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The Battlefield Earth Contest
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.
Malk-a-mite
It stinks less than Mission to Mars....but then..that's not really hard either :P
Battlefield Earth was written by the now deceased L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the Church of $cientology. This movie had major backing by the "Church", so you can bet some of the proceeds go towards the "Church". Just think, some of your money is going towards censorship and the total elimination of freedom of speech and the freedom of the Internet.
Is it better than the Natalie Portman/Hot Grits/Trolls/"First Post" Posts on Slashdot? If not, then the makers of the film deserve to be spanked =P
... becuase South Park got to make fun of it last night on emTeeVee. "Timmay!"
Whats the point in having this 'contest', exactly? Slashdot didn't have one for other horrible movies like "Mission To Mars" or "Wing Commander". Shouldn't we just let "Battlefield Earth" die the death it deserves and let it go off into obscurity like so many other bad sci-fi flicks from the Hollywood machine, or am I missing something?
Is there something special about this dismal flick, particularly?
So what's different about "Battlefield Earth"? Could it be that Slashdot is just trying to get a whole "Battlefield Earth sucks because it's written by L. Ron Hubbard" thread going, or some other similar sort of rabble rousing? Perhaps you're hoping to start a new wave of religion bashing on Slashdot, or something?
Geeks resorting to tabloid maneuvers. Wow.
This sort of article appearing on Slashdot really makes me wonder...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
...the movie ended
Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not after you!
The only good thing I can say about it is that had you read the book before seeing the movie, it makes it much more enjoyable. The book is excellent, over 1000 pages long and a great story. I've read it twice and its one of my favorites. L. Ron Hubbard is an amazing author and the book is great. Cutting it down to 2 hours was a bit of a challenge you could say and as a result the movie makes no sense, but theres a lot more to it than the movie showed.
-Stype
Bus error -- driver executed.
the smc at the bruching shuttlecocks thinks that the movie had great hair. John Travolta in dreads!
yeah!
If it's so bad, why in the world did you see it twice?
Tort
When I saw it, the seats in the movie theater were nice and padded.
At least I wasn't forced to watch it while standing on a bed of hot coals or something.. although that may have been more appropriate (get it... hell... battlefield earth...both bad... hahaha im so funny)
...why did you see it twice?
Battlefield Earth would be just about the perfect movie to riff if there is ever to be another Mystery Science Theater 3000 movie.
Yet Another Web Site
I have a feeling that you don't like this film. Don't hold back, tell us what you really think :^)
If John Travolta from the infamous church of scientology is involved, surely you risk getting sued by saying anything bad about the film.
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
No Ewoks!!
-Spazimodo
Fsck the millennium, we want it now.
Fsck the millennium, we want it now.
Millennium Crisis Line: 0890 900 2000 [calls cost 50p/min]
Nuff said. :)
Sheepdot: Open Source good, Closed Source baaaaaaad!
Sheepdot: Open Source good, Closed Source baaaaaaad!
....something to really appreciate when it's 105 outside!
Averye0
--o You're just jealous cause the voices talk to me and not to you! o--
One good thing about Battlefield Earth is that John Katz never wrote a pointless piece about..
:)
oh wait, nevermind.
Something good about battlefield earth: It didn't make me cry.
Neccesarry roughness did -- after I realized that I had wasted two hours of my life, I cried like a baby.
Alas, Babylon.
The guys at pointless waste of time called "Battlefield Earth" the best film ever. Check out their review.
--Shoeboy
(former microserf)
This movie would make a great object for ridicule on Mystery Science Theatre!
Eagles soar, but Weasels aren't sucked into jet engines.
Please remit said prize to:
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
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.
You know what to do with the HELLO. ...
Help create an open-source world
I haven't seem it, that is a positive thing.
OverLord
about the only good thing i can think of is that it was gone quickly. a friend and i wanted to see it last weekend. knowing that it was a horrible, horrible movie we wished to revel in it's fantastic horribleness, but it was already gone. only three weeks after it's multi-screen premiere it was gone from every screen in every theater in the surrounding 50 mile radius. so is that good or bad?
joshy
Prop me up beside the jukebox if I die.
How about: it kept a lot of special effects hackers employed for over a year.
Wait... Jon Katz saw "Battlefield Earth" twice ?
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!
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
it was a decent example of the classic Hero's Quest. ...poor little man-animal rises up above his lot to kill his foes, save his people, and get the girl. Too bad there was a whole movie wrapped around it.
Do something about world hunger. Click here
...but it also had a kind of charm to it. I dunno; the idea that people could go from being an advanced civilization to being extremely primitive, viewing the decaying advanced civilization as Godlike was interesting. It makes one really marvel at the advances of technology. Okay, hell, it really sucked. But hey, it was better than the Haunting, or Jennifer 8 (three hours of absolute dreary boredom). Actually, I just really want a free O'Reilly book, since I spend most of my paycheques on 'em as is. v
I read the book when I was twelve, and I liked it.
If I read the book now (I'm 29), I would hate it.
So, When I saw the movie I went with the perspective that this is something a 12-year old would like, and I modified my expectations accordingly. And *I liked it*.
So my one good thing to say is: This is a fun *not good* movie if viewed from a simplistic perspective.
-tpr
- Luke Thompson, New Times LA
And many more! Ok, and 3 more. So certainly, one of these five is deserving of free stuff, eh?Bob Graham, SF Chronicle
(Of course, one could argue that the movie "plot" is a moot point...)
And oh yeah - there weren't any obvious references to the Cult of oops I mean Church of Scientology!
seanmeister
As for what Scientological truths are revealed in this movie, well -- I'm not sure. I'm still waiting for them to get my credit report back before they'll tell me. Actually, even if I knew, I couldn't tell you for fear of hard drive seizure. But it's GOTTA be great!
~wog
I found the rejection of mysticism and the heroic portrayal of man to be refreshing, but that's just because I'm a Rand junkie :)
There are two things that I left BF:E feeling relatively good about. Number 1 was ther scenery. For what there was of the Rocky Mountain high country, it was beautifully shown in the movie. I especially enjoyed the intro with the rolling, snow covered hills.
The second would have to be faithfulness. It is rare that someone making a movie tries to remain faithful about the underlining book, but this movie did an admirable job. There were things, like the fact the aliens did NOT keep humans around for manual labor as indicated in the book, but all in all, it was pretty good. That's not to say it was done well, as the first 100 pages of the book flew by in 30 sec, but still it was mostly there. I can't help but think of Jurassic Park and the who issue of multiple T-Rex's and the Pteridactal aviary. Whole segments of the book that were removed. Bah.
These still did not save it from bonafied stink-o-roo, IMHO, but still have to be given credit for.
P.S. Waterworld was not that bad. It wasn't worth the money it was made with, but it was as bad as, say, Ishtar! Come on!
Bryan R.
Bryan R.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, or $12.50 as seen on eBay.....
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.
--sugarman--
I went to this movie on a date with this chick named Kelly. We were actually double-dating with my buddy and his girlfriend who were going to go see a show at a theater complex a couple of miles away. It was one of those chick-flick luvvy-duvvy shitfests that his girlfriend made him go see. I will not see movies like that, period. I was a bit curious about Battlefield Earth, though .. I liked John Travolta in many of his recent movies and I thought "What the hell?" I called up Kelly and asked her if she wanted to go (we had been out once before) and she said sure. My buddy and his GF dropped us off at the theater and went to their flick. They would be back later to pick us up.
.. my buddy was suffering through some pansy-ass chick flick that wouldn't be over for over an hour! This left us with the problem of what to do for that hour. We didn't want to just sit around and do nothing. The sky was overcast and as I recall it was even drizzling a little bit.
.. you know, the kind of place that has hourly rates. Slyly, I asked Kelly "You ever wonder what it would be like inside one of those motels with hourly rates?" I didn't know how she'd take it, dude .. like I said, it was only our second date. Well, imagine my happiness when she got this little smile and said "Well, now seems like it would be a good time to find out." What followed was an hour of the most unimaginably raunchy, sweaty, athletic, mind-blowing sex I've ever had. We even had time for a quick shower (though I won't describe the state the bathroom was in .. yeesh!) By the time we were heading out the door, my buddy was just pulling up to the opposite curb.
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!
...it makes me enjoy watching Blade Runner all the much more, which is hard to do because I love that movie already!
Because we are asked to come up with "one": honestly good thing about the movie. Stacked deck - even if I loved the show, and gave 20 examples why, if the judge doesn't agree I still get nothing. So what's the point?
I hereby deny actually liking the movie... it just seems that I like this thread even less.
But it made me look forward to hearing Keanu Reeves say "Whoa..." again in Matrix 2.
-----
"The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad." - Salvador Dali (1904-1989)
The subliminal messages actually existed^H^H^H^H^H^H^H were nowhere to be found. Scientology is the only true religion. I have to, um, go.
Sleep: A completely inadequate substitute for caffeine.
It's not Mission to Mars KillerPenguin
Oh, crap.
"Stop whining!" - Arnold, as Mr. Kimble
1) It didn't *totally* disregard *all* of the things that made the book so damn good. I think they kept some of the names the same.
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.
-
It gave Travolta something new to work on, sparing us the possibility of another sequel to "Look Who's Talking".
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
./katz-article.pl --topic='Battlefield Earth' --review=good --logic=off
./katz-article.pl
Battlefield Earth and the Mainstream Press
Posted by JonKatz on 02:00 PM June 9th, 2000
Battlefield Earth is already an important movie, just by dint of its existence. It acknowledges, implicitly and explicitly, that movies are no longer simple forms of entertainment, but increasingly creative, complex -- even political -- expressions of the new culture forming online. It's the cinematic equivalent of the newsmagazine in the media world of yore - stylish, literate, interesting. The movie offers breaking profiles of game-like heroes and heroines in the form of cinematic essays. One recent screening featured hints of the sleazy days of gaming, and the controversial "tits-and-ass game" Panty Raider, as well as ruminations on the sometimes-addictive nature of creative movies. Such a movie, almost inconceivable even five years ago, now seems a benchmark of the way new media evolve to recognize and shape new culture. The mainstream press, as usual, gets left behind, clucking about the new world like Temperance Ladies outside a bar.
# We'll never let this happen again...
rm
43rd Law of Computing: Anything that can go wr
Why in the hell does everything have to be so damned complicated for you f**king people? Do you feel the need to find the conspiracy in everything. Yes, the people who post to the front page have opinions. That does not make them bad people, or less worthy of posting.
And if you're wondering why this contest exists? It's because somebody decided it'd be fun. If you don't fuckin' like it, dont fuckin' read and quit your bitching, or go run your own site. We don't own /. Taco does. Get used to it.
Calm down, have some dip.
The Slashdot Sig Virus
Hey, baby, infect me!
-30-
1st - Hey when it comes out on video, they can put on the back of box "We got two thumbs down from EVERYONE! So watch the world's worst movie."
2nd - They could get a Emmy for "The most horrible story line."
3rd - It could of been worse, Pauly Shore could of been the star.
4th - The sequel couldn't be any worse, UNLESS the star of it was Pauly Shore.
5th - At least it was not a musical?
6th - No One Named Jar Jar Binks in it?
-= Majere =-
The only good thing I can say about the movie is that no one will want to join the church of Scientology after seeing it. There is no need for a contest, the PR people will take care of it themselves. critics say: "This is the worst movie of the century." the ads twist it to say: "this is the...movie of the century."
Here are your recent submissions to Slashdot, and their status within the system:
2000-06-09 11:19:29 Maya coming to FreeBSD (bsd,bsd) (rejected)
2000-06-09 10:53:07 Apple will port Quicktime to Linux (articles,apple) (rejected)
What happened to News for Nerds, Stuff that matters?
Best thing about it was that there was no Jar Jar.
'Nuff Sed.
It makes Scientologists look ridiculous.
There is something good to it:
It teaches Hollywood a lesson about the Curch of $cientology.
And it does so using the language Hollywood most clearly understands. Money
f.
I thought that they captured the feeling of the book quite well, except that they crammed it into a much shorter period of time.
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.
Well, one good thing about the movie is that it'll depress John Travolta's next salary payout. 20 million man, you're finished. No millions for you!!
---------------
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JavaScript tutorials scripts
I didn't go see it
The voices in my head don't like you
Seeing Battlefield Earth makes you stronger!
(If it does not kill you).
-aiabx
Just this guy, you know?
Watching Battlefield Earth didn't give me cancer, and from the lack of discussion about it on the news, I assume that it has not given anyone cancer. Cancer is a bad disease and I applaud the producers of Battlefield Earth and their decided no-cancer policy towards the viewers of the film. Also, the videogames at the theater were pretty cool and the nachos weren't half bad.
They haven't named an OS after it yet and besides it is actually better than "Plan 9 from Outer Space" which is the real worst film of all time. Of course, that's not saying much..... Steve Scherbinski
Not to mention it'd be rated X. :)
WWJD? JWRTFM!!!
The movie didn't have any creed songs in it
The government has not been taken over by scientologists yet, hence everyone in the country is not being forced to watch the movie as mandatory media. Hence, I'll not have to watch it. Thats good....really it is.
It was good because...
Every now and then, movies which would otherwise
not be noticed will look much better in light of
this sadly done movie. {The only other disappointment in my mind movie-wise was WingCommander, but then again, I was a fan of that series. >:)}
The bad thing is that we've now been tainted by this film. The good thing is that our experiences will convince us to spread the news and good cheer about other better movies. Such as the new all-digital animation coming up...
But then again, I'm an annoyed optimist with a knack for wasting money on impulse decisions regarding movies. To be quite honest, the only possible good out of that movie would be the book you guys are contributing.
- Wing
- Reap the fires of the soul.
- Harvest the passion of life.
- Wing
- Reap the fires of the soul.
- Harvest the passion of life.
i.e:
1.Due to the unrelenting press, folks will spend their hard-earned elsewhere.
2.Folks who ignored the warnings won't be inspired to run out and purchase the BE Decalogue.
Speaking of the Decalogue, anybody how many L.Ron wrote himself?
Because if they go away and stop reading, Slashdot's valuation falters.
And my point is: crap like this 'contest' is pushing people away from Slashdot to other news sites. Which sucks, because I personally like to read Slashdot, and want it to stick around so we can read some *real* news, not just tabloid sensationalism.
I'm pro-Slashdot. I don't think articles like this one are.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
*ding ding ding* I agree, this should be the winner :)
-subtraho
You will leave the theater with lots to talk about, I promise, and a pleasant feeling of superiority.
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.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
By Casting Mel Gibson, I knew immediately not to see this movie.
regards,
Benjamin Carlson
"If voting could really change things, it would be illegal. " - Revolution Books, NY
We get to see what the future of the Breathe Right(TM) strip is. From the previews, it appears that all the aliens are wearing them. For some reason, they now come on chains. I guess they're kinda like your Grandma's glasses. That way, they won't lose them in the grocery store. The reason they're all wearing them could be any of the below:
1) Earth's atmosphere is so bad, they need the extra micrometer of breathing passage to get sufficient oxygen. In that case, I imagine the humans won by removing the Breathe Right strips, and letting the aliens suffocate.
2) They spend their life sleeping (explains the bad hair), and they are chronic snorers.
3) "Ahh, filthy humans!! Breathe the aroma!"
4) The Halls(TM) factory was taken out in Earth's final battle.
That's about all I have. Did I win?
+-- (Score:-1, Moderator on Power Trip)
No one died during it's filming...
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
GOBACK.
that's what makes Battlefield Earth so good...it sucks SO bad that the sequel HAS to bet better!! and don't forget licencing rights for the CD-ROM game!!
The only good thing I can think of, right now, is that I didn't have to watch it. Wing Commander was a waste of film, but I had to watch it because there was supposed to be a certain trailer before it that just happened to not be at my theatre :-(
When I saw the commercials for Battlefield Earth I was thankful that there were no good trailers to see.
Devil Ducky
Devil Ducky
MY peers would get out of jury duty.
Keanu Reeves didn't play in it.....
Leonardo DiCaprio didn't play in it...
Now, gimme!
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Not as rare as you would think, take this one, 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.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
If the kids are bad, they know their punishment is having to watch Battlefield Earth. (granted, this borders on child abuse, but highly effective).
Let it be noted for the record that the word "geek" DOES NOT APPEAR ONCE in the preceeding Jon Katz article, nor does "ChixClickers" or "jock". Someone check hell for ice...
-
Actually dreadlocks you "make" you can also remove and are not real dreadlocks (in a few years they will turn into real dreadlocks... but ugly ones)
True dreadlocks form after quite awhile of no washing or brushing (anywhere from 3 months to 3 years depending on hairtype)
I would assume their dreadlocks have formed due to the lack of washing/combing and are not in fact a style
Yes I have dreadlocks.
It was soo good in fact it made me blow a head gasket. Plus it amazed me to find out that psychlos had Euclidean geometry.
Well, at least John Romero isn't to blame this time.
--The Colonel
Warning; plenty of spoilers in this summary- if you care, heh.
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
Shameless TUGHouse Plug
It got Jon Katz of the street twice.
:)
Hey, you asked
Finkployd
The one good thing about Battlefield Earth is that I was reminded about the importance of good dental hygiene every time the Psyclos were on screen. For a race with such advanced technology in other areas, they were sure lagging in toothbrushes and floss!
Little Debian: America's #1 Snack Distro!
--Ty
Surely that gives it a small amount of value...
This movie could develop a cult following, raising the otherwise crappy flick into movie infamy. I am not saying that it will get to the same level as Rocky Horror, (nor am I saying anything bad about Rocky Horror) but it has potential. The author of the book that it was based on will start it, and being posted on slashdot will give it a much needed boost.
Soon theaters will be filled late at night, week after week, by the same group of people. They will chant obscure sayings at random times during the show, and throw strange objects at the screen. Some will dress as the main charachters, but most will dress as man-animals.
This movie will spawn an underground culture of its own.
-ShelbyCobra
Living life in the right side of the s-plane
Bingo Foo
----
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
at least it kept John Travolta busy for a while, so he couldn't curse us with more terrible movies.
Okay, here's something good about the movie:
At least they stopped only half way though the book. Imagine how terrible it would have been had they attempted to include the bits about how a bunch of savages ended up taking over the whole universe. More importantly, John Travolta saved us having to watch hours and hours of advanced ecomonics and governments being discussed by people who had been living in tribes for a thousand years.
Oh wait, you wanted something about the movie. Think of what the movie says about Hollywood's belief in technology. To think that a thousand years from now you will be able to find even one hand held nuclear device is really just too astounding. But, yet, the movie would have use believe that technology will one day be so good and simple that even a back woods man-animal will be able to fly harrier jets or set off nuclear weapons. And better yet, libraries will be perfectly arranged so that someone walking in from the street will know where to look for harrier jets, nuclear missles or even Fort Knox.
Think of a world without decay where only the stuff you need to know can be found at the library.
This movie says a lot of really good things about technology. Were it not for the Psyclos things would be just perfect.
Beware the wood elf!!!
Battlefield Eart
Psychlos going mad,
John Travolta and his dreads
Bang! Smash! Go humans!
Battlefield earth had two redeeming qualities. 1) It wasn't much of a platform for Scientology. Sure, it had some ideals of the religon but it was exactly "religious" movie. 2) At the very end, right after the blow up the planet and the humans celebrate did you notice those finely crafted closing credits? I mean, honestly, those were some of the best credits I have ever seen. The had directer, assistant director, even the fabled, second-assitant director. I mean you know it's quality when the have a second assistant director. Also, it was very nice the way the credits scrolled up at a pace that let you read all the names, but not too slow that it became boring. Many movies do that, they either show the credits too fast or too slow. But Battlefield Earth had a perfect speed. In all honesty those were some of the best credits I have ever seen in my moviegoing life. Thank you Battlefield Earth!
The previews of the movie made me go out and read the book (before the film came out in the theatre).
/. users trash the book as not being "scientifically correct", I liked it enough to say it's one of the best damm science-fiction books I've read (right up there with "The forever war"). So if your not anal about your science-fiction I definitely recommend picking it up. It's what the movie should've been.
