 |
 Release Date: 2000 Tagline: Take Back the Planet Director: Roger Christian Writer: Corey Mandell and J.D. Shapiro (screenplay), L. Ron Hubbard (novel)
* indicates Yakmala All Star |
||||||||||||||||||||
 Plot Synopsis by Blake: The film is based upon half of the 1982 book by science fiction novelist and Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. The other half was figured by the filmmakers to be the sequel. In retrospect, their hubris is dumbfounding.A note to those who would dismiss it as Scientology propaganda: The film's story bears a thematic resemblance to the legend in Scientology (man shirking the influence of extraterrestrials to achieve freedom), but any other story connections are tangential. It is not developed enought to be a proselytization project. It has the score of an epic, the ambition of an epic, the attitude of an epic. But it's no epic. the movie's full title is "Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000," but a more appropriate title would be "Battlefield Colorado: Corporate Intrigue in the Year 3000." It is, under the ridiculous hairstyles and John Travolta's thick coat of ham, a meditation on labor relations, management techniques and the vagaries of colonization and capitalism, which, when it gets frustrated, blows some stuff up at the end. As the film begins, it is the year 3000. For 1000 years, the Psychlos (of planet Psychlon ... which sounds kind of like Klingon, but never you mind) have ruled Teegeeack, er, Earth, mining its metals. They use grubby "man animals" as slave labor. Man is an endangered species. When the Psychlos came to Earth, mankind could only manage a 9-minute fight. The planet is now a wasteland. A couple of early problems: How the advanced Psychlos haven't gotten all the metal off Earth in 1000 years is unclear. That would seem to be enough time for an advanced alien society. Also, the Psychlos' entire effort on Earth seems to be at one location. Are there no other mining camps? No reference is made to other operations on Earth. Maybe they just decided to mine outside Denver last. The "action" begins at a free human encampment out in the boonies. Humanity's hero, Jonnie Goodboy Tyler (Barry Pepper, and yes, Goodboy is his middle name), has wanderlust. He wants to know what's out in the world. The people in the village speak of "demons" and "gods," but has anyone ever seen one? Jonnie has gotta know, even at the expense of his love with Chrissy. We know they're in love because she's the only young attractive female. Jonnie rides his white horse out into the wastelands, his long brown hair blowing in the wind for the teenage girls the producers imagined would soon have posters of Barry Pepper on their walls. Jonnie encounters a couple of guys. They share some food, look at statues and mannequins (the new guys say the statues are gods, but Jonnie is skeptical). Sitting around a little fire talking about leaving Chrissy behind, a shot is fired. There's a silhouette. A silhouette with ... dreadlocks. A demon! Barry makes a spirited attempt at escape, but the three are captured and delivered to a facility. It is at this point that the movie decides that, all things considered, it'd rather be diagonal. Most of the rest of the movie is slanted about 15 degrees. Time to meet the Psychlos! Terl (John Travolta) is the head of security for Earth and he's itching for a transfer. Ker (Forest Whitaker) is Terl's executive assistant and heir apparent. District Manager Zete (as listed on IMDB, I swear) is flying in to check on the Earth operation. Upon greeting Zete, Terl introduces him to Ker. They mock mankind. Says Ker, "They don't make very good eating." They all laugh maniacally. Zete says, " ... once we finish mining out this miserable little planet, let's do the universe a favor and exterminate the lot of them." The Psychlos laugh long, hard and awkwardly. EVIL! But it's hard to feel threatened by white guys with dreadlocks. And hey, humanity has Barry Pepper. Travolta performs in a sort of refined British accent for some reason. No one else seems to. He keeps touting his education (he graduated top of his class from the academy and top in marksmanship). Maybe it's a class thing. Travolta can play bad guys (Pulp Fiction, Get Shorty), but he can't play villains (Punisher, Swordfish, Broken Arrow). At no point in this movie is it possible to feel threatened by Terl. Oh, he's constantly exercising "leverage" and threatening people, but it's not convincing. An aside: The two most important words in this movie are "leverage" and "crap." The Psychlos are always talking about developing and wielding leverage and they frequently say things like "crapface," "craphole," "crap lousy ceiling" and "How the crap should I know?" When was the last time anyone felt threatened by someone who says "crap"? The Psychlos have a little corporate conference. Zete asks about a picture of a species. It's a dog. Zete says dogs were clearly the superior race, having the man animals chauffeur them around like that. Ho-ho! Humor. Terl wants his transfer. He's told that since he's done such a fine job, he's getting another stint on Earth. In fact, he's not just getting five cycles, he's getting 50! With endless options for renewal! At the company's discretion! "Endless options for renewal" echoes a few times. There's open-mouthed laughter drowned out by the score. Evil home office! Terl is indignant, but he's not nearly as evil as he is whiny. So, yes, the major villain in this film is a white guy in dreadlocks and platform shoes who speaks in a faux British accent and whines a lot. Horrifying! As they leave the conference, we hear this gem from Terl: "I didn't know it was the senator's daughter." Ho-ho! Zete says something about how when Terl goes to Hell, it won't be as bad as Earth. So, er, the Psychlos believe in Hell. In his first day in prison, Barry Pepper kicks a guy's ass. The guy told Barry Pepper that he and his guys eat first, then the others, then, if anything is left, Barry Pepper can have some. But Barry Pepper don't take shit from nobody. He beats up the guy and shoves his face in the gruel, which looks like it was borrowed from "You Can't Do That on Television." Barry Pepper then democratizes dinner. Back in the office, Terl and Ker bicker over whether Ker put something in Terl's box. Honestly. Ker says, "I put it in your box." Tampering with office mail ... EVIL! This scene