Starship Troopers Remake in planning.

[Grumman]

Huh.

Yeah, Space Marine armor has issues. Granted that Marines are supposed to be physically much bigger and differently built than normal humans, but the only way a roughly human-proportioned man could wear that Terminator suit is if his shoulders have been horribly dislocated.

I'm not sure if their normal armor is that messed up.

Normal SM armour isn't great, but it's nowhere near as bad as the terminator armour. Really, anyone who wants to make true-scale SM miniatures (or GW, if they ever reboot the line like they did at the start of 3rd) should work out what a Space Marine looks like naked first, and then design the armour to fit around that shape.

[edaw1982]

You mean, the "fascists killing Asian subhumans" aspect of the book? You can just watch Truimph of the Will for that.

Where do are people coming up with the 'Hurr evul Federation' aspect? For a 1950s Strapping Lad's Adventure book, it was full of Non-anglo characters.
The Japanese guy who goes a few rounds with Sergeant Zim, or even Juan Rico, a Brazillian-Filipino (he mentions knowing Tagalog in the books).

But the fact that it mentions Verhoven's movie rather than the novel, indicates that it's just going to be a rehash because the message of war sucking donkey-dick. Probably with Bugs setting off bug-esque IEDs just to drum home relevance.

Besides, there's already been a decent version of the book, in anime

Sure Juan "Johnny" Rico was blonde (and white yet again), but atleast they had powered armour.

[Simon_Jester]

But the fact that it mentions Verhoven's movie rather than the novel, indicates that it's just going to be a rehash because the message of war sucking donkey-dick. Probably with Bugs setting off bug-esque IEDs just to drum home relevance.

I sometimes wonder:

When you write a movie so that it is "relevant" to current events, how likely is the movie to survive and remain relevant after people have moved on? Hopefully the US won't be dropping armies of occupation in any more countries for a few more decades- if you did make a movie full of Space Troops freedomizing a big sandy place and getting blown up by IEDs, someone might go "Ohhh, it's commentary on American militarism! How deep!" right now, but it'd look pretty dated in 2035 when everyone's more worried about giant self-aware Nigerian e-mail scams, or the sudden decision of Google to remove the word "don't" from their company motto and use their omniscient power like comic book villains, or whatever random things are going wrong in 2035.

[VF5SS]

Besides, there's already been a decent version of the book, in anime

Sure Juan "Johnny" Rico was blonde (and white yet again), but atleast they had powered armour.

That OVA wasn't that great honestly. It was mostly done as an anniversary project for the book (or I think the Japanese release of the book which was 1978) and was clearly underfunded with not a lot of talent behind it. A much shorter OVA called MADOX-01 seemed to do better even though it was merely inspired by SST and no made as a direct adaptation.

The Powered Suits are also less well received than the original designs done for the second Japanese release of the book. The book designs by Naoyuki Kato (that's his recent design) is different from Kazutaka Miyatake's redesign for the 1988 OVA.

For me the OVA was an interesting curiosity as it will probably never get re-released on anything other than Laser Disc due to rights issues. Oddly enough it also portrayed Johnny as a football player just like the first movie.

[Companion Cube]

The Powered Suits are also less well received than the original designs done for the second Japanese release of the book. The book designs by Naoyuki Kato (that's his recent design) is different from Kazutaka Miyatake's redesign for the 1988 OVA.

Poking around Kato's site, it seems he's done some illustrations related to Joe Haldeman's Forever War, which look pretty good.

[VF5SS]

Yeah that one from 1985 is the cover for the Japanese release. There was also some low run model kits of the design that some fans produced. One was built and painted for Joe Hadelman.

[Steve]

I've always felt the society as depicted held a lot of dangers of seeing oppression of the non-citizens, especially if they start to get higher rates of economic success. I mean, how hard would it be for a party to drum up votes by promoting arguments that citizens deserve even more because "they sacrificed for the country" instead of those lazy, wimpy, selfish non-citizens who, while the brave citizen was spending the prime of his life SERVING HIS COUNTRY, used that time to set themselves up to prosper and become well-off?

How much would it take to see laws passed putting higher taxes on the incomes and property of non-citizens to finance tax breaks on citizens and other citizen benefit programs? Or increasing the number of occupations forbidden to non-citizens? Limiting their access to higher education? Heck, it might even be seen as worthwhile to increase the number of people in service.

And that doesn't get into the risk of, say, the military veterans deciding that those who gave their service in the equivalent of the Civilian Conservation Corps, or the Planetary Terraforming Corps, or low-pay government service didn't do enough to warrant citizenship.

[Ultonius]

, or even Juan Rico, a Brazillian-Filipino (he mentions knowing Tagalog in the books).

Where are you getting Brazilian from? The book gives the impression that Rico is from the Philippines themselves, since he implies that Tagalog is the customary 'old speech' spoken at home where he comes from.

[Ted C]

I would actually kind of like to see Starship Troopers done as a "coming of age in the military" story instead of "big shootout with the bugs" story.

[Guardsman Bass]

I would actually kind of like to see Starship Troopers done as a "coming of age in the military" story instead of "big shootout with the bugs" story.