As much as the movie sucks , the book is truly excellent. And although I've seen some
It wasn't:
'A Star Wars Christmas'
'Mission to Mars'
'Daikatana: The Motion Picture'
'Howard the Duck'
'Caverns of the Living Dead'
In addition, it caused less mental scarring than:
Seeing your mother kissing Santa Claus.
Trying to justify the existance of Visual Basic.
A major text editor flame war.
Two minutes in the same room with Tom Christianson.
Your first GPF.
Attempting to 'unlearn' Pascal.
.sig: Now legally binding!
Although I really can't say why....Maybe because I really liked the book and I can visualize what they were trying to do. Or I can see what a great movie it could have been. I dunno
As with any novel of this magnitutude making a movie out of it is a great challenge. It needs to be at least a mini series or something. For as much as I was looking forward to the movie, I will admit, I was a little disappointed with the outcome, but I liked it nonetheless.
"Most of my heros won't appear on no stamps..." Chuck D from Fight the Power
I have it. I shoudl win.
The best thing about Battlefield Earth was and is the trailer/preview. Seeing the trailer, didin't you WANT to go see it?
Does anyone agree?
(like i will get a response posting so late... sheesh)
After watching the movie, I came home to find my cat, Brutus, waiting by his bowl. I went to the cupboard to retrieve his food and I started thinking... I never have asked him what he likes to eat! So, I instead opened the refrigerator and let him choose what he wanted for dinner. Low and behold he favors Hamburger Helper leftovers!!! So for anyone who doesn't think something good can come out of this movie... just talk to my cat!
I didn't end up going to the movies and supporting a fake church that has been well-known for its attempts at online censorship for the sake of their "deep secrets".
poop.
Well, it DID give JonKatz something to post an opinion on without making himself look like an uneducated nitwit... Although there was that part about seeing it twice...
Since the 21st century will start on Jan. 1 2001 this could not possibly be the worst film of the 21st century. Also it sucked less than Showgirls but it did not miss the mark by much
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
I have not seen the movie, and since it doesn't appear to be suitable for my young children, I suspect I won't. Nonetheless, based on the reviews I've seen so far, I love it for one reason. Some day, it may inspire a review like the one here of the Star Wars Christmas Special. Search for "I have seen this" about a third of the way down. I can still smell the coffee I snorted up months ago when I first read it.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
I saw the movie. I sort of enjoyed it (mainly
because on occaision, I get a craving to see
a really bad movie, and that was it). I do have
one good thing to say, though; it actually
managed to stay true to the book (and it was
a good book) which is something most book adaptions don't manage.
This is probably the only movies where I was not in two minds - To See Or Not To See. There was such a consensus on the movie's quality that I made up my mind.
Even if I may not get the free book, at least the $9 I saved from this movie will go a long way towards buying the book!!
There is nothing I love more than B-movie sci-fi. I _must_ see this film, tonight!
If not for BE, John T-revolting might have made
a movie that appealed to my wife and then I would
have to see it.
There was no JarJar anywhere in the movie. Nor was there any images of Rosanne Barr/Arnold naked. Nor was there anyone from Oprah's book club. And no one peed on me. So, the way I'm looking at it is, don't think of how bad it is, but rather think of how bad it isn't.
Send your friends messages of love at fuck-you.org
I always thought it was a comedy. I mean come on, could someone purposely make this bad of a movie, I thought it was a parody or something. Oh and I laughed my ass off for about 15 minutes with the flying "man animals" scene.
FLY LIL GUY FLY!
- *Normality Is The Root of All Evil*
Battlefield Earth, contrary to popular opinion, most definately does not cause spontaneous diarrhea.
I don't think so, at least.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
I applaud the helpful reviews of this movie, which aided me in saving $15 this summer.
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
The lighting was genius and very cutting edge. It made use of clever monochromatic and multichromatic effects to impart a surreal and usually appropriate mood to any given scene. The Grim and dank purple of th alien homeworld, the stark and gray of the alien work camps, the eerie, alien tones in the skyscraper scene all were used to good effect.
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
C'mon, they managed to reproduce special effects seen in movies like ID4, The Matrix, and Star Wars for only $50 million dollars! They did all of that and STILL were able to pay Travolta and the CoS. That's gotta be worth SOMETHING.
-- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
You don't have to see it if you don't want to.
max
not only is the universe stranger than you imagine,
it's stranger than you are capable of imagining
I was impressed by one part of the "horrifying" cinematography.
:). It's harder to trick the human eye in areas it's intimately familiar with. Human forms and faces still aren't convincing when done straight up with CGI. So it's still a challenge.
/not once/ - in this entire trash-heap of a movie, plot holes oozing all over the place, did I ever have a moment where I looked at the 10 foot tall beasties and the 6 foot tall oo-mans and think "this looks contrived". I realised afterwards that the one thing I was convinced about was that John Travolta really /was/ 10 feet tall (talk about being larger than life!) and looked perfectly natural in those big ol' clown shoes of his.
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
Jon Katz!
Quoting him: 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.
I've seen a lot of films lately, and usually, they end up making me feel sad or angry. Now this film actually allows you to leave with a pleasant feeling of superiority. That's something. I gotta see this one.
The first really cool thing about Battlefield Earth is the damage it has done to Scientology - the next time the scientologists want to influence mass-media, they may find it a lot harder.
The second really cool thing about Battlefield Earth is that since it has bombed big-time, when it finally reaches this country I can actually watch it, rather than stay at home because I refuse to contribute to its success. It has no success for me to contribute to, thus I can satisfy my curiousity (I read the book many years ago and seeing how people turn books into films is often interesting, (not to mention often disasterous)).
This whole outcome rocks!
As to good things about the movie itself, I protest on the grounds that it hasn't reached much of the world yet, so people like me have had no chance to see it, and thus my only input can be of the nature above.
They're all businesses. They just traffick in infinite commodities: human fear and stupidity.
-jpowers
-jpowers
ok the only good thing about Battlefield Earth is that it was so stuningly bad that I was able to walk out of it, (use up the tokens I had for the arcade), walk back in watch the last 10 minetes and not feel guilty at all.
How many movies can say that
Theres one problem with reflecting your reality, sometimes your reality starts to reflect you.
... what possible point could there be in letting it live a longer life through this contest, other than garnering some sort of stupid egotistical buzz a person gets by trashing other peoples work?
... yeah, we get to really pile on the criticism of anything that's ever Sucked. Great.
While we're at it, why don't we try an "Open Source Software that Truly Sucks" competition?
Or a "Worst Sucking Slashdot Post Ever" competition?
Oh, oh, I know - a "Things that Suck harder than anything else that ever Sucked" competition
In the meantime, off to kuro5hin.org for some real geek news of interest...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Well, I think so anyway. :)
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
'nuff said
-- "This is my sig... there are many like it but this one is mine"
As unbelievable as neanderthals flying harrier jets is, its still more believable than using a powerbook to connect with, then upload a virus to an alien mothership. (I didnt know aliens used USB ports!)
In this case, we have a ready-made cult. The "Church" of Scientology is probably forcing its members to watch, even as we make fun of it.
Welcome to the Turing Tarpit, where everything is possible but nothing interesting is easy.
Slashdot was never only about 'hard' news, and what you consider interesting, other people may not. If you want, you can simply filter JK anyway. I really doubt posting a few storys that don't interest a few people is going to drive them away
Besides, if slashdot's 'valuation' was the only thing that mattered to to the oweners, then it would be nothing but sensationalism, like the local news or Dateline or something.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I kinda liked this movie in the same way I liked GODZILLA--as a campy piece of pre-fab-crap.
But, it did a couple of good things, I think.
Primarily, it proved to Hollywood that folks won't swallow everything you throw at them just because it's big, flashy, and expensive.
Secondly...it kept John Travolta from trying to make another comedy. *whimper*
It's not the voices in my head that annoy me. It's the psychosies they invite over for parties that annoy me.
Obviously Battlefield Earth really, really sucked.....but I did enjoy it more than Mission to Mars. M2M was long, boring, with no action, stupid science and grating organ music. Battlefield Earth obviously made little to no sense (after 1000 years, planes still work? uh...no). But there was some action in there, and no organ music. The best way to see Battlefield Earth (assuming you really have to see it that bad) is to go with a bunch of friends. That way you can all make fun of the movie and laugh all the way through. That's what I did....fun for everyone :)
No Jar Jar :P
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Well, although I know I'm gonna have to dodge profusely after this, but there is actually one good scene in the movie.
When the lowly man-animal starts to learn from the psyloc machine, there's a submissive language alien that introduces himself. Which I took to mean that corporations (as in big corporations) can not contribute to a better person, only the conquered anlien could (that paralell between the psylocs and corporations could be a stretch, but hey, it's my stretch).
And besides, if that doesn't work for ya, you can always take the stance that Travolta is a Scientologist, The Psylocs act very much like Scientologists, and they massacred this intelligent species, therefore Scientology is baaaaad.
-Interesting quote here.
That's worse torture than I would have wished upon him, but.. hey (shrug) Take what you can get, right?
Did you get your digs on those little cameras?! That is the best thing about that move in a nut shell, I should write a book. How to deploy cameras for personal gain in a Nut Shell. I have put them up all over the place. I know how full motion pictures of my cat humping the jello mold in the kitchen, my male Landlord waxing his jetski in the backyard dress like Minnie Pearl, and the garbage man licking the inside of my girl friends shoes she threw away. In all a very positive outcome from a piss poor movie. TheNeck
I felt that it would be really great with some audience participation (me and my friends were very entertained by cheering near the end...it alleviated the boredom), but could you imagine people dressing up as aliens carrying those green drink beakers and throwing them at the screen? Shouting "fuck you" after every utterance of man animal. Having the scenes acted out by a full cast? Singing along to random songs during the boring parts?
Ok, it's stupid, but any movie as bad as that one could really benefit from such a treatment.
Oh, and though oft overused, the heat distortion effect on the air ship engines was pretty neat as well...
--www.mp3.com/kruhft--
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.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
1) one good thing about it, is that it builds character, makes a person stronger. what doesn't kill you, just makes you stronger type of thing, desenitises you to the world around, kinda like prison.
2) You don't get ass raped, but still get the character stengths (like prison without the ass rapings)
3) You could get "temprary legal insanity" if you killed someone during or shortly after the film
4) you won't go to prison because you could get off on "temprary legal insanity"
5) in prison you get ass raped, and if you got off of "temprary legal insanity", you won't have to go to prison and get ass raped.
6) This movies doesn't make your asshole bleed
7) Atleast Jon Katz isn't taking a "geek stance" on this and enjaging other geeks to take on a stand on this movies also
8) I heard the book was good
9) you can take your girlfreind to this movie and half way though say "So give me a blow job OR watch the rest of this movie"
10) you can lead over to a complete stranger half way though the movie and say "So give me a blow job OR watch the ret of this movie"
Come on guys, it is friday, relax, this is supose to be all in good fun..
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Well, I suppose it is a small good thing, but good none the less...
:)
(Pre-amble)
You see, L Ron Hubbard also published another series of books called An Alien Affair (Mission Earth). If you think BattleField Earth sucked, well, that movie was AWESOME compared to those books... Each book is about 800 pages. Each book has the same plot. NOTHING EVER CHANGES. The best way to read that series is to read about the first half of book 1 then skip to book 10** for the ending.
(end pre-amble)
Ok, so knowing how much I hated the Alien Affair series, you can understand how I wasn't really wanting to read his Battlefield Earth novel, which is about ~1000 pages. So by seeing the movie I don't have to read another one of his #^$@ing books!
You can give me the prize now...
** 'Course I'm GUESSING that the plot wraps up here, as I only made it to book 8 before becoming completely disgusted, so I'm assuming he closed the plot somehow...
I used to have a cool sig.
Did anyone catch the MTV movie awards? I actually enjoy the show, as it's much more fast-paced and interesting than normal award shows.
Anyway, there was a great South Park bit about Battlefield Earth and totally trashed the church of scientology. I totally laughed out loud... if you do catch it on reruns (and MTV will rerun it fifty times) there's also pretty good skits on the Matrix and John Woo.
http://www.talknerdy.org
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.
Do not wright in this space.
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!
http://www.farmerbob.org
John Romero could be licensing it and creating an FPS out of it!
At least I thought, until the graet Katz in his ever flowing wisdom decided to plague us with it yet again.
-Tommy
"I got a half gallon of Jack, and 2 dozen Ant Traps. I'm about to get wild." -me
First of all, braids do not equal dreadlocks. They aren't the same thing.
Second, either braids or dreads might make sense if you ran out of soap 10 years ago.
Third, in a hunter-gatherer civilization, lack of time to braid or twist up your hair is not a problem. You won't be up late at night surfing or watching the tube, so what else to do ?
What's good about the movie ? The aliens were so dumb it hinted at satire, which is quite true to the L. Ron Hubbard style.
I guess the fact that I didn't see it can be a good thing, right. I mean I didn't go see it 'cause I am opposed to scientology, and now that everyone has seen it and hates it, I guess I can be proud of not seeing it.
review of this bad, bad movie... /battlefieldearth.html
http://www.mrcranky.com/movies
D'oh!
No discoing Travolta
Lack of the Olsen twins comes in a close second
since no one is going to see it now, its the best movie to take your girlfriend when you dont really want to see a movie and just want to do some back row love.
For instance, many people were disappointed by "Star Wars Part I: The Phantom Menace". I even had people say it sucked. But then there were the people who liked it, my self included. And some who loved it (not myself). We can all finally agree though, the suckiness factor in Star Wars Part I was not equal to that of BattleField Earth.
In fact, it allows us to determine a point of origin on a scale. With BattleField Earth being the suckiest movie that ever did suck, let's define a function "goodness" where goodness(battlefield_earth) = be. We can define the goodness of a movie, m, to be goodness(m). The amount that m didn't suck is goodness(m) - be. (Mathematicians, just have fun with it... I don't want proofs in my mailbox etc...)... define suck_factor(m) to be goodness(m) / be which is the measure of just how many time better m is than be since be*suck_factor(m) = goodness(m). suck_factor(be) = 1. :-)
With this in mind, I say we create a new rating system with the suckiness of Battlefield Earth in mind. The new measure will be "The BE Factor" which is just an alias for suck_factor(m) for any m.
The suckiness of Battlefield Earth also gave us new vocabulary words. For instance, when an otherwise excellent actor decides to act in a sucky movie like BE, we can say "Oh man, they pulled a Travolta." (just like John Travolta). When a friend is being stupid, call them "rat-brain" or "man-animal". guacamole will now make us think of the slop the "man-animals" were served. When your friend becomes angry at you for calling them a "rat-brain" warn them not to go "psychlo" on you. Or better yet, when a company is determined to be a monopolistic entity or uses slave labor in various 3rd world nations, you can say that the corporation has turned to "psychlonomics". And finally platform shoes will now be known as "Psychlo boots". =) =)
I'm out.
Humorless sig goes here.
Ouch, that was painful. Don't link to that anymore, okay? My head hurts now.
-jpowers
-jpowers
at leat travolta wasn't dancing and singing...
This thought is precipitated on certain assumptions. If you disagree with the assumptions, then obviously my conclusion makes no sense. If, on the other hand, you at least allow for the benefit of the doubt, then the rest, I think, follows naturally.
Corrolary to 3: the success of things like "The Matrix" is not a counterexample; it can be argued that a lot of people liked it because of the cool digital action scenes, not because of the musings on the nature and malleability of reality or some other similar theme. Refer also to "Crash". (People who liked it for the theme of "experience unites, intense experience unites intensely: vs. "whoah, they're having freeky-azz sex!")
Now, on this foundation, consider: B.E. was/is set up to be a commercial success on all of the standard Hollywood criteria: a big-budget summer bonanza to make people saw "Whoah, cool!", often people who believe that to be the sole determinant of good and bad entertainment. As part of standard marketing, the sory in book form will be released and sold in popular venues. The cattle^X^X^X^X^Xdiscerning consumer will, likely, be persuaded to purchase said novel. Having read said novel, there is a definite non-zero chance that they might awaken to the true qualities of the story. Which in turn may lead to an investigation into other writings of a thought-provoking sort. This effect may be enhanced if the individual enters online chat rooms and forums to rant^X^X^X^Xdiscuss the novel, and get guided by those further along the road of mental development. (Of course, thy might just alienate said mentors in their initial posts, but c'est la vie.)
Thus, Battlefield Earth provides the benefit of using true culture-jamming strategy, wielding the problem itself as a means to its own solution. If intentional, a very subtle and ingenious thing indeed.
Should I win, I'll be in touch. Otherwise, I hope the collective masses appreciate and enjoy my little act of cognition.
-TBHiX-
All typos, transcription errors, misformattings, etc. are obviously an attempt by the universe to undermine my superior intelligence. Why, no, I'm not paranoid or egotistical. Why do you ask?
dude, do you even know what CO$ is about? If there was any of that in there, I'm sure it was accidental.
Actualy, randism is just as much a religion as anything else, since it seeks to give you a perfic sense of 'truth' and understanding based on false premises.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
and in conclusion, i vow never to leave myself logged in on a public computer EVER again
HAHA, has anyone else got this? God that is great, come on, mod this SOB up!
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
John Romero:Diakatana John Travolta: Battlefield Earth
Now who makes who his bitch?.....
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.
The cake is a pie
One good thing from this is:
....
.. which leads to hunger and famine.. poor living conditions ...disease.. unhappiness.. violence and crime.. hmm...
Thousands of People have become united in their disgust towards this movie. People across the U.S., and perhaps even the world, if they have seen it, are finding this movie to be horrible, and are agreeing with each other.
I can see it now... a hundred years from now, the Anti-BE Reform Party has struggled to the top, and becomes the first truly multi-national socio-political force, bringing about changes. Using BE as the rallying point, the party causes changes to the Hollywood system of Enforced Entertainment, allowing for more independant productions to be widely seen, fostering creativity in movie-making. Hollywood loses its iron grip on the movie industry (yes, worldwide... face it) and we see a Rennaisance in film.
This leads into more open ideas and thought among the people. Radical new ideas such as Free Speech and Freedom of Information gain ground and flourish as people realize they don't have to live their lives as zombies.
People begin to care about things besides money and possessions. People begin to care about each other. People start improving the quality of life for not only themselves, but their fellow human beings. People around the world unite into a One-World Government based on Fairness and Equality.
I can see it now.. a hundred years from now... we finally achieve a level of "humanity" which has never been reached before.
Reduction in crime and violence lead to happier people, which leads to a more productive people, which leads to better living conditions for all, which leads to less disease and hunger, which leads to more people... wait
Now we have over-population
I like 100 years from now.. but 200? Not so sure.
I saw Battlefield Earth while on a business trip while bored, with low expectations and a certain sense of curiosity. Low expectations primarily 'cause the book it was based on was written by L. Ron Hubbard, inventor of Dianetics et al (and ain't it curious how new novels in the series keep appearing under his name, although he's been dead for quite a while).
The book doesn't have a great reputation, and I fully expected the movie to be total schlock, either because it followed the book or because it didn't, Hollywood being the inventive chaps they are.
That said, I found the movie SO VERY BAD that it was enjoyable in a 1950's alien-invasion-movie sort of way. I was particularly impressed by how a crew of illiterate savages (1000 years of alien rule) were able to find an intact Air Force base (with a functional power system, yet) full of operational 1000-year old Harrier jets and functional nuclear weapons (man, they really built 'em in the good old days!), and be flying combat missions within a week!
Indeed, at one point late in the film I found myself thinking, "Wait a minute! The screenwriters CAN'T have invented something THAT stupid -- it had to come from the book!" I'll find out when I get the book from the local library (none of MY dollars are going to the L. Ron Hubbard Foundation, aka you-know-who).
The movie's single-minded, unselfconscious lack of any plausibility whatever, coupled with its ruthless exploitation of very hackneyed cliche imaginable, made for an unintentionally comical experience. All movies require a willing suspension of disbelief -- this one just requires one's disbelief to be suspended so high it needs space armor and starship anti-collision beacons.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
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
:-)
But not me, oh no. That's for your run-of-the-mill movie critics to do. I'm too cool for that. I'm going to offer something different, a new perspective...
nnnggghh..
can't....
resist...
