'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.

Comments

There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Jhon]

Predestination was a "decent' attempt at "All you Zombies" and was very watchable.

All the other attempts kind of sucked out loud with a bamboo umbrella.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Penguinisto]

All I know is, I'm praying "...please don't fuck it up as bad as you did Starship Troopers..."

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Jhon]

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.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Monkey-Man2000]

The film was actually a pretty good satire and action flick (a la Robocop) if you ignore the book, and I agree it should not profess to be based on it. I don't have a better idea for a title offhand for it though; maybe "Interplanetary Troopers", "Space Troopers"? Nah, Starship Troopers just has a better ring to it... Anyway, a more faithful adaptation would have been so much different and required a substantially larger budget I suspect...

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Shirgall]

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.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[cptdondo]

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.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Z00L00K]

Starship Troopers was more an ironic paraphrasing of the book than literally following the book.

I actually come to realize that if you follow a book literally then it may not make a good movie.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[the gnat]

There is one way of looking at the movie in relation to the book that actually sort of makes sense. For all of the criticism leveled at Heinlein for being too militaristic or even "fascistic", the society he describes is basically a multicultural libertarian utopia: people of all nationalities seem to be relatively happy and well-off, the government is relatively minimal, and the federal service is open to absolutely anyone (even cripples). And that's precisely the problem - utopian ideals rarely turn out well in practice. Actually, the even more specific problem is that Heinlein assumes the society would basically be run by people like him. Verhoeven's version, although it badly misrepresents what the book actually says, is probably a more realistic vision of how such a society would turn out.

That said, I'd still love to see an adaptation that plays it straight. Or at least gets the mobile infantry right, complete with orbital drops and mechanized armor.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Nidi62]

Starship troopers is a fantastic movie.

You just have to acknowledge that it's a parody piece that (rightly) shits all over the source material for the war worshiping jingoistic crap that it is. :)

Did we read the same book? I took out of it that war is horrible, leaving the lucky ones dead and the unlucky ones in broken bodies and scarred souls, but still a necessary evil to allow the people back home to live peaceful, happy lives. It also implies that drafts are bad and the only soldiers should be volunteers who willingly measure the rewards vs the risk of dying/getting injured, realizing that their sacrifice benefits the whole. Remember that the general feeling of the cap troopers was that they would be happy if the war was over tomorrow and no one was ever forced into a capsule if they did not want to go, and they weren't even punished for doing so besides getting discharged.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[camperdave]

I really enjoyed Predestination.

You were meant to.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[nobuddy]

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.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[nobuddy]

I never got that impression. The moon was a self sustaining colony that trades with Earth. I don't recall any notion that the Earth was dependant on them for food.

but it has also been a good 25 or 30 years since I read it, so there is that.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[nobuddy]

I would love to see "Friday" or "Job: A Comedy of Justice" made in to movies.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[cptdondo]

two votes for Friday. No selective editing, though. :)

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[doug]

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.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Quasimodem]

Robert Heinlein graduated 20th in a class of 243 Annapolis cadets and spent five years stationed on the Pacific Ocean until forced to retire in 1939 because of tuberculosis, so calling Robert Heinlein a frustrated Naval Officer wannabe is a bit contemptuous of a person who was in the process of making a success along one career path, was forced to discontinue, and made an even greater success along a totally different career path.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Mike Van Pelt]

"The Puppet Masters" was actually pretty decent, given their limitations. (They ran out of budget to do decent alien spaceships, and they're obviously not going to be able to take it as far as Schedule Suntan without getting a kiss-of-death NC-17 rating.) Donald Sutherland absolutely nailed the rold of The Old Man. And how did they get that chimp to act so *creepy* when hag-ridden? Much of the dialog was straight from the book, and a number of scenes were very close to the book, modulo moving the setting to the present day from a future where there are Venus colonies. It was made by people who read and loved the book.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[ShanghaiBill]

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.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[cptdondo]

He was very frustrated and distraught at having to leave the Navy. The Navy was his first career choice and he did not want to leave. He felt that he could have contributed much more had he been allowed to stay in the Navy.

I was not being contemptuous; I was being truthful.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[the gnat]

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.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Thud457]

Don't forget that was one of the real arguments for the revolution.
Trade with Earth was bleeding them of water and would eventually lead to the colony's collapse.

They could probably have been self-sufficient if they hadn't been forced to send grain to Earth. But being a bunch of transportees and convicts, they didn't get a say in the matter.

Good luck explaining the finer points of a closed-cycle ecology, economics and politics in a 2-hour movie.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[the gnat]

I'm using the term "libertarian" only in the most general sense - not the Tea Party/Ayn Rand versions. It's an imperfect term to describe him, but I have a hard time thinking of another that works better, since none of the established political groupings occupies a similar niche.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Sowelu]

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.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[GameboyRMH]

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.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[roc97007]

Predestination was a "decent' attempt at "All you Zombies" and was very watchable.

All the other attempts kind of sucked out loud with a bamboo umbrella.

Pretty much. I really liked Predestination, loved that they kept the original time frame even though it led to some retro-futuristic anachronisms, and didn't begrudge them adding somewhat to the story. Did you notice that one of the characters was holding a copy of "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress"?

I hesitate to call *all* the others crap only because parts of "the puppet masters" were fairly close to the original material, if you see the story as occurring in the present day rather than near-future. What annoyed me most was that the brilliant solution in the book was watered down for "american audiences" who might not understand epidemiology. I really wish script writers would stop treating us like idiots.

As to other adaptions of his works, wasn't Space Cadet adapted into a TV series in the early days of television?

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[blue9steel]

I'm not sure the government of that universe can be properly described as fascist just because they limited suffrage to veterans. My understanding was that it was still a mixed economy republic without the organized business and labor groups that would be required for a fascist system.

Regardless, a movie about Starship Troopers that doesn't include power armor isn't a proper re-telling of the story.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[blue9steel]

Personally I think basic income is compatible with libertarianism though I'm sure many will disagree. After all, if you're compelled to sell your labor due to having no other choice but starvation are you really free at all? Imposing libertarianism without a frontier or a BI is essentially just license for capital to exploit labor with all the power on the capital end of things.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[cptdondo]

? Must be different from when I was an officer. Never heard that. Interesting.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[fnj]

Heinlein's thoughts were so far above the cookie cutter "isms" as to be on a different plane altogether.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Moridineas]

"Wannabe" is also a negative term that connotes one lacks the ability. It sounds pretty contemptuous! Maybe not what you meant, but that's how I interpreted it as well.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[suutar]

I'd love to see an adaptation, but this isn't it. The movie is a reskin of a completely unrelated script (imho, to get name recognition); Verhoeven never even read past the first two chapters of the book.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[suutar]

I'm not remembering pedophilia; would you care to elucidate?

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[suutar]

It's not even that. It's a reskin of an unrelated script.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[werepants]

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.

Not sure that I agree - the main thing that moves the plot forward certainly is the revolution. You could argue that the revolution plot is just the scaffolding Heinlein uses for his speculation about society, but to be fair a huge amount of sci-fi could be described this way. The other thing that makes the revolution critical is that he uses it to showcase the way colonization efforts will eventually evolve - Earth will view colonists as dependent and incapable, but as soon as basic self-sufficiency is possible it will become very difficult to maintain control over determined inhabitants who are acclimated to the very different environment and accustomed to dealing with the challenges of space.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Penguinisto]

IIRC parts of Earth were - notably India (and China?), where the populations were too large to otherwise sustain.

The Lunar colonies began as a ginormous prison, but the expense of sending parolees and ex-cons home was too onerous; so they stayed, formed their own society, and grew on their own.

I think the premise is still quite doable, especially if there were some condition on Earth which prevented agricultural production from reaching its current capacity.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[LWATCDR]

Really? I felt that Starship Troopers was very close to the book. Which was also terrible.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Penguinisto]

He was very frustrated and distraught at having to leave the Navy.

He didn't leave entirely... during WWII he worked at the Pentagon with Isaac Asimov, John Campbell, and a couple of other prominent authors on top-secret (at the time) projects involving quite a bit of technology development (including what would eventually become high-altitude pressure suits, if that gives you an idea).

Dude even broke Navy protocol and hired smart women to the team, as he managed the projects under his care.

If I remember right, he retained his rank at the time.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[cptdondo]

I don't disagree with you.

I suspect that the movie with its name of "Uprising" will focus mostly on space and moon-gravity battles, fantastic CGI, and drop the whole birth of a society theme. Instead of a drama it will be action, with Manny the one-armed wonder and Mike the ever-present computer.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Anonymous Coward]

Heinlein held to free will and the desire to not subjugate an unwilling partner, so I would find it hard to imagine pedophilia in his works

In the Lazarus Long series they were dealing with 'perfect' human genetics, where inbreeding (presumably the logical reason to avoid incest) was no longer taboo

In addition, all of the characters were adults, in some cases they were clones of Lazarus (with sex chomosome fidddled with) and had not been directly involved with rasing each other. Almost like self-cest off of 4chan

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Anonymous Coward]

Time enough for Love.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[BlueBlade]

I must be the only one who liked Starship Troopers. I think I liked the movie more than the book. The movie was deliberately campy and I thought it made a few good social comments on propaganda and war. The book was much more serious, but I thought the whole political structure was highly implausible. I found the concept of forcing politicians to serve a few years in the military was interesting, however.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[painandgreed]

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.

Sounds like college.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[painandgreed]

Good luck explaining the finer points of a closed-cycle ecology, economics and politics in a 2-hour movie.

Good luck explaining them to the intended audience.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[painandgreed]

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.

Maybe Peter Jackson is going to do work on the film and this is just the first installment of the new expanded movie trilogy?

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Culture20]

Starship Troopers (the movie) was an excellent parody of WWII propaganda movies riding on the coattails of Desert Storm. That's what i went into it thinking it was, and I was happy with the result.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[0xdeadbeef]

Oh my God, I can't believe you morons still believe that.

Verhoeven was fucking with you.

This is the man who made RoboCop and Total Recall. The writer of Starship Troopers, Edward Neumeier, also wrote RoboCop.

Bug Hunt at Outpost Nine is a working title. A lot of movies like that have working titles. It helps keep them secret when they're in production.

