Starship Troopers

Paul Verhoeven's 1997 film keeps the title, the Mobile Infantry, and the war against the Bugs, but changes a great deal else. The novel is a serious, first-person meditation on duty, citizenship, and civic responsibility, largely set during training and told through classroom debates as much as combat; the film is an intentionally satirical, ensemble-cast action movie that mocks militarism rather than examining it earnestly. The novel's signature technology — powered combat armor that lets troopers fight like one-man tanks — is absent from the film, whose infantry fight in ordinary fatigues with firearms. Several character details differ too: in the novel, Rico is explicitly of Filipino descent and Carl is male, while the film adds a romantic triangle (Rico, Carmen, and a female version of Dizzy Flores) not present in the book. Heinlein's Rico also narrates his own rise from recruit to officer in far more depth than the film has time for.