Starship Troopers

The science fiction space epic STARSHIP TROOPERS sends high school kids (in the name of “citizenship means service”) into space to do battle with giant bugs. The film also tries to offer a bit of satire and a critique of fascism.

Looking at the film’s production design and script, director Paul Verhoeven was ready to embrace military satire and imagery. Drawing on the “Why We Fight” propaganda scenes from the film, many poster art concepts revolved around the pro-militarism theme.

For this teaser movie poster concept, I reworked the idea of a “Call to Arms” style military recruitment poster as envisioned in the futuristic world of the movie. Using the image of a “space marine” and helmet, I retro-fitted the JOIN NOW propaganda headline into the helmet’s black visor (the visor that doesn’t actually appear in the film, by the way). Since this was only a concept poster, the only image of the helmet available at the time was low resolution.