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This movie shouldn't of turned out the way it did.. The cast, the producers and even the writers are known hit makers.. How this movie turned out so bad it is very puzzling me?? The talent was there for God Sakes!!! What the hell happened?!
"Half the celebrities in Hollywood" are not Scientolgists. That's like saying that half of all Americans live in the city of Los Angeles. Or that half of the population of Los Angeles County lives in Beverly Hills. Not anywhere near what could even remotely considered to be true. Scientology currently doesn't have enough members left worldwide to fill one of the bigger NFL stadiums to capacity. They have been haemorrhaging members for years. Few people join, lots of people leave. Scientology's capo di tutti capi David Miscavige just sits on a gigantic pile of accumulated scammed money, laundered through mostly empty buildings in expensive locations or hidden away in literally hundreds - if not thousands by now - bank accounts, all respectively below the total that requires informing the authorities. That's in addition to the cult getting it's tax exemption as a "church" back through an extremely shady deal with the IRS in 1993. Scientology lost it's initial tax exempt status after just two years in 1958 over L. Ron Hubbard's blatant private inurement. His sucessor Miscavige is much smarter than "The Founder" when it comes to creative accounting for the financing of his life of excessive luxury. Officially, in the eyes of the IRS, the scumbag doesn't own a pot to piss in. In reality, he controls a billion-dollar wealth. Donald Trump only wishes he was David Miscavige...
3:45 "The director, Roger Christian, has learned from better films that directors sometimes tilt their cameras, but he has not learned why." - Roger Ebert's review
A dutch angle is usually used to imply that something is confusing or weird. Considering that the entire movie is confusing and weird, that feels appropriate.
Ironically, the part that aged the best about this movie is the notion that the evil people who run corporations are dumb beyond any believable measure.
@@Charron684 There's a key difference, religions are written by people claiming to have heard the voice of god. Elron wrote a bunch of shitty sci-fi novels and took bits and pieces of them to form scientology. The difference here is there is physical proof of scientology being BS while other religions require critical thinking to see it's BS.
@@tomwalker8944it's even worse because how recent this shit is. People had fewer answers to things way back when, but when Hubbard started this shit we knew quite a bit.
This is my favourite type of bad movie: talented people making inexplicably wrong choices. As opposed to talentless hams deluding themselves into thinking they're auteurs. Oh and if you want to see Travolta at his most unhinged, I recommend to you The Fanatic. Directed by Fred Durst. Not even joking.
RedLetterMedia described "The Fanatic" as being a movie where the writers couldn't decide what mental illness the main character has, so they gave him everything.
One of my friends wouldn’t stop talking about how good this book is and talked me into going to see this in the theater on opening night. His look of grief as we left the theater was priceless
Honestly, the book is a sci-fi classic. It's well worth a read if you like old-school science fiction. The movie, however, is hilariously bad. It's hard to describe how good the book is compared to how bad the movie is. I don't think you can avidly understand the story in the movie without having read the book. It fails at pretty much everything. For example, lot of the characterizations really don't come through very well in the movie. For example, they keep talking about how incredibly stupid the Psychlos are, yet they are supposed to be an advanced race of aliens. That was actually a major plot point of the book - the Psychlos are NOT the advanced hyper-intelligent they think they are. They are, in fact, stupid, brutish thugs. They lucked into a technology that has let them dominate the universe, but in reality they are simpleminded creatures whose only talent is stealing technology from more intelligent species, and war. Their short sighted stupidity was best illustrated when a single human slave managed to wipe out virtually every single outpost of the entire species across 15 universes, including the core homeworld.
@@Dr.Thirteen-bb1ubForest Whitaker has been in his share of prominent big budget films since his oscar. I wouldn't put him in the same "cursed" category as Cuba Gooding Jr.
well um...that is usually how you get an award. You don't get it for a movie you haven't done yet...and its not like he did this movie and he was just there, and they gave it to him. "battlefield earth isn't up for an oscar, but we feel Forrest Witaker was so good we voted him an oscar because hes a good actor"..... no, you get it for the movie you acted in....
Him and Travolta have the best one-liners in history in this movie. Neil Breen wishes he was Battlefield-tier dialogue. Ed Wood...is is own tier. Probably untouchable by mere mortals or Thetans.
I actually saw this in theaters with a friend cause we had no idea wtf it was lol 😂 I have never laughed so hard watching whatever this was supposed to be lol 😂😂😂
I also went to the theater to watch this with a friend. I didn't want to go, but he kept insisting and even paid for the ticket. Needless to say, the movie was terrible.
A tax write off?😂 I mean, amongst a lot of things! It has scenes that rips off Blade Runner, Mission Impossible dutch angles, Star Wars fades out, etc. but I think most of all it was a passion project for Travolta, believe it or not! If I recall correctly this thing was in the oven for years, as Travolta was considering playing Barry Peppers role, but it took so long that he resigned himself to play Turl, that ugly alien thing with dreads...😊
Here is the fun part -the version you watched was actually the re-edited version where many of the criticized stuff from the theatrical version had been cut out and other stuff from the cutting room floor had been edited in an attempt to make it a better movie.
Waterworld wasn't as big of a flop as people think it was. There was some clever accounting done, but even before that Waterworld actually made a small profit from box office, home movie sales, and TV rights. But due to some clever accounting done by Universal during a merger Waterworld actually made them a huge profit, as most of the costs of making and marketing the movie were covered by another company.
Waterworld would actually make money problem was very long shoot due to sets being destroyed and rebuilded numerous times I think because of hurricane ultimately Costner was a huge deal at the time director left and he replaced him in directing. All that lead to huge over budget.
14:42 "Do you want lunch!?" I can always rely on this channel to make me laugh out loud. I didn't watch this absolute howler back in the day, and I really am glad. Thank you for your sacrifice guys. xx
I was a projectionist when this came out. We had it for exactly one week. We sold a total of about (five?six?) tickets...TOTAL! one showing we had two people and they walked out half way through. One very slow weekday a couple of employees and myself sat in the back of the empty theater and watched the movie. We laughed harder at this than almost any comedy we'd seen in YEARS!!!!😆😂😅🤣 We were still on the clock, we almost always found a way to keep busy, but we were beyond slow....we just sat down in the back row and got lost in how hilariously bad this was.
