GrahamKennedy wrote:My all time favourite moment is when the evil alien, Terl, wants to demonstrate his evilness and power to the human. They're in a field, so Terl shoots the leg off a cow. It topples over. We then see Terl as he fires a bunch more times... and each time you hear "Moooo!" <THUD> come from offscreen.
Only two things are infinite - the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the universe: Albert Einstein.
ChakatBlackstar wrote:My all time favourite moment is when the evil alien, Terl, wants to demonstrate his evilness and power to the human. They're in a field, so Terl shoots the leg off a cow. It topples over. We then see Terl as he fires a bunch more times... and each time you hear "Moooo!" <THUD> come from offscreen.
And honest to god, this is NOT done for laughs. This was how they wanted to make him look threatening.
Hell, they kill cows by the hundreds all the time over in Elgin, Texas. They make really good sausage, and honestly, aren't that threatening.
There is only one way of avoiding the war – that is the overthrow of this society. However, as we are too weak for this task, the war is inevitable. -L. Trotsky, 1939
Really, you can't appreciate the hilarity of that scene without seeing it for yourself. Sadly, I can't find it on Youtube.
"You've all been selected for this mission because you each have a special skill. Professor Hawking, John Leslie, Phil Neville, the Wu-Tang Clan, Usher, the Sugar Puffs Monster and Daniel Day-Lewis! Welcome to Operation MindFuck!"
It's a horrible movie. I can't stop watching it. It's really entertaining in a terrifying way. John Travolta's overacting, Forrest Whitaker's playing along, not knowing the protagonist's name until halfway through the movie, shooting Cows to show how badass you really are, John Travolta has the biggest codpiece, and it's seems to be shot from an angle.
Even though it sucks, makes a mockery of Science Fiction, horrible acting, multiple uses of screen wipes, shoddy science, horrible storytelling, and zero emotional impact, Battlefield: Earth has a certain charm about it.
Nutso wrote:Even though it sucks, makes a mockery of Science Fiction, horrible acting, multiple uses of screen wipes, shoddy science, horrible storytelling, and zero emotional impact, Battlefield: Earth has a certain charm about it.
Yeah, the same charm a rotting whale carcass would have if it washed up on the beach. Interesting to look at, from a morbid curiosity perspective, but god it stinks...
There is only one way of avoiding the war – that is the overthrow of this society. However, as we are too weak for this task, the war is inevitable. -L. Trotsky, 1939
Nutso wrote:Even though it sucks, makes a mockery of Science Fiction, horrible acting, multiple uses of screen wipes, shoddy science, horrible storytelling, and zero emotional impact, Battlefield: Earth has a certain charm about it.
Yeah, the same charm a rotting whale carcass would have if it washed up on the beach. Interesting to look at, from a morbid curiosity perspective, but god it stinks...
Eloquently put. I couldn't have described the way I feel watching this movie any better.
I'd actually seen the movie, but I have had "up close and personal" interactions with Scientology and so I wanted to just throw the topic out and see how other people felt, before I bashed on the film. Because I most certainly am not an unbiased person when it comes to Scientology or L. Ron Hubbard.
A lot of people around here are, I think, rather better-read and generally informed than "average people." At least that has been my impression. So it doesn't surprise me that from reading a lot of the responses, people seem to already imply a little disdain for Scientology. The thing about this film, as bad as it was, that kills me is that Scientologists have a persecution complex and have set up a philosophical "no-lose" situation. If they succeed at anything, it's because of Scientology. If they fail at anything, it's because the masses, brainwashed to be the tools of Psychiatry and Pharmaceutical industries who are out to destroy Scientology, unfairly judged them and sabotaged them. I have had to work with Scientologists rather closely and in fact I was required to take two weeks (I refused to go any further) of rather intensive face to face meetings/audits/classes purportedly pertaining to business, with Scientologists. And with how "off reality" they are, and how quick they are to invent on the spot a conspiracy theory involving psychiatry or medicine which is out to slander and destroy them, I could practically hear in my head the conversations they had when the movie bombed. I'm sure it involved their "enemies" funding or using their influence to bully Hollywood into being sure it flopped, and then using the media to make sure everyone thought it sucked and wouldn't go see it.
That was a little side rant. Pertaining directly to the movie itself, so many little things were stupid. For one, the aliens seemed to be sincerely unaware that humans had been the species they had conquered on Earth. They did not seem to be joking when they made the comment about how dogs must have been the dominant species since humans took care of them and drove them around. Second, the whole "overlordship by a group which is totally amoral and obsessed with amassing gold" thing is a VERY thinly veiled symbolism for how Scientology teaches the world works--- from an insider Scientologist's perspective, those amoral gold-greedy overlords are YOU, the non-Scientologists. So the movie was kind of an insult to every non-Scientologist who watched it IMHO. I also think that even over the course of a thousand years, the idea that literacy would die out completely and people would be wholly ignorant of any of their history, even after such a major event, seems to strain credibility. Unless all the adults somehow died and a large group of 4 year olds became the sole people to repopulate the smaller human race seen in the movie, I don't think humans would revert to ignorant illiterate cave people. Literacy is such an important thing, not just in human civilization but to actually HOW YOUR BRAIN WORKS after you've learned it, that you'd have to kill everyone literate to create a new human race that abandoned literacy.
