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Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 is a 2000 film adaptation of the novel of the same name by L. Ron Hubbard. The film is produced by and stars John Travolta. It was a notorious commercial and critical disaster and has been widely criticized as one of the "worst films ever made".[1][2]
PlotSpoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
The film depicts a greedy alien security chief, Terl (Travolta), who enslaves human prisoners to mine gold for his people. Barry Pepper plays Jonnie Goodboy Tyler, a human (or "man-animal", as the "Psychlos" named them) who decides to liberate his people by fighting the "Psychlos". The plot follows roughly the same lines as the original book, though with some major omissions and simplifications. The film ends approximately one half of the way through the book, with the liberation of the Earth.
DevelopmentPlans for a film version of Battlefield Earth appear to have been hatched at an early stage, not long after the publication of the book. In February 1983 L. Ron Hubbard gave an interview to the Rocky Mountain News in which he told the reporter:
Hubbard's comments suggest that he saw himself being directly involved in the film; author Stewart Lamont suggests that Hubbard may even have envisioned directing it, given his previous work on Scientology training films.[4] In October 1983, the film rights were sold by the Church of Scientology's Author Services Inc. to Salem Productions of Los Angeles. Two films were envisaged, covering each half of the book and tentatively budgeted at $15 million each.[5] The veteran screenwriter Abraham Polonsky and the British director Ken Annakin were hired to produce a film breakdown, with production scheduled to begin in 1985.[6] However, the project never got off the ground and Hubbard's death in January 1986 may have played a part in bringing it to a halt. After his success in the 1994 movie Pulp Fiction, Hollywood star John Travolta pushed hard to make a movie adaptation of Battlefield Earth a reality. Travolta, a devoted Scientologist and one of the organization's most vocal supporters, described the book in interviews as "like Pulp Fiction for the year 3000"[7] and "like Star Wars, only better." Travolta reportedly lobbied a variety of Hollywood figures, apparently enlisting the aid of other Scientologists. According to Bill Mechanic, the former head of Twentieth Century Fox, "He had Scientologists all over me. They come up to you and they know who you are." This did not impress Mechanic: "Do you think in any way, shape, or form that weirding me out is going to make me want to make this movie?" [8]
Finally, in 1999, the project ended up with Franchise Entertainment, as an independent production for Morgan Creek Productions which would, in turn, release the film through Warner Bros. in the U.S. under an existing distribution agreement. Franchise retained the foreign rights. Travolta's company JTP Films was also involved in the production.[12] Image:Travolta book signing.jpg John Travolta signing copies of the book Battlefield Earth during a promotional tour in 2000 Roger Christian, a protégé of George Lucas, was signed to direct Battlefield Earth. He had most recently been the second unit director on Lucas' Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. The cast included Travolta, Barry Pepper, Forest Whitaker, Kim Coates, Richard Tyson, Sabine Karsenti, and Michael Byrne. Travolta's wife Kelly Preston also appeared; her role is often incorrectly described as "starring" even though she only appears in one scene. Even before the film's release, it faced a barrage of unfavourable publicity. The media noted the unusually tight security around the production, though this did not prevent Mean Magazine obtaining a copy of the screenplay. In an experiment, the magazine's staffers changed its title to "Dark Forces" by "Desmond Finch" and circulated it to readers at a number of major Hollywood film production companies. The comments that came back were universally unfavorable: "a thoroughly silly plotline is made all the more ludicrous by its hamfisted dialog and ridiculously shallow characterizations", "a completely predictable story that just isn't written well enough to make up for its lack of originality." One reviewer labeled the screenplay "as entertaining as watching a fly breathe." [13] Battlefield Earth was finally released in May 2000, just three days after the 50th anniversary of the publication of Hubbard's book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, a date celebrated by Scientologists worldwide as a major holiday.