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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.
It stinks less than Mission to Mars....but then..that's not really hard either :P
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
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.
If it's so bad, why in the world did you see it twice?
Tort
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
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]
....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--
The guys at pointless waste of time called "Battlefield Earth" the best film ever. Check out their review.
--Shoeboy
(former microserf)
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
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
- 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
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!
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)
Or maybe there is some twisted logic going on here. In order to be able to critisize the film you actually have to see it - so anyone who hasn't seen it yet will rush out to see it. Is this contest sponsored by the church of $cientlogy by any chance?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
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.
Best thing about it was that there was no Jar Jar.
'Nuff Sed.
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.
Perhaps you're hoping to start a new wave of religion bashing on Slashdot, or something?
Scientology is not a religion, It is a business. (some would say mafia like business)
Finkployd
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.
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
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.
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.
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...
-
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
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!
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 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.
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
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
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
No Jar Jar :P
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
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
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
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
'Battlefield Earth' may be the worst movie of all time right now, but if they ever make 'Mission to Mars: Killer Penguin' then I'm sure that'll be worse.
My vote goes to Golias, for this post:
> [... ] it will likely spell the end of Hollywood's love affair with Scientology [ because ] Battlefield Earth has now associated Scientology with the term 'box-office poison'.
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
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
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>
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
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)
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
Methinks you're taking the world a bit seriously. The point was to have some fun, which, obviously, some people are. Beyond that, you're reaching a bit.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
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.
...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
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
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."
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.
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.
Yeah, but at least Showgirls had lots and lots of gratutious nudity. It's not bad to watch if you kill the soundtrack and pop in a good CD instead.
"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"?
I *zzzztt* have relieved all *zzzzzt* my sins using *zzzzzt* an electropsychometer *zzzzzt*. L Ron Hubbard is *zzzzzt* AMAZ *zzzzzt* ING!
...they make funny sounds when you kick em.
*zzzzzzt*
I LIKE scientologists!...
> Scientology is not a religion, It is a business. (some would say mafia like business)
Hey, stop insulting the Mafia!
Sure, both the mob and the Co$ use violence and coercion to further their own ends, but at least the Mafia provides a range of valuable consumer services: recreational pharmaceuticals, sexual pleasure, gambling, and so on. Hangin' out at a mob-run outfit - or even just delivering pizza for the mob - can be fun. Didn'tcha ever read Snow Crash?
Last time I checked, the only recreational activity offered by the Co$ was talking to ashtrays, and the guests at a Co$ hotel's "spa" either received overdoses of Niacin in the sauna, or died of pulmonary embolisms brought on by dehydration and bed rest, and were nibbled on by cockroaches before their bodies were hauled off to the fifth-nearest hospital (but the nearest one with a Co$-appointed doctor!) for "emergency" treatment.
Mafia, Inc. (tm) provides the customer with a much higher level of satisfaction than Co$ ever did. :-)
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); }
Do you suppose the reviewer uses the word "grab-ass" often to refer to screenwriting?
Ceterum censeo Microsoftam esse delendam.
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
Hey, look! Flamebait!!! In general, generalisations are bad. Everyone should stop using them. (Irony intended.)
I am sort of the opinion that it is not a good thing to trash someone else's beliefs with no explanation for just why yours are so much better. I have mentally done a list of what I consider the major factors in something being considered a religion and came up some interesting personal results. Here is my list with three sets of examples after each major indicator. The first is from any given monotheistic religion, the second from a random philosophy, and the third is from science.
