Sometimes I wonder why people look down on the science fiction genre. Then I see a movie like Battlefield Earth. Battlefield Earth is the perfect example of the stereotypical bad sci-fi film; Travolta's revolting new "epic" is the kind of film that sheds light on the reason that science fiction is reviled as the nerd of film genres. Unfortunately, it isn't even moderately entertaining, but instead serves as a step-by-step guide of how to make a perfectly terrible movie.
Step one: take a well-known science fiction work and transform it into an incomprehensible screenplay. Sometimes this step works just fine, as with Heinlein's Starship Troopers (which, apparently, didn't follow the book very closely) or with Star Trek, which made the jump to film easily from television. Of course, to pull this off, a certain level of restraint and skill is required. While Battlefield Earth's writers didn't attempt to make the whole book (see Dune), they still failed to carry much semblance of the plot over to the film. What they did carry over was so incoherent as to be virtually beyond comprehension. I barely understood what was going on despite having read the book. Brian, who hadn't gotten to look over the book beforehand, was so lost that he thought the climax of the film was Earth's destruction - an understandable mistake to make considering the choppy narrative and poor camera work.
Step two: In our modern Hollywood, sequels are as important as fast-food merchandising deals, so use unknown actors who will be available for sequels. Of course, the down-side is that you end up with Barry Pepper for an "epic" lead. I liked Pepper's work in Saving Private Ryan and Enemy of the State, but he does not have the acting capability to be Atlas for this film's overburdened world of craptitude. The rest of the cast, as Brian so aptly put it, seemed to be culled from the ranks of "actors" who couldn't get parts on Shasta McNasty. Case-in-point, the "paper, paper" guy from Waterworld has a prominent role in the film.
Step Three: Hire a composer who can make dramatic scores. In Battlefield Earth's case, that means that each scene has the glorious crescendo of triumphant orchestral arrangements. In other words, the music has used all of its influence in the second scene, when the death of Johnnie's father is given immense screen time, only to be promptly forgotten and never mentioned again.
Step Four: Borrow from as many movies as you can. The most prominent influence I saw in the film was Braveheart, which seems to have shaped Johnnie's hair and attitude, his speaking style, and the glorious fight for "FREEDOM" in the film. Of course, Blade Runner and many others were also among those grossly insulted by Battlefield Earth's homage.
Step Five: The Star Trek Effect. Add a little cheap makeup to some actors and suddenly they're aliens.
Step Six: Be sure and include any number of logical and technological inconsistencies. What was most obnoxious about Battlefield Earth's errors was the fact that their source work did not make the mistakes. The most blatant example I noticed was the presence of working Harrier jets in abandoned human bunkers. The film takes place in the year 3000, a thousand years after the psychlos conquered Earth. Hubbard has the intelligence to establish that no complicated machinery could last so long and still be workable. The filmmakers, in their finite wisdom, decided that complicated machinery would still work after a thousand years, and that a group of cavemen would be able to master its operation in 7 days.
In short, don't go to see Battlefield Earth. It doesn't even have the laughable campiness that makes some sci-fi movies worth watching. Instead, it pounds its viewers into a numb trance-like state that ends with a disturbed, silent walk out of the theater. Well, at least now I know how to make a bad science fiction film.