The director, Roger Christian, was a production designer for the original Star Wars and Alien. He is the one who created the original lightsaber props. He also worked as a second unit director on Return of the Jedi and The Phantom Menace. I think I read that this film had a lot of interference from Travolta and the studio.
@@JackContrabandI don't think it was the "church" because there isn't enough there to suggest they had any input. They probably left it up to Travolta to handle the filmmaking aspects. Even though I despise Roger Ebert and "professional" film critics in general, he had one of the best quotes about the movie: "The film contains no evidence of Scientology, or any other system of thought."
Actually, it's a well known fact that unused shelf space in VHS/DVD collection will eventually spontaneously manifest copies of Battlefield Earth until that space is filled.
I swear, the funniest part of a lot of these episodes is the tight jump cuts to Brian's face, looking either giddy at the madness unfolding, or in this case, dying inside as Scientology melts his brain. 😂
I’ve never seen this movie(actively avoided since it’s release) and even a brief version was so taxing on the mind. How you three made it through is worthy of a standing ovation. Cheers for taking that one on the chin for us🥂
I am shocked you don’t have more subscribers yet - pure gold - pulling off the heap many B movies I’ve also sat through and laughed at. Only a matter of time until others appreciate the yeomans work of all of you.
Pretty sure that was the Mission Earth series. The Battlefield Earth is a reasonably entertaining pulp novel...with some weird stuff. Never have been able to understand how they transformed the story into this...abomination.
Just realized how appropriate the T-shirts you're all wearing while watching this movie. A Space Camp shirt, a Neil Breen "Supreme Being" shirt, and I think a Cthulu shirt. It's a space movie, based off a book by someone who started a cult something I could see Neil Breen doing and it's an apocalyptic movie too. Not just Earth, the entire alien planet blew up.
@JasonBrant I figured since you're usually the only one who knows what movie you're all going to be watching because you pick it out. It was just a cosmic coincidence.
My friend and I went to see this knowing full well it would be bad, but we had no idea. And when we walked into the theater, we were the only ones there. No one else came in after us, either.
Ahhh, Battlefield Earth. I was hoping you'd cover this turkey. The director Roger Christian, has actually worked on some cool and interesting stuff, so I can only imagine he was a pure hired hand for this embarrassment. I think this may have ended Barry Pepper's career before it began too.
When they hired Christian to direct it was supposedly a better script, and Travolta was pretty much forced upon him. Slowly as production got underway through Travolta The "Church" of Scientology exerted more and more control over the film. Personally I think it was a fake script to get a studio on board since Travolta had been trying to get it made since the '80s. Christian has even talked about how they invited him out to the "church's" yacht, and tried to convert him. He pretty much completely hated the experience, and the end product. Pepper has actually had a fairly stable career since. He and Whitaker have been very vocal about how bad they think it is. Pepper even said he would have personally accepted the Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor if they would have let him know he was going to win it. Travolta is the only one who still defends the movie (for obvious reasons).
@@JasonBrant You should read up on the history of the production of this, it was an absolute nightmare for everyone involved except for Travolta. Even the cinematographer has come out and said he had no control over anything. Which is the reason for the constant Dutch angles, and why the color grading sucked ass. From what I’ve heard the movie is only loosely based on the book itself as it turned into what the “church” wanted it to be. Keeping in mind the theme of an alien species controlling and enslaving the universe to strip worlds of their natural resources is a core tenet of their “beliefs”.
@@JasonBrantapparently it was to immitate comic books Also the cinematographer went on to work on Hell Or High Water, one of the best shot movies ever
I purchased this book as a much younger person that didn’t know anything about the author. I found it fascinating. In a world where film adaptations so often fail their source material, this movie was especially bad.
Finally did Battlefield Earth I see. I’ve actually never watched the movie. I’m still halfway into your Breenathon lol. You guys must’ve had the worst hangover the next morning lol. I guess that’s what it feels like getting Breened on 😂
@@yankeeinjapan8869 how they survived that recording session is beyond me...props to that Z stuff for saving the SBIG crew from a slow hangover death, haunted by visions of Neil's ars and balls...
This actually does make it into the SBIG for me, but that’s with the huge caveat that only Travolta enjoyed making it, and continues to defend it. Knowing that every other actor and crew member hated it basically turns it into a huge vanity project for Scientology, and that allows me to laugh at it even more.
26 minutes in and that 'Do you want lunch!?' over Erin's confused face had me LOL'ing out loud! 'Do you want lunch!?' is now definitely my new phrase when one of my kids does something stupid.
I'm going to watch this episode with only the sound playing, for I fear that if I catch even a glimpse of this monstrosity it will produce the same effect as when I watched it myself. That being a severe migraine and crippling depression.
I have seriously had a back burner of an idea to see if it was actually that bad. Thank you soooo much for giving me the 2 hours I would have lost in my life. Thank you so much!
If i remember right, Battlefield Earth was a passion project for Travolta that took years to get off the ground and then once production began...it just was never gonna be what he saw it being
Travolta wanted to play "Jonnie Goodboy Tyler" in a movie since he had first read the book in 1982, when he was 28. By the time he finally got his wish in 1999/2000, he was way too old to play the character. That's why he played the villain "Terl" instead. Ironically, Barry Pepper was technically too old to play the character, too. Just not by a quarter of a century like Travolta.
As much critique as L. Ron Hubbard deserves, cavemen in fighterjets is not from the book but a movie addition. The screenwriter Corey Mandell actually has a interesting interview on TH-cam about what happened. He still wonders who rewrote his script after he turned it in, and how he believed the movie would destroy his entire career.
JD Shapiro, who co-wrote *Robin Hood: Men in Tights,* did a draft of the script before Mandell got hired. This movie DID hurt his career, enough that he had to use pen names on later projects.
I saw this as a student back in the year 2000 in South India. Luckily I did NOT have to spend a single cent as this was available as a pirated DVD back then which my friends and I saw on his PC. The food part for the human slaves was pretty gross and it still haunts me till this day.
