It's not just a different story; the book has some political points to make which, I think, the movie is trying to directly rebut. Feels a bit tasteless to use

It's not just a different story; the book has some political points to make which, I think, the movie is trying to directly rebut. Feels a bit tasteless to use the book license for this purpose, to me, but then again I'm a Heinlein fan and I thought Robocop was dumb. One of the big issues in the book is that patriotism isn't just a rhetorical trick to get naive young boys to volunteer for a meatgrinder (though of course Verhoeven and Neumeier are right, it does that too). If no one stands up for a society, then that society is vulnerable to predators. Sometimes it's foreign invasion, sometimes it's internal predators like corruption and profiteering. I think this call to have a little backbone is relevant in every era. (This position is straightforwardly argued by the mouthpiece character, Dubois.) And another issue, a little less prominent but often-criticized, is the idea of only giving the franchise to those who earn it. Heinlein later wrote that he wasn't so much advocating this particular plan for the franchise, (e.g. forwarding an alternative: only give the franchise to mothers!), but that he felt that democracy was going in a bad direction (bread, circuses, demagoguery, and holy-war-style partisanship), and that maybe this "franchise-for-all" premise should be revisited. Why do I think Verhoeven was spitting in Heinlein's face? I probably shouldn't try to paraphrase Heinlein, because he was a complex guy with complex political opinions, but I think he generally favored military strength (though he generally did not favor a strong central government). I'm not as familiar with the Verhoeven oeuvre, but seems to be focused against military-industrial complex (though that's more straightforwardly a Robocop thing), and his anti-war rhetoric is so un-nuanced (it's so slapstick that some people thought it was pro-war) that it's tempting to believe he's anti-all-war (contrasting with people who think the phrase "just war" is meaningful, a group I feel confident includes Heinlein). As I said earlier, I think it's a bit tasteless to try to make a franchise work into a direct attack on the original. For some contrast: IIRC, Haldeman wrote The Forever War in part as a direct reply to Starship Troopers. Haldeman had lots of direct combat experience, too (as contrasted with Heinlein, who I think never saw combat), which partially informed his views on books like Heinlein's. Personally, I think The Forever War is too good at raising new issues to be seen entirely as a reply to anything, but I understand that was a motivator.