Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles - The Complete Campaigns (DVD, 2005, 4-Disc Set)

Starship Troopers Chronicles was an animated television show from CGI's earlier days, so if you are looking for a special effects movie, this ain't it. But sci-fi has to be about the story or it falls on its face, and STC has story--the story of a unit of Mobile Infantry hopping from planet to planet to battle an alien menace, known as the "Bugs" for their strong resemblance to Earth insect life.

A project of Paul Verhoeven's, STC is somewhere between Robert A. Heinlein's 1959 classic novel <i>Starship Troopers</i> and the funny-atrocious film of the same name. For fans of both, here's a quick rundown: Dizzy is still a girl, Karl is still psychic but he is now a grunt, and Rasczak's name is now "Razak" (maybe they couldn't fit all those letters on his helmet) and he is a major character throughout most of the series. Brain bugs are still behemoths rather than the portabugs Heinlein envisioned. And there's a lot more action (the movie) than introspection (the book).

On the other hand, Carmen can actually fight now, there are a lot more different kind of bugs, and the Skinnies are part of the story. The memorable quotes from famous military men at the beginning of each chapter of the book have degenerated into Lt. Razak growling, "Roughnecks, live forever!" at the beginning of each mission, but nobody in my family but I cared about that. The series is divided into "campaigns," each taking place in a different locale - an ice asteroid, a water planet, a desert planet and finally on Mother Earth. The Roughnecks learn about their enemy as the viewer does, finding new iterations of bug life with each situation and facing each in battle. The viewer sees the story through the camera lens of a young reporter deployed as part of the unit. He is not a skilled fighter, but for the sake of survival, he must learn to shoot bugs as well as manage his bulky camera.

This series was from when the idea of compositing a live actor's face in animation was in its infancy, so it's remarkable how well the animators did with facial expressions. Not great, but still amazingly well considering where the technology was at the time. I think I can tell when the animation was handed off to a lesser skilled animator, as some of the human-motion animation is excellent and some of it is pretty awful.

Whether the computer-game-like soundtrack is a plus or a minus I have not yet decided. I am leaning toward "minus," as it sounds as though nobody was paying attention to the action on the screen when they added the music. The bug sound effects sound good at first but quickly become monotonous, and the Roughnecks very very rarely miss a shot, but still, the story is enjoyable as the Navy does the flyin' while the Mobile Infantry does the dyin'.

Hey, it's a Saturday morning kids' show, and when seen in that light, it has a lot to offer. Lots of battles, cool uniforms complete with codpieces, camaraderie between soldiers, zippy watercraft and lots of high-speed chases with monsters. It captured the attention of the three geeks in our family - Dad, Mom and 12-year-old son - quite satisfactorily. I bought STC on recommendation while pining through Battlestar Galactica's summer hiatus, figuring if we hated it we could always resell it. But we are keeping our copy. And I can recommend it to you.