Hollywood Confidential
By Jeffrey Wells

April 19, 2000
www.reel.com

Battlefield Down

I keep getting these prickly radio signals about Battlefield Earth.
John Travolta has been vigorously plugging the May 12 release, and it's reasonable to suppose sci-fi fans will give it a decent first-weekend launch. But I wonder how the rest of us will respond. Let's cut the pussyfooting, shall we? I hear the rumble of a tank. No one I know has seen it. I've only read the script. But a bunch of things coming across the radar screen seem to intimate trouble.
Travolta's grotesque appearance as Terl, the nine-foot-tall alien villain, is not what you'd call enticing. (I saw a Battlefield clip showing Travolta and Kelly Preston on the Tonight show, and I for one was not aroused.) I'm sensing a wave-off reaction among moviegoers. People are looking at Travolta's dreadlocks and going, "Later." If I were a Travolta fan I'd hold my water until Numbers, a supposedly Fargo-esque drama about lottery-rigging that opens July 9.
There's the Battlefield trailer, which looks schlocky. And there's an apparent lack of passion from the film's distributor, Warner Bros., which has no money invested, only a deal to release and promote it. There's the story in this month's Premiere that says Travolta "threatened to bolt [his agency] William Morris if they didn't help set up Battlefield Earth." Why were they reluctant to set it up to begin with? Why did he have to get tough?
There's last Friday's Wall Street Journal story about this summer's attractions that said the advance buzz on Battlefield is "earth-bound." There's the general animus that press people feel toward the film because of the Scientology angle. Travolta, a longtime Scientology devotee, has said repeatedly that the religious cult has nothing to do with the film, but of course it does.
Battlefield is based on founder L. Ron Hubbard's novel, and is rife with Scientology metaphor about earth being a "prison planet." (The villainous "Cyclos" of the piece are said to represent psychiatrists, whom the late Hubbard detested and wrote against in his teachings.) The linkage suspicions are fueled by a story going around (reported by Variety's Dan Cox, for one) that the Battlefield merchandising revenues are being shared by what some claim is a Scientology front called Author Services Incorporated, which is the rights holder to Hubbard's novels. (Rights holders normally get a cut of any movie merchandising when the movie is based on their works.)
Church of Scientology public affairs rep Mike Rinder told me ASI "is not a front organization , unequivocally, absolutely, no way. That's just a lie."
Nonetheless, the overall impression is that Battlefield Earth is basically a $75 million vanity project for Travolta, if "vanity" can be said to have a philosophical bent. The movie may play like a piece of entertainment, but it essentially pushes a philosophical creed that Travolta deeply believes in, which is espoused by the Church of Scientology. How can anyone accept that Battlefield is "only a movie" in this context? It may be the longest subliminal message ever.
Finally there's Travolta himself, and the notion that he's one of the most over coddled, over indulged movie stars on the planet. That portly gut he's carrying around these days speaks volumes. Premiere says "studios [are] tired of pampering him." I'm sensing that some of us, also, are tiring of his act.
But maybe not. Of course, if Battlefield Earth is a good, commercial film, Warner Bros. could put an end to the bad buzz by screening it. I'm waiting.