Toonbots message board: Battlefield Earth - 8

Tirdun Mon Dec 3 08:50:14 2001 Battlefield Earth - 0 > So my wife and I rented this movie tonight, even though we'd heard really > awful things about it. Ack, B-E was AWFUL. How could you suffer through that drivel?!? A friend of mine and I watched it, beers in hand, ready to MST3K the thing and we simply couldn't finish watching. It was just too ridiculous. The joking kept us going up through maybe the first half, but after that, it was SAD. We had to fall back on old favorites to purge our brains. I guess to each his own and all, and maybe the last quarter of the movie was spectacular and made up for the first 3/4ths, but IMHO the movie sucked. Yeah, some of the sets were cool and all, and I didn't think all the acting was as bad as the critics seemed to, but overall, nowhere near an 8.

Michael Mon Dec 3 10:50:08 2001 OK, OK: Battlefield Earth - 5 > Ack, B-E was AWFUL. How could you suffer through that drivel?!? Well... I dunno. I just found myself enjoying the sheer campiness, I guess. It surprised me, too. Go figure.

Eric Schissel Mon Dec 3 11:40:39 2001 Re: OK, OK: Battlefield Earth - 5 > Well... I dunno. I just found myself enjoying the sheer campiness, I > guess. It surprised me, too. Go figure. Now *8*'s the sort of rating I give a movie like "Amelie" (full original title a bit longer... ah yes- imdb turns up "le Fabuleux destin d'Amelie Poulain"; the wonderful fate of Amelie Poulain- it did go by a bit quickly on the screen there. I remember a certain fraction of my high-school and college French- certainly more than I do of my one year of college German, and enough to have only needed somewhat more than half the sous-titres (wossnames) - but ... ah well.) And I gave that wonderful, enjoyable, fun, I'd see it again in practically a moment and recommend it /instanter/!! -movie an 8 or 8.5- only because... well, things like (and mostly that!) it used some plot devices I consider cliches that broke the flow a bit, and i can be picky about that, which dropped it down from a 10 for me. If that hadn't been... 10 all the way. Hrm. To each their own, I well believe; including, their own system of rating! :) Ni sarcasm ni harshness intended, hein, ja? (Sigh, I need to work on those. Make 'em come out -right-, y'know...)

Jenn Tue Dec 4 11:55:15 2001 Re: OK, OK: Battlefield Earth - 5 You know...it's the funniest thing...did this get shown on tv already or something? I have a really clear memory of Travolta stalking about looking as though he's ready to fall over at any moment in those platform boots (I'm always as riveted to the costumes as Michael is to the plot, apparently). And something about profits or something. But it comes to me rather out of a haze. And I don't remember anything about glass domes. I do remember thinking that the 'gal in the cage' came straight out of Planet of the Apes. It seems unlikely that we would have rented this. But if we did, clearly I was incapacitated.

Michael Tue Dec 4 13:48:50 2001 Re: OK, OK: Battlefield Earth - 5 > And > something about profits or something. I liked the fact that the Bad Guys were so evil because they'd allowed rapacious corporate capitalism to consume their planet.

mouse Tue Dec 4 14:57:23 2001 Re: OK, OK: Battlefield Earth - 5 > I liked the fact that the Bad Guys were so evil because they'd allowed > rapacious corporate capitalism to consume their planet. this is the sort of thing that makes me wonder if i should read 'dianetics' - i thought the church of scientology _was_ a rapacious capitalist corporation....

Michael Tue Dec 4 22:32:24 2001 Re: OK, OK: Battlefield Earth - 5 > this is the sort of thing that makes me wonder if i should read > 'dianetics' - i thought the church of scientology _was_ a rapacious > capitalist corporation.... Takes one to know one? Dianetics was a fairly interesting read.

pv Thu Dec 6 12:04:47 2001 Re: OK, OK: Battlefield Earth - 5 > Takes one to know one? > Dianetics was a fairly interesting read. For me to POOP ON! PV

Eric Schissel Thu Dec 6 12:09:54 2001 Re: OK, OK: Battlefield Earth - 5 > For me to POOP ON! PV Ah, welcome back *g* That's -one- way to update Max Reger's response to criticism, I guess...

pv Tue Dec 11 11:16:01 2001 Re: OK, OK: Battlefield Earth - 5 > Ah, welcome back *g* That's -one- way to update Max Reger's response to > criticism, I guess... "Battlefield Earth" isn't really worthy of adult criticism. It was just plain awful in every possible way. It isn't even bad in a way that you can enjoy making fun of. PV

Eric Schissel Tue Dec 11 11:47:17 2001 Re: OK, OK: Battlefield Earth - 5 > "Battlefield Earth" isn't really worthy of adult criticism. It > was just plain awful in every possible way. It isn't even bad in a way > that you can enjoy making fun of. PV Good. Because while I think well of the composer Max Reger in every -other- way- the man wrote wonderful music for string quartet, other ensemble, orchestra, church organ, piano, etc., was a fine influence on composers like Hindemith and Schoenberg who came after... the response he made (I know nothing of the criticism to which he was responding, just his response to it...) was -hardly- adult. It consisted, if some reader *doesn't* know, of words to the effect: "I am in the smallest room in my house. Your review is presently in front of me. It will soon be behind me."

