# Be honest: would you be more forgiving of Hubbard's work if Scientology didn't exist? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 16, 2006, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/be-honest-would-you-be-more-forgiving-of-hubbards-work-if-scientology-didnt-exist/340214 "2006-01-16T13:57:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![DeadlyAccurate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac91a4/32.png) [@DeadlyAccurate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeadlyAccurate)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2006, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/be-honest-would-you-be-more-forgiving-of-hubbards-work-if-scientology-didnt-exist/340214/41 "2006-01-17T16:37:26Z")
FTR, I’m getting Battlefield Earth in today from Netflix (it’s been at least 6 weeks since I’ve deliberately seen a bad movie). I don’t know if I should try this one sober, though. I don’t normally drink on weekdays (and very rarely drink on weekends, for that matter), but I’m not sure what would be best. So, should this one be taken with a Long Island Iced Tea? ---
**Author:** ![Cynical\_Optimist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Cynical\_Optimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cynical_Optimist)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2006, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/be-honest-would-you-be-more-forgiving-of-hubbards-work-if-scientology-didnt-exist/340214/42 "2006-01-17T16:43:40Z")
> [@DeadlyAccurate](#): > > FTR, I’m getting Battlefield Earth in today from Netflix (it’s been at least 6 weeks since I’ve deliberately seen a bad movie). I don’t know if I should try this one sober, though. I don’t normally drink on weekdays (and very rarely drink on weekends, for that matter), but I’m not sure what would be best. So, should this one be taken with a Long Island Iced Tea? Better yet, start out sober and down one shot of vodka every time the camera angle changes. You’ll pass out before the one hour mark. ---
**Author:** ![Cillasi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@Cillasi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cillasi)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2006, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/be-honest-would-you-be-more-forgiving-of-hubbards-work-if-scientology-didnt-exist/340214/43 "2006-01-17T17:00:29Z")
Hubbards Battlefield Earth and Mission Earth series are satires. If not read as such, they are indeed trashy. If read as satires, they are actually fairly decent. By all means, skip the movie - it’s not worth the time it takes to watch it - I was disappointed as I actually enjoyed the book when I read it years ago. You can’t make a “serious” movie out of a satire. Knowing Hubbard’s inclination toward satire, I read Dianetics and often wonder if we missed the point. ---
**Author:** ![DeadlyAccurate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac91a4/32.png) [@DeadlyAccurate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeadlyAccurate)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2006, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/be-honest-would-you-be-more-forgiving-of-hubbards-work-if-scientology-didnt-exist/340214/44 "2006-01-17T17:07:29Z")
Hm, well I really wasn’t looking at dying of alcohol poisoning. My tolerance for alcohol is quite low. From what I’ve read of **Cervaise’s** review, I don’t think I’d make it much beyond the credits. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2006, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/be-honest-would-you-be-more-forgiving-of-hubbards-work-if-scientology-didnt-exist/340214/45 "2006-01-17T17:21:01Z")
Funny how every time some director or writer gets savaged, someone will pop up and rally behind them with the old “It was a satire” defense. This only works if you consider “It was a satire” to be the same as the Twinkie Defense, ie diminished capacity. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2006, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/be-honest-would-you-be-more-forgiving-of-hubbards-work-if-scientology-didnt-exist/340214/46 "2006-01-17T17:48:00Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I “read” Battlefield Earth on audiocasette. …The whole ludicrous setup with working jets and training machines after millenia? Suspension of Disbelief ought not to be abused this way. > [@rjung](#): > > You don’t need a bias against Scientology to realize that having uneducated primitive humans flying millenia-old Harriers outshooting alien invaders (who earlier conquered the Earth in _nine minutes!_) is as implausible as having Michael Jackson star in a remake of “Sunset Boulevard.” > [@Scuba\_Ben](#): > > This isn’t entirely new for the movie; in the book, the low-tech Humans actually discover, and learn to fly, fully fueled / armed / operational fighter jets. No,no,no,no,no! Look, I’m not here to defend L Ron (although I did enjoy Battlefield Earth for what it was, what I call popcorn reading-light, devoid of substance, but somewhat enjoyable in spite of that), but that entire ludicrous, idiotic, monumentally stupid concept of the humans defeating the Psychlos with thousand year old jets that they discovered and learned how to use over the weekend is from the movie, not the book. In the book, Johnny was trained by Terl for over a year to use Psychlo equipment, and Johnny had almost another year to train the Scots (who were not that primative at all, they retained literacy, education and even ran a university in the caves they were forced to live in) on the same, using alien instruction machines that had the ability to transfer knowledge directly into the brain. Furthermore, those human aircraft that they did find were universarily declaired “junk”. Bash Hubbard for being a hack all you want, but at least make sure that you’re condemning him for what he did actually write, ok? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2006, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/be-honest-would-you-be-more-forgiving-of-hubbards-work-if-scientology-didnt-exist/340214/47 "2006-01-17T18:06:53Z")
