But none of this really matters much. Whereas Aliens also gave us a military scenario, it fought all of its battles in a world of shadows and ink-black darkness. Starship Troopers fights its battles in bright sunlight. The soldiers don't even require space suits, just good shoulder pads, helmets, and machine guns. The bugs are bad and the people are good.
Nothing gets much more complicated than that.
While Verhoeven never gives us much reason to care about the paper-thin characters, he gives plenty of reasons to care about the action. It's hard to sit still and watch as the bugs mount their massive attacks as seemingly never-ending scores of bugs claw into view. They're even capable of outwitting the military. I wish the moviemakers had explored this angle more and given us a situation where the morality of exterminating the bugs might be brought into question, but Starship Troopers remains painfully simple-minded.