For general audiences it is a fun sci fi movie. The idea is that if a fascist country in the future existed then Starship Troopers would be the movie they’d watch.

The attractive actors shower together without being turned on because service > sex. The main character Juan Rico chooses service over Harvard (despite getting terrible grades). Rico feels virtually no sexual feelings towards his female counterpart but suddenly does when his Lieutenant tells him to.

It’s definitely unique. Most movies use satire in a way that is very on the nose, but starship troopers is saying “here is what propaganda could look like”. A world where violence is beautiful and sex and love are barely existent. The book it is based on was written by an actual fascist. Verhoeven lived through nazi occupation. When he came to America to direct movies he was shocked by the violence he saw. He made robocop to poke fun at the ultraviolence in Hollywood, but we were unable to see that because we are desensitized to the violence.

It is because the book is very controversial. Heinlein when he was alive had probably the wierdest rollercoaster of political ideologies ever, from communism to fascism and almost everything in between. So nobody is entirely sure this blatantly fascist book is satire or not (Poe’s law should be named Heinlein’s law), though most would rather said it is serious. But Verhoeven clearly either interpreted the book as satire or wanted to reinterpret it as satire. Just look at the recruitment scene (and many others), no chance it isn’t satire - even though we now live in the onion world where liberals are rapidly reaching that level of caricature, the movie was 25 years ago and back then it was absolutely obvious…