Battlefield Earth - S10 E76

Get ready folks, because this week on Shoot the Hostage, Dan and Sarah bravely (or stupidly) sat through the cinematic turd known as Battlefield Earth (2000). Yes, that's right, we're diving headfirst into what many consider to be not just a box office flop, but a serious contender for the title of worst movie of all time. If you've ever wondered what happens when you try to adapt roughly 40% of a massive thousand-page book by the prolific (in quantity, at least) science fiction writer and Scientology founder, L. Ron Hubbard, into a single film, prepare to have your expectations crater like this movie's box office.

We'll be dissecting this glorious mess starring John Travolta (who lobbied for years to get this passion project made). Prepare for questionable acting choices, baffling plot points and more screen wipes than you can shake a stick at. We’ll also try (and likely fail) to understand the vision of director Roger Christian, whose commentary track apparently suggests we just "don't get it". If you're searching for a podcast that doesn't hold back on its criticism of films based on books that go spectacularly wrong, or if you're simply curious about one of the most notorious movie flops in cinematic history, you've come to the right (or perhaps wrong) place. Trust us, after this episode, you might just consider Waterworld a masterpiece.

In this episode you can expect:

• A scathing takedown of Battlefield Earth from start to finish.
• Our bewildered attempts to make sense of the plot and the alien motivations.
• Plenty of discussion about John Travolta's… unique? performance and his deep connection to the source material.
• Observations on just how a film with a reported budget of $70-80 million (or maybe $40 million) could look this visually unappealing.
• Digressions into the bizarre world of Scientology, the religion/cult behind the book.
• The definitive answer to whether this truly deserves its reputation as one of the worst films ever made.

So, strap yourselves in for a bumpy ride as we try to navigate the post-apocalyptic wasteland that is Battlefield Earth!

Season 10 runs until May 26th with 10 episodes this time

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hello and welcome to Shoot a Hostage with me, Dan, and my partner, Sarah. We're a movie podcast who talks about a different film each week based on a theme. We do swear and we do spoil the featured movie. So, only ever listen if you've seen the film or you don't care too much about spoilers. If you're a regular listener, you can just skip forward until you hear the intro music cuz you've heard all of this before. But if you are new to the show and you do enjoy what you hear, there are a couple of things you can do to help support the show. Firstly, make sure that you're subscribed on your podcast player so you get notified when new shows drop on Mondays. Uh you could rate us five stars on Spotify, which couldn't be easier. You just hit the star icon below the show's artwork. Or if you have a spare few minutes, we'd love it if you could submit a review wherever you listen. Uh make sure you come follow us at ST_Pod on social media. We are active on Instagram, threads, and Tik Tok. And lastly, the biggest thing you can do to help is tell a friend about the show. So that's about it. That's enough preamble from me. Uh over to me and Sarah for this week's episode. Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to this podcast where We talk about movies.

(00:01):
I can't tell if this is the actual intro or if you're just being an idiot.
I'm just being an idiot. Oh, f*** it. Well, might as well keep it the actual intro, shall we? Cuz I can't be bothered to do it again.
Okay.
I was
I don't think anybody could be asked with this film either. So, that's quite fitting.
What? Battlefield Earth. What's wrong with it?
What's right with it?
We'll get into it.
But nothing spoilers. Nothing's right with it.
I thought uh it's becoming a bit of a theme on this podcast. But I felt like I should open with an apology once again to you.
I've made you watch some real turkeys during the lifetime of this podcast.
Uh the Wicker Man remake, which we spoke about season.
It wasn't the worst thing I've ever suffered through.
Especially now having watched Battlefield Earth.
Perspective is everything.
Yeah. Water world was another one. But again, compared to Battlefield Earth,
masterpiece.
Exactly. Uh, both have Kim Coats in coincidentally.
Paper. It's got paper. Have you ever seen paper?
Is Kim Coats a terrible actor or a terrible person? Or does he need to fire his agent?
I don't know the answer to any of those questions.

(00:22):
Okay.
Cuz he was in a he was a son of Anarchy, wasn't he?
Yeah.
Was he good in that?
Yeah. He was kind of a psycho, but he was pretty good in that.
Right. See, I I know him from Waterworld.
Yeah. And now Battlefield Earth. And now Battlefield Earth where he plays the same character.
Yeah. Ultimately
man that goes Oh.
Yeah. He's not Irish this time.
No. Is he Irish in real life?
No.
He's American,
I believe. So,
okay. This movie,
if you can call it that.
If you can call it that. Is based on book.
It is based on book. Yeah. Based on half book.
Based on half book. About 40% of book to be precise I believe.
Yeah.
Big book. is it's based on big book of a thousand pages written by the most prolific science fiction writer of all time in terms of quantity.

(00:43):
Is G Moreni based on Elron Hobed? Genuine question because the amount of times last night that I jotted G Mangi isms down in my notes was insane.
Really?
Yeah.
I thought about Moreni in that Hubard most definitely has written more books. and he's read
I I'm not sure anybody involved in this project can even read.
I think that's probably a fair comment. Uh he he he wrote many books, one of which was called Battlefield Earth in 1982 that your year of birth.
Yeah.
In the world we got in 1982, the world was presented with a baby Sierra and the battlefield Earth by one LR. As we as we have to abbreviate everything in Scientolo ology. I can't even f****** say Scientology. I don't give a s***. I don't give a crap, actually.
Oh, yeah. You've got to tone it down.
You got to say crap in a 12A movie.
Yeah.
Uh he wrote many books, including Battlefield Earth, a little book called Dionetics.
Yeah. Uh which I haven't read. I I I can't really judge it cuz I haven't I haven't read it.
I can judge it. I've not read it either, but I I will definitely be judging it.
And out of his 300 and something books that he's written,
300 Yep.
No way.
Yep.
How? What? Wait, what? 300.
Well, let's bear in mind that he invented a religion.
Cult

(01:04):
slashcult.
Definitely. It's not a religion.
It's a cult that doesn't pay any taxes.
It's a religion for tax purposes. Yeah. But it's a cult.
So, let let's bear in mind that he did that. So, let's assume that he's also so conned a lot of the books that he's written like I know that he had a some sort of writing partner back in the day is someone else he's got a team of people just writing he's going oh yeah that put my name on that that's that's mine
yeah
it's probably that isn't it
I was going to say like I don't think it's possible to write 300 books in a lifetime if that's all you
read 300 books
genuinely
um yeah I must have
you you definitely have yeah
but I I just I don't think it's physically possible is it?
I don't know.
Some of them must have been ghostwritten, especially if some of them are a thousand pages long.
Some of them are written by Satans.
Yeah.
You know, on paper, the most books ever written by a single human to this day.
Does he hold the record?
Yeah. Genuinely.
Wow.

(01:25):
Yeah.
Yeah. That's not possible. What's Who's second?
Uh, I don't know.
Even Stephen King doesn't pump him out that fast
and he's he writes a lot of books
and he's super prolific.
Yeah. Now
that's insane. That's nuts. He is G Mingi.
He is
or was He's dead, right?
G Mingi.
LR.
LR. Oh, he's dead.
Long dead.
Yeah, he's long dead.
Good. f*** that guy.
I I think uh early 90s, I want to say, maybe 80s. Who cares?
Uh all I know is that when he died, someone took over
called David Mscavage.
He's a wanker as well.
He's a wanker. as well. Um, yeah, he seems like he is definitely

(01:46):
Where's his wife?
I don't know. I knew you was going to ask this question. I don't know the answer to this.
I fell down that rabbit hole about five, six years ago.
Well, apparently Scientologists have spotted her in certain places, like in a sawmill or whatever.
Scientologists have spotted her. Oh, and they're they're trustworthy.
Yeah. All right.
Yeah.
You're not saying that because they've got leverage on you. I'm so The word leverage has lost all meaning to me after watching this movie.
They love saying the word leverage in this. Travolta loves saying the word leverage in Battlefield Earth. He loves saying the word leverage in Swordfish. He just loves leverage in general. Yeah.
And as you quite rightly pointed out, it's most probably because Scientology loves leverage in general.
They just want dirt on people.
Yeah.
That's the whole auditing process, isn't it? Just to accumulate dirt.
No, the point of that is to so that you go clear,
right?
And you can exercise your demons. or whatever it is. Fatans know I've seen the documentary, but it's bollocks, isn't it?
What do you reckon?
Yeah, of course it's bollocks.
Of course it is.
They want dirt on people.
Nonsense.

