Starship Trooper's Style and Approach

People analyse this film very 1-dimensionally.  ST plays both the action scifi blockbuster trope straight and embraces the satire.  It does a similar thing with its theme, both accepting and indeed romanticizing the virtues of a regimented, individually accountable society (fascist is an overused term these days) while being fully critical of the destructive aspects of that ideology, and lamenting that you have to trade some virtues for expediency - a character of humanity and reality itself that we struggle with every day.  

Paul V could have made the film a gritty sci fi and less people would have watched it, or made it an on-the-nose philosophical diatribe (or far more subtle a satire) and more people would have been put off or missed the point respectively.  As it turns out, he did the best that he could do with the situation.  It is indicative of his other work and how he approaches themes in his films.  He finds a way to keep his films relevant.  He does this by avoiding making them a one sided, polemic or blunt statement of his views while retaining forceful punch.  They are multilayered - or if you prefer, they have an almost ambivalent quality, showing the internal struggle a person has in figuring out what is right and wrong.  This struggle is indicative of difficult and broad-reaching concepts that don't fit neatly into black and white, right and wrong categories. 

Its funny because ST follows the exact same tune as his other masterpiece Robocop, and that film is in most cases exulted.  Robocop is a grittier film but not completely so, with some campy moments, and it has an underlying serious message on top of its subversive satire.  Its also has a schizophrenic attitude to its subject matter and themes just as ST has.  Robocop is both the hero of the film, and a product of the antagonist (OCP rather than any one individual).  He is also portrayed as being more capable than his fellow officers, yet at the cost of his individualism (hint hint, just like the population & gov't in ST).  And Robocop both cleans up the streets of crime yet is the product of corporate corruption (ie crime) and OCP engineered a situation where officers like Murphy are likely to get killed for the experiment to be possible.  It can be inferred in the story that one reason for the crime and decay in Detroit, is because of the actions of corporations like OCP.  This is in line with the film's anti-capitalist/consumerist message, while at the same time the protagonist is the zenith of the technological output of that world!

ST is very much a case of both admiring the strengths of a group and group behavior and lamenting its shortcomings.  Its not a black and white satirical message.  We see the virtues of individualism, while being shown that some potency is lost in that exchange.  Indeed the arch (pun) enemy of the humans is precisely a society that is even more hive-mind that the portrayed human gov't.  This is not a coincidence.  And Sky Marshall Tehat Maru states "we must understand the bug." - this is an enemy that must be respected, even if simply on the grounds of their great capacity to wage war.  This, of course, goes back to the classroom scene where Michael Ironside tells us of the capability of violence to "end" a debate on whom is more virtuous.  

The school teacher/scientist in the first act even says this herself - she gleefully carves up the bugs while at the same time respecting them as enemies and their accomplishments.  This is very much a feeling borne out of the military ethos - the more that you have to fight a difficult enemy the more you hate AND respect them.  This works both ways - for the bug's civilization and the human gov't.  Feel free to "blah, blah" about how bad fascism/collectivism is at this point, while missing the point that both societies are made stronger in their will to fight and survive due to their structure/ideology.  (And that the gov't portrayed in ST is in fact, a democracy!)  Michael Ironside stated that violence, while disgusting (he should know, he is missing a damn arm), is an absolute arbitrator.  Like the people in Nagasaki, the dead in a war are unequivocally the losers.  They are not the ones left standing afterwards, with the luxury of being able to ponder whether or not their actions were morally "correct".  

So; is ST (or Robocop) supporting or satirizing fascism / collectivism and warfare?  Neither.  Just like the uniforms of the human military, the film's morals and story is an intriguing yet opaque grey canvass.