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Film: Battlefield Earth

When you were still learning how to spell your name, I was being trained to conquer galaxies!

— Terl

The film version of L. Ron Hubbard's Science Fiction novel Battlefield Earth was released in the U.S. in the year 2000, directed by Roger Christian and starring John Travolta as Psychlo leader Terl (he originally wanted to play the part of the book's hero, Jonnie "Goodboy" Tyler, but that role eventually went to Barry Pepper because Travolta was too mature by this time). Travolta had wanted to do the film for a long time, but had trouble securing money for it because of studios' apprehension to bankroll the film due to its connections with the real life Church of Happyology. He later poured most of his own money into the project and signed on as a co-producer, and the rest... well, is history.

After MGM and Fox Studios turned down offers to distribute the film, it was eventually picked up by Franchise Pictures, a company known for helping stars rescue their troubled pet projects. To this day, it has yet to gross 30 million USD—its budget was 44 million.

The film covers the first half of the doorstopper book: The Psychlos come to Earth, beat the humans in about 9 minutes, and establish an outpost here. They are here for gold; goooooooooooold! The rarest and most valuable ore in the universe, it seems. Jonnie leads a band of slaves to rise up against their masters. Travolta is still intent

on having the second half of the book produced.

Has the dubious honor of winning the Razzie for Worst Movie of the 2000s.

Can be watched here

The Battlefield Earth film uses the following tropes:

