Some people, such as myself, dislike the movie because it was an almost completely unrelated script that was just reworked to have some of the same superficial elements as the book.
It wasn't satirizing anything. It was just capitalizing on name recognition.
But if they didn't do that, fewer people would have watched it, and we would not now be discussing movie vs. book, because they would have always been two separate things. They still are, really.
When I read the book, I didn't see it as either pro-military or anti-military. It was a fictionalization of actual contemporary military experiences into a future sci-fi setting. The reaction should be in the eye of the beholder. The book may have seemed to glorify the military, because the entire premise of the book was that the military had essentially staged a coup against every human government, this making it the keystone of all human society. The rest is just how Heinlein thought things would work if the military were in charge of everything. Some things would work better; some would be worse.
If you can say with a straight face that it wasn't satirizing anything then you know nothing of the director's work and didn't pay much attention to the movie.
It wasn't satirizing anything about the book. Militarism and fascism and propaganda and jingoism are all big enough to be satirized without having to pass them through Heinlein's filter first.
I must admit that I haven't made much of an attempt to evaluate the movie on its own merits, as it already started off on the wrong footing with me, due to the attempt to trick people into watching it by pretending to be something it was not. It might have been just fine as Bug Hunt at Outpost Nine. But they chose to wallpaper a licensed property over the facade instead.
As a film adaptation of a book, it is the least faithful interpretation I have ever seen. It wasn't even sci-fi. It was more like a World War II movie, except I couldn't actually tell if the humans were supposed to be the Axis, or the Allies, or a little of both.
> Ironically, many people hated the movie because they didn't recognize that it was satirizing the (apparently) pro-military book.
It was actually intended as (per Verhoeven) a satire of right-wing, fascists elements perceived in modern American culture that directly associated them with Nazi propaganda; the movie was largely written independently of the book, with rights to the book secured later after superficial similarity between some elements of the movie and the book were pointed out, at which point names, etc., from the book were added. Verhoeven says he only read two chapters of the book.
I suspect the best way to read any of Heinlein is not to consider whether the story and arguments really represent his views; rather, simply to consider why they should not be yours. Rico is not necessarily a reliable narrator, so even if the book isn't a satire itself, it's fertile ground for one...
> Now the movie, that was definitely meant to be satire. Which is why so many fans of the book hate it.
I don't so much hate the movie because it was satire, I hate it because it was cheap, lazy, unnecessary satire of either a phenomenon to which the book is at best distantly connected or of a very distant reading of the book.
I don't think that's the case; I think that it isn't simplistically prescriptive the way that shallow readings usually take it, but I don't think its satire either. Its more complicated than that.
I think that there are a number of things that come together in ST:
(1) Heinlein's concern about what he saw as a then-current political current to dismiss what he saw as clear, current, existential threats.
(2) Heinlein's enduring strong opposition to conscription and view that it was equivalent to slavery.
(3) Heinlein's general frustration with the bureaucracy and politics of the day and feeling that it was due in large part to the incompetence and lack of civic mindedness of the governing class and, the electorate more generally.
ST, though, wasn't utopian -- it wasn't describing the way things should be -- it was an exploration of ideas related to these topics (and, in some ways, a release of Heinlein's frustration around them.)
> But its a common misconception that its some sort of military love-letter.
There's definitely an element of military love-letter -- particularly, to the individual infantryman -- to it.
That's actually one of the few things the common shallow readings get right (Heinlein himself has written as much, subsequently.)
This is probably the most accurate description of the novel in this thread. I agree that there's no particular reason to think that Heinlein is saying we'd all be better off if tomorrow we took away the franchise from everyone who hasn't served in the military. Nor do I think it's fair to say that the novel is pro-war in the sense of glorifying warfare.
At the same time, based on large swaths of what Heinlein has written (including non-fiction), there's also no particular reason to think that we're supposed to roll our eyes and take as satire the various lectures about honor and duty in the book. Nor take it as a general condemnation of the "military mind" or anything like that.
> I agree that there's no particular reason to think that Heinlein is saying we'd all be better off if tomorrow we took away the franchise from everyone who hasn't served in the military.
Even if the novel was strictly prescriptive, it wouldn't be saying that: federal service wasn't exclusively, or even mostly, military; federal service included the military, but it also included pretty much everything that would be considered "civil service" positions in today's system, and those positions significantly outnumbered the military ones.
That claim gets made but there's nothing in the actual novel to actually support it, e.g. "A term of service isn’t a kiddie camp; it’s either real military service,
rough and dangerous even in peacetime . . . or a most unreasonable facsimile thereof. Not a vacation.
Not a romantic adventure. Well?" He then goes on to talk about things like "field-test survival equipment on Titan" as an alternative. (It's also explicitly mentioned that the merchant marine isn't included.)
The merchant marine isn't civil service, now, either; to quote Heinlein's own response on this:
In Starship Troopers it is stated flatly and more than once that nineteen out of twenty veterans are not military veterans. Instead, 95% of voters are what we call today "former members of teh federal civil service."
And where exactly are you getting the idea from that it was 'satire'? Everything I've seen Heinlein ever say about the novel straightly points to it not being satire; he was completely serious his thoughts on philosophy, morality, government, society, etc. It may be hard to believe, but I think he meant what he wrote.
How often did Stephen Colbert say his show was satire? He rarely broke character. And I don't recall him ever saying it was satire. But yet it was quite clear that it was. Of course, his method was rather over-the-top. Heinlein's was not.
Now the movie, that was definitely meant to be satire. Which is why so many fans of the book hate it.