Scientology is Worse than you Think - Main Index

The real scoop: Article from 1990 Exposes exactly How Scientology manipulated sales of Battlefield Earth and other Hubbard books, in order to be able to 'claim' that this awful story was on 'the best seller lists" - a MUST READ - Article from San Diego Union:
HUBBARD HOT-AUTHOR STATUS CALLED ILLUSION

Fox Network's Millenium Episode "Selfosophy" is about Scientology, you will see the Selfosophist buying armloads of books..

previous 120 bad reviews up through 16 May Battlefield Earth Page One HERE

Title: Swarmed by culties outside of BE
Author: tfcvp@aol.com (TFC VP) { contact for more info on this incident }
Date: 18 May 2000 15:08:16 GMT

Reports are coming in from employees in LA that SWARMS of culties are handing
out flyers and scn info to theatre patrons as they attempt to approach the box
office. One report: the swarm was aggressive enough that he had to turn down
their flyers 3 times before he actually got to the ticket window to complain to
the theatre manager. Of course this was a theatre very near the Celeb
Ctr....but ..sheesh...get a life you culties out there...the guy was trying to
buy a ticket for Gladiator.

Quote of the DAY

"This movie will have great word of mouth.'' The smile turns broad. ''If I was a betting man, and I am, I would bet that this movie is going to change Franchise Pictures.
On ' Battlefield Earth ,' I can't lose.'' Elie Samatha, owner, Franchise Pictures, producer of "B.E."--In the New York Times, 5.14.00

Follow the money:

For the Battlefield Earth daily box office chart, weekend forecast, and all the latest box office data, check out http://www.boxofficemojo.com "It goes without saying that Battlefield Earth will fall off the face of the earth. John Travolta might not even notice since after the disastrous opening weekend he's probably been holed up deep in the recesses of the Scientology Celebrity Center getting "audited" up the wazoo. Expect the $73-million bellyflop to manage just around $5 million this weekend." Regards, Brandon Gray

Down to #46! as of June 13th

AFP - Agency France Presse

"I'm very interested in Scientology but that's personal. This is different. This has nothing to do with Scientology," he said.
   But Stephen Kent, a professor of sociology at the University of Alberta
in Edmonton, Canada, believes otherwise.
   "John Travolta is an honorary public relations officer for the Scientology," said Kent, an expert on new religions.
   "'Battlefield Earth' is an attempt to get Ron Hubbard's name widespread in popular culture with the hope that people would like to see other works from him.
   "Actually, I don't think it's a coincidence that the movie is being released on the 50th anniversary of the publication in May 9, 1950, of Ron Hubbard's seminal book: 'Dianetics: The modern science of mental health'."

Aftonbladet [Sweden ] Silly science fiction "Travolta also produced the movie, which is based on a brick thick novel by L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the controversial scientology-movement that the star himself belongs to. In the US this film has been laughed down as the turkey of the year."

Alien Zoo "For those astute Alien Zoo fans who have read the brilliant, scholarly works of the great expert in ancient Sumerian history, Zecharia Sitchin, the connections between Sitchin’s theories of human origin and the premise of BATTLEFIELD EARTH may be obvious. Unfortunately, though the movie is dead and buried for a week now, and hundreds of reviews have been written that damn the movie from the first frame to the last, I believe I’m the first commentator to make this essential point. Scratch beneath the surface and you’ll discover that there are more theories of Zecharia Sitchin in BATTLEFIELD EARTH than any hint of .. Scientology .... founded by its author, L. Ron Hubbard.

Andresseavisa [Norway] ""A big project that crash lands with thunder and bang -with Travolta & co in the name of ridiculousness." "Here is the example of almost everything that can go wrong really goes wrong. The disaster reports from USA proved to be justified this time. Brian De Palmas face landing with Mission to Mars is succeeded by another sci-fi failure. Literally based on the sci-fi novel by L. Ron Hubbard, an alleged bestseller, but after having experienced the screen version I will stay far away from it. The fact that Hubbard is the founder of Scientology does not make it more tempting."

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Weekend Kemosabe: Stinker of a movie has no rhyme, reason WERNER TRIESCHMANN "This doesn't happen as often as you would think, so we might as well savor the moment. Battlefield Earth, the new sci-fi film starring JohnTravolta, is an apparent dud. It's not that the critics are sacking the film. They are dropping napalm bombs -- and doing it gleefully."

Associated Press "Whatever. The first few moments of "Battlefield Earth" evoke the heroic struggle of native people against a cold, imperialistic foe . After that, it's Grade A drivel. "

The AV Club "Outside of marching on Washington in Nazi uniforms while burning crosses and clubbing baby seals, it's hard to think of a worse way to recruit converts than to subject them to this surreal atrocity, an adaptation of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard's 1982 novel. A film too staggeringly inept to be believed, Battlefield Earth is a contender for the worst movie of any year, decade, or century."

Bakersfield Runner MICHAEL A. LIEBEL In short, "Battlefield Earth" is a big, moronic, lumbering dud that is so absolutely dreadful to watch that it winds up inciting more laughs than it should. Holding a magnifying glass up to “Battlefield Earth” won’t do anyone any good, really. This is, hands down, one of the worst science fiction films ever made and that’s saying a lot.

Baltimore City Paper Ian Grey "....Still, it does offer the uniquely metaphorical Psychlos, who, being a bunch of total pricks, are equipped with huge codpieces bulging with alien penises. Which, along with a scene featuring the Psychlos killing cows for kicks, makes this a literal cock-and-bull story, and adds further to its future video-store status as a sci-fi Showgirls. ""Battlefield Earth...achieves what must be a land-speed record for plagiarism" -

Berliner Zeitung "The film is surrounded by the stink of death," the Los Angeles Daily News cited an unnamed film producer. And the New York Times critic wrote devastatingly about the"amateurish work" in which Travolta "stomped hysterically around in platform shoes like a caricature of Tim Currie as Frank-N-Furter in the 'Rocky Horror Picture Show'." And, "It could well be that 'Battlefield Earth' turns out to be the worst film of the century."

BBC Online by Anwar Brett "it is a botched adventure that looks suspiciously like any number of other sci-fi tales you will have seen , and pales instantly by the comparison. ".."You want to see a story like this work well? Watch "Planet of the Apes" instead. "

Birmingham Post BATTLE TO STAY AWAKE AT MOVIES "This adaptation of the sci-fi epic by Scientology founder L Ron Hubbard has long been John Travolta's pet project. Surely it would have been an act of mercy to have his pet put down before it reached the screens. "...."by Roger Christian. He was a set decorator on the first Star Wars. He certainly directs like one."

Birmingham Post and Mail [ U.K.](1 star) Dave Freak "L Ron Hubbard's science fiction epic gets a less than successful big screen treatment with Travolta as the snidey 10ft villain. Although the special effects and action sequences are decent enough, the plot is at times laughable "

Boston Globe: "Admit it: You were wickedly happy when John ''Scientology is not a cult'' Travolta's Scientology cult movie, ''Battlefield Earth'' died a big ol' noisy death at the box office."

Boston Pheonix Tom Meek "Even Sci-tol proponent John Travolta, who is intermittently engaging as the chief imperial alien, and a smattering of cool FX can't atone for the cheesy futuristic schlock.

Box Office Magazine "It is, in fact, utterly inane and innocuous in the most harmless, uninteresting way--the fruit of an overrated star’s overblown ego, recklessly indulged by studio excess."

Cambridge News U.K. Travolta sci-fi turkey fails to take off ALAN KERSEY."John Travolta seems to have done it at last in this sci-fi movie already being universally hailed as turkey of the year."

Canoe June 5: Travolta angered by Scientology questions John Travolta is tired of talking about the Church of Scientology...."The journalist asked Travolta why the religion wasn't mentioned in "Battlefield's" press kit and then asked about funding for the Church of Scientology. Travolta was apparently unhappy with the line of questioning and claimed he was being "trapped" by the interviewer who in turn had his video tapes confiscated for "verification". When the tapes were returned, they were blank. "

Canoe June 12 Battlefield crashes badly By JOHN POWELL
--Jam! Showbiz There's a scene in Battlefield Earth in which a visiting alien commander scopes a prison facility and says..."This is one of the biggest crap houses I have ever seen". How right he is.

 In the eight years I have been reviewing films for various publications, I've watched some real stinkers. On many an occasion, I've felt like gathering up my belongings and heading to that beckoning Exit sign in the distance just to escape the mind-numbing torture. But, sadly I can't. Duty requires that I stay to the bitter end. That's why I admire those members of the public who at the Battlefield Earth screening I attended, flipped off the free movie and walked out of John Travolta's disastrous homage to Church Of Scientology founder and science fiction writer, L. Ron Hubbard.

