Plot
President Skroob, of Planet Spaceball has neglectfully run down his planets supply of Oxygen. He plans on kidnapping the Princess of neighbouring planet Druidia, and holding her hostage in order to steal the oxygen from them.
He hires Dark Helmet to kidnap her and her droid companion Dot Matrix, but what they don’t count on is Lone Star, and his faithful Mog Barf to rescue the princess. Now a cat and mouse game is afoot, and the long time rivals Dark Helmet and Lone Star will finally come face to face… for the first time… for the last time.
Direction
Splendidly directed by comedy legend Mel Brooks, who is able to capture the worlds of futuristic outer space, as well as planets that are overrun with desert sands.
Some minor nitpicks, some of the CGI is a ‘little’ dated, but the film is 40 years old.
Cast/Characters
Mel Brooks (as well as writing and directing) plays both President Skroob and Yogurt (don’t make a fuss… it’s just plain Yogurt).
The late great John Candy plays Barfolemew “Barf”, the part man part dog. He’s his own best friend, but also the best friend of Lone Star.
Rick Moranis plays Dark Helmet, both behind the mask and without it.
Bill Pullman plays Lone Star – who was born in the Ford Galaxy. He is clearly a play on both Harrison Ford’s characters Han Solo and Indiana Jones.
Daphne Zuniga plays Princess Vespa.
Other cast members are Joan Rivers (as the voice of Dot Matrix), George Wyner as Colonel Sandurz, Dom DeLuise (as the voice of Pizza the Hut), Michael Winslow (utalising his sound effect charm that made him famous in the 8-s) and John Hurt as an unlucky patron in a diner who gets… bad stomach pains after a meal.
Breakdown
This is quite possibly the best parody movie of all time, of course taking the mickey out of Star Wars.
There is Dark Helmet standing in for Darth Vader (with the comically large helmet), with black tie and all. Lone Star is Han Solo (get it?), but dressed as Indiana Jones (Harrison’s ‘other’ franchise) among others. You also have Dot Matrix (C-3PO), “Pizza the Hut”, Yogurt – and the list goes on.
There is just enough to make it its own, with the relationship of Lone and Vespa written well; and even has a well established history (his medallion) for the pay off at the end (it means he is a prince of course and can marry her!)
All the jokes just land, from getting beamed up (despite being in the next room), jamming the radar (only one man dares give me raspberry!), and combing the desert.
There are several great uses of fourth wall use too, primarily from Moranis and Wyner (making sure the audience knows the plot, getting out the way of zoom in shots, and watching Spaceballs on VHS – that’s a tape kids… that’s what we had to use in the olden days! This was also meta before meta was a thing with all of Mel brooks’ films on display. To further how little it takes itself seriously, at one point the quartet’s stunt doubles are arrested, and a Schwartz fight leads a camera operator to fall off a ladder.
There are also fun movie references, such as Star Trek (Vulcan neck pinch), transformers (Mega-Maid), Rambo, rocky (five thousand), Planet of the Apes (oh sh!t there goes the planet), and Alien (poor John Hurt goes through that again).
There are plenty of adult jokes that the kids will miss (mostly about helmet’s), and a nice little pre nod to Spaceballs 2, which at the time of writing this has just finished filming. It is going to be released in 2027, so fingers crossed Mel Brooks is still with us to see it released, even though he will be nearly 101 when it does! I just hope it doesn’t taint the originals legacy.
Overall
Still near flawless after 40 years.
I laughed, I enjoyed every moment.
A perfect blend of homage, parody and originality that makes it stand the test of time. Looking forward to Spaceballs 2 – but I hope it doesn’t taint the legacy this film has.
Easy top marks
5/5
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