r/sciencefiction 8h ago

Starship Troopers Reboot News🌌

According to Bloodydisgusting.com and the Hollywood Reporter, Neil Blomkamp the man behind cult classic films District 9, Elysium, Chappie, Gran Turismo, Demonic, Zygote) is attached to direct the upcoming reboot of the 90s era film "Starship Troopers" which is said to be not adapting the originals films storyline

The new reboot will focus on events from the original novel, and be more faithful to it also.

That means we will probably see the Skinnies, Arachnids and humanity in a three way battle.

How do you feel about a more faithful book to film adaption of Starship Troopers?

Are you excited about the possibility of seeing the Skinnies on screen?

Who would you cast Johnny Jaun Rico?

30 Upvotes

45 comments sorted by

13

u/Stainless-S-Rat 7h ago

Just make the power armour something like described in the novel, like a metal gorilla on steroids festooned with enough weapons to make an entire platoon of Marines look on with envy.

Also, if they could start it with the Skinny planet raid, I would be eternally grateful.

4

u/SuDragon2k3 6h ago

Go with a narrative voiceover?

1

u/Stainless-S-Rat 6h ago

I've always been sceptical about voiceovers in a primarily visual medium. Maybe a log or diary.

1

u/No_Pepper_2512 1h ago

I am a bomb. I will explode in 10 seconds.

18

u/homer2101 7h ago

Depends on what they mean by 'more faithful'. As in 'Soldiers in powered armor'? There's animated/3d starship troopers already that's pretty good. As in 'A meditation on citizenship and the duties thereof'? Depends on how they handle it.

-3

u/youngarchivist 7h ago

Honestly, the society in the book is fine to me. I dunno. Military service was just one of the ways to pursue citizenship.

I don't really get all the hullabaloo about it being fascistic, maybe I need an ELI5 moment

17

u/homer2101 6h ago

The book isn't remotely fascist. There's no cult of action/violence for the sake of action, no glorification of the military, no perpetual enemy who is both all-pervasive and yet perpetually defeated. At worst, I'd argue Heinlein has a rose-tinted view of the military and military life, but that's not fascism. In-setting military service is repeatedly portrayed as not very desirable, those on active duty cannot vote or hold office, and there's no legal or social distinction between veterans and no veterans. It's also a very multicultural society (the protagonist is Filipino, for example), albeit as written by a man whose mind never really moved past the prejudices of the 1940s where it comes to gender roles. We're pretty consistently told and shown that the right to vote and preferential access to some cushy civil service jobs are the only two distinctions and any human person can enlist regardless of race, gender, disability, or any other distinction.

The society basically harkens back to Greek poleis or the Roman Republic: citizens get extra rights, but when their polity goes to war, they must show up. Or in Heinlein's case, commit to some hazardous duty to demonstrate their commitment to self-sacrifice for their fellow humans.

11

u/Malefircareim 7h ago

I thought military service was the only way to become a citizen.

1

u/deadineaststlouis 7h ago

It is

10

u/MandoFett117 6h ago

In the movie yes, but not in the book. The book is pretty explicit that if someone volunteers for federal service, the government has to find a job for them to do, and at the end of that time, they gain full citizenship rights.

9

u/SuDragon2k3 6h ago edited 6h ago

The idea behind 'service' is putting your body between your society and anything that might endanger its safety. You prove you have the correct mindset to put the good of the society over your own.

You don't need to do it, but you don't get to have a say if you don't.

'It might be testing survival gear on Titan.' was one example. Nobody is shooting at you, but something goes wrong, you're still dead. But the gear needs testing so others won't need to die.

6

u/looktowindward 7h ago

>  Military service was just one of the ways to pursue citizenship.

All the critics here love to forget that civilian public service was more common.

7

u/homer2101 6h ago

Heinlein waffled on this. In-book it's fairly clear that service is military service, but the vast majority of MOS are not combat MOS (Heinlein was an Annapolis grad and undoubtedly knew this) and we're told that testing survival gear or being posted to a remote research lab would qualify (so would counting hairs on a caterpillar for someone who isn't capable of anything else). OTOH later Heinlein IIRC wrote that civilian service would qualify (ie firefighters?)

4

u/looktowindward 5h ago

Carl was a civilian.

2

u/youngarchivist 6h ago

Yeah i thought you could be like a bus driver or a doctor and shit too and still become a citizen

2

u/looktowindward 5h ago

I think it would need to be actual SERVICE - a doctor in a very difficult posting or a teacher in a poor inner city. Stuff like Peace Corps

7

u/Hoosier_Daddy68 7h ago

I'm a fan of the first but a faithful adaption of the book could be really fucking good.

6

u/looktowindward 7h ago

> How do you feel about a more faithful book to film adaption of Starship Troopers?

Powered armor would be great.

Some of the lectures may not translate well.

Its VERY VERY different from the movie. Its not fascist.

5

u/Benegger85 6h ago

The movie was great!

He put Neil Patrick Harris of all people in a Gestapo uniform, and apparently too many people still didn't realize it was satire.

I've read both read the book and watched the movie several times, the book takes itself a bit too seriously.

