CLASSICS OF CINEMA
BATTLEFIELD EARTH
BATTLEFIELD EARTH
Folks who like Battlefield Earth are to be avoided and ignored,
is what, and I should know, since, to be honest, I'm one of
them.
For The Duke, this most derided, mocked and utterly nonsensical
of flicks is one of those guilty pleasure type affairs,
although to be honest, I’d feel about 123% more filthy if I
enjoyed, say, a Joel Schumacher film other than The Lost Boys.
It’d be Hail Mary’s from now till Doomsday if I caught myself
getting giddy at thought of a late-night screening of Phone
Booth.
Battlefield Earth is the kinda flick you just can’t believe
exists in a world where folks in “the business” like nothing
more than to sit around and maybe draw up a diagram and then
consult an expert or two for to see if a proposed production is
“economically viable”. Who, excepting the most thoroughly
deranged of individuals, would suggest that a picture regarding
John Travolta is a Klingon garbling a load of nonsense and
chasing folks round the place in slow motion, would be the way
to go for to make a load of the green. If anyone tried to
convince you of that kinda undertaking, you’d most likely run
away and then tell your kids never to go near that crazy old
bastard in the trenchcoat, since he obviously desires nothing
more than freshly roasted guts.
Some folks will try to tell you this is a religious flick, and
to be honest, it does resemble one, especially the ones the
Jehovah’s Witnesses pop through the letter-box now and again
starring the fella from the petrol station down the road as
John The Baptist. Ideologically, though, I can’t find a damn
hint of any religious thinking going on anywhere between the
opening and closing credits.
What Battlefield Earth, or Battlefield Part Of America,
concerns itself with, so far as the narrative goes, is that
it's the future time and folks are all running around in slow-
motion and at weird angles on account of a bunch a no-good
aliens have invaded. These aliens are some mean sons a bitches,
a fact evidenced by the big heads they have, and also the weird
hands that look a bit like those ones you buy at the “sports
games” and wave around, the ones that say “Such-And-Such Is
#1”, except those ones maybe look a bit more realistic.
Some nonsense occurred back in the past, although to us it’s
the future, and as a result human beings are forced to live in
the woods, terrified of the “Gods” who live beyond the trees.
It’s like The Village, then, except set in the future-time, and
also more believable.
These “Gods” aren’t Gods at all, though, it’s those bastard
aliens mentioned above, just a few sentences back, the ones
with the big heads and the foam hands. One of these tyrants is
none other than Sexy John Travolta, star of Look Who’s Talking,
Look Who’s Talking Too and also the one about the dogs.
Battlefield Bits Of Texas is actually something of a pet
project for Travolta, although if he had any sense he’d have
realised that it was probably some kind of rabid ferret pet
waiting to eat his motherfucking brains out and infect him with
any number of bizarre, fungus-esque ailments. He was trying to
get the movie made since L. Ron Hubbard first published the
Source Novel, intending to star as the dashing hero. On account
of it took decades for anyone to listen to the idea for half-a-
second, much less make the damn thing, he was no longer dashing
enough for to play the role by the time production began.
Thank goodness, then, for Somebody Else, star of Miscellaneous,
who proves hilarious and also ridiculous and profoundly foolish
as young Jonnie Goodboy Tyler. You may have seen him in The
Green Mile, or maybe The 25th Hour, in which he was, let’s not
be filthy communists, bloody fantastic, but chances are you’ll
never forget his performance in Battlefield CGI Rubble.
Director Roger Christian, who was previously a production
designer on Alien, and so memorably starred as Himself in The
Making Of Alien, obviously learned a lot from his time spent
working on Star Wars. He won an Oscar for his production
designing efforts on that Lucas flick, as it happens, but what
he seems most keen on is the way it used the old wipe-fades for
to stick the scenes together. He just can’t get enough of that
wipe-fade button, is what.
Battlefield Earth is subtitled A Saga Of The Year 3000, but I
think it’s stretching the legal definition of “Saga”. I don’t
know that a film about a fella runs about in slow-motion and
then has to mine for some gold, I don’t know if that
constitutes a “saga”, per se, even if he does fly a couple
miles down the road in one bit. An Anecdote Of The Year 3000
may have been more appropriate. A Brief Diversion, perhaps.
