In that it wasn’t good satire or that it’s attempt at satire and absurdist humor came across as being too “genuine” and Verhoeven didn’t really try and make it seem like alien bugs were innocent or being scapegoated.
I’m sorry, Sun, but at certain points the movie’s satirical moments came across to many viewers as too genuine or straightforward.
I don’t say that as a criticism or from a lack of appreciation for Verhoeven’s work on other films, which are great and include great sci-fi allegories about militarized police, authoritarian governments and outer-space imperialism in Robocop and Total Recall and he made an outstanding film outside the Hollywood film industry structure with Black Book, but on Starship Troopers, it just didn’t land enough times for me to really strike me as satire. The “satire” you see in Starship Troopers is way too strait-laced, genuine and doesn’t have the same amount of BS “hokeyness” lets say Stripes or Animal House had.