Movie, Parents House near Desert, Destroyed, Sneak onto Spaceship to Escape

Question

I've been searching for a space movie from about 1992 or later.

The premise is a young man and woman are in some sort of training to become space pilots or cadets or military people.

There is some sort of problem on the planet, which I think is Earth. They go to visit their parents who live in some fancy house near a desert. The parents think everything is going to be great, but the kids are worried about some conflict.

The young people are scheduled to leave for space travel in a few weeks, but some tragedy happens (i.e. a bomb, an attack, etc.) and the planet is in big trouble. They return to their parent's house which has been destroyed and both parents are dead.

The kids end up sneaking onto a spaceship and leave the planet and the movie ends.

I think this came out around the same time as Gattaca (1997), but I can't recall the title and searching has been futile.

Answer 1

I agree with the comment - this sounds a lot like Starship Troopers (1997).

In it, 4 kids from the same school leave to join the military. Rico is the main character training in the infantry, and his love interest (Carmen) is training to be a starship pilot. Another girl (Diz) from his school has a crush on him and follows him to infantry training.

Rico and Diz are training off world (which does look like a desert) and his girl friend is in space ship far away from him. They use technology send messages to each other and call call home.

Rico's girlfriend breaks up with him over a video version of email. Rico makes a huge mistake in training that costs another soldier his life. As a result, Rico decides to leave the military and calls home to tell his parents.

His parents are understanding and want him to come home, but the transmission is cut short as

an asteroid sent from the bug planet (which also damages Carmen's ship, taking out communications so they cant send a warning) hits the earth, killing Rico's parents and millions more in the city. Just as Rico is leaving, a big TV at the training grounds starts broadcasting the event, and Rico and Diz watch in horror as they see their home town (Buenos Aires) in ruins.
Rico decides to stay in the infantry.

This all happens in the first hour,

and the rest of the movie is them battling against the bugs.

So, if this is the movie, it sounds like you missed the majority of it and should definitely watch the rest!