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

Right.

[jrq]

The script will be written by the writers of the upcoming Baywatch film starring Zac Efron and Dwayne Johnson.

It's Guy Fawkes night, not April Fool's Day!

Re:Right.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Given this recent election season, I think an unabashed film about a society where the vote is restricted to veterans only makes a heck of a lot of sense. Certainly better than the idiots who have voted for Republicans or Democrats.

Re: Right.

[Half-pint HAL]

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

In the American Civil War, it was discovered that human beings really don't like pointing guns at other human beings -- the vast majority of shots fired during the war were deliberately fired into the air or the ground. So in order to create an effective fighting force, militaries the world over now subject recruits to humiliating, dehumanising treatment and instil in them a deep hatred of "the other". It works well in combat, but it has knock-on effects. For one thing, civilians in an overseas warzone are the same "them" as the other army, so become the "enemy" by default. This alone explains about 95% of atrocities committed against civilians during wars in the last century.

How is this relevant here? Because it has effects when the soldiers return home. The mindset in the parent post is one of us vs them, and if you're not one of "us", you're one of "them". It's a very dangerous position to take, because it allows the arbitrary dehumanisation of anyone you like, and the recasting of people with different opinions as "enemies".

It doesn't have to be that way. Instead we can respect everyone's right to an opinion, and assume their opinions are formed in good faith. If we disagree with their opinions or their reasoning, then we can discuss and explain. Telling them their opinion doesn't count isn't productive.

Re: Right.

[drinkypoo]

How is this relevant here? Because it has effects when the soldiers return home.

Specifically, the odds of domestic abuse go way, way up. We teach them to be shitheels and then we act surprised when they act like shitheels. There's also the issue that the military is a lot more desperate for recruits these days. Garbage in, garbage out. I do believe in rehabilitation, but that's not what the military's indoctrination is about. It's about making assholes into bigger assholes. Meanwhile, we create such animals we don't even let them have rights any more. No, really. The UCMJ forcing enlisted (or even former enlisted) into military courts is unconstitutional right on its face.

Re: Right.

[Half-pint HAL]

What I was considering saying was that if anything, that makes ex-military less suitable to make decisions than non-military. I decided against it because it sounded a lot like the same "us and them" that I was arguing against. But the thing is that this is a logical standpoint only, and it is certainly not my personal view that former service personnel should be disenfranchised. I am very much against disenfranchisement of anyone. Does that extend to deposed military dictators? My gut reaction to the suggestion that Hitler (had he not shot himself) should have been allowed to vote in democratic elections is one of utter horror, but on the other hand, Hitler was one man, who gets one vote, so yes, it would be right and fair that he gets the vote.

Disenfranchisement of felons in the US in principle seems acceptable, even though I am personally against it in principle. But then when you analyse it, it's unworkable. When you look at who ends up disenfranchised, there's a clear bias against non-WASPs. African-Americans and Latinos are more heavily affected than white people, and not just because they commit proportionally more crimes (that's a flawed statistic that ignores the correlation of social class with crime and the lack of social mobility for non-whites) -- it's because they get heavier sentences than whites for similar crimes, and in certain cases (e.g. drug possession) this can mean the difference between a sentence leading to disenfranchisement and one without.

Any other means of restricting the franchise is going to exhibit a similar unintended bias. Exclude military and you exclude groups that are overrepresented in the military; limit to ex-military and you exclude many other groups. Universal franchise is cleanest.

Re:Right.

[dywolf]

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

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.

[Monkius]

Deeply unsure about that. I enjoyed that take, however.

Re:Awesome satire.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are those darn kids on your lawn again?

Re:Awesome satire.

[I'm New Around Here]

Are those darn kids on your lawn again?

A few were on mine, but I shot 'em.

Re:Awesome satire.

[jgfenix]

He is talking about the BOOK. It was clearly said.

