Which Science Fiction Universe Would You Like To see onscreen?

Don't waste your time. The Drek Age was a horrid ending to the once-proud BattleTech line of fiction. Nothing more than "Fall of the Star League" rehashed. They took everything that made the BattleTech universe interesting and threw it out the window.

 

Yeah, I think that's been in "developement hell" for years now.

Too bad, it would make an EPIC film. (or Miniseries...)

Same for KSR's Red/Blue/Green Mars/The Martians novels. Cameron optioned the rihts., and back in '04. Sci-fi said that a mini based on those would be out that year...but it never came.

You know, we see so many remakes, and derivative and unoriginal - and monster-of-the-week crap...when all these great stories are left never made.

Ender's Game/Ender's Shadow would make an *AWESOME* movie or movies or mini.

 

I have long maintained that someone should make a version of Starship Troopers with the look/feel of the Colonial marines in Aliens, and Space: Above & Beyond.

Not a huge fan on Heinleins' politics myself either - but Verhoven should have left the mockery and campy commentary out of the film, IMHO. And honestly, I found the novel version of Starship Troopers to be a bit....dull...but I think the core of a damn good war series in there.

Also, I think a version of Robotech/Macross would be great if done nuBSG style.

 

Nah, Starship Troopers shouldn't be anything at all like the Colonial Marines.

If anything, it should be like the upcoming Iron Man movie.

Hell, orbital insertion alone would make for a hell of a scene.

See the capsule fired out from a starship in low orbit, deploying chaff. Watch the radar screen as organized chaos descends, explosion and flak from the ground defenses trying to pick the real targets from the ghosts.

Chuted deploy, pop, and the outer case sloughs off for more sensor ghosts.

Hit the ground on the bounce, no other MI in sight. Nearest friendly is 50 klicks out in a chevron pattern for maximum breadth of fire. Low, controlled bounces over tree tops, buildings and hills, the marauder suit deploying submunitions from the Y-racks. Anything gets too close, out comes the flamer. And the MI hunts for something worth using his clean tac-nuke missile launcher on.... Then the beacon of the Rodger Young, as the MI recovers any wounded, because you never leave anyone behind, and get back offplanet on the bounce.

No fucking reason in the world to make Starship Troopers without the armor.

But the last thing it would be like if done right is the Colonial Marines.

 

^^^
Well, for my part, when I mention S:A&B I wasn't thinking of the "look" of the show as the fact that it was a protracted war series set in an ongoing conflict....not something won in glorious fashion over again every week.


I don't think one has to LIKE Heinlien's politics in order to see the value of providing backstory to the people and the society involved ...a good writer could balance off Heinlien's views by having his main characters have an internal dialouge about whether or not those ideas were best...

honestly though, the only really "out there" idea he pushed in ST was the idea of earning the franchise. I don't see how that's such an offensive idea.

Even if one disagrees.

All the bullshit about fascism is pretty much critics reading into his stories what they expected to see. RAH's views have never feet neatly into any "ism"

 

Haven't read Heinlien, but I liked Verhoeven's version of Starship Troopers a lot.

 

Heinlein's Starship Troopers was - almost - redone a few years ago in a different novel by a guy named John Steakley. The name of the book was Armor, it has a lot of the same elements as ST, but it's a much darker read. It's pretty good if you have a few days to read through it and haven't yet.

 

Half Life

And not some cheap adaptation, but big budget, and a good director. The last scene of the movie could be a Combine Strider coming through the open portal.

 

I think I can confidently assume you would despise most of Heinlien's major works.

But If you read some of his short story collections, you can pick up his wonderful writing style without being burdened with philosophical views you detest.

 

Steakley and Heinlein met at a convention after Armor came out, and everyone was expecting Heinlein to rip Steakley a new one, instead, Heinlein complimented Steakley on the work and said that he felt it was one of the best descriptions of what it was like to be a grunt he'd ever read. (Heinlein was a class act, no matter what one might think of his politics. He gave Philip K. Dick a typewriter after Dick had pawned his. Funny thing is, though, Dick didn't tell anyone that he'd pawned his typewriter, so how'd Heinlein know?)

I second Saberhagen's Beserker series, and I'd like to see Drake's The Forlorn Hope, as well as Harlan Ellison's version of I, Robot. The Dragonriders of Pern, is apparently still in the works.

 

Yeah, I read that when it first came out. Quite an impressive book, tho obviously heavily inspired by Heinlein's work.