Slow Motion Hi-Jinks Set In The Year 3000 would have been
perfect.
Perhaps this is down to the fact that the film only bothers
with about half of the novel. Maybe the other 50% is awash with
epic scope. Maybe the enormity of it all would have been too
much for a fella too take. We’ll never motherfucking know, is
the gratuitously vulgar fact of the mater.
Battlefield Earth wants to ask a load of questions about
personal freedom and human nature and so on, but the biggest
question sounds more like “How in the name of Lucifer’s crack-
sweat did something so expensive end up looking like it was
flung together by a bunch a chimpanzees using nothing more
sophisticated than old milk cartons and warm spit? And not even
those smart chimpanzees, either, like the ones what go mad and
kill folks on account of the sheer incomprehensible
intelligence.”
Still, glorious moments abound. Who can forget the bit when
Jonnie Goodboy Tyler uses the “knowledge machine” for to
understand all about these horrible alien bastards? Or what
about how the aliens keep calling each other crap-brain or
something? Or, best of all, what about when John Travolta sends
a bunch of the humans to do some gold mining, and then they fly
to Fort Knox and steal a load of gold from the vault, and then
give it to him all in bars and so on, and he believes their
nonsense about they wanted to please him so they put it in the
bars instead of giving him the raw produce?
Man, a fella could chuckle himself to an early grave at the
very suggestion of it all.
There’s a tragedy to it all, though, to be fair. These folks
obviously intended this to be a juggernaut of sci-fi cinema.
Some towering monolith towards which all other filmic affairs
can only gaze longingly towards.
Crushingly, it has to accept its fate as the finest party-flick
since Plan 9 From Outer Space. By which I mean civilised, cine-
literate parties filled with smug, detestable hounds, and not
the kinda parties were maybe one of you gets naked and you all
take turns tying him up and then fondling him a bit for sexual
gratification.
For those kinds of parties I recommend something involving a
sex or two, and maybe even some “risqué” humour, like maybe a
joke about a fella has a wank.
Thanks folks.
Drop The Duke A Line
is what, and I should know, since, to be honest, I'm one of
them.
For The Duke, this most derided, mocked and utterly nonsensical
of flicks is one of those guilty pleasure type affairs,
although to be honest, I’d feel about 123% more filthy if I
enjoyed, say, a Joel Schumacher film other than The Lost Boys.
It’d be Hail Mary’s from now till Doomsday if I caught myself
getting giddy at thought of a late-night screening of Phone
Booth.
Battlefield Earth is the kinda flick you just can’t believe
exists in a world where folks in “the business” like nothing
more than to sit around and maybe draw up a diagram and then
consult an expert or two for to see if a proposed production is
“economically viable”. Who, excepting the most thoroughly
deranged of individuals, would suggest that a picture regarding
John Travolta is a Klingon garbling a load of nonsense and
chasing folks round the place in slow motion, would be the way
to go for to make a load of the green. If anyone tried to
convince you of that kinda undertaking, you’d most likely run
away and then tell your kids never to go near that crazy old
bastard in the trenchcoat, since he obviously desires nothing
more than freshly roasted guts.
Some folks will try to tell you this is a religious flick, and
to be honest, it does resemble one, especially the ones the
Jehovah’s Witnesses pop through the letter-box now and again
starring the fella from the petrol station down the road as
John The Baptist. Ideologically, though, I can’t find a damn
hint of any religious thinking going on anywhere between the
opening and closing credits.
What Battlefield Earth, or Battlefield Part Of America,
concerns itself with, so far as the narrative goes, is that
it's the future time and folks are all running around in slow-
motion and at weird angles on account of a bunch a no-good
aliens have invaded. These aliens are some mean sons a bitches,
a fact evidenced by the big heads they have, and also the weird
hands that look a bit like those ones you buy at the “sports
games” and wave around, the ones that say “Such-And-Such Is
#1”, except those ones maybe look a bit more realistic.
Some nonsense occurred back in the past, although to us it’s
the future, and as a result human beings are forced to live in
the woods, terrified of the “Gods” who live beyond the trees.
