Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation (2004)

Movie Info

Giant “Bug” Zapper

Federation troopers find themselves trapped on a planet overrun by Arachnids.  Retreating to a Hotel Delta 1-8-5, the troops find Captain V.J. Dax (Richard Burgi) locked up for killing his commanding officer.  With Bugs surrounding the structure, the troopers must survive until relief can come.  When an injured officer (Kelly Carlson) is brought in to the compound, she brings something else with her.  The Bugs have a new strategy and they are working from within…literally.  Pvt. Lei Sahara (Colleen Porch) finds she might have to rely on Dax for survival, and Dax might be the hero he never expected to be.

Open wide!

Directed by Phil Tippett, Starship Troopers 2:  Hero of the Federation is a straight-to-DVD sequel to the 1997 sci-fi adaptation of Robert A. Heinlein’s story.  The movie was largely panned by critics and fans of the first film.

Starship Troopers 2:  Hero of the Federation was a bit of surprise.  The surprise was that a movie that did so well like Starship Troopers waited so long to have a sequel and that it was so poor.  With a big box office showing, I can’t imagine why more effort wasn’t put into Starship Troopers…which honestly could have been a better film than the original film if it had been worked on (and a theatrical release).

I will slay the Kraken!

The movie went for a bit of a Night of the Living Dead storyline combined with Alien.  The troopers get stranded with the invading bugs taking over the soldiers within the compound.  The problem is that the movie shouldn’t be a zombie movie which is what it turned out.  The fun of the first movie was the tongue-and-cheek commentary on the war and the big all-out battles with the Bugs.  The movie lost the humor and lost the only interesting thing in the process.

The cast is also a downgrade.  Originally the film intended to bring back Clancy Brown who became a hero in the first movie as Sgt. Zim.  Unfortunately Clancy was involved with HBO’s Carnivàle and was replaced by Richard Burgi as a “new” character named Dax which was just a re-written character.  Billy Brown plays Ottis Brick and Kelly Carlson plays the infected Charlie Soda.  Character actor Ed Lauter does a nice job as General Jack Gordon Shepherd, and I have to admit Pvt. Kipper Tor played by Drew Powell was a college acquaintance (I won’t hold it against him however).

Shiny Happy Heroes

The visuals for the movie actually aren’t too bad.  The movie had a much lower budget but still managed to have decent effects for what it was.  A switch to zombie soldiers was a smart move to the budget cuts since it limited the number of computer animated bugs needed for the film.

Starship Troopers 2:  Hero of the Federation is a bad sci-fi movie because it forgot the movie was a sequel.  By losing the spirit and tone of the first film, the movie didn’t really didn’t do anything new or inventive and wastes the time of fans of the first film by turning it into a simple horror movie.  Starship Troopers 2:  Hero of the Federation is followed by Starship Trooper 3:  Marauder in 2008.

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Related Links:

Starship Troopers (1997)

Starship Troopers 3:  Marauder (2008)