Do you honestly think they weren't aware of one of the most famous science fiction novels that bore a striking similarity to the movie they had written, which was itself a satire of fascism and war propaganda?

Verhoeven may not have actually finished the novel, you don't need to, it's pretty boring, all hopping around in power armor and nuking skinnies and bugs after you get past the parts they directly lifted. But Neumeier is a writer who is into science fiction, do you honestly think he had never heard of Starship Troopers? That it was all coincidence? If so, you Heinlein fanboys are as dim-witted as the characters.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[sconeu]

I've said on other fora, that the film was actually kind of fun, and that I'd have enjoyed it a lot more if it wasn't called "Starship Troopers".

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[mikeiver1]

Hollywood is incapable of taking what is a truly great story and putting it to the screen in a more or less complete fashion. Reality is that this is the kind of book that would be better split into 2 or even 3 movies. Frankly it would have been far better if they did a mini series on TV instead. With high hopes but low expectations.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Applehu Akbar]

Stationed in the Canal Zone, I thought.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Applehu Akbar]

You're thinking of "Tom Corbett, Space Cadet."

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[slashdot_commentator]

If you think Starship Troopers is one of the greatest works of science fiction, you have an extremely limited exposure to sci-fi literature. I don't think I could put it in the top 100 of sci-fi novels.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[the gnat]

If you think Starship Troopers is one of the greatest works of science fiction, you have an extremely limited exposure to sci-fi literature.

Maybe I just have different taste in books than you. Your sig alone demonstrates that we really don't think alike.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Sowelu]

Christ, lay off the coffee. It's one of my favorite movies.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[tnk1]

I agree. Wannabe certainly sounds to me like he was never commissioned or in any way successful. Heinlein wasn't a wannabe naval officer, he *was* a commissioned naval officer.

You could say he was a wannabe captain or admiral, perhaps, but "wannabe" implies he didn't have it in him to be either of those things and there is no evidence that he lacked the ability to have an otherwise long and successful career, especially on the eve of WWII. Being forced out for a legitimate medical reason does not indicate that he was a failed officer in the way that the term implies.

So yeah, not a very good way to put it. "Frustrated" in his attempt to have a full naval career, is what I might say if I actually believed that his frustrations were being acted out in his fiction. Which I don't.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Daemonik]

Try The Door into Summer. 30 year old engineer arranges for an 11/12 year old girl scout to fall in love with him, skirts the issue with some time travel shenanigans.

In Time Enough For Love, Lazarus Long adopts a young girl so he can raise and marry her later. Not, in fact, the only time his Lazarus Long character was involved with an underage female.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[microTodd]

Check out the animated Invasion movie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

Does IMHO a much more faithful representation of what the MI is really like.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[cfalcon]

I think a lot of books would be better served with 4-8 hours of cinema instead of 2, which is ludicrous.

The problem is that books don't follow the "movie flow" (go 60 minutes into most movies and watch an action scene!), detailed, among many other places, here: http://www.davidbordwell.net/e...

Since books are written *to be books*, scenes have to be added to maintain the flow, or subtracted to maintain the flow. This is one reason why you'll see them power through or skip important scenes, giving you the information you need quickly, while being willing to drag out some other lesser scene- movies are as choreographed in their pacing as a sonnet is with its rhymes, and a good movie doesn't make a good book, or a good book a good movie, except by chance, without the writing team adapting it.

So if a book is long and contains action or plot reveals irregularly, it may be possible to break it into multiple movies (and that could easily be correct). But unless you can meaningfully find "separation of acts" in the source material you will be ignoring large chunks of it and making it two hours long, no matter how ruinous.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[HiThere]

Perhaps the movie was fascist propaganda. I never saw it and don't intend to. The book wasn't, though it was militarist. And the viewpoint character spent almost all his time in a military environment. (Fascist has more to do with the corporations and the government working hand in glove. Read Mussolini. You can properly call the US government fascist. And it's quite distinct from Nazi (which, frankly, is bug-fuck crazy rascism, with a few other loony twists).

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[mjwx]

the society he describes is basically a multicultural libertarian utopia

And that's exactly why people end up viewing it as a militaristic or fascist society.

The problem with Heinlein's libertarian utopia is that it's one dimensional, you dont see anyone actually wanting to live outside the rules. It fails for the same reason true communism (marxism) fails, because it relies on everyone believing the same yet still having the same human traits they have now (or had in the 60's).

I understood the society that Heinlein was trying to convey in Starship Troopers and A Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, but I also see they're completely impossible. The notion that they're militaristic or fascist is the most logical jump people make in order to make the society fit in with reality. It's a disconnect that breaks suspension of belief, so in order to restore the suspension of belief people's brain makes the connection to systems of governance that do fit. This is pretty much the only thing that turns me off reading more Heinlein.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[lgw]

Verhoeven completely misunderstood the book, was the thing, and made a parody of it. What he missed, what Heinlein's reader's often miss, is that Heinlein doesn't write utopias. None of his books are some imagining of an ideal society. The point of Starship Troopers was to explore in depth what life would be like in a militaristic/fascist society from the point of view of someone who knew nothing else. It was subtle and powerful as a result: the point-of-view characters are fully adapted to their society, and don't point out all the ways it's batshit crazy. Heinlein trusts the reader to make that call, to see how easily people get used to even such a harsh society and accept it as normal, if that's all you know.

Verhoeven missed all of that, saw it as an endorsement of the society in the book, and parodied it, turning the really interesting point the book was making into trite anvilicious crap.

Moon is the same - exploring an ultra-libertarian society in the same detail, in the same way from the point of view of people adapted to it. I expect the same Hollywood treatment: making a satire of it since they see the society as unwanted, not realizing it wasn't an endorsement in the first place but a critique.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[HiThere]

There might well be a way to do that, though I'm not quite certain what it would be. However, IIRC, Heinlein didn't discuss the ways that would be used to prevent corruption, so it's unfair to presume that they didn't exist as well as to presume that they did.

OTOH, our current system doesn't prevent the powerful from manuvering their progeny into positions of power, so it's reasonable to guess that another system wouldn't either, without strong built in protections. And I can't recall a historical civilization that both tried to do that and was successful. So perhaps that happening wouldn't prevent a culture from lasting, say a couple of hundred years.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[mjwx]

Good luck explaining the finer points of a closed-cycle ecology, economics and politics in a 2-hour movie.

I fully expect that Manuel (Man) Davis to be a hard nosed, chisel-jawed, Lunar cop working closely with his partner, Mycroft Holmes (probably a robot) to defeat a crime syndicate.

Hollywood loves Heinlein's titles and backdrops, but hates his characters and stories.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[mjwx]

I never got that impression. The moon was a self sustaining colony that trades with Earth. I don't recall any notion that the Earth was dependant on them for food.

but it has also been a good 25 or 30 years since I read it, so there is that.

The moon provides earth with food. The earth provided the moon with goods it could not manufacture on Earth (computers, electronics) as well as population (prisoners). The idea was that the moon provides a great deal of food as it costs little to nothing to drop payloads but the Earth provides the moon with very little as it was expensive to lift payloads.

The moon was not a self sufficient colony, it still required some resources from Earth.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[jbburks]

Sex is no substitute for plot, dialogue or story line. If you don't think so, there's a whole genre out there waiting for you.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Whiteox]

By His Bootstraps was one of his written in 1941. I'd like to see that as a movie.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[shutdown -p now]

What's wrong with incest?

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[joebagodonuts]

I don't think Dora was adopted with the intent to woo & marry later. At least I didn't get that from from the story.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Shadowmist]

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.

That's one way of putting it... another valid way of putting it would be that his books became a formula of Cranky Old Ugly White Dude paired with Exotic Young Hot Female.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[ultranova]

What's wrong with incest?

Power. Family relations already have a high chance of turning into a living hell due to the combination of huge power differences and mandatory participation; supercharging everything with sexuality is a bad idea.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Dutch Gun]

In the first Heinlein book I read, The Number of the Beast, the already-insufferable-yet-amazingly-forgettable characters eventually ended up in the land of Oz in a flying car... What. The. Fuck. At that point I put the book down and decided my time was better spent with other authors. Or sorting my lint collection. Anything else.

Starship Troopers was better, but nothing really special. I also read it after seeing the movie, so I had pretty low expectations going into it - but people kept telling me how much better the book was.

I never bothered with anything of Heinlein's after those two utter disappointments. Maybe those weren't representative of his best works, but The Number of the Beast was so atrocious and the Starship Troopers movie so vapid, it probably forever tainted my opinion of his other works.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[ultranova]

I think the premise is still quite doable, especially if there were some condition on Earth which prevented agricultural production from reaching its current capacity.

Anything that would leave spaceflight-capable civilization standing would also leave Earth better suited for food production than the Moon. It's an absurd premise, and any attempt to justify it with actual logistics will simply draw attention to it. Just imply the situation is due to "corruption" and leave the details to the imagination of the audience.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[drinkypoo]

Verhoeven missed all of that, saw it as an endorsement of the society in the book, and parodied it, turning the really interesting point the book was making into trite anvilicious crap.

Look, I'm not going to claim that Troopers was a good movie in any way really, but you totally failed at watching it. The propaganda scenes made it quite clear that Verhoeven was not providing an "endorsement" of such a society.

Verhoeven is a perfectly bright guy, he's smarter than you in that he knows that explosions and tits sell pictures both to execs and audiences. Total Recall was the film that convinced me that he knew what he was doing. Get the basic ideas down in the picture, and get the big twist/reveal right, everything else can be twiddled for Hollywood.

Re: There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[spongman]

I think you missed the point of the film. It was clearly intended as parody of both war propaganda films and 90210-style utopian soaps.

Re: There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[spongman]

Wow. I found troopers quite tedious. Harsh mistress and stranger were my favorites of his, but far, far from my all-time favorites. More of a Banks man, myself.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[lgw]

You mis-read me. Verhoeven saw the book as an endorsement of the society in the book, and parodied it in his movie, since he saw it as such an awful book. Verhoeven has said as much in interviews.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[dbIII]

Verhoeven completely misunderstood the book, was the thing, and made a parody of it

IMHO he got some ideas from the book that didn't really fit with it and made his "own vision" aimed at current events which was different to the book. See also the Star Trek reboot that deliberately shat all over all Trek stuff prior to it as part of the "director's vision". Directors want it to be remembered as something like "Verhoeven's Starship Troopers" instead of "Heinlen's Starship Troopers".
I think it's a good movie just like "Blade Runner", while having not a lot to do with the Phillip K. Dick story is a good movie. Both could probably be vastly better if they came closer to the books but they are still good movies.

exploring an ultra-libertarian society in the same detail

Lord of the flies does that best :)

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[dbIII]

The movie actually made me think of a modernization of the Roman Republic as some Romans wanted it instead of how it was instead of being fascist.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Cajun Hell]

Obviously there are few things better than a good old friend's wife puking, but what would you have thought of the movie, had she not been there?

