I never understood why people hated this movie so much. I always figured it was because it had L. Ron Hubbard's name attached to it. I actually enjoyed the movie for all it quirkiness. Probably for the same reasons people love Plan 9 From Outer Space. Battlefield Earth is bad and I recognize that but to me it's still very entertaining and very original. I can honestly say I have never seen a movie quite like this and whether good or bad I usually applaud originality.
Out of curiosity I've always wanted to read Battlefield Earth just to see if the book is as bad as the movie. Now I've seen movies knowing they were going to be bad however I've never read a book, played a video game, or listened to a cd knowing it would be bad. Don't get me wrong I have been sorely disappointed with all these mediums. With movies it's so much easier because you don't have as much time or effort invested if it turns out to be bad but a boring or poorly written book is by far harder to suffer through. Usually it ends with me just putting the book down and never picking it up again.
Hubbard's reputation as a writer seems based entirely on the subject's bias of him. People who don't like him seem to think he's a hack(most of which I'm sure have never so much as read a paragraph from any of his books). I suggest you go to amazon and look up an L. Ron Hubbard book, any book will do, and just click on the 5 star ratings. Some might be legitimate but a great deal are congratulatory to a delusional degree. L. Ron's books would skyrocket to the top of the bestseller's list after their releases and it's widely believed that members of the church of scientology were told to buy as many as they could.
At any rate I decided to skip reading Battlefield Earth feeling that my knowledge of the movie would spoil the book. My interest in reading Mission Earth can be summed up by these two passages from the wiki page for Mission Earth:
"he becomes a prisoner of two man-hating lesbians
(who end up marrying Gris after he rapes them and thereby "cures" them
of their lesbianism, but not before various ingenious tortures, one of
which involve a cheese grater and chili powder"
"that keeps the population of Earth under control by using drugs and rock and roll music to keep the population sedate. (Rock music is used in the novel to spread sexual deviancy, especially homosexuality, among the population of Earth.)"
As strange as it sounds I just can't resist the urge to read a book(written by the leader of religious organization no less) that claims rape can cure homosexuality(if that's the case can it cause it too?) and rock music is contributing to decline of society like some curmudgeon old man bitching about Elvis and the slutty way women dress anymore. From what we know of the man it seems less like social satire and more like a dark journey into the psyche of an antisocial egomaniac and that's why this book appealed to me. Not to mention my hope that this will one day become an even worse movie than Battlefield Earth.
As I delve deeper into this book I'm going to try my best to give it a fair review and not let any preconceived notions of Hubbard or Scientology sway how I feel about it. Who knows I may even like it.
I got this from a secondhand book store and it's obvious by the creases in the spine that at least one of the previous owners read it front to back. I can only help but wonder if they were a scientologist or just a fan of sci fi.
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