Battlefield Earth (2000)

It's the year 3000 A.D.; the Earth is lost to the alien race of Psychlos. Humanity is enslaved by these gold-thirsty tyrants, whom are unaware that their 'man-animals' are about to ignite the rebellion of a lifetime.

Director:

Roger Christian

Writers:

Corey Mandell (screenplay), J.D. Shapiro (screenplay)

Stars:

John Travolta, Forest Whitaker, Barry Pepper

Bottom Rated Movies #16 | 19 wins & 3 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
John Travolta	...	Terl
Barry Pepper	...	Jonnie Goodboy Tyler
Forest Whitaker	...	Ker
Kim Coates	...	Carlo
Sabine Karsenti	...	Chrissy
Michael Byrne	...	Parson Staffer
Christian Tessier	...	Mickey
Sylvain Landry	...	Sammy
Richard Tyson	...	Robert the Fox
Christopher Freeman	...	Processing Clerk
John Topor	...	Processing Clerk / One-Eyed Guard / Teleportation Supervisor
Shaun Austin-Olsen	...	Planetship
Tim Post	...	Assistant Planetship / Psychlo Guard
Earl Pastko	...	Bartender
Michel Perron	...	Rock

Storyline

In the year 3000, humanity is no match for the Psychlos, a greedy, manipulative race on a quest for ultimate profit. Led by the seductive and powerful Terl, the Psychlos are stripping Earth of its resources, using the broken remnants of humanity as slaves. What is left of the human race has reverted to a primitive state, believing the invaders to be demons and technology to be evil. After humanity has all but given up any hope of freeing themselves from alien oppression, a young man named Tyler decides to leave his desolate home high in the Rocky Mountains to discover the truth, whereupon he is captured and enslaved. It is then that he decides to fight back, leading his fellow man in one final struggle for freedom.

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Plot Keywords:

bad acting | male alien | little boy blue | year 3000 | 3000s | 

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Taglines:

On May 12, We Fight Back.

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for intense sci-fi action

Details

Official Sites:

Author Services Author Services (DVD news)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

12 May 2000 (USA)

Also Known As:

Battlefield Earth

Filming Locations:

Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Québec, Canada

Box Office

Budget:

$73,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$11,548,898, 14 May 2000, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$21,471,685, 16 July 2000

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$8,253,978

Company Credits

Production Co:

Warner Bros., Morgan Creek Entertainment, Franchise Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

118 min 119 min (video)

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

J.D. Shapiro wanted to be credited under the pseudonym "Sir Nick Knack" but was unable to due to WGA rules. He then wanted to not be credited at all but his agent and attorney talked him out of it.

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Goofs

Equipment put into stores could not possibly have survived over 1000 years on an alien-occupied earth, with all resources plundered.

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Quotes

Ker: I don't know what you're so down about. You still get to be head of security, which, from what I can tell, is a pretty cushy job.
Terl: Well, I can assure you that I was not groomed since birth to have some cushy job that even a moron like you could perform. While you were still learning how to SPELL YOUR NAME, I was being trained to conquer GALAXIES! To do anything less is a disgrace to my entire family line.

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Alternate Versions

UK cinema and Warner DVD releases were cut by 2 secs to remove a headbutt during a fight scene. The Optimum DVD is uncut.

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Connections

Referenced in Atop the Fourth Wall: The Justice League: Cry for Justice #1 and #2 (2011)

User Reviews

Bad direction, bad dialogue, an unimaginative and over-done look, laughable plot twists and a collection of average actors struggling to stay afloat amide all the nonsense

It is the year 3000. Many years have passed since the world was conquered by an evil race called the Psychlos in order that they would strip it of its resources just as they had countless other planets. Man has been forced back to the Stone Age, slowly dying out in small, ineffective pockets of resistance around the world. Sent out from his community, Jonnie Goodboy Tyler stumbles across two other survivors who tell him of a place of the gods – a place that turns out to be a former city. While resting overnight the group is come across by the Psychlos and both Jonnie and Carlo are captured. A plot by one of the Psychlos to outsmart his bosses (who have deserted him on earth by turning down his bid for a transfer) opens the door for Jonnie to learn a great deal about his new masters and gradually he becomes the last real hope for mankind.