accomplishes something almost unimaginable: It makes Forest Whitaker look like a bad actor. Terl hits on a plan about faking a revolt among the Psychlo mine workers to bring pressure on the Planetship (the regional governor). Terl's scheme: The governor won't raise the pay of the workers, so Terl will suggest that, to raise production, he be allowed to try and train "man animals" to mine. The governor will scoff, so Terl will propose taking some man animals out away from the camp where the home office won't see what's going on. If the man animals can do it, the governor is an innovator. If they can't, no one need know of his folly. What Terl isn't going to tell the Planetship is that there's gold in them thar hills! Because, yes, the Psychlos also value gold. The onscreen text before the movie started said that gold is the rarest and most valuable metal. It's shiny, you know. Terl will take all that gold and get off Earth. Presented with the plan, the Planetship indeed balks: "I'll be the laughingstock of the universe!" Terl and Ker persist. They go back to Terl's office. Terl arranges the conversation so that Ker will sound like he's advocating the illegal gold plan over Terl's objections. Terl is recording their conversation for leverage. EVIL! It should be noted that the atmospheres of Earth and Psychlon aren't compatible. Everyone wears these things on their noses that help them breathe. Ker says something about "breathgas" at one point. Barry Pepper turns a gun on a Psychlo and kills him. When Terl arrives at the scene, he doesn't believe the man animal could operate the gun. But then Barry Pepper does it again. He's sentenced to death on the spot. Some sadistic Psychlos take off his nose thing. He runs to some other humans, who share breathgas with him. He makes a run for it. Terl likes his moxie. Terl will train him to mine for gold. Terl and Ker observe Barry Pepper and the two guys he was brought in with. Barry Pepper eats an uncooked rat. The Psychlos note, "We're really going to have leverage over them now." Barry Pepper figures out he's being watched and destroys the cameras. Terl hooks up Barry Pepper to a machine that beams lessons on the Psychlos' language, as well as geometry, molecular biology and all kinds of crap into his brain. Terl is frustrated at Barry Pepper's slow progress and asks with evil relish, "Do you want lunch?!" Barry Pepper picks up the pace. Kind of impressed, Terl teaches Barry Pepper to fly and then takes him on a field trip to the Denver Library, where Barry Pepper apparently has no problem whatsoever reading 1,000-year-old English. Seeing how American high school students struggle with the "Canterbury Tales," only 600 years old and in their language, this seems unlikely. Maybe the language stopped evolving. Also, these splintered human groups that enter into it all understand each other perfectly. Barry Pepper reads the Declaration of Independence. Terl takes the humans out to the gold-mining site. Some wild guys show up. Jonnie reverses the weapon on Terl but then offers it back to Terl, because now he has a plan. Terl has found Chrissy (she set out after Jonnie when his horse came back without him). He puts a remote-controlled exploding collar on her and gives Jonnie and his guys 14 days to half-fill his ship with gold. Back at the office, Terl and Ker inform the Planetship they're aware that he's keeping two sets of books and embezzling from the corporation. EVIL! Terl tells him the law commands him to vaporize him on the spot, and considering what movie he's in, it's amazing that the Planetship is against it. Anyway, Terl now has the Planetship in his grasp. Here's Barry Pepper's plan: OK, there's an "eye in the sky" watching them. So he's going to leave half the guys there and fly half elsewhere, so it'll still look like they're still mining to Terl. I guess Terl can't count. And that he won't notice the ship flying off or that it's missing. Barry Pepper takes some guys to Ft. Hood, Texas, where, after 1,000 years, the military equipment is still good to go. He finds a flight simulator. His guys will learn to fly fighter jets in less than 2 weeks in his masterplan to get the advanced aliens off his planet. (Wait, you say, humans lasted only 9 minutes with this same technology 1,000 years ago . . . wouldn't the Psychlos, a spacefaring, planet-conquering and -colonizing species, have advanced their weaponry still further in those 1,000 years . . . but never you mind). The man animals figure out how to work a nuclear bomb, which they're going to teleport to Psychlo and detonate. The way the radiation acts with Psychlo's atmosphere will be enough to blow up the whole damn planet, we're told. Jonnie, remember, has learned all about the Psychlos and also visited the Denver Library. He takes some other guys to Fort Knox where they get all the gold they were supposed to mine in the hills. How the Psychlos have ruled Earth for 1,000 years and not found Fort Knox is anyone's guess. Back at the mine, Terl is curious that the gold is in bars. Jonnie says something about how it's more fitting for the overlord Psychlos than raw ore. Terl says that since he had the time to smelt it, he expects double production. Jonnie sneaks back to the main mining dome and makes a deal with Ker -- recordings of Terl doing bad things (leverage!) in exchange for freeing the prisoners. Ker goes for it. Terl congratulates Ker on getting leverage but Terl is still smarter. Anyway, the humans launch their assault. Lots of shooting. When they blow up the dome, the falling debris hits only Psychlos. There's a one-on-one fight between Barry Pepper and Terl. Barry Pepper gets one of those exploding collars around Terl, who somehow doesn't notice. Terl thanks it's still around Chrissy's neck and not around his arm. He detonates it. One of the guys teleports to Psychlon and detonates the bomb. Sure enough, the whole planet is vaporized. Barry Pepper keeps Terl in a cage in Fort Knox surrounded by gold (how did his head no explode when he detonated the collar?). Ker is in league with the humans. If the Psychlos come looking for who blew up their planet, Barry Pepper has arranged it so Terl will get all the blame. LEVERAGE! The camera pans back on Terl all alone in a cage, surrounded by all that gold. End. Don't be greedy or something. Also, genocide is OK in some circumstances. And Barry Pepper is dreamy. |
|||||||||||||||||||||