Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000

Battlefield Earth is pretty much widely associated as being one of the worst films of all time. I had managed to avoid this steaming pile of crap for quite a while, but today I succumbed to my idiotic curiosity and decided to watch it. The film has a remarkable 3% among reviewers over at Rotten Tomatoes and has earned such charming volleys as “Battlefield Earth is like taking a bus trip with someone who has needed a bath for a long time. It’s not merely bad; it’s unpleasant in a hostile way.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

The full plot of Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 is somewhere in this mess. Essentially, the human race has been enslaved by aliens. Humanity has nearly been exterminated by this alien race when the humans decide that it might be a good time to fight back. These aliens, called Psychlos, are on a quest to profit from various planets in the universe. So they strip planets of resources and sort of FedEx the resources back to their home planet, with delivery insurance of course. The head alien in charge of the resource acquisition operation on Earth is Terl, played here by John Travolta who has absolutely no vested interest in creating this film, which has nothing to do with Scientology and is merely a space adventure story written by the founder of Scientology. So Terl and his sidekick Ker, played unfortunately by Forest Whitaker with Cowardly Lion getup, are stripping Earth of the resources when some kid named Tyler (Barry Pepper) decides to fight back and deliver freedom to his people. Yay for Tyler! Too bad he’s a moron that walks into shopping mall display cases!

Most people with any knowledge of Battlefield Earth are aware that it is based on the novel of the same name by Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. Hubbard, described by Scientologists as a “charismatic genius”, is one of the most controversial figures in recent American history. Hubbard’s book was a bit of a mishmash. Scientologists went on a “book buying” campaign to make sure that it did well in terms of sales, which ratcheted up the popularity of the novel and created a bit of a stir. Based on popularity that wasn’t really ever actually there, Hubbard himself had dreams of turning Battlefield Earth into a film shortly after the book was released. But it took longer than that and eventually one of Scientology’s best and brightest, John Travolta, started a campaign to make this film. The head of Fox was apparently repeatedly coerced by hordes of famous Scientologists to make Battlefield Earth into afilm and, eventually, Travolta got his wish.So, out of the idea playbook of a man (Hubbard) who once said of China that the trouble with it was that there were too many “chinks” there, here comes Battlefield Earth to the big screen. It’s hard to put aside the idea that Battlefield Earth is based on such a piece of absolute trash, as the book is not only terrifyingly bad but was written by an incredibly bigoted and idiotic man. The history of Hubbard himself, using the conflicting reports and facts distributed through historical sources and Church of Scientology records would have made a far more interesting film than Battlefield Earth, for certain. Nonetheless, Battlefield Earth is what we have, so Battlefield Earth is what we shall discuss.

The film is terrible, but you already know that. Digging in a bit deeper requires one to actually pretend to pay attention to this unbelievable bore. Unfortunately, my normally astute sensibilities missed the bus on Battlefield Earth and I’m not going to be able to come up with much about this film that hasn’t already been said. But what the hell, let’s do it anyway!The acting is terrible, from the top to the bottom. Each character is breathy, snotty, stupid, insipid, annoying, abrasive, idiotic, moronic, disgusting, boring, bland, forced, and frustrating to watch. Travolta as Terl is so silly and disturbingly bad that it becomes an exercise in divine patience to watch him scuttle and swarm through his scenes with his moronic attempts at pull out elongated phrases to make his character sound more sophisticated and droll. Oh, ha ha ha, Mr. Travolta! Terl is such a funny bastard of a space alien. He’s so evil! Give me a break. Whitaker ought to be ashamed of himself for appearing in this tripe, too, as he was made to look like a fool and matches every futuristic visual of the Cowardly Lion imaginable. Then there’s Barry Pepper, who’s skyward “nooooo” is the penultimate example of his insipid and stupid “range.” The remainder of the cast is equally dumb, with no exceptions. None.

The way the film is shot and pieced together is terrible, from top to bottom. Starting with the opening phrase that looks as though it was cobbled together from green Apple Computer text from the 80s, the film’s effects are idiotic and half-assed. The cinematography is among the worst I’ve ever seen. First, there is not a straight shot in the film, save one or two, as the scenes all have a certain slant to them that is supposed to enhance the effect. All it really made me want to do was enhance the “stop” button. Then there’s the colour in the film, as everything is bathed in a sort of stupid drained colour scheme and the yellow scenes look like someone peed on the final print of the film. Ugh. Then there’s the sort of stop-and-shot shooting style that works in this tripe. A typical scene breaks down a little bit like this: shot of Barry Pepper doing something, shot of him from another angle, shot of him from the first angle, shot of new character, shot of Pepper again from the first angle, shot of Pepper again, etc. In that example scene, all Barry Pepper would have had to do was say “hello.” Ugh, how awful!

So yeah, it goes on like that. Battlefield Earth is a terrifyingly bad film that really deserves to be tossed into space somewhere and blown up. The acting is bad, the direction is bad, the plot is bad, the music is bad, the set design is bad, the…..everything is bad! I can think of no redeeming quality from Battlefield Earth whatsoever, other than to say that, like all things, it eventually ended.

Trailer: