The book is fine. The opening pages tell us clearly that we are nuking bugs on planets with intelligent beings, using all the ammo (because it's too expensive to return with nukes) and leaving for another planet with bugs.

After that we jump to our protagonist, who is being brainwashed in high school.

Finally, Heinlein was writing his father's worldview and wanted to take it to its logical end.

I love that book and movie.

[–] RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

So how do you rate it as an adaptation?

[–] Pronell@lemmy.world 11 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Good but not great. They dump the battlesuits entirely. For budget reasons this makes sense at the time but that investment in equipment (and to a lesser extent the soldiers within) shows the cost of space travel and how we are spending insane amounts to kill space bugs that are on most worlds.

But they, in turn, use the infantry rush of unarmored soliders pretty well to show the cost of war.

The use of propaganda in the media mirrors the indoctrination well enough. It keeps the audience from completely getting on board with the propaganda since it's so on the nose. (Some will still swallow it, the same way some people saw The Boondock Saints as an awesome hero flick rather than an over-the-top action comedy.)

[–] neukenindekeuken@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 weeks ago

Shooting the cat and it exploding into the wall should have been a clue for most people.

[–] Tujio@lemmy.world 14 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

In a lot of ways the movie is a spoof of the book. Verhoeven famously hated the book and it's depiction of military fascism.

[–] agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 14 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

The book doesn't so much promote fascism as explore it. It's more obvious when you read his other works that that's just what he does, explore premises.

Stranger in a Strange Land came out less than 2 years later and depicts the creation of a free-love hippie space religion.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 3 weeks ago

its seems loosely based on nazi too, even down to the uniforms.