(02:07):
Yeah,
they want bribery material.
Travolta lobbied to get this made for the longest time.
Why?
Because he's a Scientologist. The whatever questions you ask during the the this podcast, the answer is almost certainly always going to be because Scientology.
I don't accept that.
But Apparently, um, when he was alive, LR had sent a book to John Travolta with a s a signed copy of his book, Battlefield Earth. And Travolta was trying to get it made since since its release pretty much. And originally, he was going to play main character called Johnny Goodboy, who's
sorry, I can't take that seriously.
Who eventually of course became Barry Peppa's role and he sort of aged out of it. So, he became the cylo head cyclone. a security guy.
I can't say
so close.
I can't say any of this with a straight face, you know.
No,
but um
that's like if you asked a child, "What do you want to call the bad guys?" So close.
Yeah.
Just cuz they can't say psycho properly.
Yeah.
Idiotic.
Yeah.
I'm sorry. I'm just I'm going to preface this by saying I am going to be overwhelmingly negative this episode.

(02:28):
Just don't worry about it. Like there are some films, especially in this season, that I will def And Masters of the Universe was a good example of that. I don't think that film is terrible. Some people don't like it at all. But
Empire Records for me.
Exactly. Empire Records for you. When you line them up directly against Battlefield Earth, you really understand what a bad movie really is.
Like there's no comparison. They are worlds apart.
And I've seen some bad movies in my time.
Yeah.

Like it's funny because you you told me that this is largely considered the worst film ever made, right? Cuz I was under the impression it was something like Plan N from Out of Space or Manos (02:34):
The Hands of Fate or even The Room or BMI, which come up quite a bit on this podcast. And I don't know, I for all their flaws, I think I would rather watch any one of those before watching Battlefield Earth again.
And I can't quite get a handle on what is so unpleasant about it.
Oh, there's loads. Battlefield.
Yeah. Oh, take your pick. Do we want to talk about the performances? Do we want to talk about how it looks? The grading, the camera angles, the close-ups,
the characterizations, the special effects,
characterization
or lack thereof. Like, you could honestly pick any part of this film and just take a giant turd on it and you would be completely within your rights
and you may improve it.
It's impossible not to improve this movie.
Before we do get on to all of that stuff though, What made you choose this? Because you said yourself you you're not going to defend it. So, what about it made you choose it for flop season?
I've haven't seen this in I saw it I think roughly when it came out. Circa 2000.
Oh, you were one of the 12 people that bought a ticket to this movie.
Y
wow.
Didn't I don't Well, I didn't see it at the cinema. I don't think
I didn't like it. Didn't really think too much about it again. And then when I was doing my research for flops, this came up and Quite a few of the ones I've chosen in this season, they're all flops to to varying degrees.
Oh, good. It's not like Neo Western season where you were just picking films around
theme be damned.
They're all flops to a degree, but I think I like most of them.
And I wanted one in there that was undeniably terrible that we could just have a bit of fun with. And also, f*** Scientology. Like, let's sometimes when you there's a film as well that's not good. I can see that people worked hard on it. And I'm sure people worked very hard in this film. So like no shade to the crew unless you're a Scientologist.
Oh, some shade.

(02:55):
Some shade to the crew. But then, you know, sometimes there's just so there's so little redeeming qualities that there's just nothing else you can do other than just I just talk about how bad it is. Like there's there's literally no redeeming qualities in this movie. And I just thought it would be nice to balance it out with something that's objectively bad that I hate versus other things that are probably objectively bad that I love. I thought it was important to get a bit of balance in there. And I've wanted to I'll be curious to revisit this for a while just because it's like, oh, it can't be as bad as I remember.
I was just going to say, was it better or worse than your memory of it?
Worse. Worse.
It was worse. I don't remember being as bored as I was when we were watching it last night when I was I don't know, I guess 16, 17 when I saw it. But then again, I was 16, 17 when I saw it.
Um, and my brain was much smaller if you can imagine such a thing. I uh yeah I that's why I chose it. I procured it. I we now own a copy of Battlefield Earth because it wasn't streaming anywhere.
I cannot believe we own We have a copy in our house.
Not for long.
No. Do you think Where did you buy it? Was it on eBay?
Yeah.
Do you think the person you bought it off had been trying to sell it for the best part of 20 years?
There isn't there's an inch layer of dust when it arrived. I had to blow it like Indiana Jones blows dust off an old f****** slate. There was uh yeah, I'm sure someone was like, "f****** hell, so so Terry, what? Someone's bought the copy of Battlefield Earth that we've had on eBay for 15 years since eBay first started. It was the very first thing ever listed and it's been there. It must be some sort of record. What idiot is buying this?" Oh, Dan's bought it. But only because we're covering it for a podcast. And honestly, like if we ever if the heating ever goes off, if our gas gets cut off,
we need fuel. got something to burn.
Yeah, absolutely.
Although I probably will burn it before that happens.
Yeah.
Um
for joy rather than for warmth.
Yeah, it might I might do that. I uh I I wasn't expecting it to be as bad as it was. I'll be honest with you. Had I remembered exactly how bad it was, I don't know if I necessarily would have chosen it just because I would have been like, I don't want to watch it again.
No.
But having said that, I'm glad that it's done now. And it's now going to be something that I remember. This is record a recorded conversation.
So in another 20 years, you'll be like, I wonder if Battlefield Battlefield Earth is as bad as I remember it being

(03:16):
and I can remind you that there's a podcast. You go listen to that and go, "No." Yeah, I'm not buying another copy off eBay.
Yeah, I'll just go and revisit this episode. Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
It's another John Travolta movie that that keeps coming up for some reason. It's our third Travolta movie now.
Yeah. I'm not okay with this.
It's bizarre. But this is his worst performance of all time. Right.
Is it though? Cuz I haven't seen that Fred Durst movie that he was in.
Neither have I. It's got to be, hasn't it?
He's been in some f****** turkeys.
I know. I I I haven't seen anything new with Travolta in like 15 years.
No, he went through that phase of like obviously off the back of Nicholas Cage season, it's sort of the first comparison that comes to mind. But he went through that stage of kind of having a similar career where he would crop up in loads of straight to streaming crap. And like my old housemate and I used to play a game of like, oh, what's his facial hair combo going to be this time
cuz it always looked drawn on a period of about 10 years. Yeah. It looked like it been like sprayed on
like the hair at top his head.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And like no shame to anybody who's losing hair at all.
No.
But when you kind of resort to using spray on hair then you know
I think when you're a Scientologist it's they're fair game
Yeah on them
yeah

(03:37):
it's kind of low hanging fruit though isn't it
yeah but that's what makes it fun
I uh Geralt is a weird one isn't he because he became famous didn't he with the dancing movie what's that called Saturday Night Fever
and I remember that because I did a movie quiz this week that you weren't present for
I'm sorry Um, unlike the curs and quizzes, we came fourth out of 10 teams. So, I was humbled.
Yeah.
Um, but there was a whole John Travolta round. I hate the man. I hate him.
Yeah.
And I realized I kind of started this because I was the first to choose a film that he was in.
Carrie.
Yeah.
But it was a small part. He's not in it that much.
No. No.
I continued it with Face Off, which he's in an awful lot, and I really like his performance in that. But again, but he's trying to do a Nicholas Cage impression, and that's What's fun about it? It's not the travoltiness. It's the fact that he's trying to emulate Cage. He's had like a quite a few ups and downs. He started with Saturday Night Fever and then I think his career was on a decline for a while and then he got Pulp Fiction and it went back up again. And
don't forget Greece. Grace was huge.
Was a a film that people liked apparently.
Um and the one with the talking baby that's played by Bruce Willis.
Oh yeah.
Uh they were hugely successful. those first two at least anyway with Kirsty Ali and and John Travolta starring two Scientologists.
Oh yeah, I forgot that she was as well.
Yes. Yes. So I think around the mid80s is when he was trying to get the adaptation of the book made of Battlefield Earth.

