Nifty F/X do not a movie make
Therefore, I can't speak to how well Battlefield Earth, the movie tracked Battlefield Earth, the book.
So I have to ask: is that it? Out of this stupefyingly long book, this was the best that they could come up with as far as plots go? One can only wonder.
The premise is it's the year 3000. The Earth has been conquered by Psychlos, who are basically dreadlocked Klingons lumbering around on Frankensteinian feet. Travolta plays Terl, the Psychlo who is the chief security officer for the planet. Forrest Whitaker is his flunky, so the Psychlos are Tuvok-like and come in Earth-similar races. Wotta galaxy with parallel evolution wherever you look.
Travolta puts an underhanded plan in action to use humans to mine gold for him. Meanwhile, some actor playing the lead human is captured, subjugated, and trained, blah, blah, blah. The amount of time spent on human guy's attempts to escape and Terl's machinations to mine gold for himself are outrageous. Neither does much of anything to move the plot forward. So the question is begged: does anyone read these screenplays before being greenlit for filming?
Other critics have ragged on the flick for its nonstellar dialogue. Hey, it's no worse than the turgid talk spouted by the wooden characters in The Pbantom Menace , which ain't saying much by a long shot. Then other critics have glommed onto the movie's alleged Scientology-influenced story since the book's author and Scientology founder are the same. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's just a straight-forward, bad SF movie. If you want to rag on movies' philosophies, give the Star Wars movies crap for "The Farce", oops, "The Force".
Battlefield Earth has such gaps in logic (SPOILER WARNING) that are such suspension of disbelief snappers that again I ask: how did this screenplay get the greenlight? One example: a key plot point is the humans finding and using one thousand year old Harrier jump jets is no problem. Gimme a break.
What few "critic" quotes that Warner Brothers could muster for their ads all mention the kickass F/X. That's true. Battlefield Earth does have high quality F/X. But so what? The computer F/X technology has progressed so far that any movie can have great effects. Matter of fact, you have to actually have to make an effort for cheesy F/X, like in Mars Attacks! , in order to achieve that look.
On the other hand, I give Travolta credit for tackling a big book SF movie. He's got less to be ashamed of than Tom Cruise has for spending two years of his life in Kubrick's clutches making Eyes Wide Shut , which is a small consolation indeed.
Another groaner is the human vernacular spouted by the Psychlos. "I put it in your 'In' basket." "How was I supposed to know she was the Admiral's daughter?" are typical lame examples.
Battlefield Earth is amazingly inept. Matter of fact, it'll be a race between me getting this review posted before the movie disappears from the theaters. Those of you who felt The Phantom Menace was the greatest thing since sliced bread should see this flick since they are so equivalent. All others should consider it as the Plague.
Movie's suitability for: