Rating: 
Summary: Intricate story, racial commentary
Review: I am thoroughly convinced the narrow-minded cannot enjoy this movie -- and the open-minded will. The book is still readily available and surpasses the movie in clarity and plot development. But the DVD/movie really points up how one race (the Psychlos) cannot see the intellectual brightness -- nor indeed any good points -- in another race (humans) because of the prejudice-colored glasses through which they view everything about the race they dislike. If you've ever lived around bigots, you will see them parodied in this work. Hubbard bee-autifully brought out how prejudice dulls one's view of the world and one's own mental processes, typically to the point of self-destruction.But that subtlety was lost on movie critics who wanted a movie with more gasoline explosions. There was smile-provoking humor througout this film/DVD on a few levels. I'm seeing it a few more times and loaning it to friends regularly. I bet the movie's -- not the DvD's -- dark lighting and can dull one's senses. The DVD seemed easier to see things on. And you can adjust the contrast on your own TV, which is a little trickier at your local movie complex!
Rating: 
Summary: Somewhere between mediocre and bad
Review: This sci-fi adventure based on L. Ron Hubbard's novel of the same name is bad, but not as abysmal as its reviews and the public backlash would lead one to believe. Hubbard, of course, is the controversial author of "Dianetics" and the founder of the Church of Scientology of which John Travolta is a devotee. The story is supposedly allegorical of the psychological imprisonment that human beings face. The hero, Johnny Goodboy Tyler (Barry Pepper), is thought to be Hubbard as he saw himself, a savior of the human race from psychological bondage. There is probably some truth to the charges that Travolta produced this film as a tribute to Hubbard to legitimize his name. He reportedly staked $5 million of his own money to foot part of the $78 million budget. Claims that it was intended to be a recruiting film for Scientology are probably overblown. Though I have my own feelings about the danger of cults, I will confine my review to the film itself. The story started out with interesting possibilities. An advanced alien race, with a preoccupation with accumulating wealth, invaded earth for its natural resources and pushed the human race to the brink of extinction. The humans were scattered and reverted to tribal behavior. Their daily lives were guided by myth and religious superstition. Humans that were found by the Psychlos were imprisoned and forced to work as slaves. Johnny is a bright young man known as a "Greener" because he rejects accepted ways and is always looking for greener pastures. He is captured by the Psychlos and he hatches a plot to defeat them to win the freedom of his newfound slave followers. To this point, the film is fairly solid. It is tough to believe that established religions such as Christianity would have died out and that in 1000 years there would be no remnants of our technological advancement and no attempts to unite an underground resistance, but I'm always willing to give sci-fi a wider berth. However, once inside the prison, each scene becomes less and less probable, until one is left rolling one's eyes in incredulity. We have Stone Age mentality people learning to fly fighter jets in two weeks and flying gloriously into battle against an alien race that supposedly defeated the entire planet's defenses in nine minutes. Despite being 1000 years old, the fighters look like they just rolled off the production line. Between flying lessons, our heroes teach themselves how to rig a nuclear warhead, which they intend to transport to the Psychlos home planet to exterminate the entire race. Not bad for a bunch of illiterates. The acting is the biggest minus in the film. John Travolta is an inconsistent actor, who can often be brilliant, but is sometimes awful. His performance as Terl, the Pyschlo Chief of Security is probably the low point of his career. It is as if he was trying to play Julius Caesar with Vinnie Barbarino's personality, turning the character into a pompous moron. Clearly, his passion for the project blinded him to how poor his performance was. Barry Pepper proved that he is not ready for leading roles with a portrayal that could serve as a clinic on overacting. Other than Forrest Whittaker, who provided the only thing even close to acting, the rest of the cast seemed to have been recruited from L.A. homeless shelters. Roger Christian, who has proven himself a talented Art Director, Set Director and Second Unit Director, took an enormous budget and made it look like a TV movie. The best production credits go to the miniatures and special prop supervisors for the models of the ancient cities and the dome. This film was punished at the box office, grossing less than one-third of its enormous budget. I rated this film a 4/10. It had some interesting elements, a decent premise, and some good visual effects, but the acting was abominable and the screenplay was butchered. For most, this is a film to avoid.
