Will The New 'Starship Troopers' Reboot Stay Faithful To The Book? (hollywoodreporter.com)

HughPickens.com shares news from the Hollywood Reporter: "Columbia Pictures is rebooting Starship Troopers, the 1997 sci-fi film directed by Paul Verhoeven... The studio is not remaking the film but is said to be going back to the original Heinlein novel for an all-new take." The original movie, considered a mixed success at the time of its release, went on to achieve a cult following, and during the DVD boom of the 2000s it became a mini-franchise for the studio, which produced three additional direct-to-DVD movies... "Starship Troopers [the novel] has been decried as promoting fascism and being racist in its creation of a society where democracy has been severely restricted..." writes Graeme McMillan. "The question then becomes: in updating Starship Troopers to make it more acceptable to today's audience, can it still manage to remain faithful enough to Heinlein's original to please the existing fan base?"
The script will be written by the writers of the upcoming Baywatch film starring Zac Efron and Dwayne Johnson.

Comments

Awesome satire.

[Noah Haders]

> Starship Troopers has been decried as promoting fascism and being racist

unbelievable. The entire movie is biting satire of the perils of a society always at war and a society with a universally hated enemy. It's brilliant in its insights; coming out in 1997, it presaged the mess that was 9/11 / war in iraq / war in afghanistan / ISIS. It's a flippin awesome movie and I think they should show it in schools to educate about the dangers of mindlessly buying into the war economy.

At last weekend's Comikaze convention in Los Angeles, I had an extended conversation about this with Caspar Van Diem. A cool guy!
I assume the new movie will be a lame rehash of action scenes, without any insights to be had.

Re:Awesome satire.

[dAzED1]

This. HighPickens and EditorDave should feel bad about themselves. Starship Troopers was a very, very obvious satirical piece, *mocking* racism through an analogy so transparent that anyone who does anything related to movie critique and yet didn't see the extremely obvious, overt, mocking of racism and war-for-war's sake, needs to go get a new job. It was over-the-top and ridiculous precisely to show how stupid most (all? meh) wars are. The bugs could think, only attacked because we attacked first, and were even giving humans the benefit of retreating back so an attempt at communication could be made...instead, we sought to exterminate them completely. Is there really anyone who can't see that it's mocking racism? That the bugs are just a replacement for badguy-of-the-month, be it Muslims, or whatever else we've decided to fear and attack?

Re:Awesome satire.

[prisoner-of-enigma]

To this generation, anything vaguely hinting of duty and authority is immediately branded fascist. Anything remotely offensive is immediately branded racist whether race is actually involved at all (for example, being against Islamic extremism is frequently called "racist" despite the fact that Islam is a religion, not a race). We've raised an entire generation of hyper-sensitive, easily-offended, thin-skinned "citizens" who are utterly repelled at the concepts espoused in Heinlein's "Starship Troopers." All this despite such a generation absolutely requiring a cadre of protectors dedicated to the very principles they abhor in order to shield them from the ramifications of their naivety.

Re:Awesome satire.

[dAzED1]

which part are you deeply unsure of? That humans attacked the bugs first, and that news snippets during the movie actually spent a couple seconds talking about protestors pointing that out? Or that the whole thing was obvious satire? Spending half a second, I find an interview with the director, where he describes it as satire that mocks fascism. Even the wiki entry for the movie calls it satire - in the very first sentence . Do you seriously not catch that the whole movie is making fun of the US and the cycle of generate fear => throw the military at the problem => generate fear?

Re:Awesome satire.

[dAzED1]

Here ya go - they even briefly bring it up during the movie (good satire can't overtly call itself satire while it's being satire) - the only good bug is a dead bug - skip to 2minutes and 9 seconds. It couldn't call itself a spade any more blatantly because, well...when's the last time you saw the Onion saying "hey no really, this is all fake, satirical stuff - don't take it as real, we're mocking things to make a point..." - you won't see Onion doing that, because...it's not supposed to. You're just supposed to use common sense and see that it's satire

Re:Awesome satire.

[bargainsale]

That doubtless explains why most Muslims are not Arabs, and many Arabs are not Muslims.

Re:Awesome satire.

[kenai_alpenglow]

"We'll always go get everyone back before we leave" - Book "Leave 'em behind, he's wounded" - Movie. Just one of multiple examples. Heck, the movie didn't even have the troopers come down in the "eggs"--one thing I was wanting to see in the movie. It was an ok movie, but the only thing it had in common with the book was the names.

Re:Awesome satire.

[BlueStrat]

Islam itself is racist - it is an ideology of Arabic supremacy.

Islam is a form of government that uses religion as it's basis of authority and legitimacy. It is an authoritarian theocracy designed for world conquest.

