Nathan:
I agree completely with your reading of Starship Troopers...Verhoeven had served in the Royal Netherlands Marines, where he made an anniversary film for them that pushed many of the same buttons, but for literal and not ironic effect. If anyone's interested, I have a piece on Verhoeven in the Great Directors section of SensesofCinema.com, an excellent film site out of Australia.
Dan
"For beauty is the beginning of terror that we are still able to bear, and why we love it so is because it so serenely disdains to destroy us." Rilke's First Elegy