I mostly enjoy the same kind of cheap-ass bad movies as the ones you usually watch, but I also like a handful of big budget flicks like this, The Happening, and Jupiter Ascending. I find it amazing that flicks like that can make it all the way from script, through the studio system, and get a wide release, and everyone involved on the higher levels is like "yup, this is great".
Often, what they're saying is, "Our audience are morons, they'll eat this shit up." And in the case of this movie, "Travolta really wants to make this, and he's a huge star right now, so let's give it to him and keep him happy so he'll do other stuff for us." There are a lot of politics like that involved in Hollywood movies.
I couldn't see this movie in theaters by myself when it came out because I was too young then. I told my parents I wanted to see this when it came out, but they said no. They made the right call. 😂 Erin was low-key hating on Jason's theater date. 🤣
Just so you know the gold thing is something ole Ron lifted from ancient folklore in several ancient cultures. That aliens originally came to earth for gold and enslaved humanity to mine it. This entire story is a lift from those ancient stories.
It just shows how stupid L Ron Hubbard is. Gold is not that rare in the universe, only here on earth. If the aliens have the ability of interstellar travel, surely they could get as much gold as they would ever need without enslaving a race.
If you ever get the chance, look up the song Thank You For Listening. It is written, arranged, and preformed by L Ron Hubbard. It was the song he personally requested be played at his funeral. It's not what I would call good, but just listen to it and try to imagine being one of his devotees and sitting at the funeral for your profit, and the song he chooses for you to listen sounds like the opening for a 90s basic cable family sitcom with him singing.
As Roger Ebert said "The director, Roger Christian, has learned from better films that directors sometimes tilt their cameras, but he has not learned why."
@@hawker7488idk this film turned my brother into a serial killer. He saw Battlefield Earth at his friends house on DVD back in 2009 and he just…Snapped! He went mad and went on a murder spree…
Forest Whitaker's role in this movie "I plot against you!" Forest gets beat down.... " I'm sorry". rinse repeat. And I felt so bad for Barry Pepper in this after Saving Private Ryan... Poor little guy.
He doesn't get to complain. And neither do the idiots who signed up for the "Atlas Shrugged" movies, The Asylum's "Faith Films" dreck, or Mel Gibson's paleo-Catholic antisemitic horseshit. They chose which filthy pimp they wanted to walk the street for.
The Flash movie was rewritten an reshot multiple times. The budget got so out of hand that they didn't have the money or time to finish the effects. The director tried to cover it up by claiming it was an artistic choice because things were "distorted" when the Flash uses his power, but that doesn't explain all the terrible effects when he isn't using his powers.
The money just ensured it will lose millions. The problem with CGI is too much work and not enough people and time to get it done right. Same people making infinity war are making these sad looking shit were seeing today in the MCU.
I remember seeing this in the theater with my buddies and the scenes with them learning to fly was so terrible it started a fight amongst my friends over how gd bad it was.
503pm in Alaska, dabs ready to go, LET'S DO THIS!!!! You didn't drop this til 717am my time, so couldn't enjoy before work, but now I'm ready TO SEE ERIN SUFFER MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!! I love how bad this movie is, and I wanna rewatch it myself, see how far I get before I turn it off🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 ON WIT DA FUN!!!
I saw this when I was a kid, and I am amazed by how much of a different mindset I had when I was little, because I liked it as a kid, I thought "cool, aliens and space battles, who wouldn't like this?" and now as an adult I'm like "oof, look at this scientology garbage, who the hell is this for?" I am just genuinely amazed lol
This was a banger and by that I mean please bang my head into any hard surface and put me out of my misery. Erin's hot take on Scientology might get her some visits, they are sensitive you know.
@@JasonBrant Please make a movie of that! Anything is better than Battlefield Uranus. I think "About Last Season" is Oscar-worthy compared to that monstrosity.
I wrote a paper on Scientology and its influence in Hollywood. Which unfortunately meant i had to watch this movie, and do an analysis on it. Iirc then the reason why all the shots are skewed to the side, is to make John Travolta look taller. Since he was the one making the movie.
Battlefield Earth as a book is actually very highly rated. It's also an absolutely huge book, about 5 times the size of most books. Don't let the movie or the fact that the author created his own ridiculous religion fool you, it's actually a great book.
I actually read this book in like 1982 or so. I thought it was fine for kinda pulp fiction Sci Fi. Years later when I first heard of Scientology, I was so confused. I was like “Wait…What??? The Battlefield Earth guy?” I thought it was a joke. If only.
I was working in a video rental shop when this came out on DVD... Customers would ask me to my face if this movie was any good... my usual response was either "Well it's certainly a film" or "I'ts an experience that will stay with you." ... We had to get seriously creative with our responses at times...
"When you were still learning how to SPELL YOUR NAME! I was being trained to CONQUER GALAXIES!" is one of the worst line reads in history. Also, Travolta said this would be "the Pulp Fiction of Sci-Fi" and "the Schindler's List of Sci-Fi" in interviews leading up to the release.
Oh man, that was a blast! I never paid to see this, i moved in with new friends, they had a copy on DVD, i plugged it in. 2 hours later, i wanted to impale my head on a pencil. Seeya guys on Thursday!!!
Thing is i found the book (all 1000 pages of it) pretty damned good. The humies were driven to the point that their extermination was more a matter of inconvenience (and inevitability given the remaining pop sizes) than difficulty, the antagoist travolta is butchering had a pretty workable plan (which the story alternated 50:50 around him and the MC) and the side characters acted as one would expect side characters to do when provided a glimmer of hope at risk of utter eradication by a foe with superior tech (and greed). Plus the perspective flip later while a bit silly was at least not inconceivable. The movie i barely survived, it skipped the point in so many ways while being some of the worst script writing, interpretation and acting i have seen including even the iffy movies you can't quite tell if they were made to get some actress "compromised" or because the creator really was trying to make it in the horror scene.
