The Making of Starship Troopers

by Paul M. Sammon

An illustrated, backstage tour of the production of the blockbuster science-fiction motion picture Starship Troopers, based on the novel by Robert A. Heinlein, includes a look at the movie's special effects technology, and much more. Original. Movie tie-in.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction

Mass Market Paperback

First published December 1, 1997

About the author

Paul M. Sammon has written for The Los Angeles Times, The American Cinematographer, Cahiers Du Cinéma, and Cinefantastique. His fiction has appeared in many collections and he is editor of the best selling American Splatterpunks series. As a film maker Paul M. Sammon has produced, edited and directed dozens of documentaries on films such as Platoon, Dune, and Robocop. He is the author of Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner and his latest book is about the making of the movie Starship Trooper directed by Paul Verhoeven (Robocop).

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

According to his note at the end of the book, Sammon (who wrote the excellent short biography of Ridley Scott I read last year - and whose Future Noir I have on my TBR pile) was attached to the production of Paul Verhoeven’s film for almost all of it’s schedule and it shows. Beginning with an introduction that discusses the Robert A. Heinlein book and moving into pre-production, Sammon is thorough and often candid, especially regarding the fights with the studio over the budget and the fact that Verhoeven brought in his own producer (and its difficult not to read original producer Jon Davison’s response to this as someone whose nose has been put out of joint). Moving through the various departments - and introducing key personnel - it looks at the behind-the-camera talent in as much light as it does the actors. Production is thoroughly detailed, often by location (or running order), with some interesting stories of life on the set, before heading into post-production which was, by all accounts, a bit rocky. Phil Tippett, much loved by Verhoeven (he says he made the film to see what Tippett would do with the bugs), pops up every now and again but I’d have preferred more time with him and the various model departments and companies get a good spotlight. In a nice touch, even with all of the CG on display, there’s only one picture of a random person sitting in front of a computer monitor, which was good. Concluding with a thorough (and occasionally spiky) interview with Verhoeven - and then an epilogue detailing the ‘bomb scare’ and details of a crew fatality (not related to the film) - this is a great read, well designed and illustrated, that made me want to watch the film all over again and surely you can’t ask for much more than that. Good stuff, recommended.

[Javier_A.Rt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not the best "Making of" book you cand find but a must have if you love the movie. The book includes some art and production pictures, a scene by scene description of the shooting days and an interesting interview with Verhoeven.

[Michael Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a long-time reader of science fiction, I greatly enjoyed Heinlein’s novel when it first came out in my senior year of high school, even though I had reservations about the political slant. I was greatly disappointed in the film when it finally came out, however; most of the thoughtful themes that always made Heinlein enjoyable reading (whether you agreed with him or not) were missing, and the details of the alien “bugs” and the boot-camp training and so on were created from whole cloth with almost no reference to the book. It was just another “alien menace” movie. This book provides some answers -- mostly that it was a budget-driven film and anything that cost more money, especially complicated costuming (like the missing power-suits) and special effects, was simply dropped. And what that bought them was a very mediocre movie. Unfortunately, this is also a rather mediocre behind-the-scenes book.