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From what I hear Starship Troopers is TOTALLY different from the book - just watching the trailers has made me notice tons of differences. For instance, in the book the human soldiers use powered armor that enhances strength and speed. Soldiers are dropped individually onto planets from orbit, not in transports, and very rarely come within a few hundred meters of each other - this was mainly to prevent several from being wiped out simultaneously by nukes, and one of the major themes of the book was how soldiers managed to maintain the esprit d' corps (sp?) without having much personal contact with each other. Yet in the trailers I see huge groups of unarmored soldiers with what looks like Vietnam era weaponry crowded together, looking like rejects from that TV show that was on a year or two ago, which I can't remember the name of (Space: Something or another).
Also, in the book the Bugs were an intelligent, technology using race, who could build starships and use diplomacy (they had humanoid allies who switched over to our side later in the book). They did not come in several different sizes and shapes as they appear to in the movie. I understand they have NO technology in the book, that everything is handled 'biologically'.
And last, but not least, the novel had a lot of politics in it. In the future society of the novel people had to serve the government for a set period of time to earn the right to vote (although only about 5% of them did so in the military). From what I have read the Hollywood screenwriters didn't like Heinlein's 'fascist' ideas and just took them out. Too bad Heinlein died before the making of this movie - but had he been alive it probably never would have been made.
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