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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.
When I was in high school. I didn't think of them as being polemics; nobody is going to confuse Heinlein with Ayn Rand when it comes to message versus storytelling. With him, it was mostly about the storytelling and the adventure, not spouting off.
Starship Troopers was bad. Very bad. While Puppet Masters was bad, too -- it had at least Donald Sutherland. I could picture him as the "Old Man" easily and I could almost imagine a script that didn't suck.
The director of Starship Troopers didn't read more than two chapters of the book, and had no intention of a faithful adaptation. With any luck, the people involved might actually read the book and manage to get past the premise that the Earth can't make enough food to feed itself and therefore the Moon must be farmed.
the war worshiping jingoistic crap that it is. :)
that just about describes every single Heinlein novel. He was a frustrated Naval officer wannabe who grew up in a very racist, sexist, nationalistic time.
The amazing thing that I find about his writing that in spite of all that, he was one of the very first writers who wrote openly about interracial relationships, who put women into strong positions (although never of leadership, except in Starship Troopers), and basically was years ahead of his time.
I sincerely hope they don't fuck up The Moon is a Harsh Mistress anywhere nearly as bad as every other Heinlein adaptation.
But changing the title from "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" to "Uprising" does not bode well; the book is not about an "Uprising" but about how a society develops when the rules of normal society are removed. The actual "uprising" in the book is almost a by-product and not a central theme.
I would love to see "Friday" or "Job: A Comedy of Justice" made in to movies.
I love Heinlein. But, one cannot take some of his ideas too seriously.
I agree; I think Starship Troopers is one of the greatest works of science fiction, and it has influenced the way I think about participation in government, but it's important to recognize the inherent flaws of the premise (and to place it in the proper context of his other, sometimes nuttier, writing). A lot of his work was intended to provoke, not present a blueprint for an ideal society.
Heinlein also used the basic income model in many of his stories. Its not all libertarian, its a balance between a social safety net and libertarian capitalism.
Not all libertarians are against a safety net and basic services like police, fire/rescue and the military. Its more about keeping gov't to an absolute minimum. To match, limit and scale gov't to a clear definable needs, not to have gov't engage in "well meaning" wants.
The accusation of fascism wasn't just Verhoeven, though - many others have made the same complaint (again, I think it's unfair, but it is a widespread view). Heinlein was clearly bothered enough by some of the reactions to his book that he wrote an entire essay defending himself and clarifying what he meant (I think it's in the collection Expanded Universe). One of the key points was that fascism tends to involve universal conscription - his "federal service" was absolutely voluntary.
That's actually why the movie was done as a parody. Trying to play the book straight would result in something that looks an awful lot like a fascist propaganda film.
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