Bad Movie Thursday

Starring: John Travolta, Forest Whitaker, Barry Pepper

Date Watched: 8/27/2020

Plot: It’s the year 3000 A.D., and the Earth is lost to the alien race of Psychlos. Humanity is enslaved by these gold-thirsty tyrants, who are unaware that their ‘man-animals’ are about to ignite the rebellion of a lifetime.

Rules

• “Leverage”
• Wipe (scene transitions)
• Psychlos talking about or presenting gold
• Dutch (i.e. skewed) camera angle (advanced rule)
• Slow motion
• “Man-animal” (expert rule)

Quotes

• “As a friend I could forget to file the report… but unfortunately, I’m not your friend!”
• Dog?  Obviously the superior race, having man-animal chauffeur it around.”
• “You sure called that one, sir.  He certainly didn’t find those picto-cameras.”
• “Hope is an admirable quality, but foolish isn’t.”
• “You made me as happy as a baby pcychlo on a straight diet of kerbango.”
• “You imbecile!  What kind of crap-lousy game are you playing?”

Viewer Quotes

• “What do we know about Scientology?”  –  “Well, it’s based around some god… Zathura?”

Things We Learned

• Glass is godstone.
• Dog is the superior race.
• Gold is just dripping off the mountains of Colorado in the future.
• Dutch angles are skewed shots.  Every shot in Battlefield Earth is dutch.
• The great weakness of the Psychlo race is that they can’t move fast at all.

Final Take: This was a re-watch of a treasured favorite, one of the Bad Movie Thursday originals.  It held up pretty well.  It’s still a nonsensical mess, clearly conceived by the mind of a madman.  The rules all played well, especially “Leverage” and the scene wipe.  God help you if you play by the advanced or expert rules. It was a fun trip down memory lane and worth the time.  Just don’t try to read any meaning into it or plug the plot holes.