Spaceballs

The 1987 parody film, Spaceballs came out four years after the original Star Wars trilogy concluded, with an obvious intention to delightfully mock and pick apart the famous franchise in way that only the famous Mel Brooks could do, with respect and intelligence, but also with a bucket load of silliness and satire. While it didn’t do well originally (it was probably done a little too close to the original thing and people weren’t ready to spoof what they still saw as sacred material), it has over the years grown a cult following and is seen as one of Brook’s most successful films. Set in a Galaxy very, very, very far away, Princess Vespa (played by Daphne Zuniga) is planned to be married off but escapes this fate and her home planet with her droid in waiting, Dot Matrix (voiced by Joan Rivers). While that is going on, the lord of the universe, Dark Helmet (played by Rick Moranis) leads a race of people known as Spaceballs and kidnaps the princess in order to use her for ransom, so that his ultimate goal, which is shared with his enforcer, corrupt President Skroob (played by Mel Brooks), of sucking the fresh air out of a planet can be fulfilled. She is forced to be saved by Lone Starr (played by Bill Pullman), a space bounty hunter and his co-pilot, a half man half dog creature named Barf (played by John Candy), who originally do so to receive their own bounty. Forced together through circumstance and after Lone Starr and Vespa grow attracted to one another, the group set out to find a being known as Yogurt (also played by Brooks), who has the ability to teach them the legendary power of ‘’the Schwartz’’ as Dark Helmet trails behind them. With what could have been an easy cash-grab spoof of an extreme pop culture phenomenon, Spaceballs managed to create its own identity almost instantly with not only how well it incorporates the elements of Stars Wars into its own being, but also its ability to reference other famous fantasy sci fi stories and combine them all into an entertaining, brilliantly composed, hilariously stupid comedy.

The story for this film does on the surface just feel like a limited rewrite of the Star Wars trilogy just in bullet point format (which in basic terms, it is), but it fully embraces that it’s a comedy and that it can get away with practically anything as long as it’s smart with how to use the reference and when to evolve it to the next level. Mel Brooks was always good at knowing how to mock something and balancing between subtler digs at bigger tropes and even production issues, to more overt references to character cliches and obvious film tropes, and this film is no different with its delivery. This movie does this mix a lot with its writing and its references; it will usually take that one step further on a moment or a line that is well-known but is still able to make this distractingly familiar scene work in their own messed-up universe. Even when it starts taking aspects from other notable fantasy and sci-fi stories like Star Trek, Alien, Wizard of Oz, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Planet of the Apes, etc. The movie feels pure Mel Brooks as his style of parody is infamous, became iconic for his past films like The Producers, Young Frankenstein, and Blazing Saddles, and has remained to this day as one of the kings of the parody film. The humor is referential, but mixes this quick pacing with over-the-top silliness, it can range from subtly brief, to overly in your face, but both seem to balance each other out just right whether it’s through visual gags, character choices, or the script constructed by Brooks, Ronny Graham, and Thomas Meehan. The downside is that while the humor is wonderful and the references aren’t obnoxious or feel too mean-spirited, the story for this movie whether intentional are not, is still a downgrade from his usual work and doesn’t quite reach the realms of genius satire that he’s previously been able to achieve. The movie spends so much focus on the jokes it’s saying that it doesn’t put in enough of a structure point for the movie to stand on. Other Mel Brooks movies are full of satire, but the narrative is still clear, matches the crazier tone, and the allusions and twists to a familiar story act as mocking jokes yet don’t deter from telling an actual story, while in this movie, even the plotline seems to be a joke and only exists to make fun of the genre, not exist as its own thing. Because Star Wars’ story is already a very run-of-the-mile fantasy story but just in space, there actually isn’t too much creative ways to make fun of it specifically like what was done with Brooks’ other films, and therefore it isn’t able to leave as strong an impression. This could have worked if more unique directions were taken with the narrative and it didn’t just feel like a sketch routine on top of a Star Wars plot, but the movie seems to consist more of memorable scenes than that of a put-together movie.

The characters are all obvious references to various familiar Star Wars roles, but none of them feel like exact rip-offs and they are acted and delivered in a different way that makes them stand out at least enough to not be blatant. The movie instead uses this pre-knowledgeable stance in order to get bigger laughs, with ideas like having the evil lord of the universe with the status and power of Darth Vader be a whiny childish screw up is just perfect and does what Brooks’ parody films do best with twisting the tale on its head without losing the purpose behind each of these roles, therefore resulting working in an entirely different way. All the actors are great in their roles and all of them know what kind of movie they’re in; they can have fun but not to the point where they don’t put in effort or feel like they are just coasting on something not worth effort. With the material they were given, it allowed them to know the exact kind of direction the movie wanted them to take, and they could do it a lot easier because it had something to base on. Bill Pullman works well as a Han Solo knock-off, John Candy as usual gives a very likeable performance, Joan Rivers gets a few laughs, and Rick Moranis is very good as the villain; the image and presence that he has is made even funnier knowing how non-threatening he really is as almost every scene with him, and the other villains are especially good. The other characters are great to watch too and are also very likeable, but they do suffer from the story’s lack of development as they are pushed into very standard roles. If the story structure was more interesting to level out the great humor this could have been a much greater movie.

The movie’s king and key factor is its humor and its writing. Its humor is perfectly delivered, written, and executed. It’s a parody so its humor is a lot more upfront and obvious compared to most other forms, but with that comes an ability to manipulate commonly known elements of a famous story and transform it into something unique, ironic, and of course funny. This movie captures that fine line between stupid and genius in a very-well blended humor. It can be tongue and cheek, but it’s never gross or insulting, it can have in-your-face movie references, but it also can break the fourth wall whenever it wants, it has plenty of fast-paced verbal comedy, but its physical comedy is very good and allows for some bizarre memorable visuals. Speaking of visuals, the movie was one of the most expensive movies that Mel Brooks ever made (with a budget of around $22.7 million) which would make sense given the visual marvel Star Wars became known for, so it would have to adopt at least something equivalent in order to make it work. This knowledge would’ve made it even harder to deal with when the movie didn’t make back most of its money right away. Through that though, the movie’s effects do impressively feel like they exist in the Star Wars universe, but with a different edge to them. While it can never capture the scale and importance the franchise has, the image of a gigantic mega-maid vacuuming up a planet’s air supply is the perfect visual to be the right amount of silly and intimidating, and the effects help with that. The costumes created by Donald Lee Fell also effectively capture the Star Wars universe’s odd fashion sense to a tea, even down to John Candy’s dog body set-up and the droid’s body and movements performed by Lorene Yarnell Jansson.

Spaceballs could have easily flopped, and a lot of people probably weren’t ready to laugh at something that they treasured so deeply at the time (not knowing that they would eventually grow used to mocking and jeering at said franchise later down the line, just not in a playful manner). A Star Wars parody after the release of the original trilogy which was held in such high regards would in no doubt feel like a completely different animal to those who would have loved the franchise, and anyone else would have been either confused or disappointed. But Mel Brooks has a talent to make these situations work and it turns out a pretty great funny movie. The film could have used a better narrative that wasn’t solely based around clichés and references as the comedy would have offset the movie even better, but the stuff that does work is very good. The actors are all wonderful, the effects are cool, the costumes are impressive, and it’s just all around funny. With time having past, Spaceballs is a fun movie about a faraway galaxy with a twist, check it out and experience the wonder of Star Wars in a whole new highly merchandisable way.