Spaceballs
| Spaceballs | |
|---|---|
| File:Spaceballs DVD cover.jpg | |
| Directed by | Mel Brooks |
| Written by | Mel Brooks, Thomas Meehan, Ronny Graham |
| Produced by | Mel Brooks |
| Starring | Mel Brooks, Rick Moranis, Bill Pullman, John Candy |
| Distributed by | MGM |
Running time | 96 min |
| Budget | $25,000,000 |
Spaceballs is a 1987 science fiction spoof movie written, directed by, and starring Mel Brooks.
Opening Crawl
- In a galaxy very, very, very,
- very, far away there lived
- a ruthless race of beings
- known as ... Spaceballs.
- chapter 11
- The evil leaders of Planet
- Spaceball, having foolishly
- squandered their precious
- atmosphere, have devised a
- secret plan to take every
- breath of fresh air away from
- their peace-loving neighbor,
- Planet Druidia.
- Today is Princess Vespa's
- wedding day. Unbeknownst
- to the princess but knownst
- to us, danger lurks in the
- stars above...
- If you can read this, you
- don't need glasses.
Plot
Template:Spoilers On Planet Druidia, Princess Vespa (a parody of Princess Leia) is about to get married to the boring and narcoleptic Prince Valium (who is the last prince in the galaxy, and thus they have to marry despite his characteristics). She runs off from the altar with her droid-in-waiting, Dot Matrix, and escapes into space.
Planet Spaceball has foolishly wasted all of its air and is desperate to find more. President Skroob (an anagram of "Brooks," and played by Mel Brooks) and his top military leader, Dark Helmet (a parody of Darth Vader), along with his aide Colonel Sandurz (a pun on the creator/mascot for Kentucky Fried Chicken: Colonel Sanders), devise a plan to kidnap Princess Vespa and extort Planet Druidia into giving all of its air to the Spaceballs. If they do not comply, they will reverse Vespa's cosmetic surgery, thus restoring her hooked nose.
Meanwhile, Vespa's father, King Roland, hires two bounty hunters—Captain Lone Starr (a parody of Han Solo and Luke Skywalker) and Barfolomew, aka "Barf" (a mawg, or man-dog halfbreed, who is a parody of Chewbacca), who are desperate for money to pay back their debts to Mafia boss Pizza the Hutt (an obvious parody of Jabba the Hutt, and a pun on the Pizza Hut restaurant chain)—to get Princess Vespa back to Druidia so that she can marry Prince Valium. They are helped by the wise alien sage known as Yogurt (A parody of Yoda) and the mysterious power he possesses, called the Schwartz (parody of the Force; "Schwartz" is a common Ashkenazi Jewish surname).
The movie features a lightsaber duel between Dark Helmet and Lone Starr, but instead of "sabers" as in Star Wars, they create a light beam emanating from their Schwartz rings. With their rings initially held in front of their pants, the light beams form an obvious phallic image.
In the end, Lone Starr and Barf are able to rescue the princess, destroy the Spaceballs' spaceship, and get the Druidian air back. And at the very end (of course), Lone Starr and Vespa get married. Pizza the Hutt gets trapped in his car and "ate himself to death". As for Skroob, Dark Helmet, and Colonel Sandurz, they survive a crash-landing on the Planet of the Apes.
Antagonist
The main villain, Dark Helmet is played by Rick Moranis. Just as the movie as a whole is largely a parody of Star Wars, Helmet is an obvious takeoff on Darth Vader, the immediate villain of that trilogy.
Dark Helmet looks more or less like Darth Vader, except that he is much shorter, his helmet is many times larger, he has short pants, and he wears a necktie. When his mask is down, Dark Helmet's breathing is overly audible and he speaks in a deep baritone voice (Vader was voiced by James Earl Jones), but when he lifts his mask he speaks in Rick Moranis' intentionally incredulous, shrill tone. He also wears glasses.
