To me battlefield earth falls under the “so bad it begins to loop back around into Cheesey fun” category.
I especially love how what are essentially cave men find F16 fighter jets from the past and not only do the jets and old fuel work, but the cave men know how to start them and fly them effectively.
That’s right, Jesus. I haven’t watched that movie in like 20 years so I just took a shot in the dark at what jets were really popular at the time and we were flying the shit out of F16s during the Gulf War.
Harriers were fucking nightmares for the mechanics and avionics techs that worked them.
Didn’t the humans use the “learning machine” to teach themselves advanced knowledge? The same machine the alien overlords put Jonnie in to teach him their language?
The book is fucking terrible but it’s great pulp scifi. It’s obvious that by the time he wrote it nobody dared edit him, so there’s multiple parts of the book that repeat but worded slightly differently, and in general the plot etc just aren’t great and the whole thing is thinly veiled Scientology propaganda (“Psychlo catrists” – psychiatrists, ie. 'ol Ron’s worst enemy). But if you take it for the pulpy weird mess it is, it’s fun.
That’s what happened for me, I read the book as a teenager and didn’t know anything about Ron or scientology so when I read it, all I saw was a piece of scifi
I don’t know that I’d call it really good, but it made more sense. At least until they nuke the alien home world and the whole thing blows up because it’s hollow and filled with explosive gas for some reason.
Still, you can always tell illiterate motherfuckers when they trash talk a novelist, even a pulp novelist, based on a movie adaptation.
To me battlefield earth falls under the “so bad it begins to loop back around into Cheesey fun” category.
I especially love how what are essentially cave men find F16 fighter jets from the past and not only do the jets and old fuel work, but the cave men know how to start them and fly them effectively.
L Ron really outdid himself on that gem.
You should see what he saved for the non-fiction section.
Not even F16s, Harriers. Notoriously hard to fly and constantly breaking down.
That’s right, Jesus. I haven’t watched that movie in like 20 years so I just took a shot in the dark at what jets were really popular at the time and we were flying the shit out of F16s during the Gulf War.
Harriers were fucking nightmares for the mechanics and avionics techs that worked them.
It really was something.
Didn’t the humans use the “learning machine” to teach themselves advanced knowledge? The same machine the alien overlords put Jonnie in to teach him their language?
Sounds like you actually know. It’s been over 2 decades since I saw that movie, but I’m sure they handwaved it with something like that.
Ok but the book is actually really good though. It’s hilarious that they never explain how they learned how to fly and operate the machinery
The book is fucking terrible but it’s great pulp scifi. It’s obvious that by the time he wrote it nobody dared edit him, so there’s multiple parts of the book that repeat but worded slightly differently, and in general the plot etc just aren’t great and the whole thing is thinly veiled Scientology propaganda (“Psychlo catrists” – psychiatrists, ie. 'ol Ron’s worst enemy). But if you take it for the pulpy weird mess it is, it’s fun.
That’s what happened for me, I read the book as a teenager and didn’t know anything about Ron or scientology so when I read it, all I saw was a piece of scifi
I don’t know that I’d call it really good, but it made more sense. At least until they nuke the alien home world and the whole thing blows up because it’s hollow and filled with explosive gas for some reason.
Still, you can always tell illiterate motherfuckers when they trash talk a novelist, even a pulp novelist, based on a movie adaptation.