During boot camp, one of the recruits asks why they’re learning knife fighting when they’ve got things like nuclear weapons. In the book, the officer makes an argument against limiting your available responses to asking “don’t do that again” and committing genocide, and thus convinces the recruit that the training and the strategy behind it are sound. In the movie, the officer pins his hand to a wall with a thrown knife and spouts a stupid one liner about not being able to push the button when your hand’s pinned to a wall with a thrown knife. In effect, the officer has limited himself to doing nothing or excessive and violent retribution, the exact thing the scene from the book was arguing against.
And of course there’s the Mobile Infantry themselves. In the book they operate without air support, tanks, or support weapons because their mobility, intelligence, firepower and armour means they can succeed without them. In the movie they operate without air support, tanks or support weapons because Verhoeven needs them to fail. The Napoleonic era had a better grasp of strategy than these clowns.
No, you don’t. The plot and characters are only loosely based on Heinlein’s story. The director, Verhoeven, misinterpreted Heinlein’s message, disagreed with that misinterpretation, so made the movie to subvert the misinterpretation.
There’s no power armor - Verhoeven claims he only had CGI budget for either bugs or armor, but not both, and the bugs were more crucial. What he failed to account for was the significance in capability that the powered armor provided, so by removing it but leaving the tactics the same, he made the military idiots. Oh, wait, maybe he did realize that. He twists the government, and purposely does things to make the viewer uncomfortable.
I remember watching it in the theater and wondering about the way the first slaughter by bugs scene was played for comedic effect. The way the Psi corps officers uniforms were practically NAZI SS uniforms, and friggin Doogie Howser was the [del]NAZI[/del] officer. All those Public Service Annoucements that make you just a little uncomfortable.
I have read this book. I enjoyed it. Surprisingly it’s a lot more talky-talky than action. Still, it is good, and thought provoking.
Other works of his to read:
Have Spacesuit, Will Travel
Citizen of the Galaxy
Podkayne of Mars
The Past Through Tomorrow is his Future History series, collection of short stories. It is mostly about technology and how it affects humanity.
Stranger In A Strange Land - lengthy observation of humanity through the prism of religion. Lots of sex. Kind of odd. Spawned cults.
The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress
Time Enough For Love
If you get through those, then you may wish to read The Number of the Beast.
Hosannas on high, amen!
From what I gather, much of the misunderstanding comes from citizenship only applying to veterans. The implication that they take is that it is a military government. There’s a reason Verhoeven dressed up the psi corps guy like a NAZI. I recall an interview prior to the movie coming out where the main actor was talking up how interesting it was to do a movie about a fascist society, and I was all confused, because that’s not the book I remember.
Also note that no active duty military were citizens - you had to be retired to vote and participate in the government. Yes, I think Heinlein intended it to be Libertarian - which was his strong inclination. I did observe certain points that were pretty harsh, though. For instance, the broad use of corporal punishment as a regular thing. Public lashings were commonplace punishments for criminals. Heinlein discusses this point in the book, about how evolutionarily we are conditioned to respond to pain to teach us lessons, so that means that as a society we should use pain to enforce the lessons we want for society. Except is doesn’t mean ought.
How closely does it mimic SEAL training, as opposed to Marine infantry training?
When I first saw the movie, I enjoyed it, and was happy a Heinlein movie was mainstream. But I recall elements of it feeling wrong - the publicity reels, the scene with the bugs, the way Sergeant Zim was carried out. There’s the scene where Rico first shows up for training, and Zim offers up any of the recruits to fight him - he has to quickly establish he is the boss so they know better for later and won’t try things then. So he ends up fighting this one guy, and then after throwing and pinning him, deliberately breaking his arm. It was malicious and deliberate. But that scene didn’t play out that way in the book. In the book, yes, he does have a few tussles with recruits to set the boundaries, and yes he does have a fight with that character, and yes that character gets his arm broken. But in the book, the arm break was accidental, the result of two accomplished martial artists going full speed. It was an incidental break because of the exchange, not an after the fact action taken on an opponent already on the ground. That annoyed me, because that wasn’t Heinlein’s story.
And of course the lack of powered armor.
Except everyone who completes service is called a “veteran”. That’s a confusing word to use for a non-military. Also note that “non-combat auxiliary” does not necessarily mean “non-military”. For instance, in our military, doctors are non-combat auxiliaries, but carry military ranks.
And while technically you can quit any time, if you don’t complete your 2 year hitch (IIRC) then you don’t qualify for citizenship. And note that the let the combat line quit any time during training.
