I read 'Battlefield Earth', so you don't have to!
This week marked 25 years since the release of one of the most notorious flop movies ever. At the same time, I read the book it's based on. Can you review a book 2.5 decades later? Let's hope so
This week was the 25 year anniversary of the John Travolta movie “Battlefield Earth”, widely regarded as one of the worst films ever made.
Confession: I’ve never seen it.
So why am I writing a whole article about it? Because of the many people I’ve met in my 25 years of life since, I remain the only person I know of who has actually read the L. Ron Hubbard book it’s based on. All 1050 pages!
Why? Because I was 17, an avid sci-fi reader, there was no such thing as smartphones or Wi-Fi, and I was about to go on a caravan holiday to France with my Dad and his side of the family. I needed something to distract me. The Burnett’s are great, but they can be ‘a lot’ when many of them are crammed in the same space together for days on end.
And as I was in the bookshop, I spotted this hefty brick of post-apocalyptic sci-fi, which was so good they were making a movie about it! It had John Travolta’s face on the cover, the guy from Pulp Fiction! He’s cool, right? I believe this was my rationale.
In my defence, I had no clue what ‘Scientology’ was at the time1, and this must have been in that barely week-long window when the marketing of the movie was visible but the backlash wasn’t. Plus, with the size of it, it seemed great value for money. So, why not?
It turns out, there were many reasons why not.
So, for the general amusement of anyone interested, here is an overview of the book ‘Battlefield Earth’, based entirely on memories acquired at age 17, sat in a French caravan.
Is there anything good about it?
As a man of science, I am compelled to consider all the evidence, whether it supports my assumptions or not. So, do I remember anything good about the book? In fairness, yes.
If nothing else, purely in terms of language and structure, it’s easy to read. The plot is hardly mind-bending2, and it’s written in a strange, almost ‘child like’ style that’s easy to follow. E.g. the evil aliens don’t breathe air, they breathe ‘breathe gas’. Jargon-heavy, it is not.
A generous interpretation is that this a clever ‘meta’ approach by the author, as the central characters developed in a post-apocalyptic society so language and communication would almost certainly have ‘devolved’ as a result, and the book is written in a style that would befit someone from such a civilisation.
I *think* this is even made specific, that this book is actually an in-world chronicle of the narrative’s events, Lord Of The Rings style.
A less-generous interpretation would be that this is what you get when an author adopts the ‘amphetamine-powered stream-of-consciousness’ method of writing. Who’s to say.
And events sort of make sense? Like a lone hunter-gatherer ends up wiping out an interstellar empire in one fell swoop, in a manner that is logically consistent with what’s been established.
There are some decent set pieces, I think? Quite a few action sequences, some moments of peril. A wide range of settings for things to happen in.
…and it now occurs to me that I’m just describing typical qualities of ‘a novel’, rather than anything specific to this novel. Like when a very old-school comedian dies and his (it’s always ‘his’) defenders say ‘his timing was incredible’, and little else. Because when you’re telling the exact same tired, often-bigoted jokes for decades on end, they should get the timing figured out, at the very least!
So yeah, let’s get to the more ‘interesting’ stuff.
A questionable grasp of science
Disclaimer: a lot of science fiction invokes ideas, processes, premises, and technology that are at best ‘theoretical’, at worst ‘already ruled out by established science’. Of course, the caveat there is always that the story takes place in the future, or alternate timeline/universe, so what we know as established science could be overturned or worked around by some hitherto unknown discovery.
Plus, you know, it’s fiction. Expecting 100% accuracy at all times defeats the point, if you ask me.
However, sometimes a claim is made that is so wild, so ‘out there’ with regards to science, that it brings your train of thought to a screeching halt. How often this happens will depend hugely on how much science knowledge you posess. But even as a pre-internet 17-year-old, parts of this book still proved eyebrow-raising.
For example, the evil alien overlords are not just an interstellar empire. Not even intergalactic. They inter-universe. They dominate all 16 universes. Because there are 16. Why 16 exactly? No idea.. I’m guessing it’s a Scientology thing? I don’t care enough to find out.
