Question Starship Troopers

So, a little while ago, I discovered the CGI-animation sequels to the original 'Starship Troopers' movies. While both are pretty 'meh' in terms of story and dialogue...they are objectively the best Starship Troopers movies there have ever been.

Firstly, both are directed by Shinji Aramaki, the designed behind Genesis Climber Mospeda, the Gen-1 Transformer toys, the Blade Runner anime series coming out in October this year, Appleseed (2004), Appleseed Ex Machina, Halo Legends, Space Captain Pirate Harlock (2013), Ultraman (2019), and a shitton of other cool shows. He's one of the foremost mecha/power-armour designers in the graphic design business, and is pretty damm good at it. He's also a fan of the original Heinlein novel, which Paul Verhoeven famously called 'fascist'. Thus, for the first time in its history, Starship Troopers has power armour on screen for the entire movie. Well, entire movies. The two movies are Starship Troopers: Invasion and Starship Troopers: Traitor of Mars. I believe I've mentioned Traitor of Mars before, but I'll mention it again for old times sake.

The power armour is pretty awesome too, and is almost exactly what Heinlein depicted in the original novel. Well, a more modern interpretation anyway. Here's a clip from Traitor of Mars:



Then there's the marauder power suit from Invasion



Secondly, the movies- while pretty cheesy- are obviously written by people who've read and loved the books. There's so many references to the novel in Invasion, although there's slightly less in Traitor of Mars, since it was made for the 20th anniversary of the original Starship Troopers movie back in 1997. They also kinda feel flat and wooden in terms of characters. The only original actor to return in any of them is Casper Van Dien, who voices Rico in Traitor of Mars, and Dina Meyer, who voices her character Dizzy Flores in the same movie. For whatever reason, Van Dien didn't reprise his role in Invasion.

I mean, the movies are worth watching just for the power armour. The CGI is top-notch for the time of production on Invasion, and the work on Traitor of Mars is just brilliant. Individual notches and dents in the armour are clearly visible, Mars is breathtakingly rendered, and the animation in both films is smooth and flows brilliantly. The only issue is that characters seem wooden in both dialogue and expression. They look more human with their helmets on, strangely enough.

Any thoughts?

I have a vague recollection of a Starship Troopers TV show that was done in CG. I'm wondering if these movies are a compilation of some episodes of that. I do remember it had an actual overarching series-long plot and it was fairly good in that regard.

Or maybe the TV show was a continuation of the Movies?

I think I have some faint memories of the show you're talking about (from 2001, if I'm associating it with the correct living room), but there's no mention of anything like it on the Starship Troopers wikipedia page. It was probably an unrelated property.

Starship Troopers: Roughneck Chronicles is what you're thinking off.

...and no, the movies are original works. They're a lot more modern than that. Invasion came out in 2012, and Traitor of Mars came out in 2017