At about the one hour mark, a portion of the audience split the scene and I don't blame them. They were fed-up with being taken for complete and utter morons. Based on Hubbard's novel, the film is offensive to anyone with an I.Q. above that of a popcorn kernel....Battlefield is so stupid it defies explanation. Not even Evel Knievel himself could hurdle the rifts in reasoning. ....

CapAlert - ChildCare Action Project - RED LIGHT : There is not much to say about this most forgettable flick. A lot of violence. A ton of murders and deaths. Sacrificial suicides. Enslavement of the human race. Trickery and treachery. And a lot of poor hygiene. Very dirty. If Smell-a-vision was a reality, air freshener would be the most sought-after concession. The movie has no shape, no purpose, no definition, no talent, no anything of quality or substance. Based on the book written by L. Ron Hubbard (yup, the founder of the Church of Scientology)

Cape Cod Times, Tim Miller 'Battlefield Earth' good for yuks and groans"Travolta, one of the producers of the film (and a Scientologist), would have thought playing such an evil villain would be fun. But Terl isn't smart enough, or funny enough, or scary enough to make us forget for a minute just how awful this movie is. "

Chicago Sun-Times "Silly `Earth' loses the battle at the box office" Sharon Waxman "Hollywood executives are relieved when their movies are screened for the first time and hilarious laughter erupts from the audience.But not when the movie isn't a comedy.

City Pages Kate Sullivan [ Minneapolis ] Preaching to the Choir: "They say Battlefield Earth, based on the novel by L. Ron Hubbard, has nothing to do with the Church of Scientology. Yeah, right--and the Gulf War had nothing to do with oil, and Siegfried and Roy are just good buddies, and Soupy Sales, my close personal friend, will now perform a rendition of "Sunshine Superman" on didgeridoo." "Go see Gladiator instead." "In the spirit of incoherence and iconoclasm established by Hubbard, I will now end this movie review by raising my middle finger to the Church of Scientology,""In the meantime, this dreadful feature might at least come in handy as a torture tool for deprogrammers. "

City on a Hill Press : I don't think anyone can find this film enjoyable, unless you're a devoted follower of L. Ron Hubbard (who wrote the novel the movie is based on). If you get tricked into watching it like I was, try to make the best of it and laugh at it as you go along. And now that we've talked about Battlefield Earth, let's never speak of it again.

Cleveland Freepress: Charles Cassidy John Travolta's bad hair day."Space debris like Battlefield Earth could be laughed off as the schlock that big summer movies are made of. Except the spheres cry out in despair over the immensity of wasted talent, effort, millions in budget and time (mainly yours) invested in this headache-inducing effects blitz, the sort of overproduced cosmic clunker that gives science fiction in general a bad name."

CNN.com Review: Logic loses in 'Battlefield Earth': Let's get one thing straight. "Battlefield Earth" was only made because John Travolta wanted it made. It's been his baby from start to finish. It's not a pretty baby.

College Press Brian Conant Space Opera:""Battlefield Earth" is hardly a film worth fighting to see" "Before he cooked up Scientology in the 1950s Hubbard was a mostly ignored pulp sci-fi, crime and adventure writer in the '30s and '40s.When the multimillion-dollar empire his pseudo-religion became, found legal trouble a foot in the '80s, it drove him into Salman Rushdie-like seclusion where he pounded out "Battlefield Earth" and ten other novels before his death in 1987."

Colorado Daily "It’s a battle to not walk out" I don't think cult-followers need worry unless they're concerned for the health of some members they know. If those Scientologists are fans of film, they may consider "Battlefield Earth" a call to mass suicide.

Comedy Central : [one line] "Crappy action, .... way too much homoerotica subtext."

Late Night with Conan O'Brien 17 May:

A young child saying "Look mommy, I made a poopie!"

is to John Travolta saying, "I'm very proud of 'Battlefield Earth.'"

(much laughter from the crowd)

CONAN: "Has anyone actually seen this movie?"(one guy shouts "YEAH!" amid the hoots)

CONAN: "It is awful!"

ANDY RICHTER: "I had no interest in seeing it until people started calling it the worst movie of the century ...

[paraphrased much of that, but that's how it went. Damn, I'm gonna miss Richter].

Craig Kilborn's monologue ""The movie Gone in 60 Seconds premiered today. It is the story of the audiences for Battlefield Earth."

Creative Loafing ) Not funny, not exciting, not attractive, this is one losing Battlefield. It didn't need bad publicity (Internet rumors that this adaptation of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard's sci-fi novel would subliminally convert viewers to the sect) to tank; bad filmmaking should take care of that....

Daily Star [ U.K. ]2 June Bad John is simply Revolta This might just be the worst film in the entire galaxy. Travolta should be grateful he's unrecognisable under daft alien make-up. He's truly dreadful. Director Roger Christian tells this all-time terrible story terribly, and a bad time is had by all.VERDICT: 0/10

Dagsavisen [Norway] "The movie is actually so stupid all the way through that it doesn't even become unintentionally funny, with a story that shortcircuits logic and [goes on only with] explosive action scenes, sadism and poor dental hygiene, directed by the George Lucas protege Roger Christian. His first motion picture on his own and probably the last if we judge by the result, which almost gets an extra dimension because of his love for endless slow motion scenes accompanied by aimless string playing techno."

Dagbladet [Norway] "TRAVOLTA IMMOLATION""The warning 'Don't see this movie' is actually among the nicer comments on John Travolta's Battlefield Earth, which had Norwegian premiere yesterday. The slaughter is also in tune here.. From coast to coast in USA, and any where else it has been shown, the reviewers have been using a seldom selection of abusive words."

Daily Camera { Boulder Colorado }'Battlefield' hype--don't buy it ......And Hubbard's followers will do anything--including ballot stuffing and creating bogus "polls"--to make him and his work appear legitimate. I was unable, after much searching, to track down the "North Carolina-based" (according to Bridge) American Book Reader's Association. The group has no Web site and is not listed in phonebooks. Bridge promised to fax me more information, but didn't. The good folks at Publisher's Weekly don't know a thing about the association.....

Daily Mail and Guardian { South Africa}Battlefield mirth by Shaun de Waal "Battlefield Earth's stratospheric badness ceases to amuse after about half an hour. Travolta has made some famously bad movies in his time,but this has to be the worst by some distance - a light year, at least. "

Daily Record [Scotland]CHURCH OF THE POISON MINDERS... "WHEN a film saves its scariest moment for the end, it's usually a suresign that there will be a sequel. And that is probably the scariest thing about Battlefield Earth -because this film is so awful that it's laughable. ".."Battlefield Earth is not a good film. It's too silly to be takenseriously and too stupid to be taken as comedy. Yet it is not the worst film I've ever seen and it's not even the worst film this week. But the next time a Scientologist offers to help sort out your life, feel free to laugh in their face and ask why they can't help John Travolta make better movies. "

Dagens Nyheter [ Sweden ]Adam and Eve were Americans by Johan Croneman "John Travolta stars in a fat and noisy turkey with scientological pretext" "I don't know the opinion of the Church of Scientology in this matter, but in "Battlefield Earth" it's patently clear that Adam and Eve first and foremost were Americans." .."I can assure you, that in my days I have seen a few stupid turkeys, but this may even be one of the fattest and most loud ones."

Die Beeld { South Africa ) ". Well, if thisis the best they can do as propaganda, they should rethink the whole thing. This is one of the corniest, silliest movies in a long time. It's really all about special effects and hair......It's best forgotten or limited to rah-rah seminars where audiences need simplistic messages about earthlings surviving and persevering,conveyed through mind-numbing, dulling special effects that are all sound and fury and little else. "

Detroit Metro Times Richard C Walls". Watching the two try to get the drop on each other, I thought (as I’m sure did the four other paying customers who sat in the cavernous theater with me), you know, this ain’t that bad." { two stars }

Der Tagesspiegel [Berlin] : Swallowing Toads Commentary Some superstars in Hollywood are more powerful than producers. Otherwise, how could you explain Warner Studios producing a movie like Battlefield Earth which was based on a novel by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbardand which the New York Times has already described as the "worst film of the century"

D.C. City Paper : "Clash of the Cretins" "Scientology is nasty business...and the premise of Battlefield Earth is indeed linked.. as Richard Lieby detailed last November in Washington Post - to Hubbard's crackpot theo-psychology.

