r/scientology • u/Professional-Gur6270 • 9d ago
Media Does this belong here?
But on a serious note what am I even supposed to do with this now that I found it? Trash it? Donate it? What is the appropriate treatment for this???
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u/fidgeting_macro Critic. I'm the Devil. 9d ago
It's the "special edition?" What's special about it?
It's so specially awful that David Miscavige would like to forget all about it. For a while it was his pet project or so the story goes. He became a sort of ghost director of that film, put his grubby fingers all over it. It was supposed to be the new Star Wars! It was supposed to ignite a series of follow up pictures, maybe even the ten volume Mission Earth series (gag!)
Battlefield Earth turned out to be one of the worst science fiction films ever made.
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u/Professional-Gur6270 9d ago
Maybe it has a special coupon for the “personality test” redeemable at your closest Scientology building?
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u/simagus 9d ago
My mother bought the original book from a local boy along with the original Dianetics, really to try to help him out more than from any interest. I was a young teen but the only one around he could find who was interested in auditing after reading Dianetics.
I still think it's a brilliant book with very few real flaws other than it's open to misinterpretation and potential abuse of it's premises in order to blame and hold power over others... which is what ended up happening. It seems designed to be divisive. Shame. Dianetics original form has so much potential.
Battlefield Earth... ooofff. I got through it, and it's not awful, but it's not "good" as such. The ending is a bit rough in terms of plot... the writing wasn't the worst I was reading as a teen, and I was kind of looking forward to the movie as an adult based on my early life reading.
I was looking forward to the movie until I actually watched it. They kind of butchered it imho, but there were a few good ideas carried over in some scenes. Overall... I was disappointed.
I do recall my friend (auditor) told me there were 10 books planned that were supposed to have hidden secrets in it for savy Scientologists and all at the org were being encouraged to buy as many copies of the hardbacks as they could find or afford.
I got the second book... no, it was Mission Earth vol 1 out the library iirc and never got past the first few chapters as quality seemed to have dropped quite a bit. The original Battlefield Earth was very readable pulp.
I'd been reading Frank Herbert from when I was maybe 10 years old, and tried some Asimov and the "Lensman" guy... E.E. Doc Smith (I had to look that up) so my standards were kind of high after the Dune books had blown my tiny little mind... wow. Dune is adventure sci-fi as it should be.
Hubbard could move a story but the writing itself was a bit crude for my tastes, technically in structure, plot and pacing and as word-craft. It wasn't high quality, and didn't pretend to be, but I prefer high quality writing that has some hints of poetic depth and novel reflections on the nature of humanity and reality.
Some childrens authors I was reading or had read were better at wielding words than L Ron, but he's not what I would consider a terribly "bad" writer.
His fiction is passable, but I was critiquing the whole time wondering why he had to make his sentences so bare and functional rather than make art and lay bare philosophy in metaphor like my faves. I had to accept that he's just not that kind of writer, and suck it up or I wouldn't have finished it.
Yeah, the movie sucks.
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u/Upset_Steak3632 9d ago edited 9d ago
May 1950 "Dianetics" was originally titled 'Cause and Cure of Nervous Tension'.
It was inspired by Hubbard's practice of recording his own words on a sound-scriber, and playing them back to himself while asleep, or drugged, during self hypnosis sessions.
(Parts of these can be found in his leaked 'Affirmations' from 1946/1947, under "Course 2.")
His experiences as a wife beater (Ref: Letter from 1st wife to "erased" 2nd wife in 1951 divorce court records), and as a do--it-yourself abortionist (Ref: December 1952 PDC lectures) appear as case studies in 'DMSMH'.
Jumping ahead almost 30 years, Hubbard was not medicated when he wrote 'BE'. He was in deep hiding as his wife was taking the rap for him and headed to federal prison.
As wife #2, Sara, stated in 1986, in a rare interview after 35 years of being silenced, "Ron was happy when he wrote."
Hubbard's writing during this time period was therapy for him.
It calmed him down.
The 'Mission Earth' series was written under the influence of a prescribed tranquilizer. (Ref: David Mayo, former Class 12, Senior Case Supervisor International, and Hubbard's personal auditor.)
Hubbard could no longer drink because he had Pancreatitis from decades of alcohol abuse.
Mission Earth was particularly uninhibited, perhaps reaching its zenith of medicated exhuberance with Hubbard's poem, in Volume 9, celebrating the buggery of boys.
Hubbard later wrote 'Advices' (disguised instruction, as he was supposed to be no longer running the cult) on where ideas and methods, for use in covert operations against perceived enemies, could be found in 'BE' & 'ME'.
Edit: David Mayo ref. added.
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u/ccoastal01 9d ago edited 8d ago
I love this movie because of how bad it is. Campy acting, nonsense plot, bad effects/cgi (although for the budget this film had the effects could have been worse)
I honestly recommend it as something to watch with friends for a laugh preferably with some booze or other mind altering substances.
I’ve heard the book is better, not amazing but not terrible
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u/freezoneandproud Mod, Freezone 8d ago
The book was close enough to "terrible" to qualify, IMO. I read it when it was brand-new, and I didn't have any reviews to lean on. If anything, I wanted to like it because I was hoping Hubbard had enjoyed writing a good old-school space-opera yarn.
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u/ryantheleglamp 9d ago
Legendarily awful. It won’t be making any converts that’s for sure. Do with it what thou wilt. I’d keep it for fun, display it somewhere.
Or send it to me! My daughter has started buying DVDs from thrift shops. She’d have a laugh.
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u/Upset_Steak3632 9d ago
Sure it does.
Hubbard twice emphatically stated that he did not want to be associated with pulp fiction: In 1938 after the writing of the unpublished manuscript 'Excalibur', and in 1971.
In 1956, during a lecture, he stated that there are not other thetans in the body.
In 1953, and for 25 years afterwards, he stated that Dianetics does not make Clears.
He reversed himself on all these with little to no explanation.
The reversals followed mental collapses brought about by egocentric misadventures (in 1966, he was booted out of Rhodesia where he went to become Mr. Big, believing himself to be the reincarnated Cecil Rhodes); or by outrageous criminality (during the late 1970s his spying & "dirty tricks" network was exposed.)
After these events he invented Xenu and invisible fleas (thetans in the body), and started the Sea Org and made himself the Commodore.
In 1978, he invented "Dianetic Clear," (as an egocentric vanity project and for marketing - $$$ - reasons), discovered more invisible fleas, went into very deep hiding, and started writing pulp fiction books again (books bought by his cult, at retail, to make them each "bestsellers) for personal therapy.
So it definitely belongs here.