Worst. Movie. EVAR.

Back around the year 2000, I was briefly into reading the New York Times....

It's a very sophisticated newspaper, you know. I mean, the common oaf can't just pick up the Times and peruse it like some issue of People Magazine or Auto Trader. HA! Only us INTELLECTUALS can grasp the in-depth coverage provided by such an esteemed publication. Plus, OUR crossword puzzles are so advanced that they're, quite literally, impossible to finish. Beat THAT!

Actually, truth told, it would take me, like, two days to get through each issue of the NYT, and the only aspect of the experience from which I really benefited was its Movies section. I liked to read every film review, start to finish, and there were LOTS of them. Since the Times comes from New York, its critics face no shortage of interesting films to review. I found all sorts of great, weird, obscure movies in its entertainment section -- things that I had no hope of ever seeing in Michigan (especially back in those days before Netflix). No, the only motion pictures I could find in the wasteland of the Midwest were crappy major studio offerings...and no major studio offering was worse than Battlefield Earth.

I read about it in the Times one May morning. Somehow, I'd never heard of the movie, even though it was a major release opening that very weekend, and out of the blue some critic -- I think it was Elvis Mitchell -- utterly TRASHED it. I mean, he blasted the picture worse than any I'd seen in the paper so far and, me being me, I was extremely intrigued. I HAD to see this horrible, horrible movie.

After confirming through USA Today and a few other sources that Battlefield Earth was widely considered a stinkbomb of mind-blowing proportions, I excitedly raced to my local multiplex. "I gotta friggin' see this," I thought. "I hope it's not sold out!" Well, needless to say, it wasn't. In fact, I was one of, like, five people in the theater. On a Friday night. Yeah. I wondered what was WRONG with the people in my town. "They're calling this the worst movie EVER, and no one is interested in seeing it???" I thought in shock. I'll just never understand how the minds of others work, I guess....


The picture met, and exceeded, my expectations. It was astoundingly bad. I walked away with a variety of profound questions that kept me awake that night. "Did ADULTS actually produce that film? Are the actors embarrassed?? Did the movie studio really expect it to be a HIT???" I wondered. Such thoughts became a cancer on my soul, and I had to learn as much about the enigma of Battlefield Earth as possible. I also wondered about the alleged Scientology theme surrounding it. See, Battlefield Earth THE NOVEL was written by Church of Scientology founder L Ron Hubbard. Additionally, Battlefield Earth THE MOVIE was co-produced by actor John Travolta, who is a well known ScientoloGIST. Therefore, many folks have made the assumption that this project was merely some propaganda effort on behalf of a weird space cult. In fact, Travolta spent 20 years trying to get the movie adaptation made, and had trouble securing financing for that very reason (fun tidbit: he originally wanted to play hero Johnny "Goodboy" Tyler, but was too old for the role by the time any money came through and had to settle for the part of lead villain Terl).

Now, I consider myself one of the Internet's most qualified Battlefield Earth experts, and I can tell you that I really DO NOT think the movie, or the book, are supposed to be Scientology-oriented. Really, there's not much more here than a stupid space adventure set in the year 3000. I say this because I have seen the film countless times, and combed over the book with great attention. Yeah, that's right -- I read the friggin' book. All 13-hundred pages of it.

I picked up Battlefield Earth the novel shortly after seeing the film. It was on sale at my local Walmart for, like three dollars. I spotted it one night while I was out hunting for Battlefield Earth merchandise, which the movie studio had foolishly produced on the apparent assumption that the franchise would become a huge success (more on that in a moment). I spent dozens of sleepless, Boone's Farm-fueled nights in the summer of 2000 reading that book down in my parents' basement. See, it's common knowledge that, in general, "the book is better than the movie," and I had to test that principle on Battlefield Earth. I needed to know if the novel could really be as idiotic as the film.

Well...it could. In fact, Battlefield Earth is easily the worst book I have ever read (and this is coming from a guy who has read David Lee Roth's autobiography). It may even be the worst book ever published. A ridiculous, derivative sci-fi epic that is basically the same as the movie, only with more detailed information about various alien races and a much longer ending. In his recent review of Battlefield Earth the movie, the Nostalgia Critic (a good guy, by the way) had several gripes that I can actually explain through the knowledge I gained reading the book. For example, the home planet of the evil Psychlos cannot be destroyed by just ANY explosion; a NUCLEAR bomb, specifically, is needed to blow up their world. So, Mr. Critic...there you go.