Re:Awesome satire.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was working at a (computer) gaming company when the original movie was first released, and our whole company went and watched it.
These were not stupid people, but I was soooo disappointed after the movie when I realized I was the only one who recognized it as satire.
"It's afraid!" *crowd cheers*
It is a brilliant movie, but to most, it's just an awesome action movie. So sad.

Re:Awesome satire.

[Maxo-Texas]

Despite being critical, the movie was actually fairly faithful to the book's tone. The characters believed what they were saying and believed in their society. Verderhoven (sp) only turned up the dial an extra 5% to achieve the satirical effect. But the basic material was already there.

Whitewashing the books would be much worse.

Re:Awesome satire.

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse me for my confusion, as I'm a feebly minded AC, but why is the book considered to promote racism and fascism?

It's outright stated that the Citizens gain the right to vote via federal service, and heavily implied that it's the only right they gain by doing so. It's also stated that they will take anyone, be they blind, deaf, or dumb, so the only requirements to vote is a willingness to offer up whatever you actually can for the country. A far cry from the modern take on democracy, that being that obliging people to carry specific ID's or proof of citizenship is overly onerous (Admittedly, in many cases where there are these outcries, it is because the ID's that some sub-sections of the population commonly use are disallowed, often intentionally).

It's also evident that they will take Women for said service, as they are very enthused at the idea of having Carmen enlist, as they typically are better pilots due to their higher G tolerance (And at least in the book, better head for math, as I have not seen statistics for that assertion it made). They also take Juan "Johnny" Rico, from Buenos Aires, so evidently it's not a Aryan supremacist military (Which is decoupled from fascism, but is a commonly used example of a potential agenda), and they are also able to walk around in at least a few cities without anyone mentioning race at all.

So where does the Racism and Fascism come from? Is it only because the society in the book came to the conclusion that the only people who would properly value their franchise were the ones willing to volunteer their lives and pay dearly for it? It's sure as heck not how our societies work, but I can see where it would come from. The movie plays with Fascist and racist imagery much more, and uses it to make a political point, much as Heinlein himself often did (As he was denied the chance to serve in active duty due to tuberculosis, and was also a very liberal political activist for the time, and often campaigned for the democratic party and their candidates, it's hard to say what portions of that work are due to his frustrations with people not valuing their franchise, which portions are for the time liberal values that ages poorly, what may be his own objectionable beliefs, and what is merely there to satisfy the editor or to make the story feel real to him. )

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.

[dAzED1]

What?!?!?! They even have a "recruitment" video where they talk about a protestor doing something one day, being tried that day, then being publicly executed the next day. Is your commend satire? Or are you just that insane?

Re:Awesome satire.

[Dogtanian]

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.

Know how I can tell you didn't read the article? (#) Because it's quite clear that in its original context- rather than the misleadingly-edited summary- that it refers to the original book, not to the film:-

Despite being not only one of Heinlein's best-selling titles and winning the prestigious Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1960, Starship Troopers has been decried as promoting fascism and being racist [..]

Verhoeven's [1997 film of] Starship Troopers was anything but faithful to the novel, discarding massive elements of the book's mythology — sorry, those who wanted to see the power armor — and ramping up some of its more outré parts to create something that's as much political and social satire as it is a science fiction action movie.

At any rate Hugh Pickens' original unedited submission is also quite clear that the writer was referring to the original book. The responsibility therefore lies with "EditorDave" who we can assume was the one who cut it down. Admittedly it needed trimming, but it's also an editor's job to make sure that the meaning hasn't been misleadingly altered in the process. (##)

(#) Yeah, I know. I've been on Slashdot approaching fifteen years, and it was a cliche back then.

(##) Yeah, I know. The jokes about editors not doing their job have been a staple of Slashdot as far back as I can remember too. Doesn't excuse it, though.

Re:Awesome satire.

[Dogtanian]

The actual article makes clear that the quote refers to the novel, not the film. So does Hugh Pickens' original submission. The edited version of the summary doesn't.