It’s like The Village, then, except set in the future-time, and
also more believable.
These “Gods” aren’t Gods at all, though, it’s those bastard
aliens mentioned above, just a few sentences back, the ones
with the big heads and the foam hands. One of these tyrants is
none other than Sexy John Travolta, star of Look Who’s Talking,
Look Who’s Talking Too and also the one about the dogs.
Battlefield Bits Of Texas is actually something of a pet
project for Travolta, although if he had any sense he’d have
realised that it was probably some kind of rabid ferret pet
waiting to eat his motherfucking brains out and infect him with
any number of bizarre, fungus-esque ailments. He was trying to
get the movie made since L. Ron Hubbard first published the
Source Novel, intending to star as the dashing hero. On account
of it took decades for anyone to listen to the idea for half-a-
second, much less make the damn thing, he was no longer dashing
enough for to play the role by the time production began.
Thank goodness, then, for Somebody Else, star of Miscellaneous,
who proves hilarious and also ridiculous and profoundly foolish
as young Jonnie Goodboy Tyler. You may have seen him in The
Green Mile, or maybe The 25th Hour, in which he was, let’s not
be filthy communists, bloody fantastic, but chances are you’ll
never forget his performance in Battlefield CGI Rubble.
Director Roger Christian, who was previously a production
designer on Alien, and so memorably starred as Himself in The
Making Of Alien, obviously learned a lot from his time spent
working on Star Wars. He won an Oscar for his production
designing efforts on that Lucas flick, as it happens, but what
he seems most keen on is the way it used the old wipe-fades for
to stick the scenes together. He just can’t get enough of that
wipe-fade button, is what.
Battlefield Earth is subtitled A Saga Of The Year 3000, but I
think it’s stretching the legal definition of “Saga”. I don’t
know that a film about a fella runs about in slow-motion and
then has to mine for some gold, I don’t know if that
constitutes a “saga”, per se, even if he does fly a couple
miles down the road in one bit. An Anecdote Of The Year 3000
may have been more appropriate. A Brief Diversion, perhaps.
Slow Motion Hi-Jinks Set In The Year 3000 would have been
perfect.
Perhaps this is down to the fact that the film only bothers
with about half of the novel. Maybe the other 50% is awash with
epic scope. Maybe the enormity of it all would have been too
much for a fella too take. We’ll never motherfucking know, is
the gratuitously vulgar fact of the mater.
Battlefield Earth wants to ask a load of questions about
personal freedom and human nature and so on, but the biggest
question sounds more like “How in the name of Lucifer’s crack-
sweat did something so expensive end up looking like it was
flung together by a bunch a chimpanzees using nothing more
sophisticated than old milk cartons and warm spit? And not even
those smart chimpanzees, either, like the ones what go mad and
kill folks on account of the sheer incomprehensible
intelligence.”
Still, glorious moments abound. Who can forget the bit when
Jonnie Goodboy Tyler uses the “knowledge machine” for to
understand all about these horrible alien bastards? Or what
about how the aliens keep calling each other crap-brain or
something? Or, best of all, what about when John Travolta sends
a bunch of the humans to do some gold mining, and then they fly
to Fort Knox and steal a load of gold from the vault, and then
give it to him all in bars and so on, and he believes their
nonsense about they wanted to please him so they put it in the
bars instead of giving him the raw produce?
Man, a fella could chuckle himself to an early grave at the
very suggestion of it all.
There’s a tragedy to it all, though, to be fair. These folks
obviously intended this to be a juggernaut of sci-fi cinema.
Some towering monolith towards which all other filmic affairs
can only gaze longingly towards.
Crushingly, it has to accept its fate as the finest party-flick
since Plan 9 From Outer Space. By which I mean civilised, cine-
literate parties filled with smug, detestable hounds, and not
the kinda parties were maybe one of you gets naked and you all
take turns tying him up and then fondling him a bit for sexual
gratification.
For those kinds of parties I recommend something involving a
sex or two, and maybe even some “risqué” humour, like maybe a
joke about a fella has a wank.
Thanks folks.
Drop The Duke A Line
