Battlefield Earth w/ Rob Huebel (HDTGM Matinee)

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Now it's time for

how did this create?

People gonna have a good time.

Celebrate some failure, not just being a hater.

Cause you know you wonder.

How did this create?

Let's follow in the mediocrity of some bar art.

Perhaps we'll find the answer to the question, how did this get made?

Hello, people of Earth.

Welcome to How Did This Get Made?

This is the podcast where we try to make sense of the movies that make no sense.

I'm Paul Shearer.

You might know me as Andre from the TV show The League or from my star turn as Rango, the lovable old rest lizard in Rango.

I am joined by Jason Manzukas, who you might recognize as Rafi from the league.

What's going on, Jason?

How are you, Paul?

Very good.

And of course, June, Diane, Rayfield, who you've seen on Party Down and Flight of the Concords, June.

Hi, Paul.

This is a movie we have today.

I'd be fucking furious.

Yes.

I mean, we love it.

Susan's go-to emotion is anger.

No, this movie is enraged.

It's warranted.

I mean, this, you know, we love crappy movies, and I don't think there is one crappier than Battlefield Earth.

It's like if Star Wars farted on the planet of the Apes, it would become this film.

Here's the basic premise, and I had a hard time distilling it.

Don't bother.

Fuck this movie.

The movie takes place in the year 3000.

Earth has been conquered by aliens.

Wait, is that true?

It takes place in the year 3000.

Oh, come on.

The subtitle of the movie is.

Now I'm even angrier that those fighter planes fly?

Yeah.

Oh, fuck you, movie.

Well, we won't get too far.

Basically, aliens have been taken over by, or aliens from the planet Cyclos have taken over the remaining humans left on Earth.

One of the villagers who is still alive, living far away, is captured after being caught in an abandoned mall and brought to the human processing center in Denver where he meets Turo.

When those fucking Chirons come up and it's like human processing center and then it's planet Cyclo.

I was like

really I need to know the

you know what as I'm even explaining it it's it's a terrible idea.

So basically a caveman is captured by an alien.

The alien wants this caveman to mine gold for him so he can get back to his home planet.

But guess what?

It messes up for him.

They steal gold from Fort Knox, steal nuclear weapons and Harrier jets, and blow up the aliens' mining operation.

That's the basic principle.

Why do the aliens need the gold?

Why does gold hold value throughout the universe?

Well, let's find out these questions.

Universal currency is based on gold.

It is not!

No way!

Every planet's currency is based on gold.

Alright, well, let's just hear a clip from the movie.

This is just to give you an idea of the movie.

This is when Turl finds out he has to stay on planet Earth a little bit longer.

I don't need to second guess the Home Office, but surely I could be of better service to the corporation.

Home Office is well aware of your academic achievements and obvious talents.

That's why we've decided not to keep you here for another five cycles.

It's a joke.

Oh, thank you, sir.

I don't know if I could have kept my sanity to be here another five cycles.

We've decided to keep you here for another 50 cycles.

Within this options for renewal, within this options for renewal, within this options for renewal.

That is the movie.

Now, here to help us make sense of this movie is our friend.

You've heard him here on Earwolf, on a show called Mike Detective.

You've seen him on Human Giant and on Children's Hospital.

Please welcome Rob Hubel.

Thank you.

I'm leaving.

No.

I'm leaving.

Now, this is why I'm leaving.

Because I agree with Jason.

I agreed to do this podcast before I I watched this movie and about three minutes into it I I wanted not only the that three minutes back I wanted the future time I was gonna give up back it's an hour and 57 minutes and there's nothing you can do sheer to get me back that time well I'll tell you this much it's an hour and 57 minutes but if the movie didn't have the slow-mo it would probably be about 45 there's more slow-mo in this movie why would you make the action scenes work so they had the only way to make the action scenes look good was to do them in slow-mo they look terrible Like anything that's supposed to be action-y, they cut to slow-mo.

It's like, fuck this.

If you like

slow-motion horse scenes, then you will like this movie.

I haven't seen more slow-motion horses.

But that horse's journey was one of the most developed movies.

I'll go out on a limb and say, best acting in the movie.

That horse.

Done by that horse.

When he came running back into town.

Into camp?

Yeah, that was good.

That was like, I was like, oh no, he did the right.

How did he find his way back?

Well, I couldn't, here's what I couldn't get over watching the movie.