That wouldn't be too bad, either, if done right. You would just have to downplay the politics a lot, and instead make the story about Rico and his fellow soldiers - Band of Brothers in space. I think it would be better as a mini-series than a movie, though, since you could do episodes focusing on what he does between battles.

[VF5SS]

Both the CG cartoon and the OVA were more or less coming of age stories. The OVA in particular omits the politics almost entirely.

[Tasoth]

I thought Rico was from Buenos Aires, which would make him Argentinian.

[Simon_Jester]

No. His reaction to the Bug destruction of Buenos Aires isn't nearly direct or intense enough for that.

[Sea Skimmer]

The movie made him be from Buenos Aires, in the book he learns that his mother was killed while visiting the city after he already knew it got blown away. This is implied to be a factor in why his father also joins the the military. The only reference to his actual home is the bit on speaking Tagalog.

[Guardsman Bass]

They never outright say it, but he's Filipino (Tagalog is a Filipino language). Unless his family is from elsewhere and just assimilated really well to the local language, he might look something like this.

[edaw1982]

Oops, I always thought his parents lived in Buenos Aires and his father just happened to be out of town at the time (I do recall he was a businessman, and reasonably wealthy).

One thing I would like to see more is what restrictions non-citizens face. Can the Rico's only work in certain sectors because other business options won't work with non-citizens?
There's got to be more to Citizenship than just being able to cast your fly (fishing fly not the one on your pants) into the mire and hope your favourite knob-head wins the Presidency/Glorious Leadership....and then shake your head in dismay when they proceed to do/say stupid crap and go 'Why did I vote for this prick?'

I think though, if they do a movie closer to the book they will have to do powered armour to make up for the lack of it in the '97 movie (because people expect/demand it), but it will do better as a coming-of-age-war-movie-where-Johnny-matures-from-a-young-man-and-learns-about-the-horrors-of-war-and-sacrifice-and-comraderie.
In the vein of, Platoon or the first season of Tour of Duty or Jarhead

[HMS Sophia]

As I said above, in the SST equivalent of the extended universe (mainly the RPG) we learn that Citizen run business gets some tax breaks and other things that make starting up a company easier. Also policing is a reserved occupation for citizens, as are a few other, though I couldn't tell you off the top of my head.
Let me dig out my copy of the UCF and i'll pull out some details.

[Grumman]

As I said above, in the SST equivalent of the extended universe...

There's no such thing. Mongoose Publishing made their own version of the universe that drew from all three of the other versions (the book, the movie and the cartoons). It's like citing Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in a discussion of the original novel.

[HMS Sophia]

Well, its the only source outside of the book that gives any sort of details about 'back home', which the book doesn't really go into. I know it's not much the same, but it's a source for which there was a license, so I see no problem looking at it when thinking about the difference between citizens and civilians. It goes a long way towards creating a real sense of difference between the two, other than citizens can vote.
Still, I see your point. It's fun though.

[eyl]

One thing I would like to see more is what restrictions non-citizens face. Can the Rico's only work in certain sectors because other business options won't work with non-citizens?
There's got to be more to Citizenship than just being able to cast your fly (fishing fly not the one on your pants) into the mire and hope your favourite knob-head wins the Presidency/Glorious Leadership....and then shake your head in dismay when they proceed to do/say stupid crap and go 'Why did I vote for this prick?'

The extent the book details this is that Johny reflects that there are several occupations reserved for veterens (the only ones explicitly mentioned, AFAIK, are policeman, mral philosophy teacher or whatever it was called, and political post - presumably any elected position).

[Simon_Jester]

I would be surprised if some of those reserved positions paid unusually well, so I'm not sure they count. At least they're more or less guaranteed employment during bad economic times, which is not to be sneezed at I guess.

Veterans wanting some tangible benefits accruing to "citizen" status is probably the biggest single point of failure in the Federation system...

Hm.

If you'd asked Heinlein in the '60s and '70s about the dangers of the electorate voting themselves bread and circuses until the economy collapsed, he'd probably have a lot to say about it. If you asked about the danger of the Starship Troopers electorate... well. From his reputation, I like to think Heinlein would have grasped the point and maybe agreed, it's not easy to say what he really believed about the setting. But for all I know he might not, and I'm damned sure a lot of the book's fanboys wouldn't.

[edaw1982]

Of the system in the Federation, I remember it was set up after some war, where Veterans grabbed the bull by the horns, and as of the "present" of SST, the sociology of society seems to benefit Veterans, because it was wedged into place by veterans, kind of like how Americans seem (I'm aware I'm generalising here somewhat) to like it when politicians are veterans of some stripe because their first President was a former General.

I mean just look how many presidents served in the military here.

It's simply that in the federation one must have served to be able to become president (or whatever the head cheese was called), rather than it simply being bonus-points towards the job.

The other thing I remember, was public flogging for certain crimes, and hangings for other crimes like the abuse/kidnap/rape (I'm sure it was one or all of the above) of that little girl that the AWOL did.

[HMS Sophia]

It was kidnap and murder, for which he was hanged. But yes, the Federation was set up after a bunch of vets from Aberdeen set themselves up as a militia and cleaned the streets...and the the European armies decided they were a threat and killed them all. It lead to later uprisings which created the Federation.
Veterans are a big deal for the Federation, simply because that who has always been in charge.