Battlefield Earth
by Roger Christian
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DVD details
Actor: Barry Pepper, Forest Whitaker, John Travolta, Kim Coates, Sabine KarsentiDirector: Roger Christian
Brand: TRAVOLTA,JOHN
Producer: Andrew Stevens
Producer: Anson Downes
Producer: Ashok Amritraj
Producer: Don Carmody
Writer: Corey Mandell
Writer: J.D. Shapiro
Writer: L. Ron Hubbard
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Unknown); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 118 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-01-16
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Warner Home Video
DVD Reviews of Battlefield Earth
DVD Review: John Travolta, what have they done to you?!
Summary: 1 Stars
I have seen various reviews of this film adaptation of L. Ron Hubbarb's sci-fi novel, Battlefield Earth, and from the notoriously negative reviews; Richard Roeper, Roger Ebert, The Nostalgia Critic, the works, with numerous Razzie wins. When it became available to watch instantly on Netflix, I decided to see it out of curiosity's sake yesterday. And as it turns out, the critics were right! This is one of the worst, most god-awful science fiction movies of all time! I will address the flaws as we go along. Here is the premise. In the year 2000, the planet Earth was seized by aliens from the opposing planet Psychlo. They have enslaved humanity to search for gold. Sounds like Elementary School style fan fiction, doesn't it? 1,000 years later, a village tribesman Jonnie "Goodboy" Tyler (Barry Pepper) decides to leave the village to hunt for food and comes across another tribe, who were kidnapped by the Psychlos. Something you will notice very quickly about this movie is that 95% of the camera shots are at an angle, which feels like the camera is sinking in quicksand. Jonnie then meets Security Chief Terl (John Travolta in a role that obscures and wastes his talent) and his partner-in-crime Ker (Forest Whitaker) who plot to train the humans in secret, buy their way off Earth, and keep the gold for themselves, despite being really stupid and hardly know anything about humans. They don't know what we eat, how we live, or our language. No joke. The language system can get pretty confusing at times. The Psychlos can sometimes appear to speak our language, when at others they actually use their native speech in a human's perspective. I think this is so we won't read as many subtitles if you are lazy and just want to watch the movie, but they sometimes have the subtitles anyway. Why not just do a better job at keeping the languages separate. I can make do with a little reading. When they use a machine to give Jonnie information about the Psychlos and teach them how to use weapons and space-pods, they don't see this as a recipe for disaster. And they could already teach them their language? Why didn't they do that before because you can talk to them and learn so much. They can get a little lazy as well. How do they monitor the humans when they mine? A small camera pod flies over and takes a still picture every few hours. Why not just use a video camera to record footage instead of plain photos? Jonnie comes up with a plan to take back the planet. He learns everything he can about human history, the idiotic aliens and their weakness. Within two weeks, they find Ft Knox and give some of its gold to Terl, while they learn how to arm weapons, build bombs, and how to fly fighter jets. While that is going on, Terl mingles with his real-life wife (what the Nostalgia Critic and I mean is that she was played by Kelly Preston, John Travolta's wife). Then, the humans launch a surprise attack at the Psychlo base. So that means that six jets were able to combat an alien army, but an entire military in the past were only able to put up a measly 9-minute fight? The memory machine must have been a fatal disadvantage. By the way, just a random question, but how were the humans able to find fuel for the jets? If 1,000 years went by without the jets being used, the gasoline would have been of no use and the jets would have been ruined. I guess the military drained the gas and stored it away for when the time is right. Convoluted, isn't it? In a very jumbled climax, Jonnie confronts and defeats Terl by blowing his arm off. The human blow up the base and the Psychlos suffocate. I forgot to mention that the Psychlos can't breathe Earth's atmosphere and the same can be said for the humans in Psychlo's radioactive and flammable atmosphere. One of them also plans to beam a bomb to the Psychlo's planet. The explosion would be small, but due to its air design, it wiped out the entire planet forever in the most idiotically simple of all world destructions. So let me get this straight, Psychlo has an atmosphere made of radiation has never had a single explosion? If the humans learned about this before, then Psychlo would have been destroyed to begin with. How stupid could they get?! Terl and Ker survive of Earth, but face different fates. Terl is used as a hostage for other Psychlo colonies to rescue, while Ker has a change in heart and disses Terl to help the humans. One of the writers, J.D. Shapiro, wanted this movie to be dark and edgy, with a more interesting story and a far more serious tone. However, Franchise Pictures decided to dumb down on the source material in order to appeal to children. That ultimately failed. The acting was so ridiculous and plagued with corny dialogue. John Travolta was so over-the-top goofy that he would be better off as Jonnie instead of the bland Barry Pepper. Despite this, I think Forest Whitaker was the only actor who was at least trying. Think about it. Ker joins the humans in the end, Pepper wins the Worst Supporting Actor Razzie, while Whitaker only got a nomination, and he still had a career after this. The overuse of Dutch angles can get sickening and give you a neck cramp. The plot was really simple-minded, convoluted, and uninteresting and it has nothing to do with Scientology, logic, or reason. The alien race is one of the dumbest in film history. The visual effects are average as well, nothing special. It uses cheap CGI, the sets look grungy and depressing, and the Psychlo makeup looks so silly with long hair and claw-like nails. I can now see why see why it was hated by many critics I know, because it was so messed up. If any of the cast and crew read this review, I am so sorry all this had to happen. Thanks a lot, Franchise Pictures! You ruined everything!
P.S. No copyright infringement is intended.
Description of Battlefield Earth
The security chief for the alien Psychlos, who have conquered the Earth, decides to use human slaves to mine for gold, but a young man decides to challenge Psychlos domination.Genre: Science Fiction
Rating: PG13
Release Date: 16-JUL-2002
Media Type: DVD
When Battlefield Earth was released in May 2000, this inept sci-fi epic qualified as an instant camp classic, prompting Daily Variety to call it "the Showgirls of sci-fi shoot-'em-ups." Other reviews were united in their derision, and toy stores were left with truckloads of Battlefield Earth action figures that nobody wanted. As the film's star and coproducer, John Travolta must have felt an urge to enlist in the witness protection program.
Recklessly adapted from the novel by sci-fi author and Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard and set in the year 3000, the film is no worse than many cheesy sci-fi flicks, but the sight of Travolta as a burly, dreadlocked alien from the planet Psychlo provokes unintentional laughter from first frame to final credits. As Terl, the Psychlo security chief who conquers Earth and hatches a secret scheme to steal all the gold from Fort Knox (which sits conveniently in wide-open vaults), Travolta hams it up as if he knows he's in a camp-fest. (In a cameo as a long-tongued Psychlo seductress, Travolta's wife, Kelly Preston, only adds to the absurdity.) Barry Pepper (the praying sharpshooter from Saving Private Ryan) tries his best to convey charisma as Jonnie, the human slave who leads an uprising against Terl's tyranny, but he's adrift in a foolish plot that makes even smart humans look stupid.
The decrepit look of a dreary future is convincingly established (the ruins of Washington D.C. recall Logan's Run on a grander scale), but in the wake of its ludicrous climax, the best that Battlefield Earth can hope for is a Dune-like fate: it might improve in a longer director's cut--but that's wishful thinking. --Jeff Shannon
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