While it has been a while since it was first announced, the remake of “Starship Troopers” is still brewing despite Paul Verhoeven‘s 1997 take being a still-beloved cult classic. So what will the approach be? Back in 2012, producer Toby Jaffe said his version will be more faithful to Robert A. Heinlein‘s source material, and oddly, more patriotic in tone rather than satirical. And that’s the line being echoed by one half of the film’s writing team, “Thor” and “X-Men: First Class” writer Zack Stentz (who is working on the script with collaborator Edward Miller).
Over the holidays, film blogger Scott Weinberg asked Stentz directly over Twitter what we could expect from the redo, and this was the reply (via Giant Freakin Robot): “Less a satire & more an actual adaptation of the Heinlein novel. ‘An Officer & A Gentleman‘ in power armor.”
In case you don’t remember, the movie Stentz is referring to is Taylor Hackford‘s 1982 semi-classic starring Richard Gere and Debra Winger which was nominated for a bunch of Oscars (winning a couple), though the military romance is probably still best known for making a hit out of the Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes song “Up Where We Belong.” At any rate, we’re really curious to see what studio executive would buy that pitch in a meeting.
And as we wait to see how this movie develops, we’ll just share what Verhoeven told us in 2012 about his thoughts on the redo. “I don’t know if they’re going to do ‘Starship Troopers’ after the failure of ‘Total Recall,’ ” he said. “Yes, they bought the rights, we know that, but I really thought they made a mistake when they did the remake by making it so serious. I’m not so sure [that approach] will work for [‘Starship Troopers’] either. I think all of these films are accepted because they don’t take themselves so seriously. There’s a lightness, you believe it, but we also know it’s not true.”
Done right, this movie cannot fail.
I am not that fond of the original because it strayed so far from the book. The book is not satirical.
How do you kill a cult classic?
Remake it.
What a stupid idea this is.
The people who made starship troopers need dragged into the streets and beaten to death by small children. If they did a movie faithful to the book, generations of Heinlein fans would buy tickets.
I thought Thor was heavy on the military propaganda. Guess what that bodes for this? Lose the irony and you've got one shitty movie.
The 1997 version I liked because it treated women and minorities very well. The Prime Minister was a black woman, many troops who acted heroically were minorities and women kicked ass. If they are going to downplay women and minorities, don't bother remaking it.