Goofs for
Starship Troopers (1997) More at IMDbPro »

• Errors in geography: Several hills appear outside Johnny Rico's house in Buenos Aires. In real life, Buenos Aires does not have any elevations in sight from any part of the city.
  
  
• Boom mic visible: After they capture the brain bug, the shadow of a boom mic is visible on Jenkins' trench coat.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When Rasczak is teaching the high school class, his arm appeared to some to be amputated above the elbow (thus making some later scenes inaccurate), but in fact it is not; it's below.
  
  

• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: The odds of a ship physically running into an asteroid launched from Klendathu to Earth are literally astronomical. However, there's no strong evidence it really was launched from Klendathu; this is an assumption the humans make, and its very absurdity (and the early death of the only reporter to question it) is part of the point.
  
  
• Continuity: The green gore on Flores' helmet is missing the next time the film cuts back to her after the initial spattering scene; in subsequent shots it is there but the amount varies.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When Rasczak's mobile infantry troop are on their way to investigate the distress call on Planet P, Rico is scanning the tops of the canyon walls with binoculars. When he almost sees the winged Arachnid, there are rocks falling. A hand can be seen lobbing one of the rocks over the wall.
  
  
• Factual errors: The asteroid generates a gravity field strong enough to tip the surface of some liquid in a glass by 45 degrees - yet the glass itself remains rock steady instead of sliding forward. Perhaps it had a particularly sticky base.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: During training when the drill instructor throws the knife at Ace, blood appears on Ace's hand before the knife hits.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The "Bug Planet" was filmed at Hell's Half Acre, Wyoming. In the widescreen edition, watch for the "flying recon bug" (a sort of dragonfly), and watch the upper right corner of the screen for a brief view of the Wyoming grasslands and the highway beyond.
  
  
• Continuity: In the shower scene, Johnny's butt is already red before it is smacked.
  
  
• Continuity: During the punishment, the leather piece Rico is biting down on changes positions between shots.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When a bug falls on a collection of barrels the wires pulling them are briefly visible.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Various characters (including Ibanez) mispronounce the surname "Ibanez".
  
  
• Miscellaneous: The top of Pvt. Ace Levy's swimming trunks are visible during the shower scene.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: During the football game, Rico runs up a ramp before flipping over the opposing players. However, in the long shot, no ramp is visible.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: In the second scene where the MI are going to kill the bug that has just killed the reporter. Just before the first fires on the bug, the shadow of the camera can be seen on his leg.
  
  
• Continuity: While defending the fort, Rico and Ace, and the man next to Ace, duck for incoming hopper bugs. In the next shot, the man next to Ace is still standing.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: While at the outpost, Ltl Raczak's mouth moves, but nothing comes out just before he says, "Fire at will."
  
  
• Continuity: While defending the fort, Rico removes his helmet to make a radio call. When he does this, his hair is messed up. However, before placing the helmet back on, he is seen again with perfect hair.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Lt. Raczak's legs are severed at the outpost defense, he tells Rico "You know what to do!" The audio doesn't match up with his mouth movements.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Rico and Zander are fighting, Zander pulls Rico onto a table and starts pounding him in the stomach with his elbow. The part of Rico's stomach that is being pounded is protected by a protective pad.
  
  
• Continuity: A bug's leg pierces Carmen's shoulder when she is captured. After rescue by Johnny, the blood remains, but her uniform has no visible hole. She also seems noticeably unaffected by the injury, able to use her shoulder easily.
  
  
• Continuity: When the tanker bug first appears it has three pairs of big legs and a number of little ones. As the scene progresses one pair of big legs disappears.
  
  
• Continuity: During the Tigers vs. Giants 'Football' game, after the first shown play, there is around 2:42 left, with a time out. After the next, few seconds play, there is (on the clock) at least 4:00 left (announcer says 2:42, with a time out). Then the announcer says 40 seconds, then the game is over after another short play.
  
  
• Factual errors: At the rate the asteroid had to be moving to hit Buenos Ares, during the phone call, they would've never seen a shadow moving. Nor would they be alive to see the shadow as the pressure wave would flatten it first.
  
  
• Continuity: The reporter's movements during the opening FedNet newsreel and the actual Klendathu invasion do not match.
  
  
• Continuity: At the beginning of the film there's a commercial to join the Mobile Infantry. It ends with clips from later on in the movie. Right after the commercial it cuts to a "live" scene of the first invasion of Klendathu. Which shouldn't be since the commercial has scenes that happen after the invasion.
  
  
• Plot holes: When in need of an extraction at the federation outpost, only one transport ship arrives. The size of the plane cannot support the transport of the entire company.
  
  
• Factual errors: The "bug" meteor destroyed at the beginning of the movie would not have simply stopped in place after being shot by the missile. Its momentum, the gravity of the Earth, and the lack of friction in the vacuum of space would have meant that the shards would have continued in the same direction.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Cyrano the ferret steps on Carl's keyboard and makes the display of playing cards flip over rapidly. Carl sends Cyrano off to bug his mom; when the shot changes, Cyrano is gone but the cards are still flipping. However, the computer system, like most keyboards today, may have a buffer system which would have stored many "flips" while Cyrano held the button down, thus causing the cards to continue flipping after Cyrano leaves.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Blood begins spurting out of Pvt. Ace's hand a few frames before the knife hits.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: During the bug assault on the base at Planet P, shortly after the troopers begin firing on the advancing bugs, there are two separate close up shots of the two heavy machine gunners firing from the tower - in a longer shot which occurs only seconds later, a third person can be seen moving between the two gunners on the tower, apparently addressing a technical or prop issue. The person appears to be in uniform, but does not appear to be acting, and continuity is broken because the very previous shot (and a later shot) shows only two men on the platform.
  
  

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