Ah, good memories...romper stomper boots and drinking antifreeze. I remember when I first saw this and saw the aliens with those boots and their plastic hands, I burst out laughing. This film makes me think of the Flintstones episode when they put on a Romeo and Juliet play, and everyone thought it was a comedy.
I actually tried to watch this. It was like watching High School level acting and it was the dialogue that made it so insufferably bad. Not even worth laughing at, though I tried. It felt like I was reading a teenager’s super awkward love letter. And it kind of was Travolta’s love letter to his L Ron.
What I distinctly remember from this movie was, also the cow thing, but mainly the flawless favorite food-logic and the working Sea Harriers. Glad you pinpointed those exact things!
That con-man ,Ron Hubbard, really thought mixing religion and sci-fi was genius...😂 Don't forget "alien corporate politics", and you've got your Cult Manual. 😂😂
The book is absolutely solid. Great world building and way too much to be put into a movie. Not a fan of Hubbard but he was succesful because he was a decent author. And crazy cult leader lol
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This movie shouldn't of turned out the way it did.. The cast, the producers and even the writers are known hit makers.. How this movie turned out so bad it is very puzzling me?? The talent was there for God Sakes!!! What the hell happened?!
Also review *"Repo Man"* ... Some of the worst crap too..
Zyzzyx Road is the movie that made the least money making a entire 30$ upon release , even had Tome Sizemore and Katherine Heigl in it
@@thesephisloth1886WOW!!! Where did that movie go wrong??
@@kenrickkahn because the original story was complete garbage.
“This movie is so bad I walked out of my own house.” - an online review.
This film is so bad, people walked out of showings when it was an in-flight movie.
That was also said about Wonder Woman 1984🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Hahahaha.
Erin almost walked out of ours.
This comment literally made me laugh out loud… in the middle of work… You win!
“L. Ron Hubbard is an idiot, huh?”
Erin proving herself more intelligent than half the celebrities in Hollywood.
No idea why you believe half the Hollywood celebrities are part of scientology. That's utterly ridiculous.
"Half the celebrities in Hollywood" are not Scientolgists. That's like saying that half of all Americans live in the city of Los Angeles. Or that half of the population of Los Angeles County lives in Beverly Hills. Not anywhere near what could even remotely considered to be true. Scientology currently doesn't have enough members left worldwide to fill one of the bigger NFL stadiums to capacity. They have been haemorrhaging members for years. Few people join, lots of people leave.
Scientology's capo di tutti capi David Miscavige just sits on a gigantic pile of accumulated scammed money, laundered through mostly empty buildings in expensive locations or hidden away in literally hundreds - if not thousands by now - bank accounts, all respectively below the total that requires informing the authorities. That's in addition to the cult getting it's tax exemption as a "church" back through an extremely shady deal with the IRS in 1993. Scientology lost it's initial tax exempt status after just two years in 1958 over L. Ron Hubbard's blatant private inurement. His sucessor Miscavige is much smarter than "The Founder" when it comes to creative accounting for the financing of his life of excessive luxury. Officially, in the eyes of the IRS, the scumbag doesn't own a pot to piss in. In reality, he controls a billion-dollar wealth. Donald Trump only wishes he was David Miscavige...
Well, that's not a big accomplishment, is it? 😅
You'd need to rent a backhoe to find that particular bar to clear.
A lot of people are stuck in the church. It's pretty mind blowing the power they have.
3:45 "The director, Roger Christian, has learned from better films that directors sometimes tilt their cameras, but he has not learned why." - Roger Ebert's review
A dutch angle is usually used to imply that something is confusing or weird.
Considering that the entire movie is confusing and weird, that feels appropriate.
Ironically, the part that aged the best about this movie is the notion that the evil people who run corporations are dumb beyond any believable measure.
I won't give this movie any credit. For anything.
Just look at EA Games, or Disney, or... yep, seems legit.
@@Araknis_Slade If Terl got any dumber, he’d be running for president.
@@briancoulombe4517 Wait, he isn't?
@@azynkron +1
Spittin' facts right here.
You might end up on Scientologys suppressive person list after this video :) love it
I hope so!
I mean they're probably already on a list in the Kremlin for all their clowning on Sifu
SP list 😢
It would be more of a badge of honor.
@@XombieLejon66I doubt it. Pretty sure Seagal is more just an entertaining idiot to the Russian government.
Some films make you tilt your head in confusion... Battlefield Earth makes you do it out of necessity
Haha
the fact that he took a bunch of sci-fi books he wrote and smashed them together to form scientology and that people actually believe it is wild
Truly amazing.
it's been done before by all religions so how are you SHOCKED
Literally the foundation of every religion on the planet. :P
@@Charron684 There's a key difference, religions are written by people claiming to have heard the voice of god. Elron wrote a bunch of shitty sci-fi novels and took bits and pieces of them to form scientology. The difference here is there is physical proof of scientology being BS while other religions require critical thinking to see it's BS.
@@tomwalker8944it's even worse because how recent this shit is. People had fewer answers to things way back when, but when Hubbard started this shit we knew quite a bit.
This is my favourite type of bad movie: talented people making inexplicably wrong choices. As opposed to talentless hams deluding themselves into thinking they're auteurs.
Oh and if you want to see Travolta at his most unhinged, I recommend to you The Fanatic. Directed by Fred Durst. Not even joking.
This is my least favorite kind of bad movie 🤣 I hated watching this.
You are a pure masochist.
RedLetterMedia described "The Fanatic" as being a movie where the writers couldn't decide what mental illness the main character has, so they gave him everything.
PAWPYCAWK!!
I only saw the adum & pals commentary/review of the fanatic, and even then the cringe was almost too much for me to bear.
One of my friends wouldn’t stop talking about how good this book is and talked me into going to see this in the theater on opening night. His look of grief as we left the theater was priceless
Honestly, the book is a sci-fi classic. It's well worth a read if you like old-school science fiction.
The movie, however, is hilariously bad. It's hard to describe how good the book is compared to how bad the movie is. I don't think you can avidly understand the story in the movie without having read the book. It fails at pretty much everything.
