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The Battlefield Earth Contest
from the is-there-anything-good-about-this-movie? dept.
Nothing positive about Battlefield Earth comes to mind. Critics and moviegoers have exhausted entire vocabularies of expletives and adjectives trashing this shipwreck of a movie, not only the worst movie of the 21st century but perhaps of the 20th as well.
Battlefield Earth makes Ishtar and Waterworld look like Citizen Kane. There are plenty of bad movies, but a major studio release without a single redeeming quality is a rarity, historically significant in its own right.
You've all heard by now how horrible this film is, so here's a chance to go against the mob -- always a worthwhile quest -- and challenge conventional wisdom. The greatest opportunity this film offers is to find something good about it.
Is there anything praiseworthy about Battlefield Earth? I confess, having seen it twice, the only thing I can come up with are the pretty good special effects involving in blowing up an alien planet. Otherwise, it's a case study in awful writing, unspeakable direction, grotesque cinematography, horrific acting, and ugly, clunky design.
Those with little disposable income should just skip it. Video rentals will be very cheap. But for film-lovers who might appreciate the opportunity to ponder just how bad a movie can be, it's actually worth a trip. You will leave the theater with lots to talk about, I promise, and a pleasant feeling of superiority.
The story, briefly: It's 3000, and the "man-animals" have been nearly obliterated by a greedy, ill-tempered group of aliens called Psychlos -- kind of like Klingons with dreadlocks, only deeply into making money. Talk about mixing cultural metaphors. They are led by Terl (played by the hapless John Travolta, who now faces yet another comeback struggle) who, even though his race has mastered enough technology to conquer the universe, is obsessed with amassing gold. A studly man-animal named Jonnie Goodboy Tyler (played with truly numbing woodenness by Barry Pepper) decides to leave his desolate home high in the Rocky Mountains (they wear prehistoric, Flintstones-style clothes, but also have time to do dreadlocks) to take on the Psychlos, headquartered in a vast glass dome built on the ruins of Denver. This, of course, after some inspirational wandering through the ruins of the U.S. Capitol and the National Archives. "We used to be a great people," declares Tyler to his buddies, who pound their chests at odd times and sporadically emit Tarzanian war cries.
The movie features your more-or-less standard sci-fi plot, based on L. Ron Hubbard's best-selling novel. But you can't blame Scientology for this mess. This is a Hollywood disaster. The future sucks, technology has betrayed us yet again, some species of alien/machine has taken over the earth, a few noble souls try to fight back. (Boy, did The Matrix do it better.)
I can't add anything original to the richly-deserved avalanche of abuse this movie has generated.
So herewith a Battlefield Earth contest: we'll be happy to give one copy of O'Reilly's newly-published The Whole Internet: The Next Generation, a new edition of one of the first and best user's guide to the Net, to the first person who sincerely and convincingly offers something good about this movie.
The O'Reilly book is, in fact, a lot more worthwhile. It's good to read, to give to friends and family members, or to keep as a security device to whack intruders on the head. Your own tirades about Battlefield Earth are, of course, also welcome.
Well.. (Score:2)
Hrm... (Score:2)
10 good things about Battlefield Earth (Score:4)
I have a good thing to say about it... (Score:4)
the book was good... (Score:3)
Here's a question, Jon... (Score:5)
MST3K fodder? (Score:5)
Getting sued? (Score:2)
On a side note, a couple of friends want to go and see this (It's only just been released here in the UK), is it really that bad? Should I avoid it like the plague or does it have at least some redeeming features
One good thing... (Score:4)
-Spazimodo
Fsck the millennium, we want it now.
It's 2 hours of good air conditioning (Score:4)
Averye0
Two positives here! (Score:5)
Best movie EVER!!!! (Score:5)
--Shoeboy
(former microserf)
Good (Score:3)
Please remit said prize to:
It could have been worse ... (Score:4)
Or at least that's what devout follower John Travolta assures us. Sure, there were no DIRECT references ... anyone want to play that movie back frame by frame? Of course you don't ... the subliminal messages told you not to ...
You know what to do with the HELLO.
it was gone quickly. (Score:2)
joshy
Employment (Score:2)
Re:Hello Jon!!! (Score:5)
And he's offering a 'small, but useful prize' for anyone who can scrape up something positive to say about it?
Oh God! It's all so clear(tm) now! He's a Scientologist!
