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1!![[Literature/BattlefieldEarth The Book]]
2* ArcFatigue: To its limited credit, the movie skipped the chapters involving the long search for radiation and the actual gold mining.
3* CriticProof: It overcame mixed-to-negative reviews to reach the top of ''The New York Times''[='=] bestseller list, though bulk-buying by Scientologists was alleged to have played a part.
4* EndingFatigue: The book's climax is around page 320, and there's an obvious enough ending (or a point where it could have been split into two books) when the humans have retaken their planet. And then the book keeps going for 700 more pages.
5* InferredHolocaust: Some of the Psychlo bases on other worlds were in the middle of occupied cities. When Jonnie checks on them a year or so after his attack on the Psychlo Empire, he finds blasted, lifeless ruins.
6* {{Squick}}: The Bittie and Pattie relationship. If we're optimistic and they're both about the same age, we have two eight-year-olds who decide to get married someday. Then Bittie dies, and Pattie goes into a deep depression. And then years pass and Pattie still hasn't moved on, goes to Bittie's tomb, and demands that a parson marry them.
7
8!![[Film/BattlefieldEarth The Film]]
9* AdaptationDisplacement: And to most viewers, for the worse. While the book was a bestseller in its day, it sold to a very niche audience. The film was intended to be a mass audience-pleasing blockbuster, and it is safe to say it failed to achieve that goal.
10* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: The Psychlos are [[TooDumbToLive so stupid and childish]], it seems impossible they could have ''ever'' built their civilisation without destroying themselves with their petty infighting. It makes a ''lot'' more sense if [[WildMassGuessing one imagines]] that Psychlos were ''[[MirroringFactions themselves]]'' a race of backward slaves whose masters invaded Earth a millennium before, but died out for some unexplained reason(s) during the interim, leaving behind all their technology for the Psychlos to abuse. Using gas-drones allow them to move in and destroy the local population without having a Psychlo brain screwing it up.
11* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Elia Cmíral's score is one of the few good things about the movie. A selection of examples:
12** The [[http://youtu.be/4ym4VB0pvNY aptly named]] "''Battlefield Earth'' Theme", which plays over the opening zoom-in to Earth and pan through the Rocky Mountains;
13** [[https://youtu.be/zD5zvDCThuc “Psychlo Wrangler”]], which plays under a Psychlo hunting Jonnie, Carlo, and Rock in the mall;
14** The double whammy of [[http://youtu.be/chPD4mC0V54 "The Dome"]] and [[https://youtu.be/VS0xPSLdTvs “Terl”]], which underscores Jonnie's trip to the human processing center, shooting of the wrangler, and our introduction to Terl;
15** [[https://youtu.be/Ou00qcm5hmI “The Cavalry”]]/[[https://youtu.be/8ThB6Gipu70 “Air Battle”]], which underscores Robert the Fox’s BigDamnHeroes moment in the Harrier and his and his men’s ensuing dogfight with Psychlo battlecraft;
16** [[https://youtu.be/B6ceq_Es-U0 “We’ve Won”]], underscoring the film’s BittersweetEnding.
17* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: The "plot" is so nonsensical and poorly constructed that very few of the Psychlos' scenes seem to flow logically into one another, but the hysterically "dramatic" water hose scene, where a few bored-looking Psychlos spray water on human cavemen, who [[LargeHam thrash around like they're being sprayed with acid]] and slap ineffectually at the Psychlos, is bad even for ''this'' plot. This goes on for about a minute, and then the movie just kind of awkwardly moves on like it's embarrassed by what it just showed to the audience. Some critics posited that the scene was intended as a ShoutOut to the “It’s a madhouse!” scene from ''Film/PlanetOfTheApes1968'', but it’s shot in a way that completely loses the homage.
18* BileFascination: The movie regularly places in the top (bottom?) ten of many "worst movies of all time" lists made by critics and casual viewers alike.
