Battlefield Earth

[Yaddo 42]

Point taken, sideorderofninjas, I had the title of the series wrong. That guy read them, not me.

I remember read that the film was only part of the book, but I didn't know if they meant it was a staright portion (like you pointed out) or a condensed version of the whole book's storyline like most adaptations.

[Dr. Whom]

  The second half involves the cavemen buying the mortgage for Earth from a group of little grey alien bankers. 

It is a good thing the film stopped when it did, then.

[Jack]

I guess I never understood why everyone singles out this movie for disdain.  Sure, it's bad, but not much worse than a lot of other stuff.  Is the caveman flying Harriers thing any more stupid than a little kid with zero experience getting in a fighter, flying to a space station, finding an open garage door (that all the professional fighter pilots seem to have missed), and behind that open garage door just happens to be the main reactor for the whole station?   Or how about letting a CGI donkey that talks baby talk participate in a Senate meeting?   The stupidity of Battlefield Earth almost plaes in comparison.

[Flangepart]

  Its MYSTERY SCIENCE!
Thats what i says, and wish Mike and the Bots had beaten this one black and blue...oh, and Gang-green, too.
I think the Evil Overlord Secret Sociaty had to use up a loooot of Evil Laughter credits to finish this load of dingos kidneys!

[Shadow]

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

Which I actually managed to plow through...somehow.

[Yaddo 42]

I'm guessing the Scientology connection, and Hubbard's rep as a bad scifi writer made it easier to pick on this film. Travolta's boosterism of the film, ponying up money to finish it, and his uneven career just added to the venom. As they kept pointing out at the time, it was a years long labor of love for him to get this made, then the end result was seen.

This was not comedian Bill Murray wanting to remake The Razor's Edge in the 80s, making a lackluster film that flopped, and hurting his chances to branch out as a serious actor for years - this was a major star who had comeback several times slipping into another career slump that he really hasn't completely recovered from.

Lucas got a semi-pass since it had been so long since he had directed a film that people, especially fans who were too young during the first trilogy) forgot that he really is a weak storyteller beyond generating visuals and bombast. Also Phantom Menace made lots and lots of money, BE didn't. Success and profit cover and excuse a multitude of sins, even stupid plot holes and dumb storylines.

[Dennis]

I have read the book and watched the movie, the movie was ok, but just barely, I find that I can't watch it again, I know, I've tried. The book was one of those that starts out to be interesting and then just gets really strange. The basic idea, that radiation makes people stupid and that when you take away the radiation the stupids become smart enough not only to operate machinery but complicated alien technology, starships, defeat the biggest empire in the galaxy and then destroy their home world is really hard to take, but that's just the first half. In the second, an old guy who was near death all of a sudden is not only healthy, he is an expert on intergalatic law and can prove in intergalactic court that the surviving  earthlings now rule the empire and own everything in it.
To me the last half of the book appeared to be a not so subtle pitch for the Church of Sciencetology and much to my embarassment I must admit that I read it all.

[sideorderofninjas]

Don't known much about the Scientology connection.  Part in BE novel explains that the Psychlos were good but were taken oveby evil doctors called Caitrists.  Yes, Psychlo-Caitrists.  Another part tries to convince us that radiation in the medical field is bad and we can cure massive head wounds by thinking ourselves better. 

Quite a few jumped on the bandwagon to bash BE movie.  Sure, there has been quite a lot of venom directed at it.  I didn't get around to watching it until a couple of years after it had came out.  However, it still  is awfully bad.  Most of the 1950s sci-fi movies explained things far better. 

The movie version wouldn't have been so dumb had the script not been so close to the actual novel. 

[Dr. Whom]

Psychlo-Caitrists 

The problem I have with the movie is not so much that it is silly as such. Some of my favorite movies are as silly as they come (I like Starcrash, remember). However Battlefield Earth is silly in a way that fails to entertain, mainly because it  takes itself so seriously. If it had been a fast paced swashbuckling adventure, I would have had no problem with cavemen in Harriers. It is the portentious messianistic tone of BE that clashes with the inherent silliness of the story.

[Jim H]

"The basic idea, that radiation makes people stupid and that when you take away the radiation the stupids"

What?  I don't know what you're talking about.  The radiation just kept the psychlos away, which is why humans lived in the wild only in areas with radiation at the beginning of the book.  It had nothing to do with their intelligence, though it did explain why so many people were born deformed in Johnny's village.

That said, the movie was pretty awful, but I found it marginally entertainingly awful, especially the over acting.  Nothing special though, really.

However, I quite enjoyed the book.  The book is serial like in its slam bang adventure-nature, and quite ludicrous at times, but I found it quite readable and very enjoyable.  Definetly needed a better editor though, as I feel the 1050 page paperback edition could have been trimmed down by over 100 pages.  Still, I liked the action scenes, I liked almost all the characters, and the story was quite entertaining in its pulpiness. 

It's not believable, but really...  The main character is named Johnnie Goodboy Tyler, who is a genius caveman warrior-diplomat.  Did you think it was going for realism?

[Bill C.]

Battlefield Earth, the book...I didn't hate it, but when LRH busted out the Space Bankers...just...wow.

Battlefield Earth, the movie, now...it's bad.  Not catastrophically bad.  Not eye-gougingly WTF bad.  Just stupidly bad.  (This however does not include the curtain wipes.  George Lucas can do curtain wipes.  Roger Christian, you bastard, you can not do curtain wipes.)

[Torgo]

this flick has more pointless slo-mo in it than a normal John Woo movie.

[Bill C.]

Yeah, but thanks to Michael Bay, the Wachowski Brothers, and John Woo pointless (and not so pointless) slo-mo was still in fashion when this film was made....

[Automan2000]

I just couldn't get past how thousand-year-old jet fuel worked perfectly fine and how the jets didn't fall apart after so many years without maintenance.

I mean when I leave gas in my mower over the winter it generally doesn't like to start in the spring.

[Flangepart]

You realise, of corse, this must go the TO DO list at Rifftrax?
If its not there already, that is...