Anyway, my quest to unravel the mystery that is Battlefield Earth also led me to a near-brush with greatness. It came in the form of collectible trading cards. See, one night shortly after seeing the film, I was at a local Sunoco station when I spotted some limited edition Battlefield Earth movie cards on sale for, like, 30 cents a pack. I bought the entire box and -- GUESS WHAT -- I found an authentic, AUTOGRAPHED Barry Pepper card among them. Yeah -- I scored one that was actually signed by Battlefield Earth star BARRY PEPPER himself. I had THE Johnny Goodboy Tyler's John Hancock right there in my hands! I placed it on the kitchen counter at my mom's place that night, and discovered the following afternoon with great dismay that she had THROWN IT AWAY. To this day, that remains the only offense my mother has committed against me which I shall never forgive. I mean, COME ON, Mom. Do you have any idea how much that card could have been worth??? There were only, like, 200 produced!

I also bought the Battlefield Earth DVD BEFORE I even had a DVD player. I stumbled across it at a Meijer store late one night, and was not going to let my technological limitations prevent me from seizing the opportunity to make a BE-related purchase. I required further information about the movie, and felt that the DVD could be my last hope. Hey, you never know -- maybe it had something the VHS version would not. It would be years before I could actually watch the disk, but I regret nothing. It was worth every penny, if just for the memories....

OK, I realize that all of this is rather meandering, and I apologize. I merely wanted to establish that my Battlefield Earth credentials are in good order before getting to today's review.

Battlefield Earth (2000)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0185183/

Netflix description:

In the year 2000, an alien race known as the Psychlos devastated Earth and turned it into a wasteland. In the year 3000, the aliens -- led by the horrific Terl (John Travolta) -- still hold the surviving human population hostage and have forced Earthlings into slavery. But when human Johnny Goodboy Tyler (Barry Pepper) discovers the aliens' major weakness and leads the final fight for Earth's survival, the parasitic Psychlos are in for a shock.

Let's put it this way: within the first five minutes of Battlefield Earth, we're treated to a slow motion shot of a guy screaming "NNNOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" Yup, in the first five minutes. It's really THAT cliche'. Strap on your happy helmets, folks!

So, this is a "Saga of the Year 3000." Mankind is an endangered species, we're told, and the few specimens left have been reduced to primitive, caveman-like tribal living. Seems that a bellicose alien race called the Psychlos invaded Earth about a thousand years ago, and defeated Humanity within a matter of minutes. They're now the ones in charge, primarily using our planet as a mining colony. See, it turns out that gold is the most valued element in the entire universe (not just here), and the Psychlos plan to strip the Earth of every last ounce of that metal that they can find. Of course, the trouble is that they're unable to breathe our atmosphere, and cannot venture into areas where radiation might be present, as it tends to react very badly with their own air, causing explosions.

For this reason, the small pockets of humanity that still DO exist live in remote areas that aren't entirely safe (IE, places where there's radiation). In one of those villages is our hero, Johnny Goodboy Tyler, a rambunctious young lad who decides within the first scene that he's tired of hiding on a barren mountain with his tribe, and departs for adventure in the world below. According to local superstition, the areas beyond Johnny's homeland are populated by demons, but he doesn't buy it. Bidding a dramatic bye-dee-bye to his lovely girlfriend, he rides off for greener pastures.

Well, Johnny journeys across a barren wasteland to eventually find a ruined city, where shopping malls and miniature golf courses are somehow still standing (I still can't wrap my mind around how putt-putt obstacle fiberglass dinosaurs have remained almost totally intact for a thousand years). He runs into a few other humans, who grunt and shriek at him for a few minutes before they all make nice and share a lovely meal.


Well, to make a short story shorter, our human friends are soon lassoed up by a couple of Psychlos and brought back to the alien headquarters for some kind of slave labor deal. There, they meet Terl, the Psychlo head of security on the Earth mining colony. Played by John Travolta, this nine-foot tall brute is one rude customer. He hates Earth, hates his job and, above all else, hates "Man Animals." More importantly, he's currently hatching a scheme to mine gold from some radiation-contaminated land in the nearby mountains using human slaves and -- wouldn't you know it -- selected as his first test subject is none other than Johnny Goodboy Tyler.

Terl straps Johnny into some kind of telepathy machine to teach him the Psychlo language and how to use alien mining equipment. But Johnny, you see, has plans of his own. He realizes that all of this is providing him with an opportunity to subvert the evil Psychlo overlords and maybe even defeat their kind for good. He uses his new connections to find out how the aliens can be destroyed, and organizes a group of human rebels to help carry out a bold plan of action. One thing leads to another...there's a ludicrous battle scene...and the man animals ship a nuclear bomb off to the Psychlo homeworld, blowing it all up real good. The end.


