10 Movies That Had The Balls To Do It Better (AND WANTED YOU TO KNOW)

Agreeing to direct an adaptation of a hit book and then willfully deviating from it is always incredibly risky, though in the case of Paul Verhoeven's 1997 movie based on Robert A. Heinlein's 1959 sci-fi novel Starship Troopers, he used the opportunity to make it a send-up of every gross idea in the book.

Heinlein's original novel remains wildly controversial due to its glorification of the military and political views perceived as fascist, and though the movie's screenwriter Edward Neumeier originally attempted to adapt it faithfully, once Verhoeven got involved he insisted that it be re-shaped into a satirical deconstruction of military fetishism and fascism.

And though Starship Troopers was inexplicably interpreted as a pro-fascist movie upon original release by dense critics and audiences, Verhoeven really couldn't have any more blatantly positioned it as a neon-signposted piss-take of military propaganda.

Verhoeven basically got to have his cake and eat it, too, making a pulpy sci-fi action flick that also managed to flip the bird at the most toxic views propagated by the original author.

Short of having Casper Van Dien straight-up wipe his ass with Heinlein's novel on-screen, what else could he have done?