1997 Denise Richards and Dina Meyer absolutely mog any actress working right now. I'd say both of them are at least 9s.
Clearly there are scores of other reasons any remake is doomed, but that's the most obvious one. In the age of DEI, superhumanly attractive women are extinct.
All the remakes of Verhoeven's classics have failed one way or another, and mostly for exactly the reasons you stated. But, his films were classics chiefly because he helped culminate the 80s in what would become a political talking point throughout the 90s (and eventually lead to Hollywood and video games being neutered) as "ultra-violence".
One of the books they wrote about it had RoboCop as the poster-child for that movement, even though technically that film came at the end of the 80s following a string of other ultra-violent films (and realistically it was the 70s that started the trend, but I digress).
But what was interesting is that Verhoeven was the only one from the 80s to make a film in the late 90s that still carried the ultra-violent edge from the 80s.
McTiernen's Die Hard With A Vengeance was a brilliant 10/10 action film for me, but it was nowhere near as violent as the original two films. So even he neutered a popular franchise to make it a little more palatable for -- at the time -- "modern audiences". Again, it was a great film ,but it had a lot more comedy and levity compared to the first two films, and the squibbing was nowhere near as bloody/gory.
StarShip Troopers stood out amongst the herd because in many ways it was an 80's film with 90's technology: Big boobs, hot babes, handsome lead, and tons of unmitigated violence.
Hollywood's penchant for subversion won't let them leave well enough alone. Rico will be Hispanic (because that's the only way we'll get a handsome lead, but he probably won't be very masculine), and he will inevitably have a black friend (who they might cast as a replacement for Carl), and a gay friend (because of course) (or they will try to kill two birds with one stone, making Carl both black and gay).
Oh, they will definitely cast Idris Elba as Rasczak.
Dizzy will likely be played by Zendaya and they will make her a girlboss. And if they keep Carmen white they will either make her a lesbian or bisexual to cuck Rico from getting with his dream girl. Alternatively, they will make Dizzy white, but kill her off, and then make Carmen Zendaya, so they can keep pushing the interracial nonsense.
That is pretty interesting. The 90s SFX definitely enhances the experience.
I see Pedro Pascal's next role. Lol
Lmao he's too old and too unathletic to pull off half of what Van Dien did on the set.
Wasn't he Filipino in the book? I wish they would just keep the characters in their original gender and ethnicity when they're adapting books.
Indeed. PG13 Robocop and Total Recall. The latter might have got away with it if it had a good story and was well made but the former is about a robotic or cygborg cop blowing away criminals. You can give it a deeper message if you like but on the surface that is what it needs to be.
The Starship Troopers remake/redo will absolutely fail. It will be full of memberberries. It will be quippy like every character is Tony Stark. It will be a thinly veiled reference to Trump. I seriously hope it stays as a rumor and never makes it into production. [EDIT] This is a good post on what to do/not do and how they will screw it up. https://xcancel.com/TheManlet_King/status/1895857870702362987
RoboCop was the worst of the remakes because they actually hired a writer/director who COULD have made a film that was compelling.
Jose Padilha did the Elite Squad trilogy, which is a fantastic series of films that I would rank right up there with the original RoboCop or Godfather. The second film especially is just about perfect -- highly violent, too (also one of the things that stood out to me the most was what happened to some SJW journalists in the film that ran afoul of the local cartel. There was no deus ex machina or woke safe bet to intercede. Film was brutally honest about what really goes on in those situations).
I remember Padilha's production notes that everything he wanted to do, the studio execs shot it down because they wanted to maintain a PG-13 rating.
A real shame, because had they let it be R and let Padilha work his magic, it MIGHT have been decent. Hints of brilliance was on display, especially with the opening and the ED-209's being used to wipe out the terrorists.
As for your assessment -- I fear you're more right than wrong. It will be a "Drumpf bad!" movie with Marvel-tier "comedy".
The Twitter list isn't bad, but I think they're way too optimistic. I also think with the power armour, less is more. It needs to be showcased as an ace up the sleeve rather than a regular part of the armament. I think the animated TV series did a decent job of finding that balance, I think they later got jetpacks? I know in one of the animated films it was cool how they had Rico show up at the end in a decked out power suit. That's definitely how it should be treated, but meh, it's Hollywood... it's best left alone since there's no way they're going to make anything half as entertaining as the 97 film.