It has almost nothing to do with the book, and its twin purposes appear to be to push a particular political agenda and to justify some particularly gruesome special effects.
I read the book in grammar school. It's so much better than the movie (and the two direct to DVD sequels) that there's simply no reason to watch the movie except masochism.
Well, the book was better, although it did have a certain agenda, as do many TV shows and movies. At least, Heinlein was trying to push the idea of patriotism and honoring vets. He did do some race-mixing, I think at the behest of his NY editors. But his books usually managed to convey a distrust of government and stressed the need to be prepared.
This is in sharp contrast to Ed McBain's 87th Precindt books, which were anti-gun. He also wrote a book ("Danger: Dinosaurs") under another name, in which he pushed racial issues from a lberal viewpoint. He was a liberal activist and lectured to aspiring authors in Canada about including anti-gun remarks in their books. I detest Ed McBain, whatever his real name was. I think I know, but it'd raise issues banned on this board.
I enjoyed the Starship Troopers movie for what it was, although they were excessively violent toward our own troops. But it has the redeeming feature of Denise Richards being in it, and you get to see a lot of shooting, if that appeals.
I don't find the violence excessive, other than one scene where a man was punished for an error. It bothered me more when one of Robert C. Ruark's anti-Mau-Mau police reservists took a black baby by his feet and swung its head into a tree trunk to kill it, after a patrol had killed the Mau-Mau parents. That was the logical thing to do in the circumstances, and the white hunter who is the protagonist had suffered greatly from a Mau-Mau attack on his sister and brother-in-law's farm. He was a nice man, and what he did to fight terrorists in the cold, wet Aberdare Mountains in Kenya gave him nightmares. This scene was not in the movie version of Something of Value, of course. Might have revolted the audiences, as would the vile (but truthful) Mau-Mau oathing ceremonies and the full knowledge of what they did in their raids on other blacks who wouldn't join them, as well as their attacks on white settlers. That movie was really watered down from the book, and I'd like to say some thngs about the casting, but had better not on this board. The book is splendid, if perhaps a bit more candid in places than some mild mannered readers might like. But I think it is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the situation in Africa, and much of what it reveals also applies to other countries there in more recent times.
Ruark's later title, "Uhuru!" is also strongly recommended, although I don't think it was made into a movie. His white hunter heroes were largely based on his real life hunter, Harry Selby, and several of his friends whom Ruark met. Ruark made Selby a celebrity with his recounting of his own first safari, and the men became friends. See,"Horn of the Hunter" for that true hunting adventure. It is not a novel; it is a first person account of the safari.
Ruark is sometimes called a Hemingway wanna-be by critics, but I think he easily eclipsed Hemingway's writing. He also did a much better job of promoting safari hunting. One of his final articles was about safari, and in it, he detailed an eerie occurence that took place after he and his hunter (not Selby on that occasion) consulted a native witch doctor about hunting elephant in Mozambique after Ruark was banned from an independent Kenya. The witch doctor made smoke in his hut (probably contained hallucinogens (sp?) and rolled some animal bones and studied them. Then he told the hunters to go to a certain place on a certain day, where they would see three big elephants. They must shoot one of those. They would see no others on that trip. He was right! Ruark found that prophecy a little scary. That would be a good storyline for a movie, if anyone wants to make one. I'd like to see a good new safari movie, if it wasn't too PC.
