Travolta, critics face off over cult friction
Christine Jackman
28apr00 IS John Travolta trying to brainwash sci-fi fans into joining a new-age cult?

That's the accusation flying about Battlefield Earth, a big-screen sci- fi saga based on a novel by L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the Church of Scientology.

Making Hubbard's epic into a movie has been a 10-year labour of love for Travolta, a devout member of the church who has dubbed the lengthy tome the best sci-fi book ever . . . right up there with Dune.

But American cult-watchers say the film is nothing more than an insidious recruitment drive for the movement, of which Travolta's wife Kelly Preston and Tom Cruise are also members.

Cult watchdog FACTNet has mounted a headline-grabbing campaign against the film --- due to open in the US on May 12 --- warning that the film may have subliminal messages intended to induce audience members to become Scientologists.

The allegations are backed by ex-members of the sect, who have claimed on the Internet that the church secretly financed the film.

In a statement which reads like something out of The X-Files, FACTNet has urged Hollywood heavyweights Warner Bros to immediately submit the original film master to a high-level government intelligence agency so it can use its advanced subliminal-messaging knowledge and technology to prove or refute the allegations.

But so far, reports from the film set and pre-release previews suggest Travolta is guilty only of bad fashion sense --- and of spawning a trash- talking doll.

In the film, Travolta plays the chief of security of planet Earth, which has been overrun in the year 3000 by a hostile alien race known as the Psychlos.

Travolta has played down Scientology's connections with the film, saying that it was the book's strength as a sci-fi epic which convinced him to become a co-producer of the movie.

Battlefield Earth opens in Australia on August 15.

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