I didn't mean for my original message to come across harshly.
The plot is ancillary; the novel is really a description of a certain kind of martial logic, and a criticism of larger society that the author grew up in. Juan Rico is a stand-in for the reader, only there to be a blank slate upon which Heinlein's ideas about society and the military are imparted. It's most more of a treatise than a story.
A lot of people seem to be comparing the book and the movie as if they're on equal footing, which I do not think they are.
The plot is ancillary; the novel is really a description of a certain kind of martial logic, and a criticism of larger society that the author grew up in. Juan Rico is a stand-in for the reader, only there to be a blank slate upon which Heinlein's ideas about society and the military are imparted. It's most more of a treatise than a story.
A lot of people seem to be comparing the book and the movie as if they're on equal footing, which I do not think they are.