_Starship Troopers_ is not a 'misunderstood' movie. The right-wing reading is that despite Verhoeven's faggot politics, his attempt at a subversive adaptation *fails* & the values implicit in Heinlein's source material shine through DESPITE Verhoeven's contempt for them. Everyone knows that Verhoeven is a European liberal & a clumsy satirist. That isn't what's at issue. The issue is whether the film _Starship Troopers_ in fact accomplishes what Verhoeven set out to do, & the answer to that is *no*—while he enjoys his cheap sight gags & wink-wink allusions to 20th c fascism, he's still working from a plot where normal humans are defending their home against terrible monsters. We know that Verhoeven wants to ridicule 'militarist excess'—but we also know that in the context of the movie, which is an existential struggle against aliens, the emergency facing humanity justifies anything. So again, the right-wing reading is that Verhoeven's discomfort with the source material led him to ironize & undermine the novel's militarism with superficial humor & aesthetics, but his failure to rewrite the plot means that the audience's sympathy will always be with the soldiers & fighters who find themselves in an impossible situation, despite Verhoeven's sensibilities.