'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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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

[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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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?

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: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.