In the early concept art, the Invasion version of capsule was originally going to have three layers. Like the 1988 anime, the enemies do come to Earth and stand on.

Extreme splattery gore in the monster battles, with humans sliced to pieces by insect claws and mandibles, crushed by machinery, melted by creature acid, and, by the finale, getting their brains sucked out. 'Arachnids' are dissected and shot to pieces too. Human-on-human violence includes bones broken in brutal cadet-training lessons and fistfights. A character is shot in the head. Citizens of earth cheats.

The hero is literally whipped bloody in a disciplinary action. Real insects (giant cockroaches) are smashed, in a satire of human revenge-lust.

Parents need to know that this combat-themed sci-fi flick uses hideously violent human-alien warfare, with people gorily impaled, scissored apart, slashed, whipped, crushed, and shot (there are 'friendly fire' and mercy-killing casualties). One topless sex scene and a topless coed shower scene.

Swearing is amusingly PG-level mild, given the ferocious mayhem. The heroine has a vomiting fit and beer is guzzled. The surface glorification of military life and culture here is satire; Earth's 'good guy' Federation resembles a fascist state with Nazi-inspired regalia and public executions. Robert Heinlein's densely philosophical 1959 novel Starship Troopers, based on the author's own thoughts serving in WWII, blitzed the big screen in this epic science-fiction action. A future Earth's space-colonizing triggers fights with 'arachnids,' vicious, giant alien bugs whose warfare techniques include bio-generated energy blasts and asteroids hurled by manipulation of gravity.

School football hero Johnny Rico (Casper Van Dien) defies his wealthy family to follow girlfriend Carmen into the Federal Service, a bug-fighting space military. But ambitious star-pilot Carmen breaks up with Johnny in a humiliating video email, and a fellow cadet gets killed in a training accident on Johnny's watch.

Johnny's decision to quit the 'Mobile Infantry' changes when arachnids directly attack Earth, flattening his city (and family) with an asteroid. Johnny, Carmen, and others join a dangerous Mobile Infantry assault on the bugs' home planet. Older teens (whose parents aren't irked by the major gore and minor sex) are likely to enjoy this thrill-ride. By the time STARSHIP TROOPERS premiered, so many popcorn had blazed across screens it seemed this was just another, with a literary basis and expectedly sensational f/x that raised the bar on crafts, creatures, and explosions. But the pace never slackens, and the actors grit their teeth in the fine fashion of stirring old John Wayne wartime propaganda flicks (the Duke never had so much CGI to work with). It's certainly not for everyone, but it has become something of a cult classic, and older teens may be interested.

Chapter 1 SummaryStarship Troopers tells the story of Juan Rico, a well-to-do youngster who joins the elite Mobile Army at the outbreak of the “Bug War”. He survives boot camp, rises rapidly through the enlisted ranks through heavy attrition, is culled off for Officer Training School, and survives his first experience as a platoon commander. Rico goes on to become a confident commander, passing to younger officers the wisdom he has absorbed from many mentors.In his first drop from the Rodger Young as an assistant section leader in the Mobile Infantry (“MI”), Juan (“Johnny”) Rico, has “the shakes.” Acting Platoon Sergeant, Jelal, inspects the troops closely, ordering one man with a cold to fall out, leaving a hole in Rico’s Section 2. Slope unblocked.

Addressing his men as “apes,” Jelal laments the poor quality of recruits, invokes the memory of his popular predecessor, Lt. Rasczak, killed.This section contains 768 words(approx. 2 pages at 400 words per page).