Stars: Clancy Brown, Elizabeth Daily, David De Luise

Director: Jay Oliva

Summary: The Troopers land on what they believe is a deserted planet... Then they meet a group of humanoid Skinnies and things start to get wierd...

An extension of both the film and book versions of STARSHIP TROOPERS, this brilliantly rendered CGI series follows the adventures of new Space Marine recruit Johnny Rico, a member of an elite killing squadron known as Razak's Roughnecks. The Roughnecks are holding the line against a spacefaring alien-insect menace intent on destroying Earth. In this volume, the Troopers land on a desert planet, where a group of humanoid Skinnies proves to be strangely hospitable. Before long, a group of massive crawlers moves in to attack.

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Inspired by Robert Heinlein's pulp classic and executive-produced by Paul Verhoeven, who made the big-screen version, Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles is cutting-edge TV animation that's more for grown-ups than kids. The neat equipment, combat suits and weapons are as deadly as they are cool, and even though the extreme gore and violence of the movie has been toned down, the endless threat from all manner of nasty bugs is still pretty terrifying. Five roughly 20-minute episodes are spliced together into a movie-length feature, which makes for a satisfyingly lengthy story arc instead of the more usual self-contained individual episodes. Like all good war stories, at its heart Roughnecks celebrates that Band of Brothers-style bonding in extreme circumstances, which we viewers can only experience vicariously.

On the DVD:Roughnecks, Volume 4: The Tophet Campaign finds Rico, Flores and co on the desert planet Tophet, where they team up with the humanoid Skinnies to fight massive crawler bugs--though all is not as it seems. The disc has a good 4:3 picture, although it's better to watch with the lights off to see all the detail in the moody (i.e., "dark") CG animation. The 5.1 sound shows off explosions and gunfire, but also the almost incessant techno soundtrack. There's a commentary from cast and crew members, a photo gallery of the human actors, filmographies and a trailer. --Mark Walker

Aspect Ratio:	1.33 Full Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Filmmakers Commentary, Technical Commentary, Filmographies, Photo Gallery, Trailer
Subtitles:	Arabic, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish
Year:	2001
Release Date:	August 19, 2002
Runtime:	96 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	C D R P 987
Keywords:	Animated, General, Series, Fiction, Starship, Chronicles, Science, Roughnecks, Volume, Troopers, Campaign, Animation, Horror, Vol, Sci, Fi, Tophet
Genre:	Science Fiction