Battlefield Earth and scientology? huh?

[Pengwuino]

So this movie was just on Encore and i had seen it before but i decided to watch it again. Again, thoroughly bored and i can see why it's one of the worst movies ever. What did confuse me though is that my friend says its a propaganda piece for Scientology. I don't get it. I know who John Travolta "is" and all the controversy when it came out and everything outside of the movie... but the movie itself just seemed like a terrible piece of Hollywood filth like most other movies that seem to be coming out. What about the movie itself is suppose to scream "scientology"?? I asked a friend who is the self-proclaimed expert and she threw a bunch of links at me about what scientology is and how evil it is and what its doing... of course, that didn't answer my question at all and she eventually said she had never even seen the movie. So what about the actual movie is suppose to scream out scientology? at least nazi propaganda mentioned "Nazism" at some point...

Signed,
Clueless in Antarctica.

 

[Janus]

"Battlefield Earth" was originally a novel written by Ron L. Hubbard, the founder of Scientology(the only reason Travolta did the film). I'm not sure that there is any overt Scientology pushing in the novel, but you might find some parallel themes.

About the only real connection I do know of between the novel and Scientology is that the Church of Scientology allegedly bought up copies of the book to drive up sales in order to get it on the best sellers list.

 

[Pengwuino]

The movie! I know allllll about (as much as i care to know) l. ron cucumber or whoever and the book and the fact that the movies based off the book. However, when i saw the movie, it was just 2 hours of stupidity and some god awfully ugly elf-dude running aroun dlike a monkey... nothing that really sounded like a Scientology promotional piece.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

fnord

 

[OAQfirst]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlefield_Earth_(novel)#Scientology-related_themes

Scientology-related themes

During his lifetime, L. Ron Hubbard maintained an opposition to psychiatry, a viewpoint the novel reflects by portraying the Psychlos as being ruled by the Catrists (a word similar to psychiatrist), described as a group of evil charlatans. Those among the Psychlos who do not share the views of the Catrists or oppose them are subjected to various forms of persecution; particularly, the Catrists use surgical mind control in order to maintain their power base. Hubbard frequently claimed in Scientology that psychiatrists used such tactics to maintain their influence and funding. Early in its history, the Psychlo species had no fixed name, instead being named after the Emperor of the day. The word "Psychlo" is revealed to have originally meant "mental patient" in the alien language, signifying that the Catrists feel (or in any case claim) that the entire population requires treatment as mental patients. Scientology portrays modern society as being the battleground for a war between psychiatry and Scientology for the future of humanity.[13]

One supporting character, a Psychlo mathematician named Soth, is described as having been shaped by the views of his mother. She was a member of a resistance group, referred to as a "church," which held religious meetings secretly. This "church", much like Church of Scientology in the real world, opposes psychiatry.

In one passage of the book, a human doctor recalls a long-ago "cult" called psychology which existed before the Psychlo invasion, but is "forgotten now."

In December 1980, two months after he completed the book, Hubbard told fellow Scientologists that "I was a bit disgusted with the way the psychologists and brain surgeons mess people up so I wrote a fiction story based in part on the consequences that could occur if the shrinks continued to do it." [31]

Space opera tropes are common in Scientology doctrine. Scientology works describe intergalactic battles between alien races and a powerful galactic ruler known as Xenu. Hubbard went as far as to claim that the sub-genre of space opera was merely an unconscious recollection of real events from millions of years ago. [32] He described Earth to Scientologists as being a "prison planet" known as Teegeeack.[33]

 

[Janus]

The movie! I know allllll about (as much as i care to know) l. ron cucumber or whoever and the book and the fact that the movies based off the book. However, when i saw the movie, it was just 2 hours of stupidity and some god awfully ugly elf-dude running aroun dlike a monkey... nothing that really sounded like a Scientology promotional piece.

Well I wouldn't say that it was a promotional piece in the manner of overtly pushing the teaching of Scientology, but more along these lines:

They were betting that some of the people who saw the movie would like it enough to read the book, which in turn would lead them to reading other works by Hubbard, including "Dianetics", which in turn leads them to the Church of Scientology.

They were "fishing" for new converts. Luckily, they used rotten bait.