Starship Troopers remake writer calls film ‘An Officer & a Gentleman in power armor’

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

It was all the way back in 2011 when producer Neal Moritz announced that he would be remaking Paul Verhoeven's 1997 cult classic STARSHIP TROOPERS, which was a satirical take on the Robert A. Heinlein novel of the same name. In 2012, producer Toby Jaffe said that this version would be much more faithful to Heinlein’s source material which to many signaled that we'd be getting a more straighforward and less satirical film than the goofy and gory fun that Verhoeven's version of the tale brought us. That premise is still being echoed by writer Zack Stentz (THOR), who recently turned in the script he wrote with his collaborator Ashley Miller (X-MEN: FIRST CLASS), as he took to Twitter last month to share what we can expect from this re-adaptation, sharing…

Can we cue Joe Cocker's 'Up Where We Belong' yet?

Here's the synopsis of Heinlein's novel:

Starship Troopers follows a young soldier from the Philippines named Juan "Johnnie" Rico and his exploits in the Mobile Infantry, a futuristic military service branch equipped with powered armor. Rico's military career progresses from recruit to non-commissioned officer and finally to officer against the backdrop of an interstellar war between mankind and an arachnoid species known as "the Bugs".

Verhoeven's take on the material included a love story between Rico (played by Caspar van Dien) and Carmen Ibanez (Denise Richards), so I'm sure we can expect to see that part of the tale amplified to give it more of that AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN vibe (AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN is an Oscar-nominated film starring Richard Gere and Debra Winger, in which a young Naval officer struggles through the trials and tribulations of flight school while falling for a local girl). So basically we can expect to see an intergalatic war film with a romantic subplot.