Sure you could do a straight adaptation of the book, but that leads to a huge problem: IMHO, the entire philosophy of the book is one that the majority of Americans simply don’t believe in or approve of anymore. And 90% of the book is expounding the philosophy. Take that away and all you would have left would be a generic Space Marines vs. Bugs flick.
Here’s the only way I could see it work: face the conflict of worldviews head-on. Have the movie be about a society trying to reinvent the ideal of the citizen-soldier in the face of dire need. Our hero and his cohorts start out as a bunch of slack-bellied spoiled whiners who either believe that war is always wrong and evil, or else expect war to be a videgame fantasy of kicking butt. Boot camp and then battle kill those who won’t learn and quickly disillusion the rest.
In other words show, rather than tell, the viewpoint of Heinlein’s novel.
I guess if you really wanted someone to make a movie that made fun of the philosophies espoused in ST, then it was OK with the goofy WWII style propaganda and news flashes. If you wanted a movie with decent acting, action or interesting portrayal of futuristic combat it was the suckiest movie possible.
Lumpy, is it really that huge a “problem” that the philosophies of a military society set in the future are not generally held by the movie going public? Sparta did OK and it wasn’t that far off, was it?
But that fighting is sometimes necessary to survive is only a minor part of the viewpoint presented, and not by itself all that controversial. The more important elements are (1) life in the universe is a Darwinian struggle, racial survival is the only universal morality, and there’s absolutely no ethical reason for different species not to exterminate each other for lebensraum; and (2) political power, even to the extent of just voting, should not be a warm-body birthright but should be limited to military veterans (or veterans of some sort of “alternative service” which is nearly as dangerous and/or uncomfortable) who have proven their “civic virtue” by putting their asses on the line for the community. How are you going to “show” those points?
You show those points by having World War II all over again. Then make the movie.
Nothing else will work.
(Heinlein was a military fanatic who missed out on the war because of his tuberculosis. The book was sheer projection of his envy of those who served. He hated the notion that everybody else in the world didn’t think like he did and that a backlash to military service was building after Korea. Without that there is no book and no context for the book. Why should we want to bring that back?)
The book is a justification of the concept of a “Good” war. Military service is not the issue. The human race as an entity against the alien is not the issue, nor is it a realistic notion. (See WWII for what “racial” survival meant to that generation.) It will be a long time before those conditions come around again.
I don’t think that this movie would be as hard to make or as unpopular as several here seem to think.
Independence Day made how many gazillion dollars at the box office? Other than a photogenic president, it is pretty much the same plot as ST. Alien species trying to wipe out humanity. Total war, kill or be killed. Always a popular topic.
The history and moral philosophy angle of ST would be hard to put on the screen in any event.
I could see a scene of Johnny in class with Mr. Dubois and then enlisting. Later in boot camp Johnny would get a letter from Mr. Dubois, and hears the back story of Col. Dubois.
Other than those scenes, what you need to make is a fairly standard war movie.
Boy in high school.
Boy leaves high school, while chasing pussy, enlists.
Boy’s mom dies in attack.
Boy has trouble in basic
Boy is FNG in the real army.
Boy becomes a veteran.
Boy goes to OCS
boy comes back to command his own unit.
If done right ST would not only set the standard, but be way popular also.
Needless to say, you would have to threaten the director with death if he copied any bullshit from Verhoeven’s crapfest.
Oh, one more thing. Powered armor, gots to have powered armor.
Look, Verhoeven made a good movie – maybe even a very good movie – with lots of acerbic commentary, but other than the title and a couple of the characters’ names, it had very little to do with Heinlein’s Starship Troopers.
Write the screenplay as faithful to the book as possible. Then make the movie as an animated feature. Cast it with the characters from Duck Dodgers in the 24th and-a-half Century.
Play it totally straight.
The scene with the training center recruits hanging the guy that went over the hill and raped and murdered the little girl might be a little intense for the kiddies, but it will certainly drive the point home that you’re not going for laughs with the casting.
Should that be spoilered? I’m going to spoiler it.
ETA: Rick, what is “FNG”? Fucking No Good?
The Verhoeven movie was entertaining, which to me qualifies it as “good.” Try to adapt the novel with all the 1950s-ish military/political aspects intact and you’ll be so mired in Development Hell that *Atlas Shrugged 2: Atmospheric Static Electric Boogaloo * will be in the Blu-Ray remainder bins before you’re green-lighted.
