Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 is exact kind of film that’s benefited by a drinking game. A visually repulsive, verbally repetitive sci-fi box office bomb, it’s a movie that plays best with a rowdy crowd at the end of a drunken night. The film’s overlong, mindless action gets to be a bore without a talkative midnight movie crew to fill in the empty space, but every moment John Travolta’s hideous mouth is moving is a blessing. One not-Travolta character notes early in the film, “They told me this planet was ugly, but this has got to be one of the ugliest crapholes in the universe.” The movie itself is undeniably one of the ugliest crapholes in the universe, sharing a similar Burning-Man-in-space vibe with its temporal peer Ghosts of Mars, but that’s only part of the draw for camp-hungry audiences. It’s the absurd repetition of nonsensical, pseudo futuristic buzzwords that make the film a fun watch and a great candidate for a drinking game.

The Three Drinking Prompts

1. Drink every time a character says “leverage”. Leverage is more or less the theme of the film, so I honestly expected this one prompt to be more than enough. It turns out, however, that a lot of the “leverage” in Battlefield Earth is visually represented and it takes a little while before the verbal “leverage”s start popping up. Just so you don’t get bored (or worse yet, sober!) before the leverage ball gets rolling, you’re going to need a couple more prompts.

2. Drink every time a character says “man-animal”. Despite my expectations, this prompt is twice as effective as “leverage”, racking up over two dozen instances in just two hours. Of all the inane, repetitive phrases in the film, “man-animal” is both the most inane and the most repetitive, which is no small feat. So, be careful with this one, ya lowly man-animals.

3. Choose your own prompt. Abiding by the Rule of Three, it would feel wrong to not provide players a final prompt, but there’s just so much empty, pseudo futuristic jargon to choose from that I’m going to leave the choice up to you. So choose your third prompt from this list of Battlefield Earth-approved gibberish: “kerbango”, “demon”, “Greener”, “Psychlo”, “Clinko”, “cycles”, “credits”, “pictocameras”, “crap”, “knowledge machines”, “rat-brain”, “planetship”, “mine the gold”, “breath gas”, “gas drone”, “piece of cake”, and “blow the dome”. All terms listed should be more or less effective, but if I had to make a recommendation I’d go with “rat-brain”. It just pairs so well with “man-animal” . . . and cheap beer.

A Warning: Choosing to make your third prompt either unnecessary Dutch camera angles or unnecessary barn door camera wipes may result in alcohol poisoning. There’s just too many of both for it to be a healthy choice.

As always, play safe, ya rat-brained man-animals! And go get yourselves some leverage.

-Brandon Ledet