The Mondo Mugwump Letters: Battlefield Earth - A Saga of the Year 3000 - Page 2

Due to my request, he rolled it back to the beginning so we could both enjoy its excesses in full.

I know not your familiarity with the film in question, so allow me to grant you a steaming pool of synopsis. The film is set a rough millennia in the future - a ragged and unpleasant future where Earth has been conquered by some nasty alien sorts by the name of Psychlos. These bestial titans roam the universe, planet to planet like an interstellar parasite, pilfering the resources of each mineral-heavy astronomical body they encounter. On Earth humans are a rare sight, they are likely - the ones not exterminated that is - to be found lingering like cockroaches in creases and crevices; bounding about on horseback like a prettier Zardoz.

From these diffused groupings, emerges a hero in the guise of Jonnie Goodboy Tyler, a man so intelligently advanced that even in this barren dystopia he manages to braid his hair. Blessed with such mental fervour, he stands out among his fellow humans when a gang of the little scurriers are captured and imprisoned by Psychlo Head of Security Terl. Realising that he can use Goodboy to his benefit, he begins to train him up using the famed Knowledge Machine, which means he’ll have the ability to communicate with the hefty aliens, as well as having systematic knowledge of what’s going down in this reality.

Terl sends Goodboy, accompanied by a troop of fellow prisoners, down into the once-centre of civilisation in order to dig gold for the greedy overlord. It is here where our virtuous hero gathers together his plan for overthrowing the conquerors and destroying their home planet, the narcissistically titled Psychlo.

Well, my gallant friend, we had a hectic two hours of exhilarating action and profound dialogue. In-between a myriad of Dutch Tilts and CGI cut-scenes, we get such witty profanity as “Crap-head”, and such great lines as “You are out of your skull-bone.” And what a wonderful cacophonous juxtaposition of a film it is. A curtain-wipe segues into a slow-motion sequence as organically as the very animals that previously inhabited this Earth. A saturated blue-tone transits into a bask of yellow, then into a tumultuous purple, all in a big rigmarole of cinematographic indulgence. The Psychlos home planet for one looks like the sort of technological topography that you’d expect to hear Duel of the Fates playing over.

John Travolta, ya know, from That Film About The Midgets and That Film With All The References, plays the towering Terl. He inputs a labour-intensive effort in his portrayal of the cruel one, and what magnificent dreadlocks he sports. But not just him, all his species come complete with extravagant Rasta-reject follicular grandeur. Probably it is this preoccupation that inhibits Terl and co to catch onto the dirty little savages’ schemings. Who has time to observe what the “man-animals” are up to down at Fort Knox when ones roots are loosening?

Article Author: Aaron Fleming

Aaron Fleming is a waster and an idler - prone to pomposity - forever enchanted by the filmic and the sonic, words and the aesthetic - given to the most ludicrous appraisal of Culture's finest icons and compositions. He resides in London.

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