Otherwise, it's a case study in awful writing, unspeakable direction, grotesque cinematography, horrific acting, and ugly, clunky design.
Aahhhhhhhh.... better.
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.
Can't be arsed to write an article this week. You guys do it for me
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
...by including John Travolta in this movie, this P.O.S. will help stem off the tendency to cast "pretty boys with big names" in "mainstream" sci-fi...and instead they'll cast people who are actually suited to the part (think Dune).
Well, okay, here's another thing that relates to my first reason--maybe he IS the ONLY best pick for this part!
Now can I have the book?
...was that it kept all those wacky scientologists busy for a year or two. I'd happily suffer through more bad movies like this if it helps to prevent them from screwing up the world.
-Gentry
I was really getting tired of all the complaining about Napster/RIAA/MPAA/MS/MP3.com. It's been a while since we've had something new to really complain about. Variety has really been lacking.
But, for two hours during the movie, not once did I think about how evil Bill is. I wasn't worried about DVD decryption and how quickly our rights are disappearing. I was completely free to mock, ridicule and scorn every actor and director without being distracted.
And now, whenever I feel that RIAA has reached the absolute depths of humanity, I think back to Battlefield Earth and think, "You know, I guess RIAA isn't so bad after all."
Thanks Battlefield, you've given me a whole new perspective and outlook on life.
Looking for a computer support specialist for your small business? Check out
isn't ironic that Jon Katz, who writes articles here on slashdot that no one has anything good to say about, is writing about a movie that now has anything good to say about.
My other computer is your Windows box
city of angels is the worst movie ever. not ishtar, or waterworld. waterworld is dozens of times better than city of angels, which is the lamest, most boring, pathetic movie ever. i havent seen battlefield earth yet though, so i cant compare the two
My girlfriend was more than happy to fool around in the almost empty movie theatre for the whole 2 hours.
Can I say I love this movie?
uNF
I am
I didn't see it:)
"as plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee" - Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz. (One man's humorous is another mans flamebait)
Those of us who truly enjoy bad Sci-Fi movies (Starship Troopers, the Aliens Sequels, ID4, etc.) for what they are now have something new to watch.
Okay, so MANY things sucked. But...
I liked the way that Humans were portrayed, depending upon which character was being followed.
When the movie followed the Humans, we saw them as civilized, when it followed the Psylocs, we saw them as apes, who talked in Grunts and used apelike body language. It was a neat storytelling trick, but it didn't save the movie.
-- Crutcher --
-- Crutcher --
#include <disclaimer.h>
As long as they're both in hell, everybody who isn't would win. @%
It made Mission to Mars look good.
It may finally kill off the career of John Travolta. Although this could be a bad thing, but hey, he does *some* good things (like when he gets wasted on Pulp Fiction...)
If anyone thought this was a representation of Scientology, they are most utterly repulsed by the idea of joining now.
(Did John Travolta even read the book?)
Serves as great advertising for the Harrier, as evidenced by the fact that they can lay around for 1000 years and still be perfectly functional. So there, you lousy third world nations!
It kept me from reading the increasing leftist drivel on slashdot for 3 hours one Friday afternoon.
I actually got out in the sun for awhile in the commute to the Santa Monica Promenade.
It gave me hope that if they could make that movie, I, too, can be a director/screenwriter/FX master and star.
I was reminded just how expensive movies are these days.
My roomate hasn't laughed that loudly since the last time someone tried to critique Ayn Rand.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
The only redeeming thing about this movie is that while doing a little critic search before it came out, I wandered into some Anti-scientology sites and realized how screwed up the cult of scientology, and by association, the Travoltas are.
Pair up in threes. - Yogi Berra
One good thing about this movie is the fact that I haven't seen it yet. :-)
It does not kill gerbils
It shows that aliens will always have one glaring weakness so obvious that it takes only 1000 years to find it.
It does not have Natalie Portman in it (god the trolls are going to eat me alive for that one)
It shows that a glass dome can support an alien craft, even when shattered
It shows that aliens use glass instead of more exotic materialle.
That's about it. The movie, by and large sucked. End of story
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
Okay, I have to be semi-honest I haven't actually seen BattleField Earth, being of the limited budget college student variety (and I'd prefer to spend money on Virgin Suicides anyway). Has anyone seen Both Battlefield Earth and The Omega Code. (If there is such a person, I'm very, very sorry...) I'd be interested to see if it really is worse than that.
Nathan.
People who quote themselves bug the crap out of me -- Me.
Considering that the Church of Scientology will prosecute anyone who even looks side ways at them ...
Considering that there is quite a lot to look at the Church of Scientology for, let alone criticize and question ...
And considering that John Travolta is a self-professed Scientologist and attributes his come back to Scientology ...
I propose that Battlefield Earth is the greatest way for everyone to finally laugh at the Church of Scientology without getting our assets siezed and our families turned out on the street. And if the Church of Scientology has got issues with us mocking them because of Battlefield Earth, then we can just say, "But your boy Travolta made it--talk to him!"
I mean, come on, they deserve it--anyone who would claim that L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth is the greatest science fiction novel of the 20th century deserves to be mocked!
Interview with Travolta:
INTERVIEWER: So how do you explain the great come back you made in the 1990s?TRAVOLTA: Scientology! It gave me focus and piece of mind! I couldn't do anything wrong with Scientology on my side!
INTERVIEWER: So it was Scientology?
TRAVOLTA: Yep!
INTERVIEWER: But how do you explain that a movie based on Scientology myth destroyed your career?
TRAVOLTA: Uh
Come on--laugh already ;-)
"Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs." -- Switchfoot, Ode to Chin
I admit I read all the bad reviews and the horrible things that people said about this. My conclusion after hitting it on a cheap tuesday:
It didn't dissapoint.
See, I went into the movie *knowing* it would suck, the plot was bad, [insert stream of examples on this movie's suckage] etc
But because I went in knowing that the movie was that bad, I didn't even have a *glimmer* of hope that there would be anything good in it, and therefor wasn't dissapointed.
My favorite quote was from my friend who I dragged along with me: "Look! it's the matrix!" (in the middle of a scene blatently ripped off from the Matrix).
Unfortunately it wasn't any better either.
I remember a decade ago or so my mom (yea my mom is an old school scifi freak) telling me to read the book because it was so laughably horrid. Now I've gotten her back by recomending she see the movie for the same reason.
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
While the film had technical holes all over it, I found the underlying interactions between a conquering species and man to be interesting and consistent.
For example, the viewpoint of the aliens of human conversation, and vice-versa. The general distain and disgust, ignorance and indifference. Nothing breakingly original, but I noted on many occassions that the dialog and actions varied from the traditional interactions of two people (or species in this case) that could care less about each other. Again, I found it very consistent in many point, with the stupid technical issues interrupting it (to the point of my disgust!).
But what really drove me was all those technical impossibilities. Like the Harriers, bombs and computers that lasted 1000 years. The "learning machine" that thought the man to speak their alien lanaguage, but the aliens did bother to learn man's. Although that could be more of the interaction element I was talking about -- but still a stretch in application.
All-in-all, the movie would still have to be radically re-written to make it believable. Even if this meant that mankind "loses" -- it still would have been much, much better than with the general Hollywood ignorance and ending.
My $0.02 ...
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
Independent Author, Consultant and Trainer
*Someone in the room mentions Scientology
*You see a screen shot that's not viciously tilted to the right or left
*John Travolta's character laughs maniacally
*Nose clips are applied
*Any character uses a weirdly out-of-place cliche (eg, "Piece of cake! says the Betty-Crocker enhanced cave dude)
*A woman is onscreen
*John Travolta's character fools a fellow bad guy with his stunningly quick wit
Two Drinks:
*Someone in the room laughs
*John Travolta's character laughs maniacally, after a few stunned seconds, all other alien bad guys join in
*Cave guys reenact final battle scene in Star Wars
*Cave guys do cross-continental travel
*The declaration of Independence is spotted
Taking a break
*Players may be excused from drinking as long as they tilt their heads in unison with the camera shots. Any player caught tilting out-of-sync will be handed another drink or the barf bucket, whichever seems appropriate.
oh yeah, something good to say about this movie ... Mr. Cranky's review made my day! without the movie, there would have been no review!
peace
...it was depicted rather well in the movie... it was in the wrong place and wasn't portable, but the effect of millions of facts and ideas flying into his head was done rather well... more than I can say for the rest of the movie... By the way: The book was VERY good.
Jon/Slashdot Staffers--this man should get the prize.
Moderate this up!
One good thing about this movie is that the film it is printed on will eventually biodegrade.
Fortunately, I live close enough to the CC that I could get a quick puricication rundown and race back to the theatre before I was brought up on ethics and sent to the RPF.
Seriously, though, I don't think I could have handled this movie if I wasn't a natural Clear who had battled Xenu in a former life, and reported him to the Loyal Officers.
OTOH, I have a SF short story book from 1959 called Nine Tomorrows - there is a story in there that is eerily similar to Battlefield Earth in some ways - oh well - it's all been done, before anyway
----
Despite the best effort of that cult, the subliminal messages in the trailors didn't convince me to see this movie; therefore, it didn't take away two hours of my life. Of course, I promptly blew them on perl and partying anyway.
Communication is only possible between equals
....the fact that I never got to see it!
of George for the creation of Jar Jar...
Thatsa whatta meesa thinks...
True, we are all gonna die...
"It takes many nails to build a crib, but one screw to fill it."
After reading about this funny contest I ran to The Movie Review Query Engine and found one review that did have some good things to say about the movie Battlefield Earth.
I am sure you all want to see what this fine movie critic has to say about this amazing movie, let me show you a hint of what he has to say:
Fun cheese. Despite starting off like a bad Star Trek episode, this film eventually graduates to a higher level with great special effects, some really slick bad-ass aliens, an intriguing premise and a good flow of loud, campy fun.
Yes you can find this and more fun @ http://reviews.imdb.com/Reviews/244/24493
Enjoy..and just be glad that you didn't read all of the reviews listed on MRQE, but some were very funny!
No matter how bad the film, no matter how ghastly the acting, and no matter how wooden the popcorn, there WILL be people who liked the film. My opinion of the film is MINE. (Mine! Mine! All mine! You can't have it!) Other people's opinions are theirs. To go around telling people what they should think is only marginally better than playing Big Brother. Better, in that with no -real- consequence, nobody is likely to be physically hurt. But only marginally in that peer pressure & social pressure are as deadly as any bullet. (But at least bullets are either relatively painless, or recoverable. Social pressure is for life.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The cast of Wild Wild West will finially be able to see some new faces in therapy sessions. After all, you'd probally be in a depressing rut after either of these movies.
And maybe they'll finially convince Will Smith to retire the overly hyped sexy (not really...) singer/actor wannabe. Be thankful Men In Black was a good flick.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert Einstein
That Tom Cruise and Kirstie Ally weren't in it.
One example that is just plan bad is "The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik Yak", released in the mid 80's. Very bad movie who's only redeeming quality is the shear volume of nudity displayed.
It's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. I think.
I've seen Gladiator, MI2, Frequency, Shanghai Noon, Ninth Gate, Mission to Mars, Pitch Black, Romeo Must Die, U-571, and Battlefield Earth. Personally, I consider Battlefield Earth the best of 2000 so far.
All of the complaints don't matter. The movie was near perfect.
Does anyone complain about Alice in Wonderland, or Gulliver's Travels because of logic gaps? Battlefield Earth should be viewed in the same way and given the same dramatic license. L Ron Hubbard writes satire. This movie is consistent with L Ron Hubbard's style.
Why was it great?
Battlefield Earth is a movie about ideas and situations. The ideas are powerful and the situations are colorful. Each character can represent several archetypes, who together with other characters can represent a complex idea.
Consider...What is man without his current knowledge?
This is a powerful question. How long would it take man to rebuild? Would it be possible to rebuild? I can't possibly address this question, but the movie did. This idea is also addressed in Fahrenheit 451 and the Chung Chuo series by David Wingrove.
The movie also addresses environmentalism Remember the chieftain who warned about the angry gods and demons. They were angry because man was destroying nature. So to avoid destruction man had to stop advancing and hide in his hole. The hero of the story said that we can't hide, but must explore and push the bounds on what we know.
In other words, the way to handle the environment is technological advancement and not to shy away from the unknown.
The movie handles so many more interesting relationships that I can't list them all.
So in closing, this movie kicks ass. Accept the gaps in logic, and get to the meat.
But you still complain that a man-animal can't learn to fly a modern day jet in a week... The movie is trying to say that man can accomplish amazing things when he tries. You didn't complain about proportion with the phrases "Eat Me" or "Drink Me". Did you?
I have a paperback copy of the book, printed in 1984. On the cover of the book there is a big gold star that says, "#1 Best Seller!" in the center, and around the edge of the star it says, "Soon to be a major motion picture!" So my good thing about Battlefield Earth is that it finally became a major motion picture. Only took 16 years... Now that's what I call long-term planning!
It's giving Britney Spears and Bill Gates some needed competition in the "Worst Thing Ever To Happen, Ever" category.
Brittany's not that bad. Just mute the TV when her video comes on.
mmm... Brittney...
She's the american version of Rei Toei. Don't feel bad, she must have been grown in a lab.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
BFE (that acronym doesn't just fit the movie in question, eh?) is good because it throws a sharp and valuable contrast on the good movies that manage to get made.
_________________
Oh, INTERCOURSE the penguin! (Python tribute, not Linux knock)
The theatre was just cool. Its about flaming time and well worth the extra 3 bucks over a traditional sardine can. I rarely go to movies, so I plan on making Silver City my only theatre choice... No, I don't work for Famous Players.
Okay.. The movie. Your typical opressed people are opressed... opressed people revolt and succeed against their opressors... a plot older then the bible. Whatever works.
Travolta... Hello.. comeback? Poor acting? It was Travolta... compare his pissed off moods to the pissed off moods of ALL his other movies and you have the same old Travolta, the man is a typecast in my eyes.
Overall I liked the movie... LIKED.. not LOVED.. it was typical sci fi.. what is so wrong with a plot where 'the man' is overcome by aliens. People are often too jaded by movies nowadays. The storyline wasn't far fetched... the character interaction certainly wasn't far fetched.. Who is to say that the mannorisms and over the top ways of the Psyclos couldn't be -normal- for the race... not everyone acts 'human'. Now the name of the race and planet... that was dumb...
Okay back to the humans being taken over. In the end our little buddies took flight in Harrier JumpJets to whoop some ass... setting aside the fact that it would take me (as an ex-pilot) a hell of a lot longer then 7 days in a sim to fly one of these planes as well as they did. The fact that they where using Harriers tells me that earth was nailed in the 20th-21st century. Our technology isn't -that- good right now that we could take down a planetary strike from an alian race. The fact that the fsckers flew in space all the way to earth is a pretty good indecation of that.
Next... our little monkey men... :) 1000 years of opression and fear of going to the cities is a very good basis for devolution, lack of rebuilding the species etc... A little far fetched, but not impossible.
Overall out of ten I gave the movie a 6. It was entertaining... it was full of action and overall -not bad- worth 11 bucks... hell no.. 4 bucks at the corner store.. yup, very worth it.
Get out of the StarTrek and StarWars Mentalities folks... open your minds to other possibilities then Klingons and Vulcans.
- Xabbu
- Jimbob
But, just because it's a favorite doesn't mean it's art. I've still been known to pick up a MAD magazine now a then because I want to be entertained. This is an entertaining book.
Of course that was only for half of the scenes, the other half had a distinct vertical orientation, since there were 2 distinct angles for alternating shots.
--www.mp3.com/kruhft--
I can sum Battlefield Earth's charm up with one word: craplousy. Battlefield Earth was good only because it provided me with my new favorite adjective. Use it in a sentence right not and *try* not to giggle like a little girl. Maybe I can also admit that it was fun to pretend that all of the Psychlos were really just descendents of rawk-gods GWAR. And wasn't it interesting that most of the incredibly devolved man-animals had mullets? Something to ponder...
Ok, I give up. I really can't speak of
a good thing about the movie without
possibly bringing a lot of objections.
Maybe the only good thing would be that
someone can get a free good book to read
because of it. Hope that would be me.
At the concession stand, we ordered a large popcorn, a medium soda, and a box of Red Hots(tm). The minumum-wage-earning, acne-afflicted young man helping us at that snack bar was both cheerful and helpful (enjoyable part #2). He told us for $1 (USD) more, we could have the "mega large vat of popcorn" and the "kidney-buster" large soda drink! I couldn't believe our good fortune! (enjoyable part #3)!!
So we then proceeded to the theatre, wheeling our popcorn and soda in the specially modified golf cart provided by the theatre for a mere $7.50 (USD). When we got in the theatre, we noticed that it was nearly empty - perhaps 10% of the seats were taken (enjoyable part #4)
. We headed straight for the back of the theatre where we proceeded to set up camp.
After a few minutes of watching the movie, I began to suspect that the movie was not very good. Fortunately, at that point I had already consumed about 2.5 gallons (USG) of Mountain Dew(tm), so I needed to go to the "latrine", as they say in the marines. I excused myself and proceeded to the Mens room which was both clean (enjoyable part #5) and well-lit (enjoyable part #6). As I stood there expelling several gallons of Mountain Dew - derived toxins from my body, I noticed the following grafiti scratched on the wall before me:
The MPAA sucks - down with the man - anonymous coward
Well, as you can image, I got quite a chuckle out of that (enjoyable part #7).
Back in the theatre, I asked my girlfriend what I had missed, to which she replied, "not much" (enjoyable part #8). She then excused herself, and I turned my attention to the 6 bushels of popcorn remaining in our bucket (enjoyable part #9). To tell the truth, for the next 20 or 30 minutes, I was so busy eating popcorn and sipping soda that I didn't catch much of Battle Field earth.
Well my girlfriend had returned, but I felt some pressure in the need to return to the "latrine". This time, it wasn't just the soda sending me out, if you catch my drift. I won't make you suffer with the details, but 20 minutes and enjoyable parts #10, #11, and #12 later, I returned to the theatre feeling much better.
By this point, most of the other movie goers had walked out, and we hadn't seen much of the film, so we sunk down to the floor and got freaky in the spilled soda and stale popcorn on the floor (enjoyable part #13). Just as we were finishing, I noticed someone had dropped one of those new gold dollar coins everyone is hoarding - what a find !!!! (enjoyable part #14).
Well, we quietly got back in our seats, but the credits were already rolling. Eventhough we hadn't seen much, we both agreed that it was of the best movies we had ever seen together
Scotch
XML causes global warming.
I guess that from the perspective of the Church of Scientology the good thing about BE would have been that it was going to be this highly succesful film that would make Hubbard a household name as a "bestselling" science fiction author rather than being known a the wacko that started that UFO cult Travolta and a few other celebrities are in. This is, of course, the same reason the church had put such a great effort years ago into publishing the BE book and the gigantic Mission Earth 10 volume series that followed (the Mission Earth series was also known as a doorstop --you should be able to find it in the shelves of most libraries). And this is why the church engaged in their book buying campaigns (as was previously also the case with Dianetics) to artificially push these books into the bestseller lists (so it is actually true that LRH did produce bessellers with these books). It is all a matter of bringing prestige and exalting the name of the founder.
Anyway, the good thing about BE is that it failed to exalt L. Ron Hubbard's name as hoped by the church. If anything, he is known more than ever before as that guy that started the UFO cult; plus he is known as the author of that book that was turned into that awful science fiction movie with John Travolta. Not the great P.R. they were hoping for (which would have been very welcome to undo some of the bad P.R. stemming from the church's killing of Lisa McPherson).
I can only really come up with two positives on the film: 1) I don't foresee it leading to mass conversions to Scientology 2) No animals were harmed during the filming of this film (afterwards, many humans were harmed with the showing of this film, and maybe a few man-animals seriously damaged their acting careers due to this movie, but that is another story altogether!)
