The movie Starship Troopers has an interesting take on what the future could be like. It portrays a future where early in the next millennium; mankind is engaged in a war for survival with the Bugs, a vicious race of giant insects that colonize the galaxy by hurling their spores into space. It is the goal of the hero (Johnny Rico: Casper Van Dien) to go off into space and avenge is parent's death by killing as many alien insects as possible. A very basic and over-used concept, yes, but it does, however, give the audience an excellent insight into the three stages of the quest. The three stages for this particular film are the stage of the perilous journey through training and space, the crucial struggle between the troopers and the Bugs in the search for the 'brain bug', and the triumphant return of the hero (Johnny Rico: Casper Van Dien).
             The actual journey starts in a training camp where the hero joins the Federation Infantry in order to become a citizen because of his love for Carmen Ibanez (Denis Richards). During the basic training, one of Johnny's teammates is killed and he is sentenced to administrative punishment (10 lashes with a whip seems odd for the future though). Then just as he is about to leave the facility he finds out that his home town of Buenos Aires has been destroyed by an asteroid sent by the Bugs and humanity has declared war upon them. It is here he decides to rejoin and is sent into space to destroy the arachnid threat. Rico and his comrades are sent in as part of the first wave to eliminate the Bugs upon arrival to their home world, however they are ambushed. Their method was to machine-gun them to death, but it didn't work very well. Three or four troopers would fire thousands of rounds into a Bug, which like the Energizer Bunny just kept on coming. (You'd think a human race capable of interstellar travel might have developed an effective insecticide, but no.) A gene...