Lots of spoilers....

I doubt anyone has seen this one and you'll have to search to find it, but being a big Heinlien fan and having seen the original turkey and the sequel that was worse, I grabbed it from Amazon on Demand and watched it last night.

Those who saw ST 2 know that it was a total departure from anything Heinlienlike and was a total waste of time. ST 3 goes back to the original attempt to capture the feeling of the novel. Rico and some others are back.

It fails as miserably as the first attempt but it succeeds in being one of the strangest films I have ever seen, almost to the point that I have a hard time describing it. Of course the acting was weak special effects marginal, and the casting incomprehensible, but it is far more than simply a bad movie. It is an attempt to deliver a message and the message is completely garbled.

It portrays the federation as far more fascist that the original and there is a religious theme throughout. I never could really figure out what they were satirizing, what they were serious about and what was outright campy comedy.

A few examples of what I mean, in no particular order:

The Sky Marshall and several major characters had Asian names but all were pure caucasian.

The Sky Marshall was, in addition to being the top Federation military leader, is the world's the most popular singer/recording artist. All his songs patriotic ditties and all of this is presented with a straight face.

There is a Christian movement and a peace movement that is being ruthlessly repressed by the Federation.

The Christians and the peaceniks believe peace is possible with the bugs based on a common god.

The Federation is executing Christians and Peaceniks by the thousands.

In the end, it is discovered that the bugs are godless after all.

The Federation adopts christianity and makes the cross part of their military uniform.

Federation, and Christians become united in purpose and the Peacenik movement is dead.

Throughout the film the creation of a new weapon (Q Bomb) that can blow a planet to bits has been a moral dilemma, with the Christains and peaceniks horrified and the Federation countering that it is a big galaxy and planets are destroyed naturally all the time.

The story ends with a bug planet being blown to bites with Rico and company watching with great pleasure and pride for the Federation.

Oh yeah, for those among us that missed the body armor in the original novel, it is now part of Federation equipment, and it is bad-ass :)