Which is why Sixth Column stood out. That’s the one where Asians take over and subvert America, and so they create a fake religion that operates under religious freedom doctrines but is really a freedom-fighting network that develops and deploys a device that can be tuned to a racial type and only affect them. It wasn’t until later that I learned Heinlein was directed to take over that story from someone else, and he tried to insert things where he could - but it was hopeless, because the story itself was racist in overtones.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s an interesting idea portrayed about using the religion as a cover for the resistance, and Heinlein worked hard to give sypathetic Asian characters and work a loophole. Still, the premise is “the good Americans create a device that they can tune to kill only Asians.”
I really enjoyed that series. My hesitations for recommending it primarily hinge on the fact that the series is incomplete and stuck - because of some dispute between Gerrold and the publisher, he will NEVER finish the series. So there will not be a conclusion. :mad:
And second, Gerrold decided to tackle bigotry over homosexuality by making that an issue for the main character, which can be somewhat off-putting for mainstream Americans. The main character has a couple of homosexual encounters before going on to get a girlfriend.
I will, however, recommend Gerrold as having a number of books very similar in feel to Heinlein.
Like When Harley Was One about a sentient computer, harkening to The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. And The Man Who Folded Himself, tying in to a couple of Heinlein’s solopsist works.
And of course, The Trouble With Tribbles cribbed heavily from The Rolling Stones.
A young man goes through a high school citizenship class to learn the history, aims, and structure of his government. He then opts for military service to earn the right to become a citizen, and gets an education in what military service really is. He goes through basic training, where he learns to be a responsible adult and a member of a team. Then he goes into combat service with his team to serve his home planet against an alien attacking force.
Eventually, he shows leadership skills and is sent to Officer training, where he learns the difference between being responsible for yourself and responsible for others. He learns the importance of leadership and good decision-making at the top for the bottom to be effective. He learns that if the officers fuck up, the grunts pay the price, and that a good officer needs to be aware of that fact.
The end of the book shows him taking responsibility for others, becoming the leader. He’s grown from a selfish young man to a responsible citizen - except for the part that he hasn’t retired yet so isn’t technically a citizen yet.
Oh, and there’s powered armor. Did I mention the powered armor yet?
In fairness to Gerrold, he really, really wanted to tackle that issue in science fiction for some time, dating back to his Star Trek days. I’m not sure he actually handled it all that deftly, but you can’t blame the fellow for finally getting the opportunity and running with it.
And overall, the series is really quite excellent. The War Against the Chtorr is a neat premise, and Gerrold clearly thought hard about how to make his Chtorriforming ecology work.
Concur. Some of his juveniles, while a bit preachy, are also very good. His post Stranger In A Strange Land output, however, is highly variable, mostly veering toward bad.
Yes, yes, and Showgirls is a misunderstood parody of fame, and poor Edward Neumeier just doesn’t get the respect he deserves as a writer of dystopic satire, et cetera. Or the film is actually just as badly plotted, acted, directed, and produced as it appears to be.
Then on top of everything else Verhoeven lied to me! Me personally, and a number of others. His people were at Loscon, trying to drum up buzz for the movie, and they flat-out said they would have powered armor. They got a bunch of us to be extras in the crowd at the ball game, so we would talk up the movie and feel a part of it. Then he raped the book, pissed on the fans and laughed at the suckers. I hope the fucker fries for eternity for what he has done.
When I first found out that they were making a movie, I was very excited, since Heinlein’s book would make a great Hollywood blockbuster: You’ve got badasses in powered armor unleashing all sorts of special effects on aliens. Of course you’d have to cut most of the politics, but that’s OK, there isn’t room for everything in a movie.
So what do they do? Exaggerate the politics to the point of absurdity, and cut out the powered armor. It’s like they were listening to me, and made a deliberate decision to say “screw you”.
And to rub some salt and glass shards into that bleeding wound:
Heinlein’s military as written were at least competent; the movie’s military, on the other hand…well, suffice to say I’ve seen amateur and pre-pubescent paint-ballers display a better grasp of infantry tactics than Verhoeven’s waste of celluloid.
Around 1970 he started having various physical and mental problems that affected the quality of his work. For some time he suffered from restricted blood flow to the brain due to an undiagnosed arterial blockage. During this period his thinking wasn’t sharp, and he eventually wound up sleeping 16 hours a day due to medication for his condition. A lot of people thought he had become senile and would never write a good book again. The main book from this period is “I Will Fear No Evil”, which is still the only Heinlein book I haven’t managed to finish.
