I just saw Battlefield Earth. I was prepared to see a bad movie, given the hundreds of negative reviews. It was worse than that.

The plot was very much like the book, with a lot of the science-ey details cut out. L. Ron Hubbard is the only character with all the secret knowledge and workable technology, which he uses to arm the Sea Org with weapons beyond their understanding. Together they battle the evil, in-fighting, money-grubbing, low toned Psychiatrists and destroy them. In the sequel, LRH no doubt battles the lawyers to win sole possession of the earth.

Thank God they didn't all sound Scottish, they were bad enough as Americans. Braveheart Earth would have been even worse. They dispensed with the whole big about figuring out the teleporter, and how to send radioactive material past the sensors.

It wasn't a good special effects movie. I've seen better exploding planets in most Star Trek movies. Most of the effects were of rocks falling down. The giant boots looked worse than I expected when seen in motion. It wasn't a very funny movie, although it tried in some spots, mostly with jokes about eating the raw rats. It wasn't a well-acted movie. I've heard more believable dialog out of Kang and Kodos, the two dome-outfitted aliens from The Simpson's. Cross Kang with The Master Thesbian character Jon Lovitz used to do on Saturday Night Live and you have a pretty good Travolta. And both Kang and the Thesbian had more realistic fits of laughter. Dialog consisted mostly of put-downs, put-downs, hundreds of put-downs. I didn't find Married With Children very entertaining, and these put-downs were no better.

Aside from all that, it was just terribly hard to follow what was going on, who was going where, blowing up what, saving who. Why did the humans smash all the windows in the already destroyed city of Denver? Why did the Psychlos care? How did all the Psychlos lose their breathing masks?

In short, it was bad. Worse than that. An ugly film, start to finish and a fine tribute to LRH. It reflects his legacy very well, I think.