I couldn't feel worse for the costume people and the art director and the set build, because there's so much work that went into actually building like what that world.

I mean, a lot of it is crappy CGI, but like all the costumes and like just those sets.

Can you imagine?

Can you imagine getting that fucking makeup every day?

Every day to deliver lines that make no sense.

Listen here, rat brain.

You're skullbone is definitely a skullbone.

Can we talk for one second about John Travolta's accent?

What?

Where would you place it?

Which we could talk for one hour about John Travolta's accent.

It changes from scene to scene.

Sometimes it's colonial British or something like that.

And then other times it's, oh, like, I mean, there's four or five distinct different voices.

Yeah.

This, I wrote, like, I was writing notes as I was watching it.

And, like, the first beat happened.

And then

in the course of the next scene, I just started writing, this movie instantly makes no sense I have no idea what any of these people are talking about and then I just wrote why did these actors take this job Forrest Whitaker is the only person who has come out and said I made a huge mistake is he really

there's a long sequence where they let the man animals which again that's a fucking dumb name that's see that's the other problem I have is like the

but the language is so unimaginative lazy they say words like vaporize like I'm gonna vaporize you Like, that's what a little kid would say.

Although, there were some phrases, which was interesting to see, like, okay, in 3000, these are the phrases that stood the test of time.

A piece of cake wasn't cake.

Yeah, a piece of cake.

Rats is always greener.

Rats is always greener.

Hey, let's get the hell out of here.

Those phrases held up.

Leverage.

Leverage is used

so many times in this movie.

Leverage.

They have that whole sequence.

You got some leverage.

They have that whole sequence where

John Travolta wants to get leverage over

the prisoner guy.

So they let him go so that they will watch him eat his favorite food.

Rats.

Yeah, so that they can, so that they can figure out what the fucking guy's favorite food is and feed it to him as a treat.

They talk about his favorite food.

I wrote that down too, for like 15 minutes.

That sequence that Cuba's talking about.

And they're just going, see, that's his favorite.

He could have chosen anything, but that is it.

You're like, meanwhile, he couldn't have chosen anything.

He's an abandoned warehouse.

There's no food to be found.

And it's like, he loves raw rat.

This movie, i i looked it up on uh on online it cost 73 million dollars to make yes and who knows what they spent on advertising well here's the thing apparently there was a huge lawsuit because the company that made it inflated the budget by 40 million dollars so that 75 went to some french guy's pocket no really they lost a gigantic lawsuit i didn't do any research on this did scientology themselves have anything to do with the making of this movie l Ron Hubbard was supposed to direct this movie in 1985 when the book came out.

Did he direct other movies?

He directed like training videos for the church of Santa Claus.

I'm not kidding.

Just videos.

Yeah.

Just training videos and pamphlets.

And John Travolta was supposedly being the young man, the caveman.

But then he aged out of that role and then took the role of Terrell.

And did you notice that Kelly Preston is in the movie, too?

What does she do?

She's the bald, sexy woman with the big tongue who says the best line in the movie.

She goes, I'm going to treat you like a baby on a straight diet of Frendango.

that

was

what does that mean

a straight diet of Frondango this entire alien race appears to come from a planet where like all they're ever taught is maniacal laughter like every single character has crazy broad laughter as a part of their everyday speech all the aliens have broad laughter and all the slaves have like tribal screams like no

that's my favorite i love when they devolved into but they makes no sense.

They're like, now we have to get out of here.

We have to come up with a play.

Wait a minute.

Why do you sometimes grunt and sometimes speak perfect English?

Here's why I actually do think that a lot of times they would sort of signal each other like this is when the revolt is going to begin by barking.

And I think that was kind of a fuck you to the cyclones or whatever they were called.

Cyclones.

So you think we're

man animals, like we'll show you.

But the cyclones.

And that's what it's like.

One of the most amazing things is language.

Yes.

Everybody is speaking English, but they're meant to be speaking

languages that the other cannot understand.

Right, exactly.

So inexplicably then, Barry Pepper, right?

That's who we got to say.

Yes, Barry Pepper.

Barry Pepper has to go in and get like a fucking mind-meld, like a Matrix-style download of the cyclo language.

Which is my favorite scene of the entire.

Why does that happen?

Okay, he has to.

Why does that happen?

Because they're trying to train him to go out and get the gold.

Okay, well, here.

They wanted him to go mine gold for them.

