In an imaginary dialog referred by H. Kahnwailer, Pablo Picasso explained to Delacroix: "You took a Rubens and the result was a Delacroix. In the same way, I think of you and do something completely different."
Well here, Paul Verhoeven didn't only do something absolutely different but also killed Heinlein and ripped apart savagely his novel. How can Heinlein resist such an adaptation of his novel with such a film contradicting nearly every point of the book and satirizing the main themes? For all that the novel was criticized for, the film makes account and delivers an everlasting stream of satire with caricature-like characters who evolve strictly in a military sense and horrible merciless insects supposed to be "the bad ones" (the racism theme Heinlein was so much critized for and so many reviewers don't seem to understand and who makes them miss the whole point of the story). Once in a while the films produces a sort of Nazi-propaganda video which seems to have an answer to all the character's (and therefore spectator's) questions with quotes such as "Why we fight?" which doesn't state the real reasons why humans are at war with bugs or death sentences broadcasting and military service propaganda with a subtle "do you want to know more?". War makes a fascist of each one of us, and even if it seems wrong, it seems to be our undeniable nature.
I don't dislike Heinlein more than any other author and take his novel as the result of the period he lived in and as the war veteran he was, even if he never was engaged in any battle. The Forever War was a result of another generation marked by Vietnam. More in accordance with the latter Verhoeven show us an up-to-date view of war and propaganda and how the particular and cunning views of a few can imprison us all in an utopian society.
What makes a true piece of art is the different views it can have and this is what makes, both the novel and the film, critized nearly in the same way, so great. So read the book, then watch the film, or vice versa, don't pay attention to what I said and write your own thoughts and get involved in this fabulous argument.
2 out of 5 found this helpful