For example, lot of the characterizations really don't come through very well in the movie. For example, they keep talking about how incredibly stupid the Psychlos are, yet they are supposed to be an advanced race of aliens.
That was actually a major plot point of the book - the Psychlos are NOT the advanced hyper-intelligent they think they are. They are, in fact, stupid, brutish thugs.
They lucked into a technology that has let them dominate the universe, but in reality they are simpleminded creatures whose only talent is stealing technology from more intelligent species, and war.
Their short sighted stupidity was best illustrated when a single human slave managed to wipe out virtually every single outpost of the entire species across 15 universes, including the core homeworld.
Here's an amazing fact - Forest Whitaker won a Best Actor oscar AFTER being in this film.
He's been doing mainly straight to DVD crap since then, though. Same with Cuba Gooding Jr after his Oscar. Oscars can be a curse.
It's the theory that every good actor has to do one ridiculous role, e.g. Eddy Redmayne in Jupiter ascending.
@@Dr.Thirteen-bb1ubForest Whitaker has been in his share of prominent big budget films since his oscar. I wouldn't put him in the same "cursed" category as Cuba Gooding Jr.
well um...that is usually how you get an award. You don't get it for a movie you haven't done yet...and its not like he did this movie and he was just there, and they gave it to him.
"battlefield earth isn't up for an oscar, but we feel Forrest Witaker was so good we voted him an oscar because hes a good actor".....
no, you get it for the movie you acted in....
Him and Travolta have the best one-liners in history in this movie. Neil Breen wishes he was Battlefield-tier dialogue. Ed Wood...is is own tier. Probably untouchable by mere mortals or Thetans.
Isn't it ironic that this movie never reached cult classic status?
Underrated comment
It probably would have if they didn’t serve complementary pieces and koolaid.
😂😂😂 Took me a second to get the joke but well played sir.
Incredibly
I actually saw this in theaters with a friend cause we had no idea wtf it was lol 😂 I have never laughed so hard watching whatever this was supposed to be lol 😂😂😂
I also went to the theater to watch this with a friend. I didn't want to go, but he kept insisting and even paid for the ticket. Needless to say, the movie was terrible.
I really wish I hadn't seen this in the theater, haha.
A tax write off?😂
I mean, amongst a lot of things! It has scenes that rips off Blade Runner, Mission Impossible dutch angles, Star Wars fades out, etc. but I think most of all it was a passion project for Travolta, believe it or not! If I recall correctly this thing was in the oven for years, as Travolta was considering playing Barry Peppers role, but it took so long that he resigned himself to play Turl, that ugly alien thing with dreads...😊
@@AnikMonettewatch Cinematic Excrement's review for the whole story. Poor Eli Samaha.....
It's still one of my favorite movies to watch drunk and make fun of...it's incredible
Here is the fun part -the version you watched was actually the re-edited version where many of the criticized stuff from the theatrical version had been cut out and other stuff from the cutting room floor had been edited in an attempt to make it a better movie.
Oh my. There's so many sayings about that sort of thing. Lipstick on a pig, polishing turds, etc.
So what you're saying is the team need to watch the original version as well ?
@@polskasausage762 hell yeah lol
Only if they want to watch Forrest Withaker testing if humans can fly.
It is?
Waterworld wasn't as big of a flop as people think it was. There was some clever accounting done, but even before that Waterworld actually made a small profit from box office, home movie sales, and TV rights. But due to some clever accounting done by Universal during a merger Waterworld actually made them a huge profit, as most of the costs of making and marketing the movie were covered by another company.
Its a great movie to use for stunt work performances at Universal Studios. Got to go in 98, it was pretty cool.
WaterWorld is actually GOOD
Ya there were some good moments, him flying outta the water like a fish was cool 👍🏻
Waterworld would be a great fit for this channel!
Waterworld would actually make money problem was very long shoot due to sets being destroyed and rebuilded numerous times I think because of hurricane ultimately Costner was a huge deal at the time director left and he replaced him in directing. All that lead to huge over budget.
14:42 "Do you want lunch!?" I can always rely on this channel to make me laugh out loud. I didn't watch this absolute howler back in the day, and I really am glad. Thank you for your sacrifice guys. xx
"Do you want lunch?!?"
Legit tears in my eyes 😂
I was a projectionist when this came out. We had it for exactly one week.
We sold a total of about (five?six?) tickets...TOTAL! one showing we had two people and they walked out half way through.
One very slow weekday a couple of employees and myself sat in the back of the empty theater and watched the movie.
We laughed harder at this than almost any comedy we'd seen in YEARS!!!!😆😂😅🤣
We were still on the clock, we almost always found a way to keep busy, but we were beyond slow....we just sat down in the back row and got lost in how hilariously bad this was.
I saw this in theaters because it ended up at the second run theater....like, ridiculously fast. I was going every other week at the time.
Only the Alien Species Predators can make Dreadlocks look cool Cidertime.
Cider time, haha.
Yeah.
Predators and Klingons
The director, Roger Christian, was a production designer for the original Star Wars and Alien. He is the one who created the original lightsaber props. He also worked as a second unit director on Return of the Jedi and The Phantom Menace. I think I read that this film had a lot of interference from Travolta and the studio.
The studio? Or was it the Church of Scientology?
@@JackContrabandI don't think it was the "church" because there isn't enough there to suggest they had any input. They probably left it up to Travolta to handle the filmmaking aspects. Even though I despise Roger Ebert and "professional" film critics in general, he had one of the best quotes about the movie: "The film contains no evidence of Scientology, or any other system of thought."
Travolta was pretty much running the show on this film. Roger Christian was just a hired gun.
lmooo "DO YOU WANT LUNCH?!?!?!" best line read in bad movie history!!!
“I’m starting to have a physical reaction to this movie, I hate it” said literally everyone 😂
She summed it up perfectly.
Actually, it's a well known fact that unused shelf space in VHS/DVD collection will eventually spontaneously manifest copies of Battlefield Earth until that space is filled.
John Travolta’s delivery of *Do you want lunch?* lives rent free in my head.