[14] The original book was also re-released with a new cover based on the film's poster. However, the film met poor box-office results and abysmal reviews. Box officeReleased in 3,307 theaters, Battlefield Earth grossed $21,471,685 in the United States and a total of $29,725,663 worldwide, falling doubly short of its $73 million production budget and $30 million in estimated marketing costs. Financially, it is regarded as one of the great box office failures. The film's exceptionally bad reviews and poor word-of-mouth led to a precipitous falling-off in its weekend grosses. Having grossed $11,548,898 from 3,307 theaters on its opening weekend, its take collapsed to $3,924,921 the following weekend, prompting theaters to abandon the film in droves. The film made 95% of its entire domestic gross in the first two weekends and flatlined thereafter. By its sixth weekend on release, the film was showing at only 95 theaters and had made only $18,993 in a week - less than $200 per theater. [15] Critical receptionCritically, the movie was also a disaster and reviews were nearly unanimously bad. Film critic Roger Ebert described it as "something historic, a film that for decades to come will be the punch line of jokes about bad movies."[16] Rita Kempley of the Washington Post commented that: "A million monkeys with a million crayons would be hard-pressed in a million years to create anything as cretinous as Battlefield Earth."[17] Elvis Mitchell, in the New York Times, wrote that "it may be a bit early to make such judgments, but Battlefield Earth may well turn out to be the worst movie of this century" and called it "Plan Nine From Outer Space for a new generation." The British film critic Jonathan Ross offered a particularly unsparing critique:
Image:Battlefield earth planetship.jpg Critics noted Battlefield Earth's overuse of odd camera angles and luridly tinted scenes Particular points that critics held up for censure included its overuse of angled camera shots [19] (which, according to the director himself in different reports, are used in all but one frame of the film[20] or even in every single frame[21]), derivative special effects, and unbelievable plotting. The Rhode Island Providence Journal newspaper also highlighted the film's odd colour scheme:
The film frequently appears on worst film lists, such as the Internet Movie Database's "Bottom 100" list, where patron voting has continuously kept it listed as one of the 100 worst films of all time. As of 12 March, 2007, it holds the position of #60 on the list. Further insults came in 2001, when the movie received seven Razzie Awards, including Worst Movie of the Year, Worst Actor (Travolta), and Worst Screen Couple (Travolta and "anyone sharing the screen with him"). This was the second highest number of Razzies "won" by a single film at that time, behind Showgirls's eight "wins" in 1995. Battlefield Earth was later awarded an eighth Razzie for Worst "Drama" of our First 25 Years. It received an exceptionally low 3% Rotten Tomatoes ranking [23] (by comparison, 60% is considered "Fresh"). Although Travolta wished to follow up the film with a sequel,[2] no plans to do so have materialized. By the time the film was released on DVD, it had been drastically edited from the original theatrical version. [24] ControversiesImage:Terl action figure.jpg Action figure depicting "Terl" (played by John Travolta) Concerns arose prior to the film's release that it reportedly contained subliminal messages.[25] Former Scientologist Lawrence Wollersheim, in a press release, claimed the Church of Scientology "has placed highly advanced subliminal messages in the Battlefield Earth film master to surreptitiously recruit new members from the movie audience and to get the audience to develop a revulsion for psychiatry and current mental health organizations and practices."[26] Such claims received little support in the mainstream media, however. Following the failure of Battlefield Earth and other films independently produced by Franchise Pictures, the Wall Street Journal reported that the FBI was probing "the question of whether some independent motion picture companies have vastly inflated the budget of films in an effort to scam investors."[27] A $100 million lawsuit was filed against Franchise Pictures by the German-based Intertainment AG alleging that the production company had fraudulently inflated budgets in pictures, including Battlefield Earth, that Intertainment had helped to finance. Intertainment won the case after lengthy proceedings in a Los Angeles Federal courtroom and was awarded $121.7 million in damages, bankrupting Franchise Pictures.[11] Followups and sequelsThe disastrous performance of Battlefield Earth and the collapse of its financial backers has made it very unlikely that a sequel will be produced as Travolta originally intended.[11] However, Author Services announced in 2001 that Pine Com International, a Tokyo-based animation studio, would produce thirteen one-hour animated television segments based on the book and rendered in a "magna" [sic] style. [28] Dan Haggerty was signed to provide the voice of Terl and Tim Kearns was to play Ker. However, according to James Robert Parish, "little has been heard of the series since." [11] Cast
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