Psychlo Babble
Battlefield Earth is utter nonsense, and proud of it.
Say
what you will about L. Ron Hubbard and his 1050-page magnum opus Battlefield
Earth (i.e., it's overlong, not very well-written, and displays a lack of
editing that even the author himself admits to in the introduction), but don't
blame him for the messy exposition and ludicrous plot holes in the new film
version. Sure, Hubbard had his share of ridiculous conceits, such as the notion
that an alien race could wipe out the Earth's population using a lethal gas
that can be neutralized with simple table salt (leave it to cavemen to figure
that out 1000 years later, naturally), but it doesn't help matters that, in the
quest to hack the first half of the novel down to about 120 pages, screenwriter
Corey Mandell has condensed, shortened, and
amalgamated to the point of incoherence and illogic. Not that that's necessarily
a bad thing. After all, the end product is a good deal more entertaining than
the original novel. Especially when a Hubbard's Machiavellian nine-foot-tall Sasquatch-like alien antagonist is somehow interpreted by
the filmmakers as John Travolta decked out like a gay Conehead
with Rob Zombie hair, in KISS platform boots (one of
the aliens even demonstrates a tongue that would put Gene Simmons to shame). Oh
yeah, and a massive prosthetic cock that conspicuously bulges through his
pants. Are we amused yet?
The hero of the film is Jonnie Goodboy Tyler (yes, Goodboy is
his actual middle name), a man who has clearly been born to save the human race
by virtue of the fact that he somehow manages to remain constantly clean shaven
in a world with no razors, a world in which every other male character has
copious amounts of facial hair. Jonnie (Barry Pepper, the Bible-quoting sniper
from Saving Private Ryan) is a caveman who lives up in the mountains,
where his people tell tales of evil demons who came from the sky. When his
father dies of a mysterious illness, Jonnie decides to leave behind his
wide-eyed, open-mouthed paramour (Sabine Karsenti)
and brave the great unknown, venturing further afield
to find more food and a better place to live for his people. Lo and behold, he
discovers a giant CGI matte painting, er, abandoned
city, where he hooks up with Carlo (Kim Coates), a
convenient amalgamation of every other male human character in the novel, there
to provide non-stop expository dialogue. As they camp out in an abandoned
shopping mall, disaster strikes: an alien Psychlo
(imaginative name, that) kidnaps them and hauls them off to the slave labor
camp in Denver, where they are put to use as beasts of burden and referred to
as "man-animals" (a term not used in the novel, incidentally, but
Travolta sounds hilarious saying it over and over, so just sit back and enjoy).
Need we go on? Briefly: Bitter Psychlo security chief Terl
(Travolta) is mad that he has to stay on Earth, so he hatches a plan to
secretly mine for his own stash of gold, using humans as labor. Every other Psychlo thinks humans are too stupid to mine, so no one
will suspect what he's up to. The gold he wants is in a radiation-contaminated
area, and radiation makes Psychlo breathing gas
explode, hence the need for humans. And to ensure that the humans know what
they're doing, Terl uses a hi-tech knowledge device
to beam super-intelligence directly into Jonnie's
brain, so that Jonnie can translate the Psychlo
language and fly a spaceship. Never does it occur to Terl
that giving such knowledge to a person who hates your entire race might be a
bad idea.
Before long, Jonnie is rallying
the man-animals, telling his fellow prisoners that "they can take our
lives, but they'll never take our freeeedommmm!"
Sorry, wrong movie, but same idea. Same costumes, too. Characters who were
actually Scottish in the book have mysteriously become wild men of
The tone of the film is
established early on, with Jonnie yelling at the sky in slow-motion as a
response to his father's death. If that isn't sufficient, Travolta sets the inanity
bar even higher during a scene in which a sleazy drink server begs Terl not to submit evidence against him to the authorities.
Doing his best Pee-wee Herman voice, Travolta replies "As a friend, I
could forget to file the report. But unfortunately, I'm not your friend! Ha ha ha!" Thereafter, the film is
divided into scenes that showcase either Travolta's
absurdity, or Pepper's deadly earnestness. It's hard to decide which is
funnier: Pepper almost seems to be a character in a recurring Saturday Night
Live skit; call him "Inspirational Speech
Aiding and abetting the
risibility of the whole enterprise is the script, which seems to assume that
many of the film's viewers may be unable to read. And I don't just mean Hubbard's
novel. The movie actually starts with a subtitle that reads "Man is an
endangered species," a line repeated more than once. Any time a derelict
20th-century building appears, we are treated to a close-up shot of a sign that
tells us what the building is, before the characters enter it and either say out loud what the building is, or demonstrate by some
other means. And not only is a flight simulator clearly labeled "flight
simulator" on the outside, but Jonnie is also required to point to it and
say "Teach us to fly." Beyond the obviousness of the dialogue, the
narrative suffers simply by having to condense the story's length into two
weeks, when it takes years in the book.
In the Hubbard narrative, man
was a rarity ignored for 1000+ years by the Psychlo
race until Jonnie came along and was captured by Terl,
so their ignorance of humankind made sense. Here, man has been enslaved for
years. And while it's conceivable that Jonnie can learn to fly from a hi-tech
machine that beams the knowledge into his head, it stretches credibility to
think that he could teach cavemen to fly planes in seven days. And why do said
cavemen constantly use the phrase "Piece of cake," when none of them
has ever eaten or heard of cake in his life?
It's funny, though: Given that
Hubbard is the key figure in Travolta's religion,
you'd think the whole matter would be a solemn affair. But it's not. Travolta
appears to be actually encouraging the film's more ludicrous aspects (or does
he actually believe that a film this over-the-top is to be taken seriously? Nah, can't be). On that score, Battlefield Earth is
right up there with The Omega Code, the apocalyptic "thriller"
funded by Christian televangelists, which only mentioned the name of Jesus
once. Like that film, this one doesn't let logic or devotion get in the way of
entertainment value. Director Roger Christian is a former art director on such
films as Alien and Life of Brian, and special effects supervisor
Patrick Tatopolous a veteran of Dean Devlin-Roland Emmerich films, so the sets look great. And even though
some of the CGI is blatantly obvious (hint: slow-motion doesn't help), it's
still fun. Think Independence Day without the ponderous build-up or
self-importance. Imagine how much more enjoyable the other blockbuster-of-the-moment,
Gladiator, might have been if Joaquin Phoenix had addressed every one of
his rivals as "Rat brain." And wonder about the sequel that has
supposedly already been greenlit, featuring 25 alien
races and characters with names like Brown Limper Staffor
and Roof Arsebogger (cue Beavis and Butt-Head
laughter). It's been a while since we've seen dumb entertainment this
unpretentious, so why worry that it doesn't make a lick of sense?