Battlefield Earth (2000) is the infamous Scientology propaganda film commissioned by John Travolta. It is considered one of the worst moves ever made, but I'd never seen it before yesterday.
It is now one of my favourite films. 
Literally everthing about this movie is hillariously bad. The sheer incompetence is awe-inspiring and I didn't want it to end.
Story & Writing
In Battlefield Earth, a species of 10-foot tall aliens called Psychlos (seriously) run a mining colony on Earth after conquering the planet a thousand years ago after a war lasting just nine minutes. Humans are now reduced to stone-age tribes in irradiated wastelands, or slaves of alien masters.
I can't really say much more except it makes no sense. The Psychlos believe "man-animals" are too stupid to mine for gold, but they already employ humans as a labour force in their city. 
The film is filled with the most ham-fisted exposition I've ever heard. As an audience-member, can you understand what blackmail is? Yes? Too bad! We're going to tell you anyway in 90 additional seconds of dialogue!
The Acting
John Travolta stars the scheming Psychlo security chief named Terl (seriously), trying to earn a transfer off the planet. His nemesis is the human Johnny Goodboy (seriously), played by a wooden Barry Pepper, who must lead humans to freedom.
Travolta's (and everyone else's) performance is so far over the top, he can't see all the way down. He isn't chewing the scenery, he is engorging himself upon it. Hense my favourite line in any movie anywhere:
If you ever wanted to see John Travolta in dreadlocks and a codpiece shooting the legs off a cow, this is the film for you.
Even Forest Whitacker, who's acting talent is undeniable, is wasted with nothing to do except deliver terrible dialogue.
Cinematography
A "Dutch angle" is a filming technique where the camera is tilted off the horizon to portray a scene of uneasiness or tension.
Literally the entire film is shot in this way. It looks like the DP had a stroke.
Also, there are loads of corny slo-mo shots, an over-use of wipe transitions, and most scenes are shot with an ugly, sickly purple filter.
Pacing
Battlefield Earth is all over the place. Fast-paced action set pieces are inter-cut with corny slo-mo. Thematically important scenes are not allowed to breathe, but are immediately followed by more exposition or John Travolta overacting.
Special Effects
Honestly, for 2000, the special effects aren't half bad. It all looks ugly as sin, of course. But I think this was a deliberate choice rather than technical negligence.
Summary
This film is worse than I ever thought possible and lives up to its reputation. But it's so bad, it became a joy to watch. I found myself laughing many times at the sheer absurd awfulness of this movie.
If you haven't seen Battlefield Earth, I thoroughly recommend it. I love this movie.
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Underrated gem
Hubbard was a pulp writer. Battlefield Earth was meant as a throwback to stuff like Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan or John Carter books. These sorts of stories tend to star hyper-masculine characters who are out of sync with the tamed values of modern (over)civil society, but (thanks to the laws of boys fiction) get to make a difference the old fashioned way
Every weird choice in Battlefield Earth has a reason behind it, even if it ends up looking goofy onscreen. To give a quick example, the "Spell your name" line is set in a bar after Terl has been humiliated. He's a pathetic drunk. It's a laugh line. Many people shit on it without the context. The main objection to this sort of defense is that Travolta's Terl is not an intimidating character. But that's kind of the point.
The Psychlos are a pathetic, effeminate, deeply idiotic society that only appears intimidating because of the whims of fate. Their race is older and vaster, their bodies physically bigger, and they're flush with powerful technology. But when someone (at least, a manly human hero) actually takes the fight to them, they're a paper tiger and they go down quick because they lack that raw animal energy. Basically, it's a movie about a literal caveman smashing industrial society to bits. Essentially "nah I'd win" the movie. With an over-the-top orchestral score to match.
If it had come out 15 years later, chuds would have used it as /their/ film, while leftoids would argue that ACTUALLY the Psychlos represented Marxian alienation while Jonnie is the class-conscious anarchist warrior. And the Redditors at /r/HFY would have peepeerode it to oblivion.
I think the filmmakers' main error was going for the queasy fever-dream atmosphere to compensate for the shit budget. The Psychlo stuff probably benefits from it, but when you put the humans onscreen you should be using a much simpler and more direct cinematic language to match the masculine motif and the "epic adventure" score. They also should have picked someone with the Gigachad look over Barry Pepper.
!kino
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Was it low budget? I've got no idea because I don't know if any of the actors actually got paid or they all did it for free because they're Scientologist true believers like Travolta.
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The listed budget was $70 million, but there was an unrelated scam going on and the studio fraudulently overstated it by $30 million.
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A cult was involved in some massive fraud???
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HOLY BASED
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That's great and all, but I asked for my burger without cheese.
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