In the movie, Helmet is the commander of the armed forces of the Spaceballs, and commands its ridiculously enormous flagship Spaceball One (which could be a visual parody of the Nostromo from the movie Alien).
He enjoys playing with Spaceballs action figurines, taking special pleasure in acting out a scenario in which he seduces Princess Vespa.
Instead of line-of-sight strangulation (or "Force Grip"), Dark Helmet uses his ring to zap the crotch of insubordinate minions with a laser beam.
Spaceball One
Planet Spaceball's weapon of conquest, Spaceball One, is a powerful and absurdly large vessel. It bears a bumper sticker that reads "We brake for nobody." Spaceball One is capable of travel at three different speeds other than sub-light speed: light speed, ridiculous speed, and ludicrous speed. The ship is so big, it has room for a shopping mall, a zoo, and a three-ring circus. The ship's music theme is a take on the theme of Jaws, and the ship itself even vaguely resembles a shark. This is especially noticeable in a scene where Spaceball One is about to "devour" Princess Vespa's ship with its frontal hatch.
Spaceball One's secret weapon is its ability to transform (in a sequence reminiscent of the climax of Transformers: The Movie, during which Unicron undergoes a similar transformation) into Mega Maid, a colossal cleaning lady holding a gigantic vacuum cleaner. The Spaceballs use this contraption to rob the air from other planets and take it back to planet Spaceball.
Spaceball One carried, because of its size, a very large crew and (though not visually shown) enough escape pods to evacuate all but two people (or three if a bear uses one of them).
The ship is destroyed at the end of the movie. The head-section of the craft successfully goes through re-entry and impacts a planet, a lá The Planet of the Apes. President Skroob, Dark Helmet, and Colonel Sandurz all survive, much to the chagrin of the apes who witness the event.
Cultural context
The plot is deliberately evocative of fairy tales, as are the scenes on the planet Druidia. The majority of the scenes and characters are parodies of Star Wars, although it parodies other movies as well. The most notable are Transformers (Spaceball One), Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Wizard of Oz, Zardoz, Planet of the Apes, Rambo, Max Headroom, Back to the Future, Rocky, and Alien (with John Hurt reprising his famous scene from that movie). The film also mocks various aspects of 1980s culture, including fast food, Mr. Coffee, action figures, and merchandising. Robin Hood: Men in Tights, also by Mel Brooks, borrowed from the main storyline of Spaceballs.
Some critics pointed out that since timing is the essence of comedy it was odd that Brooks should have waited ten years to spoof Star Wars, though his supporters say that he wanted to wait until the entire trilogy was available for mocking.
In September 2004, a sequel to Spaceballs was announced in an interview with Mel Brooks. Brooks said he hoped to have the sequel come out some time around the theatrical release of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. It was later planned to be turned into an animated television show, but, except for that announcement, there has been no news regarding the sequel.
Cast
- Bill Pullman – Captain Lone Starr
- John Candy – Barfolemew (Barf)
- Rick Moranis – Lord Dark Helmet
- Daphne Zuniga – Princess Vespa of Druidia
- Mel Brooks – President Skroob/Yogurt
- George Wyner – Colonel Sandurz
- Lorene Yarnell – Dot Matrix
- Joan Rivers – Dot Matrix (voice)
- Dick Van Patten – King Roland, Ruler of Druidia
- Michael Winslow – Radar Technician
- Jim J. Bullock – Prince Valium
- Dom DeLuise – Pizza the Hutt (voice)
- John Hurt – Man in diner
Character parodies
- Captian Lone Starr – Han Solo/Luke Skywalker/Indiana Jones
- Barfolemew (Barf) – Chewbacca
- Lord Dark Helmet – Darth Vader
- Princess Vespa of Druidia – Princess Leia Organa Solo of Alderaan
- Yogurt – Yoda
- Dot Matrix – C-3PO
- Pizza the Hutt – Jabba the Hutt
- Colonel Sandurz – Admiral Piett (among other Imperial officers), Colonel Sanders (pun)
See also
External links
