for some strange mysterious reason, jon katz was trying to find something good in the $cientologist pos battlefield earth. this anonymous coward was up to the challenge:
I liked Battlefield Earth!
I went to this movie on a date with this chick named Kelly. We were actually double-dating with my buddy and his girlfriend who were going to go see a show at a theater complex a couple of miles away. It was one of those chick-flick luvvy-duvvy shitfests that his girlfriend made him go see. I will not see movies like that, period. I was a bit curious about Battlefield Earth, though .. I liked John Travolta in many of his recent movies and I thought “What the hell?” I called up Kelly and asked her if she wanted to go (we had been out once before) and she said sure. My buddy and his GF dropped us off at the theater and went to their flick. They would be back later to pick us up.
Well, turns out the movie sucked so bad that we were ready to leave about halfway through. The only problem was that we didn’t have a ride .. my buddy was suffering through some pansy-ass chick flick that wouldn’t be over for over an hour! This left us with the problem of what to do for that hour. We didn’t want to just sit around and do nothing. The sky was overcast and as I recall it was even drizzling a little bit.
Across the street from the theater was one of those fleabag motels .. you know, the kind of place that has hourly rates. Slyly, I asked Kelly “You ever wonder what it would be like inside one of those motels with hourly rates?” I didn’t know how she’d take it, dude .. like I said, it was only our second date. Well, imagine my happiness when she got this little smile and said “Well, now seems like it would be a good time to find out.” What followed was an hour of the most unimaginably raunchy, sweaty, athletic, mind-blowing sex I’ve ever had. We even had time for a quick shower (though I won’t describe the state the bathroom was in .. yeesh!) By the time we were heading out the door, my buddy was just pulling up to the opposite curb.
So the bottom line is, Battlefield Earth was responsible for a very interesting afternoon. So I would like to thank you, Elron Hubbard! Thank you from the bottom of my heart! You might be a freak, Elron, and your Scientology cult might be a complete sham, but at least your piece-of-crap movie got me laid real good and proper-like!
Thank you, Elron! Thank you!
also pretty good is rimrod’s response: “It’s giving Britney Spears and Bill Gates some needed competition in the “Worst Thing Ever To Happen, Ever” category”. and ucblockhead has a good comment:
It entertained millions.
By providing something easily trashable, it allowed hundreds of reviewers to write hundreds of mild-to-very amusing reviews trashing it.
I have personally spent probably a total of twenty minutes being entertained by reviewers topping each other at amusing anecdotes of the filmatic crapulence of this film. And I didn’t even have to spend a dime! Multiply that by the millions who encountered reviews and you get something that entertained many more than would have a merely mediocre film.