Oh, my God.

He's already proven to be the most resistant, strongest

rebel in the whole thing.

Let's give him more power.

Why are you guys so against Scientology?

That's what I want to say.

I knew that you guys wouldn't even give it a chance and I want to talk to you guys about this.

This character,

this is my moment of the movie for me.

This language machine is what they called it.

I actually pulled a clip of it because I had to rewind it when I heard it.

This is what the language machine sounds like.

Excuse me, but I am your instructor, if you will forgive such arrogance, for I do not have the honor to be a cyclone.

I am but a lowly Tinko language slave.

As you are listening to me, I most likely do not exist.

This is the dumbest thing.

Well, that's like a hologram that shows up.

It looks kind of like Jar Jar.

Yeah, he's like, he's very low status, and he's like apologizing

that they're not as good as the cyclos.

but somehow he's going to teach them language.

And then it just shoots into his brain anyway.

They just shoot laser beams into his eyes.

And then he learns like

calculus and geometry.

Geometry.

And

he's like, he goes back into his cage and he's telling the other slaves, like, this is a triangle.

And they're like, whoo, what is it?

He's like, it's the strongest thing in the universe.

We thought you were going to help us get out of here.

And he's like, this will help us get out of here.

It's the craziest fucking gobbledygook nonsense.

And I don't understand.

Why give him this power?

Why give...

I'm like, well, he wants.

I was so angry at this movie.

I didn't understand this movie.

I had to look on Wikipedia to understand what was happening because I was very confused.

And so...

Who directed this movie?

Oh, I know they asked Quentin Tarantino, and he said no.

I wish he had said yes.

And then he was, it was.

This was right after Pulp Fiction.

Yes.

And it was 2000, so it was a couple of years after.

But then they got the assistant director of a Star Wars movie to direct it.

Wow.

Wow.

Is that why they have those terrible dissolves between scenes, like the

Star Wars?

It looks like what you could do an iMovie on the Mac.

It was like, what are the movies?

It looks like my acting reel.

If you've ever looked online at like Turkish Star Wars,

or Hungarian Star Wars, those rip-off movies, this movie is 10 billion times worse and more complicated to understand.

This reminded me of, you know what, Comic-Con, have you ever seen at Comic-Con where all of the Klingons get together and they have like they they put on that sort of like yes that sort of presentation where they're like talking back and forth.

It's like a Klingon play.

Yeah, yeah, and it's very over-theatrical and overdone, but way way better than this movie.

Way better than this movie.

I just love there's so many things wrong about this movie, too, because they're like, why are they even on Earth?

They conquered human civilization in nine minutes, and now they're there to mine, but what are they mining against

a shocking lack of um like at a certain point like barry pepper and the other rebels are like running around doing stuff yeah and there are no cyclos anywhere yes like the whole planet it has like about 15 cyclos well the cyclos only live in that glass facility right in denver yeah in denver where they have special oxygen but yet barry pepper needs to wear the special oxygen mask too i don't understand i just love that like even in in 3000 i guess there are sort of state lines where people know this is Denver, this is Kentucky.

Yeah.

Did you notice?

Did you notice

that one sequence where they go to Aspen?

There's just a really rusty sign that says, Welcome, or thank you for visiting Aspen.

It's where they're on top of that waterfall and they're about to jump off.

And then right before they do, that spaceship flies up and they get out and they choke the guy and they throw that.

There's also a lot of flying.

They can't be able to fly.

Humans can fly.

There's a lot of bad green screen in this, also.

There is?

No.

There's so much.

I mean, seamless.

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oh my gosh and the fact that I mean just the fact that he went to the library read a couple books about Fort Knox the White House and a secret military base underneath the world forth head they go to a library and he reads like he's looking at paper and then he turns it over and it's the Declaration of Independence which is not giving him clues to anything it is useless and it it doesn't even really pertain to what they're doing here.

I mean, does it?

I mean, is he...

Guys, there is a sequence in this movie a thousand years from now where cavemen sit in a flight simulator at Fort Hood and learn to fly Harrier jets.

And these men do.

And these are cavemen who only a day before were literally grunting.

They are wearing pelts for clothes.

And then learn to expertly fly F-18s and then

wage war.

Exactly.

They are a precision machine.

Absolutely.

It is flawless.

It is, without a doubt, one of the most insane sequences I've ever seen.

