I looked into the directors cut of the movie and the writers did say they wanted to make it as similar to the book as they could but due to insufficient material and budgetary constraints. they decided to try to keep a couple of the philosophies of Heinlein like youth, citizenship and morals but couldn't do things like "powered Armour". So they made it into a satire with some cool action scenes.

Also you were so lucky to have him as a mentor. I wish he had been my philosophy teacher when I attended mandatory faith and values classes. I would've loved to learn from him.

I joined philosophy club where I did more listening and thinking than the other kids. They were smarter and argued in a more complex way but the seniors always dominated the discussion so the juniors just sat there, not participating. It got so bad that as a senior I would raise my hand and then hand off to the juniors without saying anything. Plus the senior students arguments were usually too extreme, they wouldn't even listen to the opposition and try to come to a middle ground. Whenever I had an opinion I would write it on a piece of paper, think about it and chuck it in the bin on the way out, because I realized that I didn't care if people agreed or disagreed with me. I learnt something new and that was enough for me.

There was one time when a kid said something ridiculous when I had to intervene. In his opening statement about pain and pleasure he said "And I think we can all agree that it would be ideal if we could feel only pleasure and no pain".

It felt like I was smacked in the face with a pile of ignorance. I stood up, raised my hand and waited for him to address me like a respectful audience member.
Once he called on me I said "Are you serious? Feeling pain is bad? What about leprosy, do you know what that is?"
"It's when your skin gets infected"
"No, secondary infections are a secondary symptom of the real cause. Leprosy is a condition where your sensory neurons stop sending signals to your brain. You feel no pain, if I was a leper and someone cut me, I would not feel it. In order for the body to repair itself, it must feel that it has been damaged. Otherwise it will not begin to regenerate itself."

The room was silent and then one student tried a wussy little argument which I shot down in an instant because I believe that pain and pleasure must be felt in equal amounts. That's how we grow, from a balanced input. No child which has only felt pleasure, could ever empathize with a child who has only felt pain. This inability to empathize is what causes division between perspectives. We have only ever known 1 side of the story so how can we relate to the other.