Depends on how you look at it
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Battlefield Earth
boudicea1967 — 10 years ago(July 06, 2015 01:38 AM)
I do not think much of L. Ron Hubbard as a person, but I did not know the man. He had some issues that never got addressed because I think he was afraid. He was erratic and did some not so nice things and he probably suffered from some sort of disorder. However, I cannot say the man did not have an ability to right a good story. I never read Dianetics and I am not involved in or associated with anything regarding Scientology. I did not even look it from that angle, I looked at it as a science fiction movie/story.
Now, some have said that is it Scientology propaganda and maybe it is, who knows. However, I thought it was a good story and I liked the movie. I know that Travolta funded it himself and given that he has only so much money to fund it and had to complete it in a limited amount of time, I thought he did a good job with it. I do not agree or share any of his spiritual beliefs, but that does not make this a bad movie. I understand that it is not for everyone and that is fine too, no one has to agree with me. I am not a director and yea, there are always going to be things that are kept out, missed or lacking for one reason because in order to do the movie from the book, there are only so many ways you can do it.
I liked the story because we have seen similar ones that were less put together and people think they are good movies. I like the theme of the story and thought the characters were pretty good and as developed as they could be given the time restraints in accordance with the film industry and I always wondered how much more footage was left on the editing room floor.
The story is about an advanced race of beings who enslave humans in a world where the Earth has been taken over by "superior" beings and the humans live like scavengers until they take one person, a popular scenario in a lot of movies, who somehow figures out how to make is so that there is an equality instead of a first come first serve type of thing. The man somehow organizes the humans and in some part is given a chance to do something different because he shows an aptitude as an independent thinker and so the leader gives him more complex tasks to do and from this he learns more about these beings and hatches a plan to rid themselves and Earth from these beings.
I thought it was well acted because the case was good with some very talented actors, the story, though seemed a bit strange at times did illustrate that a superior race can forget fundamental things and it is those things that contributed to their downfall.
Could it have used more direction or background or improvement? Sure, most movies can. However, if you look at it purely from a science fiction genre film you may see it a bit differently. If people want to read into it, then ok. I did not. L. Ron Hubbard was a pretty good writer and I liked the movie. -
ryto_69 — 10 years ago(August 26, 2015 04:38 AM)
You said "the story, though seemed a bit strange at times did illustrate that a superior race can forget fundamental things and it is those things that contributed to their downfall."
I think, fundamentally that their culture conditions their own people to be this way, they have also seemingly completely disassociated themselves from anything natural and all that they have left of their world was an artificial environment of sorts, they are an ultra-competitive, walk all over people in your desire for advancement or for wealth, type society.. where they mock and ridicule one another and have more or less lost their way.
So that's how I would describe it. Personally I think it's a great movie and successfully uses humor at times which is natural and not forced like you see in a lot of movies these days. Reasonably well written movie in my opinion, but I haven't read the book. You could gripe about the special effects and the costumes I suppose though, but the dialogue and some of the scenes are extremely engrossing.