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Originally Posted by WarMachine
Actually, RAH was a LtCmdr in the Navy when he was medically retired in the 30's due to tuberculosis, IIRC. He met his second wife(who survived him) in WW2 working at ONI(I think) as an Italian Navy specialist(read a real history of the Italians in WW2 sometime...very iluminating).
He actually modeled the M.I. off of the Marines; the book version were basically what the USMC would have become if they were they only ground force.
I had great problems with the film. The director, Voorhaven[sp?], had/has serious "issues" with anything that smacks of "fascism", and goes out of his way to portray such groups in the worst light possible: he is also the director of RoboCop 1 and Total Recall. He also looks down his nose at fans of the books -- sound familiar? 
When Virginia Heinlein saw some of the dailies/previews when the studio tried to get her endorsement of the film, she turned them down flat...That's why it says "Based on..." rather than "Robert Heinlein's..."
For those who have never read the book, the Bugs did have a hive mind, but the Warriors were fully-articulated, rather like a praying mantis -- 6-feet tall  ...who used conventional small arms ...there were no bugs squirting nuclear poop into orbit They built starships and fought naval actions against the Humans.
And the Terrans in the movie were idiots.....still about it... |
I may be confusing his military career with someone elses, I read all this stuff years and years ago.
I think the 'bugs' in the film lost a lot of their menace. The spiders in the book are a real enemy. And the fact that they are a real culture or 'empire' with technology and subjegated or allied races makes them more threatening then the ones in the film that are little more than dumb machines.
The 'crux' of the Trooper concept in the book is the powered body armour. Without it, even the book as written would have lost a lot of its shine.
The humans in the book are cetainly in a very 'grey' area morally. One of the few things I liked about the film was that it at least tried to address this, with the pseudo Nazi uniforms, the ruthless war of extermination, lack of individual rights etc,etc. Problem is, I think that de-evolving the Spiders to the level of mindless 'bugs', and removing their humanoid allies and technology means that there is virtually no way fo the audience to empathise with them at all, even when the film makes the point that the humans are the invaders, and not the arachnids.
A good movie, just not Starship Troopers. IMHO
I'd love to see it filmed exactly as Heinlein wrote it.
Nice to meet other people who actually read it!
Ever read any Fred Saberhagen?
I loved the Berserker books!
And the whole 'Sword' series.