Many people believe in something effectively intangible and difficult to comprehend. [God] [Justice] [quantum mechanics]
There are intangible forces that are capable of helping or harming you. [God vs demons] [good vs. evil] [radiation vs. radiation and countless others I'm not thinking of]
The beliefs explain a particular viewpoint on how the world works and gives people a frame of reference to life. [creation of the world; why certain things happen] [how to react to certain things] [creation of the world; why certain things happen]
There is a linchpin belief or set of beliefs that all others are based upon. If you deny it, the others become mere mental fabrication to amuse. [existence of a deity] [fact that mankind should have goals beyond satisfying immediate desires] [the effectiveness of the scientific method in reflecting reality]
Hmm. By my short list of requirements, general philosophies and science are religions. By your generalisation, they must both be businesses! You might want to keep in mind that religions have been both helping and harming people for generations uncounted. For every tribe that threw people into a volcano to appease their God, there was another where their shaman was also their doctor. There are some religions now that I think are garbage, but I am not going to trash them without first understanding them a bit. There are a lot of other religions that I think are on the right track to providing a way of dealing with the world. You nver know, those preachers might just be right about a thing or two.
B. Elgin
B. Elgin
"Read at your own risk; feel free to ignore."
ahahaha, if anything deserves the prize that does!
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. --
Sheesh. Woo. Something stinks...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Nope. Lost in Space, another crap-fest, did it a year earlier.
The shoot was originally going to be a static rotation (like the Gap and Miller Beer commercials) from an arc of cameras all firing at once, but early tests looked like a single camera tracking around a bunch of dummies. (No pun intended... heh heh.)
So they staggered the cameras slightly to create a slo-mo effect during the shot. Most movies that used the rack-o-cameras trick (Wing Commander, Matrix, etc.) followed their example.
Matrix gets credit for the first film to do this that did not completely suck.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
My only point is, the movie stank, let it die the death it deserves - stories like this are just gonna keep it alive...
Personally, I'd much rather have heard from Slashdot that "Stainless Steel Rat" is currently in production, than stirring up the shit about a bad movie...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Nor are you, torpor.
No, I couldn't begin to tell you who their audience is these days. Certainly not the people they started out attracting.
For a good web news filter, try GeekPress and, less geeky by far, but more socially relevent, NewsTrolls.
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Because every generation needs it's own "Plan 9 from Outer Space".
john
Imagine all the people...
Seeing *that* melon-head get snuffed would be worth $15. He makes me laugh, in the worst way..
Its copyright doesn't expire for 90 years.
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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 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
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.
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.
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.*
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!
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I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
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!
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.
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 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
----
...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.
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
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
Cf. "Elron Hu" in P. K. Dick's short story "The Turning Wheel."
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
> 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
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
It gave Jon Katz something to write about.
Okay, that one's debatable...
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
John has missed big time here. Hist statement: "But you can't blame Scientology for this mess. This is a Hollywood disaster." is absolutely incorrect.
L. Ron Hubbard's will has transfered all of his intellectual property to the scientologists. So what we see and what we get has been approved by the sect and a big share of the proceedings is going to the sci pockets. It will be a very cold day in hell when I go and see it. It is not an organization I sponsor.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
I am sort of the opinion that it is not a good thing to trash someone else's beliefs with no explanation for just why yours are so much better.
I have none. It's better to face the situation you're in on its own merits.
Well enough. At least I understand your personal position now. Before I assumed that there was a chance that you were a person who might not follow a civilised argument, as my experience was limited to a one line post of yours.
I have mentally done a list of what I consider the major factors in something being considered a religion and came up some interesting personal results.
...and your qualifications are...? ...and the basis for these rules is...?
I have no particular qualifications for this other than a brain and an opinion. The basis of these rules was my attempt to reduce the concept of a religion to the most basic level I could and include all of the religions I had heard of to date. Once I had done that, some number of months ago, I noted that at the level I was looking at, the difference between what I had considered a religion and what I had considered a philosophy seemed to vanish. I considered science a philosophy at that time. When I was writing this, I was trying to pull those simplified factors to mind after not having thought about them for several months.
And by your ineptitude, sir, you seem to have stumbled across the Chewbacca Defense. Don't pat yourself on the back for smiting another heathen with your great wit, yet...
