The Screenwriter for Battlefield Earth Apologized for the Film

The Battlefield Earth movie, based on Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s book of the same name, has become infamous as one of the worst science fiction films ever made and even earned a Razzie as the Biggest Stinker of the First Decade of the 21st Century. J.D. Shapiro, who penned the original script, actually accepted the Razzie the year it won and also apologized for the movie. In addition to that, he gave us the rather interesting story of how he got attached to the film in the first place.

Shapiro, who had written the comedy film Robin Hood: Men in Tights in the early ’90s, did not get involved with the controversial Church of Scientology because of an interest in Dianetics or the church’s other dubious teachings. No, in a piece he wrote for the New York Post, he claims that he heard the church was a good place to… meet women! So he headed there with that as his primary goal.

But that did not quite pan out, and he ended up coming to the attention of the church’s president, who had liked his Robin Hood movie, ultimately getting him involved with the project to pen the script for Battlefield Earth. He wrote an initial screenplay for the film which he claims John Travolta loved and called “the Schindler’s List of sci-fi.” But this original draft was much different from the final version and did not include, as Shapiro says, “slow motion at every turn, Dutch tilts, campy dialogue, aliens in KISS boots, and everyone wearing Bob Marley wigs.” He says that after he turned in his first version of the script, he started to get notes back requesting changes, which he felt grew increasingly unacceptable.

These continued to pile up, leading to his refusal to make all of the requested changes, and he was relieved of his duties on the project. Allegedly, the alteration requests came from notes that the late L. Ron Hubbard himself had written for a potential film version of his novel. In any case, we all know how the movie ended up, and Shapiro even tried to have his name replaced in the credits with the pseudonym Sir Nick Knack, but this was denied. There’s no telling how the film would have turned out if they had stuck closer to Shapiro’s original script, but we know that the writer felt bad enough about his involvement to issue an apology and accept the Razzie.

Oh, and he never did hook up with any women at the Church of Scientology, which he distanced himself from after the project (though he had nothing bad to say about the church or its members).

Battlefield: Earth currently has pretty low scores at both IMDb.com (two and a half stars out of ten) and Rotten Tomatoes (3% Tomatometer Score based on critics’ reviews and 13% Popcornmeter based on audience feedback). Here are a few of the comments on the film from the latter site:

“The end result is a science-fiction saga so incoherent, so ugly and so pointless that you have to wonder why Warner Bros. is even bothering to distribute this embarrassment.” Leah Rozen, People Magazine

“It remains, genuinely, the worst film produced this century, as of 2020, and it is hard to imagine anything taking its crown any time soon.” Tony Black, Cultural Conversaton

“Plan 9, at least, was a protest against nuclear proliferation — what the hell is Battlefield Earth about?” Richard von Busack, MetroActive

If you dare to give the movie a chance, it is available on DVD and VOD (large quantities of alcohol or other mind-altering substances are recommended to get through it). Not surprisingly, it never received the Blu-ray or 4K UHD treatment.