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[shutdown -p now]

What are the power differences between, say, a brother and a sister?

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[t_ban]

Great sci-fi or no, Dina Meyer alone made that movie more watchable than many other critically acclaimed works.

Re: There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Teancum]

All of that meant that he completely missed the story in the book itself. It would be like telling the story of the Lord of the Rings from the viewpoint of Sauron and making it very sympathetic to his viewpoint too, portraying Gandalf as a stupid idiot sent to torment him. I could use other examples, but at least Peter Jackson was a fan of the Tolkein books. Verhoeven hated the political philosophies of Heinlein and didn't even really bother trying to finish the book itself before finishing the screenplay.

The point here is that "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" is likely to become the same kind of crap that misses what it could become if it was made by a genuine fan of the author and book. The adaptation, while perhaps a bit funny, misses some of the key undertones of the book and what actually sets it apart from an ordinary story.

I only hope that a real Heinlein fan will eventually do his books justice. The only film that has done his stories justice is "Destination: Moon", and that is partly because Heinlein himself was on set for much of the film shoot as a technical adviser.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Teancum]

The Number of the Beast is a horrible introduction to Heinlein, and is sort of the last in a long line of books about Lazarus Long. It purposely went into a fictional tangent of multiverses where literally anything could happen, and it was written as though it could. It was basically written for the hardcore fans of his other books to tie together multiple characters and wrap up dangling storylines as a capstone book to his entire collection. It would be like watching a TV series final episode that has been running for many years, and you trying to make sense of what was going on when it was the very first episode you ever watched.

No wonder you couldn't figure it out.

Of books I'd recommend, "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel" and "The Man Who Sold the Moon" are much more approachable and don't contain characters from other books (although Harriman does show up in some other books too). "Friday" is one of his more recent books that IMHO is pretty good too, but was written in the "Dirty Old Man" stage of his career none the less.

If you absolutely don't want to take on Heinlein or feel like not reading any other books of his, I'd then suggest reading some Isaac Asimov... especially the Foundation Series. Unfortunately those stories do need to be read in order though.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[mvdwege]

Your amount of service to the State determines whether or not you get privileges as a citizen, in the ST universe. That is not the least bit fascist, of course.

Re: There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Eunuchswear]

It would be like telling the story of the Lord of the Rings from the viewpoint of Sauron and making it very sympathetic to his viewpoint too, portraying Gandalf as a stupid idiot sent to torment him.

That sounds like a good film.

Maybe you could get Michael Moorcock to write it.

Or maybe Kiril Eskov.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Eunuchswear]

My understanding was that it was still a mixed economy republic without the organized business and labor groups that would be required for a fascist system.

Which is what makes it obvious that the book itself is propaganda written by that government.

The political system it described was impossible -- there was nothing stopping the "veterans" stealing everything.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[meta-monkey]

I just want to see the part where they realize they're at the top of a gravity well and can turn grain shipments into kinetic weapons.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[f3rret]

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.

This sorta thing was actually quite common in sci-fi from that era, Clarke's works also commonly included references to alternative versions of marriage. "Rendevouz With Rama" has numerous references to polygamy and triplet marriages.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[werepants]

I guess the big question will be what budget the movie has. If we've got a big headlining star and a go-to action director, then it will be an action movie set on the moon. However, there have been a number of thoughtful sci-fi movies recently, just not big budget blockbusters. District 9, Moon, and the Europa Report come to mind, all of which were in keeping with the spirit of classic sci-fi.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[f3rret]

I understood the society that Heinlein was trying to convey in Starship Troopers and A Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, but I also see they're completely impossible. The notion that they're militaristic or fascist is the most logical jump people make in order to make the society fit in with reality. It's a disconnect that breaks suspension of belief, so in order to restore the suspension of belief people's brain makes the connection to systems of governance that do fit. This is pretty much the only thing that turns me off reading more Heinlein.

I'll grant you that the society depicted in SST was, in many ways, rather incredible (as in "not credible"), but I always found the society depicted The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress rather credible, given the circumstances it happened in. I mean the "We either make this work, or we all die"-angle on the whole thing, makes it more credible than the SST society.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[f3rret]

IIRC parts of Earth were - notably India (and China?), where the populations were too large to otherwise sustain.

The Lunar colonies began as a ginormous prison, but the expense of sending parolees and ex-cons home was too onerous; so they stayed, formed their own society, and grew on their own.

I think the premise is still quite doable, especially if there were some condition on Earth which prevented agricultural production from reaching its current capacity.

The "Lunies" couldn't return home because of physiological changes brought on by the Lunar gravity.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[f3rret]

p>Anything that would leave spaceflight-capable civilization standing would also leave Earth better suited for food production than the Moon. It's an absurd premise....

To be fair, the human race in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is barely spaceflight capable, the can do bulk travel to the moon, but that is about it.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[blue9steel]

You can properly call the US government fascist.

No, corporatist perhaps but a fascist system requires organized labor as one the three legs of the stool.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[blue9steel]

The political system it described was impossible -- there was nothing stopping the "veterans" stealing everything.

In any republic the voters can vote themselves benefits, it's one of the downsides of a representational system. Given that in their system you had to volunteer and endure hardship before getting suffrage I think the voters would actually be more reasonable than the ones in our system.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[gzuckier]

Starship Troopers the movie basically was making sarcastic fun of Starship Troopers the book.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[blue9steel]

Your amount of service to the State determines whether or not you get privileges as a citizen, in the ST universe. That is not the least bit fascist, of course.

Militarist perhaps but fascist no. Fascism describes a particular form of government that involves apportionment of power and tight integration between government, business and labor. Sort of government by large groups rather than individuals.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[gzuckier]

"The Puppet Masters" was actually pretty decent, given their limitations. (They ran out of budget to do decent alien spaceships, and they're obviously not going to be able to take it as far as Schedule Suntan without getting a kiss-of-death NC-17 rating.) Donald Sutherland absolutely nailed the rold of The Old Man. And how did they get that chimp to act so *creepy* when hag-ridden? Much of the dialog was straight from the book, and a number of scenes were very close to the book, modulo moving the setting to the present day from a future where there are Venus colonies. It was made by people who read and loved the book.

In comparison to the run of the mill SF flicks, Puppet Masters was a masterpiece.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Eunuchswear]

The political system it described was impossible -- there was nothing stopping the "veterans" stealing everything.

In any republic the voters can vote themselves benefits, it's one of the downsides of a representational system. Given that in their system you had to volunteer and endure hardship before getting suffrage I think the voters would actually be more reasonable than the ones in our system.

You're thinking about it wrong -- in that system the voters are a minority of the population. There has never been a situation where when a minority of the population controlled the levers of power they didn't profit from it.

The first thing I'd expect to happen is that the "veterans" modify the rules so only children of a "veteran" are "veterans". Next they'd change the rules so only non veterans pay taxes. It's the perfect setup for an aristocracy (i.e. feudalism/warlordism).

As for the old "the voters will vote themselves benefits" complaint against democracy -- it's an often heard complaint. Can you point to an example?

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[HiThere]

Hmm...that sounds quite plausible, but labor wasn't stressed in the sources I read.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[blue9steel]

It's a difficult philosophy for modern westerners to grasp since it doesn't fit well on the left-right spectrum. In socialism labor and government combine to dominate business. In corporatism government and business combine to dominate labor. In fascism, the three supposedly combine in an equal sort of way.

Whether or not that's a good thing is up to your individual politics of course. The German implementation was particularly hideous due to it's willingness to murder its own citizens on an industrial scale, communism has had much the same effect in most places it's been tried.

As a libertarian I don't think any system which stresses the primacy of the state is really going to be a good place to live in the long term. That seems to be borne out by historical precedent and is likely just a consequence of human nature.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[blue9steel]

As for the old "the voters will vote themselves benefits" complaint against democracy -- it's an often heard complaint. Can you point to an example?

So you're arguing that voters don't vote themselves benefits but then saying that the voters in the story would do so because they're a minority?

I don't think it was mentioned in the book what percentage of the populace were veterans but it seemed like it was a sizable chunk, not just a 5% slice for example. If I had to guess based on the clues available I would probably have pegged it as around 40% or so.

Regardless, the US had a minority voting system in the beginning since it was restricted to land owning white males and that seems to have gone just fine for the most part. Universal suffrage isn't a necessary pre-condition for a workable society.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[mvdwege]

No. Fascism is all about the supremacy of the State. Below the ultimate power of the State a hierarchy is formed of those who may wield power on their own, with business and finally State-appointed and -controlled unions as you go further down, but it is State power that counts.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[cwsumner]

You mis-read me. Verhoeven saw the book as an endorsement of the society in the book, and parodied it in his movie, since he saw it as such an awful book. Verhoeven has said as much in interviews.

A parody is not the original. In that case, they should have used a different title. The working title mentioned above was probably more fitting, considering they made a movie that was just a Hollywood horror flick.

My opinion is that the Hollywood "intellegencia" hated Heinlein so much, that they intentionally sabotaged the movie. Not even caring if it made any money. The investors should have sued them...

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[blue9steel]

Fascism is all about the supremacy of the State.

As I mentioned in another post, fascism does indeed promote primacy of the state over the individual, however the composition of "the state" is different from what we're normally used to in that it extends to include business and labor. It's much closer to a combination of corporatism and syndicalism than what is normal currently in western democracies.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Samizdata]

Heinlein is just one of those authors that doesn't translate well to the visual medium, I think. That being said, I was seriously impressed with how Predestination turned out, all things being equal.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[cwsumner]

What's wrong with incest?

