I’ve never seen it that way - the opening pages say what the protagonist is doing. He’s landing on a planet to kill bugs, using all his ammo and nukes even though there are sentient beings living on the planet.
All because it isn’t cost effective to evacuate the ammo as well.
Immediately following that we move to the viewpoint of the teenager being brainwashed.
As such I think the movie did a decent job of adapting the story, even though we lost those awesome mechs and dropships.
Boy have I got news for you- Starship Troopers3: Marauder has mechs. I haven’t seen the next three movies/serieses.
Only do so if you have high tolerance for bad filmmaking. I’ve seen the live action sequels, and they are BAD. The second film feels like an unrelated script that got attached to the IP for name recognition. As I recall, it’s dull, poorly acted, ugly, and cheap. The third film does lean into the IP, complete with satirical propaganda gags and, yes, mech suits make an appearance. However, my recollection of the rest of the movie is that it is dull, poorly acted, ugly, and cheap, but less so than the second.
If you enjoy Sci Fi Channel original movies from the early 00s, these movies are birds of a feather with those.
