ID4 the original worked partly because it was campy even by standards of the day. Judging by the trailer, the sequel does not seem to understand this.
Battlesh.. sh... ship and Battle: LA failed partly, because they took an inherently campy concept and played it super straight but without even a trace of irony (except that extremely forced "They ain't gonna sink this battleship!"), never mind making the aliums as tough or weak as each scene required with no particular logic. Oh, and both had a cliched story with no meat to sink one's tentacles into, plus godawful acting through and through, and Battle LA's SHAKYCAM TURNED UP TO ELEVEN almost made me vomit.
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Starship Troopers isn't even in the same galaxy, it's a classic because it works on so many levels. It's basically just a framework for Verhoeven to play a satire of contemporary America (which understandably felt exaggerated in 1997, but not nearly as much in 2015, proof of a visionary). The genius is in it that it has found resonance in both those who liked the book and those who hated it. Plus, the aesthetics appeal to the inner fascist in all of us, plus it's still an enjoyable action film with an inherent awareness of what made the 80's action movies (which were admittedly quite often pure propaganda) so great. Much like Team America, people from left and right like it.
Yes, book purists are still foaming at the mouth, but as a book fan I personally enjoyed it immensely nevertheless, even without power armour, with changes to the plot, and being aware that Verhoeven purposefully misinterpreted nearly all the themes (eg. the book is actually written to oppose conscription, since in our world it offers no reward but must be performed at the peril of punishment; in the book the Federation society is explicitly stated and illustrated to be quite libertarian instead of fascist, except maybe for the frequent use for physical punishment; most of the people doing the national service are in purely civilian tasks that just happen to be boring, exhausting, dangerous, financially unviable, or a combination thereof, plus people currently in service are not allowed to vote, only those who have already left the service, so much for the military rule - "sovereign franchise" is mentioned as the only reward of the national service in the book, the phrase meaning the right to vote but often misinterpreted by non-native English speakers and/or those not familiar with political vocabulary as the right to run a business; also Rico is not a blonde Aryan from Buenos Aires - his parents were on a business trip there in the book - but a native Filipino (only apparent in the epilogue where he mentions that his mother tongue is Tagalog, though his short stature has been hinted at earlier; etc.).
Then again, I just like Verhoeven's style.
