heinleinblog

Yeah, it’s bad. But still more believable than Verhoxen’s movie.

The Cranky Insomniac says he’s a:

US Army veteran, libertarian hawk, musician, gun rights advocate, PR consultant and NASCAR fan who worked for NBC News in Washington for three years, in Hollywood for ten years and has a BA in political science from Columbia University.

OK …he passes.

But his email to me includes some interesting questions:

PS: I’d be forever grateful if you could explain to me how The Moon is a Harsh Mistress didn’t make that list of 100 SF books you have to read…

PPS: Am I the only hardcore Heinlein fan who thinks Starship Troopers was a really good film, as long as you forget that it’s based on the book?

The first question is easy: You are I are biased. Were we creating this list, we would gleafully and unashamedly fill it with Heinlein works, and fill whatever open spots remain with Heinlein’s Children.

Still, it’s hard to believe that JUST THREE of the Master’s works made the cut.

As to the other question, I agree that the movie Starship Troopers SHOULD have been promoted as an original work and not an adaptation of a novel, since there were so many departures in plot and characters from Heinlein’s classic.

Let’s say, for a moment, the movie had a different title and the characters had different names. It’s entirely possible that this movie would have been able to run WITHOUT traggering a copyright infringement suit from the Heinlein Estate. The departures were that significant. The bugs shooting plasma out of their asses and starships flying around in defiance of the laws of motion were enough, IMHO.

But would it have been a good movie? Granted, I might have cringed a little but less. But the over-the-top acting and the Nazi imagery would still have put me off.

No. It was NOT a good film. Even the shower scene — normally something that perks me right up — left me feeling exploited and sorry for the actresses who had to film it.

[tags]Cranky Insomniac,Starship Troopers[/tags]

From the Arkansas Democrat & Gazette:

ABC has tapped a number of its stars to feature in the midseason anthology series Masters of Science Fiction.

The six-episode series will adapt stories from such noted writers as Harlan Ellison, Robert Heinlein and Robert Sheckley. Physicist and author Stephen Hawking will introduce each episode.

Signed on to star in the series are Terry O’Quinn (Lost ), Anne Heche (Men in Trees ) and James Denton (Desperate Housewives ). Others include Judy Davis (Life with Judy Garland ), Malcolm McDowell (Entourage ) and Sam Waterston (Law & Order ).

Wanna guess who is staring in what segment?

BTW: The Heinlein segment will be an adaptation of the short story “Jerry Was a Man.”

[tags]Heinlein,Masters of Science Fiction[/tags]

Just for kicks, I typed “heinlein” into the search bar at YouTube.com and this was what I found:

The graphics are really cool. Too bad they don’t have hip television commercials for science fiction novels.

[tags]YouTube,Number of the Beast,666[/tags]

The Master’s name is used to describe the Great Basin:

Today there are likely more scorpions, spiders and snakes living in the Great Basin than people. If you’re fortunate, you will cross paths with bizarre-looking reptiles and bugs that could have crawled out from the pages of Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers. Much of the scenery is harshly unappealing, a face only a mother could love, but those who slow down enough may discover an unheralded beauty equal to any scene imaginable.

Methinks the writer is confusing the book with that God-awful abomination of a movie. But thanks for the plug anyway.

I have always thought that some of Heinlein’s material might be suited for comics, Still, I’m not a comic based even partially on the Starship Troopers movie is good news.

Although some of the artwork—especially the bugs—look to be very influenced by director Paul Verhoeven’s 1997 Starship Troopers film adaptation, Lee said that the movie didn’t inspire the comics. “[The inspiration was really] the [television] series Roughnecks, which was an amalgamation of the … film and book,” he said. “For source material, however, it was [the novel]. I wanted the book and the graphic novel to be as close as possible.”

Verhoeven’s movie is absolutely loathed among true Heinlein fans. Roughnecks had some grudging admirers. So there is a possibility this comic book might not be bad.

SyFy Portal has a decent interview with George Lefferts, a Hollywood writer and producer who once worked on Dimension X radio program:

Between them, [Ernest] Kinoy and Lefferts wrote over 40 scripts for “Dimension X.” Many were adapted from works by well-known science fiction writers, including Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and Kurt Vonnegut. Lefferts made a point of calling the authors to get their feedback. He also tried to stick as closely as possible to their original work.

Hmmm … can anyone tell me which Heinlein work was adapted to radio on “Dimension X?”

And isn’t it a shame someone like this guy wasn’t put in charge of “Stormship Troopers?”

[tags]George Lefferts,Dimension X,Ray Bradbury,Robert Heinlein,Isaac Asimov,Kurt Vonnegut[/tags]

Granted: I have NO reliable information about a movie based on ‘Friday.” I don’t know if one is being wirtten, cast or just being discussed.

But my referal logs report more than a few hits to this site from Google and Yahoo searches for “heinelin friday movie.”

[tags]heinlein,friday,movie[/tags]

I nominate Jessica Alba for the lead role.

Via a press release:

ABC Television has picked up IDT Entertainment’s drama series “Masters of Science Fiction,� featuring works from some of the most well known authors of science fiction, the network announced today. Negotiations are underway to include works from Isaac Asimov (author of “I Robot� and “Nightfall�), Ray Bradbury (“The Martian Chronicles,� “Fahrenheit 451�), Harlan Ellison (“A Boy and His Dog,� “Jeffty is Five�) and Robert Heinlein (“The Puppet Masters,� “Stranger in a Strange Land�). IDT Entertainment, in association with Industry Entertainment, will produce a minimum of four one-hour episodes.

I don’t see how anyone could fit “Stranger in a Strange Land” into a one-hour telecast, especially with commercials. I’ve always thought that “The Puppet Masters” would be a good novel to turn into a television series, perhaps on the SciFi Channel.

An article on a Web site based in “occupied Iraq” hauls out the tired old argument that Robert Heinlein was a fascist.

How long has it been since you watched Starship Troopers? Perhaps you should again. I caught some of it last week on television, and I was surprised at how reality has outpaced it. I don’t mean the space travel and the giant bugs; I mean the abandonment of democracy and dutiful dissent and the remodeling of America into a martial society. The bugs, of course, were never bugs anyway. They’re the eternal, dehumanized other that needs only extermination. (The original title of 2002’s giant spider movie Eight Legged Freaks was “Arac Attack.”)

Paul Verhoeven’s film is smart enough to satirize Robert Heinlein’s rather straight-ahead authoritarianism (for instance, citizenship is a privilege of those who sign up for “federal service”), though satire seems a hard thing to grok for those who were disgusted by the story of “Hitler Youth in love.”

Besides expounding principles of governance which could arguably be described as fascist, Heinlein was also – again, arguably – a student of the occult, and a familiar of the principals of the Babalon Working: Jack Parsons, L Ron Hubbard and “the Scarlet Woman,” Marjorie Cameron.

How typical of the left to equate anything military with fascism.

In an example of guilt by association, the writer goes on to link Heinlein to the writer of the white supremacist manifesto “The Turner Diaries.”

I’ll do the guy a favor: Next time you want to leap to conclusions, you might want to mention Heinlein’s short story “Free Men,” which is about a bunch of red-neck gun nut survivalists who attempt to overthrow the legitimate government of the United States.

[tags]heinlein,fascism,turner diaries[/tags]