Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers is held in high regard around these parts. It’s something of an unsung masterpiece, with Verhoeven and writer Ed Neumeier taking a spotty sci-fi pulp and refitting into subversive propaganda. It’s a brazen ode to fascism, which was sort of Verhoeven’s point – it wasn’t until 11 years of a war on terror that shit’s now getting eerily familiar.
But strip away the overtones (as well as the violence, the nudity, the soul) and what are you left with? Toby Jaffe, producer on both the Total Recall and Starship Troopers remakes, is about to tell you. Via Empire:
“The more expensive a film is, the harder it is now to make it that violent,” explains Jaffe, also one of the team behind the Colin Farrell’s Total Recall. “With Recall in particular, we made a conscious choice to keep it tonally closer to something like Minority Report. It gives the studio, and us as producers, the opportunity to reintroduce it in a new way.”
That’s quite the Shyamalan-esque twist: “You thought we were remaking Total Recall, but really we were remaking Minority Report all along!”
I have no doubt the logline for a Troopers reboot will be they’re going back to Robert A. Heinlein’s novel for inspiration. And I also think that, under the right guidance, such a film can be a good time. Even so, perhaps we should all fork over our ticket-buying dollars to fare like Looper or Elysium and remind Hollywood that there’s an audience for original science-fiction. “Brand-recognition” is becoming an exhausting phrase to keep writing.
15 comments
Starship Troopers is a classic around any parts.
“You thought we were remaking Total Recall, but really we were remaking Minority Report all along!”
Which is actually kind of funny because wasn’t Verhoven’s projected sequel to Total Recall supposed to be taken from Minority Report? I think it was on the Total Recall Special Edition DVD, where they talked about all sorts of sequels using Philip K. Dick’s stories, but weren’t sure how to develop it with the powers that be and they sort of fell apart. Then Minority Report became it’s own thing (for better or worse). I actually kind of liked it. Also, I still don’t understand how the cognates can read a book as they do at the end and not be spoiled by the ending.
As for Starship Troopers, I will say this. The first time I saw it, I hated it. But after watching it repeatedly for all the Dina Meyer nude scenes, I actually began to like it. In fact, it became one of my favorite films.
I hope the Verhoeven toned-down remake festival continues. Always wondered what a high school set, PG-13 “Turkish Delight” would be like.
“It’s a brazen ode to fascism, which was sort of Verhoeven’s point – it wasn’t until 11 years of a war on terror that shit’s now getting eerily familiar.”
I’m guessing you weren’t around during the first Gulf War?
I hope this new film will be slavishly faithful to the book so all the Heinlein fans can stop bitching and moaning whenever someone mentions the Verhoeven version.
The Verhoven film is pretty faithful to the book, there’s not much in the book that wasn’t covered except the dropsuits and Skinnys. Making the story less violent is not going to make a better movie. We’re getting into a weird area where they’re remaking movies that came after the T2/Jurassic Park CGI revolution … are the special effects really going to be better than the first Starship Troopers? Is there a better actor to play Johnny Rico than Casper Van Diem? What’s the point again?
I’m waiting for the story to appear any day now that in order to make it less violent, the “Robocop” reboot will now be a police procedural, like “Law & Order: OCP” or something.
Yeah, sheesh, that went on for like, weeks.
I came to hate the Starship Troopers remake, and I ended up hating the Total Recall remake. Twist ending indeed!
And what does Paul Verhoeven have to say about all this?? Or is he waiting til after they remake Basic Instinct (with Channing Tatum and Sienna Miller as a PG13 heavy petting fest with lots of punching instead of ice picks) to rip Hollywood a new one?? Seriously! Why are people going through his back catalogue so furiously? And with a budget of 200 mil, you KNOW the new Total Recall will be totally without balls. Same goes if they have a huge budget on Robocop or Starship Troopers.
It’s been several years since I read the book, but wasn’t Dina Meyer’s character originally a man? And I think they had talking dogs in it. There was a lengthy segment in the book where Rico was trying to figure out what job he wanted to do and he considered some sort of K-9 unit. But the dogs were enhanced with being able to talk a la Scooby-Doo. I’m not sure what you mean by faithful. But if you mean an overall generalized beginning, middle and end arc, then I guess it’s kind of faithful. But there are a lot of differences. And I’m not saying it’s for better or worse. Just different.
Unfortunately even things like Elysium dont sound very original if the plot is to be believed-sounds like one of those 1984-inspired commercials from the 80s (and if it is as badly written as District 9-I think I will just rewatch something from earlier decades when studios cared about storytelling).
District 9 was good, fug yourself. STARSHIP FUCKIN TROOPERS is almost as awesome as the original TOTAL RECALL. double fug you
You have no idea how close you are…
Wait, no… I didn’t even know they were remaking this. I’m actually really sad now. Reboot, redo, redon’t…. whatever, man. Just not a remake.
I don’t know if this has been said, but the sad part is… the fucking cgi will look WORSE.
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