Dimbleby U.K. "It is very rare that a film comes along with so little going for it, but Battlefield Earth - John Travolta’s ill-advised labour of love is an abomination from start to finish."

East Kilbride News [Scotland] "John Travolta confirms his status as a cult with a mega-budget sci-fi blockbuster.".."It's big, noisy, and will turn the feeble-minded into Scientologists with its subliminal jiggery-pokery. Maybe."

Eonline :Space CaseBattlefield Earth may be bad, but it can't be any worse than the outfit Juliette Lewis wears for the premiere. Her white miniskirt and shiny tights arefrom another decade--maybe even another planet.

Edmonton Sun BATTLEFIELD BOMB Could this epic flop mark the end of the huge comeback career for Travolta, who says he owes so much to Scientology? Perhaps it's time to go back the compound for some more "personality auditing," Johnny Boy.

Empire [U.K.]1 out of 5 stars Potty sci-fi bunkum with John Travolta. "Given the relationship between the star and the original Earth author, L. Ron Hubbard of barmy pseudo-religion Scientology fame, BattlefieldEarth bares more than a passing whiff of a dubious vanity project."..."As for Scientology.. to be fair, there isn't anything sinister going on here, with nary a blipvert or allusion to be found. The sensible option would be to distance themselves from such irksome rubbishentirely. "

Entertainment Weekly Mark Harris .....Well, he won't be getting a piece of MY nine bucks, or yours, I hope. What a thrill it is for those of us who care about movies to realize that after its awful opening, even a lousy $35 million may be beyond the reach of this dim-witted slag heap of cinematic detritus.

Eugene Weekly Lisa Miller Tracing the disastrous path that brought this sci-fi fantasy to the screen isn't rocket science. Years ago, long-time Scientologist John Travolta optioned this novel by L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology's founder.With minor changes it might have become a camp, cult-classic comic book, but it's beyond me to imagine the brain trust that green-lighted Battlefield Earth as a serious sci-fi offering.

Evening Standard [London] John's got a battle on his hands by John Travolta "Initially I thought I'd play Jonnie, the human who saves the Earth -now played by Saving Private Ryan's Barry Pepper - but as the years went on and I got older I knew I had to play the villain, Terl, the definitive evil character. He's a Psychlo who's been groomed since birth to conquer galaxies. On the planet he comes from, evil is admired. He'd be an equivalent to Hitler or Stalin or Mussolini. He's pompous, he's rude, he's mean-spirited and he's not very smart. "

Evening Standard Rating: 1 star Alexander Walker "John Travolta sends the lift back for his Scientology guru, L Ron Hubbard, by starring for peanuts in this appalling SF fantasy based on one of the late Ron's novels.".."May the Faith be with him: the US box office certainly wasn't. "

Express [London] Peter Sheridan Travolta gets a trouncing "....But the movie, condemned as a monstrous folly by the critics, earned just £7.6million at the US box office over the weekend - less than half the takings for Gladiator. "..."People magazine declared it "Travolta's travesty", while Entertainment Weekly labeled it "dismal". The Los Angeles Daily News branded Battlefield Earth "a hollow and unintelligible movie" and the Los Angeles Times questioned Travolta's "embarrassing performance". "

Express {London] JOHN TRAVOLTA is heading to Europe on a promotional a tour to drum up business for Battlefield Earth, which has received some of the worst reviews in years.

Express [London] 4 June THIS sci-fi film is the sort of lame-brained B-movie you would have expected John Travolta to make when he couldn't get work. It would fit snugly in between Perfect and Look Who's Talking 3

Expressen [ Sweden ]Jonas Cramby How could this be made into a movie? zero points out of five) "Travolta and his scientology buddies have filmed a book by L Ron Hubbard. That the guy who wrote "Battlefield Earth" even knew how to tie his own shoe laces is hard to believe. That he later managed to start a world-wide church of scientology and pull in lots of fastbucks, is just as hard to understand as how this story could find its way from the sales bins of second-hand book shops to a movie theater near you."

Express London 5/27 Cult fiction that brings a drubbing alien to Travolta
By Mark Jagasia "I was telephoned by New Era, the publishers of L Ron Hubbard's doorstop-sized novel, who insisted on delivering a ticket for the premiere to me in person.

A smartly dressed lady duly app-eared at the office reception bearing
not only the ticket but a glossy brochure proclaiming the late Mr
Hubbard's "genius" and cataloguing his many other works.
But despite their eagerness to get journalists to the premiere, there
was also a heavy-handed side to Travolta's entourage which became
evident at a book-signing held by the star during the day.

"I was shoved in the chest so hard by one of the security guards I am
considering bringing an assault charge," said one eyewitness. "The
whole signing was badly handled and bad-tempered.

Eye Weekly [ Toronto ] Battlefield Earth is a clunky, ugly, broken-down disaster of a movie. "Then the Earthlings start their revolt. Apparently the logical first step toward emancipation is to do away with any sense of plot logic, characterization or pacing, punishing the audience with an unbearable hour and a half of incomprehensible battle sequences and turgid dialogue. --"

Film Listen [Norway] "The book is thick and Battlefield Earth is only the screen version of half of it. But work has allegedly started on the second part, let's just hope there never will be a sequel.Battlefield Earth is an awful movie which I have big problems saying anything nice about."..""Everything is wrong in this movie..."
"
Financial Times, U.K. "The Psychlos resemble Fasolt and Fafner, the subject race labours like Nibelungs, and most evil of all, the security chief is played by John Travolta made up terrifyingly as John Peel. "

Financial Times U.K. John Travolta has taken a well-deserved whupping for the risiblenosedive taken by Battlefield Earth, the first cuckoo of spring,conceived and championed out of the actor's allegiance to the cause ofScientology, and based on a turgid sci-fi doorstop by the religion'sfounder, Ron L. Hubbard. A Variety critic was getting a little ahead of himself when he wroteit could turn out to be the worst film of the century.

Fast Forward Weekly Calgary "I was feeling powerless and vulnerable, like my life was out of control. And then like an angel it appeared before me. I could be who I am destined to be. L. Ron knows all about it. He’s made mountain out of men and women, and he’s going to do it for me, too. I sat through his training film and it was all spelled out. Oh sure, it’s glitzed up for the kids--space ships, explosions, big battles--but in the end, it’s about being all I can be and discovering as much as possible about my enemy’s weaknesses. The enemy, of course, is anyone who tries to stop me, L. Ron or The Church." In the end it’s all about leverage--maybe a little blackmail or a threat or something. In fact, leverage is the weapon we will use against the infidels, including Hollywood studio moguls who might try to cut us out of the action."""Well, what the hell is stopping me?" I cried as the credits ran with names I’d never heard of. Though I’m sure to find out, since I am hopping on the next flight to L.A., where I can empty my pockets and my useless old brain in the Celebrity Centre, where L. Ron can see me from where ever he is now. Ron bless you all."

FilmForce.com "Is Travolta Wounded From the "Battle"? Sat, Jun 03, 2000 05:12 PM EDT The fallout from John Travolta's pet project, Battlefield Earth, just keeps on coming. With the film opening outside the US this weekend, awhole new wave of critics are getting to bash the only film I've ever seen that makes Batman & Robin look watchable.  My favorite came from Jonathan Ross on Film 2000: after a moment of silence for Travolta's career, the critic ran clips from the film while reading all of the synonyms for "rubbish" from a thesaurus (thanks to my pal Mr. Boulton for passing that one along)....

Flagpole {Athens Ga. } The entire film is an incomprehensible mess cluttered with grimy scenery, laughable costumes, poorly-edited action sequences, extremely loud sound effects and thematic bits from Planet Of The Apes. Skip this.

Fortean Times [July] JoeMcNally the novel was...'hefty enough to batter a mule into unconsciousness - which was about the only fit use for it'... 'the only interaction I desired with the Co$ after this one was a strong wish to smash the windows of their Tottenham Court Road shopwhile screaming "I want my two hours back, you swine!"' ......'Avoid it like the ghastly, shambling horror it is'...

Globe: May 30th edition: Travolta's battlefield BOMB:"all-time stinker....Save your money and stay at home," "And Jack Mathews of the New York Daily News cuts loose with both barrels, writing, "Battlefield Earth is one of the darkest, ugliest, most un-involving and incomprehensible major-studio fantasies I've ever seen." "When it comes to star John Travolta's performance,well," says Rita Kempley in the Washington Post, "hammy William Shatner's hairpiece is more convincing.""