Had this new maximum speed of bad news been available last year, I could have shown up at a different movie only during the one cool fight scene.
t
That would be the Mission Earth series that was the decatology. Battlefield Earth was a stand alone book.
We won't have to sit through the Academy Awards to hear Travolta's speech.
It doesn't have that annoying little girl from the Pepsi commericials in it. (although she would have made a good Psychlo)
It sets Scientology back 400 years.
No nude Psychlos.
No actual special effects were harmed in filming the movie.
Seeing Denver in ruins may finally get peoples minds off of Columbine.
It was Judge Woodlock, in the US District Court for Massachusetts, with a gavel.
Consider, in the interviews with George Lucas about the original Star Wars movies, he mentions that his first idea was for one big movie, but then he decided that it was too much to cram into one. He then took the idea, divided it up into logical groups, and found that it would be about three movies worth. Of course he had to go and fill in some spaces so that the movies would be about the correct length and be filled with nice extra sub-plots to entertain.
Now try to consider taking Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi and cramming them into one long movie. What subtle ideas would be lost? Would the movie just stink?
The more I think about it, the more I decide that it would stink about the same that Battlefield Earth stank.
What should have been done:
This movie should either have been made into more than one movie with each piece written to stand on it's own but further the overall story, or as a season-long, one-hour per episode television series. I know that a television show that complex would be difficult, but it would offer more time to build the subtle nuances of the characters and story line that one movie can not.
So, to restate, this movie is a fine example of why some stories need either to be in more than one movie, or to be a story-controlled television series.
Thanks.
Cause you can't get a tan from an amber monitor. If you do, there is something horribly wrong.
The porno parody "Battlefield Bedroom" If your into that sort of thing that is.
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
Of course, there are many dozens of inconsistencies in the treatment of technology and of the storyline itself. The book is pretty awful, but doesn't go to quite such lengths of ludicrosity. I believe the movie compressed a couple of years of Johnny Goodboy learning about civilisation, into a single week. I don't recall the humans flying jumpjets (or any kind of aircraft) in the book, to name two of the more glaring sillinesses in the movie.
That was positive, right?
for example:
1)the book did not have Harrier jets
2)The ending could have followed the book better, so that no one knew if the nuclear weapons sent to the other planet had any effect or not.
3)The book did not mention fort hood
4)the book took several years to unfold the story
5)The actual conquest of earth took several weeks in the book, and was by more sadistic means.
6)the quantity and quality of nuclear weapons sent to the other planet (in the book) was far higher, and the planetary crust had be long ago weakened by so much mining that a crust collapse was much more believable
etc. so the writers screwed the pooch, as they say.
Now that being said, it must be said the the cult of anti-scientologists really had a go at it, because I found the uniformity of hate reviews to be a bit to well orchestrated.
on online polls I found that they had a strong spike rating the movies at the worst possible ratings. I would have assumed a spike of rating trying to spike it at ten on a 1 to 10 scale, but this was not nearly the case. It was there a little, but I really did not see any obvious strong attempt to doctor the ratings in a positive direction. so the scientologists at least had that much more integrity than their critics.
taking the obvious fanatic votes out ot the mix (the tens and the ones on a 1 to 10 scale) it rated about a 6, but with very wide spread.
I took it as a hollywood re-write. it was a decent popcorn type flick, and I would imagine it as being decent for kids. An average middle of the road sci-fi shoot'em up, based on ideas by hubbard.
but then again, I didn't have any religious belief that it had to be bad. or good.
it is a pity that some people just like to piss on things. it reminds me of rush limbaughs opinion of hillary clinton.
feh . . . .
almost as bad as the editor flame wars....
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I got a free movie pass so I could see a decent movie!!! (^_^)
...is that it shows people how screwed up Scientology makes you. How messed up does Travolta have to be for using his star power to make this film?
That's an important lesson. Don't join a cult, kiddies, or you'll humiliate yourself on the silver screen
-- dR.fuZZo
It can always serve admirably as a bad example.
:v)
Vik
1)We can now refer to any horrible sci-fi movie as "Wow, that was almost as bad as Battlefield Earth"
2)It gave JonKatz something to bitch about besides the RIAA
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While I'm unsure of the numbers, I certainly hope this bad word of mouth causes this obviously expensively-made movie to lose millions. I for one am fed up with Hollywood making piss-poor movies and hyping them up to no end just to make some decent first weekend cash before the reviews hit the streets.
Hollywood has become less of an entertainment industry than a money making conglomerate. Quality falls by the wayside just to get product out the door in time for whatever "big" weekend is next.
So, the best thing about BattleField Earth is that it will lose millions and hopefully give some of these studios something to think about before they put out more crapola.
Praying for the end of your wide-awake nightmare.
The absolute best thing about this movie has got to be the absence of high profile fast food tie-ins. To the best of my knowledge, neither McDonald's nor Pepsi have touched this movie with a ten foot pole.
What this means is no little kids choking on their Travolta-in-dreads wind-up happy meal toys. No choking means no pesky frivolous law-suits (free publicity for the movie). The absence of such a controversy would definately mean that the movie would disappear from sight faster than Michael Jackson at a youth rally.
Seriously though, I am a little pissed that I couldn't get that Yoda magic 8-ball at any Pizza Hut near my house because they sold out too fast. What really irritated me though was seing Jar Jar crap at every Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut for four months straight!
I actually would have missed out on the best box of Milk Duds I have had in a long time. Usually when I go to theaters the Milk Duds are hard and in worst cases a little powdery white. But these Milk Duds were soft and chewy, I couldn't help but think how good these Milk Duds were through out the movie. If it wasn't for Battle Field Earth I would have missed out on the best box of Milk Duds I ever had. Battle Field Earth brought me and my Milk Duds closer. Sometimes a black and depressing cloud that sucked twleve dollars and fifty cent from my wallet has a silver lining. chk6@paintballjournal.com
I loved how they handled an alien language in this movie. Most often, the Psychlos spoke english so we could understand. Sometimes the Psychlos spoke Psychlos to heighten the tension that the uneducated humans felt. Other times the Psychlos spoke english and Psychlos in the same sentence. It was perfect to create the right mood for every scene.
It showed those DAMN DIRTY APES!! They'll never rule earth!! What movie are we talking about again? - Nachoman
MOO
'nuff said...
I, for one, am deeply comforted in knowing that our weapons systems are as user-friendly as they are. Even people whose previous definition of technology was "rock" can spend a week in a flight simulator and be ace fighter jocks. Something to keep in mind as our public education system continues to deteriorate.
Long live the US of A!!!
So despite the poor execution, a lot of what makes the book so great manages to shine through. Combine that with good special effects and decent action and you've got a pretty good movie.
1. Taste like chicken
2. Goes down smooth and creamy
3. Saved a lot of money using left over Star Trek stuff
4. Understanding the plot hinders the enjoyment of the movie
5. You can learn anything instantly by using a simulator
6. The Best part of the movie is the credits
7. Where else can you get lame writer, weird religion, and a poor movie in one topic
8. Make the movie planet 9 a great movie
9. Make the producers of B movies feel great
Whenever I'm feeling down, I just make up a sentence containing "Travolta" and "acting". I usually laugh a while and then I feel better.
And when he runs around wearing an emu or whatever that was on his head...
Priceless!
I laugh till my belly hurts.
Battlefield Earth was filmed locally in Montreal and it was the most expensive movie ever shot here. This production provided local talent with months of employment and tons of disposable income. As you can imagine, the movie also created lots of revenue-generating opportunities for many local businesses. It's the best movie ever made as far as we're concerned and I can't say enough good things about it.
I actually do feel there was something good about this movie. [Donning flameproof underwear] I, for one, enjoyed it, primarily because I enjoyed the book, which was very good. The one good thing that this movie accomplished was the way they changed very little from the book. The bad part was all that was cut from the book. For example, the end of the movie was probably closer to the middle of the book than the end. There were many things that would have made the storyline much clearer for those who didn't read the book. The cuts were inevitable, though, since they couldn't really make this into a 5-hour movie.
I also feel that a lot of people are making a mistake when they refer to sci-fi "cliches" that Battlefield Earth contains. If you bothered to check, you would see that many of these were created by Battlefield Earth, not just used by it. Just because other movies came out first doesn't mean they were the first to use the storylines.
What I feel is worst about this movie is that it didn't live up to its potential. Half-hearted acting, so-so special effects (described so much better in the novel), and sub-standard fight scenes really detracted from what this movie could have been. I hope that anyone who liked the movie even a little bit will try reading the book. You may be surprised when you see what was really happening in the story.
This review by Vivian Schilling:
`Battlefield Earth' is a Sci/Fi film like no other. From the opening, you're sucked into a fantastical world unto itself, with dark images of giants pitted against the last survivors of the human race. Reminiscent of `Planet of the Apes', with man -- stripped of technology and thrown back to his roots -- `Battlefield Earth' is an epic adventure the whole family will enjoy. Not your run-of-the-mill science fiction film, it delves into man's age old quest for knowledge and the delicate balance of technology versus nature. If you liked the novel, you'll love the movie with its visually stunning and unique approach to the material. It takes Hubbard's characters and colors them with the 21st century in sleek costume designs and state-of-the-art make-up effects. John Travolta as the Psychlo villain looms before us, employing humor in his evil antics so effectively it will make your skin crawl. Barry Pepper proves to be an engaging and likable hero, leading the enslaved humans in a winner-take-all battle for the planet. `Battlefield Earth' is a great escape from the summer heat!
Vivian Schilling Author, Actress and Screenwriter
--
Be insightful. If you can't be insightful, be informative.
If you can't be informative, use my name
Be insightful. If you can't be insightful, be informative.
If you can't be informative, use my name
Ok, lets get off the whole bashing the CoS and Travolta kick and focus (god forbid there be any focus in the slashdot response forums!) on the actual topic. First off, the movie (although undoubtedly not on purpose) trumpts the fact that knowledge is power. If you attempt the seek the truth through research and discovery (as opposed to taking someone else's word for it) you can overcome great adversity. This is probably the movie's most redeeming quality. Also, there is a nice lesson in the movie for anyone who thinks that reversing an easily guessable password makes for a good password. As the movie so richly pointed out, a neanderthal can still guess it. Cheers! teeleton
Battlefield earth is an excellent movie in the "weird stuff to put on TV with the sound turned off" category. I've used that as a tactic at many fine parties to give people something to talk about without interrupting their ability to actually talk. The more disjointed the plotline, the better a movie is for that, and it takes advantage of the things that this movie does best: mediocre makeup jobs and cool explosions.
Just because the acting, scripting, plotline, and causality are worthless doesn't mean the movie has no value whatsoever. Just pull the thing entirely out of context by removing the sound, and you have great video wallpaper.
Mythological Beast
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
I heard enough bad stuff about the movie that I decided not to sneak in and watch it for free when I had a chance. Thus, I was spared having to walk the gauntlet of scientologists that would have greeted me when I entered.
Any movie that keeps me away from scientologists cannot be all bad.
I really liked this one. I say we should have more contests like this (hey /.'s got some money right?). It brings out a really fun atmosphere.
I'm glas to have this opportunity to express how I feel about the movie, and not be physically in danger.
I like some of it.There I said it.
I thought the aircraft scenes where exceptional. I loved the psyclos ships. John travolta is pretty good in respect to the other actors in BattleField earth. Not his best work, but I don't think it's his worst either.
I read the book many years ago, so I knew that it was going to have problems. You don't take a 1800 page book and condence it to 1 movie.
well there it is. I'm going to put on my flame retardent suit now.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
All in all it wasn't a bad story, it just seriously needed editing. From the intro to the paperback, I think that LRH wrote it at a point in his life where either:
he was (unfortunately) able to tell unbiased editors to kiss off, ignoring suggestions completely, or:
his editors were completely incompetent, or:
they published it as-is in order to embarass someone they thought was an overbearing, overrated loudmouth.
A little consultation with an atomic physicist might have been beneficial as well.
The real shame is that this is a book that could have been made into a good movie -very- easily. Contrasted with movies like Starship Troopers and Blade Runner, where there is some kind of deeper message, BE was a simple action plot that seemed perfect for hollywood adaptation. Bad aliens blow up human civilization in order to strip mine the planet, then heroic humans stage a comeback a thousand years later and blow up the alien planet. You have to be trying pretty hard to muck that up.
Rev Neh
... and there is no doubt, that one day he will be
where the eye of his telescope has already been
Before today I would have said nothing about that movie was good. But now I can honestly say "the only good thing about Battlefield Earth The movie is that someone will get a free O'Reilly book out of it." Well that's about the only good thing that came of that movie. Hentai_kun, making perversion a way of life.
It helped to fund CANT, the Cult Awareness Network
designed to help those in trouble with cults.
42
After watching the movie, I did learn a few things:
1) Always encrypt your data. Just putting your video disks in a safe doesn't mean your data is safe.
2) Machiavellian methods always backfire.
3) Reminded us to never leave your guns loaded (something most Americans should learn...)
4) No matter how much money you spend, it doesn't assure you a blockbuster movie.
5) Dispells the notion that bad press is still good because you got press. Really, bad press in excess can turn something that had one or two redeming values into a joke
And the final thing I learned was the dianetics (sp) doesn't work. I don't care how powerful your mind is, you still can't write a better script because of it.
Driven by 100% sarcasm - fueled by the need to be heard.
At least the humans didnt use a Mac notebook to deliver a computer virus to the mothership. I still cant understand if a Mac is that cross platform, why cant it communicate easily with that other peice of alien technology....Windows.
SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0
0 rows returned
Throughout our varied, and sometimes-questionable history, mankind has endeavored to persevere over time, space, and unfortunately - each other. We have explored and discovered that this world is not flat, but a spherical body rushing through space. We discovered gravity, gold, North America, atoms, and other countless wonders which have shaped, edified, destroyed, and advanced our species and our individual lives.
Sometimes, as life must go, mistakes are made. Nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons were made. Rome fell. The hollocaust.
Without tragedy, there could be no triumph. Without sadness, comes static emotion. How can one feel blessed without the lingering reminder of those gone before us that were less fortunate. We are reminded today of those that fought wars and died for their beliefs, their contries, and their freedom. Every step forward yeilds opportunity. Opportunity for unsurpassed success or failure. Ultimately, through time, we have moved forward but not without mistakes and setbacks. The gravest mistake of all would be not to have tried at all. Perhaps today, we should have a moment of reflection and inflection to remember those that have gone before. Let us not forget -
Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and griefs which we endure help us in our marching onward.
-- Henry Ford
With that, let us not criticize, but let us commend those who dare to create. Find the beauty in everyone. Find the beauty in their creations.
I don't remember seeing your name pass by on the credits.
did i win? hello?....hello? Are you there caller? damn.
If you do what you always did, you get what you always got.
All I can say about the movie is that it puts John Travolta and Scientology in a realistic light. That is to say, a bad one. This movie was so unique, I felt like renting Santa Claus Conquers The Martians.
Romanes eunt domus? People called Romanes, they go the 'ouse? It says Romans go home. No it doesn't. What's Latin fo
Battlefield Earth has brought to a close a period of prolonged stagnation which very nearly caused the elimination of the exciting sport of cow tipping from the 2000 Olympic games.
Competitive tippers everywhere have spent weeks perfecting their own personal variations on the new techniques demonstrated by actor John Travolta.
Travolta, an amateur sportsman for whom tipping bovines is only an occasional hobby, says the "Terl" maneuver was originally a fortuitous accident:
The International Bovine Overbalancing Authority (IBOA) has ruled that any armament used in competition must be carried onto the field by the competitor. This rules out the use of F16's or other aircraft. This has generally been considered a positive decision as otherwise, many amateur athletes would have been priced out of the competition.During the Olympic games, look out for the innovative styles that will be employed:
All in all, this looks like an exciting time for sports fans.
pornking
>> is it really that bad?
Yep. It is.
I had to see it on general principle, (the book is really good and L. Ron Hubbard is an exceptional writer,) and I actually had high hopes for it - the story ended right where I thought it would, (the book goes on for another 700 pages after the final event in the movie.) I think anyone who has NOT read the book would be hopelessly lost - the 'setup' scenes do nothing toward explaining the hero's history.
I was terribly disappointed in Travolta's portrayal of the villain, and I didn't find anyone else's performance convincing either. The effects were not note-worthy enough to make the movie worth seeing. Even the music was inappropriate.
It was a very ambitious project, and I admire them for trying - unfortunately they didn't pull it off. I'm sure that there were a lot of people squirming during the premier, and a lot of hasty retreats when (or before) it was over.
If movie prices are as high there as they are here, wait for the video.
Just kidding. I actually enjoyed the flick, it was a couple of hours of mindless entertainment, which is what I was there for in the first place. I didn't go in expecting the greatest sci-fi movie of all time, and so I wasn't disappointed. The explosion of the planet was awesome, and seeing John Travolta get mutilated was well worth the money...
IANAL... But I play one on
and the book
as scary as that may seem!
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I've not seen it- and I've not quite seen a movie yet that has generated this much antipathy for it.
Whooo...I think I'm ever so glad that I didn't go to see it.
(Damn shame for Travolta, too- he'd just shucked off the stigma from the last bad role he had back years ago.)
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I bet I can get a decent pair of Battlefield Earth pajamas on clearance.
Our secret is gamma-irradiated cow manure
Mitsubishi ad
We apologize for the inconvenience.
On that note, the commercials for this movie are hilarious. Have you seen the ones where at the end they proudly echo some reviewer who said that "John Travolta is the new face of evil?" The first time I saw that I thought "New? I thought he's been the mouthpiece of Scientology for years." If anything good has come from this movie it is that quote.
-----
Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
#10: Perfectly functional 1000-year-old military technology shows the quality of good old American engineering.
#9: Reminds us once again that nuclear weapons are necessary because they're the only thing that can destroy the alien homeworld.
#8: Warns us of the ever-present danger of planetary conquest by dimwitted Ferengi with dreadlocks.
#7: Shows that gold really _is_ valuable, even to an alien civilization that has mastered quantum teleportation.
#6: Primitive cavemen's ability to pilot fighter jets shows that declining standards of education will not affect our ability to engage in war.
#5: Actually isn't that much worse than the book.
#4: Money Travolta spent on movie could have gone to Church of Scientology instead.
#3: New technique of tilting camera at odd angle and zooming in and out revolutionizes filmmaking.
#2: Could have been hit by car and killed during two hours otherwise spent outside movie theater.
And finally, the #1 reason Battlefield Earth rules: John Travolta's career is over. Again. Finally. We can hope. (This is a corollary to the #1 reason Pulp Fiction sucks.)
At least the VHS tape and DVD will be thinner than the book was.....
I'm an AIX Systems administrator, and yes I do cry myself to sleep at night....
http://www.xenutv.com/us/mtvawards.htm
Batlock...
Batlock...
Anyone who as ever been part of a local music scene (and is slightly cynical) would rank the first 20 minutes of Ishtar as classic comedy! The film absolutely nails the stereotype of bad musicians who think that they rock hard and will be famous!
I still laugh whenever I go to an open mic night and I see it again and again... and no one has the heart to tell them.
The rest of the movie is only barely entertaining, however. I'll grant critics that much.
---
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
I've been told that the Crutch of $cientology fronted ma$$ive amount$ of ca$h for the production. Assuming it tanks badly, (a fairly safe assumption at this point), the Hubbardites won't be recouping on that investment.
"The axiom 'An honest man has nothing to fear from the police'
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
We *finally* can at least argue as to whether a worse film than "Plan 9 from Outer Space" has been made!
Even if its a joke it is very funny. I never thought about someone doing this to me, but I am sure it is giving people ideas right now.
Rule #364 Log out if you are on someone else's computer.
Rule #365 If you happen upon a Slashdot user logged in be sure to post how much they love Natalie Portman and what they would do to her.
jas
http://packetnexus.com
It helped make Scientology look as stupid as it REALLY is. Duh, lets believe in space aliens.
-Paul
Think about it.. the ONLY thing that is redeeming and good about this film is the fact that it ENDS.. (shudders).. It COULD have just kept going and going and going and.. well you get the idea..
