Dateline: 5/11/00

Battlefield Earth opens in the year 3000, when the overpopulation problem has been solved by an alien race called the Psychlos. Unfortunately, this was not a benevolent act. The Psychlos arrived 1000 years earlier and conquered the human race using poisonous gas. The only humans left either live in hidden colonies out of the aliens' reach, or serve the monsters as slaves. Over this time period, mankind has lost their history and is near extinction.

Tired of waiting for outside intervention, young Johnnie Goodboy Tyler leaves his tribe of free humans in the Rocky Mountains in order to find a new home for his people, with better conditions and more food. He quickly learns the danger of leaving home as he is caught by a Psychlo patrol and enslaved in their base camp on Earth.

John Travolta manhandles Barry Pepper as Forrest Whitaker looks on.

Once at the camp, Tyler has several run ins with the Psychlo's head security officer, the spectacularly evil Terl. Terl and his assistant, Ker, have discovered a gold deposit in the Rocky mountains and decide to secretly mine the gold for themselves. To this end, they train a group of humans, which they call "man-animals" to mine the gold. Terl selects Tyler to be the one man-animal educated in the way of the Psychlos to serve as a go between. With his added knowledge, Tyler plots a way to free humanity from the aliens' grasp.

To trace the origins of this film, you must go back to the early 80's, when John Travolta was on top of the world. The young actor had just starred in Saturday Night Fever, Grease, and Blow Out. Everyone wanted him to star in their films. Around this time, Travolta read "Battlefield Earth", an epic science fiction novel by the controversial author and founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard. His interest was piqued.

"In '82 I read it, and I actually was attracted to play the hero in it at the time," explained Travolta. "The first thing that I loved is that Hubbard wrote these short chapters that kept making me want to read more, and I thought that was clever. I found myself not being able to put it down, but it wasn't just because of the short chapters it was because it was an interesting read." However, many years would pass before the book would appear on screen.

Now that Travolta's career is once again on an upswing, he decided to turn "Battlefield" into a film. "I thought that, if one day, I like to change genres as much as I can, if I ever did a science fiction movie, it would have to be this one. But the special effects had to catch up, and I think as you can see, they have. The special effects in this movie were awesome, and seamless, which is what I was going for."

One issue that couldn't be solved by the effects was the fact that Travolta had aged too much to play the part of Tyler, a 19-year old in the book. Instead, this role went to Barry Pepper. The Canadian actor, who played the scripture-quoting sniper in Saving Private Ryan, and a young prison guard in The Green Mile, was thrilled to be working with Travolta. "I grew up watching every movie he ever did; huge fan. It's a little overwhelming. He puts everyone at ease; he makes you feel like you are just part of the family immediately."

To take on the role, Pepper had to prepare for onscreen acrobatics and alien abuse. "I trained for about a month and a half prior to filming. When I got out to Montreal, I worked on the high wire harness rigs that sort of propel you forward through the air when you get blasted by an alien laser. I did a lot of horse work. The horses in the film were really high-spirited Andalusian stallions. There were a lot of things to prepare for."

Not Forrest Whitaker's best look.

Forrest Whitaker, who plays Ker, also tolerated some discomfort, but for different reasons. In order to become a nine-foot tall alien, he had to do time in the makeup chair. "It took at first, three hours; for John, maybe four. Ultimately, mine got shortened down to an hour because I talked to [makeup] and they were like, 'Take this part off, and just Velcro it back on.' The first time I took that head off, and John hadn't figured out how to do that yet, he saw me take that part off…" Whitaker, stopped, laughing at the memory. The alien shoes designed to make them stand at nine feet were not as amusing. "Those were really painful at first. When we first went in, John and I would walk around in them trying to figure them out. In the effects, it was still kind of a low-budget sci-fi movie. So, the shoes themselves are just wood and tennis shoes. It's not a high tech movie in that respect," he admitted.Certainly, for a special effects film of this scope, the funds available for Battlefield Earth were relatively small. "The final budget was about $50 [million], director Roger Christian testified. No stranger to science fiction films, Christian was nominated for an Oscar for Art/Set Decoration for the 1980 film Alien, and won the same award for his work in Star Wars in 1978. "It could only be brought off by a really cohesive effort on the part of everybody."

As to why he felt the budget was undersized, Christian explained, "Several studios were kind of involved. I think there's always a slight reticence in that Travolta was going to play an alien. All the questions I got were, 'You won't be able to see him, you won't be able to recognize him? You've got the biggest star on the planet and you won't be able to see him?' I kept saying, 'Yes you will. He will be Travolta. Why would one ever want to hide it?' Elie Samaha came in and said, 'I'll give you the money to make it, but you've got this limited budget. Can you do it?' I was hired at that point and said, 'Yes we can do it. We did it on Star Wars, we can do it on this.'" Christian even savored the challenge, "It gives you an enormous amount of freedom because we had no studio pressure, it was just John and I. In the end, the creativity on the film lies at John's and my doorstep, you can't blame anyone for this cut or that cut."

