Both the great Heinlein novel, and the film made from it, were both SF under my definition above. Both speculated on the social and cultural consequences of modern technology,and both examined modern social and political themes using a distant future as a magnifying lens. The fact that the film completely contradicted and satirized the book while tongue-in-cheek celebrating its ideas and philosophies was a stroke of genius. The film is the perfect antidote to the novel. And both, I believe, have some valid points to make.

Both novel and movie are juveniles, that is, they are aimed at adolescent audiences--male ones in particular. But Heinlein's book, for all its virtues, is a carefully crafted exercise in propaganda, and if I had kids I would not let them have access to one without being exposed to the other. Heinlein celebrates a benign fascism, and carefully crafted a world where it is not only justified, but inevitable. His evidence is hard to contradict, but he is in complete control of the presentation.

Heinlein has carefully thought out his ideas, and presented them in a very appealing manner. And a fair interpreter will concede that much of what he has to say IS worth saying, and needs to be said. But we are not adolescents in need of indoctrination. We are adults living in a world where the the simple answers are too easy to be true.

We need Paul Verhoeven's alternate vision of the Arachnid War, just as we needed his second look at scientific crime fighting in RoboCop.

PS. Heinlein was trained as an engineer by the US Navy. Verhoeven studied mathematics and physics and served in the Dutch Navy.