The main arguments for it being a pro military and pro war movie is that the Bugs ARE attacking and that if humanity wants to survive, they will have to fight. Then, while most people do die, the movie ends with a major victory that looks like it may help save humanity.
I don’t really think you can argue those points away to claim its an anti military/war movie. The movie would have needed for humanity to have attacked the bugs first, starting the war; or at the least having had most everyone die for no reason, without making a shred of progress in the war effort.
I mean, they were fighting to save our entire species, and the two most vocal people in the entire movie (Ricos parents) that were against the military machine were some of the first people to die in the movie.
Are the bugs really initiating the attacks? Because with the distance between Klendathu & Earth it seems pretty obvious the movie is trying to imply the bugs aren’t the ones sending meteors at the humans.
When I rewatched the movie with a friend recently he was surprised that the movie ended with what felt like an anticlimactic resolution - because the war keeps going forever (or so it seems). I really like the interpretation that Starship Troopers (the movie itself) is an in-universe propaganda film used to recruit soldiers to feel important and make a difference in the war effort.
The movie point blank says the bugs attacked first and that it’s a colonization species that just hurls meteor filled bugs randomly into space in order to try and find new planets to colonize.
Also, when the “main” character in the movie (Rico) is in basic training and about to quit the military, a bug meteor impacts the earth, taking out an entire city, and killing his parents, so the bugs were most definitely attacking humanity, and earth directly.
The movie also ends on a high note, making it seem like they learned some very important information by capturing one of the until then unknown bugs that was able to think and direct all the mindless bugs. So while the war will go on, it leaves the viewer to think that humanity was making progress towards a victory. The movie also marked the first time that humanity actually went to the bug home planet and “took the war to them”.
Klendathu is shown to be on the opposite side of the Milky Way. It is physically impossible for the bugs to hurl meteors at these distances while accounting for drift, every piece of matter in between and also the time difference. “Oh yeah, let’s launch this meteor so it can destroy a city called Buenos Aires, that hasn’t been founded yet by a species that hasn’t evolved yet.”
They didn’t learn anything at the end, they all remained the same characters, still happy to be gears in a military machine. Oh, and NPR mutilated the brain bug’s face vagina.
The music made you feel this way, but that’s to manipulate you to do so.