John Travolta and Barry Pepper

Arguably, most viewers will be more likely to credit or blame Travolta for the quality of Battlefield. After all, it is being called "his" film. "Whenever you choose to star in a movie and then take on the responsibility of the producer, I think that's probably par for the course," said the $20 million star. "Even movies that I was only in for a little bit they were calling mine, which they probably shouldn't have. Like Thin Red Line, I had one four-minute scene, and I had to tell them not to call it my movie. In this case, I really do star in it, and I really am producing it, so I think, honestly, it is my movie."

Another term the press is using for Battlefield Earth is "The Scientology Movie" because of Travolta's faith, and the fact that the story's creator, L. Ron Hubbard, also founded the Scientology movement. "There's no correlation at all to Scientology," defended a smiling Travolta. "Even in the preface of the book, [Hubbard] makes it very clear that this is science fiction work. As you know, he had eleven consecutive science fiction bestsellers in the New York Times in the 80s. Hither to that, he was probably longer known as a science fiction writer. It used to be, when I brought up the philosophy [people said], 'Wasn't he a science fiction writer?' It depends on what angle someone wants to look at it."

Extreme opponents of the film have even called it a Scientology recruitment tool, claiming that subliminal messages were inserted in the movie. Christian puts his own spin on it, "I'm basically a Buddhist. I'm at the helm of this thing and I'm not a Scientologist, so if anyone has to accuse the movie of being something, it should be what my religion is. Travolta said something to me when I started this, he said that there are going to be so many detractors with egg on their face when they see this movie because it's nothing but summer fun. It's pulp fiction in the year 3000 and that's all it is."

Barry Pepper stars as Johnnie Goodboy Tyler.

Even Pepper, who didn't even read the book until he had the lead role, has had to defend the film. "I think if you're an intelligent adult you are going to realize that the book is written by L. Ron Hubbard, and that, like anyone else involved in the film, it would be difficult not to bring your own philosophy to the table." Pepper paused to emphasize, "I feel very drawn to my beliefs as a Christian, Roger is a Buddhist, the producers are Jewish, and John is a Scientologist. I think that if you were to remove the name Scientology from this controversy and replace it with the word Jewish or Catholic or Christian, you'd be dealing with a very hateful and spiteful rumor that, probably, people wouldn't stand for."

When asked for his two cents, Whitaker shook his head and said, "Because people have asked me questions, I've had to examine it a little bit. I respect the notion because this sci-fi writer created this religion, I accept that it's only natural for you to say, 'How does that relate to this?' I'm not one of those people who doesn't take responsibility for his work. If I'm going to do something that's going to hurt humanity, I'd like to think I've thought about it. I don't care. I'm okay either way!" he said, throwing his arms up in exasperation.

Clearly on a roll, the actor added, "You can analyze it and look at all of these allegories, like, 'Are they representative of corporate America?' 'Does greed destroy all?' If you look at it, almost every sci-fi movie has the same premise." He gave a tongue-in-cheek example, "Alien bees are coming down, and they're coming to eat up all of our…pollen. Stop them! Stop them, before they eat it all!" At this, he had the whole room laughing.

Seriously, the motivation for everyone involved on Battlefield Earth came down to one thing - having fun. "The props are a lot of fun to work with because you're dealing with a lot of these household items that have been sort of readjusted and rebuilt as detonator devices or gold sweeping reactors," recalled Pepper. "When the cameras weren't rolling, John and I were on the floor laughing at the situation we were in. He's this nine foot tall creature, and I'm this mountain savage in the year 3000 AD so, we had a lot of fun. It's a popcorn crunching, jujube throwing' action adventure science fiction epic. You can't have more fun than that," he enthused.

It was that spirit that attracted Whitaker, to making Battlefield Earth with his Phenomenon co-star. "I thought it would be fun. It's the kind of thing I had never done as an actor; it was a way to test new ground. Also a way to have a lot of fun because there were no rules." Unencumbered by a dialect coach, he was able to make some odd choices, "You can't do anything wrong. If I start chortling in some weird 'tweetle' sound, you say, 'Whoa, that's a Psychlo chortling tweetle sound!' It's kind of freeing that way. You still get nervous about your choices, you wonder if people will believe it, if it's going to work."

Travolta has more faith that audiences will catch on to the fun in Battlefield. "Every great story has things that I think are left open to interpretation, but this is a classic 'good vs. evil' story." As to his labor of love, "It's been pretty personal because, to be completely honest it's very difficult for any artist to get what they want to have done. Interestingly enough, it was easier to get a genre like science fiction on the screen than it was a musical. I've been trying for twenty years to get a musical to go up. No one gets it, and yet that's one of my most successful genres."

There is no paucity of roles out there for the actor in the meantime, and he shared his philosophy. "Since Pulp Fiction, I search for things to do. Some things I find, some things I don't. When I just hang around for six months, something falls in my lap that I haven't played before. I would have never anticipated playing the president, or a lawyer, or an angel, or a hit man or Terl. It seems like if I wait, some gems come my way."