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.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Black" is not a race either, but making offensive statements about black people is pretty much racism. Islamophobia technically might not be racist, but in practice, those anti-Muslim policies are aimed at Muslims from predominantly Arabic countries. And how is "it's technically not racism, it's just religious intolerance" better, anyways?

As far as being hyper-sensitive, easily-offended, and thin-skinned, somehow I think it's really the people defending nasty bigoted beliefs that are playing the victim card, here ...

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.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are those darn kids on your lawn again?

A few were on mine, but I shot 'em.

Wanna Learn more?

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.

[hcs_$reboot]

Listening to you, S.T. is the new Nostradamus movie style. One can see anything in any movie as long as he (usually) likes it. S.T. is just an average movie, deal with it.

Re:Awesome satire.

[Kjella]

Well, if you look at what a "good" Christian from 1916 or 1516 would think of 2016's society he'd be pretty shocked and appalled. The religion we have today is the same religion as the one burning witches at the stake, but the content is malleable because the Bible is full of allegories and euphemisms, not to mention we often plain out ignore certain chapters that conflict with modern society. People think other religions are like their own religion and that their Holy Book is just as much a guideline as our own Holy Book and that they can assimilate modern principles into their religion as easily as we did in ours. Experience from practice suggests that's not the case, but as long as people believe that they don't see the harm.

Re:Awesome satire.

[dbIII]

Yes, the poster messed up but the book isn't really fascism as we know it either.
Politically it is the Roman Republic in space which is not a bad model to use in SF and Heinlein turned it into a more believable space empire than anyone else I can think of (others generally don't go into detail and use it for plot) . Yes I where the word fascism comes from but Heinlein's space Romans do not resemble the English definition.
As for pinning the views on the author (despite various characters even giving justifications and explanations in the text), his book "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" has politics that is almost the opposite (and just as believable in the situation.

The thing that annoyed me the most about the movie, which had about as little to do with the book as Abrams version of Trek had to do with others, is that the troops just ran around like sheep getting killed by bugs instead of working together like in the book.

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.

[MightyMartian]

You are aware, I trust, that the majority of Muslims aren't Arabs, right?

Or maybe not. The level of knowledge of some people here outside fairly limited technical areas is stunning. It's like a forum filled with Rain Man-like idiot savants who can memorize phone books, but have absolutely no knowledge of the world outside their house.

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.

[ravenshrike]

Remove head from rectum, and read SiaSL, TMiaHM, Friday, and Job.

Re:Awesome satire.

[Cyberax]

"Starship Troopers" is not "remotely" hinting at anything. It _is_ fascist militarist fiction. It's funny that Heinlein himself couldn't even justify it in-novel. Read it again, you'll see a dialog about why they keep voting rights to military - the answer is basically "just because".

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

Re:Awesome satire.

[ravenshrike]

If it were a utopian ideal, then people wouldn't have been leaving the planet in droves(Or did you think all those colonists were just bored?). Indeed, apart from how you gain the franchise and that it is some form of representative democracy, very little specific to the operation of the government is even described in the book.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Awesome satire.

[Boronx]

Heinlein's society is basically a military controlled utopia. If Fascism had worked like fascist thought it would, it would have turned out something like this. Because its fiction, Heinlein can portray everything turning out fine, but you don't have to believe it.

What happens when those who did not serve want political power nevertheless? What does the military do to stop them? Do we even need to pose this hypothetical? There are thousands and thousands of histories of countries run by a military backed minority.

Someone once said that Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. This is cruel, but at least the majority is satisfied. Heinlein is the same thing, but the sheep and one wolf don't get a vote.

The book doesn't seem racist to me. Maybe they mean that us-or-them attitude the book takes towards alien antagonists.

Re: Awesome satire.

[Time_Ngler]

Especially now that one of presidential candidates is funded by the same people that fund terrorism and hold the oil needed to fight wars with.

