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Battlefield Earth [2000]
![Battlefield Earth [2000]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51GTAQWCVML._SL160_.jpg)
It is the year 3000 and the Psychlos, a race of dreadlocked aliens, are busy raping the Earth of its natural resources to revive their own dead planet. Peppy young turk Jonnie Goodboy Tyler decides to fight back: he speed-learns the Psychlo language, masters their alien technology and then rallies the beleaguered human race to victory. The Psychlos are at a distinct disadvantage since they persist in wearing ludicrously-stacked heels that make it hard to do anything but totter like stilt-walkers. Therefore, out of necessity, most of the action sequences in Battlefield Earth are shot in slow motion. John Travolta plays Terl, the blustering Psychlo chief of security on Earth, like a pantomime villain delivering leaden dialogue that elicits unintentional pathos. Forest Whitaker in the role of his oafish, double-crossing sidekick Ker erases all traces of screen credibility gained through his role in Jim Jarmusch's Ghost Dog. And as Tyler, pretty boy Barry Pepper has the charisma of a plastic action figure. Even the tagline for this film--"A saga for the year 3000"--is startlingly banal. On the DVD: At first glance, this DVD looks to be packed with extras. A director's commentary, two TV spots, trailer and three "making of" feaurettes--but once you've seen one of the featurettes, you've literally seen them all, as the other two simply recut the same footage. After watching this travesty of a film, it is unlikely you'll want to hear British director Roger Christian gushing over his own work on the audio commentary with production designer Patrick Tatopolous. One can only guess that the creative team got stranded on Planet Psychlo and lost all their critical faculties. The main feature is of good enough picture quality to accentuate the ghastly blue and orange hues that colour almost every scene. The film is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic format with optional 5.1 Dolby Digital sound. --Chris Campion
RRP: £20.99
Our Price: £1.00 (subject to change)
Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review
In the 30th Century, when Battlefield Earth is uncovered in a mass grave for bad films by revisionist cineastes, it is more than likely that it will still be the worst science fiction film ever made. John Travolta's $73m pet sci-fi project--an adaptation of Scientology guru L Ron Hubbard's rambling pulp novel --is like the long lost sequel to Ed Wood's Plan Nine from Outer Space. Incompetent, incomprehensible and, at nearly two hours running time, way over long, Battlefield Earth is nothing more than a rehash of hackneyed post-Star Wars sci-fi clichés. It has the production values of Buck Rogers in the 21st Century and a sprawling plot that merges Planet of the Apes and the TV mini-series V.
So Bad It Might Become Cult !!!
Review date: 2007-12-24 Rating: 2 out of 10
Travolta wanted this to happen for years. After spending a fortune, he finally makes a movie with Scientology. This is what it's like to burn money.
Battlefield Earth sucks in many ways. First, the movie has literally no plot at all. Next, Travolta and Whitaker(What was he thinking?)look like Klingon rejects. You can even notice during some scenes that these two are having trouble walking. They are supposed to be tall, so they are on stilts. It's so bad.
The Earth people are like cavemen. They suddenly become brilliant. No explanation as to how. They find Harrier jets hidden after a 1000 years with gasoline intact! Inane. How can one bomb destroy an entire planet?
These "Psychlos" have to be the dumbest alien race ever. Let's give these slaves the info they need to wipe us out. Well, that's not how it was said, but was perceived.
"If I die, this will be sent to the home office." What kind of terrifying aliens are these?
The acting is bad. I almost felt pity for Barry Pepper. Poor kid needed work, but jeez...
This movie is beyond terrible. After all the money and years put into this...well it's like crapping on the ceiling. It's takes a lot of effort and trouble, but in the end, it's still crap.
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Reviews
As a comedy, it's great. If it was meant to be a comedy, that is...
Review date: 2006-10-11 Rating: 4 out of 10
Battlefield Earth is one of the more enjoyable sci-fi comedies of recent years - and there's little doubt that much of the humour IS intentional, playing like a science-fiction version of The Office as John Travolta's alien tries to scheme his way out of corporate exile on dead-end planet Earth and nab a bonus into the bargain. While he tries to train man-animals to mine gold by offering to force-feed them rats as a treat and his dumb sidekick Forrest Whittaker tries to take his job, it's left for Michael Bolton to save the world. Only he was busy, so they got Barry Pepper to grow his hair long instead. Cue lots of slo-mo head flicks as, with a little help from the Declaration of Independence (which, like miniature golf courses, has survived 1000 years of alien domination and human neglect surprisingly well), he teaches his fellow primitive factory floor workers to rebel. It's not as funny as Lifeforce or even killer-alien-turd-monster movie Dreamcatcher, but it's still insane enough to make me happier than a baby Psychlo on a strict diet of kabanga. Bring on the sequel, stupid Man-Animals!
