Challenged to name a movie that fell disappointingly short of its original book, my answer is "Starship Troopers".
Challenged to name a movie that fell disappointingly short of its original book, my first reaction is Starship Troopers.…
"A sinister cabal of superior writers."
Article comments
26 - DrPat
Dave, that's good news. I can keep hope alive with that!
What a movie that might have been - with Heinlein riding herd on the script, and a real father-son pair to play either Juan Rico and his father or "Johnny" and his spiritual father Zim.
27 - Maurice
Great commentary DrPat.
I would love to see 'Stranger in a Strange Land' as a movie.
M
28 - htom
Stranger in a Strange Land would be better as a series, I would think. There's just too much story there for a movie. You could do a movie that covered his escape from the hospital as the pilot.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress might be long movie.
Voerhoeven supposedly started to read the book and quit after the first chapter or two, saying something like "This is a coming-of-age story and I don't want to do that; I want to kill bugs."
I thought the movie was somewhat enjoyable, once I figured out that I was supposed to be cheering for the bugs.
29 - Eric Berlin
A not-having-read-the-book question: are the bugs supposed to represent socialism/communism, and the "good guys" the forces of rugged individualism... or some such?
30 - jadester
from what i've heard of people who've read the book AND seen the movie, it does a pretty good job considering the time limit. Also,
Suddenly he pointed his stump at me. "You. What is the moral difference, if any, between the soldier and the civilian?"
"The difference," I answered carefully, " lies in the field of civic virtue. A soldier accepts personal responsibility for the safety of the body politic of which he is a member, defending it, if need be, with his life. The civilian does not."
this EXACT bit is in the film. How is that not including it?
If you want ot complain, go watch the sequel. I heard that it's a brainless action flick simply using the vaguely similar setting as the first film. Which is also why i won't bring myself to watch it.
31 - DrPat
There's a new post about books that never made it onto the big screen.
Voerhoeven supposedly started to read the book and quit after the first chapter or two, saying something like "This is a coming-of-age story and I don't want to do that; I want to kill bugs."
Thank you, htom! That is exactly the sense I got from the movie. "F*ck the moral message, let's squish some bugs!"
jadester, every quote has a context. It isn't enough to ensure that the words get into the film - the screen-writers hacked away bits of Heinlein's dialogue and re-assigned them to other characters, rearranged them chronologically, and even flipped the sense of them by juxtaposing other hacked-up quotes.
What Verhoeven did was exactly like assembling a jigsaw puzzle by selecting only the pieces with blue on them, snipping the edges to fit or hammering them into place with a sledge, then proudly displaying the result as original art.
32 - SFC Ski
"this EXACT bit is in the film. How is that not including it?" Because you miss the next bit where Dubois (paraphrase) tells him not to give the book answer, but Rico's own. Rico can't IIRC, and that is part of the reason Rico enlists, to find out what the real answer is. DuBois is more a father figure than Rico's real father.
33 - jadester
IMHO, there is still more to the first movie than simple "bug-smashing", and i think it's intentional.
As for butchering a book, that doesn't of itself make a film bad. Look at Blade Runner; it changed the city it was set in, made the lead single/divorced instead of married, completely left out the mood organ and the new religion, left out the replicant police HQ (and Deckard's rival), amongst other things. And whilst Starship Troopers is hardly on a par with Blade Runner, you seem to have missed the underlying air of...irony? i'm not sure that's the word i mean but it's the word i keep thinking of...
34 - Steve S
Starship Troopers was intentionally cheesy. If you know that going into it, and are willing to make allowances for it, it's a great bug-smashing movie. I loved it.
Of course Casper and Denise and Dina, while not being the greatest actors around certainly make for beautiful bug squishers.
It was a fun popcorn movie.
