Rating: Summary: Best John Travolta Film Since Grease Review: I Recently Watched Battlefield Earth on video and I Have to say I think the critics were way too hard on this film when it came out to theaters I Loved this movie it had all the makings of a great sci fi action flick. John Travolta showed us the evil side of himself like he did in Broken Arrow I Would recommend this to any Travolta Fan
Rating: Summary: Hmmmm... Edited for Home Video? Review: I saw this film twice in the cinema because it was so darn funny. I hooted and hollared like all the other cyncial cinema skeptics drawn to this carcass of a film like so many hungy vultures. I came I saw I laughed.I ordered the DVD and much to my surprise, the film had been changed. It wasn't made worse by these changes, three "key" scenes were added to fill in planet sized plot-holes, but several hilarious scenes were removed to make space for the new material. I must admit I was disappointed. The new footage of Johnny Tyler and his band of merry cavemen reading a map, or blundering through Fort Hood were fine, but the things they replaced were priceless! How could you do this too us? What was once a film so side-splittingly hilarious is now merely mediocre. I hope a "theatrical release" appears in the near future so I can recapture those summer afternoons of popcorn spewing hilarity. Surprisingly the DVD features aren't bad. It certainly has a lot more easter eggs than X-Men. Although, having it set up a permenent web page of stuff on your computer may dissuade customers from watching this on a DVD rom.
Rating: Summary: Really nice CGI! Review: I really liked the special effects and the CGI. They were great! Though I can't say that it does justice to the book (the book was probably the best I've ever read), not many other movies can make that claim either. Overall it's a pretty good movie.
Rating: Summary: Don't Listen to the Bad Hype Review: I bought this movie much to my friends dismay and watched it for the first time that same day, then Watched it again that night and twice more since then!! What is everyones deal! Battlefield Earth is a direct hit on all levels. Acting: Travolta did a good job portraying the devios leader. Whittaker also did a good job with his character "Kurr" the trying to be just as bad as my boss guy. Hats off to Brad Pepper who in his first major lead did a fantastic job. However he does manage to come off like a reborn William Wallace in a seen. Other than that, perfect. STORY: Based on a book that can't be bashed SPECIAL EFFECTS: Definitely par for the course. With makeup being a hole-in-one. (so i like golf) Sci-fi fans, movie fans give it a shot and DON'T LISTEN TO THE BAD HYPE!
Rating: Summary: New perspective Review: This DVD has lots of interesting information about the making of the movie. Imagine having to melt 4 inches of snow in a cave -- a job that took a week to accomplish -- in order to film one scene! This and all the other information give a new perspective to a good story.
Rating: Summary: Interesting viewing Review: As someone interested in the behind the scenes data on films, I found this DVD gave me a lot of information, especially how creativity can count for more than a big budget. These guys were working with a relatively small budget compared to many other sci fi productions. How to do that and still come up with a good film affected many aspects of the film from choosing locations, integrating color and mood and designing costumes. This data made watching the film again very interesting.
Rating: Summary: Enjoyable humor Review: I liked the humor and irony of the Battlefieldfield Earth movie so I was pleased even more when I watched the DVD. Take the scene where Jonnie and his cohorts find the bomb in the underground shelter and are trying to figure out its workings. The interaction between the characters and their ineptness with 20th century technology is great fun. It's added tidbits like this, that make the DVD a good buy.
Rating: Summary: Behind the scenes features make for an excellent DVD Review: One of the most fascinating features about the Battlefield Earth DVD is the running comments by the director and art director about the movie. The viewer can choose to listen to their conversation running under the movie and from this, he is treated to an insider look at the making of this movie. From the choice of camera angles to special effects to dealing with a very limited money and time budget--it's all there. I enjoyed the movie when I first saw it but the DVD really makes it a complete experience.