Rating: 
Summary: 2 Hours of My Life That I Will Never Get Back
Review: First of all, let me say how much I enjoy science fiction movies, even fairly bad ones, like Starship Troopers and Johnny Mnemonic. Second of all, let me say I have nothing against Ron L. Hubbard and Scientology; I don't care about the religion and I didn't notice any "Scientology Propagand" permeating Battlefield: Earth. Having said that, Battlefield: Earth was, by far, the worst movie I have EVER seen. I made the mistake of actually seeing it when it first came to theaters, paying $7.00. This movie isn't worth going to see even in a $1 theater. The acting was horrendous, the special effects were not that special, and the dialogue...the words "pure crap" come to mind. I've heard better dialogue in videogames. First of all, John Travolta is ridiculous as the Psychlo Security Chief, Terl. In the book, his character is evil and devious, in the movie, Terl is melodromatic and stupid, not as stupid as his aide, played by Forest Whittaker, but still not too bright. Don't even get me started on his laugh/cackle. Barry Pepper, who was great in Saving Private Ryan, was awful in this movie, though I think it was more the movie than it was him. Then there was the annoying camera angle: if you notice, there was not a single flat shot in the movie. Every shot was at an angle. Far from being creative or avant-garde, it was just plain annoying. Some people may say you just have to accept it since it is Science Fiction. Star Wars? The Matrix? Anyone? Those two were both Science Fiction movies and they are two of the best movies ever (Star Wars is in the top 20 of AFI's 100 Greatest Movies of All Time). Science Fiction should never be an excuse. The only reason anyone should buy this film is so that they can take it home and burn it, making the world just a little better for tasteful and good movies everywhere.
Rating: 
Summary: Travolta's Battle Wages On
Review: Being as it's one of the most ridiculed movies of the year (if not all time), Battlefield Earth may also wind up being one of the most misunderstood. And while a good review may seem excessive praise, if I were holding it to my expectations going in my rating would be much higher. Written by Scientologist founder L. Ron Hubbard, some close minded critics (I won't name any) most likely dismissed this as religious fantaticism before ever having seen the movie itself. Knowing little or nothing about Scientology I can only judge the movie it's merits, and while it's not Citizen Kane I don't know anybody who thought it would be. Sci-fi is possibly the most difficult type of gere film when it comes to crossover success with critics. If you remember Stanley Kubrick's 2001 opened to poor reviews which were quickly recanted. I consider it a fair comparision not being a particular fan of the classic space odyssey myself. John Travolta stars as the evil alien Terl, never taking himself too seriously and playing the role with malevolent delight. This is afterall social satire and one of the elements of satire is comedy, which Travolta brings in spades. His cackle, while not in league with Vince Vaughn (who left an indelible print on the role of Norman Bates), will have you rolling in the aisles. And don't think he didn't have to swallow some pride when tackling such a part. Terl's the security chief in charge of strip mining the Earth and exterminating what remains of the human race after using us for slave labor. Maybe I'm reading too much into this (or maybe the critics didn't read enough into it), but I saw this as a metaphor for our mistreatment of the planet, animals, ect. You see, Terl's alien race is vastly ahead of our own on an intellectual basis, and if that's the only cireria for whom shall live, die and be made a slave of then our captivity is justified. Just as we justify testing on animals and eating meat with our claims that their inferiority makes their lives of no consequence. That's not to say the entire movie is all doom and gloom. There are the typical Hollywood explosions, cheesy make-up effects and bad dialouge you'd expect from a popcorn flick. And Travolta's comedic turn (I'm guess that was his intent), is matched only by his green-eyed assistant Ker (Forest Whitaker). His dead pan expressions play well opposite John's over-the-top performance. Being the smarter of the two, Terl hatches plan to extract gold from Earth and return it to their home planet. The only catch is that it's buried in areas contaminated with nuclear radiation which doesn't mix too kindly with their air supply. So he takes up the challenge of training a "man animal" to mine for gold, in the process giving his test subjust (The Green Mile's Barry Pepper) enough leverage to overturn the Psychlo's iron clasp rule. With this knowledge Pepper's character, Jonnie Goodboy Tyler, bands together a ragtag group of soldiers and leads a revolt against their captors. If it sounds farmilar, it should. Barrowing elements of superior film such as Escape from New York and Aliens, Battlefield Earth can't claim novelty but it shomehow manages to keep you entertained. Pepper proves himself to be a very capable leading man, though he's allowed the least amount of fun with his given role. The supporting characters are flat and rather bland but fleshing them out would only bog down a relatively brisk two hours, which is already jammed with action and special effects. Given critics and audiences reaction, it's safe to assume this one's not for everybody, but anyone willing to examine the underlying themes of the movie I think will be pleasantly surprised.