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.

Re:Awesome satire.

[Half-pint HAL]

Prejudice is not bad, it's a core mechanism of the human brain. It is only a problem when we cease to use our higher functions to challenge it. But that's really off-topic, so to bring it back to the topic, that's the problem with Heinlein's original book. It's a long time since I read it, but I don't remember there being anything at all that challenged the idea that the Arachnids were anything but enemies, and the nicknaming of them as "bugs" was never questioned. It was a simple "they started it, let's kill em" plot.

The real danger in the book is that at that time all wars were actually fought between humans (primitive, pre-interstellar wars are hard to picture, I know) and "nasty aliens attack and we are obliged to kill them all" hides the true moral issues that underlie genuine human conflict. This thread occurs in all countries' fiction at some point, but it just keeps bubbling back to the surface in America at the moment. Independence Day and Battle: Los Angeles were the same. Faceless, voiceless, nameless enemies that appear, attack and must therefore be killed. Do not question, merely shoot. In Independence Day, the people who believed in peaceful coexistence were the first to be killed. That's more than a little symbolic. Scary scary psychology.

Re:Awesome satire.

[drinkypoo]

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.

That's an incredibly stupid thing to say. The status quo is that things keep getting worse for the populace. Clinton is the status quo candidate. Thus, the one thing we can place money upon is that under Clinton, things will get worse. This is not an endorsement of Trump; it is rather a condemnation of your sloppy thinking.

Re:Awesome satire.

[Monkius]

That the book is a satire. In fact, I don't think anyone who has read it thinks it is (though it doesn't take itself very seriously). The movie takes potshots at facism and war propaganda, yes.

Re:Awesome satire.

[Dogtanian]

That wasn't the point being made.

Noah Haders felt able to criticise the article despite it being obvious he'd never actually read it- only someone relying on the misleadingly-edited summary would have taken it to refer to the film, rather than the book.

Meanwhile, his comment was edited up to "5: Insightful" by people who- equally obviously- hadn't read the article either.

Re:Awesome satire.

[david_thornley]

Islam is a form of government that uses religion as it's basis of authority and legitimacy

Islam is a religion, not a form of government. Muslim countries tend to be authoritarian, but they aren't a single theocracy (well, ISIS purports to be the theocracy, but obviously isn't). Muslims tend to think that mixing religion and government is a good idea, which I intensely disagree with, much like a lot of Christians even now.

Female genital mutilation is not a Muslim practice, although it seems to be predominantly in Muslim countries. If it were part if Islam, it would be much more widespread. There's lots of Muslims that believe in "honor killings" and the like; do you think they'd hesitate to mutilate young girls if it was part of their religion?

I'm not fond of Islam, and I'm not fond of most of the Muslim societies I know of. However, they are humans, and have human rights, and right now a large number of them are bona fide refugees.

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.
 

I cheered for the bugs

[david.emery]

The special effects were pretty cool, but Verhoeven totally missed the point of the book.

Will Starship Troopers Follow Heinlein's Book?

[kenwd0elq]

No. Not only no, but HELL NO! Hollyweird will implode into its own singularity before that happens.

  "Starship Troopers has been decried as promoting fascism and being racist in its creation of a society where democracy has been severely restricted..."

Democracy severely restricted? Nothing like that in the book; separate states have their own governments, and ANYBODY can get Federal citizenship by putting in a 2-year tour of Federal service. You can't buy a franchise, you have to EARN it - but it's open to EVERYONE. If you have one eye and one hand and an IQ of 80, they'll find something for you to do for two years.

Re:Will Starship Troopers Follow Heinlein's Book?

[Uberbah]

You simply did a necessary job and proved you could understand the need to put the welfare of your fellow wo/men over your own.

More like a simply unnecessary job, one that subjected you to systemic indoctrination and peer pressure. Like the poor shlubs who got drafted into Vietnam, and were placed in the position of gunning down innocent villagers minding their own business and watching their friends in the platoon get shot by snipers.