It can intensify genetic defects and cause diseases such as hemophilia (unstoppable bleading).
But in those books the people have the technology to fix that.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Samizdata]

She adds a degree of watchability to most everything she is in.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[cwsumner]

Try The Door into Summer. 30 year old engineer arranges for an 11/12 year old girl scout to fall in love with him, skirts the issue with some time travel shenanigans.

In Time Enough For Love, Lazarus Long adopts a young girl so he can raise and marry her later. Not, in fact, the only time his Lazarus Long character was involved with an underage female.

If you wait until they are of "legal age", I don't think that is pedophilia.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[cwsumner]

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.

That was during the 60's and 70's, it was considered Liberal and Progressive. And Innovative. Also, it made good publicity, in the sense that there is no such thing as bad publicity for a productuion.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[shutdown -p now]

Incest is any kind of sexual activity with a close relative. What you describe is only a problem if such activity results in offspring. We've had contraception for a long time now, not to mention that not all sex is even potentially procreative in the first place.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[blue9steel]

You do bring up an interesting point about labor, however many libertarians feel it is a red herring. It is true there could be some situations where it would be possible that there is literally no opportunity to make a living. These situations would by their very nature almost invariable spawn from the source that libertarians dislike the most, the government.

In an environment with no frontier or free land available for development it's actually fairly inevitable that individuals will have no choice but to sell their labor in order to avoid starvation. The ability to choose your master makes you no less a slave. I'm registered libertarian but I'd say one the faults with the philosophy is that it fails to consider power imbalances outside of government vs. individual. There is an implicit assumption that freely negotiating parties both have the ability to accept or reject contracts and influence the terms thereof. In the real world it often doesn't work that way. Try negotiating the terms of your Verizon contract and let me know how that goes.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[demonrob]

so would we, 'Predestination' was on so briefly here in Australia last year that no-one even knew it was on. (yes, Whiteox, 'by his bootstraps' is 'all you zombies' is 'predestination'.)

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[mvdwege]

And as I mentioned, the corporations and state-appointed unions (which of course are not real unions) are subordinate to the State. It's a combinations about as much as you can call an army a combination of officers and enlisted men. It's obvious where the power lies.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Whiteox]

I did not know that. And I think have Predestinaton somewhere in my wife's last DVD buying frenzy. I still have Aunty Jack to watch first......

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[blue9steel]

It's a combinations about as much as you can call an army a combination of officers and enlisted men. It's obvious where the power lies.

Based on my experience I'd say mostly with the senior enlisted, though the officers run things on paper.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[Agripa]

Regardless, a movie about Starship Troopers that doesn't include power armor isn't a proper re-telling of the story.

I remember that this was addressed in a making-of documentary. At the time CGI was too expensive to include both bugs and powered battle armor and there was even less of a story without bugs.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[mvdwege]

Since you are reduced to quibbling over the semantics of a metaphor, I think I can safely conclude you concede the rest of my points.

Re:There might be hope for a decent adaptation

[blue9steel]

That would be a faulty assumption.

Sayeth the Tick

[Anonymous Coward]

"Gravity is a harsh mistress"

Re:Sayeth the Tick

[Darinbob]

"We are a hedge, please move along."

I read that as "To Moon a Harsh Mistress"

[Phantom of the Opera]

But seriously, that's pretty fun. I hope they don't screw it up.

Re:I read that as "To Moon a Harsh Mistress"

[hawguy]

But seriously, that's pretty fun. I hope they don't screw it up.

I tried it but it wasn't that fun, my Mistress just said "What are you doing!? That's disgusting, pull your pants back up!", then she slapped me across the face and walked out -- she's quite harsh.

Re:I read that as "To Moon a Harsh Mistress"

[firewrought]

But seriously, that's pretty fun. I hope they don't screw it up.

Meh... fuck it. Just give me the huge-ass launch canon reigning boulders down across planet earth. That'd be cool.

I Read All of Heinlein's Stuff

[glennrrr]

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.

Re:I Read All of Heinlein's Stuff

[MightyMartian]

His later books got more than a little bizarre and disturbing. Strange things seem to happen to aging SF writers.

Re:I Read All of Heinlein's Stuff

[Monkey-Man2000]

Now that you're older you should reread them. I've only read a few including this, Starship Troopers, and Strangers in a Strange Land, and there is a lot more than just a fun story going on in them, and I think a good case can be made that the stories actually subserve their underlying themes (WHATEVER they were).

Re:I Read All of Heinlein's Stuff

[vux984]

Yeah, I second the poster who suggests rereading them again now... except honestly most just weren't THAT good.

nobody is going to confuse Heinlein with Ayn Rand when it comes to message versus storytelling.

Actually I disagree, several of his works had lengthy tangents of just Heinlein channeling message that really didn't connect to the story. Friday for one, Farnham's Freehold for another, Number of the Beast, I will fear no evil, all stand out as examples for me. Probably others... to sail beyond the sunset...etc.

I think Stranger in a Strange Land ... well the commentary on society in that one was integral to the story.

A lot of his work was good, and even his weaker stuff is still worth a read -- some neat stuff explored; but your definitely looking through a window into Heinlein's political, economic, and sexual ideology and it becomes apparent to the point of being an annoying distraction.

Re:I Read All of Heinlein's Stuff

[Z00L00K]

Heinlein did make a great story around an idea in many cases - often seasoned with some bites at the contemporary society when the books were written.

But if anything I would like to see a movie or a series of the book "Citizen of the Galaxy".

Re:I Read All of Heinlein's Stuff

[ColdWetDog]

I think too many journeys through the Time Portal (aka Scotch Whiskey) really fries the old brain cells.

And once he really tried to think through cats and women he just lost it. Therein lies madness.

Re:I Read All of Heinlein's Stuff

[PvtVoid]

A lot of his work was good, and even his weaker stuff is still worth a read -- some neat stuff explored; but your definitely looking through a window into Heinlein's political, economic, and sexual ideology and it becomes apparent to the point of being an annoying distraction.

The thing that stood out for me re-reading Mistress recently was that Heinlein was an utter troglodyte about gender roles. He was progressive for his time, but his treatment of women really stands out, and not in a good way, when reading his books with a modern sensibility.

Re:I Read All of Heinlein's Stuff

[ADRA]

His writing was certainly libertarian in nature varing from basically none to extreme. That said, his stories were always written well enough that you often don't realize/care about his politics bleeding int the pages.

His tendencies are more about frontier self-sufficience and the use of one's own (naturally brilliant though often fluke) ability to survive extrodinary situations. The formula generally works because his stories are written to play well against this formula while still being quite enjoyable (for the most part).

I'm really looking forward to the film, since mistress is one of my favorites from him.

Re:I Read All of Heinlein's Stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

His wife was kind of a pervert and it reflected in his writing.

Re:I Read All of Heinlein's Stuff

[halivar]

The problem there is critiquing old art with modern social mores. By that token, we ought to dismiss every classic odalisque ever painted as blatant sexual objectification. It is unfair to unmoor art from its context and judge it from an alien one.

Re:I Read All of Heinlein's Stuff

[MightyMartian]

Heinlein wasn't the only one. Some of Philip Jose Farmer's later work had a pretty sexually bizarre bent

Re:I Read All of Heinlein's Stuff

[vux984]

Not really.

Yes, its important to consider the context classical works were written from. The Flintstones for example or Huck Finn... etc. The various racial and gender issues in them can and should be attributed to values from 1880 or 1960 respectively.

We should of course, bear in mind that Heinlein is writing from the 40s through the 80s and need to keep that in focus, but they are not the background canvas that his works rest on he... he brings the social conventions to the forefront propses that we look at them his way, and in doing so demands that we consider them on their own merits. Whether its that we re-consider the family unit as a business-corporate entity; or to challenge us on incest and pedophilia; or his postulation that libertarian economic policy is ideal.

These are not the context; these are his theses. They demand critique.

Re:I Read All of Heinlein's Stuff

[suutar]

I've heard it said that he got successful enough that editors stopped telling him when it wasn't working.

Re:I Read All of Heinlein's Stuff

[MightyMartian]

Larry Niven as well. Was it the third or fourth Ringworld book that went on at great length about various humanoid species fucking?

Re:I Read All of Heinlein's Stuff

[Grog6]

No, rishithra was in all four. :)

Chicks with fur and a prehensile tail is an interesting proposition; Just Exactly how far away from caucasian do you draw the line? :)

Re:I Read All of Heinlein's Stuff

[NormAtHome]

I've also felt the same way, Citizen of the Galaxy is one of my favorite Heinlein books (as is The Moon is a Harsh Mistress) and both would make good movies if you could get a good screen writer that doesn't mess too much with the theme and characters and tries to faithfully stick to the story. Although I've always felt that adapting Heinlein's books to the screen could be problematic due to his fascination / obsession with plural and group marriages but after Fifty Shades of Grey his idea's on marriages and relationships seem almost tame by comparison so no problem there anymore.

Re:I Read All of Heinlein's Stuff

[shutdown -p now]

I'm wondering whether you're confusing Heinlein's treatment of women with his characters' treatment of women. There's plenty of sexism in "Mistress", but I don't recall it being glorified or presented as desirable by the author. It is presented as normal by the character, yes, because it's part of his cultural background.

Heinlein certainly did have some strange notions about women, as evidenced by "Stranger", but they are of a different kind.

Re:I Read All of Heinlein's Stuff

[cwsumner]

His later books got more than a little bizarre and disturbing. Strange things seem to happen to aging SF writers.

Yes. He did get a bit old and grouchy. But I think he was also talking to some Physicists about Quantum theory, at a time when even the Physicists were scared of it!

Re:I Read All of Heinlein's Stuff

[cwsumner]

I've also felt the same way, Citizen of the Galaxy is one of my favorite Heinlein books (as is The Moon is a Harsh Mistress) and both would make good movies if you could get a good screen writer that doesn't mess too much with the theme and characters and tries to faithfully stick to the story. ...

Except that one of those books is three times the size of a movie and some of the later ones are much more. Even a miniseries might not be enough. Maybe a few seasons of weekly shows? ...

