# Wait... are they actually making Starship Troopers right? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 10, 2012, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-are-they-actually-making-starship-troopers-right/621470 "2012-05-10T03:15:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-are-they-actually-making-starship-troopers-right/621470/1 "2012-05-10T03:15:49Z")
[Obligatory trailer.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSYLD37yc-8) And yes, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up from the first words on. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find anything else about the movie online. Are they finally going to rectify the mistake made with Verhoeven’s celluloid abomination, or is this just a shitty CGI attempt to make the movie properly? Good lord I hope it’s the former… ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-are-they-actually-making-starship-troopers-right/621470/2 "2012-05-10T03:33:52Z")
If they remake the movie and follow the story as Heinlein wrote it, then I, for one, will be well pleased. Mostly likely, that will not happen. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-are-they-actually-making-starship-troopers-right/621470/3 "2012-05-10T03:45:14Z")
Well… since they’ve got the opening monologue correct (if I remember correctly), I have tentatively high hopes that they will stick to the story. After all, why remake the movie, with power armor and starting with Rico’s opening bit in the book, if they’re just going to diverge? It’d still like to know more though, IMDB has fuckall on this movie. ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-are-they-actually-making-starship-troopers-right/621470/4 "2012-05-10T03:50:47Z")
> [@](#): > > A distant Federation outpost Fort Casey comes under attack by bugs. The team on the fast attack ship Alesia is assigned to help the Starship John A. Warden stationed in Fort Casey evacuate along with the survivors and bring military intelligence safely back to Earth. Carl Jenkins, now ministry of Paranormal Warfare, takes the starship on a clandestine mission before its rendezvous with the Alesia and goes missing in the nebula. Now, the battle-hardened troopers are charged with a rescue mission that may lead to a much more sinister consequence than they ever could have imagined… [http://starshiptroopersinvasion-movie.com/about.html](http://starshiptroopersinvasion-movie.com/about.html) Sounds sort of like a sequel, albeit one where they used Heinlein’s monologue for the trailer. Isn’t Carl Jenkins the Neil Patrick Harris psy-ops character? ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-are-they-actually-making-starship-troopers-right/621470/5 "2012-05-10T03:51:45Z")
It’s a direct-to-DVD animated sequel (not remake), written by a guy who’s last non-video game writing job was Fievel Goes West. And the description of the movie is right underneath the trailer. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-are-they-actually-making-starship-troopers-right/621470/6 "2012-05-10T03:54:10Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > Well… since they’ve got the opening monologue correct (if I remember correctly), I have tentatively high hopes that they will stick to the story. After all, why remake the movie, with power armor and starting with Rico’s opening bit in the book, if they’re just going to diverge? [Why, indeed?](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ExecutiveMeddling) ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-are-they-actually-making-starship-troopers-right/621470/7 "2012-05-10T03:54:10Z")
Interesting, missed the description under the video. Fuck. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-are-they-actually-making-starship-troopers-right/621470/8 "2012-05-10T03:55:36Z")
Here’s a post from the official website: > [@](#): > > Starship Troopers is based on the novel by Robert A Heinlein and it was then adapted to live action movies with Ed Neumeier’s scripts. \*\*This time out, we wanted to go fresh and not replicate either the novel or the previous live action films. \*\*We functionally asked ourselves who we were making the film for – who loves vast space battles, vicious hand-to-hand, dazzling CG, and a character-driven, military-based story arc? Basically anyone that’s playing the current popular console video games. To me, the battle scenes from the first Starship Troopers movie felt like a team death match from an FPS game and that vibe definitely carried forward to the development of this film. Lots of action, lots of collaboration between soldiers with specialized skill sets. We were discussing writers and Joseph suggested a great writer who has worked on some of the Sci-Fi action games, Mr. Flint Dille. ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-are-they-actually-making-starship-troopers-right/621470/9 "2012-05-10T03:59:14Z")
Ack ack, spit spit. _Oh wait. Sorry, that was my inner monologue._ \ OK, so this will probably NOT be what I was hoping for. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-are-they-actually-making-starship-troopers-right/621470/10 "2012-05-10T03:59:20Z")
Le sigh. ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-are-they-actually-making-starship-troopers-right/621470/11 "2012-05-10T04:00:28Z")
More: > [@](#): > > After 3 movies by legendary creative minds, I wanted the Starship Troopers franchise to continue on but with a new direction. Luckily, the former movies did not fully decrypt the power suits from the original novel by Robert A Heinlein. When I realized this, it gave me a spark of idea. The gentleman I met at Comicon, Mr. Shinji Aramaki, is known for his realistic yet stylish mechanical designs, and he did design some power suits in his past works (e.g. Appleseed). He would be the perfect person to re-imagine the power suits for Starship Troopers! I eagerly proposed this idea to Joseph and Mr. Aramaki and I got a very positive response — with even a quick initial sketch by Mr. Aramaki (See picture below. Just to be clear, this is not the final version as it will be more badass). I was excited and happy with the idea but bringing that further to a movie that the fans would enjoy was not that simple, and it was even more difficult to convince the big bosses. I won’t bore you with the details of what happened during the process but it was a tough fight and I lost a few troopers on the way. > > Once we got the greenlight, we started discussing what the fans would want to see. We asked many experts, the original filmmakers as well as the younger generations and the fans. The challenge was that everyone had different opinion and different likes and dislikes. **Some loved the satire in the movie but some did not. Some thought it was too cheesy but some thought that was the best part.