So it doesn't surprise me that from reading a lot of the responses, people seem to already imply a little disdain for Scientology.
I believe that would probably be the understatement of the year.
"You've all been selected for this mission because you each have a special skill. Professor Hawking, John Leslie, Phil Neville, the Wu-Tang Clan, Usher, the Sugar Puffs Monster and Daniel Day-Lewis! Welcome to Operation MindFuck!"
Not to mention storytelling traditions like we Native Americans used would almost certainly become prevalent again, if reading and writing were prohibited. People would remember something.
I really hate the somehow preserved books in the Library of Congress, and the somehow flyable Harriers, myself. Both of those glaringly obvious errors could've been easily fixed as plot devices, if the author hadn't been an idiot.
There is only one way of avoiding the war – that is the overthrow of this society. However, as we are too weak for this task, the war is inevitable. -L. Trotsky, 1939
Duskofdead wrote:from reading a lot of the responses, people seem to already imply a little disdain for Scientology.
Oh, that's not true at all in my case. I have a whole great globe-spanning ocean of disdain for $cientology. And there's more than a little disgust and hatred mixed in there as well.
I could practically hear in my head the conversations they had when the movie bombed. I'm sure it involved their "enemies" funding or using their influence to bully Hollywood into being sure it flopped, and then using the media to make sure everyone thought it sucked and wouldn't go see it.
And lets not forget they do everything they can to make anything L-Ron related look good. For instance they bulk buy books like Battlefield Earth from sellers they know are surveyed for the bestseller lists.
from an insider Scientologist's perspective, those amoral gold-greedy overlords are YOU, the non-Scientologists.
Absolutely.
I had the misfortune to read no less than 8 of the 10 books in the Invasion Earth series (I got determined to finish them no matter how bad they were, but my determination hit its limit). It's even more transparent. The bad guys there are psychiatrists who are all homosexuals that are dedicated to one aim - turning everyone else gay too. And the women psychiatrists are actually cured of their homosexuality by having sex with a man.
And this is NOT satire, folks. $cientologists really, really mean this stuff. This is exactly why Tom Cruise dares to do interviews in which he tells people they are wrong to take medicine to treat clinical depression. It's mind boggling.
Give a man a fire, and you keep him warm for a day. SET a man on fire, and you will keep him warm for the rest of his life...
I don't know if it's for better or for worse, but this film was made so badly that it fails spectacularly on it's own merits, even WITHOUT the pro-Scientology spin.
And yes, the cow-shooting scene was one of the most amazingly unintended comedy scenes - right up with the bits in Plan 9 From Space which juxtaposed Bela Lugosi with his post-mortem, TWICE-AS-TALL stand in.
I can't stand nothing dull
I got the high gloss luster
I'll massacre your ass as fast
as Bull offed Custer
Oh, that's not true at all in my case. I have a whole great globe-spanning ocean of disdain for $cientology. And there's more than a little disgust and hatred mixed in there as well.
Good man. I say the same thing and I would venture to say I've had much greater exposure to them than most of their detractors.
And lets not forget they do everything they can to make anything L-Ron related look good. For instance they bulk buy books like Battlefield Earth from sellers they know are surveyed for the bestseller lists.
Don't forget the virtual shrine to him they just built in Glendale, California. The L. Ron Hubbard Center or Museum, I forget the exact name. All about him, his life, and accomplishments.
Absolutely.
I had the misfortune to read no less than 8 of the 10 books in the Invasion Earth series (I got determined to finish them no matter how bad they were, but my determination hit its limit). It's even more transparent. The bad guys there are psychiatrists who are all homosexuals that are dedicated to one aim - turning everyone else gay too. And the women psychiatrists are actually cured of their homosexuality by having sex with a man.
And this is NOT satire, folks. $cientologists really, really mean this stuff. This is exactly why Tom Cruise dares to do interviews in which he tells people they are wrong to take medicine to treat clinical depression. It's mind boggling.
I think most people just sort of think Scientologists are annoying, irritating, or a little bizarre. I think that relatively few people realize how completely off the edge they are. They're not just garden variety crazy, they're obsessively, dangerously crazy in my opinion.
GrahamKennedy wrote:Given some of the things their dirty tricks department has pulled, yeah, they are pretty dangerous.
OH yeah, if you make yourself a public enemy of them, or embarrass them publicly, they don't just go out to sue you. They sue you, resubmit the case, resubmit the case, resubmit the case, and will do it forever until you are destroyed. And that vindictiveness comes straight from L Ron Hubbard's example.
