“We must meet this threat with our courage, our valor, indeed with our very lives to ensure that human civilization, not insect, dominates this galaxy now and always!” “Every day, Federal scientists are looking for new ways to kill bugs." "Your basic Arachnid warrior isn't too smart, but you can blow off a limb, and it's still 86 percent combat effective. Here's a tip: aim for the nerve stem, and put it down for good.”
A lot of people may have died horribly in Starship Troopers, but the saddest part was when it said, "Based on a novel by Robert A. Heinlein."
Did it differ significantly from the book? On a neat note, had one of the execs from the movie at a dinner party before we all went on lockdown.
Infamously so. It makes David Lynch's Dune look like a faithful adaptation. The problem was that director Paul Verhoeven has repeatedly admitted he didn't like the book or its author, saying, "we really, really tried to get away from the novel, because we felt that the novel was fascistic and militaristic". When you're actively trying to subvert your own source material, it's pretty clear your adaptation is going to be something entirely different from it. Which is a shame, actually, because while I don't agree with everything that Heinlein is trying to say in the book, it's considerably more cerebral than one might expect, and it holds up extremely well for a science-fiction book written in the '50s.
Interesting, might have to add it to my reading list. As for Dune... I anxiously and nervously await the new film. The series is unequaled in quality for the concepts and complexity... IMO, but I'm also one who tends to think that Frank was a better visionary than a writer, if that makes sense. Alas, even read his kid's books based off of his notes, just to enjoy more of the world that he envisioned.
Yes, the prospect of a new, big budget adaptation of Dune is certainly cause to recite the Litany Against Fear. But if anyone can pull it off, Denis Villeneuve may be the one, so I'll be cautiously optimistic. Interesting. Conversely, I love how his sparse, straightforward writing style seems to fit the setting and world perfectly, almost helping draw one into the focused mindset that the characters have to have in it. That I haven't done. Doesn't sound like you'd recommend it?
Yeah, the views on Frank's writing style is heated at times... They're hit or miss, some were better, like the Butlerian Jihad/Machine Crusade trilogy. Which is probably essential to understand some of things alluded to by Frank. Others were decent but almost written at a young-adult level, or at least that was my impression. Good thing is, they were almost all written based of notes and plot lines of Frank, so the over reaching arc and detail often remains.
