Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Robert Heinlen’s Starship Troopers and Paul Verhoeven’s film are two very different creatures…or so I’ve heard. I only saw the movie recently at a Rifftrax Live event and I’ve never read the book. I’ve seen reviews of two sequel movies and a video game and they didn’t live up to either the book or first movie. There were also two TV series based on the franchise, one an anime in Japan (where animes tend to come from) and the subject of tonight’s showcase, Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles, a computer animated series originally airing as part of the syndicated BKN (Bohbot Kids Network) programming block.
Roughnecks follows the same squad but with some big differences from other material. The point-of-view character is Higgins, an embedded reporter who seems to be narrating his journal or memoirs or something. Verhoeven was the executive producer but the tone is more serious, as the show was meant for somewhat older kids (the violence was toned down but didn’t shy away from death) but is a more serous war story, rather than Heinlen’s political commentary or Verhoeven’s more action-based story.