(03:58):
Okay.
And I think his career was on a little bit of a decline then. So he was having trouble getting it made. Wasn't until Tarantino in his infinite wisdom gave him the role in Pulp Fiction which earned him I think an Oscar nomination
and that's when he got a a second win wind
wind
in his uh career or third wind I don't know
he's had many wins
he's had many wins yeah one of them is called Battlefield Earth
uh so after that point he's got a bit of clout now I think he was commanding about 20 mil a film
okay
it's like right let's use my new found power to get Yes.
Battlefield Earth made. Yeah.
Oh my god. I did read that he offered the directing role to Quentyn Tarantino.
Yeah. And do do you know what he uh he said it's like Pulp Fiction in the year 3000. That's a direct quote from John Travolta.
Oh, he's just fully insane, isn't he?
100%. Do you want one more?
Sure. Yeah.
It's like Star Wars only better. Coming from someone who's not the biggest fan of Star Wars, was way better than this.
It's not even as good as the prequels.
No, it's not. You're right.
No,
you're right. It's worse than the prequels. Um Oh, actually, I forgot about this one. And this is my favorite one.

(04:19):
Oh my gosh.
Hold on to your to your butts.
Yeah.
The Schindler's List of Sci-Fi.
What?
I don't know. Liam Niss's not in it.
That feels hugely disrespectful.
But also false.
The Scientologists love a Nazi reference, don't they? They laugh comparing because they always bang on about being oppressed
and whoever is
whoever is not uh in their camp is an SP a suppressive person and oh it's just like it's just like being Jewish in the 30s and 40s and genuinely Ron Mis is Ron Msgavage that's his dad David Msgavage has done one interview as far as I can tell like with a with a journalist not
yeah not somebody from the inside
yeah not marketing videos which I'm just getting popping up all over the time, all over the place now on my algorithm. It's depressing but fascinating. He's Yeah, in that interview he's saying exactly that, like uh like they're an oppressed group of people and comparing themselves to people that have were actually oppressed. It's it's bizarre. It's just a way to try and win favor, isn't it? It's
the worst thing that happens to Scientologists is people stand outside their headquarters and try to prevent people from walking in. Nobody's marching them to a goddamn gas chamber.
He needs a serious reality check.
That's the second worst thing that can happen to a Scientologist. The absolute worst thing would be if they had to pay tax.
Yeah. How wildly disrespectful.
It's crazy, isn't it?
Oh my god. It gets worse.
It was. Yeah. And this this project was shopped around to to quite a few people
and I'm sure they all quite rightly said nope.

(04:40):
You mentioned uh Tarantino already who turned it down. Ron Howard turned it down. I can't imagine a Ron Howard version of Battlefield Earth,
right?
Which role is Tom Hanks playing.
Oh, no.
Martin Campbell, I think, is uh he did a couple of Bonds.
Okay.
Golden Eye, maybe. Maybe he did Casino Royale as well.
Yeah, he was he was at the action festival that we went to.
Yeah, you're right.
He did a bit of a talk.
Good solid director. Not a hugely well-known name, I would say, but probably should be. He's he's got a really impressive um CV.
Um and even more impressive because Battlefield Earth is not on it.
Yeah.
But funnily enough, George Lucas, I don't know if he was offered the directing job or not, but
did they pitch it to him as it's like Star Wars but better.
I hope so. I hope so. And he was like, "Oh, yeah. See why it's not better though, is it? Because you haven't got Jar Binks in it." Uh he George Lucas actually recommended his sec set decorator from the original Star Wars, Roger Christian. He later became an assistant director on I think the prequels and maybe Jedi was the first time he was an ad, but
they should have recommended the f****** set cleaner. They might have done a better job.
Yeah, should have recommended the gas chamber.
O, they're the ones that that make that comparison
for the book. For the book.
I uh but so Lucas recommended Roger Christian who bec became the director of this movie.

(05:01):
Roger Christian.
Roger Christian, ironically.
Oh,
yeah. Another religion. But I did hear from an interview, I forget who it was, it might have been Marty Wthburn or another ex Scientologist, but they were basically saying that when Battlefield Earth was being made, uh, Msgavage, David Msgavage, was all over it. He was micromanaging the whole thing. He may as well have been director like he saw everything.
Oh,
and then when the movie came out, he went, I don't know what I had nothing to do with this.
He he turned into that Homer backing into the bushes gift.
Yeah. Yeah.
Wow. Okay.
That's that's the story I heard. I've only seen it from one source and they're a Scientologist or ex Scientologist, so, you know, take it with a grain of salt. But also, I do think there's probably some truth to that because
yeah, I could believe that.
Is he really going to let someone else be in control of the property of this? I suppose if it was a huge hit could have done a lot for the cult as in or at least financially speaking. There weren't there weren't that many um there weren't any Scientology references in it as far as I could tell apart from one
which was
it was a book that uh Barry Pepper is reading
Johnny
Johnny Johnny Good boy That apparently is Dionetics or was it Battlefield Earth? Oh, I think it was Battlefield Earth.
He gave him a copy of Battlefield Earth in Battlefield Earth,
I think. So, yeah.
What the hell?
He was reading it backwards. He can't even read it properly, mate. And he's
He is only a man animal.

(05:22):
He is a man animal, but he's had the genius training at that point. He should know how to read a f****** book.
That is true. So, speaking of, how much did it make and how much Well, how much did it cost? Do you know how much it made?
Well, the production company franchise pictures had said that it was 70 70 80 million but then there was a legal proceedings afterwards where it came out that it was actually 40 million budget
what
I don't know what the reasons for that would be I've given it very little thought to be honest with you but the very little thought that I did give it I couldn't figure out why you would do that uh
so maybe
so who wait who was saying it was 70 odd
well franchise pictures are the ones that got sued
okay
so I'm guessing it was them because well they got sued and then they had to pay out like 120 million quid in damages.
Oh, that backfired.
Yeah. Back bankrupted the company. They went they went kaput because of this movie. Not unlike Canon Pictures in Masters of Universe.
Um franchise pictures uh responsible for such you know huge hits like the whole nine yards and the boondock saints.
Okay.
Classics. The third miracle. Everyone remembers that movie. Five aces. What a classic. Stormcatcher. One of my favorite movies. A Murder of Crows is my favorite movie about crows.
Is it?
Mine's Opera.
Okay.
Oh, they did the the remake of Get Carter, which is meant to be good, isn't it?
I've got no idea.
It's meant to be terrible. Oh, no.