Re:I Read All of Heinlein's Stuff

[NormAtHome]

Possibly but if you selectively edit out some stuff (they didn't film or include every single detail of every Harry Potter book) and perhaps do a two part movie like The Deathly Hallows it could be good. Perhaps a syfy mini series like Dune or The Children of Dune, although studios and networks don't seem to be doing mini-series these days... just too expensive I guess for too little return. Not to mention that science fiction is still seen as somewhat of a fringe subject and is not seen by networks as having the broad appeal of period pieces like Shogun or tear jerkers like The Thorn Birds. I'll have to reread the book but compared to many other science fiction movies, it seems to me that The Moon is a Harsh Mistress wouldn't be so expensive since the majority of it is indoors (no location shooting) other than when Mannie and the Professor make a trip to Earth to appeal for recognition and not a whole lot of CGI and special effects needed either.

Re:I Read All of Heinlein's Stuff

[DarthVain]

Not really. Many of his main protagonists shared a lot of the same "values" as those romanticized in Ayn Rand's books. Of course his isn't alone in that regard, Ben Bova had a few as well... Though Heinlein had more, though in part because he actually recycled the exact same persons several times... The whole anti-establishment libertarian rugged industrialist that using his common sense and good judgement is able to succeed despite the authorities trying to keep him down... He also makes them pretty sexual as well. Including the Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and all the books featuring Lazarus Long, etc... After awhile it becomes a bit tiresome. Anyone who has read "all" of Heinlein's stuff would know that. If he is trying to do more storytelling versus a message, he is doing a poor job of it, as it is pretty clear he has a message he is trying to sell.

Re:I Read All of Heinlein's Stuff

[Ikester8]

Strange things seem to happen to aging SF writers.

Boy howdy. You ever heard of that L. Ron Hubbard guy?

One of my all time favourite reads

[Anonymous Coward]

I just hope they don't butcher it the way they did with Starship Troopers. That one completely missed the point of the novel. It was as if the screen writers hadn't even read the book.

Re:One of my all time favourite reads

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

There's a much better version of Starship Troopers anyway. It's called "Aliens".

Space marines, "bug hunt", fast drops onto planets, even female combat pilots, then a predicted thing, as them being smaller could take slightly more Gs.

Don't they credit him now?

I can't argue that Starship Troopers was loose...

[Anonymous Coward]

But it was a great movie despite not really following the source material.

On-topic, I haven't actually read this Heinlein book but I've liked every one of his books I've read. Hope the movie turns out good.

Uprising?

[TechyImmigrant]

I suspect I'm much more likely to go and watch a film called "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" than one called "Uprising".

Re:Uprising?

[vanyel]

Starting off by fucking with the title tells me they have no interest in actually bringing the book to the screen, which is a real pisser, because it's one of my favorite books and it would make a great movie.

Re:Uprising?

[Graydyn Young]

Totally agree! "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress" is one of the coolest book names out there!

I can't imagine why they would change it. Especially to something so bland.

Re:Uprising?

[freeze128]

It's too many words to fit on a Marquee, and takes too long to say to the ticket vendor. By the time you say "One for The Man who went up a hill and came down a Mountain", the ticket agent has already given you your ticket, change, and is halfway through serving the next person in line.

Re:Uprising?

[ColdWetDog]

Yes, but now that '50 Shades of Grey' is out, can you imagine what the producers would have wanted to do with a title like that?

Re:Uprising?

[ThatsNotPudding]

Or even the double meaning of a title like "Moonrise". Then again, Hollywood - for all of it's rep as creative - is rather dull and cowardly at times ('No! It sounds too much like Moonrise Kingdom! Tractor-driving Peorians will be confused!').

Re:Uprising?

[MooseTick]

Perhaps with the term "Mistress" in the title, they were worried that people would confuse it with the 50 Shades genre.

Re:Uprising?

[TechyImmigrant]

Yes, but now that '50 Shades of Grey' is out, can you imagine what the producers would have wanted to do with a title like that?

How about : "Pantone PMS 400-447 and a Couple More"

http://www.promosyon.us/Panton...

Re:Uprising?

[camperdave]

... (ala Starship Troopers *spit* ...)

Are you a Corner Gas fan, by any chance.

Re:Uprising?

[TechyImmigrant]

It's too many words to fit on a Marquee, and takes too long to say to the ticket vendor. By the time you say "One for The Man who went up a hill and came down a Mountain", the ticket agent has already given you your ticket, change, and is halfway through serving the next person in line.

But I did actually see that film. Making life easy for the marquee layout is clearly not the same thing as making money.

Re:Uprising?

[Snowgen]

Starting off by fucking with the title tells me they have no interest in actually bringing the book to the screen, which is a real pisser, because it's one of my favorite books and it would make a great movie.

By that logic, I guess the publisher had no interest in bringing the story to print, seeing that Heinlein's original was called The Brass Cannon and the publisher "fucked with the title" as you so eloquently put it.

Re:Uprising?

[Daemonik]

I suspect that 98% of the rest of the world will far more likely go to the movie based on who's starring in it than the title or story.

Re:Uprising?

[TechyImmigrant]

That puts me in the 2%. Is that good?

Re:Uprising?

[vanyel]

Not the same thing at all, though editors have been known to screw up authors' stories as well (they don't have the track record Hollywood does there though).

If you're planning on bringing a well known story to the screen, you want to make sure it's easily identifiable, which means keeping the title so people know what you're doing and what to expect. You don't distance yourself from it right at the start. At the very least, it's disrespectful to the author and the fans, and is a strong signal that you're not planning on being any more faithful to the rest of the story.

Re:Uprising?

[gatzke]

I agree. This is my favorite book and I hope they do a decent job of it.

Re:Uprising?

[gzuckier]

Perhaps with the term "Mistress" in the title, they were worried that people would confuse it with the 50 Shades genre.

"The Moon is 50 Shades of Gray"

Re:Uprising?

[cwsumner]

... If you're planning on bringing a well known story to the screen, you want to make sure it's easily identifiable, which means keeping the title so people know what you're doing and what to expect. ...

Well, if they are going to leave out two thirds of the story to fit it into a movie, changing the name at least gives us fair warning.
I have to respect that, after what they did to Starshp Troopers and -didn't- change the title!

Oh boy!

[Anonymous Coward]

Starring COLLIN FARRELL and JESSICA BIEL and lots of pew pew pew and oh, the story? That's lining my birdcage because BOOM special effects.

Fuck this.

Oh boy

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't wait for the entire political atmosphere of the colony (particularly the emphasis on personal freedom, polygamy and a self organized community) and the political message (that a one world government is dangerous, and that different styles of government fit different people) to be completely glazed over in favor of a love story with Wyoh, a shootout, and a yearning for a pure American democracy completely replacing the socialist elements.

and, of course, the ending for the computer will be altered.

Re:Oh boy

[DutchUncle]

But . . . there IS a love story with Wyoh. Polygamy could be a hot seller in the modern ethos. And there ARE shootouts - unfortunately, brutal government suppression of civil unrest, but that's PC nowadays. And the Loonies DO throw rocks. So the Hollywood maceration machine will say, "Hey, we included lots of stuff from the original book, what are you complaining about?" while losing much of the meaning that readers got out of it. (By the way, American democracy used to be secretly socialist; just watch "Teahouse of the August Moon", in which the naive good officer insists that any profits from the town have been banked in a collective account to be shared equally like a family, and his superior shouts "But that's Communism!")

Mixed Feelings

[onkelonkel]

If they do this right it could be an awesome movie, but I'm afraid they will do all the stupid things Hollywood always does when they "adapt" a book for a movie. Like dumb it down, oversimplify the plot and leave out key plot elements, throw in lots of action scenes that weren't originally in the story and then tack on a fake happy ending for Mike,

One of my favorite all time SF novels...

[surfdaddy]

...only surpassed when I read Ender's Game.

Being hopeful, not snarky

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope this is a reasonably true adaptation.

My mind goes back to the ideas in this book from time to time. Perhaps it is responsible for my not-liberal, not conservative nature.

Before the movie comes out I will encourage my older offspring to read the book.

Re:Just Starship Troopers?

[wisnoskij]

I have my doubts that any but the first one were based on his work even slightly. They all deviate pretty hugely from the originals amazing formal.

Re:Just Starship Troopers?

[Nidi62]

I never understood the whole anti-religion thing of the 3rd movie. Made no sense since in the book every unit had their own chaplain who could be from any ordained sect of any religion and had to counsel someone from any religion. And they turned the powered suits into giant walkers. Horrible.

No, the film is *bad* satire.

[Dr. Manhattan]

In "Starship Troopers" the book, a trainee asks why they are learning to throw knives when they have nukes. The instructor stops the drill, and points out that you don't housetrain a puppy by decapitating it. The military is supposed to used controlled force to achieve policy objectives, not wanton destruction. He tells the recruit who to talk to if he still doesn't understand.

In the movie, the instructor throws a knife through the recruit's hand, and says, "Hard to push a button now, eh?"

I get that the movie is satire. I even get that there's a lot in the book that can be fairly satirized. The problem is, the movie is lazy, unfair, incompetent satire.

Re:No, the film is *bad* satire.

[Col. Klink (retired)]

The puppy housetraining in the book was a flashback to his Moral Philosophy teacher explaining why the old civilzation collapsed (namely, because parents stopped spanking their children). Apparently, the "scientfiically verifiable theory of morals" (exact phrase from the book) proves that the way to keep society from collapsing is through corporal punishment in schools and public flogging, just like there is NO way to housetrain a puppy without hitting it.

Re:No, the film is *bad* satire.

[CrimsonAvenger]

Apparently, the "scientfiically verifiable theory of morals" (exact phrase from the book) proves that the way to keep society from collapsing is through corporal punishment in schools and public flogging, just like there is NO way to housetrain a puppy without hitting it.

No, what it attempts to prove is that an arbitrary transition based on age from "slap on the wrist" as punishment for a particular crime to "execution" for the same crime is insane.

Do try to keep in mind when the book was written, and how society behaved then....

Re:No, the film is *bad* satire.

[Coren22]

I took the book as satire of the military, maybe I read something into the book that wasn't there. I did however see the movie before reading the book, so it is possible that colored my views.

There were sequels to starship troopers as well, and they had a totally different tone.

Re:No, the film is *bad* satire.

[fnj]

There were sequels to starship troopers

If you mean a couple of completely unknown movies, those were not sequels. Those were lazy cash-in attempts with no talent.

Re:No, the film is *bad* satire.

