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When Rico jumps on to the back of the tanker alien and starts shooting at its back, you can see the outline on the back of the tanker that is going to be shot up before Rico starts shooting. See more...

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In the scene where the infantry first descend on Klandathu, the shot of all the small ships flying down amongst blue bolts of plasma is almost identical to the opening sequence of Quake 2. See more...

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Starship Troopers (1997) - 37 corrections

Directed by Paul Verhoeven, starring Casper Van Dien, Denise Richards, Dina Meyer, Jake Busey, Michael Ironside (add more)

Genres: Action, Adventure, Sci-fi, Thriller

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click "edit" under an entry, then choose "correct entry". You can also submit corrections for corrections, if you think a mistake has been unfairly removed.

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Rico is riding on the back of the acid bug, when he blows a hole in the back of it and drops a grenade he is thrown off. As soon as he hits the ground he ducks behind a dead bug that is maybe 3 feet away from him. The camera shows him getting thrown off at a wide angle and that bug wasn't there previously. [Just watched the widescreen version. When Rico lands, you can see the bug to his front left as he lands.]
Edit Corrected by LorgSkyegon
The Federation is in conflict with the Bugs and mention is made early on that they throw asteroids our way. Yet, an asteroid manages to "sneak up" on Buenos Aires. One would think that they would be on the look out for such things. We have even see them destroy one. Yet, B.A. gets zero warning. An asteroid could sneak through if it were accelerated to near light speed. But in that case an asteroid equivalent to the mass of the asteroids we are shown would pretty much vaporize the Earth. (E-MC2). [It's possible that the Bugs either got lucky or refined their targeting and managed to get an asteroid in close, or it's possible that the military let one through as a white flag operation to incite people (like Rico) to join the military.]
Edit Corrected by Sanguis
Repeatedly in the movie we are shown media broadcasts which spare nothing in showing mangled and mutilated bodies. Media reports from the battlefield show Bugs dismembering humans and biting them in two. However, when the Bug is feed a cow, it is censored. Likewise, the experiments on the Brain Bug are censored. [The mutilated bodies would be shown in order to encourage more people to join the military and thus the war. The cow being censored may be due to groups like PETA still existing (we're an odd bunch us humans) and the Brain Bug may have been censored as classified rather than for any violence reason. Remember this is a Fascist Military producing propaganda not a free media reporting facts.]
Edit Corrected by Sanguis
At times during the movie, the "bugs" are referred to as Arachnids. Arachnids are not bugs. And none of the bugs particularly look like arachnids. [It's meant as slur against the enemy, it doesn't have to be taxonomically correct.]
Edit Corrected by Sanguis
In the English DVD subtitles, when Rico meets Xander and Carmen on the ship, Xander's line "copacetic" is misspelled "coposetic". [Copasetic has no defined spelling, but was originally and is most commonly spelled "copasetic".]
Edit Time
When Private Ace Levy gets the knife thrown through his hand, look at the angle of it. The knife's at a slight angle, but when he pulls his hand away the hole left in the wall is perfectly vertical. [There's no visible hole in the wall; only blood.]
Edit Corrected by Knever Time
In the punishment scene, Zim puts the coiled piece of leather into Rico's mouth - the leather looks like a backwards '9'. The angle switches to the reverse view and the lather is reversed - it should have the cross section like a '9' but it is still backwards. [There was enough time in between the shots for him to adjust it in his mouth.]
Edit Corrected by Knever Time
After they attempt to rescue the reporter during the first battle, Rico shouts to the others to go. Watch behind Rico. Apparently, the stuntman in the background is supposed to react as if he got impaled by a Warrior Bug. The Special Effects Department must have decided not to add the Warrior Bug after all. [After closely watching the scene, the soldier simply trips and falls to the ground. He doesn't act at all like he's being attacked.]
Edit Corrected by Knever Time
When the ship Carmen is on is hit and breaks in two, how come she and everyone else didn't immediately die from massive de-pressurisation? The air locks simply could not have kicked in in time. [Depressurization doesn't happen instantly. It takes time for the air to be evacuated from the exposed areas and the farther away from the section where the Rodger Young breaks apart, (remember that it is a BIG ship), the longer that section would have air. Also, the farther away from the damaged area the better the chance that the airlocks will come down in time to preserve some atmosphere.]
Edit Corrected by Guy
In the scene were everyone is running to gather around the captured brain bug one of the troopers left side pack (all the troopers have this pack attached to their left side) falls off - the trooper/extra doesn't notice it but another trooper/extra sees the pack and picks it up while running. All this takes place near the bottom left of your screen. [How could that possibly be considered trivia?]
Edit Corrected by jhoffman100@yahoo.com Time
When making the drop onto Klendathu (Chapter 13), the drop ships being released from the Roger Young have their thrusters pointed DOWN, towards the bottom of the screen-When orbiting a planet in space, if you release something it simply stays with you, it will NOT fall. To separate from the Roger Young to begin the decent to Klendathu, the drop ships need to have their thrusters pointed to the upper left of the screen to SLOW the drop ships down and to push them AWAY from the Roger Young. The drop ships need to slow down, so they can decrease their orbital velocity which allow them to fall towards Klendathu. [The ships are in Klendathus' gravity well, which will pull the drop ships towards the planet.]
Edit Time
The sheet of paper that Johnny's comrades press against the water tank says that "Johnny Rico" was killed in action. An official federal document would supposedly not have a nickname like "Johnny" on it. [Rico's first name IS Johnny. It is what his parents chose to name him at birth, and so, it shows up like that on all records of him.]
Edit Corrected by Twotall
The large spaceships in this movie have warp capability but have no shields? This is entirely half witted as they would fly hundreds maybe thousands of light years to go fight yet not have any defense against even the most basic of weapons, like the artillery of the tanker bugs. I would think shields would be a number one priority up there with warp capability, as at those speeds the tiniest object would be a) unavoidable, and b) would seriously damage the ship. Secondly, why no weapons to fire on ground targets? The ships did have guns but nothing to take out something like a tanker bug. One would think that with ships that big you would want to take every opportunity to put any and every battle in your favor. [It's established that the Federation is the only human power of any consequence. Therefore, any military action would likely be against rebels with little but small arms, which the infantry could deal with. They had no real need to create battleships, since simple transports would suffice. They had no idea that the Arachnids could defend themselves from space (or the ground, for that matter) so well.]
Edit
If the Federation is so high-tech that they have mastered interstellar travel, then why don't they just destroy every single planet with a really big nuclear bomb? They could make about 200 for minimal cost and destroy pretty much every planet on the other side of the solar system - problem solved. It wouldn't cost lives, and I find it hard to believe that making a few missiles is going to be more expensive than massive starships, ammunition for the troopers and paying for all the logistical support e.g. food. [Where to start? Destroying entire planets would cause collateral damage (the loss of innocents, non-military targets) Destroying entire planets would disrupt gravitational fields. Destroying entire planets could not be done with surface nukes. The bombs would have to deep, deep underground. ]
Edit
Just before Carmen and Xander escape from the Rodger Young, some poor officers get blown into space. While they are escaping, Carmen hits one of the officers with the escape pod. It's absolute zero out in space (-273 C/-459 F), so the victims would have been instantly frozen, shouldn't the officer have been shattered into pieces? [It is NOT absolute zero in space. In fact, if they were close enough to a heat source their bodies would be fried, not frozen.]
Edit
The last thing Rico's parents say before the meteor strikes is, "Looks like rain," as the sky outside gets darker. As a large meteor (large enough to destroy a major city) makes it's appearance in the atmosphere, there would be a flash of light brighter than the sun. Several minutes later a dark dust cloud would rise, but by then everyone in the vicinity would be killed. [Is it not possible that a meteor on the right trajectory could block out the sun before entering the atmosphere and therefore cause the sky to darken.]
Edit
How do the "bugs" manage to invade the Earth? Supposedly they hurl meteors through space that land on Earth and cause massive destruction. But the bugs, even though they are huge and intelligent, have no technology. How could they harness the meteor, let alone make sure that it travelled through space accurately enough to hit the Earth? [There's no way of knowing if the bugs aimed the meteor at Earth, or even if the asteroid came from the bugs at all (and the federation just using it as an excuse to attack the bugs). And it is mentioned earlier in the film that the bugs send their spores through space on asteroids to create new hives. It could very well have been a completely random seeding asteroid that just happened to hit Earth, that was probably laucnhed hundreds of years before the Terran attack.]
Edit Corrected by Gary O'Reilly
Why the heck would a military force that can cross the galaxy rely on infantry soldiers with projectile weapons? Even in the 21st century, we have tanks that could have mopped up all of those bugs, not to mention a myriad of unmanned weapons that could keep grunts out of harm's way. [First, the bugs were extremely underestimated and thought of as completely stupid creatures. Second, later in the film the bugs do get cleared by air support while the infantry "mops up." But possibly the most influential reason is money. It could just simply cost much less to produce the weapons and armor used by the soldiers than to spend fortunes on research and development of newer products, especially if there was never a problem with the weaponry until the conflict with the bugs (and you cannot forget the millions, if not billions of soldiers ready to risk their lives for the mobile infantry). At the end of the film research on new weapons has occurred and has been released for the soldiers to use.]
Edit Time
In the scene when the asteroid hits Buenos Aires, the news shows footage of people in burning debris who are helped up. This can't be Buenos Aires, because an asteroid that's big enough to destroy a city would blow everything away in a ring of several kilometers. After the explosion all air in an ever bigger ring would be sucked to the center of the explosion, causing a vacuum and thereby killing all the people. There should be no survivors and fires. [Maybe the footage was of the outskirts of the city, where the damage may have been less severe, and there may have been some survivors. Buenos Aires is a very large city.]
Edit Time
When the bugs are attacking the outpost on Planet P, Diz is occupied for the majority of the fight with the task of calling in support. When the rescue ship is on route, she is one of the last to join in the firefight, but reports being totally out of ammo after depleting her first clip. Even Johnny has a spare to give her which negates the possibility of more time passing than is seen, either she only brought a single clip or totally forgot about those around her belt. [If she knew she was going to be on the radio and away from the fight, she may have given most of her ammo to other soldiers, who would need it more.]
Edit Time

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