(05:43):
What?
There's another movie on this season that they did.
Oh, no. Mouth It
really? Oh, that doesn't that actually doesn't shock me at all given what you've just told me.
Good lord. Well, that is my favorite. franchise pictures movie and we'll get to that in a few weeks time.
That's fascinating. There's loads of movies after Battlefield Earth,
but um I'm guessing a lot of them were made
before the lawsuit. And how long did the lawsuit take? Must have taken a while, I guess.
So, who sued them?
Uh some lawyers.
Okay.
Someone with a funny wig on, probably. I don't know.
Have you ever been in a courtroom?
No.
Oh, yeah. Me. Me either.
Cool. Yeah. No, generally I've never been in a courtroom, but I've seen it on telly.
It's not quite as formal as it is on TV in my experience.
No, I suppose not. It was that episode of the British Empire when he went to court and they were wearing funny wigs. That's my reference.
Is it your mission to shoehorn in an 80s or ' 90s British sitcom reference into every show lately?
And it's always got to have Chris Barry in it. So, I've got one more reference to do.
Stay tuned for Red Dwarf next week. Battlefield Earth. It in 2010 it won a Razzi for the worst movie of the decade.

(06:04):
When Oh, when did this come out? 2000.
2000. So, right at the start. We We started strong in 2000, didn't we? We had the Millennium Bug, which which went crazy and sent everything wild.
Yeah.
Um I'm glad we did all that prep, built all those bunkers, uh and changed all the clocks and our cookers. Oh no, they're going to go mental. Uh 2010. So, yeah, straight away, right out the gate, 2000 the worst movie of decade which it was gifted in 2010 the writer JD Shapiro turned up to the ceremony and accepted his award and apologized for the movie
and I think that's pretty consistent with almost everybody that's worked on this film. They deeply regret their involvement with it and they acknowledge freely that it's a piece of s***.
Wow. Okay. Yeah, I did see that Forest Whitaker had opened up and sort of said, "Yeah, terrible. Just just the worst." And also, I think Barry Pepper won a Razzi for worst actor,
right,
the year that it came out. And he said that if he'd known he was going to win, he would have turned up to the ceremony to accept in person.
That's fair.
So, although everybody hates their involvement, it seems like they're being pretty good sports about it, which I kind of respect.
You have to be, don't you? Like,
I guess so.
You can't watch this movie and I I it I will I will still say the one thing, you like what you like. If you watch this movie and you enjoy it, that is great. I'm very, very happy for you. But you also maybe should acknowledge that it is actually a piece of s***. Like, it's terrible. It's not good. But you can still enjoy something that's not good. I don't know what you would cuz it's also very boring.
I think maybe if you enjoy Battlefield Earth, somebody in your life should involuntarily section you. I think there's an underlying problem there. I would I would agree with you for most films.
I think you're being an SP.
I am an SP.
You are.
I'm a total suppressive person. I only know that because of Louis Thuru.
Am I Am I being an SP? I don't know. I've got
your Vera Herzog was better than your Yeah.
Um I just wish I was better at an impression of him. I wish he was in this movie. I wish there was a making of documentary with Louis Thuru walking around

(06:25):
talking to Travolta Roger Christian and um the production designer and just going Why? Why?
I wish there was a Lost Souls type documentary about this movie.
Yeah, that would be fascinating.
The Richard Stanley Island of Dr. Maro one.
They would never allow it.
No, exactly.
That's the problem, isn't it? Like they're so protective over their
material, their their precious LR novels
that it's it's just never you're never going to get that kind of access. And I mentioned that most people involved in this are deeply apologetic and acknowledged that it's not good. There are at least one exception to that. Can you guess?
Is it John Travolta?
Of course, it's JT himself.
I I also heard that most of the budget went on his fee.
Well, considering he was on about 20 mil a pop then I I think I did read that he did sacrifice some of his salary. Say he did it for 10.
It didn't go into the film.
No,
it didn't go towards the effects budget or the script or The catering from what I've heard
went into Miss Gavage's back pocket, didn't it?
Yeah.
Do you have Are we Are we going to have to do a disclaimer up top in case we get sued by Scientology?
Can they sue us? What can they sue us for?
Can't get blood out of a stone, can you?

(06:46):
Yeah. Oh my god.
f*** them. Let's hope we never get successful then.
Cuz I don't want to take this episode down.
You can't take jack s***.
Yeah. And also, we listed as a comedy podcast, so it's all all Is it parody law? Is that when you can do whatever you want?
Um If it's comedy, I don't know if it sort of gives you free reign to say whatever you want, but you are there are certain protections.
What if I said, "f*** David Msgavage. I hope he dies soon."
D Well, that's maybe a little bit mean. But
is it David Muscavage is a crap head?
Is it mean? Paraphrase the
Would lots of people not be much better off if he wasn't alive.
Maybe. Yeah. But I don't wish death on anybody.
I wish
it's not my call to make.
I wish death on some people. is is one of my top five people that I wish death upon. Everyone's going to die.
I if he if he was walking down the road and he fell down a big pothole and passed away, I'd probably chuckle, but I wouldn't wish it on him.
Oh, you're very generous.
f*** him.
Well, yeah.
The abuse the abuse that that disgusting quote unquote religion/ quote has instilled upon people and just brainwashed people. People that probably for the most part want to do good things. Like you don't necessarily do join this sort of thing. It's very easy to say you're weak-minded and I don't think that's the case. I think a lot of the time God this is turning into a Scientology podcast.
I was going to say look I'm not saying I'm not saying I disagree with you. I'm not saying I want to go for a beer with the guy. I think he belongs in prison. I just don't wish death on anyone.

(07:07):
Okay.
Comedy podcast or not?
Yeah. Uh I want to I I suppose I want to caveat slightly. You believe what you believe and I'm not going to judge anyone for believing what they believe in.
As long as it's not harmful or too exclusionary like I don't know
harm harm is the key word I think for me.
As long as you're not doing anyone any harm, you do whatever you want. You believe whatever you want. And if you you you actually have a term called fair game where you can do whatever you want to people within the legal laws, but you can harass people, make people's life a misery and threaten them. Like, that's not cool, man. You don't don't do that. And if you do that, I feel like you're fair game and I can take a big crap on you.
Yeah. And so,
I wish he was dead.
Trying to accumulate dirt on people so you have material to bribe them with. Leverage. Sorry. Leverage
is scumbag behavior.
Yeah.
Just end of
Yeah. 100%. I I think that's another reason why I chose it, you know, because I do I am fascinated with cults and that sort of thing. And I did at some point want to try and have a discussion about Scientology. I didn't know if it was going to be in something like this or to be honest, I probably expected it if we ever did like a cult theme, something like that.
If we talk about the master, which definitely isn't about Scientology,
not Hoffman is not playing LR at all. man doesn't even know what a motorcycle is.
Um he's he doesn't know what masturbating is. He's never seen a ship in his life,
even though he commanded that that that submarine.
Oh,
no, we don't talk about that.
No, he didn't do that.
Mm-m.

(07:28):
Yeah. I I was kind of hoping maybe we could have a discussion about Scientology. I don't know if we're going to go that much into it. This is an episode about Battlefield Earth, and I feel like I've been pretty mean about it already.
Yeah, you you sort of divorce the film from Scientology, though. So, I think the I think the subject warrants exploration.
I think you're right because if it was a film that just had Michael Pena in it, we'd probably mention Scientology, but it would be a quick stupid joke and then we'd probably move on. But the fact that this was written by a Scientologist, starred a Scientologist, was made because of a Scientologist, was directed by a Scientologist, if you believe what people say.
Oh, I was going to I thought you talking about um Roj.
Roj. Oh, Ro. Roger Christian. No, he as far as I can tell, he's not a Scientologist, but if you listen to the DVD commentary track, you would think that he was.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Maybe they won him over.
Maybe they did.
But yeah, I mean, I guess it's it's like if we covered a film that starred Kevin Sorbo, we'd have to talk about Christianity
or Hercules
and Pure Flicks.
Oh, Kevin Sorbo. Oh, his son's a knobhead as well.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Yeah. doesn't fall far from the tree.
No, I just got I get loads of s*** that I don't want to see on TikTok cuz I hate watching
Cuz you engage with it.
I don't engage with it. I just watch it.
Watching it is engaging with it to the algorithm. You know how this s*** works. You're not naive.
I hate watch Michael McIntyre videos and Kevin Svo videos apparently. I'm just like, what? Why do you hate people? What's Why do you care if someone wants to wear a dress or not? Who gives a f***?

