Spaceballs

PLOT:

Planet Spaceball, led by President Skroob (Mel Brooks), has wasted all of its air and, desperate to find more, plans the extraction of all the air from planet Druidia. They plan to kidnap the Druish Princess Vespa (Daphne Zuniga), who is about to marry the narcoleptic Prince Valium (Jim J. Bullock). Resenting this marriage, Vespa runs off from the altar with her Droid of Honor, Dot Matrix (voiced by Joan Rivers and played by mime/dancer Lorene Yarnell), and escapes into space, where she is attacked by the Spaceballs under the command of Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis).

Vespa’s father, King Roland (Dick Van Patten), hires Captain Lone Starr (Bill Pullman) and his mawg(half-man, half dog) sidekick Barf (short for Barfolemew; John Candy) who are desperate for money to pay back their debts to the Mafioso Pizza the Hutt (Dom DeLuise), to rescue his daughter. They manage to rescue her by literally “jamming” a radar hub (a jar of raspberry jam is hurled into it) and then escaping by entering light speed, to which the enemy ship Spaceball One then pursues by going to “ludicrous speed” (“They’ve gone to plaid!”). Upon exiting hyperspeed, the heroes realize they have run out of fuel and crash-land on the desert planet Vega. There, they meet Yogurt (Mel Brooks), who introduces Lone Starr to The Schwartzand the audience to the film’s merchandising (which is prevalent throughout the film henceforth). However, the Spaceballs, having discovered their location by using an “instant cassette” of the movie, trick Vespa and capture her again, taking her to their capital city. Lone Starr and Barf rescue the Princess again, but not before the Spaceballs have succeeded in forcing King Roland to reveal the entry code to Druidia’s atmosphere (12345), leading Dark Helmet to exclaim “That’s the stupidest combination I ever heard in my life! It’s the kind of thing an idiotwould have on his luggage!”; President Skroob walks in some time later, and after being told that they’ve obtained the combination, asking what it is, and then being told what it is, then exclaims “12345?! That’s amazing. I got the same combination on my luggage!”).

Spaceball One, upon arriving at Planet Druidia, then transforms into Mega Maidwith a vacuum cleaner, which starts to extract the air from the planet. Lone Starr uses his Schwartz ring to reverse the procedure, and sneaks through an ear to the central brain area of the ship to activate the self-destruct button, attempting to use a Vulcan neck pinch on an unsuspecting guard (who then corrects him and knocks himself out). As he is about to press the button, Dark Helmet appears and challenges him to fight. They proceed to duel using lightsaber-like weapons emanating from their Schwartz rings, (accidentally killing a cameraman in the process) until Dark Helmet tricks Lone Starr into losing his ring. Yogurt then speaks to Lone Starr, convincing him he doesn’t need the ring to use the Schwartz. Using this advice, Lone Starr summons a mirror to reflect Dark’s attack and inadvertently press the self-destruct button, causing chaos aboard the ship as Mega Maidcounts down to self-destruction. The heroes then escape as Dark Helmet, President Skroob and Col. Sandurz look on in horror . (Mega Maid’s head, its hand, and the handle of the giant vacuum—which resemble parts of the Statue of Liberty—then crash-land on a neighboring planet à la Planet of the Apes, much to the horror of its residents.

Lone Starr returns the Princess to Druidia and (since his creditor Pizza the Hutt, while locked in his car, ate himself to death) leaves without taking the agreed payment of one million spacebucks (though he takes 248 spacebucks for lunch, gas, and tolls). After disgustedly leaving a space café after an alien bursts from the stomach of a customer who orders the “special” (played by John Hurt, whose character suffers the same fate in Alien – he looks at the alien and mutters “Oh, no. Not again!”) and then imitates Michigan J. Frog, he offers a snack to Barf who is still hungry. Barf opens a fortune cookie originally given to Lone Starr by Yogurt to discover that he is a “soitified [(certified)] Prince”, and then returns in time to interrupt the marriage to marry Vespa.

REVIEW:

As a huge fan of the Star Wars franchise, I had my doubts about how the holy trilogy would be treated when this film came out, especialy after I heard about  a character called Pizza the Hutt. Of course, this is a Mel Brooks picture, so I shouldn’t really be surprised that there was nothing to worry about.

Brooks spoofs all types of sci-fi films, but its obvious the main parodoxical material is the holy trilogy.

Lone Starr, played by Bill Pullman, is a mixture of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, with more emphasis on Han. Lone Starr has all the heroic traits of both Luke and Han, and a few of the latter’s faults.

John Candy is Barf, a mawg who is obviously based on Chewbacca. Candy is in top form here. I don’t need to say anymore. The man was a genius.

Rick Moranis is Dark Helmet. If you can’t tell this is a parody on Darth Vader, then…well, I don’t know what to tell you. As with most Moranis roles, he is still the nerdy guy, but this time he’s an evil nerdy guy with power and a big helmet.

Mel Brooks does double duty as Presidet Skroob and Yogurt. I’m not sure, but Skroob fits the role of the Emperor, even if he doesn’t seem to be a parody of him. Have you noticed that Skroob is Brooks mixed up? Yogurt is Brooks’ parody of Yoda who is as wise and powerful as Yoda, but also into selling merchandising and has a bit of the Wizard of Oz in him, at least it looks that way with his first appearance.

Daphne Zuniga’s character of Princess Vespa is a blatant attempt to parody Princess Leia. There is even a scene where it appears she has the bun hairstyle over her ears, but they turn out to be headphones. She is accompanied by Dot Matrix, a C-3PO rip off voiced by Joan Rivers. I don’t think there are any other characters that look as much like their source character than Dot, except maybe Dark Helmet.

Parodies are hit and miss, as we’ve seen in recent years with almost every parody film starting with Scary Movie 3. This film suffers from some bad acting, though. I know they weren’t trying to win any awards with this thing, but the acting is so bad in scenes that I bet a 3rd grade class doing a class play would do better. Yes, its that bad, but it can be overlooked with all the other great aspects of this film. I know its hard to find a good spoof/parody these days, so why not take a step back in time and enjoy this one?

5 out of 5 stars