Guardian UK Jack Schofield The official website seems no better than the film, so try Factnet which is covering allegations that the movie includes subliminal messages promoting Scientology.

Guardian UK: John Patterson Saturday Fight Fever: "I felt my brain cells dying at a worryingly rapid rate while watching Battlefield Earth. Not since Forrest Gump have I seen a movie that made me feel stupider with every passing minute of screen time. If I write another word about it, I'll start forgetting my alphabet and soon they'll have to water me twice daily."

Guardian U.K.: "The film opened in the US last Friday to some of this year's worst reviews so far. "

Guardian U.K. Duncan Campbell "? Amid a flurry of bizarre claims andcounterclaims, only one thing is certain: it is one of the worst movies ever made."....."Indeed, the only subliminal voice I could detect came about 10 minutes into this 121-minute film and it seemed to be saying "Leeeaaave thisssss cinemmmaaa nooow" Battlefield Earth is out on Friday.

Guardian U.K. Mark Morris "There's nothing like a real Hollywood flop. Not an average bad moviedoing averagely badly, but a complete wreck of a film that makes youwonder what the hell anyone was thinking of when they decided to makeit and how the hell anyone had the guts to release it."

Guardian U.K. Film roundupTerribly Travolting But now? Now - with his much cherished personal project Battlefield Earth, a gigantic sci-fi epic based on the personal vision of scientology maestro L Ron Hubbard? Now he seems towant a third act, together with curtain-calls, flowers, champagne and a laurel wreath to adorn that increasingly plump head of his. Now he tries our patience sorely.

Hamburger Morgenpost {Germany}Insults and Mockery for John Travolta Hollywood - All America is cursing derisively and slapping its thighs with laughter. The target of the biting mockery......The American enemies of Scientology have been rubbing their hands ever since the premiere of "Battlefield Earth" six days ago in Hollywood.

Herts and Essex Observer [U.K.] "John Travolta may have been reborn as a big star since Pulp Fiction but his latest flick has been met with a less-than-warm reception from the critics."

Het Parool [Dutch]"To call Battlefield Earth a bad movie would do no justice to the immeasurable depths Travolta explores with director Roger Christian." "That Travolta is a adept of Hubbard is his own choice, but that this rubbish can occupy Dutch theatres after a debacle in the USA is utterly disgraceful. Bart van der Put, 31-5-2000"

Independent [ London] Scientology? No, thanks By David Thomson "I have seen Battlefield Earth and it is slovenly, noisy, half-hearted, crepuscular, and supports only one message or creed--that you have wasted your time in entering the cinema. Whether it was the subliminals or the conventionally wretched liminals, my head was filled with "Do you realise the Lakers and the Phoenix Suns are on TV now?", or even, "What a woeful life it is to be a film critic".

Independent Newspaper Publishing [South Africa]Battlefield Earth: a disaster of a flick By Darryl Accone rating: 1/10. "There's less and more to this misbegotten science fiction movie thanmeets the eye. In cinematic terms, it's a shambling excuse for a futuristicus-versus-them caper."..'PS: If you think my rating is harsh, the New York Times gave the movie a zero rating. "

Independent Newspaper Publishing Battlefield is all brawn and no brains By Robert Greig Apparently Travolta took a salary cut to do the film, from theequivalent of the GDP of Taiwan to the equivalent of the GDP of SouthAfrica, I suppose. The savings weren't invested in brains.

Independent U.K. "John Travolta plays a seven-foot alien with tubes up his nose, busy crushing the life out of the last remnants of mankind. Cue rebellious Barry Pepper. A turkey of genetically modified proportions"

Independent [U.K.] 4 June Battlefield Earth may well be the worst movie of all time (or of all time this week) which is a kind of holy grail for critics. (Which of us could deny a quickening of the pulse as the possibility arises?) It is an adaptation of chief Scientologist L. Ron Hubbard's slug-brained science-fiction novel about the year 3000, and the post-war wasteland that the earth has become.

International Movie Database . Com As of today, there are 885 movies on the Internet Move Database(http://www.imdb.com/) that have received more than 2000 ratings "votes" fromtheir registered users, on a scale of 1-10.Of these 885 films, only seven have a "weighted" average of less than 3.5. TheAvengers and Batman & Robin come in at 3.4. The venerable classic Plan 9 fromOuter Space is rated at 3.3. Two sequels, Speed 2 and Highlander II, have beengiven the terrible 3.2. Spice World has a rating of 3.1.There is only one film in the IMDB database with more than 2000 votes whose rating is less than 3.0. It's currently being drubbed with a 2.6 rating, and it's holding onto that for dear life....

In These Times Hubbard... "During the '40s, he became interested in theology, of a sort. He dabbled in the ritual magic practiced by followers of Aleister Crowley - today the favorite late-Victorian author of heavy-metal Satanists - whose slogan was, "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law." At professional gatherings, Hubbard often complained about cranking out stories for pulp magazines: The real money, he figured, was in founding a religion. (The Church of Scientology has denied this with all due vigor; but many of his pulp fiction colleagues recall him saying it, not once but several times.)

Irish Times "Critics in the US have already leapt with glee on this sci-fi action movie, pronouncing it a turkey of considerable magnitude. Some have even proposed it as a very early contender for Worst Film of the Century. In the spirit of contrariness, it would be nice to find something good to say about this version of Scientology founder L. RonHubbard's 1983 novel. No such luck - Battlefield Earth is truly, truly awful."

Hot Dog Magazine "Battlefield EarthTravolta's controversial new movie: is it harmless science fiction or recruitment for Scientology ?" [at newstands ]

Kansas City Weekly Dan Lybarger Battlefield Earth is too silly and inept to be involving, but it is likely to lead its audience somewhere. Legions of science-fiction fans will feel compelled to approach the ticket booth and scream for are fund.

Knoxville Pulse Zak Weisfeld Movie Guru Rating: Unconscious Battlefield Schlock "If only the damned Psychlos at Warner Brothers had let L. Ron's true genius come through, me and the four other people in theater would probably be standing in front of a Scientology recruitment office right now, ready to free the Earth and ourselves from some metaphorical oppression. Oh, stupid man-animals. Stupid. Stupid. "

LA Daily News Travolta's Battle For `Earth': "``There's no way that this movie would be happening without Scientology's backing,'' says Stacy Brooks, a former member of the sect and current president of the Scientology-watchdog group Lisa McPherson Trust."

LA Weekly Rod Stringer "Pay no attention--for the time being, anyhow--to the man behind the curtain, the hipper-than-thou, smirking fellow in the ascot and the buttoned-down blazer.""Any where else--getting back to the guy behind the curtain--will Hollywood’s guru of gnostic humanism stand so clearly revealed as an overgrown adolescent with a twitchy sense of humor and an irrepressible mean streak? So enjoy! And don’t think too hard about where your money may be headed. "

La Presse [ Montreal ] THE NIGHTMARE FROM THE YEAR 3000 by Luc Perreault "To get an idea of the end of the film, you only need to recall an old video game which makes lots of noise and where the bad guys drop like flies. BATTLEFIELD EARTH, as people will see, does not shine particularly for its subtlety. The subtlest moment is in fact at the end. We don't know exactly what happens to Terl in the helter-skelter of the final battle, which, alas, leaves us to predict a sequel."

Leicestershire Mercury "It's not just evil, it's REALLY bad! There's a new challenger for the title of bad movie of 2000. It's a 60 million dollar science fiction epic featuring a laughably hammy Hollywood leading man, a barrage of ugly computer-generated special effects and a dreadful soundtrack. Ladies and gentlemen, please be upstanding for the cinematic aberration that is Battlefield Earth. "

London Observer June 7, Mark Morris Stars' pet projects can bite them "There's nothing like a real Hollywood flop. Not an average bad movie doing averagely badly, but a complete wreck of a film that makes you wonder whatthe hell anyone was thinking when they decided to make it and how the hellanyone had the guts to release it."....."There's no doubt that this year that film is the $70 million "Battlefield Earth." The reviews were beyond brutal ("'Battlefield Earth' may well turnout to be the worst movie of this century," suggested the New York Times),and statistics showed that the audience crumbled between its first Saturday on release and the following Sunday. " "In other words, people were calling their friends and strongly advising them not to see this film. "

Los Angeles Times "And as if things couldn't get any worse, "Battlefield Earth" took another precipitous fall, managing only $1 million in four days (down79%) on 2,587 screens ($387 a theater) and just $20 million to date."

