DATE: Thursday, November 6, 1997            TAG: 9711060057

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  122 lines

BUG BLITZ COMPUTER-GENERATED INSECTS GO TO WAR WITH EARTHLINGS IN THE MOVIE ``STARSHIP TROOPERS''

IT'S EITHER THEM or us - and no mere can of Raid will help.

Director Paul Verhoeven, creator of the infamous ``Showgirls'' last time out, has spent more than $100 million to chronicle an all-out battle between the planet Earth and a horde of bugs from outer space. He's counting heavily upon humans' basic fear of insects. After all, we are outnumbered by billions, even though they are small.

``Starship Troopers'' takes special effects to a new level - particularly the field of computer-generated images.

``This movie couldn't have been done even a few years ago,'' the Netherlands-born director said, sighing with relief to finally, after four years, be through with the bug war. ``We simply didn't have the facilities to stage a war on this scope before now.''

Verhoeven, who claims his movie is aimed directly at the ``popcorn crowd,'' has been previously known for movies dealing graphically with sex and violence. In spite of the fact that Starship Trooper toys are on sale to tots, the movie itself is rated R, primarily due to a co-ed shower scene he refused to cut. The studio, understandably, wanted a PG-13 rating, with an eye toward the millions of adolescent boys who are going to want to see this movie.

``Soft-toy movies that are cute are not my style,'' Verhoeven said. ``There are enough of those movies around. War IS violence. I like to show reality.''

But it isn't the decapitations or torn limbs that are likely to upset would-be censors. It's the co-ed shower scene. ``I wanted to make a film in which women are equal in power. The troopers of both sexes live together and go into battle together. The shower scene was needed to show that they are casual in the way they relate to each other.''

But even the cast wasn't so sure. Actress Dina Meyer, who plays the athletic Dizzy Flores in the film, challenged the director. He laughs, saying, ``Dina told me that if the rest of the cast was going to appear naked, I could very well do it also or not ask them to do it. I pulled off my clothes. I was ready to do whatever was necessary to get this movie made.''

Casper Van Dien, the blond, square-jawed hunk who plays trooper Johnny Rico, denies that he was ever hostile about ``the scene.'' Van Dien, who went through 12 days of boot camp in the Colorado Rockies to prepare for the role, said: ``No, that story is false. I just said, `Let's shoot the scene.' This is too important a film for me not to give 100 percent.''

Based on the classic novel by sci-fi writer Robert Heinlein, ``Starship Troopers'' is not centered on mere humans. The stars are thousands of varied bugs that initially destroy Buenos Aires before Earth's troopers sally forth to take them on at varied planets. The most awesome scene depicts thousands of grasshopper-like things (only with more lethal, stabbing, legs) who attack the good guys on Planet P. It's straight out of a classic western.

Verhoeven says he also looked at ``The Charge of the Light Brigade.'' But, most of all, he looked at World War II movies.

``I wanted the epic look of WWII air battles,'' he said. He looked at ``Air Force'' and, for its style, ``The Guns of Navarone.''

Earth, in this distant-future setting is a military world that is fascist in nature and look. The intelligence officer, played by none other than TV's former Doogie Howser (Neil Patrick Harris) may have a baby face, but he has the uniform and look of a Nazi SS officer.

``I don't think anyone will see this militaristic society as something that is being praised,'' the director said. ``It's a result of need. This is all-out war. Survival is at issue.''

Verhoeven is a veteran of sci-fi. He made ``RoboCop'' and ``Total Recall'' with Arnold Schwarzenegger - both huge hits. He has called the latter ``a study of psychosis that dramatizes the Bible's prophesy that everything will be revealed.'' He refuses, though, to give lofty social import to ``Starship Troopers.''

``It's a movie about high school students fighting giant bugs,'' he said.

Phil Tippett, who is responsible for the digital effects, said what makes it new and different is ``the scale and the scope.'' He explains, ``It's epic in quality. In the past, you could only have quick glimpses of the monsters, creatures or whatever. The problem was that those beings couldn't be made to move fast and gracefully. Now, we can do that. We can get a good, long, look at the creatures.''

Verhoeven read ``Starship Troopers'' when he was a boy and always wished that the technology existed to make it into a movie. After two years of working on the ``Starship Troopers'' script, the studio demanded a demonstration to see if the bugs could really be created. A short film, consisting of a soldier fighting for his life against two alien bugs, was made. The studio investors were convinced.

Computers had been used before, notably to create a crowd of thousands on the Washington Mall in ``Forrest Gump.'' Tippet is aware that there is some fear in Hollywood that the computer might take over production. There is a worry that real sets, and even actors, may eventually become obsolete.

``The movie proves that computers can be used to give a performance, not to just re-create,'' he said.

Verhoeven says that there were actually two movies. ``Phil made the enemies movie - creating the insects. And I made the heroes' movie. The two movies had to become one. We had almost 2,000 people working on varying phases of the movie and we had to be sure they were all working on the same movie. I had to be very precise every time an actor moved. The effects, which went in last, couldn't be changed to match the humans. It was the humans who had to be in the right place. Humans are much cheaper than the effects.''

Verhoven went for young actors rather than name stars. ``I wanted people who looked young enough that they could believably be just out of high school,'' he said.

Van Dien, 28, who almost had his back broken while filming a scene in when he battles a non-computerized creature, said. ``There was a problem in acting to things that weren't there. Paul didn't show us too much. We just were told to react.''

Patrick Muldoon, a veteran of TV's ``Melrose Place,'' had his brain sucked out for one fatal encounter. In order to do the scene, and not use his real head, he had to have three clay models of his noggin created, requiring hours of modeling.

Verhoeven is still reeling over the fate that``Showgirls'' met with both the critics and the public. Condemned by critics, it was largely ignored at the box office. ``I still think it was an elegant film, full of top production values,'' he said. ``I went through a purifying process, not a grieving process. I think our problem was that we didn't have any sympathetic characters in `Showgirls.' There was no one who was likable.

``I think puritanism, which is increasing in this country, had something to do with its rejection. The more power Christian fundamentalists have in censoring entertainment, the less freedom individuals are going to have.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

Columbia/Tri-Star pictures

Photo

COLUMBIA/TRISTAR

A swarm of insects from space confronts beleaguered Earth troopers.

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