Revealing mistake: When Jonny is running away from Terl in the mall at the start of the film, he goes through several panes of glass, smashing through them. One of them breaks up before he hits it.
Battlefield Earth (2000)
1 revealing mistake
Directed by: Roger Christian
Starring: John Travolta, Forest Whitaker, Barry Pepper, Kim Coates
Factual error: Amongst the essential parts of a nuclear weapon's detonation mechanism is a radioactive isotope of tritium, which has a half life of just 12 1/2 years. The tritium in every nuke on earth has to be replaced every ten years or so. This is by no means unusual; there are other perishable parts including detonators made of conventional explosives which would be completely inert after a thousand years. After lying dormant with no maintenance at all for that amount of time the nuclear weapons the 'Man-animals' find would be big shiny paperweights and not much else.
Chrissy: What if he's not dead?
Parson Staffer: Hope is an admirable quality, but foolish isn't.
Trivia: John Travolta made the film with Franchise Pictures. A few years after the film, it was revealed in a court case that Franchise had fraudulently overstated the budget of Battlefield Earth by $21 million to scam investors. After losing the case, Franchise filed for bankruptcy, and Travolta fired his manager, who set up the deal with Franchise in the first place.
Question: Why are certain areas of the Earth irradiated? What happened?
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Chosen answer: It is residual radiation from atomic weapons used in an attempt to fight off the Psychlos.