Barry Pepper is told after he tries his fight machine once, you make another mistake again and I'll smash your puny skull.

And he's like, okay, then the next time he flew it, flawless.

Like, oh, that was all it takes is some good threatening.

Someone just yelling at you.

June, let me ask you this because you're the only woman in the room.

So far as you know.

Were there any man animals that you were attracted to?

Oh, that's a good question.

Like, do you ever think what it would be like to be in a slave situation like that where you're with a bunch of man animals?

Well, I do think that

I was curious as to why they did all look like cavemen because this is not

cave time.

But they didn't.

They were clean-shaven.

They were well-kept.

Oh, yeah.

And also.

It's just kind of long hair and sort of pelts.

But also, like, if we are, if these are modern men and women, I mean, they're, they're way more modern than any of us.

They're living in 2000.

Why did all of the women in the movie, like when Kelly Preston, Kelly Preston was so excited to have a house?

Yes.

And then when the other cave girls are.

Well, Kelly Preston's not a cave person.

No, I know she's a cycle.

But when the other cave girl found her cave boy and he said, you know, we're going to have children or something like that, her face lit up.

It's like, their motivations are so old-timing.

So crazy.

Do you guys realize that there are two movies that we've done in which a person is carrying around a rough drawing of the person they love?

Yes.

Not a picture because there are no pictures.

Exactly.

But like,

when the cavewoman is captured, she has a rough drawing of Barry Pepper.

And that's how they identify that she must know him.

Just like in stupid fucking Season of the Witch, right?

And then also Season of the Witch, inexplicably, Ron Perlman and one of the guys guys in this one both say, let's get the hell out of here.

As if like people in like

people are cheering.

Yeah.

Like let's get the shit.

They're timeless phrases.

They are not timeless phrases.

This movie is bullshit.

Do you think Barry Pepper will ever do a movie where he runs around more?

I mean, you could not have more scenes where there, I'm sure the director's like, okay, Barry, so I think you got the gist of it.

You're going to go out there, you're going to run the fuck down the block, and then

slow it down.

Yeah, and then run down that block, and then run around that street.

We're going to do it and then run back this street.

We're going to blast debris at you at any corner.

He's always getting debris.

I love, though, when he was ready for the final battle, that hair went back in a ponytail.

I was like, I got to run.

Did anybody else notice that?

I got to focus up here.

Did anybody else notice that for about 10 minutes in the movie while he becomes the revolutionary leader, he has bangs?

Yes.

Yes.

He just, for some reason,

bangs.

He was doing another movie.

He was definitely off-shooting

that baseball.

I also love

during that final attack, in the middle of it, John Travolta says, someone calls in and says they're under attack while he's got, and he says, you're going to have to deal with them.

I'm too busy for these kind of details.

John Travolta is like, in this movie, John Travolta's character is like Darth Vader.

If Darth Vader was like a personal trainer.

Like, there is no, like, he's like, God, I can't deal with you, rat brain.

Always drinking.

They're always drinking.

Always drinking glow in the dark beverages.

They love glow-in-the-dark beverages.

And his signature move is only throat grab.

All he could do is grab somebody around the throat to lift them off the ground.

This is just a small thing, but like very bad

laser bullets that shoot a parameter.

You know, like when people shoot each other with guns, like the laser beams, like fucking

some fucking money.

Yeah, they really should.

When Forrest Whitaker got his hand cut off, and it's like, he just shot his hand, his hand disappeared, and Forrest Whitaker just looks at it for a long time.

And at the end of the movie, when Travolta's arm gets blown off, I was like, do these people not have nerve endings in their arms?

They have no, yeah.

They have no.

They literally just looked at it like, huh, that's not weird.

Let me ask the group.

My arm just got blown up by a ball.

Jason, Leverage.

Leverage.

Let me ask the group this.

I don't know if you guys normally talk about this on the podcast, but how difficult was it for you guys to masturbate to this?

So easy.

Very difficult.

This is easy.

This is so difficult.

I like green things, and I like...

I had no trouble at all.

You like long dreadlocks?

I love long dreadlocks.

I love Rasta aliens.

So this is easy.

This is actually a home run for me in many ways.

We've talked about a lot of great moments, but we're going to cut down to our biggest what the fuck moment.

Here we go.

This is our moment that I feel like we need to discuss.

Every one of us, we may have a moment that really calls out to us as being just a moment that is crazy.