My favourite book into movie flop was/is Dune... great film... too bad Universal fucked up on the distribution.
Price, Quality, Time. Pick none. What, you thought you had a choice?
L. Ron Hubbard isn't alive to read all the bad press...
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
But couldn't get out the words....I think the plot condensation left too much out and that they should have done a Titanic length movie instead of cutting everything out. I read the book in 6th grade and I'm sure I didn't understand everything the book talked about but it is still my #2 fave book.. Thanks spitting it out for me...
"Most of my heros won't appear on no stamps..." Chuck D from Fight the Power
they wear prehistoric, Flintstones-style clothes, but also have time to do dreadlocks
/grown/. If it is 'created,' it would not be considered a dreadlock.
Dreadlocks are
White Vampire\Rem
People might think twice before becoming associated with Scientology after seeing this mess-terpiece. The only thing more bizzare and incomprehensible is "Scientology 8-8008". (Think of "Transylvania 6-5000" applied to Matter, Space, Energy and Time.) For a group of people who claim to have found "the way", you would think that could be a bit more Clear(tm) about it. (But then again, maybe the movie is what was left after the Cult's lawyers got through with it.)
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
Forget who wrote the book and who backed the production of the movie (I personally consider the members of that organization to be sub-humans, so I don't care about the abuses too much). Since the beginning of times, the metal that has meant wealth has always been gold. Nowaday, paper and e-money is used for trading, but gold still retains its value because even if its price goes up or down, it will be there forever, and desired. If a major holocaust was to occur that would destroy our civilization, gold would become again the currency. Gold was the motivation for a lot of the development of humanity for thousands of years. A lot of things have been done with gold in mind. I liked that the aliens were here for the gold. It was like gold was the universal icon for wealth. Although I don't currently own any gold that I am aware of, if I had a room made of one foot thick walls of pure gold, I'd feel rich and powerful even the price of gold went down. Gold is power.
...does anyone remember an old show on The Comedy Channel, which seriously made fun of and reviewed awfully gross and sick movies, and showed clips? I remember they once showed clips of a movie where a guy is pissing through a hole in a fence, and there's a dude sleeping on the other side, who promptly rips the dick off the pissing guy, and then he plays keep-away with a bunch of other people, and they show close-ups of the dick flying through the air...
What was that show called?
Procrastination -- because good things come to those who wait.
after a movie came out featuring him the directors guild decided to change it -- unclear to what. Apparently, in an uncharacteristically honest move, the director's guild will only allow a director to distance him/her self from a movie if they can show it was changed substantially in post-production. And the only name it could be changed to was Alan Smithee.
The movie that broke the camel's back was about a director whose name *was* Alan Smithee, who wanted to get distanced from a movie he'd made. The board said fine. But only to Alan Smithee...
The ultimate joke is that according to IMDB, the movie is so bad that the real life directors would have wanted to be distanced from it too. Too bad, it would have been funny: the movie "Alan Smithee" by Alan Smithee, about Alan Smithee.
Oh well, two out of three's not so bad.
Well, I went into it after having read the book and so I was apalled... The fact that Psychlos had been using humans all along, the multiple teleporters on planet Psychlo, the lack of a really definitive final battle... all points to hate it...
However... for making a 1000+ page book into a 2 hour movie I think they did quite well. The character development for Terl was well done given the time frame, he was made out to be fairly evil... not as evil as in the book, but I'll forgive them based on time restraints. The special effects were good, most noteably the destruction of Psychlo. I did like some of the stuff they added, like the whole scene where Jonny managed to get a weapon and figure out how to use it so quickly... not entirely believeable, but a nice plot point showing how intelligent he was.
My girlfriend went into the movie having not read the book and she was still able to follow it very easily, something that I can't say about movies such as Dune, where, if you hadn't read the book, you would be completely lost. This movie was put out there for this day and age, where very few people will have read the book. It did a good job of introducing the book to people who might be willing to read it, and for that I give it kudos. So, for giving readers a reason to pick up that massive tome that is L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth, I applaud Hollywood.
The chains are broken
Loki is free
Ragnarok is at hand...
One Good Thing (TM) about "Battlefield Earth" -
It is almost certain that the other 9 volumes of ElRon's Magnum Opus will never get to the screen.
Even Travolta's not *that* twisted...
"...they may harpoon us, but they ain't gonna pick us up on no radar screen!"
A big-budget SF bomb keeps Hollywood honest. They often get to thinking that any trash, no matter how bad will be sucked up by the public if enough marketing is put behind it. This discredits that theory. The backfire is that film execs often look at a genre bomb as meaning that that genre's market has dried up, even if the movie was terrible. We'll see.
I'm on page 800 I believe and it is really good. Typical hollywood fuck up. It's no wonder why the movie was terrible, from what I heard only a few things are the same. I haven't seen it but I know of at least these monumental discrepancies:
-humans hijacked psychlo war vehicles such as psychlo battleplanes; only human assault rifles were used, and only on psychlo infantry because bullets could break through the psychlo's glass plating on their breath-gas masks. In the movie the humans used harriers and stuff like that.
-the movie conveniently did not tell the audience that breathgas makes a nice little pop when hit by even the tiniest traces of uranium
-Jonnie never went to DC. He got his idea about rebellion once he started learning about the weaknesses of psychlo technology. Also the scots who faught alongside him were NOT uneducated barbarians the way that katz's description suggests. They were as educated in psychlo technology as jonnie (ie very educated)
-Terl WAS NOT the leader. He was the security chief and he got power beyond that position through blackmail.
-There was no conclusive evidence after the nuke went off to suggest that Psychlo was destroyed, rather quite the opposite!
I haven't seen the movie but if they actually had bothered to use the REAL Battlefield Earth storyline it would have been really good. Also if they did that then Brackish by Kittie would be a very good theme song; it fits the Psychlos very well.
Quite possibly it's because Tom Cruise has (so far) done his best to keep his religion off the screen. Travolta, until this one, has also. And let's face it - had the movie been any damn good, most of the commentary about it would probably ignore the whole $cientology issue.
As if Micheal and Phenomena weren't enough?
There wasn't any Ensign Wussley either.....so it couldn't have been ALL bad!
The Tattoo on the head of the long-tongued woman was the only part I liked. If I ever hear the words "rat brain" again, I may have a reflexive urge to barf.
Battlefield Earth is further evidence of the erosion of small businesses, the loss of freedom of speech, the growth of multinational corporations and the lack of good parking spaces for Mr. Katz. When John wrote this review, he had just walked eight blocks, uphill, in driving toner particle soaked rain to the SlashDot offices.
Along the way he witnessed two men in black step out of a minivan and brutally beat the owner of John's favorite locally-owned department store. The men obviously were sent there by Walmart or Target to run the hapless owner out of town.
Two minutes later, he watched as the last local newspapers' presses ground to a stop. Rumor had it, Time Warner/AOL had bought it out and closed it. But there was no proof as all of the employees were missing.
Finally, he watched as a widow and her 14 children were turned out of their shoe because the woman had no email address to give their landlord; they could not afford Internet access, much less a home computer.
John shook his head and climbed the four flights of stairs to his office. Along the way, he had to hide in the men's room from his new Albanian boss, the one from New York assigned to "cut costs" at SlashDot after their recent assimilation into the corporate world. After hearing the jackbooted footsteps fade away in the hallway, John carefully stepped off the comode and continued to his office.
After tucking his brown bag lunch and plaid Thermos under his chair, he turned on his Apple II and began the seven and a half minute process of booting up. This gave him time to carefully move his chair out of range of the "security" camera installed in the corner of his cubbyhole office. Not too far out of range; his superiors had a history of writing up employees who were not visible at all times.
After reading the eight Post-it notes stuck to his monitor (Email is forbidden for interoffice communication as is all Internet access - too many people wasting valuable company time), John turned and stared out the grime-stained window in his office and looked over the gray, industrial landscape beneath him, choked with homeless refugees, pollution-belching factories, and gasmask clad, baton-swinging, corporate policemen and remembered briefly his boyhood home in Wisconsin. Wisconsin, once beautiful and alive, now a contaminated wasteland after the Green Bay Cheese War of 2006 between Kraft and Philly Cream Cheese.
John's Apple beeped signifying that once again it cheated death and had groaned to life. As he turned to the flickering, green monitor, the light from the single, bare lightbulb in the office, caught a tear rolling down his tired face.
Unconsciously, he wept.
When Stanley Kubrick was a teenager living in New York, he saw all the movies on the RKO circuit. He later said that he didn't know anything about making movies, but *knew* he could do better than that. Bad films gave him the confidence to make his own. He went on to become one of the greatest filmmakers in the history of cinema.
Maybe the next Kubrick was in the audience watching "Battlefield Earth."
I really liked the book... i don't care for mr. hub.. but, my wife wanted to see this film cuz of the main actor.. JT... so i got out of mow'in the lawn... so it was a great film.
'nuf said!
The weapons were pretty cool also. And I couldn't help but appreciate the twist of irony at the end.
-John
It was good enough for SOMEBODY to sit through twice. (Not me!)
Ed Craig "Who cares what you think?" George W. Bush, 4th of July 2001
It's a big conspiracy! And I seriously doubt that statistic.
-Ryan
it stars an Operating Thetan, level III, with powers to control space, time, matter, energy and consciousness beyond that acheived by 'clears', and who has also recieved the L10 course (at $1000/hr) which releases powers that have not been unleashed in this part of the galaxy in a long, long time! Critics of this deeply meaningful and realistically allogorical flick are certainly under the alien mind control influence of psychiatrists or on prozac. This movie will prove to be a milestone in the cleansing of earth from the evil implanted eons ago, leading us toward a time of no pain, no suffering, crime, war, disease or pestilence, a period of universal brotherly love and understanding, and no software bugs.
(all the above gleaned from this)
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I've read through some of the comments, and I have to tell you, these people are following the critic crowd, listening to the popular press telling them what to think about the world they live in.
No matter the volumes Jon Katz writes about how sheepish people are getting in their refusal to think for themselves, they keep coming back with their hollow "aye's" and useless agreement, but doing nothing to examine themselves or their environments. They do nothing to accept the possibility that possibly they're one of the sheep themselves but don't know it.
I went to see Battlefield Earth, and I initially read the book.
There were bad parts. There were plot holes that didn't make much sense to anyone who was seeing the film for the first time. But the movie itself was good. Not excellent. But good. It was worth the matinee price I paid to see it on the big screen with my girlfriend.
There were many things about the movie I liked--certainly the shallow stuff like that long female Psychlo tongue, the bluffs and counter-bluffs, the aerial acrobatics.
But there was meaning in there too, for people who were looking for it. There were many examples. For instance, the suggestion of extinction of the one race that tried to subserve themselves to the psychlos. Doesn't this imply that world-war-II-like appeasement was less useful than "futile" resistance?
The obvious character differences between John Travolta's character and the rest of the Psychlos was interesting--how is it that their star pupil is also the most cruel and conniving? Surely there's room for the viewer's imagination to fill in some blanks here?
The learning machine and how the mistake of overconfidence Terl shows, by allowing the man-animal to learn advanced concepts, leads to the "superior race"'s downfall.
Indeed, it even suggests the apparent futility of rebellion in the cinematography itself--the dark, brooding hallways, the devastated earth structures and buildings, the overgrown amusement parks. The entire era of corporatism, the height of our greatest civilzation in recorded, popular history, was as nothing to these psychlos. It was almost as if they bribed our government officials and promised immense wealth to our selfish so-called upper class elite to take over the planet. Yet individualism and the greatness a human spirit can achieve could do wonders.
There was just too much story to put into a single two hours of film! So, like many (admittedly greater) films released, it doesn't try to explain everything, it doesn't try to imply specific, unbreakable rules of context.
Instead, it allows the viewer to fill in the blanks with stories of their own devising! Like a good entertainment experience, it allows viewer participation in the movie by forcing him to think--"Why is that there?" "What is that creature who is always apologising?" "Why did they ignore the warning signs?" "What the hell just happened there?"
With this participation, suspension of disbelief is easier, distraction by somewhat poorly done giant-vs-human effects is lessened, and the good points about the movie can reach through the sludge and make the viewer think. All good sci-fi does this.
I must admit, I'm biased for having read the novel before seeing the movie. Therefore, perhaps in my mind the plot holes were easily explained by the background I came to the movie theatre with.
It's true that a planet as powerful as the Psychlos should have had checks in place to keep the radioactive material from destroying their homeworld (in the book they did.) It's true that the man-animals should never have learned how to fly harrier jets in just a few days (in the book they didn't).
But what about the rest of it? What about the indomitable will of those few individuals who think noble thoughts? What about the self-doubts of heros? What about the refusal of the truly great spirit to accept defeat and give up?
Like the hacker spirit of today, the outcasts who find their way through the muck and sludge of the modern day world to excel in the eyes of their friends and lovers (the only ones who truly matter,) and like the willpower of the truly good souls who fight for the right and not the might, this movie contains a sense of hope and promise for throwing off the shackles of the greedy corporate interest. This movie helps anthropomorphise our wish for a cleaner, freer time when we won't have to look up at a camera in our midst and wonder why we're being watched.
I found it an enjoyable movie.. I could go on.. but I don't know how much space I've got left.
Also, let me qualify this. I dislike Scientology for what it's done to people like my aunt-in-law. I dislike the power they wield, and I dislike the manner in which they wield it. I dislike dianetics and their sham pseudo-science. And I completely abhore the way cults shut down the centres of reason in their members.
But the readers here on Slashdot are cult members too. Follow the norm! Conform to the views of the almighty Jon Katz and his brethren! Hate Scientology without knowing any facts--allow others to filter information and digest it for you! Keep yourself from finding goodness in the midst of evil!
Bah. Keep spewing forth your little parroted views, your predigested and cliched material, your lack of forethought and logic. I prefer to think for myself, thank you very much. And I liked this film!
Do you suppose the reviewer uses the word "grab-ass" often to refer to screenwriting?
Ceterum censeo Microsoftam esse delendam.
I'm Steve Woston
Yes I'm the Real Woston
All you other Steve Wostons are just imitating
So won't the real Steve Woston...
Please stand up, Please stand up, Please stand up
Cause I'm Steve Woston
Yes I'm the Real Woston
All you other Steve Wostons are just imitating
So won't the real Steve Woston...
Please stand up, Please stand up, Please stand up
--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------
"
Was it just me or were the Psychlo's spaceships (the ones that looked a lot like locusts and were on the poster) pretty darn cool. I mean, good fictional spaceship design is not easy, even some of the ones in Star Wars were pretty bland (eg. Y-wing). But these seemed to convey an air of menace as well as look like actual combat craft might if fuel efficiency and aerodynamics were not reall all that important.
Freedom: "I won't!"
Some of these are legitimate, but I couldn't help tossing a few sarcastic ones in as well.
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.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
I read the book years ago. Took me 9 months. I used it for a doorstop for 8.5 months before picking it up and finishing it. What a waste of time and braincells. I'm still haunted by memories of the stupidity of the book. (I cannot believe anyone would follow a religion invented by this guy!) The good thing about the movie would be that you can find out how bad a story this is in considerable less time than it would take to read the book. Even better, if you were to pay attention to the reviews, you wouldn't even have to waste the time watching the movie!
Don't you think it's time to start communicating?
This movie will be associated with a certain cult and will cause drastic drops in membership.
Battlefield Earth, the movie, is an excellent learning experience for Hollywood. Now that her latest attempt at taking a rich and detailed (and most importantly thinking instead of acting) book of epic length to the screen has failed, I don't think she'll be trying it again. This means we won't see any more intelligent authors ripped apart on the big screen. Hooray!
I don't know if this has been said yet, but I think BE may be the basis for a good drinking game.
* "Leverage" = one drink
* Every time Travolta laughs maniacly = one drink
* Whenever "Man-animals!" is heard, the last person to echo with "Rat-brain!" must drink twice.
I'm sure you can come up with more...
By the way, I should warn you that drinking while watching this movie may result in nausea. Then again, watching the movie without drinking will result in even more nausea.
I also have to agree with the post that the movie wasn't entirely bad. The air conditioning was pretty good.
W
-------------------
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This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
It kept John Travolta busy so he couldn't ruin another movie that actually has some potential.
... voices murmur, "What's the Anaconda scale?"
It's the number of times I'd rather see Anaconda (everyone's favorite snake-bashing flick starring John Voigt, Jennifer Lopez and the interminable Ice Cube... also another of the worst movies ever made) than said movie.
---
---
"how can the same street intersect with itself? i must be at the nexus of the universe!" - cosmo kramer
Yes, it's true... I really liked watching this movie. If you disregard all the filming techniques and just sit there and follow the story then it is very possible you will enjoy it as well. Forget all the FUD about scientology, why must everything be turned into a philosophical debate? I have never read an L. Ron Hubbard book but I definately respect the writing in this movie... so some of the stuff was a little hookey, and some of the character development left a little to be desired, but keep in mind that this was originally a book with lots more space to develop the plot. This movie has a lot of similarities with the movie the 13th Warrior which was adapted from the Michael Crichton book Eaters of the Dead. Both movies were fun to watch and had some really interesting stuff to be found in them. But people get caught up in all the technical downsides to the movies and forget that you are supposed to relax and enjoy yourself. You cant expect every movie you watch to be a Citizen Kane or a Pulp Fiction... stop obsessing over the little things and look at the big picture
This movie sucked BIG TIME. Worse than "Convoy". Worse than "Maximum Overdrive". WORSE, even, than "Nightfall" and "Superfuzz" combined. However, I MUST give kudos to Forest Whitaker. The man took rotten lemons, and still managed to make drinkable lemonade out of them. Not GOOD lemonade, mind you, that would have been impossible, but drinkable. He played the role given to him with more talent than anyone could have asked for. The subtlety in the look on his face when Terl said he knew Ker would never doublecross him because he had leverage was astounding. You could read on his face that he was thinking that he wouldn't doublecross Terl because it would be wrong, and you felt his confusion when he saw that Terl felt there needed to be more reason than that. And that was just ONE example of his brilliant performance in this movie. So there's your answer.
:::The Spear in the heart of the Other is the Spear in the heart of You; You are He - Surak of Vulcan:::
They say that to truly appreciate happiness, you must first experience pain. So too, in order to truly appreciate a good film, you must first live through an agonizingly bad one first. Where Battlefield Earth truly succeeds where many others have simply sucked, is that after watching it you begin to appreciate other supposed turkeys like Waterworld much more. In fact, the experience--while extremely unpleasant--reduces the "Historical Turkey List" by quite a bit, meaning that with one simple viewing, many of history's worst films become good ones!
http://www.haighworld.com
Obviously Katz identifies, on a very deep and fundamental level, with the movie
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
I haven't see this movie so I think it was amazing -- where's my book?
John Travolta has convinced me once and for all that dreadlocks do not look good on white people. This is relevant to me, because I was considering letting my hair grow long and, well... you get the idea.
[ maur_at_technologist.com ] "For a sufficiently powerful message,
[ http://maur.litestep.com ] the medium is irrelevant."
The best thing about the movie is that now Katz can say he published one article on slashdot without being flamed mercilessly
Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose
(10) John Travolta finally learned the "Evil Laugh" (Bwahahahahaha)
(9) Confirmed that the Marines were right to buy British : them Brits made really good fighter jets
(8) Critics reviews were hilarious and more entertaining than many movies....and you get to read them for free!
(7) Has made all other cheesy B-grade sci-fi movies into a joy to watch.
(6) Made Tom Cruise left the theatre in disgust, and vow to leave the Church of Scientology....to make the equally ridiculous MI2.
(5) Scientologists who recycled Hubbard's books to push it into bestseller lists now HAVE to watch this godawful thing again and again to push it into the Box Office lists.
(4) Made the next fashion statement : dreadlocks!
(3) Will spawn the next Jane Fonda video "How to Train a Grunting Monkey into a Top Fighter Jock....in One Week!"
(2) Reassure the people of the US that Fort Knox IS really secure.
(1) Refer to Dianetics by L.Ron Hubbard, page 169.