They stand (and kill) for almost everything the Progressive/Left and most of Western Europe hate. Extreme misogyny, murder of LGBTQ, female genital mutilation, forced religious indoctrination, etc etc etc.

And yet they defend them, call them the 'religion of peace' when they're anything but, import hundreds of thousands of young ME Islamic military-aged males and others into their nations with a laughable excuse for screening and call anyone who questions the wisdom of such a racist xenophobe and worse. This will not end well.

"There's going to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom!" - Marvin the Martian

Strat

Re:Awesome satire.

[lenski]

Being of the "get off my lawn" age, I respond:

Authority must be earned, and upon being properly earned, respected.

Starship Troopers was an important part of my educational reading (not school assigned, but I learned much from it nonetheless...).

I learned to despise what passes for authority in the real human world, because they are utterly devoid of the sense of responsibility that Heinlein's officers and leaders showed in their actions and words. The contrast between Heinlein's descriptions of leaders and what we see today in authority figures could not be more clear.

Heinlein's leaders as described in Starship Troopers generally respected those they commanded, and were not on the take. There is no valid comparison of today's dipshit thieves and Heinlein's world.

Anyone linking what passes for authority today with Heinlein's story is bound to confuse the "wielding power" we see today, which is at best Feudalist and at worst Fascist, with respect-worthy leadership.

I am not sure whether a movie made today could possibly accurately reflect the leadership and social commitment philosophy in the book.

Re:Awesome satire.

[plopez]

Propaganda pieces always present their most vile principles; e.g. the leader principle; in its most idealized, purest, and perfect form. The entire book is like that (As is "Atlas Shrugged" but that's another discussion). There are no flaws in the system as long as you obey you are well taken care of, except for that pesky "being ready to die at the drop of a hat on your leaders command" bit.

Re:Awesome satire.

[prisoner-of-enigma]

Like I said, anything remotely offensive is branded racist...or, in your case, bigoted. Can't say anything critical about certain politically-protected groups, now, can we? Even when it's true, speaking it aloud gets you the PC equivalent of the scarlet letter.

Please, find me something incorrect in the poster's statement regard the central tenets of Islam? Homosexuality is a deadly sin, repression of women, religious indoctrination...if this were called "Christianity" instead of "Islam" you'd be calling them backwards, knuckle-dragging, inbred hillbillies who are stupidly worshiping a sky fairy. Alas, bashing Christians is in vogue, just as defending Muslims is in vogue.

Gotta love progressives. Hypocrisy, doublethink, and cognitive dissonance are so entertaining to watch.

Re:Awesome satire.

[Ol Olsoc]

which part are you deeply unsure of? That humans attacked the bugs first, and that news snippets during the movie actually spent a couple seconds talking about protestors pointing that out? Or that the whole thing was obvious satire?

I have found that a huge percentage of America does not understand satire at all. Satire requires introspection and an ability to think critically, both considered bad by a lot of people.

Probably the best example is Poe's law, which I end up passing through a lot. Where a satire ridiculing an extreme position is indistinguishable from what a person who actually believes that extreme position would write.

Re:Awesome satire.

[Pseudonym]

That's no way to talk about Hillary!

There's an insightful meme going around to the effect that this election is a choice between everything that's wrong about US government and everything that's wrong about US culture. Lest anyone accuse me of false equivalence, one corollary of this is that at least (and, quite possibly at most) Clinton won't make things worse.

Re: Awesome satire.

[David_Hart]

I think you're right, there is a lot of violence in some muslim countries. But I think the bigger threat to USA is his "war on terrorism" which by definition never ends and requires us to give up more and more of our freedoms.

Think about it. "Iraq war" we won because we caught Saddam. "Afghanistan war" I guess wound down because the Al Quaeda was pretty much broken. But the War on Terrorism has no fixed endpoint. We will be fighting it forever.

Pop quiz hotshot: there has always been terrorism, and there always will be terrorism.

"The war on Drugs" had it's role to play in the militarization of police forces. It too has no end and required giving up rights such as overly broad search and seizure laws, mandatory sentencing, etc. The War on terror takes it even further. But, in my opinion, without the war on drugs, the freedoms lost to the war on terror would have shocked people to no end.

Re:Awesome satire.

[lgw]

why they keep voting rights to military - the answer is basically "just because".

They don't restrict voting rights to the military - read it again. I could be wrong, but I think most of the serving military couldn't vote, not having finished their first term. You had to have completed some sort of term of service to the community (military was just one option) to earn the vote.

Heinlein himself couldn't even justify it in-novel

The entire book is presented from the point of view of people raised in the society. Therefore, everything about the society, our protagonist and his friends see as normal, because that's what they grew up with. It's neither presented as particularly good or bad, just the way things are. It's never "justified", merely explained.