(07:49):
I don't I don't I couldn't give a merry s*** what anybody else does with their own genitals in the privacy of their own home.
Do what you want.
It doesn't affect me.
Just don't harm anyone.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. Anyway,
this film did me harm.
It did you harm. It did. Uh you you asked me about the box office about 10 minutes ago and I just went off on a f****** tangent, but
73 million apparently was the reported number at the time.
Later was
44 we say.
40 40 odd million was the actual budget after legal proceedings.
Yeah. 20 of which went to Travolta, we think
and the other 20 was on rats.
Yeah. And there was about a tenner left over for costumeuming. Yeah.
Or so it looked.
Yeah. So they just bought 1,000 m of brown tarpollin and wrapped it around the actors
and fake hair for the eyebrows. Don't forget the eyebrows.
Yeah. No, they had that horse. They shaved the horse and then super glued the eyebrow the horse hair onto the eye the eye area and said that's eyebrows.
Uh but it made apparently 9 million worldwide,
which is surprising to me.

(08:10):
So, there is Right. So, this was going to be my next question. There are enough of us that have seen that movie to um to come together and do a class action lawsuit for psychological harm.
Do you reckon
if it made 29 million, there's enough of us?
Yeah.
Because this film harmed mentally.
I wonder if there's anything in that we could do a petition. You know, I I I just did.
Maybe this is how we bring down Scientology.
I just used my calculator to figure out what 29 million divided by 10 was.
Did you?
I'm an accountant. Uh, and guess what it is? It's 3 million. So 3 million people roughly saw this at the cinema, I guess. I don't really know how those numbers work, but there's enough people there to to lobby and get behind a movement to claim psychological damage. But then Scientologists don't recognize psychology.
So what's their defense going to be?
Yeah, it doesn't exist. The law does.
Yeah.
So f*** those guys.
Yeah, true.
Do a Tik Tok. Let's get the word out.
All right, let's start a movement.
Yeah, somebody somebody will pipe in with a no win, no fee offer, I'm sure.
Yeah. So it did it lost money. It obviously lost money, but not as much as you would think. Like I'm shocked.
Uh, Empire Records did way worse.
Yeah.

(08:31):
Uh, Police Academy 7 did way Oh, interesting question.
Oh, no.
Would you rather watch Battlefield
Police Academy 7?
Really?
I don't even have to think about it.
Really?
Would I rather watch
John Travolta forgetting which accent he's supposed to be doing, chewing the really shoddily put together scenery, or see two grown men spit an egg back and forth? I know what I would choose.
Comedant Lassard's only a one. those movies.
Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. What are you going to do?
Yeah. No, I I I I I agree.
It's not exactly a Sophie's choice, is it?
No.
This is This is kind of more or less the part where we would comment on the acting and discuss the cast, but I feel like it's almost pointless here because everybody's uniformly terrible.
You got Travolta, you've got Whitaker, you've got Peppa, you've got Coats, you've got Preston in a blinking barely in this movie.
I thought she was in it way more than she is
just that tongue.
I feel like I owe Barry Pepper a bit of an apology.
Do you?
He doesn't know I exist.

(08:52):
But I feel like I've been under the impression that everybody involved in this movie was linked to Scientology in some way, shape, or form. And that going forward has affected my opinion of them. So I think I've spent my entire adult life just being like, "f*** Barry Pepper." Not that I think about him very often,
but because of his connection to this film, I just assumed it was just like a big Scientology loving No.
Yeah. Well, you mentioned that when we put it on last night and I was shocked.
It's uh the thing is that they would they would have you believe there's there's loads of members all over the world, but there's not. Apparently, there are about 25,000.
Yeah. From heard,
which is not but it's not many.
No,
there's there's more people that own this movie than there are Scientologists. And that obviously extends to the crew as well. The vast majority of them would not have been Scientologists and also to kind of defend them somewhat. Back in 1999 when this was being shopped around, I I didn't know what Scientology was. I'm sure that most of the people that worked on it probably did just because it was the Hollywood thing and that's what they wanted is to infiltrate celebrities and that the celebrity center.
Um
I I only know what Scientology is because of this movie.
Oh, really?
When this was released, that was the first time I ever heard about Scientology.
You see, you see when I saw this. I don't think I even knew what it was then. It wasn't until a few years later,
maybe mid 2000s, possibly 2008ish,
is when I I became started to become familiar with it.
So, I didn't know what it was back then. Even if you did know what it was, you may not have been aware of all of the details and how
some people have been deeply harmed by it psychologically.
Uh there are a lot of victims of it. You might might not be aware of that. They really care about public relations and and trying to manage their image and with the emergence of the internet, you can't you just can't do that anymore.
Yeah.
So, I feel like back then
and and obviously Leah Remeny never f****** shuts up about it. So,

(09:13):
no,
they cannot silence that woman.
Oh, she's fighting a good fight.
Yeah.
Yeah. So, yeah, I to to defend anyone that worked on this movie, I would say it's possible that they weren't fully aware of all of the details.
Yeah.
And also, you you're an actor, you know, you want to work.
Yeah, that's valid.
There's So,
he was what, like coming off the back of um was it Saving Private Ryan he was in or Band of Brothers? He was in one of one of the big war things,
I think. Yeah, probably Band of Brothers cuz I've not seen that.
Right.
I have seen Saving Private Ryan and I don't remember him in it.
Okay. So, yeah, there there isn't really anybody that you can kind of single out for a particularly terrible performance because they're all on the same level of bad, I think.
Yeah. I think you can single out John Travolta for the single worst performance of all time.
Worse than Tommy Weisso in the room.
Yes.
Really?
Yes.
Because John Travolta should have known better
cuz he's a giant crab head.

(09:34):
He's literally a giant crap head.
I just I feel like
just when you think his head can't get any bigger.
Yeah. They actually had to shrink head for this movie. I think Tommy Wiso is an interesting comparison because he has naivity on his side.
Does he though?
Like, well, when he was making a room, didn't he buy a load of cameras and rent the camera? Like, what?
He bought them. He bought them instead of renting them.
He didn't know what he was doing.
And he filmed digital and on film.
That's what I'm thinking of. He My point is that he didn't have a clue what he was doing. He just wanted to make a thing. And there's a purity to that,
I guess. So,
maybe he was a giant s*******. I don't really know much about about the guy, but Travolta should really know better.
Yeah.
And I not that I'm surprised cuz he's always overacting in in most of the things that he's in, but I just he made some very bold choices in this and they're it's ridiculous. It's Why did he There's stuff in it like when he bumps his head that really made me laugh. And I don't know if it was Was it meant to be funny? I don't know. Probably. I don't know. And And Look at the costumes he's wearing and I think he must have had a big hand in that. Just bad decisions all round and I think that he he was in the industry for long enough and he should know better.
Yeah, I would agree with that. I would agree with that. I think um I it's really it's really difficult to pinpoint where the where the budget went in this movie because visually it's so bad
and I I think I sort of mentally checked out about half an hour into this film,
but for the first half an hour Because this was a first watch for me. I was so like you saw me. I was sat there with my hand over my mouth like shocked at how bad it was, at how bad it looked. I couldn't understand what was going on. Like I still I'm not 100% sure on the plot. I'll be honest.
Plot is
I'm not asking you to explain it. I never want to think about this movie again after this podcast. But I don't know. Like I was I was genuinely taken aback at just how bad it looked.
It's Not a pretty movie.
No.

