Plot
In the eleven years of "The Second Bug War", the Mobile Infantry has improved their weapons and tactics. However, the Arachnids have countered these developments with new and tougher variants. The United Citizen Federation, now finding itself engaged in prolonged trench warfare on the frontier planets, increasingly relies on its control of the media, using its extensive police and judicial powers to suppress dissenters and religious fanatics as seditionists, while maintaing recruitment numbers.
Colonel Johnny Rico is stationed on the agricultural planet Roku San, where popular Sky Marshal and singer Omar Anoke pays a visit. While off-duty, Rico's old friend, General Dix Hauser, gets into a bar fight with a group of anti-war farmers. When Rico forcibly disarms the drunken Dix, he is threatened with a court martial but the base defenses suddenly fail due to a Bug attack. Rico incapacitates Dix and assumes command of the defenders. When Roku San falls, the media blames Rico, who is condemned to execution for insubordination.
Fleet Captain Lola Beck, Dix's fiancée and a former flame of Rico's, is piloting Anoke to Sanctuary, the Fleet's secret headquarters, when a mechanical failure due to a battery attack by the Bugs during warp severely damages her ship, forcing six crew members, including herself and Anoke, to escape via a rescue pod to the nearest planet, the classified OM-1. Admiral Enolo Phid suppresses the distress signal from the pod so as not to lower public morale, but Dix learns of the situation and has Rico's execution faked so he can rescue Anoke and Lola, since their capture would provide the Arachnids with invaluable knowledge, including the location of Sanctuary. On OM-1, an apparent earthquake causes one of the six survivors, a physician surnamed Wiggs, to fall into a crevasse, where Anoke sees a giant eye staring at him from below. Cynical cook Jingo Ryan perishes next after hiding within a cluster of supposed rock outcroppings, which are actually Arachnid limbs that pull him below ground. Engineer Bull Brittles proposes marriage to the very religious flight attendant, Holly Little, but dies shortly afterwards.
Back on Earth, Dix confronts Phid about why she is abandoning the Sky Marshal, only to be arrested. Phid reveals that Anoke caused the downfall of Roku San, having telepathically communicated with the "Brain of Brains", also known as "Behemecoytal", through a previously captured Brain Bug. Disillusioned with the war and seeking peace at any cost, he adopted the Arachnids’ religion and sacrificed the outpost at Roku San by disabling the surrounding electric barrier to win their trust. Now believing the original Brain Bug allowed itself to be captured in order to pass on intelligence from inside, the Federation orders it to be executed and dissected, but it resists by using its telepathic powers to murder several soldiers before Hauser slaughters it. Phid confesses to deliberately ignoring the distress calls from OM-1 to gain promotion to Sky Marshal, unaware that the highly skilled Lola was accompanying Anoke.
On OM-1, the stranded contact Behemecoytal, who communicates with them through the corpses of their fallen comrades and soon consumes Anoke's brain. Lola and Holly, the sole survivors, pray for salvation, which arrives when Rico and his command staff from Roku San, outfitted with cybernetically networked "Marauder" power armor suits, rescue them and defeat the Arachnid warriors without suffering any casualties. OM-1 is revealed as the home of the Bug Hive, the Arachnids' ruling body, and Fleet subsequently destroys it from orbit with a "Q Bomb".
Rico is subsequently cleared of all charges, promoted to the rank of General, and given command of the Marauder program. Anoke is reported to have died in a terrorist attack, staged earlier by Phid and the government to explain his disappearance, and given a hero's funeral. Dix and Lola are married, while Phid is appointed the new Sky Marshal with Dix as her second-in command, and Holly becomes the first Federal chaplain. Dozens of peace protesters are falsely convicted of involvement in the "terrorist attack" and executed by hanging. Phid, impressed by how Anoke was rendered servile by the Arachnids' religion, persuades the Federation to adopt a heavily modified version of Christianity as a state religion, promoting militarism and blind obedience.
Production
Ed Neumeier, who wrote the screenplays of the previous two Starship Troopers films, makes his directorial debut with this film. [3] Neumeier says that he sees the Troopers films as each reflecting different wars, and where the first film is inspired by movies about World War II, Marauders was inspired by Vietnam War films. The story also deals with issues of religion and politics, and is about "how the state can use religion both badly, and for good." [4]
Casper Van Dien reprised his role as Johnny Rico for the third film, being the only actor from any of the previous movies to do so. He had been willing to reprise his character for the second film, but said director Phil Tippett wanted to go in a different direction that did not involve Rico and thus he could not participate. [5]
Production started in May 2007, with principal photography commencing in South Africa. [6]
Robert Skotak served as Visual Effects Supervisor, and Roger Nall was the Digital Effects Supervisor responsible for the CGI creature design and the Marauder battle armor sequences. Nall led a team of about twenty-five people. Their team worked on over 350 effects shots for the Arachnids alone, and the Marauder sequence, which included scenes of Van Dien and other actors stripping naked to be "bioscanned", required about 100 distinct shots. Third-party studies were brought in to work on sequences such as space ships, puppet work, wire removal and more, for an estimated 150 additional effects shots. [7]