In 1977 he had a bypass operation that restored the blood flow in his brain, and he slowly regained his health and his mental faculties. The books that he wrote after the surgery were markedly better, and include “The Number of the Beast”, “Job: A Comedy of Justice”, “Friday”, “The Cat Who Walks Through Walls”, and “To Sail Beyond The Sunset”. The best of these books are, in my opinion, Friday and Job. However, even though his writing ability returned to normal, they are still books written by an old man who had grown so popular that he could override the decisions of editors, and the books are generally too long, too focused on revisiting his past characters, and a little unfocused (again, Friday and Job excepted).
If you want to sample Heinlein, I would recommend trying the following books, in order, mixing in some ‘Juveniles’ with his more 'adult books:
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Starman Jones
Double Star
Citizen of the Galaxy
The Star Beast
Stranger in a Strange Land
Farmer in the Sky
The Puppet Masters
Job: A Comedy of Justice
Time Enough for Love
I mixed the juveniles in with the other works, as kind of a sorbet. Heinlein’s juveniles are my favorite books. They’re more tightly plotted and have more vivid characters than his other books. The only thing that makes them ‘juvenile’ is that they don’t contain sex or hard language, so they could be marketed to teenagers. But Heinlein never talked down to his audience. Even his juveniles aimed at younger readers, like “Have Space Suit - Will Travel” have hard science and plenty of plot and character development. They’re great books. In fact, you couldn’t go wrong by just reading all the juveniles first, then exploring his more adult material later. I’d hate for a reader to be put off by a book like “Time Enough For Love” and as a result never get around to reading true classics like Have Space Suit - Will travel orThe Rolling Stones or Tunnel in the Sky
Heinlein won seven Hugo awards - four original Hugos, and three 'Retro Hugos" given out for works written before the Hugo awards were published. They’re all must reading.
The four original Hugos:
1956 Novel: Double Star
1960 Novel: Starship Troopers
1962 Novel: Stranger in a Strange Land
1967 Novel: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
The Three Retro Hugos:
Best Novel–Farmer in the Sky
Best Novella–“The Man Who Sold the Moon”
Best Dramatic Presentation–“Destination Moon” movie with script by Robert A. Heinlein
It’s Starman Jones that is the most dated, IMO. I’d rank them:
The Rolling Stones
Tunnel In The Sky
Citizen of the Galaxy
Podkayne of Mars
Time For the Stars
Between Planets
The Sky Beast
Farmer In the Sky
Have Spacesuit - Will Travel
Starman Jones
Red Planet
Space Cadet
This is a great way to start arguments at a Sci-Fi gathering, BTW.
Verhoeven is proud of not having read the book, “because it would interfere with his ‘artistic vision’.” :rolleyes:
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In a letter included in Grumbles from the Grave, Heinlein says (paraphrased because I don’t have the book handy, “It is a book about why people fight. Because it is manifestly obvious that people do fight, that makes exploring why they fight a legitimate topic for a writer.” Either Heinlein or Spider Robinson commented (also paraphrased), “It doesn’t glorify militarism. It glorifies ‘the poor bloody infantryman’ … the guy who puts his life on the line that others may stay free.”
Finally, the woman captain of the Rodger Young, “hot pilot Yvette Deladrier,” owes her surname to Capt. Clovis Deladrier, fencing instructor at the USNA when Heinlein was a midshipman. Heinlein’s interest and skill in fencing show up in some unusual places, e.g., Glory Road.
I read the book. I struggled to find the story. Sorry, but I really can’t see why the book is held up as such a science fiction classic.
Then again, so many fans of the book can’t see why I like the film so much. Swings and roundabouts I guess.
Oh and I don’t think Verhoeven thought either the bugs or the power armour were particularly crucial. For him it was all about coming of age and politics.
Howdy, brother! Space Cadet is my favorite of the juvies, too, and you’re the first person I’ve met who shared my appreciation for it.
My ranking:
Space Cadet
Tunnel in the Sky
Farmer in the Sky
Podkayne of Mars
The Rolling Stones
Citizen of the Galaxy
The Star Beast
Red Planet
Orphans of the Sky
Have Spacesuit-- Will Travel
Starman Jones
Between Planets
Time for the Stars
It’s funny… When I read that post, I said to myself “Yeah, and Red Planet is another one of my favorites”, but then when I made the list, I could think of all those others that were even better.
