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'The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress' Coming To the Big Screen
HughPickens.com writes: According to the Hollywood Reporter, Twentieth Century Fox recently picked up the movie rights to The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, based on the classic sci-fi book by Robert A. Heinlein. It will retitled as Uprising. Heinlein's 1966 sci-fi novel centers on a lunar colony's revolt against rule from Earth, and the book popularized the acronym TANSTAAFL (There ain't no such thing as a free lunch), a central, libertarian theme. The novel was nominated for the 1966 Nebula award (honoring the best sci-fi and fantasy work in the U.S.) and won the Hugo Award for best science fiction novel in 1967. An adaptation has been attempted twice before — by DreamWorks, which had a script by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, and by Phoenix Pictures, with Harry Potter producer David Heyman attached — but both languished and the rights reverted to Heinlein's estate. Brian Singer, who previously directed X-Men: Days of Future Past, will adapt the screenplay and reportedly direct. Several of Heinlein's works have been adapted for the big and small screen, including the 1953 film Project Moonbase, the 1994 TV miniseries Red Planet, the 1994 film The Puppet Masters, the 2014 film Predestination, and — very loosely — the 1997 film Starship Troopers.
...has a Harsh moon!
10-20 years ago Libertarians were smiled at and politely dismissed with a shrug. These days Statists on /. and elsewhere assault us with their comments, signatures, and mod-points. And Heinlein — whether or not he was a Libertarian himself — did push many people into Libertarianism.
It certainly is not popular among the lunch-recipients...
He is right up there with Azimov and Clark with numerous Hugo and other awards to his name (including a Hugo for this novel). But unlike those two, he was "violently" anti-Collectivism (perhaps in atonement for his Socialist youth of the 1930-ies). And he hated the Commies and the USSR with passion — which I, an escapee from the evil empire especially appreciate.
In addition to science fiction, where he extolled virtues of the Individual while dissing the Collective, he also published a number of opinion-pieces mocking the things dear to "progressive" Illiberal minds advocating for strong military (against USSR), mocking schools and colleges, and asking tough questions (along with unpleasant answers) about race-relationships.
Could this be coloring your perspective, AC? Just a little?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The lunar colony sends food back to earth which helps keep food costs down, and thus avoids scarcity based social upheaval. Later they use continuing food shipments as a bargaining chip when trying to get recognized. I think it was effective with India and China.
Many of his books also featured communal living, with many people living together and freely sharing resources, and even sharing sexual partners. Usually this was not part of the main plot, but just happened to be the way the characters were living.
The Starship Troopers movie doesn't much resemble the book because it wasn't based on the book. No, literally, it was a totally standalone work that was written from the ground up as terrible B-movie schlock, and someone pointed out that it had a passing resemblance...so they licensed the name for marketing, changed a couple characters and locations, that's it. Heinlein's estate didn't care that it was completely different because he's dead and it's free money.
The original title was Bug Hunt at Outpost Nine.