What 'Battlefield Earth' Did Right

By James P. Pinkerton
posted: 10:50 am ET

20 May 2000

'Battlefield' Never Fails to Astonish

Battlefield Earth is destined to rival -- maybe even surpass -- Cleopatra, Howard the Duck, and Ishtar as the most misbegotten, ego-driven movie disaster of all time. But long after the critics have had their rave, the film may yet be remembered for something it could offer that critics couldn't -- hope.

The Los Angeles Times called the film "a wholly miserable experience." Variety derided it "the Showgirls of sci-fi shoot-'em-ups." The Washington Post's Rita Kempley hated it with such lyrical passion that she deserves to have her whole lead graph remembered: "A million monkeys with a million crayons would be hard-pressed in a million years to create anything as cretinous as Battlefield Earth. This film version of L. Ron Hubbard's futuristic novel is so breathtakingly awful in concept and execution, it wouldn't tax the smarts of a troglodyte. And when it comes to star John Travolta's performance, well, hammy William Shatner's hairpiece is more convincing."

And I would add, having just emerged from a screening in which, at most, 1 percent of the seats were filled, that Snidely Whiplash would reject John Travolta's villainous turn as Terl, the 7-foot dreadhead, as too cartoonish. The acting overall has a "Springtime for Hitler"-level of badness; however, Forest Whitaker, as Travolta's sidekick, has a few funny lines, and Travolta's wife, Kelly Preston, has a cameo that suggests she could rival Gene Simmons of the rock band KISS in the kabuki-paint-and-kinky-tongue-swirling department.

Oh wait -- then there's the special effects. The film is neither in color nor in black and white; it essays its own new color palette: black and blue. But the extreme darkness of the film is not a visual metaphor for the moral darkness of the story line, as in Seven. Rather, it suggests that Battlefield Earth suffered the same sort of technical misfires as Godzilla did a few years ago; the filmmakers ratcheted down the candlepower so that nobody could see their special-effects malpractice.

So what's left to be said about the film?

This must be said. Battlefield Earth is imbued with a sense of purpose, an uplifting plot line, a basic optimism about rationalism and progress. As Barry Pepper, playing the hero, tells his comrades, the ruined cities around them weren't built by gods, they were built by their own human ancestors. And so such greatness can be recaptured, he tells them, not by blind faith, but by dint of their own human effort.

Even more radically, Pepper points upward and exclaims: "You think the lights in the night -- they are gods? Going to come down and save us?" They're not gods at all, he explains, they are stars, and we have to go to them.

I scoffed when Travolta and the Scientology establishment insisted that the movie had nothing to do with Scientology, but now I almost believe them. Yes, the bad guys -- Travolta, et al. -- are known as "Psychlos," which I take to be a play on "psychology" -- the profession toward which, of course, Scientologists have declared eternal enmity. But if this movie shows off Scientology at all, it shows it off as not a religion, in the sense of ecstasy or transcendence, but rather as a cult of hard work and upward mobility. (Yet as noted, even though Scientology is huge in Hollywood, Battlefield Earth indicates that adherence to the creed does not confer any gift for moviemaking.)

And since I doubt that many will go to see it, no matter what they read about it, I feel safe in giving away the ending: it's happy. And that's worth something, in my view. Indeed, it automatically elevates Battlefield Earth above such vilely antisocial fare as Reservoir Dogs or The Bad Lieutenant -- to name just two films of recent years which the critics have adored.

Finally, any film that declares, as this does, at the outset, "Man is an endangered species," gets credit for profound honesty, because that is literally the case. Whether the end of man on Earth comes from a sudden impact or a slow erosion of this planet's habitability, that end is nonetheless ordained.

What is not ordained is that anyone here will do enough to make sure that some of us, at least, can go the planets and the stars if we need to. If humanity is to un-endanger itself, and also guarantee the survival of all the flora and fauna that has already been endangered, then a renewal of optimism will be needed, as man once again sets out to use the long-neglected tools of deliverance -- which is what happens in the film.

And as confidence in the technological future is restored, as space travel becomes a prelude to space exodus, then maybe Battlefield Earth won't look so bad after all.

James P. Pinkerton is a columnist for Newsday and a contributor to the Fox News Channel.