35 - Bill Wallo
I have to say I loved Starship Troopers (the book) as a kid. I haven't read it in a few years, and I probably should take a look at it again. Thanks for reminding me. ;)
Oh, and yeah - the way I think of movies is whether I care to see it again sometime. The movie version of Starship Troopers was a definite one-timer for me.
36 - Frank Ney
My personal theory is that ST The Movie Disaster was the direct cause of El Nino.
I knew it was going to be bad when I saw Verhoven stand up in front of a bunch of SF fans and start spouting off about "Heimlein's Fascist Vision of the future."
37 - Ken V.
The screen play was written by Edward Neumier, and I found it interesting to note the relationships of the major characters.
1. Johnny is in love with Carmen.
2. Carmen (a brunette) is in love with the preppy guy whose name escapes me at the moment.
3. Dizzy (a blonde) is in love with Johnny.
4. Carl (sort of a dullard) is Johnny's best friend.
Now, note the relationships, but change the names.
1. Change Johnny to Archie.
2. Change Carmen to Veronica.
3. Change Dizzy to Betty.
4. Change Carl to Jughead.
There ya go. The characters come right out of the ARCHIE comic books of the '50's and '60's.
Maybe we should change the teachers name to Mrs. Grundy. D' ya think? (^_-)
38 - DrPat
Gawd, Ken V! LOL to wake the dead! You've got it - it wasn't a self-consciously satirical pastiche of Heinlein and Haldeman, it was an homage to 50s teen comics, with giant alien bugs.
39 - Eric Berlin
This book review has been selected for Advance.net. You’ll be able to find this and other Blog Critics reviews at such places at Cleveland.com’s Book Reviews column.
40 - Leon Hardy
I thought the movie was alright, until I read the book. The movie was way offbase. I think the book is great. I would go for a remake of the book as a mini series on Sci Fi by the people that have redone Battlestar Galatica. I hope they would keep the same theme, it does not have to be exactly like the book, but anything is better than that garbage called Starship Troopes, oh the sequal sucked even more. I did buy the complete set of Starship Troopers: The Roughneck Chronicles. That was a halfway point of the book and the movie and was pretty good.
41 - Bob A. Booey
Let me start by saying I don't care about the integrity of the book since I have no use for Heinlein.
Aaron is completely right.
Paul Verhoeven is known for making scripts into live-action comic books. The look, the futuristic parodies of media and news, the self-referential cinematography, and the cartoonish, satirical characters are his trademark ever since Robocop. His films are almost a spoof of the genre even as he clearly enjoys the excesses and violence of action/sci-fi films.
I love the quotes for him about not being able to get through a couple of chapters of the book and how Heinlen has a fascist vision of the future. Sci-fi, by its very nature, is largely obsessed with an asexual, fetishistic vision of a future defined by technological fascism and a complete loss of any sense of humanity. Yes, sci-fi started as a criticism of technology and concern with human values in the Industrial Age. It's clearly sort of unknowingly turned that ethos on its head and come to embrace the absence of human emotion, society, and responsibility in favor of childish dreams of irrational order and machine-like, impersonal organizations of life (the very definition of fascism).
I will throw you sci-fi geeks a bone, however: I saw two episodes of Battlestar (Battleship?) Galactica, and I thought it was really pretty good. I won't go out of my way to watch it, but I thought it was way more grounded, well-acted, and more relatable to adults than most science fiction.
That is all.
42 - Magnety
Re the comment just before this:
SF (Sci-fi, Science Fiction, etc.) is hardly the monoblock of "fascism" you seem to think.
It runs the range from promoting right wing feminism (kill the males) to the softest of pacifism (better every human dies than hurt another race). Individualism, collectivism, anti (and pro) establishmentism... Pick a work, get a different viewpoint.
As to the movie:
My major problem with it is that the main "fan base" would be those who liked the book, and the director set out to make a movie that hated / ridiculed the book. This is rather like marketing slavery to African Americans or gun control to the NRA.
Essentially if you want to make a anti military (or whatever) movie don't base it on a popular pro military (or whatever) book.
