The bad movie canon has a few undisputed classics, the universally panned “so bad they’re good” titles that fill out midnight screenings and keep internet riffers busy for generations. Competition for the all-time worst film is tough, and there are great arguments for many of the classics, like Reefer Madness, Manos: The Hands of Fate, and Mac and Me. But a clear frontrunner is the iconic atrocity that is Battlefield Earth. Twenty-five years after its release, it’s only grown in stature as one of the most abysmal yet entertaining films ever made. It was meant to be the next Star Wars. What we got was a bomb for the ages.
Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 was the first and likely last big-screen adaptation of a novel by L. Ron Hubbard, the wildly prolific sci-fi author best known as the founder of Scientology. The controversial church is infamous for its recruitment of celebrities like Travolta and Tom Cruise, and its aggressively polished PR campaigns have inspired pushback from governments around the world.