Adaptation Induced Plot Hole: While the original novel isn't exactly regarded as a masterpiece of plotting, the film still introduces various plot holes and problems of its own. Perhaps the most glaring is that the Psychlos somehow missed Fort Knox altogether in the film, whereas in the novel it was one of the first locations they hit.
All Hail The Great God Mickey
Artistic License - Physics:
- Gold is apparently the rarest and most valuable material in the universe. There are dozens of rarer elements.
- The planet Psychlo has an atmosphere that spontaneously ignites in the presence of radiation. This means radioactive decay does not naturally occur on the planet, meaning the planet ignores the second law of thermodynamics and is effectively a perpetual motion machine.
  - On a related note, the Psychlos have eyes, which means the Planet Psychlo must orbit a light-producing star. Stars give off radiation. Lots and lots of radiation.
  - A highly advanced, star-faring and extremely warlike species going by without using radioactive materials.
Artistic License - Gun Safety: Terl intentionally hands a human prisoner a ready-to-fire weapon, to prove his point that the "human animals" are too stupid to operate firearms, even though the human has already shot one person, according to his subordinates. The prisoner ends up killing Terl's lieutenant with it. Psychlos are shown to not store loaded weapons, so this is apparently another example of the bizarre arrogance that Psychlos have toward humans in believing that they're not sentient, despite all the technology that Terl admits they had.
Terl: Well, I'll be damned. *laughs*
Blown Across the Room: Carlo, the first time he gets hit by a Psychlo's ray gun. Especially noteworthy since this every other time a human gets hit, the shot merely knocks them back a bit or causes them to fall over. Bonus points for it being a ray gun, which should realistically cause no knockback at all.
Big "NO!": Most of Jonny's lines involve him violently expressing his grief over someone/something.
Bloodless Carnage: The film is clean of blood, be it human or Psychlo. Rather jarring; a few Psychlos (eg. Ker and Terl) lost at least one limb (not to mention the decapitated head of the Bartender). The humans? None.
Braids, Beads and Buckskins: Suspiciously clean buckskins (Travolta didn't want the movie to look too grimy), for the first act, anyway. The Psychlos, though irredeemably evil, are nice enough to give the man-animals jumpsuits after capture.
Call a Human a "Meatbag": The Psychlos typically refer to humans as "man-animals."
Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": It's not surprising that the Psychlos have Euclidean Geometry. What is surprising is that they call it Euclidean Geometry.
- On the other hand, their word for human switches between Man-Animal and just plain human.
Card-Carrying Villain: Virtually all the Psychlos other than Ker, the bartender and one or two other low-ranking flunkies.
Catch Phrase: "Piece of cake!" by the humans, "Leverage!" by Terl and the Psychlos.
Chekhovs Classroom: Subverted. Johnny teaches his followers Euclidean Geometry, claiming it will be of great importance. It never is (beyond what they would need for piloting anyway).
Chewing the Scenery/World of Ham: All the villains.
- Half the good guys as well. The other half just kinda stare blankly.
Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Again, the Psychlos. Especially Terl.
Color Wash: Mostly blue saturates everything. In some scenes, yellow.
Deadpan Snarker: Terl towards his subordinates.
Decapitation Presentation: "It could even be... OUR FRIENDLY BARTENDER!"
Discretion Shot: At one point, a human gets his head exploded by a prisoner collar. The scene cuts away from showing the actual explosion to show other character's reactions to it.
Domed Hometown: The Psychlo outpost is one of these, because of the whole "exploding breathe-gas" thing. In a shocking subversion, it's more of a pyramid...which doesn't stop the characters from referring to it as a dome.
Dull Surprise: Lots and lots of characters, but special mention goes to Terl's reaction to losing his right arm. Also earlier, Ker when losing his left hand.
Dutch Angle: The Movie. Notoriously used to the point of excess.
- It's even used in-universe. When Terl looks at some security camera footage, that too is tilted.
Roger Ebert: The director, Roger Christian, has learned from better films that directors sometimes tilt their cameras, but he has not learned why.
Earth-Shattering Kaboom: ...except this time Psychlo is reduced to a cloud of noxious gas.
Everyone Calls Him Barkeep: Hardly any of the Psychlos actually have names, and even in the credits are generally only referred to by their ranking.
Evil Is Hammy
Evil Laugh: There's enough "normal" Evil Laughter and fake, mocking laughter to fill a half-hour sitcom, not to mention Forest Whitaker's hearty chortles and some disturbingly fey laughter by Travolta. The Psychlos are a merry bunch (makes you either wonder what gas they're breathing, or think that's why their air is so volatile).
Exact Words: Terl promises Jonny he wouldn't kill a prisoner destined to die... only to give Ker the trigger to the explosive device and have him do it. As he put it, "I only said I wouldn't kill him."
Explosive Stupidity: Subverted; while Terl has an explosive collar strapped to his arm when he triggers the detonator that he believes will kill Jonny's love interest, he doesn't die from it.
Failed a Spot Check: The Psychlos love gold. They came to earth looking for it, and spent 1,000 years on the planet doing so, mining it, and shipping it off. And yet in those 1,000 years, they somehow failed to find Fort Knox, which is crammed with the stuff.
