The time is not right for a new Starship Troopers, OG director Paul Verhoeven has warned. News of a reboot of the 1997 cult classic hit just days ahead of the presidential election, the bullshit results of which will shape art for many years to come. For Verhoeven, reports that the reboot will more closely resemble Robert A. Heinlein's 1959 novel of the same are troubling AF.
"It said in the article [that] the production team of that movie of the remake, that they would go back more and more towards the novel," Verhoeven said at a Film Society of Lincoln Center event Tuesday, according to Indiewire. "And of course, we really, really tried to get away from the novel, because we felt that the novel was fascistic and militaristic. You feel that going back to the novel would fit very much in a Trump Presidency."
But that's not a compliment of Heinlein's original work. In fact, consider it more of a straight-up warning. "Our philosophy was really different [from Heinlein's book]," Verhoeven said, noting that he and screenwriter Ed Neumeier actively tried to "seduce" the audience into learning a lesson. "We wanted to do a double story, a really wonderful adventure story about these young boys and girls fighting, but we also wanted to show that these people are really, in their heart, without knowing it, are on their way to fascism."
Later on during the discussion, Verhoeven doubled down on why making a new, satire-free Troopers during the age of this particular President-elect is simply a terrible idea. "We are living in a very interesting, or you can call it scary time, and of course you would like to do something about it, too," Verhoeven said. "But I think if you go to directly into the now you have no distance… you need to have a certain distance as an artist to the project and not be in the middle of it."