[brianerst]

Written by the same guy (Ed Neumeier) who wrote the original Bug Hunt on Outpost Nine (aka Starship Troopers). The second one, Marauder, is a semi-direct sequel to the original with Casper Van Diem reprising his role as John Rico.

Re:No, the film is *bad* satire.

[0xdeadbeef]

Marauder is satire like the original, and justifies its otherwise forgettable existence with this:

It's a Good Day to Die

I love how people on YouTube praise it without realizing it is satirical. It's basically making fun of them and they like it.

Re:No, the film is *bad* satire.

[jdgoulden]

The knife-in-the-hand scene actually goes deeper than you think. "Pain is in the mind," right? The DA is also teaching his recruits that no matter what happens, the medics can patch you up afterwards, so don't worry about injury or pain.

Re:Just Starship Troopers?

[Col. Klink (retired)]

The first movie originated from an unrelated script (about fighting space spiders). They later got rights to Starship Troopers and basically retrofit the character names and a few other things into the story.

I am so exited. This will be great.

[houghi]

Seriously, this is great. When we look at all the great SF books and stories that turned into movies like:
I robot
Starship troopers
We Can Remember It for You Wholesale
Minority Report
and the greatest of all
I am legend

Seriously, what could go wrong?

Re:I am so exited. This will be great.

[Nethead]

What could go wrong? Remember the movie version of Brin's The Postman?

The first five pages of the book and then a remake of Water World.

Re:I am so exited. This will be great.

[Anonymous Coward]

Strange that you put "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" on the list. Have you even read it? The movie is *almost* a genuine Phillip K. Dick production, thanks in large part to diverting from the original when it does. There was a short scene that made it through editing that shouldn't have where the audience is informed of true reality (its the doctor talking to someone right after he comes out, its been long enough since I've seen it I can't pin it quite closer than that). Without that one scene the viewer would be left without an certainty (though they might well supply certainty themselves).

A Scanner Darkly belongs on that list, along with Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep. Minority Report wasn't nearly so bad as The Golden Man (which isn't classic Phillip K Dick, but is an interesting take on evolution).

When you get right down to it, many more movies have been adapted from Phillip K Dick than other writers. The fact that many adaptations are not good is par for the course (Damnation Alley was an abomination even at the time it was made). But sometimes the movies are close (Bladerunner, on its own, is a worthwhile movie -- it just isn't that related to the original and Total Recall was very close. A Scanner Darkly and Minority Report should get honorable mention. Paycheck, Screamers. Ugh.

What would be nice (though it wouldn't do well in the US market) would be a faithful rendition of The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. IMO better than other, better known work of his.

Re:I am so exited. This will be great.

[amiga3D]

There are two things wrong with Starship Troopers the movie. 1. It follows the book in only the most superfluous way. 2. It's a shitty movie with shitty acting and a shitty script. Better if they had just named it something else and I wouldn't have cared. Now I hate the motherfuckers involved.

Re:I am so exited. This will be great.

[sizzzzlerz]

Don't forget the classic screw-over, Dune. Its sole redeeming feature was that they cast Patrick Stewart as Gurney Halleck.

Re:I am so exited. This will be great.

[0xdeadbeef]

The actors were chosen specifically because they were too stupid to recognize that the movie is satire. Much like Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove, they played it straight, and their performances were so much better for it.

That you think the script was bad tells me you're very similar to the actors, though probably not as hot as Denise Richards.

Re:I am so exited. This will be great.

[steveha]

Don't forget:
Overdrawn at the Memory Bank

2.1 out of 10 on IMDB.

On the other hand, I rather liked the adaptation of The Lathe of Heaven.

Re:I am so exited. This will be great.

[sconeu]

Apparently you missed the implied <SARCASM> tags.

Re:I am so exited. This will be great.

[amiga3D]

Fortunately for me your opinion doesn't matter. And I think I'm at least as hot as Denise Richards. :)

Re:I am so exited. This will be great.

[SAN1701]

What's wrong with Minority Report?

I get that most people don't realize that it doesn't end the way it seems it ends (the kicker: the long and somewhat strange talk with the prision officer of how it's to be in suspended animation). But if you pay attention I'll realize maybe one the finest Spielberg moments of all time. Even the exceptional lame way his wife discovers what happened starts to make perfect sense when you consider that conversation in the beginning.

Re:I am so exited. This will be great.

[Skidborg]

A satire of a book is still in no way the same as a good adaptation of the book.

Re:I am so exited. This will be great.

[Whiteox]

Lathe of Heaven http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00... worth every bit of the 7.3/10

Re:I am so exited. This will be great.

[cwsumner]

Apparently you missed the implied <SARCASM> tags.

Don't use sarcasm on the internet, no one will recognise it and they will think you are just an idiot...

Re:I am so exited. This will be great.

[cwsumner]

A satire generally has a different title. In other words, they lied...

Re:Mixed Feelings? Try "Terror".

[DutchUncle]

Let's see, just how badly could they mess this up . . . Well, I still have the paperback with the reversed artwork, showing Mannie with the WRONG ARM being cybernetic, so messing up a book has a long and storied history.

The obvious problem is that the story takes place over a multi-month or year-long period, which never comes across well in a movie. This would need a miniseries to do it justice.

Heinlein said that

[Grey Geezer]

the book was an homage to non-commissioned officers. The movie pretty much misses that aspect of the story.

Re:Heinlein said that

[Nidi62]

The movie pretty much misses that aspect of the story.

It misses pretty much every aspect of the movie. They are even referred to as "cap troopers" when there isn't a single capsule in the entire movie.

Confidence is low, I repeat confidence is low

[spaceyhackerlady]

The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress is an interesting, thoughtful story.

Hollywood doesn't do interesting and thoughtful.

QED

I'd be much more confident if this was being done in England or Scandinavia (cf Real Humans).

...laura

Re:Confidence is low, I repeat confidence is low

[PopeRatzo]

Hollywood doesn't do interesting and thoughtful.

You're ignoring Liam Neeson's thoughtful and nuanced performance in "Taken 3".

Re:Confidence is low, I repeat confidence is low

[amiga3D]

I've got to admit that Liam has style. I liked Rob Roy a lot.

Re:Confidence is low, I repeat confidence is low

[PopeRatzo]

I liked, "A Walk Among the Tombstones".

Re:Confidence is low, I repeat confidence is low

[Pfhorrest]

That's not how you use "QED". You have to say what you're going to argue, then make an argument (list propositions then show a conclusion that follows from them), then you get to say "QED", which means "which is what was to be demonstrated", i.e. "which is the point I'm arguing for". You just listed two propositions. There's no argument. What exactly was to be demonstrated then?

Rise of Libertarianism (Re:Heinlein sucks)

[mi]

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.

"TANSTAAFL" isn't a popular acronym

It certainly is not popular among the lunch-recipients...

and Heinlein is overrated.

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?

Re:Rise of Libertarianism (Re:Heinlein sucks)

[dunkelfalke]

Could this be coloring your perspective, AC? Just a little?

What was it again about "a speck that is in your brother's eye"? Libertarians are just as delusional as communists are, the difference is that libertarians also lack both empathy and the will for cooperation - both are traits that made humans out of apes. Human children are still like that - very competitive and lacking empathy, so I guess libertarians just never really matured. This, by the way, explains, why books that are normally read by teenagers can push people into this kind of social darwinism crap.

What is especially funny is thinking that Heinlein was a libertarian. He was a military first and foremost, and there is no place for personal liberties in military.

Heinlein not simply hated communists, he was pissing-his-pants scared of them which coloured his perception.

which I, an escapee from the evil empire especially appreciate.

I have read your posts and I can only see your ridiculous hate for anything slightly left of fascism. This has nothing to do with being "an escapee from the evil empire". There were millions born in GDR, the USSR, any other socialist country, but this kind of hate is not that common, even though you might feel different, being in an echo chamber and never accepting a converse opinion. Here in Germany mostly the "heil hitler" kind of baldies from the former GDR are like that - something what makes me ashamed for my fellow citizens. The others, like me, who don't shave their heads, are often much more relaxed about the past, even though they didn't like the mandatory Russian lessons (I, for one, am in love with Slavic languages, but this is a personal preference, I didn't like the mandatory French lessons later on).

Personally, I also think that Heinlein is way, way overrated. There were much better SF authors back then, like Robert Sheckley or Stanislaw Lem. Their books stood the test of time much better than anything Heinlein has ever written. His stuff reads like eternal fifties, and I am not just talking about the technology. The only books even worse in that regard were the Lensman series.

where he extolled virtues of the Individual while dissing the Collective

The ones who speak loudest about the virtues of the individual are usually the ones who profit from a collective the most, but in their eyes they earned it all by them selves. You boasted once that you can speak Russian. Let this example of virtues of the individual speak for itself.

Re:Rise of Libertarianism (Re:Heinlein sucks)

[mi]

Libertarians are just as delusional as communists are, the difference is that libertarians also lack both empathy and the will for cooperation

No, the difference is that Communism — wherever practiced in earnest — has turned out to be the most murderous school of thought known to humanity. From Stalin, to Kim, to Sendero Luminoso, to Pol Pot... Even Hitler's genocidal brand of Fascism is but a distant second.

Libertarians can be and are — both in real life and Heinlein's books — quite empathic and willing to cooperate with each other. What we resent is when such "empathy" and cooperation are forced upon us by the government.

What is especially funny is thinking that Heinlein was a libertarian. He was a military first and foremost

False dichotomy. A society can be Libertarian, while its military is not. (Not that I made any affirmative statements about Heinlein's own Libertarianism.)

Heinlein not simply hated communists, he was pissing-his-pants scared of them which coloured his perception.

And he was absolutely right to be afraid of them — not that I'd believe any accusations of involuntary urination you may throw at him.

I have read your posts

I see, I'm making an impact here. Good. Would you like to subscribe to my newsletter?

your ridiculous hate for anything slightly left of fascism

Fascism, dear child, is just another side of the same Collectivism coin, that has Communism on the other side. I personally — if you insist on making this about me — hate both with passion, though I do find Fascism to be slightly less bad than Communism. Franco's Spain was an unpleasant place, but it was not quite as miserable as USSR... But, once you allow the Glorious Collective to take precedence over the Individual, mass murder can not be far behind.

