I normally try to take a fairly neutral, understanding tone. I must transgress that rule for but a moment. I assure you, it is in no way hatred towards you, but in fact passion for the subject. Sorry for any conflict :3

Background info:

Starship troopers is a 90s sci-fi action movie which portrays a hypermilitant society fighting against alien bugs through three close high school friends. I think it's real fun! The issue comes down to the two most common kinds of fans.

1. The movie is an unironic statement about how society should function, or at the very least is very supportive of the military. Type 2 fans are annoying woke losers.
2. The movie is a brilliant parody of militarism and fascism. This is extremely obvious and the only correct interpretation of the film. Type 1 fans are idiot fascist losers.

These are obviously not 100% of the fans, but if you pull up tumblr or twitter or whatever these are the two loudest voices.

What do I think?

The movie tried to be a satire of fascism and failed. I am 100% serious. Let's get into that!

Breakdown of the satire

This is not exhaustive, but these are the main things folks point to to show it as satire.

Folks point to the invasion of Klendathu as evidence of the satire. It is an abject military failure. They are underinformed, overconfident and unprepared. Few make it out alive. This is all true! However, type 2 fans never note that immediately afterwards the person responsible is fired, a new person is put in charge and they change their tactics. When you take that into account it reads a lot less like "Fascists aren't nearly as militarily smart as they claim" and a lot more like "Fascists are good at learning from mistakes, and you should maintain faith in your military even after a big fuck-up".
Folks bring up that the bugs are only fighting in self-defense. This is, again, true! But it's a single line, and it's right before the main character responds like this. It's ultimately framed as a betrayal! How could you ask for peace now, after countless families have been annihilated by the bugs? How heartless are you? To be fair, the person who asked that immediately looks at the camera like this:

But it's not enough! It's one single line, this isn't really ever expanded upon past this moment.

The movie is also just... generally a bit silly! The in movie propaganda segments are very obviously jokes. Overblown parodies of propaganda. If the whole movie was like them I would be much less annoyed at the people who are condescending about the satirical nature of the movie. But there's a noticeable tone shift between the short "would you like to know more" shorts and the actual movie to where the silliness is much more mild and can be explained as simple camp.

And finally... hmm. Alright, I'm going to make an extremely bold claim.

Media literacy: concept or cudgel?

The term "media literacy" tends to get thrown around a lot in these discussions and... it usually just ends up being a way of calling people who see things differently stupid. Ironically enough I feel that those who use the term the most are lacking one key concept.
The most common place where this term is thrown around is when folks are saying it's okay for movies to show bad things. The idea is essentially: "You can show bad concepts without endorsing them". This is definitely true! But this concept necessarily implies the counter concept of "showing bad things is not necessarily a denouncement of them".

I'm obviously not saying Paul Verhoeven or anyone who likes the movie is pro-fascism. But if you make as movie that has fascists as the protagonists, uses fascist propaganda techniques and is well liked by fascist adjacent folks...

YOU HAVE MADE FASCIST PROPAGANDA!

Sure, maybe you can look at fascist propaganda and say "ah, these people are obviously the bad guys, they're just like the nazis".... you know who might not think that? you know who miiiiight not think that? NEONAZIS MAYBE! Using them as shorthand for absolute evil in other media works, but when you have them as the main characters rather than the enemy and your goal is to satirize them you must do more!
If a comedian blames cancel culture for people not laughing or if a teacher blames their students for not learning they in the wrong. They have failed to get their message across and blaming their audience is embarrassing. It is similar here. If a ton of people look at your film and say "hey, this is just nazi stuff" or "this is just like all those other cool movies who praise the military" rather than going "Ha, nice satire" that doesn't mean most people are stupid. Unless you're an elitist asshole you should go "fuuuuuck, did I just make military propaganda?" IF PEOPLE JOIN THE MILITARY BECAUSE OF YOUR ANTI-WAR FILM YOU HAVE FUCKED UP REAL BAD!

The other kind of fan.

I'm spending a lot of time basically arguing for the fascists in this discussion and I don't want you to think I'm one of them. There are people who believe quite bad things who like the movie and refuse to acknowledge the satire. I'm not trying to deny that or defend them. But I am saying that by being so goddamn condescending to the moderate people who just didn't get it you're essentially aligning them with the actual fascists.
Also just don't make fun of people for having a different interpretation of something even if it's literally, factually incorrect. If someone looks at the same media and sees something completely different, something that wasn't even in the original text, or misses something you thought was extremely, extremely obvious? That's actually really interesting! You're getting a little window into how they perceive the world! We need to move past this foolish notion that viewing art is about finding the one single true meaning, rather than what you personally draw from the work. As well as the absurd notion that the author has supreme control over how their work is interpreted. Author must die!

Anyways that's kinda it. Hope you have a nice day, even if you've been condescending about this! I mean you should feel a little guilty but mostly have a nice day. See ya next time! :3

Oh, and the movie IS really quite fun! I recommend it highly.