- The Paul Verhoeven film is generally considered to be the biggest middle finger the novel will ever receive, and that is no accident. It’s a satire of militarism, the Cold War, dehumanization of the enemy, war movies, propaganda and military sci-fi in general. It originally started out as an unrelated script called Bug Hunt, before the studio acquired the rights to the novel and rewrote the script to accommodate it. The film was intentionally designed as the polar opposite of the book in terms of message, characterization, and theme—an attack on the “pro-war fascist dogma” detractors of the novel attribute to it. A fairly detailed exploration of the film’s themes can be found on The AV Club.