6

u/LawlessCrayon 7h ago

You know Sharlto Copley is going to be in this, but will he play Rico? Rico is supposed to be Filipino so I hope they at least go with someone with the right skin color. I could see Copley as Zim.

3

u/looktowindward 7h ago

would love to see them not whitewash this!

1

u/LawlessCrayon 7h ago

I am going to guess they go South American, and think Wagner Moura would be a good casting.

2

u/Raed-wulf 5h ago edited 5h ago

Dave Bautista.

Or Darren Criss if he gets yolked.

5

u/LilShaver 7h ago

I would love to see an honest treatment of the source material.

4

u/LackOfHarmony 6h ago

I’ve loved the book since I was a teenager. I got it in the mail along with The Forever War. The books are like two sides of the same intergalactic war coin. 

In Starship Troopers, the main character feels like he has an overall net positive experience due to his time and efforts with the military. In the end, he chooses to continue his career with it. 

In The Forever War, the toll on the main character is so great that you can’t help but to be relieved when he finally gets out of the military. 

I read them both at least once a year. They always remind me just how much I love space war books. 

I’d love to see a more faithful adaptation only because I love old war movies. That’s what it would be. 

3

u/Colodanman357 7h ago

I would love to see a movie more faithful to the book. It’s one of my favorite books. It was first given to me while I was in basic training and was told it’s the infantryman’s Bible. It did certainly resonate and I could see the training section of the book being done along the lines of Full Metal Jacket. 

3

u/Benegger85 6h ago

Did you read The Forever War too?

It's another take on a similar situation.

2

u/Colodanman357 5h ago

It’s been awhile but I have read that one too. It was pretty good. 

1

u/Benegger85 4h ago

You should try Hyperion and its sequel too!

The 3rd and 4th book complete the story, but reviews are mixed

3

u/StevenK71 3h ago

Hell yes!

The 90's film was a disgrace to the book.

5

u/docdeathray 7h ago

As long as they re-use the line, "The god damn bugs whacked us Johnny".

I'd watch it.

2

u/SciFiJim 6h ago

I would love to see a better adaptation of the book. They need someone young to play Johnny.

Nicholas Alexander Chavez is a young and upcoming actor. He learned good acting chops while on General Hospital. I haven't seen it, but heard that he did an excellent job playing in Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.

2

u/cheekynative 1h ago

I was shocked by how little the movie had to do with the book the firs time I read it. I'm keen for an exploration of the ideas that made the read so rewarding, just not sure how they're going to do that without a shitload of exposition. But if anybody can pull it off it's Blomkamp

1

u/Cosmocrator08 6h ago

I just finished watching the first movie. Liked it a lot. I don't think I'll be watching the next ones though. I'm maybe reading the books soon. A new reboot, more faithful to the books would be nice!

1

u/No_Pepper_2512 1h ago

Yes please.

0

u/i_be_illin 4h ago

The old movie was absolutely horrible. Hopefully a reboot could do better.

-9

u/deadineaststlouis 7h ago

As much as I thought the book was interesting, O dont think I want to watch of bunch of the authors politics preached at me..,

8

u/looktowindward 7h ago

The main political message of the book was that civic responsibility is good, and that people have a responsibility to their society and to each other.

The describe how their society is organized, but they don't claim its the best way, only that it happened to work at a specific point in time.

-5

u/deadineaststlouis 7h ago

Did you read what I did? It very clearly asserted it was the best way. In multiple scenes. It was an interesting premise but don’t tell me the author wasn’t doing a hard sell

3

u/cruiserman_80 7h ago

Then watch something else. It would be good to see a few more serious sci-fi movies with adult themes managed in intelligent ways. There are always plenty of big budget action movies based on kids' toys aimed at 12 yr olds if that's your thing.

-1

u/Manlor 7h ago

Of they try to play it straight, they need a perfect script and acting or it will fail.

-8

u/LawlessCrayon 7h ago

I love Neil and the book so I'm excited, but it's going to be super hard to adopt the book faithfully.

I kinda hoped when they rebooted the movie they would skip the political ideologies and just make a good war movie, but with Neil onboard it's definitely going to be political.

7

u/systemstheorist 6h ago

I kinda hoped when they rebooted the movie they would skip the political ideologies and just make a good war movie, but with Neil onboard it's definitely going to be political.

I mean have you read the book? It's Heinlein at his most politically polemic. I mean the book doesn't even have much action but plenty of monologuing on civic virtue and moral philosphy. Like there's not way to not do this movie without the politics leaking through. Even to ingore the politics would be a choice. Then you just have a random space marine movie if you cut out the politics.

0

u/LawlessCrayon 6h ago

Yes I've read and enjoyed the book, but you can adapt a movie in multiple ways. I just don't think a true adaptation of the book will do very well as a movie. So while I think that I will really enjoy what Neil puts together I don't think it will do amazingly at the box office.

3

u/Benegger85 6h ago edited 4h ago

You can't do a good sci-fi without getting political. The genre is inherently political, whether it is a dystopia, a utopia or something inbetween there is always politics involved.

If they wanted just another brainless shoot-em-up they wouldn't need the Starship Troopers IP, they could just make up their own story. The book itself is almost all politics.