** After extensive debate, it seemed like everyone wanted something with more action in space and with bugs, and more relationships decrypted in the first movie. We felt that we needed the camaraderie in the vein of war movies such as Black Hawk Down or in the vein of war games like Company of Heroes, but in space with a horror & thriller feel with the inspiration of classic alien movies. And, even though we would be toning down on the cheese, we need to keep some of the spirit of fun and comical satire. Even for **a CGI-only production** , we were somewhat daunted by the challenge of a well balanced story & dialogue, and the scope of the action sequences and vast bug battles. But we really wanted to get this right for the fans. So the struggles continued to the next stage to pull out a good script and cool designs. Will write about that in the next updates with some sneak peak of the new designs so, stay tuned! > [@](#): > > Starship Troopers is based on the novel by Robert A Heinlein and it was then adapted to live action movies with Ed Neumeier’s scripts. This time out, we wanted to go fresh and not replicate either the novel or the previous live action films. We functionally asked ourselves who we were making the film for – who loves vast space battles, vicious hand-to-hand, dazzling CG, and a character-driven, military-based story arc? Basically anyone that’s playing the current popular console video games. To me, the battle scenes from the first Starship Troopers movie felt like a team death match from an FPS game and that vibe definitely carried forward to the development of this film. Lots of action, lots of collaboration between soldiers with specialized skill sets. > [@](#): > > As I mentioned in a previous post, we made the decision upfront to stay within the movie’s universe despite all being huge fans of the original Heinlein novel. It just made sense to bring back the sinister hordes of bugs from the original film. [http://starshiptroopers.tumblr.com/](http://starshiptroopers.tumblr.com/) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-are-they-actually-making-starship-troopers-right/621470/12 "2012-05-10T05:10:54Z")
I’ve said it before: The biggest tragedy of Verhooeven’s turd is that it means that there will never be a movie made of _Starship Troopers_, because the studios will think it’s already been done. Which is a damn shame, because the novel is exactly the sort of thing Hollywood loves. ---
**Author:** ![magnusblitz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@magnusblitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magnusblitz)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-are-they-actually-making-starship-troopers-right/621470/13 "2012-05-10T05:16:08Z")
You guys take those slanders of Verhooeven’s version back, that movie is amazing. SPACE NAZIS ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-are-they-actually-making-starship-troopers-right/621470/14 "2012-05-10T05:26:25Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I’ve said it before: The biggest tragedy of Verhooeven’s turd is that it means that there will never be a movie made of _Starship Troopers_, because the studios will think it’s already been done. Which is a damn shame, because the novel is exactly the sort of thing Hollywood loves. Yeah, if the movie had actually been made properly, it would have cleaned up in the box office. Now the whole damn topic is poisoned. Then again, since they’ve “rebooted” Superman, Spiderman, Batman, X-Men (etc…) maybe there is still hope for the Troopers. On the bounce, Hollywood! ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-are-they-actually-making-starship-troopers-right/621470/15 "2012-05-10T09:45:02Z")
I had hoped we’d never get to the day where a movie’s producers _admit_ they’re just producing a two-hour cutscene from _Call of Warfare: Duty Field: Modern Battle 6: Splinter Theory 3_. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-are-they-actually-making-starship-troopers-right/621470/16 "2012-05-10T12:01:31Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I’ve said it before: The biggest tragedy of Verhooeven’s turd is that it means that there will never be a movie made of _Starship Troopers_, because the studios will think it’s already been done. Which is a damn shame, because the novel is exactly the sort of thing Hollywood loves. You’d be wrong, though. The book may be genre defining, but it is boring as shit and a film would be even worse. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-are-they-actually-making-starship-troopers-right/621470/17 "2012-05-10T12:24:34Z")
What I want most from a _Starship Troopers_ movie and what Verhoeven’s piece of shit completely failed to provide is protagonists I can respect and root for. Heinlein’s book had soldiers that were civilised, educated and competent. Verhoeven didn’t like that, so he resorted to blatant character assassination. About the only thing Verhoeven did right, in my opinion, was to make the MI a mixed force. What he did with it after that, of course, was an abomination. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-are-they-actually-making-starship-troopers-right/621470/18 "2012-05-10T12:49:28Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > What I want most from a _Starship Troopers_ movie and what Verhoeven’s piece of shit completely failed to provide is protagonists I can respect and root for. Heinlein’s book had soldiers that were civilised, educated and competent. Verhoeven didn’t like that, so he resorted to blatant character assassination. > > About the only thing Verhoeven did right, in my opinion, was to make the MI a mixed force. What he did with it after that, of course, was an abomination. The only thing Verhoeven did right was Dina Meyer’s tits. ---
**Author:** ![Telperion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telperion/32/509_2.png) [@Telperion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telperion)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-are-they-actually-making-starship-troopers-right/621470/19 "2012-05-10T14:05:22Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > I had hoped we’d never get to the day where a movie’s producers _admit_ they’re just producing a two-hour cutscene from _Call of Warfare: Duty Field: Modern Battle 6: Splinter Theory 3_. I guess they kind of had to, that trailer was stolen almost entirely from the _Starcraft II_ intro. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-are-they-actually-making-starship-troopers-right/621470/20 "2012-05-10T14:09:23Z")
I have been sort of vaguely aware that they’ve been doing a bunch of direct to DVD animated sequels/serieses/whatevers of the ST movie for a while now, haven’t they? Is this related to those? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-are-they-actually-making-starship-troopers-right/621470.md?page=2)