Los Angeles Times "Imperial Bancorp Shares (ticker symbol: IMP) Fall on News of Loan Problems" Investors have hammered shares of Imperial Bancorp this week, after the Inglewood-based bank disclosed worsening credit problems caused chiefly by a loan to a workers' compensation insurer....She also raised concerns about Imperial's entertainment lending division. She noted that the bank helped finance John Travolta's new film, "Battlefield Earth," which had a lackluster opening weekend. But Lacey said that Imperial's $44-million loan to Franchise Pictures producer Elie Samaha was largely repaid before the film opened and that the bank anticipates no problems with the loan. Nevertheless, after Jefferies downgraded the stock on Wednesday to "hold" from "accumulate," the shares fell 14%. .....

Los Angeles Times, Vanity, Thy Name Is Disaster Friday, May 19 Calender section : Commentary: John Travolta's pet project 'Battlefield Earth' is only the latest in a long list of star-driven failures. By PATRICK GOLDSTEIN, Times Staff Writer : Tell me if this sounds familiar: Despite all advice to the contrary, the big-time movie star uses his clout to get a film made that otherwise would be stashed deep in the catacombs of development hell. He's totally wrong for the part, he kicks in part of his salary when the film goes over budget, and when the film is released, the critics gleefully boot it around like a soccer ball....

Los Angeles Times "Travolta was so out of touch with reality that he was regaling press-junket reporters about plans for a "Battlefield Earth" sequel while Warner Bros., which distributed the film, was so panicked that the studio secretly bused in several hundred Scientologists to pack the house at the movie's premiere. " (Goldstein, Patrick. "Vanity, Thy Name Is Disaster." Los Angeles Times, 19 May, 2000, sec. F, p. 1)

Los Angeles Times , May 22, 2000, RICHARD NATALE ...."Meanwhile, the much-maligned "Battlefield Earth" was already history in its second weekend, plummeting a disastrous 67% from its shaky debut to a minuscule $3.8 million in 3,307 nearly empty theaters.".

Mail on Sunday 4 June [U.K.] "Some cults aren't worth following American critics have already hailed John Travolta's Battlefield Earth as "the worst movie of the 21st Century". They, of course, have not sat through the execrable British features of recent months, yet this is one of those rare occasions when a Hollywood film runs ours close for sheer awfulness.

Malay Mail Battlefield Earth, which started flat lining last Thursday in cinemas nationwide, has shredded the very foundations that make blockbusters so irretrievably mesmerising to movie audiences worldwide....Yet for all its flamboyance in perpetuating the degradation ofgood movie making, the root of the problem lies not so much in the filmbut in the abysmal myth of bringing the reality of the book to the screen....The only thing it lacked was a story you could swallowwithout getting a brain clot in the process.

Metro [ Sweden ] Travolta's new movie postponed "Not many want to watch John Travolta movies after the critical and public failure of "Battlefield Earth" (Sweden premiere yesterday). Not even his own movie company."

Metro [London ]2 June Fantastic computer graphics can't disguise the fact that this L. Ron Hubbard-penned tosh is a glorified Planet of the Apes with Nineties prosthetics.

Metro Active Weird Scientology: 'Battlefield Earth' makes the end of the world one big whimper By Richard von Busack : "Contemplating the critical response to this galaxy-sized turkey, the Church of Scientology may feel as if they were the victims of a Jihad.""..if Jesus Christ had written a book like Battlefield Earth, we critics would have been on Him like a duck on a junebug."

Michigan Daily 'Battlefield' blows - seriously By Erin Podolsky"....not even six months into the new year and Hollywood already has a winner of a stink bomb with the megabudget, megaton "Battlefield Earth."

Modern Humorist: "Contrary to our report, John Travolta did not say of "Battlefield Earth," "Man, I need an alcoholic beverage. This movie blows." What he said was, "Man-animal will never get leverage on a Psychlo." We will have an update when we figure out what this means."

MTV Movie Awards Trey Parker and Matt Stone spoof "Battlefield Earth" at the MTV Movie Awards!!! June 8th [ real video files ]

New Yorker Magazine : by Anthony Lane .."Here's a thought, 'Taking the very very sane person in present time, one would mark a decline of his sanity by a shift from an interest in present time to an overwhelming interest in the future which would decline into considerable planning for the future in order to avoid bad things happening in it.' " good article NOT on the web, at newsstands now...

New York Times News Service [ from Union Tribune] May 20 Rick Lyman "HOLLYWOOD -- The anti-cult networks are kicking up a fuss. Discussion on Internet movie sites is picking over the potentially sinister implications. Anonymous e-mails are whizzing around the country charging that, among other things, subliminal messages are being used to recruit unsuspecting moviegoers. Big summer action movies, filled with stars and special effects, don't often come with such fascinating accessories."...... ".Scientology has been a flash point for controversy almost since its founding in 1954, but particularly in the last quarter-century as some former members charged that they had been bilked and sometimes mistreated by officials of what many refer to as a moneymaking cult."

New-Dispatch Michigan City, Indiana : 'Battlefield Earth' a dull, dreary mess By Marge Donoghue "....In the end, "Battlefield Earth" doesn’t put up much of a fight. The skeleton of a plot it uses--bad guys oppress good guys, good guys revolt, good guys win big shoot ‘em up and chief good guy also wins the girl--is about as provocative as the name Jonnie Goodboy, and there’s not much dressing up that skeleton. Rating: 0 stars "

New-Times LA DIANETICS BOY "..colossal summer disaster" ".... Instead, his 11-inch-tall counterpart, the action-figure Terl, agreed to answer questions about how the box-office flop might affect Hubbard's wacky religion, Scientology.

The Finger: "Did you read what critics had to say about your movie?"

Terl: "Ratbrain!"

...........

The Finger: "Hey Terl, they sign billion-year contracts, agreeing to come back, lifetime after lifetime, to serve Hubbard for little pay."

Terl: "You wouldn't last one day at the academy."

New York Post New Travolta Film In the Can for Now by Lou Lumenick "PLANS to open another John Travolta film next month have been scrapped - and some observers think his megaflop, "Battlefield Earth," is at least partly to blame. "

News of the World [London]John's losing battle "But unless you're a diehard sci-fi fan or a devoted Scientologist there's little to recommend the film. If this is the sort of nonsense that Scientology is based on, then I'm mystified as to its appeal. I gave up believing in nasty aliens when I was in kindergarten. This movie certainly did nothing to change my mind. ** Wait for the video "

Northern Echo , Darlington U.K. BEAM ME UP, JOHNNY, by Steve Pratt . "Whichever way you look atBattlefield Earth, it's a bad movie. Not bad enough to be funny. Just bad enough to make you wish you were somewhere else. Travolta has laboured long and hard to bring Scientology founder L Ron Hubbard's book to the screen but the result is dreadful, like a bad episode of Star Trek. The ending leaves the way open for a sequel which, one suspects, will never be made following bad reviews and poor box office in the States. The narrative is mostly incomprehensible."

Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph "There's a new pretender to the bad movie crown--this 60 million dollar science fiction epic featuring a barrage of ugly computer-generated special effects, and a soundtrack almost as bombastic as it is painfully loud. As much as I try, I cannot find a single element of this to commend. Acting, direction and screenplay all fall short, action sequences lack pacing, and even the running time skirts the fringes of two hours--which feels more like an eternity."

Norwegian National TV ""It is so bad it doesn't even qualify as a turkey movie" "Then the camera focused back on the two ladies in the studio, it was hard not to notice the embarrassed glare they gave each other. They couldn't stop explaining what kind of dreadful movie this was, almost with a little compassion for Travolta in their voices. Paraphrasing: "We thought we were prepared, but nothing whatsoever could prepare us for this." "It was horrible.""It had nothing new" and they ended the whole review by saying "It is more interesting picking your navel grain than watching this movie!".

Nordvästra Skånes Tidningar A weird world by Pidde Andersson "There are courses that get more and more expensive as you progress,and those who pay enormous amounts of money can reach the highest level of education where you learn the truth about everything. That truth is not to be treated lightly.You see, Hubbard found that 75 million years ago, the tyrannical alien being Xenu had other aliens imprisoned in volcanoes on Earth!" "It's about power. And scientology is powerful. It has even been said that their goal is to take over the world. And, as is the case with many other cults, it's hard to leave. Defectors have been harassed and threatened, in some cases the defector has committed suicide. Watchout for the wrath of Xenu!"

NRC - [Dutch]Travolta as alien with dirty nails by BIANCA STIGTER "Sometimes it is a good thing that you can't remeber a movie exactly, like you fortunately can't fully recall how it feels to vomit."