Rating: Summary: Please...I know humanity has more common sense than this. Review: Ok...we've all heard how bad it was and all that. That's fine in a review, but most of us kind of wants to know WHY it was so bad. I am going to start with the name of the alien's planet, Pyschlo. Now this is an obvious Earth term, so why in the hell would an Alien culture have this name for their planet? It defys common sense. Then we have the issue of the Alien's language. They are talking in English to us. Why? The directors, for realistic purposes, should have had the movie in sub titles at least. What I mean by that is the Alien's will speak in their so-called language, whereas we would read the english translation of it. It is too much to expect that the Alien's learned our language after nearly wiping us out. Why should they bother? After all, according to the film, we humans were really inferior to them. Furthermore, they even thought that dogs were our betters. Now this doesn't say much for the Alien's intelligence either, or our own in the movie. After 1000 years of being slaves, we all reverted back to cavemen-like days. I find that hard to believe. The few remaining people who survived that first attack of the aliens should have taught the succeeding generations of our knowledge. After all, knowledge is power, something the Aliens in this movie completely forgotten. However, to expect me to believe that we are so brillant as to know how to fly a fighter jet in a matter of days is completely idiotic. We're smart, but not that smart. These are all just basics of the movie that I am picking at. I can't believe the amount of intelligence that the Alien's DON'T show. As some of our other reviewers have said, by the way the Alien's acted, we would have been severely surprised if they even knew how to invent the toilet, let alone take over planets. It was like the Alien's honestly expected us to tell them everything, like we did not have one ounce of common sense for survival ourselves. And lastly, the plot is very poor. Granted, it does follow along rather smoothly in the movie, but the glaring errors of it destroys any beliefs that we might have had about it prior to watching it. No, we sci-fiction fans do not pretend to believe that everything we watch will happen just like that, or with technology that hasn't even been invented. But we do expect some common sense in a movie, and we didn't get it with this one. Watch it and you will come to appreciate the amount of stupidity that went into it. Unlike what some of the other reviewers are saying, I sincerely doubt the fact that Scientology had anything to do with the bad raves. It's just the movie itself.
Rating: Summary: Battlefield Earth Review: Battlefield Earth has to be, in my view, the lamest sci-fi story ever produced and by comparison, makes Star Wars an intellectual tour de force of depth and sensitivity! I haven't read L. Ron Hubbard's original story so I can't comment on how faithful it is to the book. The plot of this screen presentation, however, is about as complex as an early Bruce Lee movie, pitifully simplistic and totally lacking in conviction. The earth has been invaded by a technologically superior and agressive race of humanoids who, like the aliens in Independance Day, seek to strip earth of its resources and move on. The human population has been decimated, the survivors pushed back into a primitive stone-age existence in hiding from their alien overlords, their cave walls depicting the "demons" they suppose them to be. However, in true Hollywood gung-ho tradition, the humans rebel against their captors and in the space of a few days, learn (with the aid of alien teaching machines), to read and speak the alien's language, fly aircraft and handle weapons including nuclear bombs. Finally, after discovering a secret, long abandoned US miltary installation complete with a fleet of fueled and airworthy Harrier jump jets and, conveniently, a flight simulator in perfect working order, they battle to take back the earth and defeat the aliens. The only interesting thing about the aliens is how un-alien they really are and how much they resemble many modern day politicians and industrial barons. They are mean, agressive, cunning and greedy concerned only with cutting a percentage and screwing the next guy. If it were not for a few distinguishing physical characterists such as their green eyes and exotic hair dos, they'd fit right it! The film could just as well have been about any World War II story of military conquest, racist agression and underground resistance. The special effects give spectacle to the thing but viewers looking for thought provoking ideas or complexities of plot will be disappointed. There's no mystery, nothing to keep the audience guessing and the plot is completely predictable from the first 10 minutes. That said, the "specials" are as good as today's audiences have a right to expect and if your expectations of a good sci-fi story rise no higher than the average game of Space Invaders, then go and see it. John Travolta, Forest Whitaker and Barry Pepper give excellent performances in the film but are so much wasted talent in this, at best, mediocre story. Concerning the DVD itself - the quality of the picture is sharp, the colours bright with good contrast and it is easily among the best in terms of technical quality. There was an irritating pause half way through which I assumed was the layer change but this can be better or worse depending on the playback equipment. The box of the region 1, "Special Edition" (how many editions are there?) says "Edited for Home Video" and what this means is any body's guess.
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