Battlefield Earth Writer Apologizes
One of the worst films ever made is apparently Battlefield Earth (2000). Make no mistake, this is a horrible movie, but I don’t recall the film making such a negative impression on me that I remember it that many years later. I simply found it to be a boring and silly sci-fi flick. Still, some people, as in the clip above where Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper execute it with great glee, hated it vehemently. A few days ago, its screenwriter J.D. Shapiro penned an apology for the New York Post. Apparently, it took him a decade to tell the story of how his script came to be, but he is initially reluctant to take responsibility for it. In his view, the original screenplay was hijacked by the studio (and John Travolta and all the other Scientologists involved in the project) and turned into the mess that Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard originally intended. As Shapiro writes:
- “I got another batch of notes. I thought it was a joke. They changed the entire tone. I knew these notes would kill the movie. The notes wanted me to lose key scenes, add ridiculous scenes, take out some of the key characters. I asked Mike [Marcus; president of MGM] where they came from. He said, ‘From us.’ But when I pressed him, he said, ‘From John’s camp, but we agree with them.’
I refused to incorporate the notes into the script and was fired.
I HAVE no idea why they wanted to go in this new direction, but here’s what I heard from someone in John’s camp: Out of all the books L. Ron wrote, this was the one the church founder wanted most to become a movie. He wrote extensive notes on how the movie should be made.
Many people called it a Scientology movie. It wasn’t when I wrote it, and I don’t feel it was in the final product. Yes, writers put their beliefs into a story. Sometimes it’s subtle (I guess L. Ron had something against the color purple, I have no idea why), sometimes not so subtle (L. Ron hated psychiatry and psychologists, thus the reason, and I’m just guessing here, that the bad aliens were called ‘Psychlos’).”
Shapiro has written a very entertaining column on the origins of this terrible screenplay, but he essentially paints himself as merely a victim of Scientology and its representatives. In my view, he should have fought harder against the church; the jokes he cracks about his penis (his “Willy Wonker” as he calls it) making him go look for the sexy women of Scientology are human, but as he makes clear, no one forced him into anything. Writing the script for this movie was his own decision. In the end he was fired – but he does take responsibility of it. Earlier this year, the movie won the Razzie for Worst Picture of the Decade and Travolta for Worst Actor of the Decade. This is what Shapiro thinks of the experience now:
- “Now, looking back at the movie with fresh eyes, I can’t help but be strangely proud of it. Because out of all the sucky movies, mine is the suckiest.”
Published by Stefan Hedmark 2010-03-30 14:16
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