Battlefield Earth: A Saga Of The Year 3000 (2000)

Quote :: Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 is a 2000 American film adaptation of the novel Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard. The film stars John Travolta, Forrest Whitaker and Barry Pepper. It was a commercial and critical disaster and has been widely criticized as one of the worst films ever made.[3][4] The film depicts an Earth that has been under the rule of the alien Psychlos for 1,000 years, and the human rebellion that develops in response to attempts to use the human beings as miners.[5]

Travolta, a long-time Scientologist, had sought for many years to deliver a big-screen adaptation of the novel by Hubbard, the founder of Scientology. He was unable to obtain funding from any major studio due to concerns about the film's script, prospects and the connections with Scientology. The project was eventually taken on by an independent production company, Franchise Pictures, which specialized in rescuing stars' stalled pet projects. Travolta signed on as a co-producer and contributed millions of dollars of his own money to the production, which was largely funded by a German film distribution company. The investors later successfully sued and bankrupted Franchise after it emerged that the company had fraudulently overstated the film's budget by $31 million.[6]

Reviewers universally panned the film, criticizing virtually every aspect of the production. Audiences were reported to have ridiculed early screenings, and stayed away from the film after its opening weekend. This resulted in Battlefield Earth failing to recoup its costs. Travolta originally envisioned the film as the first of two adapted from the book, as Battlefield Earth's screenplay only covered the first half of the novel. However, the film's poor box office performance meant that the planned sequel was not made.[6]

[edit] Plot
In the year 3000, Earth is ruled by the Psychlos, a brutal race of giant humanoid aliens who conquered the planet a thousand years previously. The remnants of humanity are either enslaved by the Psychlos and used for manual labor or survive in primitive tribes living in remote areas outside Psychlo control. Jonnie Goodboy Tyler (Barry Pepper), a member of one such tribe, leaves his home in the Rocky Mountains on a journey of exploration. He joins forces with Carlo (Kim Coates), a hunter. Before long, both men are captured by a Psychlo raiding party and transported to a slave camp at the Psychlos' main base on Earth, a giant dome built over the ruins of Denver, Colorado.

Terl (John Travolta), the Psychlo Security Chief on Earth, has been condemned by his superiors to remain indefinitely at his post as punishment for his greediness and incompetent plotting. Aided by his deputy Ker (Forest Whitaker), Terl devises a plan to buy his way off the planet by making a fortune using human slaves to mine gold in radioactive areas, where Psychlos are unable to go due to the explosiveness of the gas that they breathe. Terl selects Jonnie as his "foreman" for the project and subjects him to a learning machine that educates him in Psychlo knowledge. Terl gives Jonnie a party of slaves and a Psychlo flying shuttle and orders him to go out and find gold.

Inspired to revolt by the sight of a copy of the United States Declaration of Independence which he finds in the ruins of the Denver Public Library, Jonnie plots a human uprising against the Psychlos. He obtains gold from Fort Knox to satisfy Terl's demands, instead of mining gold as ordered. Jonnie and his followers find an abandoned underground US military base with working aircraft, weapons, fuel, and nuclear bombs. They use the base's flight simulators to train themselves in aerial combat.

After a week's training, the rebels launch a mass uprising against the Psychlos using Harrier jump-jets and other weapons. The hunter Carlo sacrifices himself to destroy the dome over Denver. The Psychlos inside suffocate on the Earth's atmosphere, which they are unable to breathe. Jonnie captures a Psychlo teleportation device and uses it to teleport an atomic bomb to the Psychlo home world. The ensuing detonation causes the entire Psychlo atmosphere to explode, wiping out the planet. Ker and Terl survive on Earth, but face different fates: Ker sides with the victorious humans, while Terl is imprisoned as a hostage. The film ends with the humans in control of Earth but facing an uncertain future.

I must say, even though the movie gets a whopping 2.3 stars on IMDB, and so takes the "honor" of taking #76 on the bottom Top 100 list, i really really liked it!

What's your opinion?

It's on the shelve here, never seen it, thought about it once and decided not to watch it at that moment...

I think I'm going to watch it now Smile

For starters, I know that ratings at IMDb.com aren't representative for the quality of a movie.

I also know that I'm very much into bad movies.

So.

What did I think of Battlefield Earth? Very Happy

I've had good fun watching it, laughing out loud most of the time. It's not as bad as I thought initially (it starts of as a thirteen in a dozen fantasy flick) and I even caught myself enjoying the story towards the ending of the film. The acting is reasonable, the story is reasonable, the special effects are reasonable. If I had to rate it, I'd give it a 6 out of 10, which is due to the fact that nothing really stands out as being exceptionally well done. It's just a reasonable movie. And that's all there's to it. It's not even bad...

I know!

It's like waterworld. Sure, the film isn't "all that" but it still kicks ass!

I liked Waterworld way better...

Battlefield misses something on a more fundamental level, I guess it best to call it Drive...it's the difference between Cocktail Jazz and Charlie Parker, I can listen to Cocktail Jazz (and even enjoy it), but when given a choice, I go for the Bird Smile

(mind, I'm not comparing Waterworld to Charlie Parker)

pornologic wrote:: (mind, I'm not comparing Waterworld to Charlie Parker)

You'd better not!

ps. I liked Waterwold way better, too!

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