Battlefield Earth

[Dr. Whom]

Finally gotten round to it! Cavemen in 1000 yr old Harriers shooting down aliens! It makes Snakes on a Plane almost seem plausible.

[Scott]

BATTLEFIELD EARTH was a film that I almost walked out of the theater on. Travolta was lucky to find work after this one. When I went opening day I was looking for a great Sci-Fi film starring John Travolta.

(Not bad as in good, but bad as in boring)



SPOILER ALERT................SPOILER ALERT.................SPOILER ALERT............



The most interesting part for me was when they teleport the nuclear bomb to the aliens planet and detonate it.

[Andrew]

"Stupid man-animal!  Hahahahahah!"  Goodness, how many times was that line used in the movie?  Make sure you say that loudly, then roll your head back as you laugh.  Terrible, terrible, but one of the few reasons to watch the movie.  After a while, you get to enjoy the overacting involved in that part.

The cavemen flying the ancient harriers was great.  I guess they dug out the TMs and spare parts too, because those things flew great.

******SERIOUS SPOILER*******

Why, in the name of all religions created as a tax shelter, would you not put a safety in place for your teleport system if you home planet will detonate upon contact with anything radioactive?  I mean, a few simple lines like:

if $radioactive=='yes'
(do not teleport);
else
(teleport on);

Boggles the mind.

[Dr. Whom]

******SERIOUS SPOILER*******

Why, in the name of all religions created as a tax shelter, would you not put a safety in place for your teleport system if you home planet will detonate upon contact with anything radioactive?  I mean, a few simple lines like:

if $radioactive=='yes'
(do not teleport);
else
(teleport on);

Boggles the mind.

*********************

On the other hand, the Psychlo's had been 1,000 years mining earth for gold, and they still hadn't found Fort Knox.

I must say, when I saw the cavemen in the flight simulator, I had to stop the tape and have a drink to recover before I could watch any further.

[Shadow]

I remember how Travolta still wanted to do a sequel, despite the beating this film took. That is either dedication or dementia.

[trekgeezer]

I could never make it through because of the tilted camera angle used throughout the film.

[Yaddo 42]

Tried to watch it several times on SciFi when it aired almost every weekend for a while. The camera angles and  the grubby cheapness of the whole look of the movie made it hard for me to stick with it. I kept thinking, "Something that's supposed to have cost that much should not look this cheap and unpolished if it's supposed to be a BIG scifi epic like they were claiming..

I had similar feelings, Shadowfyre, when I heard about the sequel plans.

Later on I figured it was just a PR move or some odd principle Scientology of not admiting defeat or admiting that anything written with ole L. Ron's name on it was crap and would be still be crap when adapted to another medium.

We (or someone I suppose) are still waiting for a sequel. Maybe they should try an animated series, so they can suck in a new generation of suc-.....er....cash cow-......um, dupes......uh, I mean church members.

[Ash]

I think I might be the only person here who really liked Battlefield Earth.

I thought Travolta was perfect as Terl.
Sure the story and plot were cheesy as hell but I still loved it for some strange reason.

I do agree that the tilted camera got very annoying after awhile.

This was great B-movie fun for me!

[Acidburn]

I think I might be the only person here who really liked Battlefield Earth.

I thought Travolta was perfect as Terl.
Sure the story and plot were cheesy as hell but I still loved it for some strange reason.

I do agree that the tilted camera got very annoying after awhile.

This was great B-movie fun for me!

Nope your not the only one ASH. I always hear people talking about how much they hate this film and I have to wonder what I am missing that makes it so aweful. I admit its not the best film in the world and the plot leaves something to be desired.  But that doesnt make it this amazingly bad movie that everyone always talks about.  I thought it was kind of fun

[Dr. Whom]

Well, I didn't  mind the colour coding of the scenes so much, or the awkward cameara angels (it reminded me a bit of the 1960s Batman). It is just the overall stupidity of the plot, the savages that come straight out of some lost episode of the original startrek, the Stars Wars rip off with cavemen in Harriers, for crying out loud. Last but not least, the incredibly annoying Psychlo habit of remaining silent for a moment, and then bursting out in maniacal laughter.

Still, John Travolta seems to have enjoyed himself.

BTW how does it compare to the book?

[Zapranoth]

I haven't watched the movie, but the book was a flaming turd-pile, just like everything else Hubbard has written.   

[dean]

I for one didn't think it was as terrible as people made it out to be.

Sure it's a stinker, don't get me wrong, but I am a sucker for Sci-fi, even if it's rubbish like this!

I'd probably even watch that so-called sequel, silly is me... 

[Yaddo 42]

Used to know a guy who read the entire Battlefield: Earth series of book. This was a guy who read so fast that when he ran out of things to read he would just reread the Tolkien books over and over until he found something else. I wish I could read that fast, much less reread things I like without feeling like I'm just rehashing them a ruining my enjoyment of them.

When asked what he thought of the series he replied, "Eh, they were okay." I and some of the others around asked him how you could read 10,000+ pages of something you thought was just okay.

This guy also like to go up to the Scientology booths at scifi cons and ask for reading material, but they always got disappointed when he told them he only wanted old L Ron Hubbard pulp stories and scifi novels.

[sideorderofninjas]

Actually, the movie version of Battlefield Earth is about half of the book.  The second half involves the cavemen buying the mortgage for Earth from a group of little grey alien bankers. 

There was only one Battlefield Earth.  The Mission Earth series was the 10 novel incredibly long drawn out brain cell killing work...

[Rombles]

Me? I loved this movie.  But then I love crap.