Starship Troopers

Continuity mistake: Toward the end, Carmen Ibanez gets stabbed through the shoulder when she is brought before the big master alien thing. If you were to sustain such an injury, there would be so much swelling, not to mention just destroyed tissue, that you wouldn't be able to move that arm for weeks. Yet a few minutes later, she is seen hefting around a very large assault rifle, and seems to have no difficulty. I guess it's a pretty standard action movie "heroes can temporarily ignore injury in order to save the day" kind of oversight, but it just seems exaggerated in this case, considering how severe the shoulder trauma looked. (01:48:15 - 01:53:40)

Starship Troopers mistake picture

Revealing mistake: When they are learning how to throw knives, the guy gets one thrown through his hand. If you watch this carefully, blood starts coming out of his hand before the knife hits. (00:28:45)

Continuity mistake: In the first battle with the Roughnecks, Rico, Diz, Ace, and the other guy are confronted by a bug and they shoot at it. If you look at where they are aiming they are shooting above it, but the bullets hit it in the middle. (01:14:20)

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Trivia: The view that people acquired citizenship and the right to vote through military service reflected the views of "Starship Troopers" author Robert Heinlein. His views were influenced by his years in military service during World War II, and what he saw as the supposed "laziness" of civilians.

megamii

Trivia: In Heinlein's novel, the Mobile Infantry - true to its designation - used suits of powered armor, which have no appearance in the movie. However, this idea inspired the concept of personal high-tech armor in SF, such as Marvel Comics' Iron Man.

Trivia: 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.

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Ace Levy: Don't worry, you still got me to kick around.

Jean Rasczak: Come on you apes! You want to live forever?

Ace Levy: Everybody could use a friend like me.

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Question: What's going on with Rico and Carl in the card guessing scene? I originally thought Rico was trying to guess the value of the unturned card was but then he says it's the ace of spades and it turns out to be exactly that yet he still gets it wrong. Could someone please explain what's happening there?

Answer: The card face up is the one he's trying to guess. The card that flips over is his guess (you can see him hit a pad when he says "ace of spades".) So he is trying to use mental powers to guess the card that is face up (which he can't see as he has his back to it), and (presumably so the computer can track his results better) he makes his choice on a keypad, which then turns over the card on the screen (which is why the card is what he said, yet still wrong).

Gary O'Reilly

Question: Is there any reason the humans can't simply use nukes, chemical weapons, fuel-air bombs, or bioweapons,, any kind of especially powerful, destructive bomb, shot from long distance, dropped from a plane, or better still, orbit, to fight the bugs? Yes, of course there are big downsides to any such action, but this does not strike me as a society restrained, patient, enlightened or with sufficient foresight to care about those.

dizzyd

Chosen answer: They do use nukes (to clear out bug caves) and fuel-air bombs (like they do before landing troops). It's possible biological and chemical weapons don't work on the bugs because of their physiology. Only nukes and Thermobaric weapons work.

lionhead

Answer: Nukes, chemical, and bio weapons would render the planets uninhabitable. Not a goal when they want to colonize.

MasterOfAll

I have already stated these people are not that far-thinking.

dizzyd

Question: In the scene where the infantry is retreating from the first attack on the arachnid planet (the night attack) we see that Rico has been seriously wounded to his leg and cannot even stand up. He was all alone and then we see him kill the first attacking bug with a shotgun mode of the rifle, but when the second bug attacks it seems that he didn't kill the bug and it killed Rico (he screams a lot). Later on, he is in a liquid tank, and his leg is being healed. My questions are these: Who saved him ? How did someone saved him when he died, or even if he didn't die who bothered returning for him when no one was sure if he's dead or just missing in the squad being somewhere else? How come he was in a healing tank while the military filed him as "DEAD" ?

Answer: When Rico, Diz and Ace report to the Roughnecks, they find out that Lt. Rasczak saved him. He was listed as dead, because Carmen checked just hours after the battle. With the MI's huge personnel losses, all the dead and wounded hadn't been confirmed yet. He was listed as dead because he didn't return with his unit.

Grumpy Scot

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