Believe it or not, John Travolta's career-wrecking bomb of a movie is actually better than this book. What makes the movie better is that they cut out most of the dumber plot elements (90% of the book's 1000 pages). I kept reading this book thinking that there must be something in it worth reading, because it has sold millions of copies. Turns out there isn't. Most of the story is just plain stupid. It insults the intelligence of anyone who reads it. It is honestly very difficult to explain just how terrible this book is to anyone who hasn't read it. There are just too many long rambling chapters that expect you to accept ludicrous and poorly written events and characters. For example: bad guys who are made up of colonies of intelligent bacteria, who are lead by a royal caste of former circus performers and who explode in the presence of radiation. After their defeat we are introduced to a shark-headed banker alien who likes to chew mint, which he picks from an old lady's garden in England somewhere. Anyways, you're expected to believe a primitive human from Colorado acquires all the knowledge of the bacteria-people (with their help no less), teams up with a group of Scotsmen and leads a massive and very boring rebellion against a race that has conquered dozens of galaxies. Then the humans of course win and acquire the bacteria-people's assets and become really really wealthy. Wondering why this wasn't in the movie? Because it's stupid that's why, but it really is the plot. Don't believe me? Really bored? Try reading this and be thankful it's the abridged version, the full one is worse.
I've never read B:E, nor will I ever. I did go see the movie, dragging friends along for what I knew was going to be a really awful experience. But then, I actually like bad movies -- it's so bad it's good kind of movies. While some of my friends merely groaned and squirmed, wishing for the pain to end, I laughed mirthfully at the ridiculous plot, characters, costumes, events, and special effects. It was awful. It was wonderful.
Speaking of Mr. Hubbard, Salon has been running some interesting articles on him, Tom Cruise, and Scientology:
Stranger than fiction -- A Review of Dianetics
Missionary Man -- Tom Cruise and Scientology
The Press vs. Scientology -- A look at the relationship between CoS and the Press
Scientology's War on Psychiatry -- self-explanatory
No comments:
Post a Comment