I suppose I should have explained this joke too. My point was that if you determine the rules in your mind and state an opinion as fact, you are basically stating an opinion. My discussion was not meant to be taken without a large grain of salt. In short, I was trying for irony. I had a much better version of this written up when Netscape crashed on my attempt to preview, and I believe that my dashed off re-write lacked a bit of skill in conveying a few of my points. As for you being a heathen, why would I care? I barely can claim to fit in any given religion and have long defined myself as agnostic. I objected to the generalisation, not you.
You might want to keep in mind that religions have been both helping and harming people for generations uncounted.
Yep, and it's high time we started acting like grown ups and faced reality without a filter. We're too advanced technologically, and too much a threat to ourselves, to being abstracting our moral decisions via Aesop's Fables. I like fantasy novels, too, but you won't catch me reading them on my knees.
Had you used this argument originally, I wouldn't have been annoyed. It is one of the better stated versions of it I have heard. My simple answer is that (technology != ethics) and (technology != morality). The fact that we have the ability to destroy our own race does not mean we should abandon the philosophies and religions of our prior generations in favor of new ones. I'd rather go with "Ancient Ethics version 200.1.7" than "MS Ethics ver 1.0.1". One of the more famous families of religions contains rather prominatly the line: "Thou shalt not kill." That is pretty direct if you ask me. The reason that religions are couched in "fables" is that they aid in comprehension for a fair-sized chunk of people.
Like everyone on this board, I've got no shortage of IQ, OK? Actually, one or two people have even called me "smart". However, I must admit that outside of work and sleep it takes me every waking second to figure out the difference between right and wrong in situations where I have to make a decision. ... You all must be intellectual giants, I mean, IQs off the fucking scale to have your shit figured out so well you can tell me what to think and do. I mean, if you're that good, why should I even think at all, right?
I no longer have doubts about your intelligence. I didn't have many to start with. The brevity and absolute confidence I perceived in your post led me to assume that I might have to hit you in the head with my points to make you listen to them rather than dismissing me as a crackpot for not agreeing with you. That has come to sound like it was my reading more into your post than was there. I don't know that I am smarter than you in any way, but I don't have many awful difficulties in the ethics department. I rely on the ethics I was taught by my parents and that I molded through my experiences. Maybe I am the less perceptive because I do not struggle with them as much as you do, but I don't perceive myself to. If I find a circumstance that lies outside the model I have worked from my whole life, I make whatever logical extensions I can figure out and err on the side of safety or leniency. I don't believe that I or anyone else has the right to TELL you what to believe. I believe that I do have the responsibility to tell you the conclusions I might have made in a similar circumstance and let you determine whether they will help you in your dilemma. In my view, religion is very much like philosophy. You can take it or you can leave it. Some religions warn about the dangers of leaving them, an for all I happen to know about an afterlife, they might well be right. I simply have to make the best choices I can in the frameworks I am aware of and live with them.
I should just give all my money to whoever comes along with hellfire and damnation and forget their long history of taking advantage of mere idiots like me, right? These assholes are running a fucking shell game with people too lazy or ignorant to know any better and you're telling me I shouldn't take the time to point it out?
I will reiterate myself now: There are some religions now that I think are garbage, but I am not going to trash them without first understanding them a bit. There are a lot of other religions that I think are on the right track to providing a way of dealing with the world. If you are talking about a particular religion that is cheating people, I don't object in the slightest. I object to you assuming that what one religious group is doing, every last one is. That is exactly like saying "A black man stole from me, so black men are all thieves." I will defend the right of religions in general to ask for money, not any religion in particular, because of the purpose behind it. The idea is that you are paying to provide a service. You are paying to have someone else study the ethics, etc. you agree with and teach you as if you were attending a school. The priest, rabbi, monk, etc. probably spends most of his time perfecting their interpretation of the religion and conveys it to the students. I view it in much the same way I view the structure of a martial arts school, be it the Tendo Dojo or any other.
B. Elgin
B. Elgin
"Read at your own risk; feel free to ignore."