For me, it was the fact that this entire race of cave people did not move more than a mile outside of their cave dwelling because there was a miniature golf course there.

They were frightened by the dinosaur in the miniature golf course.

That was it.

That was the only thing keeping there.

It was a dinosaur also covered in like moss.

It was not intimidating at all.

That was the block.

Just a giant golf ball

and a small dinosaur.

And that was what kept all of humanity back at a base.

Well, I don't know if we've talked about the breathe right strips.

These were

definitely the influence for that product.

Yeah, absolutely.

Why were they wearing them?

Because they couldn't breathe.

Who fucking knows?

Okay.

All right.

Honestly, who fucking knows?

Jason, all right.

This made me so angry.

There's a line in the movie where somebody arrives on the planet and goes,

I hate these puny, undersized planets.

The gravity is so different.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And that is a perfect line.

It like, it makes no sense.

And then all the cyclos are supposed to be like these big giant like 12 foot tall creatures and they're just wearing stilts and giant boots and they look the all of the special effects both digital and practical are fucking garbage terrible like cirque de Soleil looks more real when they do shit than this does you know I also love the misrepresentation of what the history of the world was you know like where the cyclos are like oh dogs were the leaders of this planet and they were much more amenable than these stupid men

But they weren't good at manual labor.

That was it.

Yeah, the dogs could do manual labor.

And then, for some reason, how many dogs live in the nuclear holocaust, by the way, right?

That's the other thing.

Then, at a certain point, Travolta's like bonks his head in his office and is like, get a team in here to I want this ceiling different.

And then, of course, the team that gets brought in is the exact people we've been following the whole time.

So now, Barry Pepper, downloaded with the knowledge machine, can hang out in the office of Travolta unsupervised.

and take all of his information to blackmail Forrest Whitaker.

Why?

Why would any of that happen?

Because any plan needs a patsy, as Travolta explains to Forrest Whitaker in like a 10-minute scene.

He records him with that fucking camera.

By the way, isn't that Scientology recording you with a camera so that you can have leverage over Science?

Isn't that like the knock-on head sculpt?

Again,

I want you guys to think about coming on board.

I don't know what your aversion to this is.

I also wanted to say one of my favorite scenes was when all the slaves were in prison and they have those hoses that shoot the slop into the trough.

Oh, yeah.

And then they all got into the fight because that one guy that was in prison was like, you know, no one eats until I eat.

And then they said, no, that's bullshit.

We're not doing it.

And so then Barry Pepper got in a fight and smashed his head into the slop trough and then was like, from now on, we all eat together.

And they all, and then this little slave girl comes up and takes a little handful of slop and eats the slop.

And the slop is coming out of this giant hose.

It looks like when you're emptying out like a port-a-john, like just shit as it shoves out.

I want to talk about this one thing I found out.

Apparently, there was a toy of Turle that was released, 11-inch toy of Turl.

And these are the lines that he was.

That's the perfect size to go in your butt.

These are the lines that when you pressed his chest, he would go, exterminate all man-animals at will.

You wouldn't last one day at the academy.

Man is an endangered species and rat bastard

that's not a toy that you would want to give a child do they ever show the because i may have gotten drunk in the middle of this i don't i'm blacked out but do they ever show this academy that they keep referencing yeah there's one there is a shot where on the planet cyclo which just exists to show that the the leader has teleported back there Yes, yes.

Wait, there was no reason for that.

It was useless.

They show, like, I was like, oh, yeah, I thought there was something was cut out.

Basically, they show this whole teleportation scene.

Their leader comes down, they have an overly wrought scene, and then he goes back, and that was it.

He doesn't even say anything, right?

When he goes back to the planet, yeah.

It's just like, oh, I guess they got home safe.

Yeah, that was it.

That's literally, I felt like why it was done.

It was like, oh, he's there now.

So, and they blew up Planet Cyclos at the end?

It seemed to be that there was a genocide at the end.

Okay, because that was a crazy thing.

How did they get to Planet Cyclos?

They keep talking like, you know what we're going to do?

We're going to go back and blow up their planet.

How?

What?

Come on now, man.

Yeah, they had to

get there.

It makes no sense.

Guys, they've gone through flight simulators.

They know how to do that.

And Barry Pepper knows how to dismantle a nuclear bomb?

Yeah.

This is a guy.

Is it a knowledge machine?

Well, first of all, it was a language machine.

