of militarism and fascism, calling for a boycott of the movie. As a result, global box office receipts remained stuck at $121.2 million, bringing losses to the studios. Only over time was the film tested and understood, after which it was recognized as one of the main science fiction films of the 90s. 
Paul Verhoeven now calls Starship Troopers his favorite director's work.
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