There, they live in self-induced squalor, alternately dragging their pet man-animals around and forcing them to engage in slave labour, or scheming against each other, or getting drunk. Standing at around ten feet tall, with hair like the cast of Rock Of Ages, bad teeth, giant hairy hands and a penchant for leather trench coats, their refuge is a giant greenhouse in Denver, Colorado. Its numbers devastated, humanity has devolved into a huddle of long-haired cave-dwellers a percentage of humans are kept as slaves by the invaders, who refer to them as ‘man-animals’, keep them in cages, and occasionally feed them with gruel pumped in via a fire hose.Įxactly how the Psychlos conquered Earth isn’t made clear, since they’re easily the most cretinous race of aliens ever to appear on a cinema screen. It features some of the stupidest aliens in cinemaĪ thousand years in the future, the planet will be dominated by a race of giant aliens called Psychlos.
Is Battlefield Earth really as bad as everybody said it was? More than a decade on, isn’t it about time the movie went through a period of critical reassessment? Join us, reader, as we try to find ten remarkable things about this oft-maligned film. The film was quickly dubbed a bomb, and it’s commonly described as one of the biggest flops ever to emerge from Hollywood. In spite of Travolta’s attempts to talk up the movie’s chances (he unwisely described the script as “the Schindler’s List of science fiction” in one interview), the overall air of negativity surrounding Battlefield Earth refused to go away. The film’s scientology connection and expensive premise made most studios nervous, but Travolta eventually found support in a company by the name of Franchise Pictures – a new venture set up by a businessman who’d previously made his fortune from a dry cleaning chain and a successful LA nightclub. With Travolta’s star wattage positively humming again after the Oscar-nominated success of Pulp Fiction reversed his fortunes, the actor used every inch of his Hollywood influence to get Battlefield Earth made.