(09:55):
From the very from the very opening where you're you're going across the mountains, it's the first image you see is
uh it's a boring image. It's like
Well, like you said, it looks like stock footage.
It looks like stock footage. It looks like a really cheap ITV documentary from the '9s.
Everything about this film looks super dated, by the way.
Yeah, I I guess it kind of is a '90s production, but it's from the very first frame. It's just very uninteresting. Yeah. And then they try to make it interesting. Like there were choices were made. I watched after we watched this film last night. You went to bed and I watched it again with the commentary track.
I could not believe that you did that willingly.
I I like to do that. And you know, I bought the DVD. I'm going to get my f****** money's worth.
How much did you spend on it, by the way?
I think it was £2.
Okay, that's Yeah, it's not the worst.
It's too much.
It's Yeah, of course. Any money is too much money. for that film.
But the but the commentary was by director Roger Christian and production designer I think it's called Patrick Topoulos and I thought there might be something interesting there like
why did they make certain decisions where did the money go? I don't know how long after the movie came out that they recorded the track. I suspect it wasn't long after it came out.
Yeah,
because it was on DVD. Did they mention Scientology at all?
Yes.
Okay.
But only in the Well, not really. They mentioned LR
and they mentioned the books and they mentioned what's in the book quite a lot and how they wanted to be faithful to it and how it kind of gets a bad rap and they wanted to be kind to it. So, they weren't like it didn't seem like they were defense of that, but they were they were the the most annoying thing about it was that there was no acknowledgement at all about how even they could have just made better decisions. It was just we were trying to make a comic strip. He said that about 87 times,

(10:16):
okay,
which got very boring. And they did the best with the the budget that they could. And the thing that really annoyed me is that At one point the director said, "Well, I feel like, and this is what makes me think that it must have been recorded after it came out, he said things like, "Once you've seen it twice, once you've seen it three times, the ideas will really start to seep in. It's all there. It's layered. Like, there's reasons for the all the decisions we made and this thing and that thing." And it was just he was just really trying to defend it rather than even if you even if you made it and you're proud of it, like I'm not taking anything away from you. It's hard to make a movie. Good for you. You did it. But you must be able to Can you not see like I mean I suppose like you you mentioned Tommy Wiso earlier like he made that movie it serious production when he made it but now he's like yeah I always intended to make a comedy which is not not the case
I guess.
But here he the director seems to just be saying no you just don't get it and that f**** me off.
I feel like that is a bit of a running theme. with um with some of the directors of the the films that are considered the worst of all time though.
Um the obvious comparison is Troll 2.
Okay.
And we well it's considered one of the worst films ever made. I think it's really funny but
I seen it.
I don't know. But we did watch a documentary about it. I've got a documentary called Best Worst Movie.
I think that's what I'm thinking of. Yeah.
Yeah. Cuz there is a bit of a cult following around it. And the director was featured in the documentary and got genuinely quite upset at the reaction to the film.
Yeah.
And how much people were laughing and he sort of did
defend it. So I I do get the impression that that's
I don't know maybe they're just too close to the material. Maybe it's like they're not exactly or they're not like a Paul Thomas Anderson or u like a Wes Anderson even. Yeah. All the Anderson.
All the Andersons.
But it's not like you can just sort of go I want to make this movie. I'm gonna make this movie and then somebody finances it in a heartbeat. They're jobbing directors.
Yeah.
So, I think it's I think it's a bit different because they want to work again.
Yeah. Yeah. You're right. Like there's a way to do it, I guess.

(10:37):
Yeah. You don't have to go You don't have to ride so hard for it.
No. Like I I admire people that when they make mistakes, they say, "I made a mistake and I own up to it and I've learned from this mistake." I think the same is true for something like this. It's
But maybe if you make a movie that loses however many million and you kind of go, "Yeah, we made a s*** film."
Maybe your your worry is that you won't work again.
Maybe Miss Cavage has got leverage on Roger Christian.
Yeah. That it was written into his contract that he had to be audited before the film took place.
Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Like, it's super hard to make a film. It's it's it's so difficult to get everything together and get everything done. So, to to put all of your effort into it, your blood, sweat, and tears into something and then it turns out to be a piece of s***. I'm not surprised that sometimes people are in denial about it.
Yeah.
Because they work f****** hard to get it done and there's they're not taking any anything away from anyone that works hard to do a thing. That's impressive in and of itself.
Do you think the commentary was less trying to convince the audience it was good and more trying to convince himself that it was good?
Like it was it was just two hours of positive affirmations for Roger Christian.
Yeah. Yeah. I you I I then didn't waste two years of my life. That was I definitely I worked on the prequels and then I made this and it was worthwhile.
Mhm.
Yep.
Yeah.
And that's how he sleeps at night.
The It was the the commentary was um actually quite disappointing. I was hoping it was going to be more interesting than it was. I hope I was hoping there was going to be some explanations, but no, it was really just an hour and 45 minutes of him saying, "You just don't get it." And we've done Dutch angles because comic strip,
right?
That was basically it.
Okay. Yeah. No diploma.
Yeah. It's It was uh It was It was better than the movie.

(10:58):
It was more interesting. Probably
more interesting than the movie. Yeah. But um
Oh, wow. How disappointing. Is this the most slow-mo ever in a film?
I Who else likes slow-mo? Is it Zack Snder? Is he a slow-mo guy? The last film I remember watching that was like chalk full of slow slow-mo was Wonder Woman,
right?
It was. And going back to the Goth Moreni comparison,
it it did feel a little bit like everything without dialogue was considered for slow motion. Yeah.
In this movie.
And honestly, 2 hours I'm guessing like 2 hours was kind of a long run time for a movie in 2000,
was it?
But I think they were going for some sort of sci-fi epic.
They definitely were going for a sci-fi epic. They to make a part two.
Swinging a miss.
Yeah.
But I feel like if you removed if you sped up all of the slow-mo parts, this would be 70 minutes long.
Yeah.
If that the temptation was to watch it at two times speed,
which we could have done and been no worse off.
Yeah.
We have been better off cuz we had another half an hour of our lives.
Yeah.

(11:19):
I It was It's There was so much slow motion, wasn't there? Like it was egregious. It was aggressive. just how much of it there was and people just doing the most innocuous s***
just like
I'm just going to walk down the road and they're just doing some slow motion and then Barry Pepper's falling through four panes of glass or one pane of glass four times.
Yeah, I'm still unclear on that.
I couldn't figure that out.
There's so much about this film that doesn't make sense and that's just reminded me one of the main points
about the glass.
This film takes place in the year 3000. We know that because the obnoxious green text at the beginning told us, "How have all of these buildings and the stuff within the buildings weathered that thousand years on Earth? How have they survived?
They would there would just be bits of dust on the floor, right?
There wouldn't be a pane of glass left to break."
No.
After 50 years.
No.
What the hell?
No. You try abandoning a town like Jaywick for 6 months, there won't be a pane of glass left then.
Yeah. Exactly.
Like you're not surviving a thousand years without with all of your glass. intact.
No.
And Peppa doesn't even know what glass is. Johnny Johnny Good boy doesn't know what glass is. He's like, "Oh, f***. What? What a what a s***. s***. s***. The bed. What's that?"
No crap. You're only allowed to say crap.
Crap.

(11:40):
In this universe,
that's glass and then he falls through it loads of times. And then there's Why is glass such a thing in this movie?
A lot breaks. Yeah,
the dome with that glass breaks.
Is it Is there some kind of metaphor here that I'm not picking up on.
I have no idea. They literally demolish the glass ceiling.
They have glass ceiling. Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't know.
That's It's clever really when you think about it probably, isn't it?
So says Roger Christian.
Yeah. It's just layers. It's all there.
Yeah. We just don't get it.
Direct quote. It's all there.
I just don't understand.
You just need to watch it twice more, Sarah, and you'll get it.
Uhhuh. Yeah. That's never going to happen. You would have to like That's something I was thinking about actually. You would have to pin me down Clockwork Orange style. Yeah,
like you know in sort of war torn countries when they use music as as a weapon effectively,
you could use this movie as psychological warfare. Like if you lock a war criminal in a room and make just put this on a projector endlessly. They would be spilling their secrets in no time.
Yeah.
You wouldn't have to pull their fingernails out. Nothing.