Then there’s the biology of the aliens themselves. If I’m remembering it right, they’re basically like massive purple bears (not, as the movie depicts, bloated pale Rastafarians on stilts). But not only that, it’s specified that the aliens’ bodies aren’t formed of cells, like all Earth organisms. No, they’re made up of ‘clumps of viruses’.
I’m fairly confident that’s not how viruses work? Expecting a load of viruses to combine and form an intelligent, sentient, reproductive life form is like pouring a load of DNA molecules into a bucket and telling it to design a Ford Focus. A long shot, to say the least.
Again, though, these are alien viruses. Who knows what they can do? Perhaps I should give this concept a pass.
But then again, these virus-based aliens have a particularly weird quirk; if they come into contact with radiation, they basically disappear in a puff of purple smoke. Conservation of mass, be damned!
You’d think this would be un unhelpful trait for a spacefaring race that regularly walks around in the sunshine and uses light to see?
Granted, from the context of the book and the heavy reliance on the human use of uranium and nuclear weapons, the author clearly means gamma radiation. Even so, the side effects of gamma radiation seldom list ‘disappear in a puff of purple smoke’. Further research is needed!
There’s also some questionable stuff about bending space, electron layers and alignment, and even some actual neuroscience!
Weirdly, I can remember no details of the latter, apart from ‘it was there’. I suspect that my future self was somehow able to reach back and prevent me from remembering that part, lest it set me back years. Now that I think about it, several bottles of wine did show up in the caravan around then, that nobody could recall buying.
Basically, the science of the book heavily favours a “This will move the plot along, or just sounds interesting” approach. Which, I guess it does/did? If you’re willing to overlook the more bonkers aspects.
A baffling sense of scale and society
A lot of the book risks causing cognitive whiplash, regarding how the stakes go from biggest possible consequences to the bizarrely mundane, and back again.
Remember, the evil alien empire has subjugated sixteen universes worth of stars and planets and nebulae. But the first half of the book concerns the Big Bad’s desperate need to obtain… gold. Standard gold. Like a cartoon pirate.
Maybe this highly-advanced universe spanning civilisation’s economy is based on the gold standard, like our economy in the 1920s? Whatever, the upshot is that the first chunk of the book concerns a lot of mining. This supposed battle for the existence of our species is centred around “let’s get enough gold for this angry space bear before the time runs out”. It’s odd.
Much like how the battle to take out this universes-spanning evil empire actually takes place just over half way through the book (which is where the film ends and threatens a sequel). The latter half is often spent dealing with the other evil races who want to step into the power vacuum, the most villainous of which are dispatched by taking out one of their moons.
To reiterate, this is a civilisation that was hoping to challenge a rival that dominated sixteen universes. Yet their whole operation depended on a single moon. The scale seems… off?
Meanwhile, the actual finale of this universes-spanning saga is spent arguing the finer points of a property contract. Seriously. Something of a comedown from what’s gone before, to say the very least.
Speaking of, it’s questionable that the author actually knows what ‘post-apocalyptic’ means. Sure, most of human population was eradicated via the aliens ‘kill gas’ (again, that’s the actual name), and our first encounter with the survivors, in the distant year 3000, is a hunter-gatherer society in the wilderness of an emptied USA.
But then more pockets of humanity emerge, as the plot requires. A lot of them are Scottish, from communities that have endured, overlooked/ignored, on the remote Orkney islands. Again, fair enough.
Several of these Scotsmen are qualified doctors, even neurologists. OK.
And the finale reveals that at least one is some sort of law professor, and another is a highly knowledgeable financial expert.
I’m all for the preservation of knowledge for its own sake, but that seems like a very questionable thing to prioritise when every day is a struggle against life and death? A thousand years spent teaching every new generation about the minutiae of stocks and bonds when such things don’t exist any more?
The point is, I’m stalling. Let’s get to the juicy stuff.
A hilarious lack of subtlety.