That's because you're a rat brain 😊
I swear, the funniest part of a lot of these episodes is the tight jump cuts to Brian's face, looking either giddy at the madness unfolding, or in this case, dying inside as Scientology melts his brain. 😂
I’ve never seen this movie(actively avoided since it’s release) and even a brief version was so taxing on the mind. How you three made it through is worthy of a standing ovation. Cheers for taking that one on the chin for us🥂
It's a brutal watch.
@@JasonBrant could only imagine. Not all heroes wear capes. Some drink beer and take shitty movie bullets for us. Respect 🫡
What would Neil Breen do with 50 million?
Erin- "Maybe have 50 million tuna cans in his movie."
😅😅😅😅😅😅
I've seen this at least ten times. One of the greatest unintentional comedies ever filmed.
That is the most definitive opinion I've ever seen Erin have about a movie, zero hesitation.😄
She really hated it.
I am shocked you don’t have more subscribers yet - pure gold - pulling off the heap many B movies I’ve also sat through and laughed at. Only a matter of time until others appreciate the yeomans work of all of you.
Thanks so much!
17:30 "What would happen if you gave Neil Breen $50 million dollars?"
"You might have 50 million tuna cans in his movie."
Erin FTW
Well, "Ferrari owner" Neil Breen is the kind of genius who would buy 50 million cans of tuna without negotiating a bulk discount.
He'd use 1 million dollars to buy a ton of laptops. The more laptops, the more government websites he could hack into. 😅😂
Me seeing Jason & Co watching "Battlefield Earth":
"THAT'S IT - THIS IS THEIR FAVORITE MOVIE!"
Legend has it that the entire series was a bet between L. Ron and Arthur c. Clark that Ron could write the worst sci-fi and still sell millions
lol
And somehow everyone lost.
Pretty sure that was the Mission Earth series. The Battlefield Earth is a reasonably entertaining pulp novel...with some weird stuff. Never have been able to understand how they transformed the story into this...abomination.
I've read his books have been bought up in huge bulk amounts by the Church of Scientology to make them bestsellers.
"That guy stole my neck" and "you got her by the ovaries" take the top lines of the video haha
Came for the hilarious commentary.
Stayed for the feet 🤔
same
Just realized how appropriate the T-shirts you're all wearing while watching this movie. A Space Camp shirt, a Neil Breen "Supreme Being" shirt, and I think a Cthulu shirt. It's a space movie, based off a book by someone who started a cult something I could see Neil Breen doing and it's an apocalyptic movie too. Not just Earth, the entire alien planet blew up.
I'm convinced Neil Breen's "I am techno Jesus.... Now " was his attempt at starting a cult
That wasn't done on purpose, but definitely fitting.
@JasonBrant I figured since you're usually the only one who knows what movie you're all going to be watching because you pick it out. It was just a cosmic coincidence.
My friend and I went to see this knowing full well it would be bad, but we had no idea. And when we walked into the theater, we were the only ones there. No one else came in after us, either.
Ahhh, Battlefield Earth. I was hoping you'd cover this turkey. The director Roger Christian, has actually worked on some cool and interesting stuff, so I can only imagine he was a pure hired hand for this embarrassment. I think this may have ended Barry Pepper's career before it began too.
Star Wars to name an obscure one… :)
When they hired Christian to direct it was supposedly a better script, and Travolta was pretty much forced upon him. Slowly as production got underway through Travolta The "Church" of Scientology exerted more and more control over the film. Personally I think it was a fake script to get a studio on board since Travolta had been trying to get it made since the '80s. Christian has even talked about how they invited him out to the "church's" yacht, and tried to convert him. He pretty much completely hated the experience, and the end product. Pepper has actually had a fairly stable career since. He and Whitaker have been very vocal about how bad they think it is. Pepper even said he would have personally accepted the Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor if they would have let him know he was going to win it. Travolta is the only one who still defends the movie (for obvious reasons).
I have no idea what he was thinking with the Dutch angles.
@@JasonBrant You should read up on the history of the production of this, it was an absolute nightmare for everyone involved except for Travolta. Even the cinematographer has come out and said he had no control over anything. Which is the reason for the constant Dutch angles, and why the color grading sucked ass. From what I’ve heard the movie is only loosely based on the book itself as it turned into what the “church” wanted it to be. Keeping in mind the theme of an alien species controlling and enslaving the universe to strip worlds of their natural resources is a core tenet of their “beliefs”.
@@JasonBrantapparently it was to immitate comic books
Also the cinematographer went on to work on Hell Or High Water, one of the best shot movies ever
I purchased this book as a much younger person that didn’t know anything about the author. I found it fascinating. In a world where film adaptations so often fail their source material, this movie was especially bad.
Jason with the "ya it did work out" line:
Speech +100
Man what a classic save at the beginning. You did win in the end. Keep up the great work guys.
Thank you for reminding me of the origin of “do you WANT lunch??”
Finally did Battlefield Earth I see. I’ve actually never watched the movie. I’m still halfway into your Breenathon lol. You guys must’ve had the worst hangover the next morning lol. I guess that’s what it feels like getting Breened on 😂
We all used some Zbiotics, so we felt fine.
The Breen A Thon was the BEST! I really enjoyed that train wreck
@@JasonBrantnot from the alcohol, I mean from that steaming hunk of man Mr Breen 😉😉😂
@@Humongous420😂it’s glorious
@@yankeeinjapan8869 how they survived that recording session is beyond me...props to that Z stuff for saving the SBIG crew from a slow hangover death, haunted by visions of Neil's ars and balls...
When I see a movie that I absolutely despise, "splat, fart" will now be my go to phrase to describe my initial feelings.
This actually does make it into the SBIG for me, but that’s with the huge caveat that only Travolta enjoyed making it, and continues to defend it. Knowing that every other actor and crew member hated it basically turns it into a huge vanity project for Scientology, and that allows me to laugh at it even more.
26 minutes in and that 'Do you want lunch!?' over Erin's confused face had me LOL'ing out loud!
'Do you want lunch!?' is now definitely my new phrase when one of my kids does something stupid.
Thank you so much for making my day finally watching Battlefield Earth😊😂
Careful what you wish for 🤣
I think this is the most pain I have seen you guys in for a long time.