Here in Germany mostly the "heil hitler" kind of baldies from the former GDR are like that

Did you really just compare me to (neo-)Nazis? Godwin much?

There were much better SF authors back then, like Robert Sheckley or Stanislaw Lem.

Well, Lem is in the same league with Heinlein (as are Strugatsky brothers) — it is hard to say, who is "better". Sheckley, while funny, is a lighter weight in my opinion — he was happy to troll the society, but there was little to no science to his fiction.

Their books stood the test of time much better than anything Heinlein has ever written

Yeah? Name one movie based on Sheckley's stories. He is virtually unknown here in the US — even in the town where he lived most of his life (and died), which is just a couple of miles from my house. I like him a lot, but he was much better known in Socialist countries — where censors liked his mocking of Capitalism — than at home or the rest of the free world.

The ones who speak loudest about the virtues of the individual are usually the ones who profit from a collective the most

Citation needed.

You boasted once that you can speak Russian. Let this example of virtues of the individual speak for itself.

Could you state the actual point, which you are trying to support with this anonymous quote purporting to be from a Russian woman bragging about suing her Austrian husband?

Also, a great Jimmy Webb song

[PopeRatzo]

Check this stunning version from avant garde guitarist Bill Frisell, jazz pianist Fred Hersch and Renee Fleming (yes, the opera singer).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Heinlein and politics

[ADRA]

"Starship Troopers the movie was lots of fun, but had very little to do with the book."

Reading the book recently, I can tell you that besides dropping the other aliens and turning the "highly trained soldiers of discression with pocket nukes when things go south" into jarheads, the book is story-wise pretty close to the book.

The huge distinction of the two was that the book takes itself seriously, and does a very good job at reinforcing the case for why their society took the course of events that they did. The movie took the opposite tact by ridiculing the entire system of governance and parodying the much more militarian nature of the society. Depending on your political stripes, you could lean with either take on the story material, but personally I enjoyed both (though the movie was a little heavy on the zany side).

Oh side note, Is Warhammer based loosely on troopers? Throughout the read, I kept remembering similarities to the architypes that game played (only video games, never played the tabletop).

I robot movie was more honest than the book

[voss]

The book glosses over how computers and robots takeover society and how (relatively) bloodless it would be.
However it is still a coup d'tat "For our own good". The computer in the movie follows the same zeroth law reasoning but with less subtlety.

Re:I robot movie was more honest than the book

[cbhacking]

I agree. "I, Robot" wasn't a movie of a book, it was a movie of a *concept* (that had also been explored in a book). The movie, judged either on its own merits or merely as an exploration of Asimov's three laws, is good. It doesn't cover as many scenarios of human-robot interaction as the book does, but the part that it does cover goes pretty well.

Haters gonna hate (Re: Rise of Libertarianism)

[mi]

you shit-for-brains retard [...] insane psychotic drivel

Please, don't hate.

Fascism largely a creation of director Verhoeven

[perpenso]

The fascism was largely a creation of the movie's director, Verhoeven. He had his own agenda that he thought the movie would be a good vehicle for. He even admits not reading the book.

As you point out the book is quite different. I would like to emphasize that the book is quite clear that federal service is not necessarily military service. That the federal service required hardship and a risk of severe bodily injury or death, for example construction in harsh environments (asteroids, space, etc). In fascism the military and combat is held above all else, mere laborers even doing hazardous construction would never be considered to have equivalent service.

Not all libertarians against safety net ...

[perpenso]

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.

Re:Not all libertarians against safety net ...

[perpenso]

And you get to determine what constitute needs and wants, right?

No, I get to elect the people who make that determination. The libertarians advocate electing people who are more modest in those determination, who provide for actual needs of citizens, who don't provide mere wants as a mechanism to win favor and re-election.

Re:Not all libertarians against safety net ...

[Shadowmist]

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.

Fact is... in later life, he railed against programs that benefited him personally when he was down and out in his early years.

Re:Not all libertarians against safety net ...

[Required Snark]

"The libertarians advocate electing people who are more modest in those determination, who provide for actual needs of citizens, who don't provide mere wants as a mechanism to win favor and re-election."

Not only that, but libertarian leaders all have perfect pitch, play multiple musical instruments, speak multiple languages, can sing, dance, paint, juggle, know higher math, engineering (civil, electrical, chemical, computer), farming, veterinary science, medicine, surgery, and psychiatry. They're also perfect physical specimens, have movie star good looks, excel at all sports, know martial arts, ride horses, are expert with all kinds of guns, know how to build and use archaic weapons, and know military tactics and strategy. They are gourmet chefs. They never have bad breath, body odor, or fart.

In fact, their shit doesn't even stink. Perfect humans, just like you.

Re:Not all libertarians against safety net ...

[f3rret]

"The libertarians advocate electing people who are more modest in those determination, who provide for actual needs of citizens, who don't provide mere wants as a mechanism to win favor and re-election."

Not only that, but libertarian leaders all have perfect pitch, play multiple musical instruments, speak multiple languages, can sing, dance, paint, juggle, know higher math, engineering (civil, electrical, chemical, computer), farming, veterinary science, medicine, surgery, and psychiatry. They're also perfect physical specimens, have movie star good looks, excel at all sports, know martial arts, ride horses, are expert with all kinds of guns, know how to build and use archaic weapons, and know military tactics and strategy. They are gourmet chefs. They never have bad breath, body odor, or fart.

In fact, their shit doesn't even stink. Perfect humans, just like you.

You seem angry dude.

Re:My Mistress...

[Quasimodem]

My Harsh Mistress Moons Me.

Re:Fascism largely a creation of director Verhoeve

[the gnat]

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.

I'll be shocked if it isn't awful

[cfalcon]

We can predict that:

- The libertarian theme will be inverted by the writers and directors. The actual message will be something entirely different from what Heinlein said, wrote, and believed.
- There will be product placement, somehow. Just, somehow. If Will Smith can pimp shoes in I, Robot, and Captain Kirk can pimp Nokia in a post-nuclear-apocalyptic, post-capitalistic, post-currency society, then somehow they will ruin that aspect as well.
- They already changed the title. There's zero chance it will have much in common.

Re:I'll be shocked if it isn't awful

[Phil Urich]

Hey, at this rate, a post-capitalist, post-currency society is the only chance of Nokia making communicators for folks again anyways.

so how are they going to screw it up?

[lee n. field]

Hollywood, depicting a real anarchy. What could go wrong? (That's sarcasm.)

Ten to one, the politically correct SJW crowd will make it unrecognizable. About global warming, or something.

Re:Fascism largely a creation of director Verhoeve

[fnj]

A very great many people are stupid. Old news at 11.

Re:Mixed Feelings? Try "Terror".

[fnj]

the story takes place over a multi-month or year-long period, which never comes across well in a movie

[In no particular order] - ever seen a little thing called Gone With the Wind? Lawrence of Arabia? Doctor Zhivago?

I was going to say

[roc97007]

...something like "oh please sweet cthulhu, don't screw this up", but would rightly be expected to be marked -1000 "Redundant".

Oh the Sequels!

[neoritter]

If this works out well they can then do The Cat Who Walks Through Walls! :D

Re:Cannot Fail

[fnj]

Bryan Singer? Heinlein source material?
Oh yeah, this will be a success...

Producing and directing Valkyrie got me as a big admirer.

Re:Why Not Some Larry Niven or Jack McDeavitt Too

[roc97007]

Good for Heinlein and Pohl (Gateway-wasnt that going to be on TV?) and Andy Weir (The Martian). Too bad there is nothing on the radar for the more lengthy series like Ringworld or Asimov's Foundation.

Be careful what you wish for.

You're right.

[Dr. Manhattan]

In the book, it the example of uncontrolled force was actually cutting a baby's head off, not a puppy. The summary is otherwise accurate.

Re:Fascism largely a creation of director Verhoeve

[SuiteSisterMary]

Discussion point: Can it be said to be voluntary if it's necessary for a major societal function?

Also, look at the example of Rico's father. At the beginning of the book, he's dismissive, possibly even contemptuous, in a non-malicious way, of Federal Service. He proclaims that voting isn't important anyway, and that people should do 'real work.'

Of course, once Bueno Ares is hit, he changes his tune right quick and signs right up, for military service, thus proving that his original statements were, short-sighted and wrong.

SST the book wasn't, I think, fascist, but it was awfully fetishistic of the military. It was St Crispin's Day/Band of Brothers in Space.

Re:Fascism largely a creation of director Verhoeve

[Penguinisto]

Discussion point: Can it be said to be voluntary if it's necessary for a major societal function?

Given that only half of the voting population actually votes in the US, I'm not so sure that suffrage is considered to be a major societal function.

Even in the book, Rico's old man is a successful businessman, and had never enlisted (at least not until way later in the book after shit got real, as you yourself mention), and basic human rights (outside of voting) were allegedly guaranteed to all regardless.

SST the book wasn't, I think, fascist, but it was awfully fetishistic of the military. It was St Crispin's Day/Band of Brothers in Space.

I disagree, but only a little - the military was mostly a vehicle from which to tell the story, and it portrayed quite vividly many of the morals and weltanschauung (for lack of a better term) that military service imparts on those who enter it. More importantly, it explained it in a way that civilians could put to use in their own daily lives.

Re:Fascism largely a creation of director Verhoeve

[perpenso]

The fact that it is not altruistic, service yields a reward albeit at some risk, does not change its voluntary nature. Neither does its necessity. As long as there are sufficient volunteers this necessary task can accomplished. Now if there were insufficient volunteers then the model they based their society on would fail.

Re:Why Not Some Larry Niven or Jack McDeavitt Too

[dpidcoe]

Ringworld would make for a pretty amazing movie if they paid as much attention to correctly representing the physics, engineering, and scale as Niven did in the books.

I'd also love to see some of the Pournelle books done properly. Janissaries or King David's Spaceship would make for a great movie (mixing technologies like that makes for some really fun settings), and Falkenbergs Legion has a lot of potential to make a pretty awesome miniseries or TV show.

Actually, Nolan+HBO might make a decent Foundation

[Phil Urich]

Good for Heinlein and Pohl (Gateway-wasnt that going to be on TV?) and Andy Weir (The Martian). Too bad there is nothing on the radar for the more lengthy series like Ringworld or Asimov's Foundation.

Be careful what you wish for.