Being a film critic must be a hard job to do at times. Many of the films you watch will not be brilliant, nor will they be terrible – most will be OK and nothing more. Therefore when reviewers get a chance to gush, they generally take it. Likewise, when a bad film does come to the big screen and reviewers get to see it, they often will take great pleasure in putting the boot it – we see it with at least one big budget film each year (2004 was Catwoman). So I usually will try and view a really panned film because I am aware that sometimes the critics are just being unfair – however, most of the time I'll wait until it comes to TV to make that decision. With Battlefield Earth, I must concede that it is a pretty bad film – but maybe not as bad as the many critics all said, although it would be easy to just keep kicking it in the same way as everyone else does.

The film does have some very basic ideas that offer potential but these are squandered with a script that bulks out with bad dialogue, poor story development and an overall poor delivery that makes it a film that is certainly a mess, if not 'the worst film of all time™'. The story quickly goes wrong by making massive plot jumps with its two threads (Jonnie and Terl) that it quickly becomes tiresome. It is not just that major parts of it make little sense (even if you are trying to get into it) it is also that the film makes it harder for itself by taking itself so seriously. If the film had been exciting and entertaining then I could have forgiven these jumps but the way it holds itself in such high regard means we have to meet it on its own terms – something that I found nigh on impossible to do with this. Whenever we are asked to accept that planes would have survived intact over 1000 years, or that anyone could learn to fly them in a matter of days then it is really asking too much if it also expects me to take it 100% seriously at the same time.

The film has clearly had money spent on it, and it isn't that the effects look bad, it is more that they feel over-designed. The Psychlos (cr*p name) look like nobody knew when to stop adding bits and they do look a bit absurd – like a Klingon but with more bits! Similarly the transport craft and alien sets all feel like somebody has just ripped off other films and then tried to combine them; the end result is the look of a cheap sci-fi that looks like it is a sci-fi film as opposed to a 'real' futuristic world. It is hard to describe and maybe I'm doing it badly but to me the film looked like the alien future's of a thousand sci-fi movies, not an alien future that exists outside of late night TV and, as such, it was even less engaging. Of course it didn't help that the direction was so ham fisted that Christian should be asked to return his Oscar out of good will. The opening action scene is delivered in a terrible slow motion that sucked all the potential out of it – a technique that is sadly used for most of the action scenes. The stuff with the harriers near the end is so silly that even a good director couldn't have saved it; but Christian is not a good director here and he makes it worse and robs it of any excitement or pace it may have had.

With such a poor product to sell to us, even an all star cast would have struggled – so imagine the trouble that one fading star and a collection of minor support actors have with it. Travolta tries hard but he can find nothing of value. He looks terrible and his performance is just so…obvious and easy – there is nothing to watch here, partly due to him but also to the wider failings of the film. Pepper was a very strange choice for such a big role and, try as he might, he cannot get past the absurdity of the whole thing and he comes across as part of the silliness, taking his character way too seriously for the material – but I suppose he was only matching the mood of the film. Whitaker has nothing to do and even an appearance from the likable, low-rent baddie Kim Coates brought nothing to the film. I don't even know the rest of the cast by name but suffice to say that none of them can do anything worth seeing.

Overall this is a very poor film and, although I don't wish to join the mob by just kicking it, I didn't find any reason not to. The direction is awful but is at its worst in the action scenes. The effects are not awful, they just feel like generic, overdone sci-fi fare with little or no imagination – a big surprise when you consider that the director was nominated for an Oscar for Alien and won one for Star Wars for the very discipline of art direction! The script is clunky and the story full of moments that are, at best, illogical and, at worst, silly, stupid and laughable. The end result is a product that is a real mess with almost nothing of value in it. It is relentlessly shoddy and I almost wish the 'worst film ever' hype would drop off just so that this film could slowly fade from our memory and be lost in time.