‘Starship Troopers’ Star Casper Van Dien Says Franchise Should Be Revived As TV Series: “Why Wouldn’t You Make This?”
Jorge Arenas | Nov 21, 2024
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Amidst the ongoing trend of Hollywood remaking and rebooting fan-favorite franchises, the star of the first Starship Troopers film, Casper Van Dien, thinks now is as good a time as any to send the troops of the United Citizen Federation on a new TV-specific deployment.
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Working against this idea is the fact that thanks to director Paul Verhoeven’s decision to turn Robert Heinlen’s military novel into a biting satire of such concepts as propaganda and societal control, the film has a divided reputation among audiences, with some believing it to be a straight-forward war tale, some unsure of what to make of the subversion, and fans of the source material dismayed by the sheer amount of liberties taken with the original story.
Adding to this lack of a consensus is the fact that Verhoeven was unfamiliar with the property he was attempting to subvert, with the actor telling Empire in 2012 that he never finished reading Heinlen’s book because he found it “boring and depressing”.
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Argh!
This is the book that I read as a teenager that turned me into a little L libertarian. The VietNam war was happening and, even then, I thought the politicians and bureaucrats were full of “Barbara Streisand”.
There are so many of Heinlein’s moralisms in it that I don’t understand HOW anyone could consider it “boring”.
In light of VietNam, the line “men aren’t potatoes” certainly drove home the POW / MIA issue for me. When I learned that we left men behind in WW2 and Korea, I became incensed.
The topic cam up in USAF survival school and you could see it was a “sore spot” for all involved.
I have a literal slew of Heinlein quotes just from Starship Troopers alone,
- “Because revolution—armed uprising—requires not only dissatisfaction but aggressiveness. A revolutionist has to be willing to fight and die—or he’s just a parlor pink. If you separate out the aggressive ones and make them the sheep dogs, the sheep will never give you trouble.” ― Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers
- “There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men.” ― Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers
- “When you come right to it, it’s a lot easier to die than it is to use your head.” ― Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers
- “I told you that ‘juvenile delinquent’ is a contradiction in terms. ‘Delinquent’ means ‘failing in duty.’ But duty is an adult virtue—indeed a juvenile becomes an adult when, and only when, he acquires a knowledge of duty and embraces it as dearer than the self-love he was born with. There never was, there cannot be a ‘juvenile delinquent.’ But for every juvenile criminal there are always one or more adult delinquents—people of mature years who either do not know their duty, or who, knowing it, fail.” ― Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers
- Remember Heinlein’s Starship Troopers’ universe? One does not merely have the right to be a citizen and vote by virtue of what Heinlein called the mere accident of birth; rather, one has to earn this right through Federal Service that tested one’s ability and willingness to sacrifice for the greater good of the polity. Bet not a lot of vets would vote for all the undeclared wars the USA has been in since WW2?
- “Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms” ― Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers
- “A soldier accepts personal responsibility for the safety of the body politic of which he is a member, defending it, if need be, with his life. The civilian does not.” — Lt. Col. Jean V. Dubois (Ret.) and student, p. 26 Starship Troopers (1959) by Robert A. Heinlein
- “Cast me into a dungeon;, burn me at the state, crown me king of kings, I can ‘pursue happiness’ as long as my brain lives — but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can insure that I will catch it.” ― Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers
- “Peace” is a condition in which no civilian pays any attention to military casualties which do not achieve page-one, lead-story prominence—unless that civilian is a close relative of one of the casualties.” ― Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers
- “What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly . . . it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. —Thomas Paine” ― Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers
- “The best things in life are beyond money; their price is agony and sweat and devotion” ― Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers
How could anyone of these be “boring”?
I find them thought provoking and of incalculable worth as a guiding principles.
I especially thing that vet only voting is an absolute must. Right along with the Taxpayers should have their own “house” in Congress.
Argh!
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Reinke Faces Life 