Power up them Tesla coils, geeks. Maybe we can overload his e-meter!
Re:Here's a question, Jon... (Score:2)
Because the subliminal messages told him so...
Re:Getting sued? (Score:2)
--Shoeboy
(former microserf)
RottenTomatoes has the positive reviews... (Score:2)
- Luke Thompson, New Times LA [newtimesla.com]
And many more! Ok, and 3 more. So certainly, one of these five is deserving of free stuff, eh?Bob Graham, SF Chronicle [sfgate.com]
B.E. illuminates the Dark Path (Score:2)
And thus does Battlefield Earth prove it's merit. It sets the bar quite high for any of those who may attempt to surpass it in the future. B.E. also wiill amke it diffcult for any wretched movie to be made solely based on the interests ofa a top name star, thus saving future moviegoers for quite some time to come. It can be argued that only for the involvement of Travolta did this movie see the light of day. If he nad not agreed to it, it quite likely may never have left the studio vaults, much like the infamous Marvel "Fantastic Four" movie, but unfortunately unlike so many shallow comedies based on 2-minute SNL sketches.
So Battlefield Earth has contributed much. Someone has to be the one try, to strive, and then to let the rest of humanity "don't go there". In this, Battlefield Earth succeeds to degrees where few others have gone before.
I liked Battlefield Earth! (Score:5)
Well, turns out the movie sucked so bad that we were ready to leave about halfway through. The only problem was that we didn't have a ride
Across the street from the theater was one of those fleabag motels
So the bottom line is, Battlefield Earth was responsible for a very interesting afternoon. So I would like to thank you, Elron Hubbard! Thank you from the bottom of my heart! You might be a freak, Elron, and your Scientology cult might be a complete sham, but at least your piece-of-crap movie got me laid real good and proper-like!
Thank you, Elron! Thank you!
The best thing about Battlefield Earth is... (Score:2)
Well, not much good came out of this film... (Score:2)
Re:Eh? What's this? Rabblerousing? (Score:2)
Re:MST3K fodder? (Score:2)
Brad Johnson
--We are the Music Makers, and we
are the Dreamers of Dreams
TOP X Reasons why Battlefield Earth was AWESOME! (Score:5)
2) It wasn't longer.
3) It proved that John Travolta can, in fact, be made uglier through use of extensive makeup.
4) Parents can say, "Don't misbehave, Johnny, or I'll get you casted in the sequel!" to discipline children.
5) It TOTALLY disregards the second half of the book, and who wants to watch the part without totally improbable odds of beating an alien race thousands of times more advanced than our own anyway?
6) It's giving Britney Spears and Bill Gates some needed competition in the "Worst Thing Ever To Happen, Ever" category.
Okay, I'll try (Score:2)
No Jar Jar (Score:2)
'Nuff Sed.
"Feeling" of film was very close to book (Score:2)
So, the movie is actually BETTER than the book, because the pain doesn't last as long.
The feeling would have even been closer if they had removed all the feeble attempts at humor.
Of course, they _were_ planning a sequel (since the 1st movie only covers about 3/5 of the book), so my compliment may be premature.
Re:Eh? What's this? Rabblerousing? (Score:2)
Scientology is not a religion, It is a business. (some would say mafia like business)
Finkployd
Errrr.... (Score:5)
Excuse me? (Score:2)
And by paying money for an awful piece of crap entitles you to feel superior exactly how? Why the heck not just stay home in the first place and feel superior for not having been duped out of one's money? Stay home with some friends and have lots to talk about on one's own. Please tell me you at least went with someone when you saw it twice.
I confess, I wasn't expecting more when I read this essay, but when I did so, at least I wasn't paying cash for the opportunity.
hmmm... (Score:4)
Not as rare as you would think, take this one, [imdb.com] for example.
The best thing I can say about the movie is that it will likely spell the end of Hollywood's love affair with Scientology. Terms like "amoral", "crackpot", and "scam", don't bother Hollywood types in the least when defending their philosophies; to be picked on is a badge of honor to them, or free publicity anyway.
However, Battlefield Earth has now associated Scientology with the term "box-office poison".
You can almost hear the mailing list cancellations being written.
Things I learned from Battlefield Earth (Spoilers) (Score:5)
1. Paper and other wood products can survive a thousand years and still be readable.
2.It only takes seven days to become proficient at flying Harrier jets by flying a simulator. Also, the simulator teaches dogfighting.