This is better than much of the rubbish on TV these days
Review date: 2006-09-04 Rating: 6 out of 10
Battlefield Earth was quite a strange film, when it came out the advertising didn't inspire me in the slightest and also I wasn't too keen on anything by the writer who wrote the original novel, but in the end, since I recently decided to watch the movie having bought it cheap, I think that the movie Battlefield Earth was actually quite a good movie once it got beyond the boring beginning and then tendencies to pay homage to Bladerunner once or twice and probably a few other things, but then again, the director was art director and production designer for Ridley Scott's Alien and later performed as assistant director for Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace.
I thought the giant's costumes seemed a bit silly at times, but it wasn't always too daft, it allowed the actors playing the giants to act and move so one allows for things like that since no CGI was used to present the giants and I think I'll add that the giant costumes, if they turned up in an opera like Das Rheingold which features giants, no one would be complaining. I think it was a difficult thing to make work. I have read that it was set in the year 3000 but if it supposedly took place maybe a hundred years in the future, I could almost allow for the shopping mall to almost be in one piece inside still and also the pages of the books in the library to be preserved, and various military machinery to still be usable. It was great sci-fi drama entertainment rivalling a lot of the rubbish that one sees on TV these days, I think it deserves a chance to be watched and enjoyed, children might well enjoy the movie too. I don't intend to read the original novel or anything by it's author, maybe the original novel was even much better. I bought the DVD for £1.99, and quite frankly it was worth the money, and the special effects and aircraft fight sequences looked great too. I thought that the planet Psychlos planet that seemed very much inspired by Giedi Prime from David Lynch's Dune. I thought that John Travolta performed well as the leading giant in this movie, and the hero of the movie played by Barry Pepper who seemed like a completely and utterly boring actor seemed to become more enigmatic as we got further into the film, but if I never see him in another movie, it wouldn't bother me, well never mind. I might even watch it again one more time which is more than I can say for some big budget scifi movies.
Potentially good movie ruined by talentless filmmakers.
Review date: 2006-08-11 Rating: 4 out of 10
Battlefield Earth is an adaptation of the book by L. Ron Hubbard.
While the book was a rather interesting story about humans, led by Jonnie Goodboy Tyler, taking back Earth from the Psychlos, the film has turned the story into a string of badly filmed action sequences, with silly camera angles and awful editing. The Psychlos already have human workers before capturing Jonnie. This change in the story serves no purpose but makes the story even more messy. The film then focuses on some of the story elements in the book, but leaves most of it out, including the entire last half.
Considering this was a dream project for John Travolta, it's strange that he would let the book be made into such a bad movie, especially such a silly one. While the book was not without flaws, it was actually pretty good, but the movie is for the most part more or less incompetently made. The director, writers and editors all did a bad job. It does have some entertainment value though, which keeps me from giving it the lowest rating.
Not recommended.
Review date: 2006-05-21 Rating: 2 out of 10
This film fails on almost every level.
The acting is uninspired, possibly because the script is predictable, repetitive, and painfully stilted. This is definitely not Travolta's finest outing.
The photography is a little unusual and could have worked very well but unfortunately it didn't hit the spot, in one of the bonus features there is an explanation of what they had set out to achieve with the photography and it's a shame that it didn't work.
The plot is extremely thin, though that is more the fault of the original story than of the film makers I suspect.
Despite the failings of some of the photography this film does contain some good visuals and some good set designs, though there is plenty of schlock in there too. Plus some of the special-effects are quite remarkable for such a low budget production, though again plenty of them fail miserably.
On balance if the height of your dramatic expectation is an episode the The A-Team then you will thoroughly enjoy this film, otherwise you really are in for a very boring time. Don't think for a second that you need to pause the action whilst you make a cup of tea just in case you miss something important, because you won't.
Product Details/Specifications
Actor(s):
John Travolta
Barry Pepper
Kim Coates
Jim Meskimen
Forest Whitaker
Director(s):
Recording label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
EAN: 7321900185660
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: Anamorphic, PAL, Widescreen,
Release date: 2001-08-06
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Audience rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 113 minutes
Theatrical release date: 2000
Language: English (Subtitles For The Hearing Impaired)
Language: English (Subtitled)
Language: English (Original Language)