8. John Travolta - Battlefield Earth
Is John Travolta that hate-able in Battlefield Earth that you forget about Pulp Fiction? Probably not. Is John Travolta still pretty hate-able in Battlefield Earth? Yes. Did Battlefield Earth kick-start an awful fifteen year spell of films that make it really difficult to remember how good JT was in Pulp Fiction, especially when you consider that that film (PF) was over twenty years ago and maybe Quentin Tarantino fluked one out of Danny Zuko and Tony Manero? Yes. (As a side-note, is John Travolta also one of the weirdest men alive? I digress.) These questions are vital to the John Travolta conundrum, and, if you go the route I have in posing them, it becomes acceptable to hate John Travolta, even if your best instincts tell you otherwise. Alas, though, Battlefield Earth, a disastrous production in every sense possible, is a more prominent John Travolta performance than his Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction, not for the role perse, but in what it stands for, and what it brought on. A couple more truly great Travolta performances on his CV might've saved him from this fate, but it's time to stop forgiving actors for decades of awfulness because they were fleetingly good in the past.