Personally, I don't think it's about adapting games (Off-Topic)

by Blackt1g3r , Login is from an untrusted domain in MN, Thursday, May 12, 2016, 16:14 (2914 days ago) @ Cody Miller
edited by Blackt1g3r, Thursday, May 12, 2016, 16:21

It's not that there was a lack of understanding of the source material. Verhoeven just thought the source was stupid. Because he'd experienced fascism first hand in his own lifetime, you can see why he'd ridicule the idea.

Which is why the movie was stupid. He ignored the source material entirely and the movie was worse for it. Rotten tomatoes says critics give it 63% and moviegoes give it 69%. That's pretty much my definition of bad. Anytime I watch a movie with ratings like that it's almost always bad. The only thing worse is when the critics love it and the moviegoers hate it.

That said, if you like the movie go ahead and watch it all you like.

EDIT:

After the scene with the knife I knew it was great. In the scene a recruit asks why they learn to use knives when we have guns and nukes. In the book, there's a long speech about the use of controlled violence and who is responsible for that control. In the movie, it's like NOPE! We learn how to use knives because you can't hit the nuke button if your hand is pinned to the wall!

Also, I think it's pretty clear you have little experience with the military. Ignoring that it's pretty unrealistic for that to happen in real life to begin with, it's just a gross misunderstanding of what bootcamp is about in the first place. Heinlein was a veteran and his description of boot camp is pretty much spot on.

Also, the book wasn't supposed to be about fascism, though it looks similar in many respects. Heinlein himself said it wasn't. He was proposing restricting voting to those who were willing to make a sacrifice for the good of society. Who knows if it would work or not and if it would just turn into facism, but he didn't intend to propose facism in the book.