3. Harrier Flight Simulators have their own internal source of power that lasts longer than a thousand years.
4. Alien races obsessed with gold will overlook our nation's biggest collection of it when they invade. (And probably the rest of the world too)
5. Aliens powerful enough to conquer the universe will be unable to tell the difference between dogs and people.
6. Harrier jets can not only hover and zip around like helicopters, they have some sort of stealth mode too.
7. The sole purpose of women is to be captured and used as a bargining chip by the alien overlords. The Lesson: don't get attached to anyone if you're going to take them on.
8. Radiation from uranium deep underground causes their gas to react badly, but a nuclear bomb doesn't cause the gas to react until detonated in a clever climax scene, giving the martyr a chance to wipe some tears from his eyes and do other crappy dramatic things.
9. Alien women have extremely long and sexy tongues. Yowza!
10. John Travolta looks stupid in giant clogs.
11. People in the future are more convincing cavemen than the people in Flintstones Las Vegas.
12. UGH UGHH UGHHH! UGHHHHHH! (Translation: Me speak good english sometimes, use animal grunts when theatrically useful).
13. It doesn't take a creativity or talent to make a box-office success in Hollywood. It takes marketing, and lots of it.
I could go on and on and on. This was the most horrible movie I have ever seen, plot hole wise. As a friend said, this movie had plot holes that you could learn to fly a harrier jet in under seven days through!
-JeremyT
http://tughouse.tuginternet.com
Something Positive (Score:5)
Hey, you asked
Finkployd
The lighting was top-notch! (Score:5)
Unfortunately, the lighting director's wonderful work is easily lost by the incompetent camera operators (how many out-of focus scenes can -you- find?) Poor cinematography, third rate makeup and special effects, and a grating, distracting and incongruous soundtrack. Bad, bad, bad directing means that the only redeeming value of the movie was lost utterly in an avalanch of suck.
SoupIsGood Food
One kudo you missed.. (Score:5)
In today's age of computer graphics, some really amazing special effect lineups are possible. Everything from massive heart-pounding battle scenes to heart-renching impossible vistas. BE worked towards this, not really leading the way, but still doing a respectable job.
The one thing I was impressed by, though, at the end of the movie was their achievement tackling a problem still difficult because of its very plausableness (sp?
What was it?
The size difference between the Psychlos and the humans. Not once -
The director and technical staff achieved this through a pretty elegant set of means, not the least of which was very clever camera work. They achieved this one goal masterfully.
There you go. Top that.
--Tiger
even better (Score:3)
The Best Thing About Battlefield Earth (Score:4)
I have not seen the film, nor read the book, nor will I ever. I revile the "church" of $cientology in all its forms, and will do absolutely nothing to help it in any way. The only thing I can say about the film that is in any way positive is that because it is such a bad film (by all reports), I can only hope that the producers of the film fail to make enough money to justify any further attempts by the Co$ to try to profit from L. Ron Hubbard's books by turning them into films.
Note: I am completely tolerant where freedom of religion is concerned, being of a minority and often persecuted religion myself (Wicca), but I do not include $cientology in the category of religion but rather in the same category as confidence tricks and scams. It is the greatest perversion of the freedom of religion that the scam artists of the Church of $cientology can get away with their bilking of the guillible and hide behind the guise of being a Religion.
Thier is one good thing about this movie. (Score:3)
I want that book!
I went out with my g/f and this was the only thing playing. she into this kind movie and so am I. At the time I thought I might be like indepentence day. I didn't read the book.
Sitting in the dark theater for about ten mineuts into this my g/f turned her head to me and said "This really sucks" Then she leans her head closer to mine, then next thing I know Earth is free from the krull and I got lucky
If anything that in mind I remember battlefield earth with the foundest memory.
Good job! (Score:5)
Battlefield Earth can, without any reservations whatsoever, be called a motion picture. Everyone involved, from the screenwriter to the technical crews and actors, set out to make a motion picture, and that's exactly what they did. Here are just a few things they accomplished:
1) Battlefield Earth is distributed as a series of individual frames on long, translucent strips of celluloid which, with an arrangement of lenses and shutters, can be projected in rapid sequence on a large screen. Through a characteristic of human visual perception called "persistence of vision," this creates an illusion of motion.
2) Thanks to a blend of audio and visual technologies, Battlefield Earth synchronizes recorded sound with projected images, enabling a real sensory one-two punch!