Ohio University Post ‘Battlefield Earth’ is a lost cause by Dan Eaton: 'Travolta hams it up as Terl, but it’s hard not to shake the feeling that he’s serious. He was a major force in bringing Battlefield Earth to the screen, based on his love for the book--definitively proving that love isblind. "

the onion.com What is Battlefield Earth's appeal? [ comedy ]

Palo Alto Weekly "Ugh."

Pantograph Dan Craft - Bloomington Ill.1 star "Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha? Perhaps somebody decided early on that "Battlefield Earth" might work best as a kind of bickering-aliens comedy -- one that just so happens to involve the aftermath of Earth's destruction, the enslavement of humankind .......Here we have, in the most deranged casting decision of the new millennium........It is merely, to quote the cackling Terl, "Stupid. Stupid."

People Magazine Failure doesn't come cheap. It reportedly cost at least $70 million to make a movie as egregiously awful as Battlefield Earth. The end result is a science-fiction saga so incoherent, so ugly and so pointless that you have to wonder why Warner Bros. is even bothering to distribute this embarrassment. ....Bottom Line: Travolta's travesty

People Weekly [U.K.] ""Failure doesn't come cheap. It reportedly cost at least $70 million to make a movie as egregiously awful as Battlefield Earth. The end result is a science-fiction saga so incoherent,so ugly and so pointless that you have to wonder why Warner Bros. even bothering to distribute this embarrassment." "Bottom Line: Travolta's travesty"

Peoria Journal Star David Moll,May 4th,"Just because Hubbard found himself a good scam doesn't mean he might not have once been a decent science-fiction writer. I wouldn't know. No, the perversely promising thing about the "Battlefield Earth" ad campaign is John Travolta's haircut. Have you seen this thing? It'll stop you dead in your tracks. "

Philadelphia City Paper Cindy Fuchs It’s hard to say which is the most embarrassing moment in John Travolta’s long time dream movie of L. Ron Hubbard’s 1982 novel....

Philadelphia Weekly L. Ron Hubbard Ate My Brain Has Scientology's comic legacy fizzled? BY SARA KELLY "Too bad, then, that the enduring spirit of L. Ron Hubbard--the last striving American to successfully anoint himself the swaggering grand pooh-bah of civilized society--so disappointed us with the recent screen adaptation of his sci-fi magnum opus Battlefield Earth, a film whose reviews have been so universally scathing, it's enough to make you wonder if the Church of Scientology has somehow lost its comic muse. Which is to say Hubbard himself, Scientology's disputably dead founder and the celebrated author of Dianetics--perhaps the greatest epic comedy of our time. "

Philadelphia Weekly Re: Salon's new website look: "And the most adept media-to-media comparison came from reader Ron Newman, who dubbed it 'the _Battlefield Earth_ of web design.""

Pittsburgh Newsweekly MICHAEL BATZ "Jeez, movie critics are gonna have to turn to Scientology just to get rid of the brain-ache after this one. ""My perverse desire for Battlefield Earth to be bad stemmed largely from its sketchy Scientology connections. Not only did the founder of Scientology write the source novel, but the world's most famous Scientologist, John Travolta, was producing and starring. The smell of conspiracy theory was in the air. The thought that the movie, if it possessed any quality, would somehow point people towards that self-help pyramid scheme had me nervous. As it turns out, my worries were in vain. Battlefield Earth is indeed bad. Horribly, terribly, screamingly, painfully bad. And not in a goodway. "

Planet Out : Planet Out - yes, they're gay.The movie is so phony, goofy, and just plain strange that it turns out almost wonderfully entertaining. Drag queens might like this movie, as all the aliens have really big hairdos and press-on nails for days.

PointlessWasteofTime.com '"Highest rating - 2 stars" for Travolta's codpiece..

Premier Magazine "Battlefield Earth, L. Ron Hubbard's sci-fi opus starring John Travolta, which seemed to have the potential to challenge Gladiator at the box office, laid slain at Crowe's sandaled feet after its opening weekend. It took 11 years and $73 million dollars to bring this cult classic to the big screen, but controversy and bad reviews seem to be more powerful than even the alleged Scientology email blast that urged members to support the film.

Salt Lake City Weekly Scott Renshaw Alien Somnambulation :"In his attempt to tell a "saga of the year 3000," Christian has chosen ... the sneaky trick ... of making ... the film ... so ... plodding ... that you’ll leave ... the theater ... wondering ... whether ... 1,000 years ... have ... passed... since ... you ... went ... in. "

San Francisco Bay Gaurdian Cheryl Eddy "For some, this movie might fall into the so-bad-it's-good category; myself, I'd rather be hit in the face with a copy of Dianetics."

Seattle Stranger: . As anyone who has seen the trailer to this howling dog can attest, it might be time for Travolta to fade back into obscurity.

Seattle Weekly:Mike Seely: It’d be one thing if John Travolta took the lead role in this adaptation of fellow Scientologist L. Ron Hubbard’s best-selling 1982 Star Wars rip-off novel for a paycheck, but no-Vinnie Barbarino bought the rights himself to single-handedly bring this lumbering pile of shit to the silver screen.....

Seattle Weekly * Re: the Church of Scientology, who demanded that eBay not allow folks to offer its e-meter devices on that auction service: Excuse me, but I understand that when you sold these gizmos to your army of true believers, you didn't structure the sales as licenses; they're fully owned by their . . . owners. What's the problem? Hell, get Travolta to autograph a few of those doohickeys and do the eBay thing yourselves. It's not like you guys to turn down a revenue source, and from the look of it you may need to recoup some capital after the premiere of Battle-field Earth

See Magazine Alberta "Battlefield Earth is a dumb, dumb movie. How dumb? In the climactic battle between Earth’s few remaining humans and the evil Psychlo overlords, the cavemen humans deploy a squadron of one-thousand-year-old Harrier jump jets they’ve mastered in seven--count ’em--seven days. Now that’s dumb."

ShowBizDataCom - SUNDAYs money
Gladiator $ 2.45 million
BE ..........$ 0.06 million

Somerville Journal {Ma.} David Brudnoy, CNC Film Critic, Battlefield Earth (F) "It could be worse. This would require ingenuity, granted, but if one puts one's mind to it one might imagine a drearier sci-fi disaster than "Battlefield Earth," perhaps an extravaganza starring the charmless Chow-yun-Fat, Pauly Shore and Martin Lawrence, But we contend with what we're given, and in this movie derived from a 1982 novel by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, a cult masquerading as a religion, and produced by, among others, John Travolta, who is in thrall (for whatever reason ‹ blackmail, it is whispered among the cogniscenti in Hollywood) to the cult, we get a mind-bogglingly stupid story accompanied by wretched acting, tedious special effects and sometimes barely discernible visuals."

SlashDot.org Just up on slashdot.org today, a contest to find someone who has anything good to say about Battlefield Earth. Random quote: "makes Ishtar and Waterworld look like Citizen Kane"

South Bend Tribune 'Battlefield Earth': Sci-fi hoo-hah or Scientology hoo-hah? Between the Lines - WHY CAN’T SOMEONE BASE A RELIGION ON THE WRITINGS OF HENRY MILLER? "We want to know what religion is sponsoring "The X-Men" because that trailer, which ran before "Battlefield Earth," was 10 times better than the feature film. L. Ron Hubbard can't write a good story; what makes anyone think he can establish a decent religion?" "" What we learned from 'Battlefield Earth': That John Travolta and Kelly Preston, his wife (top), have more money than God, and they’re willing to spend it on a cockroach spittle like 'Battlefield Earth.' " "

South China Morning Press "Contrary to prior evidence, it is possible to make a popcorn pic toodumb for the peanut gallery."

Space.com "Battlefield Earth is destined to rival -- maybe even surpass -- Cleopatra,Howard the Duck, and Ishtar as the most misbegotten, ego-driven moviedisaster of dismal special all time. "

Spiegel ..."The U.S. critics are not sparing the rod with "Battlefield Earth": the script is said to be "deeply stupid and depressingly full of cliches," judged "USA Today." And the Los Angeles Times found that the Hubbard film, in the genre of the post-apocalyptic adventure films, even made Kevin Costner's "Waterworld" look like a masterpiece. "

Spiegel 21 May Planetary Disaster "Or they grit their teeth and stand through the catastrophe.The film can always be used as an instrument of torture.Whoever is a voluntary member of Hubbard's shop has to be a masochist and is surely enthused by this new punishment: "Scientology has the pleasure of sharing with you that you have the honor of watching Battlefield Earth -50 times."