OK, so the overall plot synopsis sounds fairly OK, right? I mean, it takes place in the future; there are all kinds of crazy aliens running around; a rag-tag band of humans rallying to save our species....That's not a bad idea, really. The problem here, and the reason why Battlefield Earth is universally regarded as a terrible film, is in the execution. This movie plays like one of those silly 1940s-era action-adventure serials made for children that the Mystery Science Theater gang would watch. Major plot points are barely explained, as director Roger Christian pushes the story through countless questionable developments at breakneck speed. The main advantage that Battlefield Earth the book has over its cinematic counterpart is that, IN THE BOOK, some of the dumber events to transpire are explained over the course of several paragraphs, which sort of eases the reader into accepting them. IN THE MOVIE, though, these things are mentioned in passing; there's not enough time for us to digest the absurd concepts with which we're presented.

For instance, Johnny and his human friends only need TWO WEEKS to learn how to pilot US Air Force fighter jets as though they're in the Blue Angels or something. They then attack the Psychlo mining base and defeat alien fighter pilots like it's a piece of cake. How is this even remotely possible? I mean, we're told early on that the Psychlos killed off almost all humans in just NINE MINUTES when they first attacked. Are we to believe that the properly-organized military of a thousand years ago failed to put up any resistance to the alien invaders, but a group of illiterate hunter-gatherers with only two weeks' of training CAN do so centuries later? Heck, even assuming that the flight simulators that the humans are using are REALLY GOOD, how do the friggin' JETS still work?? Would an airplane stored in some crumbling hangar for a thousand years still operate??? This is one of many, many plot points that are too hard to swallow in the frenzied, cheesy mess that is Battlefield Earth.


Bad acting across the board adds insult to injury, and John Travolta is the worse offender. As the maniacal Terl, he over-emotes like a caricature from a bad elementary school play. You've really got to see it to believe it. Every gesture, every line, is WAAAAAYYY overdone. Perhaps Travolta was AIMING for something like that -- a goofy, "MU-HA HA HA" sort of villain that the crowd could love to hate -- but Roger Christian should have stopped him. It just doesn't work. Barry Pepper, as Johnny Goodboy Tyler, is thoroughly generic and forgettable. I wonder if Travolta lobbied to cast him in the role for that very reason. After all, the humans in this movie ARE rather boring; our emphasis is really more on the hilariously evil Psychlos who, at times, I ALMOST kind of have liked. For instance, Terl's assistant Ker -- played by Forest Whitaker -- was an interesting character. Too bad, he's only on screen for a few scenes. They should have used him more.

A final, MAJOR problem is the sheer stupidity of the Psychlos. How is it possible that they are duped so easily by just a handful of "puny humans"? Terl allows Johnny and his friends to work for weeks on a remote gold mine with Psychlo flying machines and all sorts of other alien tools, and the only surveillance he does on them comes in the form of an airborne drone's still photograph taken every few hours. He also grants Johnny access to sensitive Psychlo information and weaponry, fully knowing that the man animal is itching to escape. For such a powerful, advanced race of alien beings, the Psychlos sure give their enemies plenty of opportunities to kick them in the backside!

Friends, after all these years, I believe that I HAVE unraveled the mystery of Battlefield Earth. See, the movie is so bad simply because it's too true to its source material. Reading the novel, you'll notice that the plot rests on all of the same absurd points, and the tone is every bit as hokey. L Ron Hubbard used words like "picto-camera" to describe various pieces of Psychlo technology, and at times even seems to be TRYING to confuse us into acceptance of his overblown story. The quality that made him successful was not TALENT, but ENERGY. He had the drive and determination to pound out over a thousand pages of redundant exposition and backtracking to explain away Battlefield Earth's premise (once you rope a group of people into reading ANYTHING for that long, enough of them are bound to start accepting what you've written). Battlefield Earth THE MOVIE, however, didn't have the luxury of being able to do the same thing. It had to come in at a reasonable two hours or so, leaving Roger Christian too little time to beat us into submission like Hubbard could with the novel. The adaptation should have scaled things down, simplified, relied less on suspension of disbelief. Instead, it tries to capture the spirit of its source, and the result is a laughable mess.


Battlefield Earth is one of the worst movies I have ever seen, and I almost awarded it the rare honor of a zero out of five rating. However, I chose not to because, really, the film falls into the realm of the "So Bad It's Good". Make no mistake: the picture is lousy on every level, but it's still funny enough to watch all the way through. If you've got a couple of hours to utterly waste, I recommend checking this one out, if just for laughs.

1 out of 5.

b.