Eric Schissel Tue Dec 11 11:49:16 2001 Re: OK, OK: Battlefield Earth - 5 Hrm. I don't mean "every other way"- I like his response, *too* ... ;) (Once more wishing this had an edit feature)

mouse Tue Dec 11 17:11:46 2001 Re: OK, OK: Battlefield Earth - 5 > Hrm. I don't mean "every other way"- I like his response, *too* > ... ;) i rather like it myself -- but it does make me curious to see the review that prompted it. > (Once more wishing this had an edit feature) *sshh* - you'll get michael all up in arms again.

Eric Schissel Tue Dec 11 18:32:21 2001 Re: OK, OK: Battlefield Earth - 5 > i rather like it myself -- but it does make me curious to see the review > that prompted it. Well, if I can get some work done on other stuff, I'll see what I can do... Some web searching tells me immediately that the critic it was directed at was named Rudolf Louis, who wrote for the Munchner Neueste Nachrichten (in Munich, natch,) that the German original of Reger's response may have read: "Ich sitze hier im kleinsten Zimmer und habe Ihre Kritik vor mir. Bald werde ich sie hinter mir haben..." (Actually, the "German originals" I see in some sites vary- I assume this is the right one and that some others are retranslated from English translations? Hard to know without reading the original.)

Michael Tue Dec 11 18:23:26 2001 Re: OK, OK: Battlefield Earth - 5 > (Once more wishing this had an edit feature) You want an edit feature? I'LL GIVE YOU AN EDIT FEATURE! Real soon now. First you all disparage my opinion of that fine example of modern cinema, Battlefield Earth, and then you run down my message board software that cost me nothing. You people just never stop.

mouse Tue Dec 11 20:11:09 2001 Re: OK, OK: Battlefield Earth - 5 see? i told you he'd get all upset.

Eric Schissel Tue Dec 11 20:23:55 2001 Re: OK, OK: Battlefield Earth - 5 > see? i told you he'd get all upset. Schadenfreude in a thread which had so much to do with German-language writing in the first place is oddly ironic...

pv Tue Dec 11 18:41:15 2001 Re: OK, OK: Battlefield Earth - 5 > Good. Because while I think well of the composer Max Reger in every > -other- way- the man wrote wonderful music for string quartet, other > ensemble, orchestra, church organ, piano, etc., Dude - I was just channeling Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Not the most erudite source I admit, but on message. PV

mouse Tue Dec 4 14:48:15 2001 deja view i suspect you are remembering a) all of the ads that were on when this came out or 2) (if you remember something about profits) some 'news' story on entertainment tonight or the like ('cause i don't think it made any) (there were also some 'news' stories about travolta's reasons for making it, because he is a scientologist, which religion was the creation of l. ron hubbard)

Tirdun Mon Dec 3 12:50:15 2001 Re: OK, OK: Battlefield Earth - 5 > Well... I dunno. I just found myself enjoying the sheer campiness, I > guess. It surprised me, too. Go figure. Hey, if you liked it, you liked it. Not trying to bust your chops here ;) don't lower your score on my account. I think I didn't like the campiness because they were really trying. Really, really, really trying hard to make you believe or something. At least with the old B movies, you could tell they were half-done, which made them funny. For me, if you put all that money and high-tech FX into a movie, the campy plot just makes it awful. I felt the same way about "Twister", all the FX just focused your attention on the lack of any sort of decent story.

Michael Mon Dec 3 14:40:39 2001 Re: OK, OK: Battlefield Earth - 5 > Hey, if you liked it, you liked it. Not trying to bust your chops here ;) > don't lower your score on my account. I think I didn't like the campiness > because they were really trying. I didn't lower it on your account, really -- 8 was too high, but I didn't give it much thought last night. Too tired. But I really did like watching it more than I thought I would. Just as long as I turned off my faculty of reason for the duration. Like, if *I* were taking over a planet where I couldn't breathe the atmosphere, *I* wouldn't build a dome out of frickin glass! (Not to mention that the little breathing thingies were hardly something that every alien wouldn't be carrying in their pockets. Sheesh. Especially KNOWING THEY'RE LIVING UNDER A FRICKIN GLASS DOME.) There were countless little snorts here and there during the movie. How does Johnny learn the word "Euclidean" in English? Why did blowing up the atmosphere cause the planet to disintegrate? How did such an unstable atmosphere come about in the first place? (That's a second-level nitpick, of course.) How did American technology survive in working condition over hundreds of years? Why didn't the aliens sense Fort Knox in the first place? How did stone-age warriors learn to fly fighter jets so easily? But still -- for some weird reason -- I liked it. > I felt the same way about "Twister", all the FX just > focused your attention on the lack of any sort of decent story. I really liked Twister, too. However, from my comic strips maybe you can tell that plot isn't my number-one priority. Characterization -- even sketchy characterization if I like the archetype -- is pretty important. The number of one-liners I enjoy figures prominently. Pretty pictures rate highly. If the plot manages to *surprise* me, that's a plus, but if it doesn't, it isn't really a minus, because even Sixth Sense was painfully obvious to me. If the plot is incoherent and thus manages to surprise me, I like that. (Like ... um ... that Sean Connery one with the bank heist in Malaysia -- I liked that a lot but most people hated it.) Go figure.