A Starship Troopers Remake Is in the Works
The Verhoeven version was mindless entertainment, but entirely missed the point of the book. Hell, they ignored the power armor, apparently due to cost issues.
We’ll see if they even bother to read the book this time.
Around 20 years ago I saw a semi-serious design for power armor, based on realistic extrapolations of known engineering and materials, including ceramic armor and artificial polymer muscles. It was *substantially* badass, and would make a damn fine start for the Mobile Infantry power armor.
But more importantly, they’ve gotta get the story right. And swap out the nonsensical Aryan Superman Johnny Rico with the Juan Rico of the book… a Filipino. And make the bugs actually threatening.
14 Responses to “Maybe they’ll get it right this time… nah.”
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Slightly worrying that the book was never even mentioned in that link.
Option 1. They ignore the book and make a kickass action film with minimal correlation to the world of the book.
Option 2. They keep and even accentuate the “fascist” elements of the book’s social elements but do it ironically, thereby reversing RAH’s points. This is what Verhoeven did in the first movie.
Option 3. They remain more or less faithful to the book and more importantly, RAH’s concepts.
ODDS: option 1: low
option 2.: high
option 3 : slim and none. And slim just hit the ER.
I love Heinlein novel Starship Troopers
but Paul Verhoeven humiliation version was simply: Military=Nazi
i look the movie and was deeply disappointed,
and I was kick out movie theater, after I start to hoot and whoop
also in Robert Zemeckis lame version of Carl Sagan “Contact”
I was kick out movie theater, after I start to hoot and whoop
Dam I have right to complain about bad product were i waste my money on…
I always been a BIG fan of RAH since I started to read his book when I was a young boy.
I love them all (even the discussed “Farnham freehold”) and especially “Starship Trooper”, obviously I was really disappointed with the Verehoven’s movie (OK it was fun and ironic but where there was the power armors?????).
Too bad Verehoven screenplay make an upside-down job of the military concept expressed in the RAH’s novel, instead of a buch of high-technology super-armed elite corp we saw a moltitude of rifle-man soldiers (SIC!) devoted to be killed in mass like a sort of endless “D-Day”.
GAH….
Hoping this time will be the right occasion to stay on the novel’s track…
The tendency in movie remakes is “Flanderization” — exaggerating features of the previous version rather than trying to be faithful to source material. So the 1990s version of Three Musketeers diverged from Dumas somewhat and indulged in a little anachronism, while the 2011 version had frickin’ Zeppelins!
I’m guessing a Starship Troopers remake will go for over-the-top action, an Avatar-knockoff plot, and even more ham-fisted “satire” of what moviemakers imagine armies are like.
With any luck, the film makers will look at space art work and go retro.
Speaking of…
http://www.amnh.org/calendar/event/Beyond-Planet-Earth:-The-Future-of-Space-Exploration/
Verhoeven was a terrable choice for the movie since he thought all the social ideas in SST weer complete fascist bs. Now a lot of that was dumb and should have been trimmed – but instead he filmed a satire of the book.
Really weird was after the movie was paned, Verhoeven did a CGI animated ‘troopers series that was excellent.
Methinks he only said that he was satirising the book to cover his ass after critics panned it, after all he did say that he never read the book; and the screenplay for the movie originally had nothing to do with SST.
Verhoeven may have said he did read it, but his comments about it being rediculas Fascit crap, suggest he knew something about it.
Back when Niel Blomkamp slated by Microsoft to do a movie based on Halo he did a few live action trailors for the games as a sort of proof of concept.
The first time I ’em I remember thinking “This is what the SST movie should have been.”
Well I guess my opinion differs from most… I was blissfully unaware of any SST book and not a sci-fi fan at all. I simply went to the cinema for the special effects and boy what a treat it was! On top of that the film was superbly entertaining with a kind of twisted humour I can totally appreciate. Verhoeven may have totally abused the book, but I thought the movie was awesome and still do 🙂
> On top of that the film was superbly entertaining
I agree. Had Heinlein not written ST, the movie would be considered something of a classic, in the same vein as Robocop (and for many of the same reasons). The problem with the movie is that it massively altered a known classic… always a good way to irritate people.
Uhm, note though “Juan” wasn’t from the Phillipeans he was from Argentina. Recall that his “home-town” was Rio 🙂
I’ve noticed that having read the book several dozen times, the story is deep enough that one can walk away each time and find they have found a different “meaning” each time in addition to the simple storyline itself.
The “problem” with the movie was trying in any way/shape/form to “attach” itself to the book, since they were so obviously different from the start. Had there been NO “connection” made between the two the movie and it’s sequels would probably have been better received. (Not that I’m all that sure ST-2 COULD have been better received since it sure as hell wasn’t DONE that well 🙂
Randy
> “Juan” wasn’t from the Phillipeans he was from Argentina. Recall that his “home-town” was Rio
And recall that on page 205 (at least in my paperback, last page of chapter 13), there’s this:
——————
I said, “There ought to be one named Magsaysay.” … “Ramon Magsaysay,” I explained. “Great man, great soldier….”
…
“Tagalog. My native language.”
—————-
Magsaysay was President of the Philippines in the 1950’s… and Tagalog is the primary pre-European language of the Philippines.
Juan may have lived in Rio, but he was a Philippino ethnically.