(12:01):
No.
Just make them watch this.
Yeah. I thought about Clockwork Orange actually while we were watching. movie. Did you
when he when they put him in the chair and they gave him the genius machine?
Oh, yeah. The thing that made him learn everything.
Yeah. We haven't We haven't really spoken about the plot, have we?
No. Oh, god. I guess we have to.
Barry Barry Pepper.
Hang on. What is the What is the plot?
Barry Pepper. Barry Pepper is looking for
his dad.
I don't his mom.
I don't know. And I don't care.
Why does he leave the tribe at the start?
I don't know. But there seems to be some dissemination like his MS doesn't want him to go,
right?
It seems like he's already been off somewhere and he's come back with medicine and been No, and he's isn't he told that his dad's dead? He's too late with the medicine or something.
Someone's dead.
I think I was paying attention during the first half an hour
and then he lobbs the medicine that he just spent ages foraging,
which you could have probably saved for somebody else, you know, stupid move.

(12:22):
Medicine's scarce in this world. You're not just going to lob it off the cliff, are you?
Unless you're Johnny Goodboy.
But he's just a dumb man. an animal.
He's a dumb man animal. But so he promptly f**** off.
Mhm.
And then gets scared by a mini miniature golf course.
Mhm.
And then meets Kim Coats and other man falls through the glass in that quote unquote nightmare sequence.
Oh, is that what Roger Christian called it?
Yeah, it's very clever.
Is that why the sound was all f***** up?
That's why the sound was terrible. Yeah,
right. Yeah, that's why. Yeah.
Um and then he gets captured and So I guess the plot is greed, right? The plot is aliens want gold.
Yeah. Because at the end John Travolta is literally imprisoned surrounded by gold.
Yeah.
And it can do him no good.
So there's obviously some sort of messaging there.
A prisoner of his own greed. Yeah.
It's very clever when you think about it.
Is it?

(12:43):
Yeah.
Okay.
I wonder what the second half of this book looks like.
Not ever going to watch it.
I don't wonder.
But then so you've got that stuff. The aliens, they want gold for some reason. I don't I don't explain that.
No, I mean I guess that you you just are meant to assume that it's it's a rare commodity throughout the universe and has some inherent value.
I think they say it's the most valuable.
Is it
the most valuable metal left on Earth,
right?
I'm pretty sure maybe the text said that at the start.
They love it. They love gold.
They can't get enough of gold.
They love it. And they
they just want to Scrooge McDuck through all of those gold bars.
They want to mine the the the they've been here for a thousand years and they haven't mined all of the gold. I feel like humans would have done that in a hundred.
Do you know why? Because they're f****** flying everywhere in ships instead of teleporting.
It's a great point.
They can teleport wherever they want. They can teleport themselves. They can teleport inorganic matter.
Mhm.

(13:04):
Why do they have ships?
Why do they do anything?
Oh my god.
Why do Why do they get dressed? They could just teleport their clothes on them. Why are they eating? Why are they drinking? You just teleport things straight into your gullet.
All of their teeth are rotten. They're the They're the most advanced race on the planet, but they don't know about toothpaste.
Why are you just teleporting toothpaste on your teeth?
Into your mouth. Yeah. I hate this movie so much.
Why are you cutting people's heads off? You just teleport their head off.
Yeah.
Why are you walking anywhere? You just teleport it. Why are you mining anything? Just teleport the the gold out of the ground and onto your home planet. It would take you minutes.
Yeah.
But they spent a thousand years trying to mine gold. And they and they don't know about Fort Knox. If only David Bowie had had this technology to get water back to his home planet.
Yeah. He would have just teleported it back home and been back on that f****** spaceship hash brown in no time.
Yeah.
I one of the things that really and really f**** me off and more I think about it is that these aliens, they've created interstellar travel, they've created teleportation, they've obviously nicked a load of technology off of various civilizations is is implied.
Yeah. Yeah,
but they're really f****** stupid.
They're dumb as f***, but they think they're really smart. And they think humans are all dumb as f***. But where do they think all the infrastructure on Earth came from?
This is my This is exactly what I'm thinking. Like they describe humans as man animals. And I'm not saying that we're the brightest f******
We're able to produce glass that lasts a thousand years plus. It's like, come on.
Giant golf balls that can survive god knows what for a thousand years.

(13:25):
Shares in auto class are going to skyrocket after this podcast comes out.
Yeah, but there like for a civilization that's meant to have conquered the universe,
they suck at it.
They're really dumb.
Yeah.
Is it is it like that they've gotten so successful at what they do that they're now kind of complacent and they've gotten more stupid? Cuz I could like, but can you give me some of that information? Like I'm reaching here. Can you maybe give me some that information. Don't just say, "Oh, they've got teleportation," but they're dumb as f****** s***.
Yeah.
It doesn't make any sense.
That's just bad film making. They didn't show or tell.
Yeah. You're meant to assume.
Yeah. You have to fill in a lot of gaps here.
Yeah. And and and so their plan, so John John Travolta's plan, what's his name in this? Turd or something? I can't remember. Something like that. He he's his plan is to get gold.
Mhm. of it
and then sell the gold.
I haven't got a clue.
Well, because for for a civilization that is all about surveillance, uh, keeping an eye on everyone and the bureaucracy and
Oh, it's very nanny state, isn't it?
It's very nanny state. It's almost like someone was maybe trying to criticize the IRS or or some some kind of institution like that. Can't imagine that's probably a coincidence.
Yeah.
Uh, so He was trying to gather gold to sell it to someone secretly and then going to live somewhere else.
I don't know.

(13:46):
He wanted to be rich.
He wanted to be rich and he wanted to get one over on Forest Whitaker, but Forest Whitaker wanted to get one over on him.
Yeah.
I really don't know what's going on. And they were both wearing massive shoes. And there was a there was a guy that looked like Baron Harkinan if he'd been sat next to a radiator and melted a bit.
Oh, I hate this movie.
That guy or Gildor?
Guildor.
Yeah, thank you.
Guildor is innocent.
Yeah,
this movie's recontextualized everything for me.
Yeah. No, this is an ugly This is a really really ugly film.
It is ugly. The The costumes are ludicrous.
It looks like the shittiest episode of Babylon 5 ever.
Yeah, definitely. This just the the height that they've got on their shoes and just the costumes in general don't look good. It's not shot well. So, that's that's probably got something to do with it.
And it felt like they were going for sort of like a look without thinking of the practicalities of everything. Yeah.
Like why have they got horrible fingernails? And why have they why have they developed hairy hands? And what's the reason for any of this?
Because that's what LR wrote, I guess.
What a moron. I'm sorry.
Oh, yeah. You're not going to insult me.
I I hate that. And I hate this film and I hate the book even though I've never read it and never will.