Oh, and just to clarify:
One did not have to be a veteran (as in military veteran) to vote in Heinlein's book. You had to volunteer, and serve, in public (government) service... You might end up a crossing guard, clerk, or garbage hauler... But you had no say on what job once you volunteered, but you could quit, and give up your future voting rights at any time (other than being in battle, or one assumes things like half way through your watch at the power plant).
It was also made very clear that a majority of people did not serve, and felt no need of it, or the vote.
So volunteer ex mail carriers, ex soldiers, ex firemen, ex G-3 file clerks could vote.
43 - Andrew
The movie was ghastly. The book's idea that only persons who care enough about society to serve it has great merit. Democracy fails to the degee that the
citizens do not take responsibility for themselves, and succeeds to the extent that they do. I think there's plenty of evidence to support that.
A sci fi channel remake a la Battlestar Galactica would be fabulous. SFC took the BG from a bad joke to a great dramatic series. Do it again, please.
44 - DrPat
Andrew, Battlestar Galactica was a good SFC remake because it didn't have any ugly bugs to overdo. Look at other less-sublime SFC "original movie" efforts, and you get an idea of how much bad TV they are capable of achieving, given a demand for special effects. [No subtle "bacon frying", no - we have to have explosions and third-rate knockoffs of audio-animatronic aliens.]
But, yes, the book's fans knew the point Heinlein was making. And the movie not only missed that point, but studiously avoided it.
45 - Sigmatica
It seems that everyone here is severely butthurt over nothing.
The film exists, and that's that. Match point to Verhoeven.
So keep crying and criticizing all you want - fact is, you lose, and it won't change a thing. Haha! Complete laugh of satisfaction on my part.
46 - Truthteller
Heinlein and his novel will be remembered far longer than Verhoeven and his lightweight cartoon of a movie. Heinlein wins.
Only children think otherwise and I laugh at their simpleton ways. Haha!
47 - brandon adamson
Have to agree that this is a terrible adaptation. The director admits he never even finished reading the novel, and only read a few chapters, which he claimed made him "bored and depressed." Shouldn't someone who wishes to do a film adaptation of a novel at least be someone who appreciates it, or at the very least someone who has at least read it in it's entirety? If in fact the goal was to simply parody Heinlein's ideas, then he would at least have a responsibility to be familiar with them. The ironic thing is that though the film tries to make fun of Heinlein's world, it actually does make you want to join up with the troopers and kill some bugs.
48 - Walter R. Johnson
TO: DrPat
RE: "Once again, the words are those of Col. DuBois.
If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cut its head off?... Of course not. You'd paddle it. There can be circumstances when it would be just as foolish to hit an enemy city with an H-bomb as it would be to spank a baby with an axe. War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force."
The above is actually a statement made by Sgt. Zim during Rico's recruit training. The recruits were practicing throwing knives when one recruit questions the usefulness of knife-throwing. The above quote was part of Sgt. Zim's answer.
49 - Walter R. Johnson
TO: DrPat
RE: "The sneak attack by this alien hive-dwelling race that wipes out Johnny Rico's home city is in the movie."
The city was Buenos Aires. While it was Rico's home town in the movie, it was NOT his home town in the book. Juan (Johnny) Rico was from the Philippines. The reason that Rico's mother was killed in the Bug attack was that she had gone to visit her sister, who lived in Buenos Aires.
RE: "The Mobile Infantry are there, with their armored suits complete with heads-up displays, pocket nukes and jump jets."
While you are correct in saying that the MI were depicted in the movie, their equipment [from the book] was only noticeable by its absence. The excuse that I've read was that they couldn't do the powered armor, drop capsules, etc. because of budgetary constraints. To me, that lacks credibility; they could've CGIed that stuff like they did did the spaceships and those ridiculous "landing craft" that were obviously supposed to be reminiscent of World War II landing craft.