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.)

Re:Why would it

[alvinrod]

The 1997 film wasn't even based on the book, but was from an unrelated script called Bug Hunt at Outpost 9. About the only thing it has in common with the book is the title and that humanity is fighting some bug monsters. Apparently someone decided to buy the rights to the name so it could be marketed more easily and they incorporated a few concepts from the book.

However, it was still an enjoyable film even if it wasn't a faithful book adaptation. Even today, I'm skeptical that a faithful adaptation could work as a movie, so at best we get a vacuous CGI action movie.

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.

Starship Troopers is one of my favorite films

[Britz]

I watched Starship Troopers when it came out in the movie theater and had no expectations at all. And I loved it. It was a fun action movie and, at the same time, a fun satire of fascism. And the fact that I enjoyed it harmlessly until the last couple scenes (where it became obvious to me) managed to show me how much I enjoy fascism. Which is an important lesson, IMHO. Especially considering how enjoyable and thus rating friendly Trump currently is. The stuff is awesome.

Re:on the jump

[Richard_at_work]

Its "on the bounce", not "on the jump" ;)

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."

Re:Why would it

[umghhh]

Whether anybody can call themselves anti-fascists (and do not succumb to be an complete ass terrorizing everybody to the extend to justify being call a faxcist themselves) is one thing. I do not know much about V. but he did not read the book. If so he could not really make any inversion of it either.
Armored suites not being anything to be used? Well have you ever looked at your SWAT teams or even normal police officers? They look like robots already. I tend to think that when we reach the point to have drones and microrobots doing all the policing then our race will be cleansed - not because of evil AI but because it will become easy for a psychopath to give an order.

Re:Or do a different Heinlein book

[ColdWetDog]

I understand neither women nor cats. Although there are lots of things I disagree with RAH about, on that we agree.

Re:so then

[ColdWetDog]

Worked for Sean Connery, sort of.

Johnny Rico

[Archfeld]

The main character Johnny Rico was part Filipino in the original book.

Re:Or do a different Heinlein book

[John.Banister]

Harsh Mistress came to mind first for me. The more I think about either story, the more I think they'd each do better as a mini-series on Netflix. Too much of the world building would have to be cut out in something that's just a couple of hours, and one hour of a Friday movie would doubtless be fight scenes.

Re:Or do a different Heinlein book

[MichaelSmith]

Yes, definitely. One of his best books. Alternately I would look at one of the juveniles, like Farmer in the Sky or Have Spacesuit will Travel. Both have stood the test of time and would form the basis of a great book.

I would love to see Stranger made into a movie or series but I have no idea how it would work out.

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:Of course not

[skam240]

The Lord of the Rings movies, while not without flaws, were really rather good and pretty true to the books. Likewise with Phillip K Dick's A Scanner Darkly, which considering the treatment his work usually gets by Hollywood, truly surprised me with how close to the original source material it was. Especially since it was a Keanu Reeves movie.

I agree the odds are against it, especially considering the budget required to make it look good and the writing credentials of the script writers, but it is possible for it to be fairly true to the books.

Re:1997 Movie was awful

[dbIII]

This is a book where soldiers fight in powered armor suits, parachuting from space and tossing tiny nuclear bombs around!

True, there's an entire huge category of Japanese Animation more closely inspired by the book than the movie was.

Re: .... Politically Correct Starship Troopers?

[Catbeller]

Semantics was one of Heinlein's passions. The idea that the word "fascist" would lose its actual meaning would sadden and infuriate, but not surprise him. That he would be called one would earn the mouth-breather a well-earned verbal beatdown. The man was the opposite of a fascist. Infuriating.

So, anyone know a good Filipino actor?

[eric_harris_76]

If they're going to stay true to the book, they're going to need at least one, to play Juan Rico.