- Made worse by the fact that the Psychlos didn't overlook Fort Knox in the book.
Fanservice Extra / Real-Life Relative: Travolta's wife, Kelly Preston, plays Terl's girlfriend.
- More like Fan Disservice Extra, considering how they made her up to look like a Psychlo.
Future Imperfect: Fast-food and automobiles are the stuff of legends, and mannequins are people punished for offending the gods. The Psychlos are shown at one point examining old Earth photos of people driving with their dogs, leading them to believe that the dogs were the superior species since they had the humans chauffeuring them around.
- They also note that dogs, while much more cooperative than "man-animals", which the Psychlos interpret to mean higher intelligence (after all, dogs recognize who their betters are), are almost useless for manual labor (further proof that dogs were the masters of "man-animals", who did all the work).
Gangsta Style: Because Psychlos are so much bigger than humans, a two-handed sideways grip seems to be the only way the humans can aim and fire the aliens' weapons.
Heroic Sacrifice: When that guy blows up his own ship to destroy the "dome", or when That Other Guy detonates the nuclear bomb.
Hilarity Ensues: "You are out of your skull-bone if you think I'm going to write on the report "Shot by man-animal" as the cause of death unless I see it!"
- "Piece a Cake, Piece a Cake, Piece a Cake, Piece a Cake!"
Hitler Cam: Used to emphasize the height of the giant alien Psychlos. At least it was less corny than those big elevator boots the actors wore.
Hoist by His Own Petard: Sort of. Though he doesn't actually die, Terl blows off his own arm with the exploding collar he used on Jonny's girlfriend. And in the end he's put in a cage in Fort Knox, surrounded by gold. It's ironic, y'see, because he put Jonny in a cage and started the whole scheme to get gold.
Homage: When Jonny is first shot, he falls through several glass panes similar to Blade Runner, taking no lasting damage.
- Then, the first time we're presented with the Psychlo's homeworld, the camera pans around a cityscape, like in Blade Runner's opening too.
- Later at the Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy, Jonny runs in slow motion through a bunch of pillars as they are shot, just like how Neo ran through the government lobby in The Matrix.
Humans Are Morons: Terl and the Psychlos believe that the humans are too stupid to do anything on their own, so they give them some "assistance" in the form of Psychlo knowledge beams. Considering the fact that all of the Psychlos, Terl included, appear to have been issued an individual Idiot Ball at birth, this arguably comes a form of unintentional Hypocritical Humor.
- What makes this even more exasperating is that the Psychlos know full well that Humanity once had a thriving industrial society, and yet they still assume they're too dumb to walk and chew gum at the same time.
- Part of this is actually a large In-Universe case of Strawman Has a Point. It wasn't until Terl used the machine to impart Psychlo knowledge to Johnny that he even knew what a triangle was.
Hypocritical Humor: Jonny delivers his stirring speech about how humanity has enough problems "without having to kill each other over food" having just beaten the crap out of someone over food.
Idiot Ball: A lot of characters grab a hold of this, but the Psychlos seem to have been issued an individual one at birth.
- One example from many: Terl gets so into shooting cows to demonstrate his shooting prowess to the humans that he doesn't actually pay attention to his surroundings, and gets jumped from behind as a result.
- Terl also teaches the humans how to work their aircraft, weaponry, and speak their language.
- In any scene with Terl and Johnny together, you can almost see them passing the ball back and forth. One memorable case is when Terl is inspecting the results of Johnny's mining and quite understandably asks how Johnny is presenting him with gold bars, rather than the ore he was expecting. Johnny, who hadn't spotted that flaw in his plan, gives Terl some lame answer about how they decided to smelt and shape it for him. Terl accepts the obvious fallacy without question.
Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: The only marksmanship any Psychlo has ever exhibited was when Terl shot up a herd of stationary cattle. The fact their guns are held upside down so as to be impossible to aim probably contributes.
Incredibly Obvious Bug: So obvious even the cavemen can spot them.
Insane Troll Logic: In the end Johny keeps Terl alive so that if there are Psychlos outside the homeworld, and they come looking for revenge, humans can use Terl as leverage...because the Psychlos would be really pissed at Terl for indirectly dooming the homeworld...so if they get him, they won't bother with the humans, who directly doomed their homeworld...yeah.
- This was almost certainly meant to lead into the sequels; the adaptation stops a third of the way through the book.
It Works Better with Bullets
Terl: If ANY you rat-brains knew ANYTHING about firearms, you'd know that you never store loaded weapons!
- Of course, Terl criticizing someone on gun safety is kind of ironic considering what OTHER film John Travolta was in.
Large Ham: John Travolta. In a big way. (Spoilers)
- Barry Pepper, the guy who plays Jonnie, veers wildly between Large Ham and Dull Surprise.
Made of Explodium: The atmosphere on the Psychlo's homeworld gets set ablaze by a single nuclear bomb. The resulting explosion rips the entire planet apart — crust, mantle, core and all.