Honestly, though, if anything Nolan's general failing has been in the emotional department, he's actually pretty good with grand, sweeping ideas. And anything to do with the Foundation series is going to work best as something along the lines of an HBO series, certainly at least in terms of budget and length (and we-don't-need-no-stinking-ratings). So although it certainly could go really badly, I think there's a chance that a Foundation series could work out.

However, Total Recall 2070 was great

[Phil Urich]

As a mashup of We Can Remember It For You Wholesale and Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, it was admittedly somewhat different in tone than Dick's works but still paid attention to his ideas and created an interesting, thoughfully constructed world to explore them through. And on the typical shoestring Canadian budget, to boot (and with an amazing theme, but that's another story). I think you're right that Big Ideas science fiction tends to flail and fail when squished onto the "big" screen, but TV is where you have enough room to breathe that these ideas can actually be explored.

Finishing the book right now

[smooth wombat]

Funny this story should come up. I picked this story up at a library book sale a while back and hadn't gotten around to it until recently.

Not a bad story, typical Heinlein. I had read The Cat Who Walks Through Walls and it was better, up until he went off topic with the timeline stuff and the ending, wtf? Maybe I missed something.

So far this book is good. Understandable, logical, and interesting.

Re:Finishing the book right now

[shutdown -p now]

If you think that time travel was off-topic in "Cat", I have to ask, what did you think the book was really all about?

Re:Mixed Feelings? Try "Terror".

[smooth wombat]

Well, I still have the paperback with the reversed artwork, showing Mannie with the WRONG ARM being cybernetic,

Ha!. Just looked at mine since I'm finishing this book (see my post lower down) and my Mannie's arm is the correct one. Left.

However, is it just me or does Mannie look like Bruce Greenwood (Captain Pike of the Enterprise a la J.J. Abrams)?

Re:Fascism largely a creation of director Verhoeve

[packrat0x]

Of course, once Buenos Aires is hit [,which kills his beloved wife], he changes his tune right quick and signs right up for military service

Re:Fascism largely a creation of director Verhoeve

[HiThere]

I'm going to be picky, but that's not fascism. Fascism is the corporate state, i.e. the corporations and the state working hand in glove. In Mussolini's case he took a bit of time picking sides in WWII, and finally picked what he thought was the winning side BECAUSE he thought it was the winning side, not because he agreed with it. His fascism became militarist because of the environment that it developed in, it wasn't a part of his central ideas, merely a tool in making Italy strong. And though he was anti-intellectual, he wasn't racist, he was nationalist. There really *is* a big difference. His central goal was to make Italy strong, and his choice of how to do it was the corporate state. Everything else was derivative from that, if you include mistakes as being derivative.

In fascism syndicates not corporations control ...

[perpenso]

It is a popular misrepresentation of fascism to say that it is a partnership between state and corporations.

The actual definition of fascism involves syndicalism. Syndicates not corporations control industry, and more importantly syndicates are controlled by workers. This is somewhat socialist in nature. Additionally the syndicalism has a strong nationalist flavor. It kind of replaces the socialistic class conflict with a national/regional conflict. Fascism is a fusion of elements of the far right and the far left.

Fascist Italy recognized both the owners and the workers as distinct groups however the workers were empowered through syndicates and both the owners and syndicates were expected to cooperate as necessary to serve the needs of the state. The state put restrictions on both the owners and worker syndicates. They considered this model an alternative to both capitalism and marxism.

Militarism was central to Mussolini's beliefs. He viewed Fascist Italy as the heir to the Roman Empire spiritually and wanted to "restore" some of that old glory via military conquest and colonization. And that on an individual level it was the military and combat that helped a "man" to reach his full potential. This predates the rise of the Nazis. Matter of fact Hitler was Mussolini's understudy in the early days, Hitler looking up to him as a role model.

Mussolini was also racist, though a more moderate form than exhibited by the Nazis. He thought the aryan mediterranean "race" and culture superior. However he differed from the Nazis in that he didn't believe in strict biological definitions. He believed a certain amount of assimilation was possible, somewhat consistent with old school Rome where allies and conquered peoples could eventually become full Romans by adopting Roman culture and demonstrating fealty to Rome. That said, he absolutely made claims of white racial "superiority" as part of his justification for Italian colonies in Africa.

Re:Just Starship Troopers?

[Shadowmist]

I never understood the whole anti-religion thing of the 3rd movie. Made no sense since in the book every unit had their own chaplain who could be from any ordained sect of any religion and had to counsel someone from any religion.

As I understand it that was true of real life chaplins in the US Army as well.

Libertarian?

[dbIII]

How can something about a space colony where mere survival requires a vast amount of teamwork be libertarian?
You can't just "shrug" like in Rand and expect everyone to work around the misfit and do their job for them.

Re:Libertarian?

[Pfhorrest]

Libertarianism says nothing against teamwork. Only that such teamwork has to be voluntary and not coerced. If it's necessary to keep every individual from dying a sudden and terrible death at any moment in the harshness of space, you betcha there will be a lot of voluntary teamwork.

And anyone who jeopardizes that gets thrown out an airlock.

Re:Libertarian?

[dbIII]

Ah yes. Forgot how rubbery the definition can be.

And anyone who jeopardizes that gets thrown out an airlock.

Who needs rule of law when you can have might makes right Chinese style?
You are just reinforcing a stereotype and we should probably both stop here before I pour on insults you probably don't deserve just because you've oversimplified things. I accept that the term means a lot of different things to different people - from those that wanted to crown Koch as a benevolent King a few years back to outright anarchists with a lot of less extreme stuff in the middle.
In most forms I believe it's very much about the individual at the expense of society and diametrically opposed to teamwork, nation building, and the foundation of the USA and other democratic nations, but that's just my opinion and don't let that put you off. It's up to you to learn the implications of your ideology and whether it is practical or not. When a sick kid also goes out the airlock despite there being enough resources to go around if pooled then that ideology looks a bit less shiny doesn't it?
OK, so I didn't stop. Let's just leave it where I don't respect selfishness relabelled as ideology and you probably don't see it in those terms as yet.

Re:Libertarian?

[Pfhorrest]

The airlock thing was a reference to the story, for the treatment of people who do not get along cooperatively with other people but act in selfish destructive manners that jeopardize the wellbeing of the whole society. Nobody was forced to participate in anything, but the whole society looked down harshly on those who would positively interfere with those who did choose to participate voluntarily in the cooperative tasks necessary to protect the whole of society. Sick kids don't go out airlocks. Violent criminals do.

Re:Libertarian?

[dbIII]

If you think that's how it would work out in a greed driven society then I admire your optimism.

1994 film The Puppet Masters

[MichaelSmith]

100% not worth seeing, unfortunately. I hope the producers don't ruin the reputation of a great book in this case.

Too bad Harlan would sue to block it...

[Thud457]

I fully expect that Manuel (Man) Davis to be a hard nosed, chisel-jawed, Lunar cop working closely with his partner, Mycroft Holmes (probably a robot) to defeat a crime syndicate.

Make it a series on Netflix and I'm all on that. We haven't had a decent sci fi comedy on TV since Quark.

It could work...

[way2slo]

This is probably my favorite book. The political philosophy discussions, the different culture, and the characters. I strongly suggest re-reading it a few times.
I believe they could get close to the book and still keep it interesting for general audiences.

Act I
Introduce main characters and explain political and economic situation including the discovery of "Food Riot Day". Aside from the initial riot, this will be mostly boring unless they fill it with comedy.

Act 2
Plan the Revolution and implement it. There are a few action sequences here and there that could be pieced together to keep things interesting until Revolution Day.

Act 3
Diplomatic relations with Terra and War. Plenty of action here. Lots of CG explosions and such.

The hard part is that they cannot totally ignore the difference in gravity between the Earth (9.8 m/s^2) and the Moon (1.6 m/s^2). It is central to the plot in Act 3. Might have to CG the human battle scenes too or perhaps do some sort of half-bullet time.

Re:Just Starship Troopers?

[gzuckier]

There was also Starship Troopers 2, Starship Troopers 3, and Starship Troopers: Invasion. Of those, I only watched Invasion (all CGI). It was OK, which made it way better than the 1997 one. The others frankly look even worse. Anyway, I have high hopes and low expectations with Uprising.

I liked 2 and 3, but I'm in the minority. They were less consciously tongue in cheek than the original, more straightforward SF flick; 2 had a pretty hardhitting satire of militarism etc that went with the tongue in cheek militarism of the original; 3 just tossed out any attempt at subtlety or satire but kept the same antiauthoritarianism theme.

Re:In fascism syndicates not corporations control

[HiThere]

Militarism wasn't central to Mussolini's beliefs, it was derived...though I admit that the Roman model he used was strongly focused on militarism. The essentials was the binding together of the various interests of the state, as symbolized by the Roman fasces. Militarism was one tool to achieve this, and to allow that combined force to project its power. (Symbolized by the axe within the rods that were bound together.)

That part about syndicates sounds right though. I've got to admit that I don't understand the difference between syndicates and trade unions...unless they are intended to be company specific unions, which have a *very* bad history, and did even then, so I can't believe that he was pushing THAT.

About Mussolini's "moderate racism"... Just about everyone was racist to that extent at that time (with some major exceptions). Read some of the stuff that was being pushed on the public in the US. Hell, read Heinlein's "Fifth Column" or John W. Campbell's "Mightiest Machine". Or look into the history of IQ tests. And at that time there wasn't much hard evidence that race actually was unimportant. (There is now...but it's not totally solid, just essentially solid.)

OTOH, I guess I, also, tend to oversimplify Fascism, and think of it as the corporate state. I doubt that it would have been any better than the corporate state, but it sounds more like a traditional monarchy...without the "divine right of kings", or at least with that strongly backgrounded. Mussolini was a charismatic leader, but it's not clear what the follow on would have been, had that happened. (I wonder what Mao Tse Tung would think of modern China.)

That's a nice planet you got there...

[ChoosyBeggar]

-shame if something happened to it...

Starship Troopers was awesome

[surd1618]

Laughed the whole time. Best satire of American Jingoism and Hollywood ridiculousness in years and years. I love that movie.

HBO

[DarthVain]

Considering the crazy sexual content of his work, the only way to do it right would be to have HBO do a mini-series with it...