So technically, by all intents and purposes, it only gave him the language, not the knowledge.

No, it was knowledge because it taught him math and all that other stuff.

Oh, you're right.

That's why I think what they're doing.

But

yet they called it language machine.

Yes, yes.

So even though it taught him knowledge, it was called language machine.

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Can you, I don't know how long this movie took to actually make.

I'm imagining it probably.

Five minutes.

But I mean, you know, know, it would take months.

It takes months to make a movie.

And so, can you imagine fucking waking up?

Because you'd have to go there and get there so early to put on this makeup, put in those contact lenses that they're all wearing,

get your fake teeth in.

You're standing on stilts every day.

Forced Whitaker for four months, for five months, whatever it was.

They must fucking hate each other.

Oh, my God.

He must have blown a real head gasket.

You're fired.

I also think when you see movies like this, like we all know this was Travolta's pet project.

And like, you know, he wasn't getting any direction at all.

Like, he was just unleashed on the set.

Like, whatever you wanted to do.

I heard that the food, the craft service on it was so bad that Travolta flew in his own chef and only served the actors from his own

movie.

There is a, not to endorse another podcast, but there is an episode of the NPR show, or the public radio show, The Business, in which she just interviews the guy that wrote this movie.

Oh, who sent out an apology this year when the Razzies Razzies nominated him for being for the worst screenplay of the decade.

This is Battlefield Earth.

Worst screenplay of the decade.

And this guy came out and said, like, I'm sorry, I apologize.

He couldn't write scripts anymore.

He had to change his name on scripts to get them sold after this movie because he was just done in Hollywood.

Unfortunately, he changed his name to Terrell, whatever, whatever.

Terrell.

Terrell.

Oh, man.

It is.

There are so many.

It's also one of those movies that spend a lot of time talking about business and politics.

Like Like every boring scenes in all the Star Wars Wars, where it's like, oh, well,

the Trade Federation must be very upset about the way.

The home office won't be pleased.

Oh, that's another thing.

Everything,

that's what they came up with for the term is the home office.

It's got to be in the L.

Ron Hubbard stuff, I assume.

I've never read any of his books, but apparently it's the first one, right?

It was supposed to be made

too.

This is the whole thing.

This movie is based only on 436 pages of a thousand-page book and this is supposed to be the first of a trilogy.

Yes, and

you know what we're doing.

And John Travolta recently said that second one is being worked out.

We can only hope that M.

Night Shyamalan directs the rest of the trilogy.

Oh my god.

That would be the best.

I could masturbate.

I would come and kill myself instantly.

What was the...

Oh, I love the other.

The other term I liked too was.

It was Last Airbender, not Season of the Witch, I just remembered.

In which the person had the drawing of their family.

but it could have worked in Season of the Witch.

We don't want to be a bunch of arrogant greeners here, right, guys?

What was that?

The grass is always greener.

That was their piece of cake.

The cavemen refer to each other as arrogant greener.

I do.

Why do they keep saying piece of cake?

I missed that.

And then I was like, why do they keep saying piece of cake?

They're not eating cake.

No one's eating cake.

What is cake?

They don't have a concept of cake.

It is the year 3000.

But yet, I guess those Jets are all gassed up.

Ready to fly.

Jets are gassed up.

Fort Knox is ready to go.

White House burnt out and golf course is kind of disposed.

But all the books are cool to read.

Books are pretty great.

Books are pretty good.

Books do not burn, even though they're made out of paper.

The guns still work the fuck.

It's 3,000.

I had no idea that it was the year 3,000.

So what did you think it was?

I thought it was indeterminate,

near catastrophic future.

Isn't the full title Battlefield Earth?

Yes, Dog of the Year Earth.

When you click on it on Netflix, it says Battlefield Earth.

I can't read.

I do want to.

If you guys, I'll play the clip of Travolta saying something in his language, which is English, and then making Barry Pepper translate it.

Here we go.

I graduated top marksman in my class, and I can kill any one of you at over a thousand paces.

Tell them what I've said.

You try to run, you'll kill us.

And then Travolta goes, That's it?

And then Travolta, to prove his point, shoots a cow's leg off.

Yep.

Just a cow in the field.

Also, why are there cows?

Wasn't there a nuclear holocaust?

There are cows just roaming around?

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

This movie is infuriating.

I half believe they were like, well, this is where we're going to shoot.