St. Petersburg Times BILL DURYEA The Virtue of Being Bad: There's a new stinker in town.

That's why Battlefield Earth is such a public service. Its myriad flaws are there for the world to see, to record and ultimately to use.

Just as John Leonard of CBS Sunday Morning did when explaining that, although he didn't much care for the movie Gladiator, it had some redeeming qualities.

"Compared to Battlefield Earth, Gladiator is Citizen Kane."

St Petersburg Times " How do they hate it? Let us count the ways"

Sueddeutsche Zeitung The Universe as Delusion and Science:
Scientology in the Movies Los Angeles, USA May 20, 2000
by Andrian Kreye

In the 1930s and 1940s, Hubbard made a name for himself as an author of pulp and futuristic fiction. He accumulated his first experiences with spiritism in Pasadena with the Ordo Templi Orientis, a sect of adherents of the English Satanist, Aleister Crowley, whom Hubbard ran into in 1945. In the years following, Hubbard developed the pseudo-science of "Dianetics," a combination of science fiction babble, popular psychology and Satanism, which he published in 1950 as a book. In 1954, he founded the Church of Scientology.

Sunday Times London John Harlow Critics carve up Travolta's £50m turkey John Harlow, Los Angeles : "A science fiction epic starring John Travolta as a 10ft alien withdreadlocks has been attacked as one of the worst films ever made. Battlefield Earth, which cost £50m to make, has attracted perhaps themost critical notices since Heaven's Gate, the 1980 Michael Ciminowestern. It has so appalled critics and audiences in America that thedistributors have resorted to giving away tickets. "

Sunday Times London June 4 2000 CINEMA "Maybe you’ve already reserved your ticket,and are now looking forward to laughing your way through two hours of risible tosh. Well, you’re going to be disappointed. Not, I hasten to add, because the film is actually quite good. It’s utterly, utterly dreadful. The problem is that its dreadfulness doesn’t take an entertaining form. "

Sunday Telegraph 4 June [London ]Whereas Pulp Fiction revived Travolta's career, Battlefield Earth is being met with such derision it could well propel him back into celebrity limbo. The best joke is unintentional and comes at the end,when man-animals fight back against their alien oppressors by sabotaging he alien HQ with impassioned cries of "I'm blowing the Dome!"

Sunday Telegraph [London ]OPINION page Ron's man on earth Profile John Travolta "THE good news is that in the year 3000 you'll still be able to find a British accent on the planet. The bad news is it's coming out of John Travolta's mouth, and in his new film Battlefield Earth, Travolta's mouth is not a pretty sight." "In Battlefield Earth, Travolta spends two hours as a talking moggie with the worst bad hair day in cinematic history. You'd think a major motion picture star like that would want to kill the producer responsible for making him look such an idiot, but, unfortunately, in this case the producer is John Travolta" "

How, you're probably wondering, can a big-time movie star who gets $20 million per picture up front be so insane as to do this to himself?

And the answer is: L Ron Hubbard. John Travolta is a Scientologist and L Ron is not only the late founder of said Church but also the author of many novels, one of them being Battlefield Earth. Scientologists believe that 75 million years ago an intergalactic tyrant named Xenu banished aliens to earth and then nuked them, leaving their spirits - or "Thetans" - to float around the planet attaching themselves to human beings, whom they fill with malign "engrams" from which you can only be freed by being "audited" until you reach a state of "Clear"." "

"Battlefield Earth is so bad it must surely be testing the faith of even the most loyal Scientologists like Cruise and Kidman. Despite the assurances of L Ron, Travolta's engrams have apparently been re-stimulated to throw out the correctness of computation."

Svenska Dagbladet June 2, "Sometimes, against better judgement, the stars in Hollywood, manage to create huge suicidal projects." "one is surprised, that nobody could manage to stop the scientologist Travolta, from using his regained status (he was a joke before "Pulp Fiction, and may after this role as the evil psychlone Terl regain his status as a joke) to produce and participate in Battlefield Earth, the movie version of L Ron Hubbard's SF-novel.

Syracuse New Times Bill DeLapp "What Planet Are You From? John Travolta's absurd alien escalates the camp quotient of Battlefield Earth " "Just six months into the millennium and already we've got one of the21st century's all-time silliest movies perhaps the dopiest sci-fi extravaganza to come along since 1958's Queen of Outer Space. "

Telegraaf Unbelievable! by Marco Weijers The knowledge that Hubbard's fantasy was the foundation for this poor piece of science fiction junk, would shake the belief of his most devoted adherents.

The Mirror [ London ]FILM: WHAT DOES TRAVOLTA THINK HE'S DOING? HE LOOKS LIKE AN OVER-STUFFED, DREADLOCKED, CABBAGE-PATCH DOLL NO STARS "It had to happen one day - a film so dire that it drops off the
star-rating scale. And Battlefield Earth is it. It has the makings of
a sci-fi smash. There's a great cast, led by John Travolta with able
support from wife Kelly Preston, Forest Whitaker and Barry Pepper.
Interesting source material - it's based on a pulp sci-fi novel by L
Ron Hubbard, the creator of Scientology whose star devotees include
Travolta, Preston and Tom Cruise. And a budget big enough to raise the
Titanic. So what went wrong? How did all that money, energy, talent
and time end up producing such an unbelievably bad movie?

The film is set a thousand years from now. Earth has changed a bit -
men forage in cave-dwelling tribes, their lives blighted by the threat
of abduction by monsters. The cause of this reversal of man's fortunes
is the evil Psychlos. They came in search of rare minerals and wiped
out civilization as we know it in nine minutes. The surviving humans
are either consigned to life in the ruined cities or enslaved by the
Psychlos and working down their mines.

Then the Psychlos, led by head of security Terl (Travolta, in the
weirdest career-move ever) capture Jonnie Goodboy - yep, that's his
name. Jonnie (played by Pepper) has the vital spark of rebellion that
rekindles the human race's desire for freedom and leads them into
battle against the far stronger, far better equipped, far taller
Psychlos.

Everything about Battlefield Earth sucks. Everything. The over-the-top
music, the unbelievable sets, the terrible dialogue, the hammy acting,
the lousy special effects, the beginning, the middle and especially
the end. God above, it's bad. Sweet baby Jesus, it's bad. By all that
is holy and sacred on the Earth, this is a bad, bad, bad film.

Travolta has said that it was fun to create a character that audiences
would love to hate. Sorry, John, but you have created a character who
audiences want to put their arm around and try to help into a more
suitable line of work. Terl would make a great interior designer or
fashion journalist.

The Observer London How dare they call my film a turkey "The second myth put over in the US which I wish to dispel is that the movie cost $75-100 million dollars. I only had $14m for production and $9m for the special effects. When I directed the second unit forPhantom Menace, the special effects budget alone was $60m. The totalBattlefield Earth budget including above the line costs is $51m, less than the cost of the sets of an average studio sci-fi action film"

THE SCOTSMAN: CINEMA REVIEWS "Two-second summary: Travolta in Scientology sci-fi disaster "..."Battlefield Earth is a tired example of rotten science-fiction, with alate-1980s TV aesthetic. You might be tempted to go along to chuckle at the Scientology subtext - the film is based on one of L Ron Hubbard's books and is produced by Travolta, a famous Scientologist man-animal - but you'll be bored. "

The Spectator

Battlefield Earth (no stars)

I wouldn't want it to be thought that I was piling on. Anyone who might otherwise have been tempted to see Battlefield Earth will need no discouragement from me to make him think better of the idea. I don't know if I would go quite so far as the critic who called it "the worst science fiction movie ever made" (the competition is so stiff!), but its awfulness truly is by an order of magnitude beyond that of "the same old crap" -- which to me makes it not only not worth seeing, but not even worth saying that it's not worth seeing. There is, however, one point about it that I would like to mention, which is the denial by John Travolta, a Scientologist, that the film that he co-produced, helped to finance, and stars in, is not a propaganda vehicle for Scientology, though it is based on a book by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology's "church."

Either this denial is disingenuous, or Johnny T. doesn't see what is staring him in the face, which latter I assume to be the case. For Scientologists tend to be people who take for granted Hubbardian assumptions about the world, however strange they may seem to the rest of us. The principal such assumption on display in Battlefield Earth is that human consciousness and will is a universal solvent for all external realities, no matter how oppressive or frightening. This assumption, only an extreme version of one common on the therapeutic fringe, was the foundation of Hubbard's fortunes, both in his science fiction and in his self-invented "religion." As in Scientology so in this film there is a wonderful machine that turns ordinary people into supermen, able to do or be anything their hearts desire. It's the contemporary equivalent of the philosopher's stone....continues at url above..

