>I also read the book and the film is a pretty poor adaptation.

Interesting perspective on this, according to IMDB:

>Director Paul Verhoeven admits to have never finished the novel, claiming he read through the first few chapters and became both bored and depressed, calling it "a very right-wing book" in Empire magazine. He then told screenwriter Edward Neumeier to tell him the rest. Verhoeven and Neumeier then decided that while both the novel and its author Robert A. Heinlein strongly supported a regime led by a military elite, they would turn the concept around and satirize it, making the film a hyperbole of contemporary American politics and culture. Diehard Heinlein fans declare that the filmmakers have completely misinterpreted Heinlein's nature and intentions. They say he was a libertarian who opposed conscription and militarism. He depicted the oligarchy-by-ex-military-citizenry government in the book because it was an example of something that has never been done in real life. He was not advocating it, but was merely speculating that such a system could exist without collapsing.