19* CompleteMonster: [[TheHeavy Terl]] is the Psychlo head of security on Earth. Running [[POWCamp inhumane camps]] where "[[CallAHumanAMeatbag Man-Animals]]" are enslaved, brutalized, and exterminated, Terl holds to hope he can destroy Earth in leaving it to return to Psychlo. Thanks to his indiscretions destroying his hopes of advancement and fleeing Earth, Terl initiates a scheme to force the hero Jonnie to mine illegal gold for him to bribe his way home. Planning on liquidating his workers after constantly lording his supremacy over humans, Terl later tries to have them killed and even attempts to detonate an [[ExplosiveLeash explosive collar]] on Jonnie's girlfriend out of spite. He also attempts to kill the entire human population with a gas drone.
20* DelusionConclusion: One might guess that the ending is Johnnie's DyingDream as he succumbs to lack of oxygen after venturing outside the city dome.
21* EnsembleDarkhorse: Ker for being the OnlySaneMan amongst the Psychlos. [[Creator/ForestWhitaker Forest Whitaker's]] performance of often expressing disgust or frustration with the very same things the audience would endeared him to many viewers.
22* EsotericHappyEnding: Jonnie explains at the end that if surviving Psychlos found out about them, they would wipe them out with their gas drones, so he's keeping Terl as leverage, reasoning if they found out his greed led to the destruction of their world, they would go after him instead...[[InferredHolocaust even though they are still the culprits and Psychlos can easily just kill him and them at the same time]].
23* HamAndCheese: Creator/ForestWhitaker appears to be the only actor who recognizes the kind of movie he's in and plays up the HamToHamCombat with Creator/JohnTravolta appropriately.
24* HarsherInHindsight: Some may find it hard to appreciate the heroes' methods (flying a bomb to the Psychlos' home) after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
25* HilariousInHindsight:
26** [[UsefulNotes/BarackObama "Yes! We! Can!"]]
27** Travolta's "While you were still learning to ''spell your name''!" line is funny if you look at his infamous mispronunciation of Creator/IdinaMenzel's name at the 86th Oscars.
28** One of Terl's lines in the infamous cow scene is "I graduated top marksman in my class and I can kill any one of you at over a thousand paces", which is nearly a verbatim quotation of a line from the memetic [[http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/navy-seal-copypasta Navy Seal Copypasta.]]
29* HoYay: One of Jonnie's followers spends much of the movie looking soulfully at his leader. Jonnie even cuts off a lock of his hair for him, and he wraps it around his fist as a sort of talisman. Arguably, Jonnie has more chemistry with this guy than with his [[TokenRomance designated love interest]]. The ''Podcast/RiffTrax'' guys had no trouble picking up on this subtext. Whenever the guy makes puppy dog eyes at Jonnie, they start tearfully muttering "Love you!"
30* LoveToHate: Terl is quite the slimebag and is a total moron, but he is also incredibly entertaining, albeit for [[{{Narm}} the wrong reasons]].
31* MemeticMutation:
32-->'''Jonnie''': A demon? A monster? '''A BEAST?! YAAAAAAAAAH!'''
33-->'''Terl''': While you were still learning how to '''''spell your name''''', ''I'' was being trained '''''to conquer galaxies!'''''
34-->'''Zete''': With endless options for renewal! [[RepeatCut (With endless options for renewal!) (With endless options for renewal!)]]
35* {{Narm}}: [[Narm/BattlefieldEarth Has its own list of examples.]]
36* NauseaFuel:
37** Given all the [[DutchAngle tilted camera shots]] in this movie, refraining from watching it is probably a good idea if you suffer from motion sickness.
38** The entire film seems bent on making the viewers as queasy and [[FetishRetardant uncomfortable]] as possible. From the dirty, grimy actors and environments, to the physically repulsive Psychlos (of both sexes) and ridiculous costume design. Not to mention the overly-harsh filters, making everything too blue, or too green, or whatever. [[IntendedAudienceReaction This may have been the point]], but that's little consolation.
39* NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity: After the movie earned a thorough [[https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/battlefield_earth critical]] [[https://www.metacritic.com/movie/battlefield-earth-a-saga-of-the-year-3000 drubbing]] and seven UsefulNotes/{{Golden Raspberry Award}}s (this before it even won 'special' Razzies in 2005 and 2010), producer Elie Samaha said he welcomed these happenings because [[MoneyDearBoy he expected they would lead to higher sales of its DVDs]].
40* ProtectionFromEditors: One of the most unusual examples of such ever. Reportedly, because Creator/LRonHubbard wrote the original novel, it's effectively regarded as a ''holy text'' by the Church of Scientology, and so if the movie deviated too much from the novel (save a few minor details such as Fort Knox still having gold in it), Travolta would have been severely punished and possibly even expelled from the organization.
41* SoBadItsGood: A lot of people called it the greatest unintentionally hilarious sci-fi movie ever made. If you can get past the NauseaFuel, it can almost pass for an incredible comedy.
42* SpecialEffectFailure: The movie has a few cases of this:
43** One of the most infamous examples is when Terl demonstrates his weapon to his human workers by shooting the leg off a cow. It's clear that when Terl does this it's just a concealed string pulling the leg off a model cow.
44** Chirk's OverlyLongTongue is a painfully obvious CGI model, too.
45** Not to mention one DeletedScene where [[DisneyVillainDeath Terl throws a man into a chasm]]; brutally obvious green-screen work.
46** Some of the costumes are ridiculous, probably RubberForeheadAliens at its very worst.
47** The laser gun effects demonstrated during the Psychlos' first appearance would barely be passable in a laser tag game.
48** The Psychlos seem to vary between having six fingers or the normal five. To be fair, in the book they had five fingers on one hand and six on the other. This still doesn't explain the number of figures ''on the same hand'' changing from scene to scene.
49** At one point, a hologram of a Clinko instructs Jonnie. Even though the projection sort of conceals it, it is clear how fake the CGI used for this alien is.
50* TearJerker: The deaths of Carlo and Mickey, mainly because Creator/KimCoates and Creator/ChristianTessier manage to make them likable in spite of the thin material they had to work with.
51* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: Zete is the highest-ranked Psychlo in the film, connected to both a "home office" which runs the Psychlo empire as a corporation and at least one ([[TheGhost unseen]]) senator who represents the empire's politicians. He gets {{one scene|Wonder}} and all he does is notify Terl that his assignment on Earth has been extended.
52* TookTheBadFilmSeriously:
53** Creator/JohnTravolta. Arguably subverted, though -- he was so confident in the film that he was either trying too hard or not really trying.
54** Just about everyone plays it straight. Even the Psychlos, who come from a WorldOfHam, seem to take their ham very seriously. Only Creator/ForestWhitaker seems to be having fun with his role, and he said later that he did the role only for MoneyDearBoy but even later [[CreatorBacklash came to regret that]].
55* SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome: While the CGI is generally mediocre at best, the collapse of the Psychlo dome and the resulting destruction of much of UsefulNotes/{{Denver}} (which, unlike most of the film's other effects, was achieved with physical models) is surprisingly great.
56* WTHCostumingDepartment:
57** The Psychlos have large, prominent elongated heads and dreadlocks, with enhanced codpieces and claws among other things. And that says nothing of those ridiculous jumpsuits...
58** The Psychlos' means of breathing in Earth's oxygen-rich atmosphere? Sticking rubber hoses up their noses. Made even funnier by Travolta's CatchPhrase in ''Series/WelcomeBackKotter''.
59** The Planetship, with his exaggerated chin, also stands out as such.
60--->'''WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic''': Is that guy's chin a toilet seat?
61--->'''[[{{Podcast/Rifftrax}} Bill Corbett]]''': Or my name is not Flabby Von Necktumor!

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