Is Starship Troopers a Satire of Star Trek?

Col. Carl Jenkins (Neil Patrick Harris) mind melds with Starship Troopers Brain Bug.

Star Trek (TOS)’s Spock (Leonard Nimoy) mind melds with rock creature (Horta) in “The Devil in the Dark.”

Is Starship Troopers a critique/satire of Star Trek’s world (and worldview) or a ripoff, in particular of “The Devil in the Dark” episode, with some Aliens, Top Gun, and An Officer and a Gentleman tossed into the mix?

In 1985, more than a decade before Starship Troopers, J. Hoberman published a piece, “The Fascist Guns in the West,” about the films of the Reagan era (Rambo, Dirty Harry, An Officer and a Gentleman) that might help answer the question. Read it here (starting on page 53) or here. I saw the film last night and the screening was preceded by a short discussion between Adam Curtis (who chose the film as part of a weekend of films he curated) and the film’s screenwriter, Ed Neumeier. Too bad we didn’t get a chance to ask the writer if he was familiar with Hoberman’s essay, but I’d bet money that both he and Verhoeven were on the same wavelength as Hoberman. A true melding of minds about the Eighties.