This might be the only movie I've actually seen! Appreciate you guys!
You've seen this? My condolences.
@@JasonBrant I can finally truly relate to your guys' pain watching these movies.
This one looked like a painful watch! Well done for making it to the end.
I'm going to watch this episode with only the sound playing, for I fear that if I catch even a glimpse of this monstrosity it will produce the same effect as when I watched it myself. That being a severe migraine and crippling depression.
🤣🤣
I have seriously had a back burner of an idea to see if it was actually that bad. Thank you soooo much for giving me the 2 hours I would have lost in my life. Thank you so much!
If i remember right, Battlefield Earth was a passion project for Travolta that took years to get off the ground and then once production began...it just was never gonna be what he saw it being
Travolta wanted to play "Jonnie Goodboy Tyler" in a movie since he had first read the book in 1982, when he was 28. By the time he finally got his wish in 1999/2000, he was way too old to play the character. That's why he played the villain "Terl" instead. Ironically, Barry Pepper was technically too old to play the character, too. Just not by a quarter of a century like Travolta.
As much critique as L. Ron Hubbard deserves, cavemen in fighterjets is not from the book but a movie addition. The screenwriter Corey Mandell actually has a interesting interview on TH-cam about what happened. He still wonders who rewrote his script after he turned it in, and how he believed the movie would destroy his entire career.
Watch Cinematic Excrement's review on this movie, he's got more details.
JD Shapiro, who co-wrote *Robin Hood: Men in Tights,* did a draft of the script before Mandell got hired. This movie DID hurt his career, enough that he had to use pen names on later projects.
I saw this as a student back in the year 2000 in South India. Luckily I did NOT have to spend a single cent as this was available as a pirated DVD back then which my friends and I saw on his PC. The food part for the human slaves was pretty gross and it still haunts me till this day.
This movie made me appreciate filmmakers like Neil Breen and John DeHart even more!
I mostly enjoy the same kind of cheap-ass bad movies as the ones you usually watch, but I also like a handful of big budget flicks like this, The Happening, and Jupiter Ascending. I find it amazing that flicks like that can make it all the way from script, through the studio system, and get a wide release, and everyone involved on the higher levels is like "yup, this is great".
JUPITER ASCENDING
MILA KUNIS: "Space cops. Sure."
How much you wanna bet that very line was said during the pitch meeting?🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
"Yup, this is great." Too much coke...
Often, what they're saying is, "Our audience are morons, they'll eat this shit up."
And in the case of this movie, "Travolta really wants to make this, and he's a huge star right now, so let's give it to him and keep him happy so he'll do other stuff for us." There are a lot of politics like that involved in Hollywood movies.
@@yohei72 And a lot of celebrities are Scientologists, so that cult has a lot of sway in Hollywood.
7:45
"Hey John, just be yourself."
...HE IS!!
That's the problem 🤣😂
I couldn't see this movie in theaters by myself when it came out because I was too young then. I told my parents I wanted to see this when it came out, but they said no. They made the right call. 😂 Erin was low-key hating on Jason's theater date. 🤣
Just so you know the gold thing is something ole Ron lifted from ancient folklore in several ancient cultures. That aliens originally came to earth for gold and enslaved humanity to mine it.
This entire story is a lift from those ancient stories.
So this stupid idea wasn't even his own? Why am I not surprised?
It just shows how stupid L Ron Hubbard is. Gold is not that rare in the universe, only here on earth. If the aliens have the ability of interstellar travel, surely they could get as much gold as they would ever need without enslaving a race.
If you ever get the chance, look up the song Thank You For Listening. It is written, arranged, and preformed by L Ron Hubbard. It was the song he personally requested be played at his funeral. It's not what I would call good, but just listen to it and try to imagine being one of his devotees and sitting at the funeral for your profit, and the song he chooses for you to listen sounds like the opening for a 90s basic cable family sitcom with him singing.
As Roger Ebert said "The director, Roger Christian, has learned from better films that directors sometimes tilt their cameras, but he has not learned why."
God, this reaction is gold. You guys should release this as commentary on a dvd..But you would get Scientology sued.
"Splat! Fart. Whatever it is." -- made me laugh. Thanx, Erin. Nice shoutout to Georgetown Brewing.
That movie made me feel like I walked in on my parents
🤣🤣🤣
No, that would only turn you into a serial killer.
This film causes real psychological trauma.
@@hawker7488idk this film turned my brother into a serial killer. He saw Battlefield Earth at his friends house on DVD back in 2009 and he just…Snapped! He went mad and went on a murder spree…
Also your "Barbarians" and "Death wish 3" reviews are still some of the funniest videos I've seen!
Forest Whitaker's role in this movie "I plot against you!" Forest gets beat down.... " I'm sorry". rinse repeat. And I felt so bad for Barry Pepper in this after Saving Private Ryan... Poor little guy.
He doesn't get to complain. And neither do the idiots who signed up for the "Atlas Shrugged" movies, The Asylum's "Faith Films" dreck, or Mel Gibson's paleo-Catholic antisemitic horseshit.
They chose which filthy pimp they wanted to walk the street for.
*"DO YOU WANT LUNCH"?!* is my alarm to take lunch at work. That line cracks me up. It is so bad.
The Flash movie was rewritten an reshot multiple times. The budget got so out of hand that they didn't have the money or time to finish the effects. The director tried to cover it up by claiming it was an artistic choice because things were "distorted" when the Flash uses his power, but that doesn't explain all the terrible effects when he isn't using his powers.
The money just ensured it will lose millions. The problem with CGI is too much work and not enough people and time to get it done right. Same people making infinity war are making these sad looking shit were seeing today in the MCU.
Absolutely nailed the "villain in kindergarten cop" thingy!!! Not a lot gets by me watching some of these but good eye bro lol
I remember seeing this in the theater with my buddies and the scenes with them learning to fly was so terrible it started a fight amongst my friends over how gd bad it was.
It's actually impressive how there are absolutely no redeeming qualities from this movie whatsoever.