Made of Plasticine: The Psychlos, considering how easily they seem to lose limbs. Terl getting his arm blown off by a bomb is pretty understandable (though it was a mighty clean explosion, even for a shaped charge), but Ker losing an entire hand from a ray gun blast seems excessive. Especially since the same weapon does little more to a Puny Earthling than knock them around a bit, though this part could be explained by the gun having multiple settings.
Mistook The Dominant Lifeform
Motifs: Nauseating camera angles, lurid blue or purple coloration, people dressed like cavemen hooting like howler monkeys.
Never Say "Die": The Psychlos are really fond of the word "Vaporize", though. Even though their guns don't actually vaporize anyone.
Only a Flesh Wound: Psychlos don't even take poorly to amputations.
Overly Long Tongue: Terl's girlfriend, as played by John Travolta's wife Kelly Preston.
The Password Is Always Swordfish: The passcode to Terl's vault is his ID number backwards.
Plot Hole: Too many to count.
Pun: The movie's tagline is "Prepare to go Psychlo".
Ragnarok Proofing: The ruins of Denver look like they've only been abandoned for a year or so, with readable books instead of piles of dust. Then there's Fort Hood. Jets, nukes, stinger missiles and flight simulators still work just as fine.
Ramming Always Works: In one of the film's "highlights", a caveman-pilot who runs out of missiles ejects just before ramming a Psychlo fighter, completely overlooking the aircraft's 25mm cannon.
Real Is Brown: See Color Wash.
Reassignment Backfire: Terl has been Reassigned to Antarctica as petty revenge for getting involved with the daughter of a senator, which leads to the destruction of the Psychlo race.
Reduced to Ratburgers: Terl allows some of the slaves out in the wild to see what they will consume as food, as he doesn't know what humans like to eat. The only edible animals they find are rats, so that's what they eat, but Terl believes it was their preferred meal. Apparently he never stopped to consider that these slaves were so starved, they were actually willing to eat anything at this point.
Repeat Cut: When Terl's boss mentions that he plans to keep Terl on Earth instead of giving him a temporary reprieve, the movie plays back the "endless options for renewal!" part of the speech three times for some reason.
Rubber Forehead Aliens: Imagine The Coneheads with dreadlocks, furry hands, codpieces, limb extensions, and breathing tubes that look like rivets of snot dangling from their nostrils.
Rule Of Cool
Scenery Porn: The mountains in the beginning.
Sequel Hook: Terl is alive, and the human victors face an unknown future after winning a ruined planet. There is actually a whole other half of the book left to go, and Travolta ~~was~~ is still hoping to tell it in a second film.
Shoot the Dog: Terl blasts some cows just to show how evil he is.
Slow Motion: Roughly a fourth of the film consists of slow-mo shots of Psychlos lumbering around shooting at people, Jonny running away from Psychlos shooting at him (complete with Matrix-esque clouds of debris and shrapnel), or Jonny mourning somebody's death
Smug Snake: Terl, in spades.
Stun Guns: The Psychlo's handguns have a stun setting, which they use to capture Johnny without killing him. A closeup of one of these guns later shows its owner switching the setting between stunning and lethal.
Space Opera
Token Romance: Jonny's girlfriend gets about four scenes in this film. All we know is that she left the village against her father's wishes.
Training the Peaceful Villagers: In record time too, and from scratch. Luckily, they did have an Upgrade Artifact to instantly train everyone, and...oh, wait...they forgot to use it.
Translation Convention: While the Psychlos are in private, their language is translated into English, but when the humans are the focus, it's left untranslated. It gets a little weird once Jonny learns the language and is speaking both in the same scene and "translating".
Unnaturally Blue Lighting: Most scenes involving the Psychlos.
Upgrade Artifact: Used so our hero can become an Instant Expert without going through a Training Montage. Infamously not used to help the rest of humanity prepare for the revolution, despite the fact that having them do just that was a key plot point in the book.
Villain Ball: Held by the Psychlos' leader, Terl. Teaching your slaves everything to know about your civilization in an instant can only end badly, especially if you're supposedly doing it to help conquer their planet. Introducing your pet human to inspiring documents from the American Revolution will only make things worse. Holding your pet human's girlfriend hostage just makes things personal. Abusing your henchman only serves to set up the Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal in the final act. And not launching an all-out crackdown when the man-animals rebel and attack with air support... not a good idea Terl doesn't even notice an exploding collar Jonny straps to his arm in a melee, and proceeds to amputate his own limb when he triumphantly hits the detonator. His (non)reaction shot is priceless. He appears to read the Bizarro Universe inversion of the Evil Overlord List, telling him exactly what to do wrong.
What Happened to the Mouse?:
- The nameless guy running around with Jonnie and Carlo in Aspen is never seen again after that scene. This is because he died immediately afterwards in a deleted scene where Ker thinks for some bizarre reason that humans must be able to fly, and Terl proves that they can't by throwing the guy in question into a chasm.
- The Planetship, Terl's direct superior, abruptly vanishes in the latter stages of the movie.
While You Were in Diapers: When another Psychlo mocks Terl and says that he could have taken a much less stressful job, he says something to this effect - that he was trained to be a Galactic Conqueror since birth (see the quote under Memetic Mutation).