Ruined #4: Robocop & Starship Troopers (tie)
For all my complaining of sticking 2 disparate movies together with the Alien & Predator franchises, you might be a little confused to see these two tied together for Fourth Worst Use Of A Film License Of All Time. While the two are completely different films, both are ultra-violent science fiction action films mirroring themes of fascism. RoboCop represents the dystopian whereas Starship Troopers is the utopian. Both were released 10 years apart from each other. Both were written by Edward Neumeier and directed by Paul Verhoven. Both are extremely satirical, critiques of American society, patriotism, commercialism, war, excess, greed, stupidity. Both covered a lot of heavy subject matter in entertaining pulp cinema fashion. And of course, both were followed up with two abhorrent sequels. RoboCop was followed up with the middling RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3, which, the less said of the better. While RoboCop 2 would amble along the path of excessive violence, RoboCop 3 would suffer the dreaded PG-13 rating. Replacing the brutal subtext with ninjas and jetpacks. It would feature a laughable plot in which RoboCop teams up with a ragtag group of misfits to save the community center. The film would go on to gross a grand total of 10 million dollars domestically, not even covering its 22 million dollar budget. A flop in every sense of the word. Fans of Starship Troopers would be forced to wait an agonizing 7 years for the unfathomably terrible Hero of the Federation. Shot on a budget befitting that of a Syfy movie of the week, Starship Troopers 2 would skip the theatres entirely and go straight to DVD where it belonged. I have been informed since the writing of this article that there is in fact a Starship Troopers 3. Considering it currently rates a 4.4 on IMDB I will continue to ignore its existence.