A Sudden Epiphany on the works of Heinlein
I was recently reading the book by Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land. I must say, it is a book I am enjoying. There are many neat ideas presented around what so far is a plot that just barely holds up to coherence. There is of course, a plot present, but its not a good one and that isn't the point. The point of the novel is its many ponderings.However, the ephiphany here is that the book Starship Troopers by the same author is the same kind of novel. Its not a book with a good plot, and its painfully boring in most parts. However, the importance of the novel is its ideas on philosophy and governemnt. It has a plot about aliens attacking Earth and some asshole is joining the army to fight the aliens, but that is completely not the point. Those are the boring parts. The interesting parts are when he flashes back to a class in high school. I forget what it was called, but it was a dissection of politics and philosophy and was quite blatantly a way for Heinlein to get up on a soapbox and talk about these subjects. His ideas here are teremendously interesting and fun to read, but they don't really fit with the rest of the book.
The rest of the book is mostly descriptive of future technologies and idiotic musings of the portagonist. The futuristic war technologies are cool though and I guess some dumbass decided to turn it into a movie. Unsurprisingly, the movie wasn't very good. However, the parts that made the book worth reading aren't really movie material so they were cut out. You're left with a pretty standard and uninteresting movie that some people like, saying its fun or campy, but honestly, it just isn't that good.
So I was thinking as I read, how this could be turned into a movie, (Its something I do when I read fiction to keep my mind focussed.) and I realized that it would be impossible to achieve the goodness of the book in the form of a good movie. Most of it is introspective thought or discussion of politics and philosophy. Interesting things are said, but good movies just don't come from endless discussion of the natures and meanings of the universe. (Of course, there are exceptions.)
Stranger in a Strange Land can only exist and be good as a book. If it were a movie, you'd have to cut out what makes it good in order to make it work as a movie with good pacing. At the very least, you'd need the world's greatest actors and actresses in order to portray the depth in some of these characters.
I recomend both of these books though. And while I'm at it, I might as well also suggest Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. I also recomend one of the movies I mention here. I'm sure you can figure out which one.
Wow, I actually made a blog post that I feel proud of. Been a while since that happened.
posted by the magnificent Cy "Brazanthr" Parker @ 8:58 PM
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