Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000

Scientology superstar Travolta smashed the piggy bank, donned a costume that would make him a first-class carnival attraction, and helped create a tribute to his guru, the founder of the Church of Scientology, L.R. Hubbard. This case, more than any other, shows that you can't make a good film out of an extremely crappy book. Especially when behind the camera is a man whose creative impotence is admirable and who can only manage to steal (or should I call it quote?) scenes from famous science fiction works (e.g. the slow-motion passage through the glass panes after being hit by a bullet is the blatant agony of the replicant Zhora from Scott's Blade Runner). Too bad the Church of Scientology itself hasn't been as "successful" as this piece of crap by Travolta, there would be one less influential zealot. (09/04/2007)

Scott's imagination, Cameron's industrial design, and Besson's bizarreness meet in an acid mix that etches not only formal classics but also the audience’s good taste, with a poor script devoid of any proper logic or meaningful justification. If it didn’t take itself so deadly seriously, you’d think how cool those Scientologists are when they blow over $70 million for a good laugh, but I kind of like them that way. :) (21/02/2008)

Stupidity that is, of course, so bad as to be unintentionally entertaining. That's why it earned its one honorary star. (19/02/2007)

I was not able to finish it. Weird script, awful dialogues, but it's all pretty messed up in terms of filmmaking, starting with the bad editing, and ending with the terrible visual effects. Yes I could have mocked Travolta the whole film, but I quite like him as an actor and was rather sorry. Not even rum could help. (07/05/2023)

For the effects, for the idea of a post-apocalyptic world with rastas piloting harriers, and for the funny John Travolta (I have a soft spot for his bad guys), who clearly didn't take the whole thing too seriously. (12/05/2009)

I’m giving this film a Boo!, but I still highly recommend it to all of you. If you thought you've seen everything from cult gems to Uwe Boll's stinkiest shit, Battlefield Earth will prove you wrong. Both scriptwriters should be subjected to a thorough mental examination to see if they really meant it, or if they were just cruelly taking the piss out of all of us and the actors, too. But I'm afraid they really meant it, as did the film's producer and "brightest star" John Travolta, who supposedly took this pile of crap to the skies in public. And that's actually what bothered me the most about it. I was expecting it to be rubbish, but the fact that it pretended to be incredibly cool sci-fi and a hot competitor to The Matrix or 12 Monkeys pissed me off immensely and cemented the Boo! rating. I just don't understand how Travolta was able to lure in actors like Pepper and Whitaker when the film had no budget and looks so insanely amateurish in every aspect – terrible cinematography, editing, awful effects and absolutely horrible make-up that induced fits of laughter. Travolta tries to look tough and delivers one-liners like a proper bad guy, but his style of humour is probably the saddest in history, as well as his dreadlocks and computer gun (it's a good thing I didn't see it in the original, Trávníček's dubbing at least gave it some verve). The action scenes made me downright sick, instead being over in, say, a minute, the slow-motion shots stretched them to two. But like I’ve said, you have to see it for yourselves, because there's no way to adequately describe this. 15% (10/02/2013)

If there was an award for films with the most use of Dutch-angle camera shots and possibly overuse of exaggerated slow motion, Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 would be the clear winner. You won't see a more visually painful engineered shootout, and you don’t want to see it. The crowning adaptation of the work of the founder of the Church of Scientology is tragic in every way, yet I have to say that the final clash of civilizations is such a mindless monstrosity that I couldn't stop staring, and after an hour and a half of boredom it makes for a dose of entertainment. And the use of miniatures contributes a lot to this. (15/06/2023)