District 9 filmmaker Neill Blomkamp is set to write and direct a new adaptation of Starship Troopers, based on the 1959 science fiction fantasy novel from Robert A. Heinlein. The name likely sounds familiar to you due to the popular 1997 cinematic adaptation by Paul Verhoeven, but it is being reported (exclusively by The Hollywood Reporter) that Blomkamp’s film will not be a remake of that film.
Blomkamp will produce his iteration with longtime collaborator and wife, Terri Tatchell, who also co-wrote District 9 with the director, as well as the oft-maligned 2015 film, Chappie. Columbia Pictures — home of the original film adaptation — will also produce this iteration of the controversial military story. But according to THR’s sources, the more satirical take of the original film will likely not be found in this new version, with the goal of Blomkamp’s movie to be to hew more closely to the source material.

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But what does that mean for a book that was largely criticized as fascist? Particularly in a time when the worldwide rise of fascism has become deeply concerning? Read on to find out more.
‘Starship Troopers’ Goes Deep Into Military Fetishism And Has Outright Fascist Leanings In The Original Novel

Starship Troopers, the novel, was a piece of military science fiction written in reaction to the United States suspending nuclear testing. It was first published as a two-part serial by Heinlein in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction under the title Starship Soldier, later published as a book by Putnam on November 5, 1959. It won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1960.
The story/novel itself has long been viewed as incredibly controversial, given the political views it seemed to espouse. The book seems to intentionally glorify the military in a way that many critics found to be propagandist in nature. The fact that government service was a prerequisite to the right to vote in the novel’s fictional society has also led many to call its politics downright fascist in nature. And when you consider the fact that the plot of the novel is largely unremarkable, the dissection of the ideas Heinlein puts forth becomes far more important to the story being told.
Heinlein’s novel is set approximately 700 years in the future, on an Earth run by a world government made up exclusively of military veterans. The futuristic and often seen as affluent society is not all that different from the one we live in now, with the caveat that, in order to gain the rights of a full citizen — to vote and hold public office — one must earn them through Federal Service (usually via the military, which is really the only Federal Service described in the book). Those who do not do this retain their right to free speech and assembly, but cannot vote or hold public office.
Verhoeven’s movie sought to undermine and satirize the novel’s fetishization of the military and the book’s fascist tone, which is ultimately what made that film a cult classic. So if you strip that away — in a time when fascism is on the rise — what are people left with? Will that message be pro-fascism and pro-military? And is that what people really want or need right now, when so many people’s rights are under attack and being taken away, quite literally, every single day? It’s a question only Blomkamp can answer right now. But we imagine that he won’t, at least not this early in the development process.
Source:
The Hollywood Reporter