3) Battlefield Earth employs a visual language involving a series of individual shots which are edited in a particular sequence to create a narrative.
4) Battlefield Earth was filmed with a variety of equipment which, with proper maintenance, can actually be reused for future motion picture productions! Such equipment includes cameras, microphones, editing stations, clappers, and large men with tool belts.
Yes, this project was shepherded through its various stages of production and assembled finally into a completed film. This is undeniable. I say to you, Battlefield Earth: MOTION PICTURE!
A question... (Score:3)
Now who makes who his bitch?.....
Something good about Battlefield Earth (Score:5)
By providing something easily trashable, it allowed hundreds of reviewers to write hundreds of mild-to-very amusing reviews trashing it.
I have personally spent probably a total of twenty minutes being entertained by reviewers topping each other at amusing anecdotes of the filmatic crapulence of this film. And I didn't even have to spend a dime! Multiply that by the millions who encountered reviews and you get something that entertained many more than would have a merely mediocre film.
Re:Eh? What's this? Rabblerousing? (Score:4)
> Scientology is not a religion, It is a business. (some would say mafia like business)
Hey, stop insulting the Mafia!
Sure, both the mob and the Co$ use violence and coercion to further their own ends, but at least the Mafia provides a range of valuable consumer services: recreational pharmaceuticals, sexual pleasure, gambling, and so on. Hangin' out at a mob-run outfit - or even just delivering pizza for the mob - can be fun. Didn'tcha ever read Snow Crash?
Last time I checked, the only recreational activity offered by the Co$ was talking to ashtrays, and the guests at a Co$ hotel's "spa" either received overdoses of Niacin in the sauna, or died of pulmonary embolisms brought on by dehydration and bed rest, and were nibbled on by cockroaches before their bodies were hauled off to the fifth-nearest hospital (but the nearest one with a Co$-appointed doctor!) for "emergency" treatment.
Mafia, Inc. (tm) provides the customer with a much higher level of satisfaction than Co$ ever did. :-)
There are several good things about Battlefield E (Score:4)
1) The costumes: I mean, this gives geeks more options when dressing up at the next con than Klingon, expendable crew member from Star Trek, expendable crew member from Star Trek, The Next Generation, expendable crew member from Star Trek, Deep Space Nine, expendable crew member from Star Trek, Voyager, Mr. Spock, or Doctor Who.
2) The costumes, part II: older Unix geeks who have eyebrows the same bushiness and length as those of the Psychlos could take inspiration from this and comb them behind their ears to hang down their shoulders rather than brandishing them at other people like antennae on a hostile roach.
3) We haven't had a "USA saves the world from alien invaders, preferably against some American patriotic backdrop like Independance Day, the Declaration of Independance, some government building of great importance, etc" in a long time. American jingoism is so badly represented in one dimensional action sci-fi flicks that it's good to see this inequality addressed.
4) We finally get to see the literary works of L.Ron Hubbard, a well recognised master of English literature up there with Shakespeare, Poe, and the like, given proper cinematic treatment.
5) This is one of the few movies that dates can agree on. She'll like the buff cavemen and the great costumes and clothes, he'll like the fact that things explode and they talk in grunts most of the time.
6) If a caveman can learn to fly a Harrier jump jet in less than a week, so can you. Be all that you can be, and don't let lack of innate intelligence, formal education or opposable thumbs stop you from a great career with the military. (Opposable) thumbs-up from the Armed Forces for presenting militaria in such a hip light.
7) The learning machine didn't ask Goodboy where he wanted to go today. Microsoft doesn't end up conquering all the known universe. Just Earth. (Hooray!)
8) Goodboy is actually seen teaching science to cavemen, and this is supposed to be cool. In Real Life people who try this (YOU try teaching geometry to the football team) get wedgied and tossed into dumpsters. Wow, science, learning and education is given a thumbs up in a major Hollywood movie, whoda thunk it.
9) This is the LAST we'll see of Travolta for a VERY LONG TIME.
10) This should be an inspiration to many FPS game writers! You too can take a hodgepodge of every hack idea that's come out in the last twenty years, wrap it in a bit of eye candy, weave a plot into it so thin it'd tear if you breathed on it, and turn it into a major religion. Ditto that for operating systems monopolies (bada boom ching)
11) People can point to Terl and say "This is how to get ahead in the business world, son." Retitle his every word "Software Monopoly for Dummies" and watch a new crop of billionaires come out of the Puget Sound region of Washington State.