> [@](#): > > In the book, Johnny was trained by Terl for over a year to use Psychlo equipment, and Johnny had almost another year to train the Scots (who were not that primative at all, they retained literacy, education and even ran a university in the caves they were forced to live in) on the same, using alien instruction machines that had the ability to transfer knowledge directly into the brain. Furthermore, those human aircraft that they did find were universarily declaired “junk”. Bash Hubbard for being a hack all you want, but at least make sure that you’re condemning him for what he did actually write, ok? I don’t see that much of a difference. Whether they trained for a weekend or a year, it’s still ludicrous. And they stiull used human flying equipment to fight with in the book IIRC. After a millenium it should’ve been rusted together inanimate junk. I ain’t buyin’ ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2006, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/be-honest-would-you-be-more-forgiving-of-hubbards-work-if-scientology-didnt-exist/340214/48 "2006-01-17T18:53:05Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I don’t see that much of a difference. Whether they trained for a weekend or a year, it’s still ludicrous. And they stiull used human flying equipment to fight with in the book IIRC. After a millenium it should’ve been rusted together inanimate junk. I ain’t buyin’ That’s my point. They DIDN’T use human airplanes. DID NOT. It never happened. You’re criticizing the man for a mistake he didn’t make. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2006, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/be-honest-would-you-be-more-forgiving-of-hubbards-work-if-scientology-didnt-exist/340214/49 "2006-01-17T18:54:49Z")
> [@](#): > > That’s my point. They DIDN’T use human airplanes. DID NOT. It never happened. You’re criticizing the man for a mistake he didn’t make. If so, my recollection’s off. But the rest of the stuff is more than enough to sink him. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2006, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/be-honest-would-you-be-more-forgiving-of-hubbards-work-if-scientology-didnt-exist/340214/50 "2006-01-17T20:04:38Z")
Actually, when I read Battlefield Earth, I was rather innocent of the whole idea of Scientology. My father had been noticably concerned when he saw I was reading a L. Ron Hubbard book, but just made sure it wasn’t obviously about Scientology, and let me go at it. I found it, over all, a rather poorly written and overlong bit of authorial self-indulgence. I’ve not been back to re-read it, since I have learned about Scientology. And I doubt I will. I certainly had no desire to read the rest of the books in the series that followed BE. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2006, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/be-honest-would-you-be-more-forgiving-of-hubbards-work-if-scientology-didnt-exist/340214/51 "2006-01-17T20:26:14Z")
> [@OtakuLoki](#): > > I’ve not been back to re-read it, since I have learned about Scientology. And I doubt I will. I certainly had no desire to read the rest of the books in the series that followed BE. I may be wrong but I think Battlefield Earth was a stand alone book. Mission Earth came after but I don’t think the books had anything to do with BE. Like I said earlier I couldn’t get through the first book in the series so I can’t remember. Also like I mentioned before I don’t think Mission Earth was actually written by Hubbard except maybe the first one. Maybe he outlined it and the church had it finished after he died. What are the chaces that someone wrote something like 10,000 pages of a 10 book series before deciding to publish any of them? ---
**Author:** ![AndrewL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@AndrewL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AndrewL)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2006, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/be-honest-would-you-be-more-forgiving-of-hubbards-work-if-scientology-didnt-exist/340214/52 "2006-01-17T21:14:17Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I don’t see that much of a difference. Whether they trained for a weekend or a year, it’s still ludicrous. And they stiull used human flying equipment to fight with in the book IIRC. After a millenium it should’ve been rusted together inanimate junk. I ain’t buyin’ Nope. No thousand-year-old yet still working aircraft in the book. That was an invention for the movie. They did find thousand-year-old still-working nuclear bombs, however, which is almost as stupid. ---
**Author:** ![DeadlyAccurate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac91a4/32.png) [@DeadlyAccurate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeadlyAccurate)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2006, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/be-honest-would-you-be-more-forgiving-of-hubbards-work-if-scientology-didnt-exist/340214/53 "2006-01-17T23:23:51Z")
Apparently Netflix is trying to save me from myself. I got an email today that said, “Battlefield Earth has been received.” So they’ve already received a movie from me that I never got to begin with and that had only shipped yesterday. I stuck it back on the top of my queue and complained to them that I got ripped off of a shipped movie. ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2006, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/be-honest-would-you-be-more-forgiving-of-hubbards-work-if-scientology-didnt-exist/340214/54 "2006-01-18T00:25:03Z")
What would anyone have to say about Hubbard, if Scientology didn’t exist? He wrote **Fear, Typewriter in the Sky, Ole Doc Methuselah, Slaves of Sleep** ; a handful of moderately well-regarded works, along with an assload of mediocre-to-dreadful material. Dozens of other writers of the time could claim as much. Compared to his other well-known SF peers, he was at best a competent craftsman whose highly irregular forays into memorable fiction were much too few and far between. Hubbard was bright enough to realize that he was never going to stand out on the merit of his writing quality alone. If he’d never created Scientology, by now his name would likely be known only to a bare few scholars of Golden Age pulp SF. I tend to doubt that his latter works ( **Battlefield Earth** , etc) would even have seen publication. As for whether I’d be more forgiving of his work, absent Scientology… I’d have to say: probably less so. I can’t imagine investing as much time wrestling with **Battlefield Earth** , without the darkly comedic knowledge that huge numbers of people considered the author to be more spiritually enlightened than Jesus. And even so, I don’t think I made it far past the revelation that the Psychlos are made entirely of viruses.…Or did I just dream that part? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/be-honest-would-you-be-more-forgiving-of-hubbards-work-if-scientology-didnt-exist/340214.md?page=2)