1. The human race has been enslaved for a millennia by an alien race called the Psychlos and reduced to a few scattered tribes spread throughout the world. During this millennia, they’ve maintained their language and relative level of mental capacity (including the ability to read and write, although when presented with mathematics they are dumbfounded). From this apparently inherent knowledge comes the following oddities:

A) In the matter of a few days, the people of Earth can not only retrain themselves how to fly fighter jets using flight simulators, but pull off complicated maneuvers like hovering in the ruined remains of Earth’s former cities.

B) Although the Psychlos never learn the earthman language, when they train Johnny Goodboy Tyler (in a stunning performance by Barry Pepper) to speak their language, somehow the term Psychlo can be translated and is a part of the Earthman language, despite no one else ever having heard the term before.

2. The story itself seems wholly original, and at times confusing as I’ve never seen an epic of this proportion told before…no, no, wait. It’s just Moses freeing the slaves from Egypt. Got it.

3. John Travolta sucks ass. Literally. I heard it from my friends sister’s brother (who is apparently not my friends brother, see how that works?).

4. Point three can be further proven, albeit in a more figurative way, through the claim by John Travolta that the story Battlefield Earth was like “the Pulp Fiction of 3000”. Obviously it’s much more like the “Book of Exodus of 3000”, but the Book of Exodus just isn’t going to bring as many disaffected youths to the box office, now is it?

5. This is more a point of contention with the Academy, because you have to ask yourself after watching this film, where was Barry Pepper’s Oscar?

6. That Forrest Whittaker is still just like a great big teddy bear, even when he is nine feet tall and hairy. His believability as a monstrous villain just doesn’t work here. Besides, I keep thinking about his and Travolta’s last critical success, a little number called Phenomenon. Now that’s the kind of heartfelt filmmaking that I can really get behind.

7. Scientology is wack. Or is it whack?

8. Buffoonery, although already a credible word in the English language (I’m sorry, Earthman language), is not used even once during the entire film.