BATTLEFIELD EARTH

[King Psyz]

My god, why do I torture myself with bad film?

What is this movie even about? Is it some kind of Scientologist dogma I'm missing?

[doglips]

Come on, Barry Pepper is Badass!

At the very least you must fancy a pair of Travolta's platforms?

[MasterWhedon]

I rented this movie back when to see if it was as bad as they all say. It was worse. Far, far worse.

I love how the laser blasts fire in slow motion.

[Lady Sheridan]

I liked how they beamed all the knowledge of the universe into his brain...but he still had to learn to fly manually.

Or at least I remember something like that.

Barry Pepper looked pretty hot in it though. I tried to concentrate on that. I PAID to see it in the theatre.

[doglips]

I liked how they beamed all the knowledge of the universe into his brain...but he still had to learn to fly manually.

IPAMPILASH!!

[MisterCynic]

are you a scientologist?

[MasterWhedon]

I PAID to see it in the theatre.

That's the worst kind of evil.

[Al Shut]

I PAID to see it in the theatre.

HAHAHAHAHA!!!

Sorry I didn't meant to be cruel.

[doglips]

I PAID to see it in the theatre.

That's the worst kind of evil.

So did I, you have to go and see a bad movie every so often.

Cinema sadism can be funny.

I went to see Underworld Evolution on the same principle. I also went to see Armageddon on the same principle. I enjoyed Battlefield more than Bruce.

[HollywoodBabylon]

Cinema sadism can be funny.

Yes, as the movie career of Keanu Reeves proves.

[Lady Sheridan]

I know, I know. I weep for my money. If I could meet Travolta in person, I would ask for it back!

All I can say is that we saw it on opening day before the "this is the worst film ever" buzz had really started. It was still whispers but like Whedon, we thought "How bad could it be?"

I remember people said it was laced with Scientology messages, but I apparently don't know enough about the inner workings of that cabal to have picked up on them.

[The Vicar]

I PAID to see it in the theatre.

HAHAHAHAHA!!!

Sorry I didn't meant to be cruel.

No, this would be the time.

You paid money!!
Real money!
And it all ended up in John Travolta's ass.

[Al Shut]

But at least it doesn't have zombies waking from point A to B and back for no apparent reason.

I saw Plan 9 from outer space the same day I saw Battlefield Earth and it was worse.

[doglips]

Cinema sadism can be funny.

Yes, as the movie career of Keanu Reeves proves.

OMG! Take that back. We are talking about Ted Theodore Logan here.

[King Psyz]

Just got to the "education" scene... my god...

[HollywoodBabylon]

Having not seen it, is this worth renting out for it's comic-trash value?
Or is it plain bad, as in spend-your-money-on-a-bag-of-crisps-instead?

[The Vicar]

But at least it doesn't have zombies waking from point A to B and back for no apparent reason.

I saw Plan 9 from outer space the same day I saw Battlefield Earth and it was worse.

Who picked out that twin bill?
At least PLan Nine has some camp charm to it...BE was just big budget Plan Nine Part Deux.

Ed Wood's direction could have saved BE....
( too convulsed with laughter to continue typing....)

[HollywoodBabylon]

Cinema sadism can be funny.

Yes, as the movie career of Keanu Reeves proves.

OMG! Take that back. We are talking about Ted Theodore Logan here.

No, dog, we're talking about the finest actor ever to graduate from The Roger Moore School of Non-Acting

[Al Shut]

But at least it doesn't have zombies waking from point A to B and back for no apparent reason.

I saw Plan 9 from outer space the same day I saw Battlefield Earth and it was worse.

Who picked out that twin bill?
At least PLan Nine has some camp charm to it...BE was just big budget Plan Nine Part Deux.

Ed Wood's direction could have saved BE....
( too convulsed with laughter to continue typing....)

We thought while we're at it we could go all the way. We saw some others that day but they didn't even come close.

[The Vicar]

How could they?
I hope there were liberal amounts of alcohol flowing for this double feature.

[Al Shut]

Nope it was kind of a test who much we could take, beeing drunk would be cheating. Plus I never drink.

[Lady Sheridan]

Having not seen it, is this worth renting out for it's comic-trash value?
Or is it plain bad, as in spend-your-money-on-a-bag-of-crisps-instead?

The latter. It would take the likes of Joel (or Mike) and the bots to tackle it and make it funny, mere mortals like us don't stand a chance.

[King Psyz]

Luckily it's on HBO so I'm not directly paying for it...

[Al Shut]

Luckily it's on HBO so I'm not directly paying for it...

Except for the small part of your soul that is lost forever.

[DennisMM]

Julia and I paid to see it for camp value. We sat in a largely empty theater, whispering snarky comments back and forth. Was I imagining things, or did the Psychlos' sixth fingers sometimes move, sometimes dangle inertly as an obvious piece of foam and sometimes disappear altogether?

Lady S, calling the evil aliens Psychlos was about as deep as things went into Scientology, as far as I could see. Making evil aliens the villains was part of it, too, but that's awfully basic. The interesting question is why Travolta would want to play one of the evil overlords Scientology exists to destroy. By that time he had more or less specialized in villains, I suppose.

[King Psyz]

What's funny is how travolta's face stayed human and everyone else had weird, ill applied alien makeup pieces.

Here's another tidbit, speaking of Keanu. Anyone notice how a certain slo mo shooting sequence mimics the lobby scene from the first Matrix?

[MonsieurReynard]

This and the 2006 Wicker Man are slugging it out for the title of "Worst Film Ever".

Both films fail on all levels, including being unable to understand their own internal logics.

Both feature actors who seem to have no idea what they're doing.

However, The Wicker Man is unintentionally hilarious, whereas this stops even being funny after 20 minutes and is just a stewed lump of turd.

[AtomicHyperbole]

I can beat Lady S on this front. I paid to see in in the theatre.

In Italy.

...

In Italian.

Which back then I couldn't speak...

Tell you the truth, it was worth it. Best comedy science fiction ever made! I can't fail to love how bad it is. The audience was LAUGHING... the aliens go to the fucking pub to complain about work! It's some kind of evil genius, that's for sure.

[DennisMM]

And who doesn't go to a pub to complain about work? You're denying alien overlords and torturers the same rights you hold dear! You're a divider, not a uniter.

[King Psyz]

So unless this is from some secret scientologist subtext, I'm pretty sure pegging it's failure by being based on their marginalized "religon" was a last ditch effort by the studio to distance themselves from the production.

In hindsight, a feature length movie on the whole Xenu / Thetans thing would have been funnier.

[AtomicHyperbole]

The only thing it taught me is to go to the pub and complain about work.

[MonsieurReynard]

Did you really need Battlefield Earth to tell you that? There was about six million episodes of Cheers before that!