Well, there are those cows over there.

Let's shoot them.

Well, let's keep them in here and maybe we'll see how the legs getting shot off.

I wonder where this was filmed.

It was Shine Canada, the most expensive production ever in Canada at that time.

Really?

Yes.

Now,

we always go to the audience to get a little bit of viewer mail.

You Got Mail.

And what?

Hold on.

Is that your song?

That's your theme song.

For You Got Mail.

For the Mail.

You want to hear it again?

I'll do it again.

You Got Mail.

There it is.

Pretty good, right?

Who wrote that?

We created it.

We created it.

We created that.

That sounds very familiar.

Catching on.

The director of Battle Field Earth actually created that movie.

He created that.

Basically, this movie got the most Razzie nominations of all time.

And so I said to to you guys, come up with another category that this can win in.

Obviously, this one, worst actor, worst screenplay, worst director.

Didn't win worst supporting actor.

Forrest Whitaker escaped that one.

But so I asked you guys to come up with your own worst of categories.

And let's see.

I'll give you an example here.

Some of these are best of, also.

Yeah, they can be best of, I guess.

They can be best of.

Here we go.

Norman writes, worst eyes in any film, Forrest Whitaker.

Worst eyes.

He had these ugly yellow eyes.

Marshall makes a good point.

Best clean-shaven caveman.

I see.

I said that, yeah.

Sherry Pepper.

He also had least explained use of gold as a plot device.

Marshall also had most inebriated cinematographer.

That's right.

All the shots were on these weird

tilted.

It's always like that Dutch angle, which is just like the very first thing you would ever think to do with a camera.

Like, oh, let's just turn it a little bit.

I like this dude, Mike Morrison, right?

It's best use of the noun leverage and then he's counted how many times people say it in the movie Travolta eight times Barry Pepper three times Forrest Whitaker two times like and there's got to be more right I mean that's I mean even that that's high looks like somebody found some leverage I've taught you well

Bob Waters said that this is the worst choice of video editing software and because it was done on Microsoft PowerPoint.

It really is.

It's just like the fucking dumbest edits.

Dumbest of all time.

This one I think was again written by Norman.

This is

most informative public library goes to the Denver Public Library.

They have information where the nuclear stockpile is and how to break into Fort Knox.

Robin has best performance by nostrils.

Barry Pepper's Nostrils.

Battlefield Earth.

They are pretty good.

Battlefield Earth.

Man, oh man.

This was as bad as I heard it was.

I saw it in the theater and I had forgotten how bad it was.

Yes, I saw it.

I saw this in the theater.

What are you talking about?

I was invited to a premiere of it in New York City, and I saw it in the theater, and I remember going, like, was that an event?

Was that a Scientology event?

Robert, we just had a bunch of great people got together and we just saw a movie.

But I mean, were they, I'm asking you, were they all Scientologists?

I don't know.

Hey, look, I don't know who they are.

We just have a great time, and we took some stress tests out there.

It sounds like you're covering up for the fact that they were all Scientologists.

You mentioned a stress test.

We took a stress test.

I was really stressed out.

And I went in there not liking the movie.

And then after I left, I loved it.

I thought it was great.

So you saw this in the theater with a crowded room full of people?

Yes.

How was it received?

Poorly.

Yeah.

Yeah, like very poorly.

I don't fall asleep in movies.

And I do remember falling asleep in the 25-minute long ending scene, which is like a bad version of the Star Wars trench fight scene.

Terrible.

Really, really terrible.

Well, go watch this on Netflix Instant.

It's two hours of your life that you'll never get back, but it's worth it for watching the curtain reveals, which is also, did we talk about the curtains?

That curtains actually come in, so at the end of the movie, curtains close?

And then credits go in.

I love it.

I didn't get it that far.

Curtains close.

Like, oh, you're done watching this stage play.

Stage play, little one.

The small little stage play.

Roll credits.

Oh, man.

Well, that has been How Did This Get Made, Battlefield Earth?

Thank you so much for listening.

Big thanks to our engineer, Doug.

You can follow the majority of us on Twitter.

I'm at Paul Scheer, at Rob Hubel, at Miss June Diane.

Jason is not on Twitter, but don't do it.

I don't know.

Don't do it.

Do you want to plug anything?

Not really.

Okay, great.

Check us next Monday for the next mini-episode.

Thanks so much.

Bye-bye.

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