I barely remember SIASL other than the basic premise. Was that one of RAH's books about group marriage that made me give up on his works? (Seriously, I don't mind throwing in a little non-traditional viewpoints, but at one point working my way through his body of work I felt like the time MSNBC came on in my hotel room and I couldn't find the power button).
If so, they should just go for the trifecta and bring in JJ Abrams.
Agree totally. Dead spot on.
I would be highly skeptical of the quality of the production. Heinlein's views were notoriously conservative, especially in comparison to today's Hollywood. I can't easily believe that whoever makes the movie based on the book would not exploit the parts that appeal to the mass market and leftist pop-kulture sensibilities more, such as the very peripheral aspect of the group marriage thing. Heinlein liked to shake things up and was a notorious iconoclast and cynic about social conformity.
The only way this could ever have been made is for both Heinlein and his wife to die. They would NEVER have approved it. Whoever administrates their estate is likely not a responsible steward of their legacy. See, Heinlein often said that he considered T.V. and films to be grossly inferior mediums to literature and that was one of the biggest reasons he refused to allow any rendering of his books into those formats.
The first exception made, as far as I am aware, was when his widow allowed Jon Davison to produce a film verison of
Starship Trooper with Paul Verhoeven directing and writer Edward Neumeier, which was surprisingly close to the book in many ways. I think that she retained veto-power over the screenplay as a condition of the sale of the rights. She was a shrewd business person and a tough negotiator, by all accounts.
BTW, that film was modestly successful at the box office and resulted in an Academy Award for Best Special Effects. It was also among the first feature films to be commercially produced and marketed profitably on DVD format. It held the record for most DVD sales for some time. People loved how DVDs, unlike VHS, allowed high resolution digital video (without having to clean the heads) plus the ability to select and watch favorite scenes without rewinding.
Heinlein complained that other books made into movies had been horribly corrupted by unscrupulous or stupid movie executives/directors who either did not understand or had no respect for the literary intentions of the authors. Since most movie studios would not yield any significant creative control to the authors or their agents in the deal, many authors refused offers to have their books made into films for that exact reason.