Heinlein wrote many books about some particular political ideology taken to its logical extreme, in a (mostly) sincere and non-corrupt way, running the spectrum from fascism to libertarianism. They each explored the good and bad elements of that society, for there are always both in any interesting society.

The behavior of troopers is also contrary to the modern rules and laws of war.

There are no "laws" of war, there are treaties, binding only as long as both sides adhere to them. (As an aside, the last enemy the US fought that signed the Geneva convention was the Nazis - everyone since then has behaved worse than the Nazis towards captives and civilians). Do you believe the bugs signed any such treaties?

Or are you talking about the military traditions that set so much of modern military behavior? In a fictional world with its own history and traditions? Most of what played out in the military was exactly as Johnnie expected, suggesting it was fully in line with military tradition.

Trigger warning

[William Baric]

to make it more acceptable to today's audience

Yeah, because today's audience prefers to be in a nice echo chamber rather than having to face something that could challenge their ideas.

That was kind of the point

[plover]

Heinlein didn't picture a "Service guarantees citizenship" society just to have it whitewashed away by today's PC standards. Any reboot that ignores the societal aspects may as well be filmed by Michael Bay, and just go straight to CGI exploding aliens; it won't be true to the book in any way.

Re:That was kind of the point

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the book was a great thought-provoking read, in that it was morally honest.

The movie was definitely fun, but not really honest, apart from a couple of scenes. Not surprising considering the director didn't even read the entire book. The director behaved precisely the way a fascist reading something that made them uncomfortable would (he didn't read it, and called it crap).

One concept that certainly didn't translate from the book to the film was that serving didn't necessarily mean toting around a weapon. It meant putting your blood, sweat, and tears into service for society. There was also the telling commentary on who deserves blame for a crappy society in the book, with the example of the untrained puppy.

I only wish the politicians here actually had skin in the game with these wars. About the only ones I sort of trust about these wars are those who have served or have kids serving.

My guess is that a society like the one in the book would actually be less fascist, and less war-mongering than what we have now.

An equally good idea that Heinlein had was the concept that everyone votes to go to war or not. All those who voted yes, are the first ones drafted. If you believe that going to war is necessary, then you should put your own ass on the line.
 

what could possibly go wrong?

[bloodhawk]

Sounds like they are giving it the Ghostbusters, Total Recall, Godzilla treatment. How about the concept of if you find the original too fucking offensive then stay the fuck away from it rather than trying to reimagine it as a steaming pile of shit.

Verhoeven's version is too smart for its own good.

[uCallHimDrJ0NES]

I'm afraid that if someone produces a sincere, straightforward film adaptation of the novel, the result will be unintentionally hilarious. At least Verhoeven's take is satirical on purpose. Verhoeven's original project "Bug Planet" probably would have been a good movie, too, even if they hadn't opted to get the Heinlein license after the similarities to Starship Troopers became apparent. My point in bringing that up is this: Verhoeven's people had a movie idea, and it wasn't just "adapt a novel". The idea "young beautiful people fall in love, fight aliens, become Nazis" was the kernel, and they built a great movie around that. I'm not sure "make Heinlein's book into a movie" is in and of itself such a great idea. I would need to know more before I thought it was good or bad. Would you like to know more? (Click here.)

so have the script wirters actually read the book?

[kallen3]

Have the script writers actually read the book and understood it or are they just going to go by the movie and what today's self entitled individuals want? Just try to tell someone now that they have to put in 2 years of civil service to vote or hold certain jobs and they will claim it is facist, racist, sexist or some type of istism as 2 years of any type of service would interfere with their lives.

A rare admission

[taustin]

"The studio is not remaking the film but is said to be going back to the original Heinlein novel for an all-new take."

So, by "all-new," they admit that it won't be based on the actual novel. Because that wouldn't be new.

A more accurate description would be, as always, "Based on the title of a popular novel we didn't read."

Bring the remake.

[Charcharodon]

Loved the book, and loved the movie, each for different reasons.

Would love to see a movie that was very true to the book, though I think a lot of liberals heads would explode at the concept of service meaning picking up a gun and standing between danger and society. That you can't vote or hold office till you serve and as a "civilian" (non-citizen) are only allowed to have 1 child.

Imagine if that was the world today. Nearly all the Democratic part and most of the Republican party would be fired from office/ineligible to vote.

Re: Right.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you never served your country in any capacity - neither military nor civil service - I don't trust you with voting and nobody should.

Re:Right.

[dywolf]

Speaking as a veteran, limiting the vote to veterans is one of the stupidest, most dangerous things you can do.