To Quote Qui Gon Jin, "The ability to speak does not make you intelligent". Case in point, this "movie" exists
503pm in Alaska, dabs ready to go, LET'S DO THIS!!!!
You didn't drop this til 717am my time, so couldn't enjoy before work, but now I'm ready TO SEE ERIN SUFFER MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!! I love how bad this movie is, and I wanna rewatch it myself, see how far I get before I turn it off🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
ON WIT DA FUN!!!
I saw this when I was a kid, and I am amazed by how much of a different mindset I had when I was little, because I liked it as a kid, I thought "cool, aliens and space battles, who wouldn't like this?" and now as an adult I'm like "oof, look at this scientology garbage, who the hell is this for?" I am just genuinely amazed lol
How old were you when you watched it the first time?
when i was a kid i loved pluto nash. we all had at least one bad movie we loved as a child. alot of things we watched as kids are dogwater to adults.
@@JasonBrant Ah I can barely remember, but if I saw this when it came out I was probably 10
This was a banger and by that I mean please bang my head into any hard surface and put me out of my misery. Erin's hot take on Scientology might get her some visits, they are sensitive you know.
Erin will kick their asses.
@@JasonBrant Please make a movie of that! Anything is better than Battlefield Uranus. I think "About Last Season" is Oscar-worthy compared to that monstrosity.
@@JasonBrant Erin Vs L. Ron should be filmed Mortal Kombat style.
"Planet of the Apes... with Klingons" is absolutely the most accurate description of this POS I've ever heard. Well done! 😂
I wrote a paper on Scientology and its influence in Hollywood. Which unfortunately meant i had to watch this movie, and do an analysis on it. Iirc then the reason why all the shots are skewed to the side, is to make John Travolta look taller. Since he was the one making the movie.
The only way I could sit through this monstrosity again is with you guys making it enjoyable.
A movie shot in the style of a Batman villain's lair from the old TV show. Weird.
For real.
Battlefield Earth as a book is actually very highly rated. It's also an absolutely huge book, about 5 times the size of most books. Don't let the movie or the fact that the author created his own ridiculous religion fool you, it's actually a great book.
I really like the book and the dramatized audio book
I actually read this book in like 1982 or so. I thought it was fine for kinda pulp fiction Sci Fi. Years later when I first heard of Scientology, I was so confused. I was like “Wait…What??? The Battlefield Earth guy?” I thought it was a joke. If only.
25:44 "This is one of the worst shot fights we have ever watched... and we have seen some sh!t".
Queue PTSD face. lol
The problem with this movie, is that Travolta’s character does not dance
I was working in a video rental shop when this came out on DVD... Customers would ask me to my face if this movie was any good... my usual response was either "Well it's certainly a film" or "I'ts an experience that will stay with you." ... We had to get seriously creative with our responses at times...
"When you were still learning how to SPELL YOUR NAME! I was being trained to CONQUER GALAXIES!" is one of the worst line reads in history.
Also, Travolta said this would be "the Pulp Fiction of Sci-Fi" and "the Schindler's List of Sci-Fi" in interviews leading up to the release.
Travolta is a weird dude. He recommended himself for an Oscar nomination for "Gotti".
Or was it one of the BEST reads in line history? After all, we all remember it. 🤣
True😆@@packersamurai
Oh man, that was a blast! I never paid to see this, i moved in with new friends, they had a copy on DVD, i plugged it in. 2 hours later, i wanted to impale my head on a pencil.
Seeya guys on Thursday!!!
Thing is i found the book (all 1000 pages of it) pretty damned good. The humies were driven to the point that their extermination was more a matter of inconvenience (and inevitability given the remaining pop sizes) than difficulty, the antagoist travolta is butchering had a pretty workable plan (which the story alternated 50:50 around him and the MC) and the side characters acted as one would expect side characters to do when provided a glimmer of hope at risk of utter eradication by a foe with superior tech (and greed). Plus the perspective flip later while a bit silly was at least not inconceivable.
The movie i barely survived, it skipped the point in so many ways while being some of the worst script writing, interpretation and acting i have seen including even the iffy movies you can't quite tell if they were made to get some actress "compromised" or because the creator really was trying to make it in the horror scene.
Ah, good memories...romper stomper boots and drinking antifreeze. I remember when I first saw this and saw the aliens with those boots and their plastic hands, I burst out laughing. This film makes me think of the Flintstones episode when they put on a Romeo and Juliet play, and everyone thought it was a comedy.
Thoughts and prayers for your brains after watching this
"You don't pay me enough for this...."- Erin Brant during the viewing of "Battlefield Earth" for the channel SBIG.🤣🤣🤣
I actually tried to watch this. It was like watching High School level acting and it was the dialogue that made it so insufferably bad. Not even worth laughing at, though I tried. It felt like I was reading a teenager’s super awkward love letter. And it kind of was Travolta’s love letter to his L Ron.
Didn't finish it?
@@JasonBrant I didn’t. Glad you guys did that for me. So at least I knew how it ended. I’m sure the book was better. 😂
What I distinctly remember from this movie was, also the cow thing, but mainly the flawless favorite food-logic and the working Sea Harriers. Glad you pinpointed those exact things!
That was Erin's most definitive "f- this movie" ever, and that moment alone was way more entertaining than the movie. Lol
I had this book. Couldn't get through the first two chapters. Bored the piss out of me sooooo badly I donated it to my local library.
That con-man ,Ron Hubbard, really thought mixing religion and sci-fi was genius...😂
Don't forget "alien corporate politics", and you've got your Cult Manual. 😂😂
What's funny is that Jason allegedly enjoys vanity projects, but THIS actually was Travolta's vanity project.
“I wonder what kind of food humans eat. I just assumed they eat dirt.” 🤦♂️
Please tell me you're not going to drink for every Dutch angle because that is the entire movie.
I would have died 1/4 of the way through the movie.
@@JasonBrant🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Erin knocks those ads out of the park. Check the couch cushions😂
The book is absolutely solid. Great world building and way too much to be put into a movie. Not a fan of Hubbard but he was succesful because he was a decent author. And crazy cult leader lol