The Sun [ London ]Nick Fisher "EVERYONE already knows Battlefield Earth gobbles like a farmyard turkey. I knew before I walked in the door that I was about to sit down and watch a famous failure. All the U.S. reviews rated it as stinky as a Sumo wrestler's socks. So my expectations were high. But, d'you know, I was disappointed . . . it wasn't that bad. Just laughably naff."..."If this film were worse it would be worth seeing. Sadly, it's just bad enough to miss. "

Time Magazine A Planetary DisasterJohn Travolta's Battlefield Earth is a helpless causeBY RICHARD SCHICKEL "......It doesn't take it long, however, to go from bad to worst, as in the worst movie in living memory. It isn't just that the dialogic cliches set the audience to hooting, hollering and offering satiric applause. Or that you start sensing the conclusion of every scene as it opens..." "...Not since the inglorious days of the old Hollywood's B pictures has one seen such totally grab-ass writing and direction. Maybe this is inherent in the underlying material, a novel by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard,which Travolta, a sect adherent, insists carries no religious message. Sounds right. If Scientology were this stupidly organized it would have no members"

Time Magazine JUNE 6th Issue - has an article about hollywood stars lobbying congress, pick up your issue of TIME Magazine today, included in a series of cartoons about same is this gem:

Times London: "Two brief items: the year's worst word-of-mouth goes to Battlefield Earth. John Travolta's Scientology science-fiction fiasco dropped a calamitous 74.3 per cent in its second week, proving there is a God and His name is not L. Ron Hubbard."

Times London Nick Wyke "The press has already labelled it "the worst movie of the century". "A genius at reincarnation. As an actor he lapsed into the C/D list after Seventies disco became naff, but recovered spectacularly as alikeable killer-cum-heroin addict. Could be relegated again with the latest turkey, in which he plays a smelly alien creep.

Times London "You might say JohnTravolta steals the show, except that he is one of the film's producers, clearly the driving force behind its making. And you can't steal from yourself. "

Times London "IT APPEARS as if John Travolta's (above) post-Pulp Fiction renaissance looks to have run out of steam with this desperately overblown science-fiction tale, based on the novel by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. Travolta plays the charismatic and extravagantly coiffed Terl, leader of the evil Psychlos, an alien race who have taken control of Earth and left the poor old humans to rot. The result is across between a shoddy Independence Day rip-off and Star Wars minus the fairytale spirit. "

This is Lancashire [U.K.] The end of the world as we know it "The good points are a few of the special effects, and you have to give the costume department credit for making the aliens so disgusting; the bad points are everything else, from the Ming the Merciless sensibilities of Travolta and crew, the script, the direction and story. Fans of L. Ron Hubbard, and Travolta's fellow Scientologists might like it out of loyalty; other, saner people should really avoid the whole sorry mess."

Toronto Star Peter Howell: Internet filled with bile for Travolta's sci-fi folly "John Travolta must be reeling from the disastrous reception to Battlefield Earth, his vanity sci-fi movie." "Ground zero for the anti-BE eruption online has to be the Battlefield Earth FAQ at http://www.lermanet.com/reference/BatEarthfaq.htm, which is linked to the home page of a major Scientology basher. ""The BE FAQ also has a story, backed up by an intercepted Scientology e-mail, claiming that Los Angeles Scientology leaders bullied their brethren into seeing the film three times each over the weekend, to bolster the all-important first weekend returns"

Towerlight [Towson State University]"‘Battlefield Earth’ is the newest box-office bomb "It’s already scheduled for a sequel--let’s just hope the producers can figure out how to write a believable script, if they have enough money left after this "Battlefield Earth" debacle. "

Tulsa Weekly Cory Cheney "Let's just say it's a good thing I saw two movies this weekend,because the first one I watched sucked so bad, I had no idea how I could fill up a whole column with it. There are only so many ways you can say a movie sucks. This is just about the lousiest movie I've seen in recent memory. "

Tuscon Weekly James DiGiovanna Future Schlock :"WOW. THIS IS the one. Every week, Hollywood churns out mediocrities and mid-range mistakes,....".."But Battlefield Earth. This is the movie every critic dreams of--something so wretched as to be unbelievable. Was there no one who said no? Could the director, cast, crew and caterers not smell the stink coming off this script? What strange act of God or man could allow such a thing to be made? "

University of Washington Daily Paul West "It is stunning that this film was made in an age when the production of a commercial film is such an arduous and expensive task. It would be fun if this film were bad enough to be good, but for most of its two hours, it is simply foolish. You have been warned."

Vancouver Express Cult fiction that brings a drubbing alien to Travolta By Mark Jagasia ""I was shoved in the chest so hard by one of the security guards I am considering bringing an assault charge," said one eyewitness. "The whole signing was badly handled and bad-tempered."There were a lot of people from New Era handing out posters for L Ron Hubbard books - including to children - and they got very upset when Iasked them if they were Scientologists. They had been travelling round Europe with Travolta and had a very odd manner." "..advance word to steer clear of the event had obviously spread through the invited celebrities. No one, it seemed, wanted to be publicly associated with what is set t obecome one of the biggest turkeys of recent cinema history."

Variety Peter Bart, Daily Variety Editor-in-Chief HOLLYWOOD (Variety)"-- arguably the worst-reviewed movie in a decade -- has hopefully taught you some valuable lessons, Elie. Lesson one: The three most ominous words for a producer are "labor of love." When someone like John Travolta, your star in "Battlefield Earth," says he'll commit to a movie because it's a "labor of love," that really means the following: - He's given the script to every studio in town and they've all passed. - Even the star's agent hates the project so much that he's embarrassed to ask for money...."

VG [ Largest newspaper in Norway ]"NOISILY EMPTY"""'BAAANG', 'VROOOM' and 'BOOOOM' has becomed a deafening simple result. With its source (a success novel by L. Ron Hubbard) the history could absolutely have offered the possibility to awake a thought. Something we instantly don't have to worry ourselves with.

Village Voice ".....big fellas with green eyes, dreadlocks, formidable paws, and mossy teeth. They are much given to evil chortling, and, when they're not sadistically zapping the "man-animals," their idea of fun is to hang around a windowless bar swilling tumblers of a chartreuse liquor with the baleful glow of radioactive urine."The movie's mode is brutal and excremental"

Volkskrant Netherlands: Gold, Nuclear Bomb and too much fireworks

Washington Post JOHN TRAVOLTA'S ALIEN NOTION; HE PLAYS A STRANGE CREATURE IN A NEW SCI-FI FILM, BUT THAT'S NOT THE ONLY CURIOUS THING ABOUT THIS PROJECT

RICHARD LEIBY
WASHINGTON POST STAFF WRITER
Sunday, November 28, 1999 ; Page G01
Section: Sunday Arts
Word Count: 3665

Something other worldly is happening inside Hangar 12, something they're trying to keep secret. But we can tell you this much: John Travolta is involved, and so are space aliens.

Williamette Weekly Brian Libby "Watching an asinine movie like Battlefield Earth, one can only assume John Travolta has a death wish for his career. "

FAQ prepared by Ex-$cientologist Arnie Lerma

Please check out my Expose-$cientology home page AND Operation Clambake

"Scientology & Battlefield Earth have more than L Ron Hubbard in common -

They are BOTH worse than you think." said by Lerma to KHOU News Houston Texas at minute 19 30 sec

Please read what Judges say about Scientology:

[...]In addition to violating and abusing its own members civil rights, the organization over the years with its 'Fair Game' doctrine has harassed and abused those persons not in [Scientology] whom it perceives as enemies. The organization clearly is schizophrenic and paranoid, and this bizarre combination seems to be a reflection of its founder [L. Ron Hubbard]. The evidence portrays a man who has been virtually a pathological liar when it comes to his history, background and achievements. The writings and documents in evidence additionally reflect his egoism, greed, avarice, lust for power, and vindictiveness and aggressiveness against persons perceived by him to be disloyal or hostile." -- Judge Paul G. Breckenridge, Jr., 6/20/84 (Scientology v. Armstrong, affirmed on appeal 232 Cal.App.3rd 1060, 283 Cal.Rptr. 917.)

Lerma: some folks familiar with what it is like to try to expose Scientology as well as this reviewer agree, the Psychlos character is based upon Hubbard's tehniques of managing the Empire of lies called $cientology.

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