It makes sense, since the original novel was hugely influential on James Camerons Aliens. And, in 1997, Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven took on Heinleins concepts with a big budget action movie that helped launch the careers of Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer and Denise Richards to a new level among genre fans.
In the 15 years since then, a number of people have managed to produce a couple straight-to-DVD sequels of varying qualities and a cartoon series which brings us to Starship Troopers: Invasion, a computer-animated action movie that continues the story using a style thats somewhat inspired by Japanese anime. That last bit may be attributed to its director, Shinji Aramaki, the man behind classic animes Appleseed, and Appleseed Ex-Machina as well as Halo Legends.
“Invasion” once again stars Johnny Rico, Carmen Ibanez and Carl Jenkins, but this time theyre joined by a whole new team of starship troopers taking on the “Bugs” as they try to rescue survivors at a Federation outpost under attack.
A few weeks back at Comic-Con International in San Diego, ShockTillYouDrop.com had a chance to speak with the main creative team behind the animated sequel: director Shinji Aramaki (front row, on right) and executive producers Edward Neumeier–screenwriter of the original Starship Troopers screenplay who has remained involved as a producer on the remakes–and Casper Van Dien, Johnny Rico himself. (Van Dien didnt provide the voice of Rico in the animated movie for some reason.)
We talked to the trio about the origins of the project and the decision to do it as an animated movie and we touched briefly upon producer Neal Moritzs development of a new live action movie based on the book.
Starship Troopers: Invasion hits DVD, Blu-ray and iTunes on Tuesday, August 28th.
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