Battlefield Earth

The Guardian, Saturday 11th September 1999
("The Guide" supplement)

Battle of the bulge... Time, I think, for a close look at John Travolta's megabuck vanity project, Battlefield Earth, adapted from a very fat, very ponderous pulp sci-fi novel by Scientology founder and Travolta-saviour L. Ron Hubbard. (Hubbard's other sci-fi efforts include a short story about a man who invents a bogus religion in order to get filthy rich.) The script has been described as "troubled and episodic". Director Roger Christian is a nobody. And Travolta isn't the hero, who'll be played by Barry Pepper (the sniper in Saving Private Ryan). Instead he plays a nasty 3.3m (10ft)-tall alien named Terl, which should be interesting given the star's increasingly remarkable - and remarked upon - girth.

One wonders if this is the project to refloat Travolta's lately rather lifeless career. Mean magazine thinks not. Alongside Mean's bracingly mean-spirited and very funny investigation of Travolta's onset perks and quirks ("luckily the third burger met Travolta's exacting culinary standards...", a sidebar showed what happened when Mean sent a recent draft of Battlefield Earth's script (which they renamed Dark Forces) to several professional script readers. The resulting "coverage" - agent-speak for the one-page assessment of all through-the-door scripts - was harsh indeed. "A thoroughly silly plotline made all the more ludicrous by its ham-fisted dialogue and ridiculously shallow characterisation." "Think of your least favourite cliche, and I guarantee it's in Dark Forces." "... miserably uninspired characters... exceedingly uninteresting story... thoroughly confused climax... as entertaining as watching a fly breathe." Yeah, but did you _like_ it? (For more information, hit main@meanmag.com)

[The author got the address a bit confused - it's actually www.meanmag.com. Look for issue 5.]