There is something you should know before I jump in to my contribution of this review

of the unadulterated mess that is Battlefield Earth:

I love movies.

    The way some men love Sports or Cars I love Movies. Not films. Films are usually over

artsy, under produced, poorly thought out, and French. I love the big effects movie, the kind 

that that gives you motion sickness from 37 different 20 frames-per-second camera shots and

internal bleeding from the bang and throb of the THX sound system. The only problem is that I 

only put in three years into Texas High School Football, so I still require some sort of plot to go

with the CGI (before any smart remarks are made please note that one of people seen in 

Mike’s Mug shot collection was a coach of ours).

These things being said, Mike and I particularly love bad movies. They are so much fun to tear up

and laugh at, especially when it looks as if the Studio gave $22 Million to a band of main-lining 

crack-monkeys.  But sometimes a movie that we'll love to hate will sneak up on us and turn out to 

be really enjoyable like Judge Dread or Lost in Space. Then there are those years the people in 

Hollywood do so much blow that they let Kevin Costner make a Science Fiction film. I’ll now get

to the point of this little article.

Why Battlefield Earth hurt me:

1.        There’s a part in the film where a human slave says in response to Jonnie Goodboy  Taylor’s

command “piece of cake”. This man grew up in a cave and unless Jonnie took the time to tell these 

people what cake used to be using pictograms and an Easy-Bake Oven while showing them how to

use Harrier Jump Jets and machine guns, cake better mean mud on a stick.

2.        This brings up my next point. Jonnie teaches people who were wiping their asses with pine bark

all their lives to fly Harrier Jump jets in a WEEK. I have had formal schooling , used electric devices 

all my life, and I couldn’t read the manual for a jump jet in a week, but Bam Bam and the rest of the 

cave men fly better than the Blue Angles.

3.       In an age where anything that can be dreamt can be put on screen, the best the effects crew could

due to make John Travolta look like a nine foot alien is give him some leftover boots from the last Kiss

tour?  I’m not saying that all movies Effects have to be done by ILM, but the lead villain shouldn’t walk

like a three-year-old with an ear infection.

4.        I’d like to add a personal note. About this time last year we were all waiting for a little film a called

Episode 1 which took a fair amount of abuse after it came out. Ep.1 was not a bad movie, It’s only crime

is that after 16 years people were expecting to see the face of God come on screen after the opening 

crawl and give them the 10 Secrets of Success. After 16 minutes of Battlefield Earth I was hoping to see

 the Face of God because it would mean the Rapture was upon us and I would get out of the movie early.

Episode 1 good movie, Battlefield Earth worse than oral surgery.

Rob Downs

5/14/2000