(14:07):
Yeah,
I'm actually quite I I went into this podcast being like, "Yeah, it would be fun to s*** on this film." I'm actually getting angry that I wasted two hours of my life.
I Well, we've recorded as well, so it's more like going to be three or four hours that you've wasted on your life.
Yeah,
I
on this sub PS1 graphics looking VFX laden piece of s***.
I would love to be able to recognize some redeeming qualities and there just aren't any. There genuinely aren't any redeeming qualities, are there? Like, no, it some people
the script is potentially one of the worst ever committed to film and doesn't make any sense. And a lot of what they're saying doesn't even match what's happening on screen like brings to mind that scene of um oh, they're heavily armed and moving fast. No, they're not. They're literally not. It looks like slow motion again.
It was slow motion. They're walking slow and It was in slow motion.
I feel so sorry for the guy that edited this movie, but also
just the best I could do.
Guilty by association. I can't get past that. I'm sorry.
I I just I'm going back to the stupidity of it again, though, cuz cuz Turd, the the security head security guy played by John John called Turd.
He he he's he's not a bright guy, even though we're led to believe that he finished top of his class in something shooting cows or whatever. I don't know. guessing. Yeah, he's an expert marksman. I'm guessing we're just supposed to assume that they're really really smart cuz their heads are massive,
right? Big brains equals Yeah.
big forts.
I don't f******
But so his plan was to take I want to mine gold, but I can't do it myself because I'll get found out and and they they'll vaporize me. Someone might have leverage. So So he's like, we're going to teach the man animals how to mine and we're going to make them geniuses. We're going to make one of them a genius and we're going to teach them how to fly and give him all the secrets that we have and that's not going to come back to bite you. Like what's
Well, the machine didn't tell them that.
What do you mean? What do you mean?
The smart machine

(14:28):
didn't tell
that puts information in you.
Yeah.
Input.
Input. Yeah.
I hate this. I hate this so much. The plot, I feel like you're trying to make sense of it.
And I don't think we ever will.
I just I've just thought of something though. Like, you know,
was it was it one of the 17,000 screen wipes.
Oh no, we haven't even spoken about the screen wipes.
If I never see another transition fade ever again.
You think Star Wars is aggressive with screen wipes. You ain't seen nothing.
It's so It was unbearable. Every single transition was a wipe.
Yeah,
it's unbearable.
Sometimes it's left to right, sometimes it's middle out.
Yeah.
Oh, keeping you on your toes.
Yeah. Oh, what else can we I was going to say something else, but I can't be bothered. where I'm at. Isn't that sad? That's exactly where I am.
Yeah.
I'm just like, f*** this movie.

(14:49):
I was hoping it was going to be a more fun experience to watch. You know, sometimes we watch a bad movie and it's like you get into it and you you tear at a new one,
but genuinely watching this,
we did to begin with and we lost interest quite quickly.
How many times can you go, "Oh, another screen wipe."
Yeah.
It's just like, "No, no, it's it's the same bad that it's been throughout the whole movie."
Mhm.
With zero redeeming qualities. Looks terrible. The effects are bad.
I thought of one redeeming quality.
Well, the Go on.
The score was not the worst that I've ever heard.
I thought you was going to say the credits when the credits.
Yeah, it ended.
Yeah.
No, it's super super derivative, but it was not the worst.
Yeah, that's that's I think you're that's a fair comment. Yeah, we found
the only thing I could think of.
We found it.
I tried.
Successful.
I really tried.

(15:10):
Yeah, it's it's uh it's not good movie. You can you can see, can't you? There's Sometimes you watch a film and it's not good, but you're like, "Oh, it's it's not as bad as they say." But this genuinely is like bottom of the barrel for me anyway.
Yeah, there are there are some really terrible movies that, as you said in the Wicker Man show, that you know, if you have friends around and there's some it's a boozy evening, you might be like, "Oh, let's stick this on." Never in a million years would I suggest putting this on.
No.
Never in a million chromons. Not even if you had leverage over him.
No.
Somebody would have to have leverage on me to to make me sit through this again.
If I had leverage on you, I'd make you watch this again.
Would you?
Yeah. But I wouldn't be in the room.
That's so mean.
But I don't have leverage on you.
No, I'm a pretty open book.
So, make sure that you don't let me have leverage on you.
And that book is not Battlefield Earth.
I can't believe they thought there might be a sequel.
Of course they did.
Hubris.
Of course they did. Travolta. still defends this movie and I don't know still it's been 20 years and 25 years now since it since it was released. Uh but I I know for the longest time after it came out was still like yeah we hopefully we'll make a we'll make a movie and I saw in one interview interview they went oh is that confirmed then and he went yeah
yeah he went high pitch like that it was very funny
people never do that when they're lying
no

(15:31):
wow okay
it's never it's obviously never happening I for someone okay LR's written the most books of all time of all authors ever on the planet have ever existed he's written the most books statistically out of all of those books you would think that more than one would have gotten made made into a movie right are there any others that you know of apart from
that I know of no
dynetics marketing videos
no I don't know of any
funny that
yeah
so in simation bad
poss
hot take. This movie is bad.
It's a giant POS.
Its reputation is very much deserved
and I hope I never have to watch it again. I hope you, the listener, didn't watch this in preparation for the show.
If you if you bought it like I did, I might send you two quid.
Are you going to There's going to be some sort of compensation scheme. Yeah.
I'm not just going to send you have to prove it.
Yeah. We We need receipts.
Yeah. If you if you wanted to watch it because of this podcast and you bought it in preparation, I I'll I'll reimburse you the two quid.
Sorry.
Maybe it's gone up in price now though cuz you bought the only one that was two quid on eBay.
Maybe. Supply and demand. Yeah. So, if I burn this copy is Yeah. I'll tell you what I'll do for you. I'll burn my copy of it and then your copy of it will go up in value as well, right? That's a good point.

(15:52):
And that can be the reimbursement, the compensation scheme.
Yeah,
let's do that.
Don't tell the tax man and keep it quiet.
I don't know. I think value is more demand driven than rarity necessarily. If nobody wants it, then it's not going to go up in price.
Doesn't matter if there's only one copy of it.
If you can't give it away.
Even Tom Cruz hated this movie. Genuinely,
that's the funniest thing I've heard. Like I mentioned earlier about Miss Cavage distancing himself after the movie came out and everyone took a giant turn on it. Apparently Cruz went up to him was like, "What's going on with uh JT?" And Miss Cavage was like, "I don't know. I don't know why they like got to have a word with him." Oh, that John Travolta man. Oh.
Oh my god.
Yeah. So, even TC wasn't a fan of B. And then DM distance himself from JT.
This is getting confusing now. Um, I would like to end on uh justice for Mrs. Mscavage.
Let's get her found.
Yep. And Master, I hope you write in Hill.
Yes, very much so.
On that note,
on that bright note, yeah, I thought this was going to be more fun, but I'm very sorry that um it was a piece of s*** with no redeeming qualities,
but it's done now.
It is,
and we can move on.
What are we doing next week? I've forgotten. It's my pick and I can't remember

(16:13):
is it?
Huh? I can't lip read, it turns out.
All right, I'll have to look out bit, won't I? Bear with me. Dan's going to have to edit this bit down.
I'm so sorry.
Can you fill so I don't have to edit this bit?
Can I fill?
Can you sing a song or something?
Oh, nobody wants to hear that. Nobody wants to hear me singing. Trust me. Tiny deaf. I'm not very good at filibustering.
You're doing all right so far. Just say I'm not very good at filibustering.
You could just edit all of this out.
No, but then that's more work for me, isn't it?
It is. Yeah, but this is more work for me. So, what we doing?
Well, it's I believe it's one of your favorite movies, so I'm very surprised.
Narrow it down. There's two more of my favorite movies to go.
True.
Give me a clue.
And what are they?
It's the It's It's the other one.
It's It's It's not It's not It's It's I'm I'm doing What's this game called when you act something out? Shapiro. Sherads. Shapiro. Why the f****** says Shapiro? Weird.
Ben.
No. JD, the writer of Battlefield Earth.

(16:34):
Oh god. How can I Oh,
how many copies of it do I own?
A few.
Night breed.
Yes. Thank god. Oh.
Is it Is it a film or a book or a TV show? Um, it's two of those. Yeah. I can't wait. I can't believe I've never covered this. This is This is much like The Thing.
Yeah, that's
How have I never covered this yet?
That's mad.
Let's get some uh Clive Barker freakiness going on.
Yeah.