Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation

• Directed by Phil Tippett
• April 24, 2004
• Encore Action

A group of Mobile Infantry take refuge in an abandoned outpost after fighting arachnids, failing to understand greater danger awaits.

I heard about this at about the sane time I learned of the first two animated Starship Troopers films. Eventually I will get to those. Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation is a direct-to-video sequel with a cut rate budget and limited production values to a major film release with a significantly larger budget. That usually is a recipe for complete disaster but not so much here. I can’t call this a cinematic masterpiece, but it is a good film with more substance than one would expect.

What this has going against it is that none of the original cast returns nor are their characters portrayed by new actors. Wait. That is not entirely true. Brenda Strong, who portrayed Captain Deladier in the first film, shows up as Sergeant Dede Rake in this. No indication of them being related. Admittedly she was not a main character in Troopers, but it is one of those things you cannot miss.

However this was written by Edward Neumeier who wrote the first film and directed by Phil Tippett who worked on the creature effects of the original. When I first viewed this I had no idea what that might exactly mean for the overall quality so that was a big question.

Like Starship Troopers, on the surface Hero of the Federation looks like a less substantive movie than it truly is. Not that it is some unknown gem, but it deals with themes of heroism, duty, and media manipulation. It is much less xenophobic than the last one though it does dive headfirst into killing the enemy.

In comparison to its predecessor, this is much more of a horror film than an action-adventure science-fiction war movie. The story is about a new type of bug that can take over people and a bug plot to deploy that insect to the hierarchy of the Mobile Infantry Command. It attempts to use paranoia and the occasional element of body horror to unsettle the viewer. With the use of this new bug and the body horror it can play much more like a less sophisticated version of John Carpenter’s The Thing. How? Blatant extended nudity for reasons.

It also makes the arachnids the villains of the war in comparison to before. Previously humans were the ones who started the conflict and you could even extrapolate from that the bugs were simply defending themselves and not necessarily a threat that needed to be destroyed. Here Phil Tippett and pals invert that and make the bugs the true baddies of the Starship Troopers’ universe with a few lines of dialogue.

If there is any lesson in this it’s that heroes of war may not necessarily be heroic for the reasons put forth by the government. The hero referenced in the title is Captain V.J. Dax (Richard Burgi) who killed his superior after some really bad orders. Considering the bug plot it sounds like that was a dry run for the control bug, but they never really point in that direction. Dax is a cynic and disillusioned with his government and with the war he’s fighting. But it’s his actions and his staying true to his character that gets this important information about the new type of bug to the world at large. Yet in popular culture, he is portrayed nothing like he actually was. He is portrayed as a very patriotic man who sacrificed his life for his nation when in reality, he sacrificed his life to save more lives with patriotism not being a thought.

This certainly looks like it was a TV movie. Any of the more polished looking elements presented are nothing more than footage from the original. The costumes are the generic infantry uniforms and I dare say the character of General Jack Shepherd (Ed Lauter) does not even wear the glorified jogging suit Marshal Bell wore as his character.

The direction is adequate for what it is and the story has something to say like the previous film. It just falls short in resources and by making this much more a horror film than a science fiction war film. And maybe that is the biggest strike-being too different. Different is good. Too different can be bad.

Perhaps not the greatest of sequels and one that upends some of the more intriguing elements of its predecessor, Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation is a better-than-it-should’ve-been film. It touches on some interesting things and what it lacks in action it more than makes up for in other areas. If you like the first Starship Troopers film or are simply looking for an interesting bit of science-fiction, then check this out. You will enjoy it.