Many people have mentioned the "Paul Verhoven scream" on the Starship Troopers commentary, in which he illustrates how he wanted one of his actors to react to some digital menace. The track was actually putting me to sleep as it offers little in the way of revealing anecdotes (l'd just love to hear him say he cast wooden actors for precisely their wooden qualities) or hidden context/subtext, and then he goes and does that! Scared the living SHIT out of me! It was around 4 o'clock in the morning (I used to work a night shift), the volume was up fairly high since the track didn't seem to be recorded too loud, I'm half-dozed warmin' a beer in my crotch, and then BAM! Worse was that he does it for just long enough that I couldn't find the frickin' remote to turn it down in time and probably woke up the neighbors. Man, that pissed me off (and thanks to the beer, made me look like I pissed myself). Despite the scream, still a rather dull track.

Verhoeven and Neumeier establish pretty quickly that their film was read completely wrongly by critics and everyone else who said that their film was fascistic (the presentation of a fascist society was supposed to provoke an anti-fascist reaction). It's a recurring theme throughout the commentary (along with the test audience's reaction to Denise Richards' character, which keeps popping up), but most prevalent - and most annoying - is Verhoeven's detailing of the special effects, exacerbated by a gabbling delivery that makes him sound out of breath. It reaches a head where he's practically shouting "That's real! That's digital! That's real! That's digital" while Neumeier is describing a scene on a starship. However, listening to their combined analysis of the film and its reception may cause you to view it a little differently the next time you watch it.

This is a lot of fun. It has the four of them talking about the other actors in the movie the sets and locations, the effects and other informative things like that. Mr. Van Dien seems to know a lot about the people who worked on this movie. He gives out some of the actors’ filmograhies, and even some of the crews’. They talk a lot about Carmen and her place in the movie. They also mention the numerous injuries, albeit minor, suffered during the shoot, followed by Mr. Verhoeven lamenting the fact that he probably won’t be hired anymore because of those. Apparently everybody got shot a few times by flame bursts from the guns because of the way the actors were lined up, and apparently Miss Meyer blew out Jake Busey’s ear once and hit him another time. They also give out a lot of praise to the other actors and crewmen for their job well done, and mention some of their own opinions on the movie. The best part of these types of tracks, though, are the amount of jokes made at each other’s (and their own) expense. They make fun of each other a lot and laugh a lot at the movie. Miss Meyer tells a story where Mr. Verhoeven wanted her to scream but logistically she shouldn’t have been able to, and she imitates him screaming and his accent in a very humourous way. Many such moments are in here. It’s a very entertaining track.

Mr. Poledouris comes in and talks about his inspiration and intention of the score. He also talks about how the score started, and how he generally starts his scores when he writes them. He gives out little anecdotes, like Mr. Verhoeven coming back 3 months after hearing a bit of music he didn’t like and asking the composer for that piece so it could be put in th movie. He also talks about why there’s no music in the Klendathu landing and other such things. It’s a nice listen with interesting comments by the composer.