The “incredibly phony” 1997 sci-fi movie John Carpenter loved anyway: “It’s so outrageous”
Looking back, 1997 might have been one of the most quietly great years in the history of sci-fi cinema, although one of the most memorable movies to release that year left John Carpenter caught in two minds.
Of course, he’s no slouch when it comes to the genre, dating all the way back to his 1974 feature-length debut, Dark Star. While he eventually settled into his groove as one of horror’s leading lights and most influential figures, Carpenter’s love of science fiction was never allowed to slip into the background.
After all, he cited Forbidden Planet as the one movie that convinced him his future lay in filmmaking, and as the first-ever feature to use a fully electronic score, it was also directly responsible for the signature, synthesised sound that soundtracked much of his work, and inspired generations to come.
No matter your personal taste or preference, there’s a high chance that ’97’s sci-fi slate had something to offer. If you wanted a blockbuster sheen, there was Men in Black and Face/Off. If you preferred something altogether stranger, there was The Fifth Element. If you wanted thought-provoking existentialism, there was Gattaca and Contact.
Mimic, Event Horizon, and Cube ticked the horror-adjacent boxes, Alejandro Amenábar’s Open Your Eyes provided psychological thrills, and if, for whatever reason, lesser sequels to all-time classics were more your thing, Alien: Resurrection and The Lost World: Jurassic Park had you covered. All in all, it was an annum to remember.
If your tastes were much more niche, and the one thing you craved from your ’97 sci-fi flicks was a scathing takedown of the military-industrial complex, militarism, and xenophobia that went over too many people’s heads at the time, disguised as a $100 million blockbuster armed with cutting-edge visual effects, then, funnily enough, Paul Verhoeven was there to provide it.
Several years after his severely misunderstood space opera landed with a thud in cinemas, Carpenter pinpointed Starship Troopers as one of the most important movies of the pre-2000 CGI revolution. Clearly, he had a soft spot for Verhoeven’s cult classic, even if his praise wasn’t quite unanimous.
“An example of a movie that I have some problems with, but that I dearly love because it’s so outrageous, is Starship Troopers,” he explained. “When those bugs attack? Come on, now. That’s what it’s made for, something like that. It’s amazing. You couldn’t do that any other way and have that same effect on the audience. It’s incredibly smooth, but it’s also incredibly phony.”
He’s right; as impressive as the visual effects may have been at the time, advances in technology meant that the CGI became rapidly dated. It’s never 100% convincing, but it’s not really supposed to be, with Verhoeven’s tongue-in-cheek takedown of colonialism, politics, and propaganda holding up as one of the most unfairly overlooked sci-fi films of its time, even if it’s finally started getting its much-deserved flowers.