Rating: 
Summary: SCI-FI movie. If you are not SCI FI don't buy it
Review: I read the book years ago. Excellent! story and good adaptation. If you are Sci-Fi fan you will love it. Otherwise don't bother. You will not get the point. Excellent effects. Got bad reviews in Hollywood because they are not sci-fi fans. This movie is way up there at the leves of ID4 or Stargate. DVD Version
Rating:
Summary: A Poor Attempt
Review: I really didn't think that anyone could do worse than David Lynch did when he made the first Dune film, but this attempt at making a movie from Hubbard's book is a near total disaster. It makes me wonder if the script writer, the director, the producer, etc even took the time to READ the book. Take some of the cash you might be thinking of outlaying for this DVD and buy the book. It's a much better story!!
Rating:
Summary: They changed the movie from its original theatrical release!
Review: I went to go rent this movie because I had sene it in the theatre and it was the worst movie I had ever seen on the big screen and I wanted to relieve the experience. However, when I rented it I notice quite a few changes had taken place, the movie was alot better. Now the movie still stinks but it was quite a bit better than the theatrical release. Some of the main changes are in the begining 15 minutes. First of all in the theatre the Title "BattleField Earth" appreares in cheessy green lettering over the snowy mountain peaks. In the video release they added a outspace earth shot cleaned up the lettering and put the title in the out space shot then moved to the snowy mountains. (where the old title used to be but was no longer). Second major thing. The classic camera wipes had changed. There were far more scene changes in the begining than on the video release. For example when Jonny and the horse fall down the hill that was a total of 3 scene changes and in the video it was redone as one scene. Also all the "George Lucus" wipes are now done side to side where as before some where top bottom left right etc. (It was like the director had just bought a new video camera and went overboard playing with the automated transition functions.) I could continue but I won't. The bottom line is: I went to the movie theatre to watch an awsome movie but saw one of the worst ever: I was ripped off. Then I was even more dissapointed with the video release because I was expecting a really bad movie, and what I got as a really cleaned up bad movie that was only closer to average than a B movie: I got ripped off again. So if saw Battlefield Earth in the theatre and you want to relieve your pain be prepared to be ripped off again. The movie has been cleaned up and improved. (It makes you think that post production didn't even watch the movie before it left for theatres?)
Rating:
Summary: Battlefield Hollywood
Review: Battlefield Earth has a very strange legacy. Having read the L. Ron Hubbard novel over 15 years ago, I task my mental archives...The first memory I recall is of the novel being one of the longest reads, well over 1300 pages! To finish spoke well of the author. It was an interesting premise...An industrial society consumes planets and civilizations in pursuit of minerals and fuel, becomes cruel and arrogant...perishes at the hands of savages. The movie well represented this vision. That Hollywood critics would so dislike this movie, calling it almost universally, "The worst movie of the year" "John Travolta's ultimate failure" speaks more of egos and general dislike of scifi than of the production itself. Though not great, it was certainly very good. Remember Kevin Costner's "The Postman"? Another very good scifi hated by Hollywood critics as well. My opinion? Buy the DVD...Big screen, Dolby Surround, see for yourself. Bigs shots, great scenic panoramas and futuristic mattes.This movie is much better than most recent scifi releases, better than "Wing Commander" or the "The Cell" for instance. Watch for Travolta's wife's cameo as the 7 foot tall secretary with the 15 inch tongue...Next time the critics tell me to stay away, I'm running to the theater. Buy the "Postman" at the same time and you'll forgive Costner for "Waterworld." As for L.Ron........, his fiction spawned a worldwide religion...Can't wait for that movie to come out!
Rating:
Summary: A lot of fun
Review: I watched this DVD and had a lot of fun doing so. I like a straight-ahead Sci-Fi action movie, but this one is completely over-the-top, with larger-than-life (literally) villains and a hero fighting against hopelessly impossible odds. The special effects are spectacular, too. And that adds up to just plain fun.
Rating:
Summary: It's worth watching just to see Travolta TRY
Review: Go ahead and rent it if you like Sci-Fi and like Travolta (even at his worst) and all the other movies are checked out. I actually rented it tonight for those reasons. I started laughing as soon as I saw Travolta's character on the cover, and I knew I had to see it. It was apparent from the start that it was going to be bad. It'll keep you entertained for the length of the movie--there's enough action for that. But check your brain at the door as you watch ignorant human cave dwellers flying fully functional combat planes on fully functional fuel after just a few days in a fully functional simulator.
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