[...]
If you run into a Scientologist today, don't do the usual thing of crossing the road/city/country to avoid them. Instead, look sympathetically on them, maybe even give them a hug of consolation, for we think there may be some mourning happening among the followers of L. Ron Hubbard. The first reviews are in for the multi-multi-million-dollar film based on one of L. Ron's off-the-planet science-fiction yarns (and no, we don't mean Dianetics), Battlefield Earth, and they don't make for pretty reading. The film is a pet project of L. Ron's second best-known follower (after Our Tom Cruise), John Travolta (pictured) who also stars in it. The Washington Post (whose rival city newspaper is owned by another religious oddity, the Moonies) began its review of Battlefield Earth thus: "A million monkeys with a million crayons would be hard-pressed in a million years to create anything as cretinous as Battlefield Earth. This film version of L. Ron Hubbbard's futuristic novel is so breathtakingly awful in concept and execution, it wouldn't tax the smarts of a troglodyte. And when it comes to star John Travolta's performance, well, hammy William Shatner's hairpiece is more convincing." Ouch.
[...]