By Paul Verhoeven’s adaptation of Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers was an oddly satirical action film with just enough bite to make it more profound than its giant bug alien-slaughtering premise. Toby Jaffe, a producer on its upcoming reboot, has now affirmed what we all could have guessed: the new Starship Troopers will not only trade in military critique for a mass appealing jingoistic joyride, it will do it with less violence, so that children of all ages can enjoy the fun.
Jaffe says that while Verhoeven made his film “almost comical” in its extreme, his take will be more faithful to Heinlein’s novel, which was once called a “book-length recruiting poster.” Sounding less and less like an actual human being and more so a character in a Verhoeven-like pastiche, Jaffe adds:
Verhoeven made his movie a critique of fascism, whereas Heinlein was writing from the perspective of someone who had served in World War II. Y’know, one man’s fascism is another man’s patriotism…
With its producer acknowledging that “the more expensive a film is, the harder it is now to make it that violent,” the new Starship Troopers is sure to delight fans of blockbuster action and mild violence and America.
[via Empire]