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
ahahaha, if anything deserves the prize that does!
It's the first Sci-Fi movie in 5 years that I didn't have to fight with my wife to get to watch.
Of course, I didn't want to watch it...
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
And that's not a bad thing.
blessings,
Master Bait
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
Confusious Say: "The worst day fishing, is better than the best day of work"
Translation:
The worst sci-fi is better than a chick flick, or any one of those "Track the 30 year old high school seniors through those awkward last few weeks of school" movies...
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
ehm well how can John Travoltamake a movie like that i dont know but "Alien Arsenal" is worse and so is spacetrukker but still John Travolta in a scifi finaly but this bad ehm john do you need mony?...
Dezral
At any rate Battlefield Earth deterred John Travolta from becoming our token all-powerful furor - an inevitable consequence of the glorification he has received in recent years combined with the grotesque appreciation some people still have for bad big-fat-Italian-guy disco (note: though some will argue he wasn't really fat back then, he was Italian). Imagine, a world completely ruled by Travolta. Endless greasy-haired gangster impersonations, L. Ron Hubbard worship, not to mention leisure suits as far as the eye can see. Just think of a utopia in which we were all transformed into earnest, Herman-Munster-like automatons bent on finding the ultimate 'tune' in which to shake our proverbial 'groove-things' to.
There you have it my friends, Battlefield Earth was a success! If you still don't think so, I'm sure the good Scientology people will be happy to enlighten you in regard to this matter for a small fee, or provide several years of unrelenting harassment at no charge.
What's so great about Battlefield Earth? Copies of the movie can be burned for warmth.
What other movie has featured women with three feet long, prehensile tongues? That rocks!!!
Support TSCBS world domination Visit http://www.tscbs.org
The best part is that we are practically gauranteed that a sequel will not be produced!
Computers don't make mistakes. What they do, they do on purpose.
Thus, the stories that get the eyeballs, that look at the ads, that increase ad sales, that increase revenue, that provide the execs with something to report to the shareholders, will be the stories that get posted.
Stirring up this BE thread is just a way to get the eyeballs.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Hey, at least it sucked some money out of Scientology's PR mill. Better yet, it was an embarassing money suck for them.
If design is not Bauhaus, it is Baroque.
Sheesh. Woo. Something stinks...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
The average filmgoer will probably be put off by some of the more obvious failures in this film, but anyone who knows anything about film production would have to agree that the Gaffer (person who tapes down wires on set) did a superb job, arguably the finest example of gaffing in motion picture history.
L. Ron Hubbard would have loved it.
(Ain't it nice to make an old guy happy?)
S.
The best thing about this movie was that it taught us all exactly what NOT to do when writting a movie.
They're not, that's why.
The single biggest land owner in the United States is the United States Federal Government. Thanks for playing, though. Enjoy your copy of the home game.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
But let us not forget the sublime Yor: The
Hunter From The Future
Thomas S. Howard
Hey, The best thing bout this movie was the trailer.. it showed me how bad the movie was without having to see it Chris
But U guess that means they'll be forking over another hundred grand to the CoS to get clear again. So maybe it's not a good thing.
Edith Keeler Must Die
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Before the movie came out, I heard a rumor that they were already filming the sequel. That made sense to me - the book is *huge* (1000 pages in paperback) and there is no way to do that in a whole 2 hour movie. So I figured that they were doing the first half of the book as the first movie, and the second part of the book as the second movie.
I thought the book was so-so. However, they did make the movie out of the best part of the book. The second part explains why the Psyclos wanted the gold - to pay off the debts of the Earth invasion plus other invasions. Then the humans destroyed the Psyclos (sorry for the spoiler - didn't think anyone would care, though), so the humans inherited the debt. So what did the humans do? Well, get the surviviors from Luxumberg to help! You see, they are bankers, so they know how to fix the problem.
So my entry is - at least they made the movie out of the good part of the book.
This contest is totally unfair to those of us who are still boycotting the MPAA!! I mean, we are not supposed to be giving money to the overbearing, scum sucking, lawyer using, freedom bashing motion picture companies and their affiliates!!!
So instead of describing one good thing about Battlevile Earth, I will describe one good thing about the boycott. At least I did not pay to see Battlefield Earth!!!
"A sample size of one is really just statistical masturbation."
I sincerely doubt the possibility of a sequal.
Because every generation needs it's own "Plan 9 from Outer Space".
john
Imagine all the people...
Hubbard, in a typical male testosterone "anything you can do, I can do better" fit made a bet with Heinlein that he could start his OWN cult religion, but would be much larger and make major hollywood movies.
And thus Scientology was born, as a joke between two crusty old Sci Fi writers.
See, the thing about "Battlefield Earth" -the book- was that L. Ron used the narrative to set up a state of susceptibility to Scientology - like, say, a feeling of repugnance towards psychologists and "security" types. It was intended to be subtextual and sort of insinuate its way into your own personal feelings. Of course, after I read it 20 times or so, it was pretty obvious. "Mission Earth" was even more obvious.
In the movie, there was no room for the noxious subtext. It was so shallow that you can't bury anything in there. It's like a catbox with no litter. That way, you can see how full of crap it is.
Rob
Ce n'est pas un vrai mouvement de robot!
The money spent did not fund a new Paulie Shore film.
Seeing *that* melon-head get snuffed would be worth $15. He makes me laugh, in the worst way..
Otherwise, the cosmic balance is disrupted and we all get sucked into the void.
-- Michael Lee Martin
Its copyright doesn't expire for 90 years.
-------- This space intentionally left blank --------
Well, it didn't make any money to support Scientology, it did lose money right?
We get to see John Travolta's last movie.
You get to stand in line and watch the faces of those coming out of the theatre.
Wondering why his karma dropped about 10 points overnight, without any of his posts being moderated:
Dan
Ahh. I used poetic license. I intentionally spelled it Battlevile. Where "vile" means something horrible/bad/evil.
By the way. You spelled HA HA HA HA HA wrong. Where are your spaces?
"A sample size of one is really just statistical masturbation."
Yes, verily! I have found the aforementioned good point thou all wish to hear.
(I fully well know that this could have been said before in such a big forum, but I AIN'T reading all of the comments, having a phone bil and all)
But!
This film is good because it further heaps a steaming pile of nads onto the name of Scientology.
I'm not a bigot, or someone who hates certain religions of philosophies, but scientology is a bastard breed of ideas that benefit only those who get the money, that causes pain and suffering to those who follow it.
I'm going off the testimony of former Scientologists here, by the way!
So, anything that makes it look bad is good for everyone! (It says on my cereal packet).
TOM
It's not what you do, it's why you do it.
just to turn this around a bit . . .
can anyone think of anything good to say about jon katz, personally i think he works as a concept, and hey people need an entry point, pity he seemed to have missed the brevity/wit class. the person coming up with the best answer can send me the o'rielly book of my choice btw so get your brain caps on!
~ppppppppö
The entire film was released, tanked and disappeared while my son was out of touch and unable to see it. He was having a much better time where he was than in a movie theaster. He is at Parris Island Marine Corps boot camp.
IICat>>>>>
I say that we have been in dire need of Battlefield Earth for a long long time...
Now we have a new benchmark to judge future bad movies. BE can equal -10 and Citizen Cane (The Matrix? Or the like) can eqal +10...
Battlefield Earch = -10
Wing Commander = -9.8
... And so on.
Still #1 -- Lonely Gay Geek
Here's an account of the event (supposedly with some Real Audio video of Steve Hassan handing the book back to Travolta).
The best thing about the movie: It ends.
{} ------ When I think of a good sig, I'll put it here
One good thing I found was that when the aliens begin to instruct the protagonist (forgot his name) they mention math and how it is the universal language, etc. Any movie that might encourage others to see math as a good thing is a redeeming quality. Of course they screwed up and mentioned Euclidean Geometry as one of the things taught. Wouldn't aliens call it something else since they would never attribute something so important to a man-animal? The really bad thing about the movie was the way women were portrayed. As usual damsel in distress. And all the "boys" got together to grunt in a cave and save the world. How cliche. I bet Sigourney Weaver would have kicked alien ass faster and slicker.
------------------ Yes, I am a geek.
given today's post-modern mindset, where everything is deemed chaotic and art is meant to simply resonate the chaos all around us, the movie typifies/embodies a pseudo-existential notion that there is no meaning to be had in anything, particularly a person, place, or event; e.g. the person is John Travolta, a JC figure of staggering proportions of late, considering his come-back, the place is the Hubbard Fictional Universe, now further desecrated, and the event is the movie BATTLEFIELD EARTH itself, considering the bombardment of hype from Hollywood theaters and the inevitable let-down. So BATTLEFIELD EARTH is Modernity's child.
After Battlefield Earth, Travolta probably no longer has the clout to get his other other pet project into theaters...the movie version of Altas Shrugged.
I don't know how you can claim that /. has a monopoly on "real news" anyway because it mostly just links to articles written for other sites.
/. special is the discussion that comes after each link. It almost always makes me reconsider SOMETHING I thought about the article/issue/whatever. And the selection of other articles off the net is pretty cool too. If you don't like the current selection of articles /. is giving you now, why not change your site preferences to make it more geeky/hardcore/katzfree/etc. (I fully realize I am about the 9 billionth poster to suggest this to someone but the way some people bitch it really just must not be getting through.)
/.? Its like when Letterman asked GW Bush "What does that mean, anyway: you're a uniter, not a divider??" And GW replied, "Well Dave, it means I like to...unite. I don't...divide." Or words to that effect. Meaningless.
I'd say what makes
I don't know HOW you can say this article is not pro-Slashdot. I mean, what does that mean, exactly? That it's against the idea of slashdot, or the actual incarnation, that it causes you to want to pass a law against
ooky
"Look brain: you don't like me, and I don't like you. Let's just do this quick and then I can get back to killing you with beer."
"Deal!!"
First, man has gotten back to nature. Must be something good about that.
Secondly, we have evolved neurologically to the point where the "man on the street" can go from illiteracy/stone age tools to piloting Harrier jump jets with less than a week of training. That sounds pretty good to me.
Bravo L.R.H! The evolutionary optimist!
Like reading all of the sarcastic funny slashdot comments. Gotta love it. Well, I haven't seen it, but, EVERYONE everywhere says its horriable. So, the good thing is, I can stop hearing about that little spainish kid in cubia. Damn, give it up already.
until (succeed) try { again(); }
They didn't do a LRH cameo ala Hitchcock.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
I had to think long and hard about this one. But I think I have finally come up with an answer. Sure, Battlefield Earth sucks -- we have established this. But the sheer magnitude of its 'suck-factor' is what is truly worthy of praise. We should be commending this glorious piece of Hollywood trash that makes us appreciate every other film that has a shred of entertainment value. Strange things happen whenever the public get's too comfortable with decent films. They actually start to forget what a truly BAD film experience can be. Lately, every film that has been in the theatres is about the same quality, you can't help but to get bored with the mediocrity. Even if a film is 'not that great', it isn't really horrible either. The whole situation is depressing -- It takes away from the excitement of a really GOOD film experience. The one redeeming quality the Battlefield Earth has is that it makes us appreciate all the other films we would otherwise take for granted.
BE was the inspiration for Angelina Jolie's haircut in GISS. It saved her from thinking too hard about her hair. So that's good, for her anyway.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
I am a dianetic auditor. As many of you know Dianetics auditing handles losses, pain, grief and nausea. BE manages to produce all of the above, thus my Dianetic practice has been running overtime handling traumatized BE viewers. If you want help from the trauma of viewing BE you can contact me at Ward 17, Shining View Psychiatric Hospital, the Blue Whale, LA. Cal.
I hear they're looking for new ways to put spin on the whole "Oh, well, we've got FSAA too" thing that 3dfx is really spanking them with.
The best thing about Battlefield Earth is the lessons it teaches Hollywood.
There is not a legion of die hard Travolta fans.
There is not a legion of die hard sci-fans.
There is not a legion of die hard L.R.Hubbard fans.
You cannot make a "big name movie" on the actor alone.
You cannot make a "big concept movie" on the genre alone.
You cannot make a "big name movie" on the source material alone.
The value of a movie is grounded in the quality of the script. No matter how many "neato" concepts, ideas, or explosions are thrown in the mix it is the quality of the script that matters.
Beyond the script the production values that are simply making sure that the script is followed and presented clearly.
Every producer in Hollywood should be forced to watch Battlefield Earth until they swear never to make a movie without a good script.
Every director in Hollywood should be forced to watch Battlefield Earth until they swear never to make a movie without a good script, and not to mess with the script unless they make it better.
Every actor in Hollywood should be forced to watch Battlefield Earth until they swear never to make a movie without a good script, and not to mess with the script unless they make it better.
Unfortunately there are always those producers, directors and actors that will think, and state in public that scripts like those of Battlefield Earth are good.
The one lesson for Hollywood is that there is no accounting for taste. Especially the taste of those denizens of Hollywood who are wrapped deepest in the glow of the place.
What Hollywood needs is more NO men.
The only prize I'd want to for seeing that stinking ass movie is my loot back.
Battlefield earth provides today's youth with a cultural reference point for bad. And let's get that clear, BE was bad. Fortunately, it was also big, and therin lies the benefit.
When people need an example of an out-of-control, runaway, nightmare of a production, we now have the perfect example, understood by anyone. For example, "Not only was my date last night bad, it was BATTLEFIELD EARTH bad."
Thank you, John Travolta.
By George, I think we've found our winning horse!
Katz---give the prize to this one!
-Julius X
-Julius X
remove "-whatkindofspamdoyoutakemefor-" from email to send
I cannot, in good conscience, call this a horrifyingly gut-wrenchingly bad movie. There are, for certain, pretty mountains and color in this film. The Psychlos, like we expect any race who develops light years away from us, drink some really cool-looking mixed drinks, copulate like humans (it is assumed, as oral sex apparently had its values per Terl's "assistant"), live in structures like humans, but apparently can't seem to make an association between the two. Ordinarily, this would be a gap in logic to ruin a movie, but in this case, an already ruined movie was saved by some really stupid idea to make it by far the most mentally handicapped movie since "The Twonky"- this no longer makes the movie bad, but makes it a camp phenomenon. In fifty years, teenagers will still be going to see this film in the theater while dropping acid and crossdressing, throwing glow sticks and dressing up as Terl. In short, this movie, reminding us all of the original Evil Dead, is so horribly bad that it's actually good. I am hoping for an "Army of Darkness" type sequel where Terl travels back in time to find himself the victim of sexual assault while in jail (for soliciting crack from an undercover officer), and the tear-jerking tale of how he got his Psychlo-hood back by a intense physical regimen of working out a la "Rocky" and his seduction of a prison guard. The final chapter of this saga will actually be quite smashing in that Terl finds out his father was a wife-beater while in counseling with the prison psychologist.
I have thought about this alot and while I haven't actually seen battlefield earth, I have decided that the three worst movies recently made are thus: 3. Wing Commander - maybe if I had played the game more I would have understood it, but the realationships between cahracter are just so stupid. 2. Mortal Kombat II - Can't get much worse than this, I don't what is worse the acting of the fact that the previous actors didn't even come back. 1. Omega Code - Holy crap what who would pump money into this thing?
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
After all the hyping of the movie, I went out and read the book! It took me three days to get through the 1000 pages, but it was worth it. After finishing the first 100 or so pages, I relized the only way the movie could be like the book is if it was 6 or 7 hours. Actually the book is long enough for three movies. Where to stop one and start the other though is a mystery.
...unfortunately, the margins of this slashdot comment box are too narrow for it to fit completely in it.
Where else have you seen people grunting like monkeys while flying Harrier's. Oww Oww Owww Fox 3. missle away. Oww Oww Oww
I'm surprised at the negative reaction to Battlefield Earth. Certainly it is not great art, certainly it isn't an intricate and thought-provoking film. But it never claims to be. It is simple explosion-based entertainment, and at this it succeeds. There is nothing wrong with action films; they have their place in cinema every bit as valid as intelligent thrillers or intricate drama or slapstick comedy. All too often Hollywood makes the mistake of chickening out of pure spectacle-based entertainment and tries bolting on an ill-conceived "intelligent" subtext - look at Independence Day, or to a lesser extent, The Matrix. If you want to include a political or social message, you should make damn sure it holds water in its own right before spoiling an otherwise acceptable piece of entertainment. I went into Battlefield Earth with low expectations, and I found them not merely met, but exceeded. There was one worrying moment, when our charicature alien overlord leads our muscular hero to the library of congress. "Read any book you like", he says, "We defeated your human armies in nine days; there is nothing you can learn here which will help you to overthrow us." This is when the feeling of dread overcame me. Oh god, I thought, he's about to find the declaration of independence and the whole film is going to turn into conventional Hollywood pap about how freedom is some special secret to which only Americans are privy, and it'll turn into some ridiculous gung-ho Independence Day style abomination. And indeed, in the next scene, he is seen looking at that very document. But that was it. For such a base film, the creators at least credited their audience with a smear of intelligence. No more was said of the incident. It affected the characters in all the ways we knew before the start of the film they were going to be affected, without ever turgidly rubbing our noses in how lucky we, the audience, are to be American. Independence Day this film is not. In this context, the glaring plot holes (aliens are mining the planet for resources, but haven't bothered taking the gold we've already mined; flight simulators and advanced weapony still work first time with no maintenence or electricity; cavemen can learn to fly Harrier jump-jets in a week) become irrelevant. This is not a film which attempts to depict a realistic future ("Aaaah. Do you see the point we're making? Shall we explain it again for you?"). It is a film which presents entertaining fantasy in richly grim cinematography and big satisfying explosions, and never once insults the audience by claiming it's trying to do anything else. I saw the film in the same week as I saw Gladiator, and the contrast was stark: Gladiator is pure bread-and-circuses gory entertainment with a tacked-on ending about how great it is to die and go to Hollywood Heaven, presenting itself as an intelligent action film while completely failing to explore the (I thought) central idea that the film itself belongs to a category of entertainment which fulfills exactly the role of the original mob-pleasing blood-and-guts at the colloseum - by raising your hopes that intelligent issues will be raised, it hopelessly falls by not following through. Battlefield Earth has no such pretensions, and it succeeds admirably. I left the cinema entertained and happy to have spent a couple of hours with my brain unashamedly offline and immersed in schoolboy fantasy. Don't knock it.
Which means that one of the underhanded, sneaky, and censorship ridden movement in recent history must of lost a lot of money folks.
And if that's not a good thing, I don't know what is - grin
Pug
This has been a test of the Slashdot Broadcast Network . . .
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
I'd have to say the true redeeming feature of Battlefield Earth will be its release on DVD. Someday, perhaps in our not-too-distant future, AOL could conceivably end production of CD-ROMs (after every Bubba dumb enough to sign on already has done so).
On that day, millions of unsold Battlefield Earth DVDs will be released from secret government warehouses, to ensure that the American people shall never want for coasters.
The movie can be enjoyed. All you have to do to make the movie enjoyable is to relate the story to real life. Imagine the Aliens that are only concerned with gaining gold as being Microsoft. Then imagine their leader as Bill Gates. Next you have the small guys that are joining together to defeat the ugly mean giants; these guys are all of us Linux geeks. Now the movie is not so bad. The ending becomes great. All you have to do is put the proper characters in the plot.
Of course sciance is a busness, at least, you can make a lot of money doing it, thats for sure...
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
It was considerate of them to have the first Psychlo killed sound a bit like Worf.
If it wasn't for the fact that the three of us who attended were able to tell each other "That first Psychlo that got killed - he sounded a bit like Worf, didn't he?" the otherwise silent walk back to the car park might have been embarrassing.
-[z].
I knew that this movie would suck raw rotten ostrich eggs just from the previews, but I saw it anyway. Why, because someone else paid. Why else?
The thing that I was repeatedly surprised about, pleasantly, I might add, was that the gore and violence quotient was quite low. When they blew people's heads and other appendages off with the explosive collars and other munitions, I expected to see gruesome displays of not-so-special effects. They were not there. Even with the rats being used as food: not particularly gross or disgusting. They just waved them in each others faces.
