Battlefield
Earth; It blows
by: Aaron D. Weiss
In my opinion, a good movie
is one that keeps you thinking days afterwards, is peppered into
conversations with your co-workers and friends, and usually induces
a strong emotional reaction. I have seen a sneak preview of BATTLEFIELD
EARTH and I have been thinking about it for days. BATTLEFIELD EARTH
monopolizes my conversations, and has definitely induced a strong
physical and emotional reaction--one akin to the climbing onto a
merry-go round at the city park after drinking all day. Clearly
I must revise my qualifications for determining a good movie. BATTLEFIELD
EARTH sucked and its horrible-ness consumes me. I cannot say enough
bad things about this movie.
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"But I was in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN.
Don't judge me by this one movie!"
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When my brother presented
me with an opportunity to hobnob with the elite "advanced screening"
crowd for a sci-fi movie, I jumped at the chance. Though I was not
a science fiction gektor in high school, I could certainly appreciate
a good man vs. aliens adventure. And based on the opinions of some
of my geekier friends, L. Ron Hubbard (yes, that L. Ron Hubbard
from the Church of Scientology) wrote a pretty good science fiction
novel, or at least they remember being 14 years old and thinking
it was pretty good. (Apparently its no Captive of Gor, but
thats a whole other issue.) My cynicism kicked into high gear
during the opening scene when a group of humans living in the snowy
mountains to escape "the gods" were wearing sexy leather
tank tops rather than the heavy furs (or Gore-Tex) that rational,
but less sexy, mountain folks would wear. The movie's hero, Johnny,
is sick of their tough life (and cold, I would imagine) and strikes
out to find a better life and challenge the gods that have kept
generations in the harsh mountain climate.
Johnny is quickly captured by the Psychlos
(creative name, huh?), but proves himself to be the spunky never-say-die
kid--always looking for an escape while the rest of the humans accept
their lot as slaves. The Psychlos are an alien species that operate
much like the Ferengi on Star Trek: Deep Space Nineits
all about profit. And profit is tied to leverage. Achieving and
applying leverage is the movies reoccurring theme. First by
the Psychlos on each other and then by the humans against the Psychlos.
John Travolta plays a conniving Security Chief for the Psychlos'
Earth colony and Forrest Whitaker is his less-than-able assistant.
Travolta has been banished to the conquered planet for some previous
transgression and will probably remain there for the rest of his
days. Thus, his plot to get off of Earth is hatched. In an attempt
to gain and then apply leverage, the Travolta character has the
bright idea of training "man-animals" to mine gold and
get him back into the good graces of the Psychlos hierarchy. He
takes Johnny and educates him virtually (ala THE MATRIX) on the
language, history, and technology of the Psychlos race to make him
smart enough to mine for gold. Spunky slave is introduced to education
and all sorts of chaos ensues. (Note to aspiring dictators: You
cannot have it both ways! Either your population has limited knowledge
and poor productivity or you can education them at the risk of rebellion.)
I am told that in the book, the Psychlos
were horrible beasts that towered over the puny man-animals. To
make the Psychlos larger and more menacing, the make-up and costume
guys use wholly unoriginal shoulder pads and big boots. These guys
are supposed to be giants, so they have Travolta and Forrest Whitaker
walking around in KISS-style Doc Martins on steroids. Imagine STOMP
in full riot gear.
The movie thoroughly degenerates from there. My brother and I couldn't
restrain from making catcalls and giggling throughout the rest of
the movie, while the "advance screening" crowd sat in
rapt attention. In one scene, the "man-animals" struggle
through drifts of snow in Denver and in the very next scene they
are in a springtime meadow. In another, they set out for Fort Knox
in a Psychlos ship and are inexplicably detoured through Washington
DC (most likely to highlight the tragic destruction of our capital).
Thousand year old books in exposed libraries are perfectly readable.
People who had previously herded cows and couldn't read teach themselves
to fly Harriers jets in less than a week. Johnny exhorts the slaves
to incite rebellion by scribbling nuclear physics on his cell floor
and telling them "dammit, mathematics is the language of the
universe and the foundation for Euclidean geometry!" How the
hell would he (or the Psychlos for that matter) know who Euclid
was?
The Psychlos conquered all of Earth's resistance
in a mere 9 minutes. Naturally, shepherds flying 1000 year old Harriers
have a better chance this time around and they fly from Texas to
Colorado to join the battle. [BS Disclaimer: I am a Marine and I
happen to know that Harriers have just about the worst time-on-station
capability of any aircraft in the American arsenal--I doubt that
Harriers could even make it from Texas to Colorado on a single tank.
However, even folks with no military knowledge should question an
aircraft that can fly 1,000 miles, fight the Psychlos, lie in hovering
ambush (like TRUE LIES), and remain aloft until dawn.]
In the end, the theme of leverage and profit
emerge again, this time with our hero Johnny applying the leverage
and Travolta surrounded by profit in a sophomoric attempt at irony.
Though Travolta and Whitaker hid any acting abilities behind their
huge costumes, I was actually rooting for them to win. I was so
sick of the movie that I wished they would just crush the group
of spirited humans with the heels of their 3-foot tall boots. As
my brother and I scrambled to be the first ones out of the theater
(hence my lack of actor names and character names), some of the
"advanced screening" crowd actually stood and applauded.
We couldn't figure out whether they had actually enjoyed the movie,
it was an "advanced screening" tradition, or if we were
surrounded by Scientologists. Not to walk away from BATTLEFIELD
EARTH without learning something, this column is my leverage to
prevent the producers of this odious movie from realizing any profit.
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