I keep referring to the ‘evil alien empire’, but they have a name. They’re the ‘Psychlo’ race. And they’re irredeemably, hilariously evil to the core. All of them. They’re just innately bad.
But ah ha! It turns out, they aren’t actually. It’s eventually revealed that the Psychlos were once a perfectly normal species of giant purple bears, going about their business. Until the ruling powers were infiltrated and taken over by a group that were once court jesters, or something, but had restyled themselves as medical experts. They brainwashed the authorities and took control, and turned the entire race into hateful bastards by implanting chips in the brains of the whole population.
And that’s why the universes are so awful now. Because of these particular Pyschlos, a group/faction/caste called the ‘Catrists’.
The Psychlo Catrists. Say it fast. Psychlocatrists.
You’d be forgiven for thinking it sounds a lot like the name of a certain medical speciality that deals with mental health, the practitioners of which once laughed a certain sci-fi author out of the room when he presented his, uh, ‘alternative’ theories to them, resulting in a lifelong vendetta against the very practice.
It’s not so much ‘on the nose’ unsubtlety, as it is ‘on the nose, up the nostril, into the sinus cavity, and poking the brainstem’ unsubtlety.
And that’s not even the worst example of this!
Frankly quite breath-taking racism
Oh boy. Even as a sheltered, naïve teenage boy in late 1990’s South Wales, I knew a lot of what I was reading was wildly offensive.
I mentioned the remote Scottish (i.e. white European) communities that provide most of the ‘heroes’ of the narrative. But there is another community that makes an appearance, who provide most of the human contingent of villains. A tribe that is inherently immoral, and will do anything bad for anyone in return for payment or favours.
A tribe who are enthusiastic, unrepentant cannibals, even when abundant meat alternatives are offered.
Have a guess which continent this tribe hails from? Here’s a clue; it rhymes with ‘Pafrica’.
Not convinced? Consider the key individual humans?
Our hero? Johnny ‘Goodboy’ Tyler. He’s a successful hunter/warrior, always in the wilderness tracking prey, his long blonde hair flowing in the breeze. His fellows admire him, the women love him, but he’s also shy and modest. Classic.
Although, not everyone loves him. There’s one who deeply resents him. One conniving, sinister individual who conspires against Johnny at every turn, who achieves a degree of power through underhanded, evil schemes, purely because he envies the hero so much. As the text specifically states, more than once.
What a wild coincidence that this person seems to be the only black person in the whole community.
This isn’t stated outright, I don’t think. But then, in a community where people are named for their most obvious trait (i.e. Johnny is indeed a ‘good boy’), why would his evil rival be named ‘Brown’. That’s his actual name. Brown.
Admittedly, that’s not his full name. He has a club-foot as well, so his name is ‘Brown Limper’. Technically it’s spelled ‘Limor’, but… COME ON! He manages to work a deep distrust against disabled people in there too.
There are also some women characters, too. I think? They’re mostly ornamental. There’s an attractive one who loves Johnny and has his kids, possibly without saying more than two lines of dialogue. A passing reference reveals that the evil tribe features some literal whores. And there’s one Psychlo woman who is, honest to god, a secretary.
That’s how powerful gender norms are! They transcend universes!
In short, lest this piece become as long as the book itself, Battlefield Earth is an absolute mess, to say the very least.
And yet, somehow, the film contrived to be even worse? Takes some doing, that.
If you’re looking for an actual good and enlightening book that celebrates people’s differences, I can recommend the iconic Robin Ince’s new book, Normally Weird and Weirdly Normal : My Adventures in Neurodiversity.
I have also written some books.
I’m still not especially clear about that, when it comes to the specifics. I’m not sure anyone is? They seem pretty guarded about it.
In a nutshell: evil aliens conquer Earth and wipe out most of mankind, reducing survivors to a hunter-gatherer state. A thousand years later, a particularly evil member of the occupying aliens takes one of the ‘noble savage’ humans prisoner to help with his literally gold-digging schemes. Via various events, noble savage hero ends up destroying the entire evil empire. If all that sounds familiar to you, that’s probably because such story beats are far from uncommon.