The movie was excrutiatingly painful to watch, and I guffawed loudly many times, but it wasn't as bad as, say, "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" or "Fraternity Vacation." No, really.
The best thing about the movie is that Scientology probably lost money making it. (They didn't get my money either - I paid for a ticket to the wrong movie.) The second best thing about the movie is that after seeing it you can withstand most anything. From now on, every time I see a terrible movie I'll be able to say, "Well, at least it's not Battlefield Earth." "Manos: The Hands of Fate" Is a thrill-a-minute masterpeice by comparasin. MST3K will never do this movie. They decided not to do Plan 9 From Outer Space because it was "too easy". BF:Earth is even easier.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
we didn't like 5th Element, either (IN GENERAL)
Really? I've never met anyone who didn't enjoy 5th Element - it was awesome..
Are you saying that you didn't like it, or that you know lots of people who didn't?
I agree that you could spend more time talking about what is wrong with the movie than movies actual running time. However you wanted one good thing about the movie... The "Tongue" on the female alien. I have never so before wanted to be a character in a horrifically bad sci-fi movie... but I sure did then.
*A)bort, R)etry, I)nfluence with large hammer.*
This movie would make a great substitute for sleep. The plot was exceptionally hollow (My dreams tend to have more substance). With the special effects it was almost like I was asleep and having an extremely confusing dream. This movie would make anyone feel better about themselves and their lives and maybe even their job security. I mean hey at least you don't make stuff that is that crappy.
It's amazing how spiritual an elaborated beer commercial can be. -- Philip K. Dick
The only good thing I can think of is that some day, some where, people will dress up like Travolta and watch the stage version of this awful mess for kicks.
Lets do the Tiiiiime warp agaaaaaain!
...we have something else that Judge Jackson can use as a punitive measure against Microsoft: making Bill watch this movie if they ever, ever make another monopilistic move again.
Also note: its not unusual punishment anymore to make someone watch this movie - millions have already seen it. Cruel is a different matter.
http://www.clambake.org/
... the MPAA can't use this movie as an example of "lost profits from digital pirates". It was so bad, the juarez monkees couldn't even stomach the entire movie to make a rip of it :)
I learned that it takes cavemen a week to learn to fly Harrier VTOL Jets! Stupid cavemen.
And how exactly are you going to give the book to someone who we don't even know who it was?
A.C. could very well have been me...
But I agree with you, this has to be the best reason ever.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
According to http://us.imdb.com/Ratings?0185183 females under 18 rated it higher than all the other social groupings.
Average rating: 2.6/10
Females under 18: 4.7/10
The sample size (11) is not statistically relevant but it is a good sign.
[This space intentionally left blank]
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Actually, Lenny Bruce made a really good point about this. Catholicism wants to bring in the poor, unwashed, huddled masses. If you're some guy who lives in a dump of a house, you aren't going to want to go hang out at a dump. You're going to want to go somewhere with alot of land, and beautiful stained glass.
-Dusty Hodges
I'm no scientologist - I live in Largo, Fl, justa few miles from the hideous HQ in the Ft. Harrison Hotel, and man, those are some bad people.
:)
I may flamed alive for this but this is my honest opinion of the movie.
It _was_ a bad movie. The director was way over his head and clinging to a bunch of outdated or stolen visuals cribbed from Blade Runner and Dune. The plot was so laughable its impossible to start in on the inconsistencies.
That said..
this was a far better movie than phantom menace - because if you accepted the insane leaps - hawker harriers that work after a thousand years, a caveman who can read intact books and maps in the Denver and Congress Libraries, etc. etc. then it was relatively fast paced story with strong characters.
To my mind this movie was like a very good Doctor Who episode - my favorite Sci Fi show growing up. It had countless cliches shared with Dr. Who - the money grubbing aliens, the humans enslaved to randomly carry rocks - beams of light that make you smart, etc. Put an eccentric english gentleman next to Johnny ad you have a ring-dinger of a Tom Baker Episode.
Dr. Who fans ae on their way to kill me.
So - this movie reminded me of Dr. Who and its pathetic plot holes made me laugh my ass off. A good time was had! I am going to see it again when it hits our dollar theater.
-Walter
According to the IMDB ratings, http://us.imdb.com/Ratings?0185183
1032 out of 2060 people rated it the worst. 1/10
BUT!
257 slightly unusual people rated it the best. 10/10
There were two good things in the movie in my opinion. The first is the fact that the movie gave the impression of utter contempt and disregard for humans that was present in the book, especially how Terl acted. Secondly the scene with the rat is similar to the book and tremendiously funny. "Look he's eating rat. He must love rat, its the first thing he found and ate..." or something along thoes lines.
"The anwser to the ultimate question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is... 42" -Douglas Addams
If you want to see how bad a movie can really be, you'd be better off going to see "I Dreamed of Africa". It has my vote for worst direction, and thus worst acting of 2001 by far (Mission to Mars still wins for worst editing).
I was pleasantly surprised by Battlefield Earth actually. I was prepared to see the worst creation ever put to screen, but actually came out quite satisfied. Would I see it twice? No chance. But it's wasn't bad.
Critisism of goodness (or "how they could have made it worse"):
1. Special effects were pretty seamless. Big no-no. If you're going to have special effects, they'd better be Flesh Gordon quality.
2. Acting. Although plagued with a horrible script, the acting was consistently bearable. They could have deteriorated this by bringing in a silly side-kick for Barry Pepper. Jake Lloyd or Rob Schneider would have fit.
3. Cheezyness. Besides a few cuts of Gouda, the movie wasn't that cheezy in general. Jar Jar Binks or an old crazy scientist would have helped. Also, none of the bad guys melted from the radiation. Bad... bad.
4. The Harrier battle. This was pretty cool. Since it was so believable that they taught themselves how to fly a harrier in 10 days (or whatever it was), they should have stuck some Apache helicopters in there too. A sub coming down the river would have added that special touch.
7) The film had sound, images and color ... though not necessarily
in that order.
6) The pot smoking dude in the front row of the movie theater
appeared have had a good time.
5) One had plenty of opportunities during the film to go to
the snack-bar or bathroom.
4) It was only based on a book by L. Ron Hubbard.
3) It contrasted well with the coming attraction previews
shown just prior to the film.
2) While set in the year 3000, there was little concern over
the Y3K bug.
1) It served as an interesting warm-up double-header to the
midnight showing of ``Rocky Horror''.
0) The film was not wound in an infinite loop. There was a
definite point in time when the film was no longer playing.
chongo (was here)
READ THIS:: First Aid kit:: Oh guys...The movie could have been worse...I couldn't see the zippers on the Kiss hightops. Oh wait. Yeah I could. Anywho, I bought the tape blindly (without seeing the reviews/movie)...but by some freak accident, a plane crashed in front of my car on the way home from my local video retailer, and about 20 people survived, all breaking their left leg...I simply ripped apart the tape (which i would probably would have done anyway) and found that the tape is surprisingly sturdy. I splitned all their legs with plane schrapnel and TADA! A more the GOOD THING TO SAY ABOUT THE MOVIE!! *phew*
-Swift
...is that a single viewing (further experiments needed to assess the effect of multiple viewings) will not induce lasting deep tissue damage in the viewer.
After seeing this movie all other movies seem far far superior making our lives richer in total simply by taking the time to broaden our spectrums.
imagine if every movie (other than batlefield earth) was an oscar winner!
of a bad example; so that those that do not know what a good example is; will know what a good example is, by a good example of a bad example.
"Open code, in other words, can be a check on state power." -Lawrence Lessig
just adding another vote and wasn't the MST3K movie riffing on "This Island Earth"? It would make a nice matching sequel. (but please bring back Joel and the original robot voices - one last time, for the movie!)
-------
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"It was people! People soiled our green!"
The best thing I can say about the movie?
* I didn't go see it.
You can't take the sky from me!
There is something special about seeing an awful horror or sci-fi flick in a drive-in. I saw "Tron" in a drive-in during it's original run, and there is something about it that causes my friends to nod in appreciation whenever I boast about it. The odder thing is that I can boast about it. There is some mystic, nostalgic coolness that follows me around, because I did what the wish they could have done or, more accurately, what they wish they could do now.
It wouldn't mean anything if drive-ins weren't an endangered species, but the rise of the movie omniplex have doomed the very big screen to extinction.
But if I gain a rung (albeit a small one) on the social ladder for seeing Tron when a drive-in was in every self-respecting town, watching Battlefield Earth in a drive-in in the very twilight of this american icon's existance, will gain you much more.
You will be cool for doing it, oh yes, but you will also be among the last to use the drive-in for what it was meant for--turning otherwise worthless cinema into a good time. 20 years down the road, when your children see a movie that features a drive in, you will be able to tell the you were there on a blanket next to your car with a lover or friends, and say from experience that it was all it was cracked up to be.
That is the value in Battlefield Earth.
I've still been known to pick up a MAD magazine now a then because I want to be entertained.
MAD is art. So's Battlefield Earth, both the book and the film. Two happen to be art that sucks. You do the math.
-jpowers
-jpowers
I can pretty much agree, that battlefield Earth sucked a**. But, I can see the finer points of the movie. There were, of course, a couple good special effects thrown in there, but nothing that couldn't have been done on Star Trek back in the early 90's. A couple things that did stand out, was the message it sent about the human race. It makes one patriotic. Not so much to their country, but to their race. It shows that we are not quitters. That we will not bow down to opression and tyranny. It also shows human superiority. Not by better technology, but rather by the drive to better one's life.
The movie displays what can be done, and what happens when people are educated. It is a theory that no democracy can survive without its people being educated. I think this movie tries to speak that message. Anways, that's my thoughts.
user corith signing off...
The great things derived from this picture are: (1)That we now have a new standard, a fresh paradigm, for true suck. an entire order of magnitude upgrade of the standard for excrescence. Plan 9 From Outer Space is Birth of a Nation by comparison, and none of Ed Wood's movies ever lost the inflation-adjusted equivilent of 50M. and (2) I can truly torment my ex girlfriend, who once had a John Travolta poster up in her room, about how her Disco Darling is now an 300lb snot monster. (3) They might HAVE to start up MST3K again just to put this flick in it's proper context.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts."
The best thing about BattleField Earth... It occupied John Travolta for a length of time in which he otherwise could have been making YET ANOTHER sequel to "Look Who's Talking". Now that would truly be to scary to contemplate.
I don't usually wank off in the theater, but hey, there was nothing else to do. I asked my wife if she would scoot down and do me, but she just grunted and went back to sleep.
It was not one of my better efforts. I kept losing my concentration with all those loud noises and Travolta's Ah-hah-hah laugh always happened at the wrong time making me insecure.
Also, those crummy theater napkins are useless for wiping your hands. Still, I had a pretty good time for a few dollars and I didn't have to worry about catching crabs from a cheap hotel bed.
Jon, does someone just moderate you down every time you post outside of an article. I think these folks here that dislike you so would moderate your articles if they could!
Fear not my opinion, I like to see your articles get this place in a broil now and again. I also appreciate the fact that your most recent has garnered nearly 700 replies...even with all the professed JonKatz haters out here.
BTW, in a last attempt to stay ontopic, I agree that true or not, this post has to be the winner. see if CmdrTaco can pull up who that AC is for the prize!
When I had to pee and when the credits rolled.
Now where is my !@#$ing prize? =)
.02
My
Quux26
My
Quux26
www.crashspace.net
Of course they couldn't completely stay away from this with him finding the declaration of indepence and washington d.c. being the capital of all the worlds tribes.
The ONLY good thing about BE: This is the last move Travolta will EVER direct!
The question is, could you sneak this description by the folks over at the patent office? =P
.02
My
Quux26
My
Quux26
www.crashspace.net
My wife and I enjoy science fiction movies, because we enjoy conversing about the possibilities raised by the movie afterwards (makes good pillow talk). "Battlefield Earth" was extraordinary in the fact that for days afterwards we were still deeply engrossed in ferreting out the myriad flaws and gaffes in the film. It really was a relationship building experience!
BTW, "The Matrix" was also a relationship building movie, but for entirely different reasons.
The show also has a fan! John Travolta, so it's not that bad. :P
is that more people will understand what the bunch of crap is that Dianetics bs.
Plan 9 From Outer Space is a once in a lifetime experience. Battlefield Earth doesn't come close to it. The special effects in B.E. are passable. They are really not that bad. Granted, the plot holes in B.E. are big enough the allow the first 8 plans to slide through, but the movie as a whole, cannot hold a candle to the ineptitude of Plan 9.
I will certainly agree that B.E. is the worst movie I have seen in full release. Ever. The dialogue is awful, the story stupid and don't forget about the aforementioned plot holes. But Plan 9 was something magical. It was in the right place at the right time, so to speak. A dead actor as the star, a swedish wrestler as the lead cop (who can barely speak intelligible English) and a transvestite as a director. With exchanges like:
Eros: You do not need guns.
Jeff Trent: Maybe we think we do.
it's hard to say BE is a Plan 9 equivalent. The thing is, I can watch Plan 9 many times and never get tired of the silliness. I'm sure once was enough for many of those who saw B.E..
B.E. has the Plan 9 spirit. It is not, however, a modern Plan 9 From Outer Space.
Woz
Yeah its real fun to poke fun at crass commercialism, Hollywood, and Scientologists but the real issue is that Sci-Fi simply doesn't translate well to the big screen. How many watchable American sci-fi live-action movies are there out there? Maybe 15-20 at most in the history of film-making. The rest suffer from studio compromises trying to keep the lowest-common denominator entertained and not confused. Add in the belief that pretty graphics and big explosions make a story, its a miracle that any decent sc-fi movies come out of the studio meatgrinder.
I didn't see it.
Fictional or not, it is without a doubt the best reason :)
Simple. It keeps all the $cientology nuts busy. Since the only reason it was popular is because the members are forced to watch it, they can't do anything else. BTW, the book is a 'bestseller' at 5 million copies for just the same reason.
If they're wasting their money to see a crap film by a crap author, it means they can't be recruiting. Which, in the end, benefits us all.
They did alright for having no budget. All you people who dislike it so much are over-reacting to Hubbard. He was a sci-fi writer first. I always liked his stories. Too bad Travolta could not get more money for production but I like what they did for cheap. I read it 15 years ago, several times, and it is a page turner
I always got "assface" by looking at him.
Lowmag.net
Ok. First, I don't think the movie was as bad as many say it is. But I can say many of it was laughable.
. ....anyway, i was really hoping this movie would be good, so I kept trying to convince myself throughout the movie "it will get better", "it's just beginning to pick up", "ok, so that doesn't make sense at all, simple mistake", but all was not so.
It's year 3000. A full intact flight simulator (working as well) haha. Harrier fighters haha.
From what I have heard the book was actually good, but if it has these same elements in it, I would definitely disagree.
It seemed like what a young elementary school student often writes:stories composed of a lot of elements, that make sense or not, *seem* to be cool. For example a student saying something like "and he had a laser gun and he had a huge box of laser grenades because he was cool, 3 laser tanks, a starship, could cloak invisible, bullets can't hurt him", etc... I think you know what I mean, at least I hope so.
Them managing to find all of these items from almost a 1000 years ago and still intact, was deeply amazing. And the gold being formed into gold bars and that whole deal? "we could not expect you to take them in any lower condition" or whatever he said haha.a..h..a.hmwuhauha..amujwuha najnajdnfa...hahamwuahuhaa.mmahahaa..ahhhahah....
They found a flight simulator intact, yeah right, but even so, how long did it take those dumb morons (literally) to learn how to fly all of those magically intact harriers?was it 8 days or 9 days? truly amazing, what innovation, man, now people go to flight school for several months-years, man, we need those entrepreneurs
the dialogue was also all so amazing, in a way it worked ok, to show sinister evil...but it just started to get annoying. so the process it ended up going through for me:
1. stupid, annoying dialogue
2. ok dialogue, it showed the evil in a way
3. annoying, stupid dialogue
I recommend seeing the movie actually, it was incredibly funny.
Update: apparently its not supposed to be a comedy, nevermind.
This movie taught me so much, for example, I never knew the nukes we currently possess could literally blow up a full planet. Amazing.
So the best part of the movie you ask? The comedy.
So the worst part of the movie you ask? It wasn't a comedy.
Bincrypt (bincrypt.com) Curiosity killed the monkey.
I heard Ion Storm will be doing the game translation. That means we won't see it for another five years!
Sorry, couldn't resist =)
The movie has spawned a new cover for the book!
Battlefield Earth was excellent in its accurate representation of the plight of man-animals underneath the tyranny of the levearage-abundant Psychlos in the year 3000.
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The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we're uncool. -Crowe
A movie of these sort of epic proportions comes along only once in a while, so when it's greeted by such terrible reviews, I, for one, have to stand up for it. Shame on you all!
This movie has taken a lot of flak for it's unconventional (although stylistcially brilliant) off center, titled shots which invariably end in a wipe. Could this be because the movie hit too close to home and critics everywhere felt a need to deflect and focus on the "bad", "horrible" and "mind-blowingly drab and awful" acting of John Travolta and writing of the screen play? The critics would have you think that's not so, but we know that it is!
Finally a movie comes along that shows us how important Eucledian geometry, limits and integration are to taking back the world. Finally a movie comes along that shows how simple and powerful 1000 year old atomic weapons are. Finally a movie that shows with unflinching honesty the human condition when locked in cages.
"Independence Day" would have us believe that men who only had a refresher course could fly a jet fighter, without even spending the required week in the simulator! I think we now know better. "Independence Day" would have us believe that an alien race uses MacOs, "Battlefield Earth" didn't use such ridiculous plot devices! This movie showed us so clearly and crisply the techonology and scheming nature of a capitalist alien race that the movie goer went home as if he were twice zapped with the "knowledge gun". This is not even getting into the painstaking details that went into this movie... like the universal want of gold, the amazing plot twists in virtual dance with logic, and special effects.
Thank You,
John Lead-With-Your-Name Travolta
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.
Thank you JonKatz, for giving US the opportunity to join the movie review community in that always-fun one-upmanship game when a bad movie comes out. Wheeeeeeeeee!!!!
--
grappler
Vidi, Vici, Veni
L Ron Hubbard, author of Battlefield Earth the book, was a mediocre SF writer known chiefly for founding Dianetics in the 1950s, which then led to the Church of Scientology today.
Hubbard pioneered many of the classic legal harassment techniques that are so much in the news nowadays. He perfected the "litigate until your hapless victim runs out of money" dodge, and was highly - ahem - creative in his use of trade secret and copyright law to keep his "sacred scriptures" from the public eye.
The Church of Scientology was invented to get over the tiresome legal problems his Dianetics scheme had, while still using basically the same techniques. Hubbard is well known for the practice of massively overcharging for highly insideous programmes of treatment.
Hubbard has died, but his successors live on in his path; to do otherwise would be contrary to his teachings and therefore sacriledge. As a result, massive legal attacks were brought against net posters who attempted to expose his tactics and works on the net. As a result, the Church is known as a major enemy of free speech on the Internet.
One of the many things Scientology did successfully was to recruit celebrities, who are treated very well, far better than the hoi-polli "raw meat" who are typical Church fodder. Thus, people like Travolta support the Church and there is thus a built-in receptivity among many people for Scientology-related movies. There is no doubt at all that Battlefield Earth pumped substantial amounts into the pockets of Scientology-related folks, in royalties to the now-dead author. I think it's fair to say that to support Battlefield Earth is to support Scientology.
Hope that helped.
D
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Oh, c'mon! In spite of a few flaws, this film finally brought a great novel to the theatre! I personally found Travolta's acting as Terl to be truly great, having brought a villain to life quite nicely. I also thought that Mr Pepper did a wonderful job portraying Jonnie Goodboy Tyler. The changes in the story from the novel were extensive but needed to avoid making an eight hour film, and wonderfully preserved the original sense of the story. I have seen this 4 times, and frankly, I love the film.
Kez
The movie irritated Scientologists(tm) because they weren't getting a (large enough?) cut of the profits.
Any movie that can simultaneously irritate both sides of an argument gets two thumbs up in my book!