Re:Two positives here! (Score:3)
> but what does Scientology have to do with this movie - did they fund it?
Not directly. But Travolta basically used his power as a Hollywood star to get this movie made. And Travolta (and wife Kirstie Alley) is the "poster boy" for the cult in Hollywood.
Travolta is used by the cult as a walking billboard. Any interview with him will read "I did Saturday Night Fever, my career fell apart, I got into drugs/alcohol, then I found $cientology, which cleaned up my life and made me able again, able enough to do Pulp Fiction, and my career picked up and now I've got this lovely spokesclam of a wife to boink, and lots of money, and now I'm a success again! You should really give it a try, it changed my life, yadda yadda yadda".
(Incidentally, ever notice that cult only touts Hollywood celebrities as success stories? How come there are no scientists, for instance? About the only non-celebrity I can think of would be Sky Dayton of Earthlink, but in order to make his company work, he basically had to abandon $cieno management practices pretty early on.)
Anyways, the cult has had a longstanding tradition of influence and power in Hollyweird, and without Travolta's insistence on behalf of the cult, this movie would never have been made. Travolta was basically given free reign - and as cult posterboy, had a seriously sincere desire to - to make the best movie he could out of an Elron Blubbard novel.
WHich is why, despite no direct cult funding of the movie, the references to "this is the best $cientology has to offer" aren't entirely misplaced.
Try watching the sci-fi network sometime (Score:3)
All movies based on good books get panned (Score:3)
I find it very boring to hear people whine about what a terrible job a 2-hour movie does of conveying a good 1000-page book. Well, duh. If a 1000-page book could be made into a 2-hour movie, then there wasn't much to the book to begin with.
And frankly, BE wasn't a very good book. I just recently read it for the first time. After I finished the first third (which is what's covered in the movie), I quickly began wondering why I continued reading it. The last two thirds of the book was tediously over-simplified and nearly as boring as the L. Ron intro explaining how his brilliant writing saved science fiction from obscurity.
Many of the things that people complain about in the movie were straight from the book: stupid aliens who dominate the universe, 1000-year-old paper still readable, gold-crazy aliens who miss obvious piles of the stuff and the implausible breathe-gas radiation interaction.
How about all of the stupid things from the book the movie didn't take: secret pea-sized thought control implants, pervasive technology kept secret for thousand of years from numerous advanced races unraveled by a self-educated savage in a month, a entire species of bankers descended from sharks, aliens with instantaneous transport technology bothering to mine a hostile planet with an unbreathable atmosphere using manual labor, a human confederation that overpowers a vastly superior alien force and yet fails to prevent, or even really notice, that their government has been taken over by one greedy idiot.
That said, here are the good things about the movie:
1. It picked the right third of the book to cover.
2. It captured the major plot points of the portion of the book that it covered.
3. It made reasonable simplifications of the plot and took appropriate liberties to shorten the story into 2 hours, especially when compared with the equally ridiculous simplifications that were made in the book.
4. I wasted a lot less time on the movie than I did on the book.
compared with movies based on P. K. Dick novels... (Score:3)
The one good thing I've got to say about Battlefield Earth is that, in the process of transforming the book into the movie, the director did far less damage to the original idea - distorted and ruined the plot and atmosphere of the original book to a lesser extent - than anybody who's ever made a movie based on a Philip Dick story.
Of course the creators of the movie Battlefield Earth were starting with something far inferior so they couldn't have diminished its value so much. An analogy would be about that guy recently who sat down in a museum on a 400-year-old chair from the Ming Dynasty, valued at a half-million dollars, and broke it. You could do your worst to the $20 wrought iron chair I'm sitting on now but you couldn't ruin it half so bad because it wasn't worth as much to start with.
Similarly if the director of Battlefield Earth had utterly pulverized the story in the novel, who would care? In fact, any distortion would most likely have been an improvement, as L. Ron Hubbard was one of the worst science fiction writers ever to set hoof on typewriter. But it appears that the movie is "true" to the book, which is way more than you can say for "Total Recall" or "Blade Runner." Not that those were bad movies, far from it, but it is be hard to recognize in either of them any at all of the flavor of the original stories.
OK, that's it, the best praise for Battlefield Earth I could muster, and the last praise I ever shall issue for anything related to the work of that laughable old fraud L. Ron.
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net