The Different Types Of Sci-Fi Bugs In Starship Troopers, Explained

Paul Verhoeven's 1997 sci-fi war film "Starship Troopers," based on the 1959 novel by Robert A. Heinlein, is a vicious satire that lampoons the aggressive, unthinking language used to bolster unjust, fascistic wars. The main characters are all young, attractive, empty-headed grunts inducted into a meaningless 24th-century intergalactic war with a distant species of giant intelligent arachnids. 

The most notable feature of Verhoeven's film, however, is the propaganda videos that periodically fill the screen. Clear-voiced, boldly preachy short films announce to the audience that the war needs to be fought and that the government needs as many able-bodied youths as it can wrangle to feed them into the soul-hollowing combat machine. "The only good bug is a dead bug," people growl. Anti-bug sentiment is high. 

Also, the film is a comedy. Screenwriter Edward Neumeier ("RoboCop") strikes a broadly cynical tone, playfully dissecting the American war machine and the politicians who spoke of war as a grand, noble endeavor. The satire, sadly, didn't strike hard during the Bill Clinton administration — a time when no major wars were raging — so it took several years for audiences to latch onto the film's themes. It might have been received better five years later. 

The bugs were meant to represent a fascist's view of any and all perceived enemies. Fascist leaders love to refer to their foes as vermin, dehumanizing them enough for their armies to seek extermination. The Klendathu Arachnids, however, capably defend themselves, seeing as they are armed with organic space projectiles, armored plating, and massive claws. 

In 2020, American Cinematographer Magazine talked to Craig Hayes and Phil Tippett, the designers of the "Starship Troopers" bugs, and he handily pointed out that there were seven distinct types of Arachnids in the movie, and they spoke briefly about the designs for each one.

During the first major bug battle in "Starship Troopers," the human soldiers face off against massive stinkbug-looking creatures who can excrete explosive meteors from their Malpighian tubule systems. The meteors can knock starships out of orbit, and even soar through space all the way to Earth. That's some good aim. Hayes described them thus:

"The Plasma bugs are bulbous and greenish-blue colored with yellow stripes on their thoraxes. They're 85 feet tall and based on a cross between stinkbugs and fireflies. Since their butts are transparent, you can see some kind of reaction happening inside. There are only three shots of the Plasma bugs, which are seen in the Klendathu battle sequence: they move into position, take aim like pieces of artillery, and then fire."

The Plasma bugs are different from the similar-looking Tanker bugs, which are smaller, can burrow quickly through the ground, and can spray a kind of biological napalm from their foreheads. This was clearly inspired by the bombardier beetle that uses body-produced chemical explosions to scare off predators. About the Tankers, Hayes had the following to add: 

"They're more like half-track tanks. They have multiple legs — a big set up front, and then a row of six small ones. They're mobile plasma sprayers, like flame-throwers, who shoot plasma like napalm from a nozzle between their eyes; the plasma is ignited by little spark generators dangling in front."

Hayes had worked with Verhoeven before — he designed the car-like ED-209 in "RoboCop" — so he recalls sitting with the director and sketching out a "hierarchy" of Arachnids, incorporating seven distinct species. That said, there was a conscious effort to make the bugs recognizably buglike; the Arachnids weren't meant to be too alien. The Tankers, Hayes said, were meant to evoke rhinoceros beetles.