That green slime had it coming.
Being someone who read many of L.R.H.'s books as a teen growing up I have to say I was very intrigued in this movie when I first heard it was coming into existence. Alas, I succumbed to peer pressure and after reading bad review after bad review, I left it alone for awhile. By the time Battlefield Earth reached the budget theatres I figured I'd better take a look...after all I never seem to listen to anyone's opinion when its my own that matters (that and I've got three dollars in quarters and a free afternoon). Anywho, I watched it, and in the genre of sci-fi I'd give it a B. Why?!! you ask? Because, there is sooo much crappy sci-fi out there that if you are into the genre you can't help but see some good in this movie.
Battlefield Earth: The best film I've never seen.
El Campo De Batalla Tierra- Es un rollo de Pelicula!
Put my clarinet beneath your bed 'till I get back in town.
I thought the scout ships were fantastic!
I wrote a poem in highschool about a STOSS.
A Strategic Terranical of Secondary Ships...
It was a vehicle that colonists would use to survey worlds to see if they are suitable for habitation or exploitation. I had ideas about what they would do, and look like, but the scout ships in Battlefield Earth were PERFECT.
The exhaust blur effect underneath these ships was also perfect. Being someone who tries to write sci-fi, I can appreciate someone going to extreme detail on the ships. They looked scarred, beaten up, abused- worked hard. And the characters were stuffing them with tools and weapons.
For me, its the kinda thing that completes a world. I know the rest of you get hung up on fineries such as plot, character work, and and all that oscar stuff.
But if you are a hardcore classic sci-fi geek; forget that stuff, lets see the ships. Lets see the engines. Lets see the mining equipment.
Trash it all you want, but Battlefield Earth had some shining moments in its production. After all, it IS the hardest part of sci-fi. To propose a reasonable alternate reality. For me, its the hardware.
Not the actors and shitty script.
-Sleen
I read it. I know it wasn't. :)
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
I think Katz writes a good piece here. This movie was without a doubt the worst film in the history of mankind. I, without anything better to do, could pull a better film out of a monkey's ass.
There's a really interesting website that aims to give an objective, unbiased-as-possible description of all sorts of different religions, including history and beliefs.
Some particularly interesting interpretations and descriptions are:
There are lots and lots of others. Personally I found the whole site really interesting when I first came accross it, because it's so objective.
The satanism essay is especially interesting since it argues about how there are lots of different forms of satanism, not all negative.
There's also a section in the scientology essay, about 2/3 of the way down, talking about attacks from Internet free speech advocates. (This essay also has a disclaimer pointing out that with so much controversy, truth is often difficult to separate from propaganda.)
Now if only I had read the article on Daikatana before.. never mind I didn't buy it nope... not me...
I'm smarter than that..
Really..
No, really!
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
You christians are so pathetic that you are cute. People like you weren't around when I last went to sleep, and now there are loads of you, just waiting to be juggled around by my hideous tentacles. Did I say loads? I just heard that yours is in fact the largest religion among the humans. I would find than cmopletely hilarious if I didn't think that brains that contain at least SOME intelligence were tastier. I now find it hard to believe that there are any such brains present on this planet. I mean, Iä!, Shub NIGGURATH!
Iä! The hideous Tentacle Master has spoken! Obey or be destroyed!
I enjoyed it. A great laugh. Full of ripe ham and cheesey goodness. Travolta was great. I'd watch it again. You guys have no sense of humour. In contrast, I'd rather have my eyes poked out with fire-hardened sharpened sticks than suffer ``Mission to Mars'' again.
Johnny
i enjoyed the book immensely; in the earth fights aliens lineup, it is one of the best. The best thing about the flick is Terl's babe's tongue!! I wanna marry her- or at least find out if Psychlo/human grafting is possible!! did i win? did i win?
Oh, yes. I thought that some of the metaphysical imagery was particularly effective....and, um, interesting photographic devices, too, which seemed to counterpoint the, uh.....counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor of the...humanity of the director's compassionate soul which contrived through the medium of the film's structure to sublimate this, transcend that, and come to terms with the fundamental dichotomies of the other, and one is left with a profound and vivid insight into, uh....into whatever it was that the film was about.
This is sort of what I said about The Matrix. I hated it because I was being told it was great sci-fi bonanza with a tight plot and all that - BUT IT'S JUST AN ACTION FILM.
But with Battlefield Earth, it WAS hyped, albeit many years ago, when the book came out, as the best thing ever.
So your argument doesn't hold, because most people were told this film was the beesknees and, possibly, a bag of chips too.
TOM
It's not what you do, it's why you do it.
...because unlike the book that was over 1,000 pages of redundant foot dragging, after only 2 hours the movie was over.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
One good thing is that it hasn't reached Australia yet.
The only good thing about this horrible movie is the bad press it might give to Hubbard and his fellow sect members.
What is it with stars in the Church of Scientology? What kind of benefits do they have to join this ridiculous belief. I know the Church of Scientology has some software companies and such, but do they also control Hollywood to the point that it helps you get in a movie?
http://www.logient.com
Title says it all. The movie was so bad, I could almost see the robot shadows in the bottom right corner of the screen. Yes, it stinks so bad that it is actually humorous! Thinking about the movie still brings a smile to my face.
-- Argel
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
-m
Let's leave aside any analysis of the quality of Katz's thinking and writing. I like it, you might not. Art is like that; you can't expect a unanimous consensus, there are even people out there who somehow enjoyed Battlefield Earth.
But here's an undeniable fact. Whenever Katz posts an article here, there are always hundreds of responses and along with them, surely there are thousands of lurkers reading. So he has the virtue of making his readers think, even if they disagree with his ideas. Of course a lot of people would rather not think. But besides that: my man Katz sure moves them banner ads, buddy. Do you think slashdot's bandwidth is free? or are you regularly mailing slashdot checks to pay for it?
As for your first-born, thanks a lot but no thanks, I've got my hands full with my own first-, second- and third-born.
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
Actually, while I'm not sure about Harriers being able to go into Stealh mode, they can zip around like helicopters - they have VTOL engines (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) which allow them to take off without a runway and hover.
Diehard
I don't understand what you people didn't understand or like about this movie, were you too jaded that Hubbard created $cientology (stupid as it is)? Whats it matter if he did? Its still a GREAT sci-fi story and the plot of the movie makes sense if you sit down and think about it (oh dear GOD, you have to listen and THINK during the movie, it must suck, yep uh huh). Granted I have read the book before I went to see it, but I went with a friend who's never read it and he liked it also. The acting was almost as it should be, I think Travolta could've pulled off Terl's sarcasm a little better, they seemed to come off worse then they actually were. The clunky design was taken from the book also, you have to remember this technology is alien and hasn't been updated for several thousand years (they got fat and lazy mining planets). I didn't like Jonny's actor, but eh he did a pretty good job of playing him anyway, I just wish they actually made him as intellegent as he was in the book, this was only half of what he was in there. The things they cut from the book were understandable considering it was already over 2 hrs, and I thought they did a tasteful job of it all. I just don't get what you people hated about it... *shrug* I thought it was good, and I'm going to buy the DVD when it comes out. Stop whining about that moronic idea of a religeon, look at the movie, and THINK! (all flames will be happily ignored)
Whats the sense in thinking about the tomb, when were much to busy returning to the womb? -- They Might Be Giants
Cf. "Elron Hu" in P. K. Dick's short story "The Turning Wheel."
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
Hey! i didn't think arm. sucked at all!
How many movies these days do you see someone get to touch off a nuke with a thumb switch?
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
> Since when is Scientology a religion? It's a
> profit-oriented institution that dares call
> itself a church. For what reason, I don't know.
To elude the tax man, of course! As you know, any pack of yahoos identifying themselves as a "religion" gets a free ride, tax-wise, here in the U.S.A.
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
"Better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt."
-Mark Twain
http://www.doublezero.uklinux.net/
Doublezero: like Slashdot, only less useful.
You're a fine one to speak about art. I wouldn't call Ranma any kind of great work. So angry....so angry...
Blar.
Battlefield Earth, it's not as bad as it looks.
The best thing about this movie is.... I didn't see it!! and I'm not going to.
I wouldn't call Ranma any kind of great work.
I'd put it in the same class as Mad Magazine. That would be the class that doesn't suck. HAND.
-jpowers
-jpowers
Was "wing commander." If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about. There were microwaves masquerading as control panels and Minidiscs for "encrypted messages"
Abe J
I'll admit right up front that bad movies are my business. It's what I DO. I've seen all four Universal Soldier movies. I've seen all SIX Scanners movies (including the Scanner Cop spinoffs).
I've seen more bad movies than most people have seen good movies, and I love each and every one of them. (It took years for me to be able to admit that in public, but I came "out of the closet" about my love for bad movies about three years ago, and never looked back.)
So what's a nice thing I can say about Battlefield Earth? I assume we're looking for a TRUE nice thing, not a fake-nice thing like "It gave me faith in the U.S. military, because it portrays their equipment as fully functional after a thousand years of neglect." I could even point out something neutral like "It perpetuates the strangely common dietary prognostication that in the future, we will eat goop."
There's plenty of things I could say about Battlefield Earth, all of them equally funny, but I don't think any of them would win me that prized O'Reilly book.
So here's one truly nice thing I can say about Battlefield Earth:
In a system geared towards methodically creating blockbuster action movies that are effectively indistinguishable, Battlefield Earth stands out from the crowd.
Here's a little quiz to prove my point: list five distinguishing features for each of the last four James Bond movies, in reverse order. You have thirty seconds. Go.
See what I mean? Most people can't even remember the NAMES of the last four James Bond movies, much less tell them apart. And yet, the James Bond movies are unspeakably successful. Hollywood (and the American movie-going public) rewards consistency, not novelty.
To its credit, Battlefield Earth is thoroughly a product of the conformist micro-society responsible for churning out James Bond movie after James Bond movie... and yet, Battlefield Earth stands out from the crowd. (Boy, DOES it!)
In Hollywood, "different" is a commodity made priceless by its rarity. People will be talking about Battlefield Earth for years to come, because it's _different_. And even if a movie is different-in-a-bad-way, I humbly submit to you that this is a thousand times more valuable than a movie that's same-as-everything-else.
Thank you, dear readers, and good night.
(Did I win?)
I know second-hand that the book was good. As someone involved in film-making, I also know that if you can't shoot the entire story, then you just completely remove a subplot (or 5) to make it shorter. So, with the story aside, and forgetting about the gratuitous dutch angles, I frankly liked the lighting. I enjoy the use of lighting to do more than just say, "this place should be brightly lit" or whatever. In this film, it was used to tell us what the atmosphere/environment was like. Anywhere that the Psychlos could breath and humans couldn't was purple and anywhere that humans could breath and psychlos couldn't was orangy-red. This lasts throughout the movie including Psychlo (the planet) and even when they're inside the Psychlo hover-craft thing. In those scenes, if you can see outside, it still shows the outside as the orange. Also, the choice of colors was interesting. Purple and yellow are pretty oposite of each contrast wise and so make a perfect combination to support the conflict between the Psychlos and the Humans. So there's my 2 bits, hope you liked 'em. "They're either a benefit or a hazard. If they're a benefit, they're not my problem." --Deckard
"They're either a benefit or a hazard. If they're a benefit, they're not my problem." --Deckard
It could have been much, MUCH longer, but someone, somewhere, showed restraint. Don't you wish someone had done that with Dune?
"Suppose you were an idiot..... And suppose you were a member of Congress... But I repeate myself."
Even though this movie stunk horribly, it caused me to go out and read the book, which is an incredibly good book. So something good came out of the movie.
"I go to the woods to front the essential facts of life to find what life has to teach and not when I die discover I had
And that is a good thing(tm)
....Why don't we talk about Mission:Impossible II? Aside from the Special effects, the ENTIRE MOVIE is an enormous piece of crap. Can you say "character change?"
-----
Score 3? For what? Being wrong, at length? - smirkleton
SF is a geeky thing, yet here we are bashing an SF film. For an analyst (which is what most column writers seek to be, and Jon certainly is), that makes for interesting fodder, so I'd have been most surprised if he hadn't seen it more than once as research for the item.
Also, remember that Jon Katz is a writer, so he must have some sympathy for other writers when their novels get messed up, which by all accounts this one certainly did. I haven't seen the film yet, but I've read the novel 3 or 4 times over many years (I read a lot of SF, good and bad, and if it's on my shelf then it gets reread) and it's as readable as most 2nd-class SF, neither outstandingly good nor outstandingly bad, and I don't have a problem with long books, only with short ones. As others have said, it's an up-front hard-SF book that should have been ideal for an all-action movie, so if the end result was unadulterated crap then the blame must go squarely on the director, screenplay writers and producer.
The blame can't be placed on the studio though --- all they care about is box-office success. Whether it's total bollocks or not is irrelevant.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
You need some more face-time sparky.
Blar.
face time n. [common] Time spent interacting with somebody face-to-face (as opposed to via electronic links).
That's quite a wit you've got, there, sparky. When do we get to see the other half of it? Dealing with people face-to-face would be how I make my living, but you wouldn't know much about dealing with people, would you? I mean, seeing how you spend your time in your little hobbit-hole, coding for a dying OS and all...
-jpowers
-jpowers
I have never seen it.
Favorite
Except that the Church of Satan is the only church to refuse tax-exempt status.
Sorry, nice idea, but not original - Daikatana was under development before this movie came out... :-)
-Snorbert, somewhere in the antipodes
It gave Jon Katz something to write about.
Okay, that one's debatable...
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
This is the first time that I've replied to anything at SlashDot, so I expect you all to take that into account if I've breached any type of protocol.
First of all, I liked Mission to Mars. I went into the movie expecting a comedy, not an adventure - and that is what I got.
Battlefield Earth, on the other hand, I only saw five minutes of. My wife and I went to the movie to see "something." We started with Gladiator. After ten minutes we decided it was not our type of flick. On the way to sneak into something else, I ducked in to see five minutes of Battlefield Earth. I had wanted to see it, but my wife is not into space-action movies.
A scene was unfolding where Travolta (I think) was running through some kind of explosions and other target practice scenario without getting so much as a splinter.
The most redeeming quality, I THINK, is that in five minutes I was able to decide that it was a bad movie. Few movies are able to portray a consistent quality throughout the entire film. Battlefield Earth (apparently) has obtained this.
Two toes up on consistency!
BTW: I had no idea it was an L. Ron Hubbard story, so the Scientology-bashing has little merit. It was a bad film... Period!
1. I left no room for a sequal... None... And after this, that is a very good thing!! 2. The studio got a big tax writeoff, which means they can go back to making big films (thats what studios do from time to time... look at tank girl!)
I like replies better than Karma, even if they are flames, because that tells me I got someone thinking.
Hopefully a pretty healthy one, at that (bet he didn't take a profit
participation). If this makes him more likely to appear in
low-budget gems like "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai"
then I'm all for it, as long as I don't have to sit through the
results.
Similarly, what's the best thing about "Jaws IV"? Michael
Caine got a payday. The worst thing about Jaws IV? Its
filming schedule prevented Mr. Caine from being at the
Academy Awards to accept his "Hannah and Her Sisters"
Oscar.
I bet you don't get quite as insulting about things when you are face-to-face with someone, now do you? Why do so on an online forum?
You call AIX a dying OS? Jeeze...but I'd guess you'd think so if your job consisted of setting up Windows machines.
Blar.
..it makes Ed Wood's work look good. Hey, Ed had nowhere near the budget that Travolta and company had, and scene for scene, Ed Wood's work was more coherent.
-----
"O Lord, grant me the courage to change the things I can,
the serenity to accept those I cannot, and a big pile of money."
".sig,
The best part of Battlefield Earth was the fact that is showed us what it might be like if we encountered another race that was as egocentric as humans are. As a race in general, we are so self centered and insist on taking anything we can get our hands on to reap any benefits, not taking into consideration the possible effects it could have on another culture or species. Battlefield Earth shows us what it might be like to be on the other side of that greed. Maybe someone, somewhere will think twice about how their actions may affect others as a result of watching this movie. Then again, maybe not.
The now legendary bad design of the move Battlefield Earth hints of subtle genius.
By now newspapers all around the world have the following headline, Battlefield Earth: The BOOK is
BETTER!!
Millions are rushing back to school, the book READING FOR DUMMIES sells out, reading is back this season!!!
All the while in Hollywood, a secret genius smiles, the days of idiot movies for idiots are limited.
Oh well.. it looks like there will be some lucky Scientolgist with a copy of that book pretty soon. Oh, wait a minute... They won't be allowed to read it though, because of their mindless censorship of public knowledge. Damn. Praising BE isn't worth the public humiliation of winning that fine book. Never mind, it should make a pretty good door stop down at Clearwater.. ;) I want my xenu TV ! www.xenu.net www.xenutv.com
This guy is a troll, not the real Katz. Check his other recent comments.
Even after only getting 1/2 way through the book...
and then seeing the movie....
it didnt spoil the book.
Hell, i think i made it further threw the book before i saw the movie than the people who wrote the damn movie... im not an LRH fan, i think we was a deranged lunatic... but if i were him i'd haunt the F*krs that wrote it...
Ace McCoy
Ace Mccoy 'That Which does not Kill you makes you stronger' -Anonymous Sadist-
The best thing about Battlefield Earth is cavemen (refered to as man-animals in the movie) flying 1000 year old (and still working) Harrier jets. It doesn't get any better than that!! Also another great thing about thiss movie is that it is going to be remebered by many generations and will eventually turn into a cult classic that falls into the ranks of movies such as the Evil Dead trilogy.
"Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers"
I bet you don't get quite as insulting about things...
I do when I get crossed by some random asshole. Your original shot had nothing to do with the argument I was having with the other guy, who called Crichton a literary giant.
I deal with Win, Linux, Solaris, and MacOS. None of which are losing support from their parent companies. How's yours?
-jpowers
-jpowers
that was pretty bad. Nothying but dinosaurs eating everyone for the whole flick and no plot...waterworld was mediocre and totally unrealistic but I wasn't totally bored during the movie.
http://saveie6.com/
Scientology is the most sickest money grubing cult I have ever seen. Many ex-members who are battling with emotional and physcological scars go to places like the cult awarness network or ex-member support groups to help them get back to there ordinary lives.
This angered Hubble so he sued the cult awarness network for over a billion dollars and got Trovalta and Kristie Alley to finiance the lawuit so the underfunded cult awarness network would lose the lawsuit.
Because the cult awareness network couldn't pay a billion dollars the church BOUGHT organization out!
So now when ex cult members of a variety of mind controlling cults coem to the network they are all brought to the church of scientology and are evem more scared! This makes my blood broil!
This is how legally crafty they are and I find this practice much more harmfull then witholding scripture and charging big bucks for it.
http://saveie6.com/
Those wonderfull geniuses as Microsoft decided to speed up its stack making ring 0 memory calls during heavy loads network loads. Thats right! During heavy IIS use the tcp/ip stack can cause the bsod when saturating its nic cards. If you have gobs of ram the chances of a kernel panic go down becaue the chances of a ring 0 call hiting a memory address decrease but this is unacceptable for a mission critical server. This is what agnered alot of folks when Mindcraft did the benchamrk on a alpha piece of software runing on a crappy tcp/ip stack. Alot of NT IIS servers use a proprietary tcp/ip from a seperate company to avoid the downfall of this bug. Also you are a troll and your comment is off topic so If any moderators are reading this, then please mark down the previous poster as a troll or offtopic. Thank You.
http://saveie6.com/
Yes... there was a lot of bad things about Battlefield Earth. More than are worth trying to list... but I have one undeniable good point.
It was better than <b>Batman and Robin.<b>
If I were strapped down with my eyelids held open, akin to <i>a Clockwork Orange</i> I'd much much rather be forced to watch Battlefield Earth over and over again than <B>Batman and Robin</B>.
Sorry Joel, I know you were responsible in some measure for <i>the Matrix<i>, but I still hate you.
"Last time we saw you, you looked so much older; Your famous blue raincoat was torn 'round the shoulder..." -------